The boys have been thoroughly enjoying After School Club this past week. My mum e-mailed from on board the Queen Mary II to say she and Dad were having a great time, the ship was amazing and she had put on 7 pounds in 3 days and didn't care. I replied saying I was glad she was enjoying it and that the boys were missing them. Truth be told though, the novelty of After School club is such that the boys probably haven't given them a second thought. Although the "novelty" of having to do their homework at 6pm rather than playing video games or watching The Simpsons is, I think, wearing off for them.
First Born is ecstatic because his best friend S. also attends ASC (recent quote from FB: "S. and I go together like peaches and cream". I'm going to remind him of that one when he's 18) and he gets to make stuff. A couple of nights ago he appeared with an egg box with a cork in it and proceeded to recreate a 1970s public information film about the importance of seatbelts, starring Jimmy Saville. I never thought I would see a 10 year old boy in 2008 impersonating Jimmy Saville. It's kind of creepy.
SB is happy at ASC because he gets to spend more time exercising his considerable charm on a wide range of people. And he gets to run around throwing stuff.
Each evening when we go to collect them, we walk into the hall in SB's school building where ASC is located and I have to scan the maelstrom of small boys (the girls don't seem to run around so much) looking for mine. At first glance they are all so similar - all about the same age, all identically dressed in school uniform, with similar regulation haircuts. But it is nonetheless always easy to spot your own, even in a crowd of little clones and I walk up behind him and greet him in our traditional manner. I stick my nose right into his neck, down inside his shirt collar and I sniff. Hard. More of a snort really. And he retracts his neck (a skill he inherited from me) and says "Get off me!"
And every time I do this, as I lean in, the thought crosses my mind: "What if this is someone else's child I am about to sniff by mistake?" What do you think the penalty would be for attempting to inhale a strange child?
Thursday, 6 March 2008
Wednesday, 5 March 2008
My head, it is hanging in shame
In relation to my last post, Dear Husband has kindly pointed out that (1) it was 21 roses not a dozen for he is thoughtful and romantic and I am an eejit; and (2) I was 11 in 1978, not 13, for I am definitely an eejit and what's more clearly cannot count, either flowers or my own age. Now you know why I am not an accountant.
Tuesday, 4 March 2008
Look! I am conscious and vertical!
Oops, dropped off the edge of the weekend there, didn't I? I had a lovely long sleep on Friday night to make up for the week. Answered the doorbell in my nightshirt on Saturday morning to receive a delivery of a dozen beautiful red roses from husband*. We don't celebrate our wedding anniversary (seems like an arbitrary date to us as we had been together for 5 years or so by then, living together for much of it) but we do kind of celebrate the anniversary of when we started going out. Sweet, aren't we? And for all but one of those *gulp* 21 years, I have had roses from husband on the day. Guess which year he missed? 1998, the year our first child was born. Said first child was born only a couple of weeks or so before The Anniversary and accordingly neither of us were coherent or conscious enough to remember such trivialities. If I recall correctly, I think we were having trouble remembering to eat and comb our hair at that point. I think we can both be forgiven for that one.
Saturday was the usual pleasant potter about. On Sunday I took First Born to karate and went for a run on the treadmill. I had not, it goes without saying, run at all last week and I am increasingly aware that 4 May, the day when I have committed to run 6 miles in public, is looming large. I therefore knew that I needed to run but I also wanted to run - I miss it when I don't and I NEVER thought I would say that!! I managed to run for 45 minutes on the dreadmill, with a brisk 5 minute cool down walk. I covered 6km in that time so I only have to run...half as far again......and then some.....and I'm there! No problem!
Sunday evening was unusually eventful for us. Sister in law and her partner agreed to shepherd our offspring for a few hours and Husband and I drove to Glasgow (didn't get asked for our passports or anything!) to go to a concert. A Gary Numan concert. That last sentence will have divided the readership into 3 unequal parts. One part saying "Who?" (I'm looking at you, Isabelle!), one part saying "Oh good grief, you must be joking!" and one saying "Cool!" The last group is probably quite small, judging by the reactions of the real-life people I have told.
But it was a great night, honestly. Mr Numan is touring his 1978 album "Replicas" which was great at the time (I was 13 in 1978. Sigh) and he has updated it for its 30th anniversary and taken it on the road. It was terrific - loud and guitar-y and sing-along-y in parts, and it made me feel at least 5 years younger. No chance it could make me feel 13 again. It's only music after all, not magic. And the support band were young enough to be my children, which doesn't help, frankly.
