I lost my job yesterday!

The two boys we had in here lied to their mother, and she "hating confrontation" believed them, without even having the decency to talk to us about it and placed them somewhere else over the half term! Apparently a four year old cannot lie... hate to tell you, love, but yes they can, and your one certainly does! The only reason the kids didn't like being here is that we never gave into them and they had to follow our rules and do as they were told... something that their mother fails to get them to do on an epic scale! She once rewarded her youngest son for walking off by giving him a cake because he started crying! What kind of message is that sending?... in order to get what you want all you have to do is annoy your mum enough and tantrum her into submission!! Madness.

The very best of luck to whoever ends up collecting them, they'll need it... the oldest one is a liar and sneaky as hell and the youngest one is a manipulative little psycho that tries to bargain his way out of punishment... I have to say that I'm glad they are gone, I just wish I'd had some notice and also the money I'm owed, but that won't happen! The text messages she was sending earlier had more bullshit in them than a field of cows and I can see where her kids get their deceitfulness from.

Anyway... I still have one one little girl and she is lovely and thankfully now out of the presence of "the terrible two"... their bad behaviour was starting to rub off on her and we were actually thinking of getting new kids in and telling them to leave!!!. I've notified the council we now have vacancies and also asked the local school if they can let us know if any parents are looking for childcare. I don't really know what else to do... I'm not qualified to do anything else and if I start looking for a different job and then people want to come in, what do I do then? Money will be tight, very tight, but I think will can survive for awhile. Mum spoke to the mortgage company earlier and there is a new arrangement in place with them, so our house is safe, we have a few cutbacks to make (not wasting food, watching our utility use and getting rid of some of the cable tv, that kind of thing)... but hopefully with the warmer weather coming we will not be spending so much for gas and electricity anyway. I'm hoping that Mum is going to give up smoking, but I'm not holding my breath... there is more stress now and she isn't in the right frame of mind either, so not the best time to give up the one thing that calms you down, LOL!

The day has just been totally surreal, and I'm sick of thinking about it (as is Mum)... we are meant to be getting a text from "her" but I'm not holding my breath... I just find it amazing that a woman can be so gullible in thinking that her kids don't lie when they do it to her all the time... they broke her oven two months ago and they still haven't told her the truth about how it happened - but her kids don't lie... **sarcasm**

Sissy is now back in Brighton

I took her this morning... we left at 11.08am and we were back by 2.11pm. Not bad time really, for a round trip of nearly 160 miles. I didn't even get out of the car at the other end, I just sat there (mainly because I was double-parked with the hazard lights flashing). The house has a completely different atmosphere now that she's gone... quieter and more peaceful. She was in a bad mood this morning (as she really didn't want to go back, but then she did nothing to try and arrange changing her course to up here, so what can you do?). In the finish we had to call into our local McDonald's and get her some food before we started out (after we went to the garage), which she ate on the way. I was glad to get her there as if I'd have heard her phone ring once more I think I would have grabbed the dread thing and thrown in out of the bloody window!!! She was talking to Pingu for almost the entire trip, and when she wasn't talking to him she was talking to the girls that she was going back to live with... no wonder her phone bill reached over £250, and Pingu over £400! They never shut the hell up!!!

It was like a fox graveyard on the drive there and back... I saw the carcasses of no less than eight foxes in the road, in varying degrees of "squished"... I always wonder if there are any cubs waiting for those adults to return with food - makes me sad the think of those beautiful creatures suffering if there is no other parent to take care of them :(

STILL NO WORD FROM THE BOY'S MOTHER... REALLY FUCKED OFF NOW! They had just better be there when I go and collect them tomorrow, that's all. Then she'll have no choice but to come and see us... will she?!?!?! Just tell me if I still have a job you selfish cow!!!

I'm trying to read "Triumph of the Moon" by Ronald Hutton again... I'm still not having much luck, and it is just as hard going as the first time :( I really want to read it as a lot of people have recommended it to me, but for some reason I stop reading it, put it down and just seem to forget all about it! It must just be one of those books that I seem to forget, like "The Woman in White" by Wilkie Collins... I've gotten halfway through that - three times - and I still haven't finished it, LOL!! Oh well, I'll keep trying with Mr. Hutton, even a page a day is better than nothing, I suppose, hehe.

Still no onions...

... and my stomach has been as quiet as a mouse... no bloating, nausea, cramps, flatulence, etc for three days... it's been like heaven in my stomach - just wish that everything else was doing as well!

I cannot wait for Sissy to go back to Brighton... she's away with Pingu at a friends' barbeque today, and I can honestly say I was glad to see her go!! They tried to cook bacon sandwiches this morning, I say tried! He ended up burning through an expensive plastic chopping board, left the surfaces covered in bread crumbs and butter, and she spilt baked bean juice all over herself, the floor, the surfaces and the microwave and they then walked away and left it!!!. Not to mention that I was woken up by the repeated slamming of draws and cupboard doors and the smell of the grease and burnt bread made me feel really queasy, too... all made me the crankiest monster I've been for a long time. I only started to settle down and stop being angry once she left for the barbeque... I also made a lemon drizzle cake, and it focused my attention and calmed me down completely.

