More changes in the street

Due to Her Three Doors Down getting upset at Nice Mr Next Door and calling every official body she can possibly manage to make things difficult... and then not understanding why he is upset...

Our street looks a lot less like a scrapyard. I think Nice Mr Next Door is only currently working on two, which are more or less outside his house. And today the council workmen turned up around 8am to tow away the caravan (no notice). So we have no cars or vans across the road. Bless them, the workmen did let him empty the thing (his yard is full)and cleared away some of the rubbish which had piled up behind it.

They had to do this because the daughter of Her Three Doors Down had climbed the fence, fallen and hurt her hand and so the fence needs to be replaced... Poor kid, it looks really bad and she is only around 8 or 9.

That is another thing that I am dreading tomorrow. I am tired, I have been to the dentists successfully today, but I know that tomorrow I will feel crotchety and uncomfortable. However the little lads from next door but one (aged 6 and 3) will constantly be knocking for little bear to play out with them. So I will be sitting on the step, trying to not get too stressed when they trash the toys he is usually so careful with and generally cause havoc. The eldest in particular is polite, but the youngest can be, well, a bit rough and tumble. I know I won't have the energy to play with them, that I won't be able to get stuff done that I want to get done, because I will be sitting outside watching the kids. Which I wish was more general. And the main attraction, I suspect, is little bear's toys. I keep a box of the more robust and expendable ones to take out to play with.

As little bear is not yet four, I insist that he stays in the garden - the cars can race round here scarily fast, but not often enough to make him wary of the road. So at some point little bear will have his three warnings and then be dragged inside, screaming. And if I want him to have a nap tomorrow afternoon (he is still full of cold and was shattered this morning) then I need to hope that two things do not happen. That the kids from next door do not knock on the door and ring the bell every five minutes and that they do not stand in the street screaming his name...

And I wish that the kids from next door but one were watched just a little closer, as in another mum outside, and that they didn't run all over the road, because guess what little bear thinks is a good idea...

And I wish I wasn't such a sourpuss mum.

More yarn

I have just seen OH off for a trip to the tip. We have been going through some things in the junk room, with a view to making room for me in there. It is a distant dream at the moment.

And I have found yarn - oh dear I have found lots of yarn! Lots and lots and lots - and it is all stuff I can think, yes, I can do this, or yes, I can do that...

Ooops.

A few days ago I put a bet on ebay, or at least that is how I saw it. There was no photo, but it said a bin bag full of wool. So, as the starting and postage was within my betting range I bid the minimum. Yesterday it arrived - a bin bag crammed with odd balls, ideal for a lot of things, including around 300g of fluffy pink angora which I can think of uses straight away.

One or two things I may donate or even sell. There was some 1oz hanks of fingering wool that I am tempted to donate to a museum, they must be thirty years old! And there are lots of bits and bobs that I am sure that nursery can use.

It was actually quite sad, because I could tell a little about the lady (or gentleman) in question. There were lots of oddments of white, for baby clothes. There were some yellows and creams, I guess for the same. There were oddments of pink and purple, for the lady or her friends, and there were balls of blue and grey, from knitting for the boys. Many of the labels were old, and I recognised them from my grandmother's favourites. There were none of the weird stuff that I enjoy, it was all very straight forward yarn. There was even a tiny scrap of black fun fur - to make noses for knitted toys.

I intend to knit at least one hour a day, because my name is Wannabe Sybil and I am addicted to yarn...

Proud mother

Little bear woke me up this morning shouting '10 plus 10 equal twenty!' I was very dopey but I managed a fairly enthusiastic 'well done!' I am desperately proud, it will be six months before he is four.

Of course, he followed it up saying that six plus six was seven, which wasn't quite right, so I am not getting too carried away. Just desperately, honestly proud of him.

He is currently very concerned with giants, after watching Playhouse Disney where Willy the Giant lives on a cloud on top of a beanstalk. He very seriously told us that all the giants lived on all the clouds, and they were hiding. I reassured him that the giants will not come here because of the dragon under the steps (where does he get his imagination from? Must be his father). However he is stomping around quoting the latest ladybird Jack and the Beanstalk shouting, 'Fee, Fie, Foe, Fum, watch out everyone, here I come!'