The crowd was interesting: four parts forty-somethings along for the nostalgia trip (including several bored wives obviously dragged along by their husbands) and one part young teen or early twenty-something Goth types. Everybody bounced around and sang in unison.
And if you want an illustration of how I am nowhere near 13 years old any more, how about this: the gig was standing only, no seats. We were there quite early so got into the venue at a time when we could pick our spot. Did we (a) run straight down to the front to be at the edge of the stage, where we could almost reach out and touch GN, or (b) notice that towards the back was a little bar with high bar stools in front of it, running the width of the hall, so you could be further back but get to SIT DOWN during the concert? Answers in the comments but I think you all know what we did!
Oh, and the office was broken into again over the weekend but they didn't hang around and there was nothing easy and worth stealing left. My laptop was at home with me, although I would not have been heartbroken to lose this one - it is nowhere near as funky and cool as my old Vaio. Oooh, and I must send heartfelt thanks to Hannah for the iPod tip - I am managing to get the music off the iPod and back into iTunes without too much hassle. I owe you a drink!
*Husband didn't get flowers but I did make him a big batch of home-made rum truffles!
Saturday was the usual pleasant potter about. On Sunday I took First Born to karate and went for a run on the treadmill. I had not, it goes without saying, run at all last week and I am increasingly aware that 4 May, the day when I have committed to run 6 miles in public, is looming large. I therefore knew that I needed to run but I also wanted to run - I miss it when I don't and I NEVER thought I would say that!! I managed to run for 45 minutes on the dreadmill, with a brisk 5 minute cool down walk. I covered 6km in that time so I only have to run...half as far again......and then some.....and I'm there! No problem!
Sunday evening was unusually eventful for us. Sister in law and her partner agreed to shepherd our offspring for a few hours and Husband and I drove to Glasgow (didn't get asked for our passports or anything!) to go to a concert. A Gary Numan concert. That last sentence will have divided the readership into 3 unequal parts. One part saying "Who?" (I'm looking at you, Isabelle!), one part saying "Oh good grief, you must be joking!" and one saying "Cool!" The last group is probably quite small, judging by the reactions of the real-life people I have told.
But it was a great night, honestly. Mr Numan is touring his 1978 album "Replicas" which was great at the time (I was 13 in 1978. Sigh) and he has updated it for its 30th anniversary and taken it on the road. It was terrific - loud and guitar-y and sing-along-y in parts, and it made me feel at least 5 years younger. No chance it could make me feel 13 again. It's only music after all, not magic. And the support band were young enough to be my children, which doesn't help, frankly.
The crowd was interesting: four parts forty-somethings along for the nostalgia trip (including several bored wives obviously dragged along by their husbands) and one part young teen or early twenty-something Goth types. Everybody bounced around and sang in unison.
And if you want an illustration of how I am nowhere near 13 years old any more, how about this: the gig was standing only, no seats. We were there quite early so got into the venue at a time when we could pick our spot. Did we (a) run straight down to the front to be at the edge of the stage, where we could almost reach out and touch GN, or (b) notice that towards the back was a little bar with high bar stools in front of it, running the width of the hall, so you could be further back but get to SIT DOWN during the concert? Answers in the comments but I think you all know what we did!
Oh, and the office was broken into again over the weekend but they didn't hang around and there was nothing easy and worth stealing left. My laptop was at home with me, although I would not have been heartbroken to lose this one - it is nowhere near as funky and cool as my old Vaio. Oooh, and I must send heartfelt thanks to Hannah for the iPod tip - I am managing to get the music off the iPod and back into iTunes without too much hassle. I owe you a drink!
*Husband didn't get flowers but I did make him a big batch of home-made rum truffles!
Friday, 29 February 2008
The space where my brain should be hurts
I am at home, having crawled to the end of The Week That Threatened To Kill Me With All The Law And Whatnot. I hate the stress of appearing in court, which makes my career choice pretty poor, when you think about it. (Remind me to tell you about how I chose this career, by the way. It's an uplifting tale.) You may recall that I ran around at the beginning of this week trying to catch up on all the stuff that built up last week when I was in court.
Then, I spent Wednesday preparing for the case due to start on Thursday. I finished my preparations for day one at just after midnight on Wednesday/Thursday. Spent all day Thursday in court, concentrating furiously all day (which tires me out. Thinking is hard.) Worked until about midnight on Thursday again reviewing the first day's evidence, preparing for cross-examination and working on some draft legal submissions (that's the bit at the end of the evidence where we get to tell the judge what we think we have proved and he gets to laugh at us). Got up early this morning to get into the office and print out what I had done last night. So that I could, you know, read it. Some of it even made sense despite having been drafted in that period when your brain turns to cotton wool just before you lose consciousness and fall asleep with your face on your keyboard and wake up with "asdfghjkl;" imprinted on your cheek.
