Wednesday - Day 8 of the Holidays -
Viewings of Moana - 6
Viewings of 'Spirit - Stallion of the Cimmaron' - 7
Marmite Sandwiches made - 30
Fights broken up - 27
Wednesday, and despite our change of tack, I'm disappointed to report that the peace process has crumbled once again. I'm sad, but I'm not at all surprised. As always, it all centred around 'sharing' - something that has never been Connie's strongest suit and is an attribute she's unlikely to be listing on her Curriculum Vitae any time soon. She doesn't help herself - doing that thing that many 5-year-olds do, where she wants whatever Livvie has, purely because Livvie has it in her possession at that particular moment. It doesn't matter what she's dragging around the lounge; It could be a copy of Jeremy Clarkson's autobiography smeared in dog dirt, and Connie would suddenly want it even more than Jeremy Clarkson wants me to stop smearing his autobiographies in dog dirt. (Of course this would never happen really - we'd never allow a Jeremy Clarkson autobiography anywhere near our lounge, obviously. We're bad people, but we're not monsters. Plus I save all the dog dirt for Piers Morgan's works).
I don't think the weather helped anyone's mood. Slate grey rainy skies again yesterday - Not Flying Fortress-worthy, but certainly trunks weather - miserable enough to leave the three of us indoors, bickering like 3 old women over the last tin of Whiskas in Tesco, glued to the sofa in front of 'Spirit - Stallion of the Cimmaron'. You're wondering why I didn't stick rain macs, waders, flippers etc on the kids and snorkel my way down to the park regardless, singing all the while like Mary Poppins, aren't you? Well. The answer is simple - I don't like getting wet (and neither do you if you're honest), so the park was ruled out straight away. And why not an excursion to a local indoor attraction? Because the kids have hidden the Astra keys, and I couldn't bring myself to get dressed, fight the terrifying 'big tidy' spiders and hot-wire the car just for a day out at Barnham's secondhand lawnmower centre. I've got an excuse for everything, and they're all good ones, so just drop it, alright?
I kept busy though - We had visitors the night before and I completely forgot to put on the dishwasher, leaving me craning my neck to the skies, gasping in awe and wonderment at an enormous teetering pile of manky washing up roughly the size of Mount Fuji. I hate our dishwasher almost as much as I hate Piers Morgan. We've got one of those slimline ones that are mostly for show - the ones that you can only fit 3 teaspoons and a side plate in before it packs up, the blade stops spinning round and it starts whining like a cat with it's tail caught in an electric whisk. I also keep forgetting to unwrap those little powerball 'sweets' you have to put in the tray at the bottom (why do they taste so bad? That being said, they've got nothing on Hot Jolly Ranchers), so I have to put it on about 15 times a day, which is an endless frustration as we generate an insane amount of washing up. This is mainly down to Livvie, who is the only person I know of who requires 7 spoons, 4 forks and a can opener just to eat a bowl of cereal. She sits barking instructions at us over her bowl, pointing and shouting at the cutlery drawer like an angry dentist demanding her bizarre precision tools - her tiny metallic hands glinting menacingly under the artificial lighting - a miniature Edward Spoon-Hands, hellbent on redecorating the kitchen worktops in cornflakes and milk. whimsical style wedding wears
The afternoon was a simple affair - Connie carelessly slopped pea-coloured paint over a small canvas of a grasshopper that we picked up in The Works for a quid. She did a half-hearted job, frankly, and she is unlikely to be invited to put on an exhibition at the Louvre any time soon. Livvie found my hipster-liquorice stash from Tiger, and as a result I changed her nappy about 17 times.
In other news - Yesterday I wrote, whilst rubbing my hands together gleefully like the common housefly, about how I've been gathering intelligence on Sarah's increasingly erratic behaviour. The evidence continues to stack up against her. On top of the hot flushes and bizarre stationary purchases, yesterday she put all the bins out a day too early, sparking intense anger amongst the local fox community (it goes without saying that we don't have 'boy and girl' jobs in our house like those in 10 Downing Street and are proudly gender neutral. Mainly because we tried the alternative and I kept forgetting to put the bins out, leaving the outside of our house looking like an amenity tip). You may argue that I've got too much time on my hands making apparently trivial observations like this (and given the fact that I'm a teacher in the school holidays that's blogging about toastabags, you may very well have a point), but this is how it all starts, isn't it? A wrong bin day here, a hot flush there, before long you're finding the marmite in the fridge and the cat in the microwave. It doesn't take a medical professional to realise that her mind is unravelling like Jack Nicholson in The Shining. Don't worry about me. I'm wise to it. I'm being careful and I'll keep an eye out.
The battle between 'Spirit - Stallion of the Cimmaron' and Moana emerged a draw yesterday, with one viewing apiece. Still all to race for at the first jump.
A quick glance at Sarah's dream calendar reveals a huge day in store tomorrow - the turquoise sub-calendar tells me that It is the first time our 'Green Club' waste bin is to be emptied (the ones you put grass clippings in and the like). I don't want to say too much as I don't want to spoil it - It's pretty much all I've got in the locker. Stay tuned.