As I went upstairs last night to join him and OH, I said, 'Fee, Fie, Foe, Fum, watch out everyone, here comes Mum! Where's little bear?'
'I here, under mine hat.' is the direct quote. And he was. The gladiator helmet OH got him from the Armouries at Leeds is a bit big for him so he sort of hangs under it.

Sherlock

I love Sherlock, the new series, well, I say new but this week is the third and final episode in the series. I just really love the whole thing. I think the writing is phenomenal, the acting is top notch, the atmosphere is dark and smokily evocative and the last episode with a Chinese connection made me hear echoes of the old Limehouse district in Victorian times.

Also, I confess, the two lead characters are extremely pleasant to look at...

Second verse same as the first

I have a cough - so I can't move because I can't breathe.

It is not serious. OH's cough is serious and needs antibiotics. Mine is not serious according to the doctor - and I agree with the doctor. It will be gone in a day or two, it is inconvenient, keep up the liquids etc...

But it is another, dratted, stupid, silly minor infection that I am dragging along. I am so fed up of it.

On the bright side, I can see, and I am about to try my first thousand words for some time. I suppose I ought to get along to an optician, but now I can see it has lost some urgency...

Cherries

Darling father is visiting, here and the local pub. He likes it there, he chats with the landlord, he gossips and watches the football. And he comes home with a full carrier bag of cherries.

I have never cooked cherries, I don't actually like them that much. I do not know what to do with them except not waste them.

I took a deep breath and left them around and some of them disappeared. Little bear lubs cherries. Actually I would have preferred if Darling Father had not just handed my three year old cherries with stones in and let him get on with it. I would like to have been able to 'risk assess'. Of course little bear is alright, but it would have been nice.

Then I painstakingly sat and pitted enough cherries to fill two IKEA kilner jars, added sugar and covered with brandy. At Christmas we (mainly darling father probably) will drink the brandy and the cherries will contribute to a spectacular fruit cake. If I can find a recipe.

Then finally I made a ginormous cherry crumble which did two days.

I am actually quite proud of myself at the lack of waste. And with the crumble, well, all things were aching and I was sick of the sight of the kitchen walls so I thought I would buy some crumble mix. I was ashamed, but decided I could live with the shame. Well, I would have lived with the shame if anywhere local had sold crumble mix and I ended up making it myself after all, which took all of two minutes and tasted very nice, actually.

I have quite impressed myself.

Dentist

Where to start...

I am not good at the dentist, and it has always been the dentist that has insisted on sedation. I don't know much about teeth, anyway, and I am not entirely comfortable with the dentist in one way. He never says anything. The procedure is that he looks in my mouth, I wait in another room and then the dental nurse tells me what is going to happen. I am frequently baffled.

The last sedation I woke up with a sort of spike in my mouth, apparently they didn't bother with a temporary crown. I had no explanation or instructions. Then I was told that I had to go back on a particular day. So darling father rearranged his social life, I booked little bear in for a full day at nursery, and we travelled for an hour on the bus to get to the dentist.

Who said, sorry, we can't do anything because you haven't been to the lab. 'What lab?' I asked. 'You were told about it.' 'No I wasn't.' 'Then the person who you were with was told.' 'No they weren't'.

It seems that due to holidays and people not being entirely sure of what was going on, no-one told me about going to a dental lab in a not posh area, to get my teeth matched. I was told to take a taxi there, it wouldn't cost too much. They did apologise.

I would be far more calm about the whole dratted thing if someone had not called me up the evening before to confirm I was still coming, and that everything was alright. Surely they must have had some sort of clue that there was something else to be done? Or am I just expecting too much?

So the whole social life/day at nursery/messing around has to happen again! And I will have been around a month with a spike in my mouth instead of a tooth because I have to wait until everything is aligned again to have the dratted procedure.