Day two in court went reasonably well, despite the other side changing their mind about their attitude to pretty much the whole case mid-evidence which called for a liberal application of red biro to the carefully crafted pages of cross-examination on which I had worked so hard. We won't get the decision for a wee while but the signs looked positive.
Then, I came home, got changed, picked up husband and children, deposited husband in town to meet a friend and took the bouncing offspring to an up-market burger joint for dinner. I was deaf to their pleas to go to McDonalds. I do have some standards. Full of stodge, we returned home and I have been vegetating pleasantly on the couch since. The wee G&T I had earlier has done its job so I am off for some well earned sleep. Tomorrow I may manage to post something coherent that does not read like a Janet and John book ("Then Janet went out. Then John went out. Then Janet banged her head off the door in frustrated boredom") Night all!
Then, I spent Wednesday preparing for the case due to start on Thursday. I finished my preparations for day one at just after midnight on Wednesday/Thursday. Spent all day Thursday in court, concentrating furiously all day (which tires me out. Thinking is hard.) Worked until about midnight on Thursday again reviewing the first day's evidence, preparing for cross-examination and working on some draft legal submissions (that's the bit at the end of the evidence where we get to tell the judge what we think we have proved and he gets to laugh at us). Got up early this morning to get into the office and print out what I had done last night. So that I could, you know, read it. Some of it even made sense despite having been drafted in that period when your brain turns to cotton wool just before you lose consciousness and fall asleep with your face on your keyboard and wake up with "asdfghjkl;" imprinted on your cheek.
Day two in court went reasonably well, despite the other side changing their mind about their attitude to pretty much the whole case mid-evidence which called for a liberal application of red biro to the carefully crafted pages of cross-examination on which I had worked so hard. We won't get the decision for a wee while but the signs looked positive.
Then, I came home, got changed, picked up husband and children, deposited husband in town to meet a friend and took the bouncing offspring to an up-market burger joint for dinner. I was deaf to their pleas to go to McDonalds. I do have some standards. Full of stodge, we returned home and I have been vegetating pleasantly on the couch since. The wee G&T I had earlier has done its job so I am off for some well earned sleep. Tomorrow I may manage to post something coherent that does not read like a Janet and John book ("Then Janet went out. Then John went out. Then Janet banged her head off the door in frustrated boredom") Night all!
Monday, 25 February 2008
Okay, Life, enough. I get the point
Just to make sure that my smug cheerfulness has been well and truly ground out of me, the weekend finished with the news that our office had been broken into. Fortunately very little damage was done and nothing really serious was taken, like our data files or anything. But they did take what little cash they could find together with what portable items of value were available. Like all the cameras and mobile phones in the building. Oh, and all the laptops, including mine, which would normally be at home with me over the weekend, but wasn't because I had to take the kids to the dentist on Friday so left it in the office rather than cart it to the dental surgery. And one of my colleagues lost her laptop because she was on holiday on Friday and Monday and felt it would be better to leave it in the office. Hah! I get to tell her the good news tomorrow.
My old mobile phone, on the other hand, was deemed unworthy of theft (slightly offended by that, actually) and even more embarassing, my room was a bit tidier after the housebreakers left than it was when I left it on Friday. I had come in from court and chucked my folders and my case of papers into the middle of my floor. The intruders had checked the case for anything valuable, found nothing and tucked it away neatly in the corner. Should I be ashamed of this, do you think?
Luckily there is next to nothing in the way of work-related stuff actually on my laptop itself (we work on a network in the office) but I have spent a slightly irritated day making notes to myself of all the websites I need to go onto to change passwords just in case (Amazon, Paypal, Ebay, Google.....do I spend too much time online???) And now I have to go off and figure out whether I can get the music off my iPod and onto iTunes rather than the other way round. Or I have to start from scratch ripping all my CDs again. Oh joy.
On the plus side, thank you for all the kind offers to look after my angelic children for me! The fact that they all came from the other side of the Atlantic in no way detracts from the level of kindness displayed but does make it a tad unlikely I will be taking you up on them! (However, be very afraid if your phone rings in July - we'll be in Canada then!!)
My old mobile phone, on the other hand, was deemed unworthy of theft (slightly offended by that, actually) and even more embarassing, my room was a bit tidier after the housebreakers left than it was when I left it on Friday. I had come in from court and chucked my folders and my case of papers into the middle of my floor. The intruders had checked the case for anything valuable, found nothing and tucked it away neatly in the corner. Should I be ashamed of this, do you think?
Luckily there is next to nothing in the way of work-related stuff actually on my laptop itself (we work on a network in the office) but I have spent a slightly irritated day making notes to myself of all the websites I need to go onto to change passwords just in case (Amazon, Paypal, Ebay, Google.....do I spend too much time online???) And now I have to go off and figure out whether I can get the music off my iPod and onto iTunes rather than the other way round. Or I have to start from scratch ripping all my CDs again. Oh joy.
On the plus side, thank you for all the kind offers to look after my angelic children for me! The fact that they all came from the other side of the Atlantic in no way detracts from the level of kindness displayed but does make it a tad unlikely I will be taking you up on them! (However, be very afraid if your phone rings in July - we'll be in Canada then!!)
Sunday, 24 February 2008
Pride comes, and all that
Well, you just knew, didn't you, after that last ill-considered post that life would saunter up and smack me in the face with a wet mackerel, a la Monty Python. After Tuesday went so well, Wednesday went....slightly less well, and Thursday reminded me of nothing so much as one of those school playground scraps where all the other kids are in a tight circle around you chanting "Fight! Fight!" only this time when the teacher turned up, instead of breaking it up, she joined in and gave me a good kicking too.
Which is my way of saying that the remaining court action did not go well last week and I felt rotten as a result. It is part of the "joy" of doing litigation for a living, this cut and thrust and the major ups and downs, but Thursday was a bigger down than I have experienced for some time. Counsel (ie the advocate I was instructing) looked so shell-shocked on Thursday afternoon that I had to take him down the road and administer two large cappucinos and a slice of cream cake before he could form coherent sentences. (That's my version of first aid and I'm sticking to it.)
The weekend has given me some much needed recuperation time and a bit of perspective so I should be able to go in on Monday and sweep up the debris. Next week is going to be hectic in a different way. I have a court action in the sheriff court on Thursday and Friday (in the sheriff court it is I who will be in gown and on my feet before the judge, rather than counsel) and I am kind of looking forward to it as the law in this case is not particularly complex and it has been a while since I conducted a hearing myself.
The interesting part of next week and the week after is that I will be relying, like so many parents do year-round, on after school club for childcare. Normally my wonderful parents provide the childcare (and do my kids' laundry, and supervise homework, and feed them, and in the summer my dad cuts my grass for me - I know, I am spoiled) but they are going away. This year is my parents' official retirement (although they are going to continue with their childcare/housekeeping position. I hope) and they are treating themselves to a once-in-a-lifetime trip. They fly out on Thursday to New York where they will join the Queen Mary II and cruise the Caribbean for ten days or so. In their absence, I have booked the boys into after school club which they are frankly overjoyed about. It does mean I will have to make sure I am punctual in picking them up though, so watch this space for tales of mad dashes across Edinburgh when I forget my kids are not in fact at home when I have driven halfway to the house and have to double back to get them.
And just to make my life that much more interesting, on Friday, as I have said, I am in court and I cannot get out of that. The boys' school, however is CLOSED on Friday for Founder's Day (??). And After School Club is not operating. I am therefore checking out whether the local Cattery will stretch a point and take children. It's just for one day, after all.
Which is my way of saying that the remaining court action did not go well last week and I felt rotten as a result. It is part of the "joy" of doing litigation for a living, this cut and thrust and the major ups and downs, but Thursday was a bigger down than I have experienced for some time. Counsel (ie the advocate I was instructing) looked so shell-shocked on Thursday afternoon that I had to take him down the road and administer two large cappucinos and a slice of cream cake before he could form coherent sentences. (That's my version of first aid and I'm sticking to it.)
The weekend has given me some much needed recuperation time and a bit of perspective so I should be able to go in on Monday and sweep up the debris. Next week is going to be hectic in a different way. I have a court action in the sheriff court on Thursday and Friday (in the sheriff court it is I who will be in gown and on my feet before the judge, rather than counsel) and I am kind of looking forward to it as the law in this case is not particularly complex and it has been a while since I conducted a hearing myself.
The interesting part of next week and the week after is that I will be relying, like so many parents do year-round, on after school club for childcare. Normally my wonderful parents provide the childcare (and do my kids' laundry, and supervise homework, and feed them, and in the summer my dad cuts my grass for me - I know, I am spoiled) but they are going away. This year is my parents' official retirement (although they are going to continue with their childcare/housekeeping position. I hope) and they are treating themselves to a once-in-a-lifetime trip. They fly out on Thursday to New York where they will join the Queen Mary II and cruise the Caribbean for ten days or so. In their absence, I have booked the boys into after school club which they are frankly overjoyed about. It does mean I will have to make sure I am punctual in picking them up though, so watch this space for tales of mad dashes across Edinburgh when I forget my kids are not in fact at home when I have driven halfway to the house and have to double back to get them.
And just to make my life that much more interesting, on Friday, as I have said, I am in court and I cannot get out of that. The boys' school, however is CLOSED on Friday for Founder's Day (??). And After School Club is not operating. I am therefore checking out whether the local Cattery will stretch a point and take children. It's just for one day, after all.
Tuesday, 19 February 2008
Smuggity smug
I am feeling quietly pleased with myself at the moment. I managed to get up at 6am this morning (or rather, Husband managed to get me up but I got dressed all by myself!) and I went out for a run for the first time in ages. I forced myself because I knew I was going to be stuck in court all day, and probably all week, so no lunchtime outings. In fact, no lunchtimes, so it was mornings or nothing.
Out I went into the cold dark misty frostiness and it was really good. I ran well, even if I do say so myself, considering I have not run properly for a good long while. I managed a whole 36 minutes WITHOUT STOPPING TO WALK AT ALL and I even added on an extra bit to my route to incorporate a voluntary hill. I was listening to my iPod having downloaded an album by Tones on Tail, the band formed from the rump of Goth masters Bauhaus when they split and it turned out to be splendid running music. If you like the kind of music my mum once mistook for "the pipes going wrong" when she heard it emanating from my teenage bedroom. (Go onto iTunes or somewhere and listen to the track called "Slender Fungus" if you want to know what central heating malfunction set to music sounds like, and let's face it, who doesn't?)
Off to work where I was running not one but two court cases today with witnesses coming from all over. Myself and my trusty paralegal sidekick managed to pull off this "quart into a pint pot" feat and even managed to settle one of them in the course of the lunch break (hence the no time for lunch problem). Got out of court in the remaining case at 4pm having got through the evidence of the two professional witnesses who absolutely positively could not come back tomorrow if we didn't get them finished and we are pretty well organised for tomorrow.
Came home and helped First Born with his school project on William Wallace ("No, Wallace was not executed because they found out he was secretly also in on the truce with Robert Bruce. Yes he may have been emasculated. No I am not telling you what emasculated means.") and then had a nice supper with a very nice friend of ours who used to work with Husband back in his law firm days. We could have chatted all night but we are middle-aged and our stamina is not what it was and we need our sleep so he went off home about an hour ago. I am now sitting here blogging whilst Husband plays tennis on the Wii and tries to figure out how First Born manages his trademark vicious serve. I maintain that I win the moral high ground for not being the first grown up to succumb to the Wii when the children are not around. I am off to bed now to pray that Murphy, the God of anti-smug doesn't get me in the night. Night all!
Out I went into the cold dark misty frostiness and it was really good. I ran well, even if I do say so myself, considering I have not run properly for a good long while. I managed a whole 36 minutes WITHOUT STOPPING TO WALK AT ALL and I even added on an extra bit to my route to incorporate a voluntary hill. I was listening to my iPod having downloaded an album by Tones on Tail, the band formed from the rump of Goth masters Bauhaus when they split and it turned out to be splendid running music. If you like the kind of music my mum once mistook for "the pipes going wrong" when she heard it emanating from my teenage bedroom. (Go onto iTunes or somewhere and listen to the track called "Slender Fungus" if you want to know what central heating malfunction set to music sounds like, and let's face it, who doesn't?)
Off to work where I was running not one but two court cases today with witnesses coming from all over. Myself and my trusty paralegal sidekick managed to pull off this "quart into a pint pot" feat and even managed to settle one of them in the course of the lunch break (hence the no time for lunch problem). Got out of court in the remaining case at 4pm having got through the evidence of the two professional witnesses who absolutely positively could not come back tomorrow if we didn't get them finished and we are pretty well organised for tomorrow.
Came home and helped First Born with his school project on William Wallace ("No, Wallace was not executed because they found out he was secretly also in on the truce with Robert Bruce. Yes he may have been emasculated. No I am not telling you what emasculated means.") and then had a nice supper with a very nice friend of ours who used to work with Husband back in his law firm days. We could have chatted all night but we are middle-aged and our stamina is not what it was and we need our sleep so he went off home about an hour ago. I am now sitting here blogging whilst Husband plays tennis on the Wii and tries to figure out how First Born manages his trademark vicious serve. I maintain that I win the moral high ground for not being the first grown up to succumb to the Wii when the children are not around. I am off to bed now to pray that Murphy, the God of anti-smug doesn't get me in the night. Night all!
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