Still no contact from the boys' Mum, Michelle... this is getting really stupid and I just want to know if I still have a job next week **angry**

Didn't manage to get out in the garden, either, between dropping Dad to Nan's house, collecting him, going round to see if Michelle was home (she wasn't), baking some bread and also a cake I didn't seem to find the time. I also got up about 11.30 am and after yesterday's little accident my back was killing me! (The "accident" was my chair collapsing under me which sent me slithering to the floor... I laughed like a maniac when it happened, probably because Pingu was standing there and I was so embarrassed I tried to laugh it off. I can feel it in my lower back on the right side now, though... that was the side I landed on, and I can feel it pulling slightly whenever I move... gotta love ibuprofen, LOL!)

No onions today...

... and I feel fine. No nausea, wind, bloating, flatulence... nothing! I even had a small amount of chives on some sushi earlier and nothing, though granted, it was a very small amount, more like a garnish (and I couldn't even taste them). I'm going to stay onion-free until the weekend and then, if I feel brave enough, I'm going to eat some onions and see if they effect me. I'm going to try a cheese sandwich tomorrow, and then I'll add some onion to a similar sanwich over the weekend (just so that the test is sort of controlled, and I'll know it's not the bread or cheese if I'm fine with them on their own).

Still no contact from the boy's Mum... there have been many messages left for her and still no reply to any of them! I have no idea where I stand with her anymore, and the not knowing is annoying me (although I am forcing myself not to worry, as in the past I always have, and nothing has happened to us, so I'm staying positive and hoping that like will attract like as it seems to do for everyone that I know!! Most of the people I know could fall in shit and come out smelling of roses, so I'm hoping some of it will rub of on us if I adopt the same way of thinking... certainly can't hurt, LOL!)

I'm hoping to get out in the garden tomorrow... I lost a couple of plants over the dreadful winter we had and they are now looking all sad and brown, so I want to get them out and put some potted plants in their places. I have a large rosemary that I'd love to get in the bed with the other herbs, and I also have a bay and a lovely camellia that are just crying out for a nice earthy home (that is not in a pot!) I'm hoping that I have some growmore or something like it in the shed as I can't afford to buy any at the moment (and I like to get my plants off to the best start by giving them some food to draw on when I plant them in the ground). I've finally got my compost for sowing my seeds and also potting up my houseplants, so I'm hoping to get most, if not all of that done in the remaining three days I have off :)

I'll have to clean the small greenhouse and do a patch job in repairing the polycarbonate sheet that was cracked last year in a gale, but I'm hoping it won't take too long to do... once that's done all I'll have to do is move the power supply in there and plug in the heated propagators (and hope they still work!). Once I do all that, it'll be sowing time... and I love sowing seeds, and I really get excited when I see those little green shoots pushing through the soil, hehe.

How damn wrong is THIS?!

First off, a little bit of back story:

Last year we cared for two girls, I'll call them Belle and Zandri... they lived in a nice three bedroom house (granted one of the rooms was a box room, but anyway). They moved into a big six bedroom house, bought by their parents and grandmother (whose house was in Somerset) selling both of their houses and pooling the money to get a bigger place for them all to live in. The girls left us as the Gran said that she'd take over taking them to school (we were sad, but kids come and go). All good so far.

Moving on to today:

The Grandmother has a new boyfriend (who moved in with them all a month after they moved in themselves!!) and is talking about buying a house with him as "it could be my last chance at love"... meaning that she's going to want the money from the sale of her house. Problem being that the money was used to buy the six bedroom place that her family are currently living in... meaning that the house would have to be sold in order for her to have her money back, so that she and the new bloke could buy a house together back in Somerset... meaning that her daughter, son-in-law and two granddaughters would be effectively homeless until they could find something to buy with the money that is left from the house sale (assuming that the house could be sold in the current economic climate, and assuming they could find a house big enough for the four of them and their stuff with the money that was left as London house prices are rising again).

I know that the Gran pressured them into the sale in the first place, using the old "I want to retire and don't want to be alone, I've fallen once recently and want to be around people that could help me if it ever happened again, I really want to spend the rest of my days with the people I love" spiel. So after she managed to get her own way she's suddenly decided that as she has a new man it's all got to change! She wants to go out whenever she pleases (which is the reason that I've had to rearrange the kids here so that I can go and get her granddaughters as she has had a better offer from "loverboy"... luckily it was possible as Wednesday is the day that E is collected by her Grandad anyway, and Mum is able to get the bus to get the two boys). Even so, they left on the premise that she would take care of the kids, and now I'm having to try and pick up the slack that she is leaving (granted I don't have to, but I just can't sit by and see nice people that I care about treated in such a bad way, by the very woman that took away my job in the first place!)

I just don't understand what the woman is thinking?! Why would you uproot your family from a house they loved, and move them to a place that is strange to them, where they have no friends, which means that your grandkids are going to have to leave the people they have known all their lives, to change your mind less than a year later... I just do not understand that, I really don't! Mum spoke to the Mum of the girls (I'll call her Cat) this morning, and she is worried sick all the time about what is going to happen in the future regarding her home and her family. The girls' Dad (I'll call him Orly) is off work sick today, and it would never surprise me if it was this whole situation that is causing at least some of it. I just think that the Grandmother is a total bitch and she has to rank as one of the most selfish women I've ever met... so much for "being with the family I love". I'm equally disgusted by the Grandmother and devastated for the people that are too nice to be treated in this way by their own mother-figure!

What a great role model for young girls... do whatever is right for yourself and fuck everyone else!

**edited to add**

When I took Belle home, "Granny" was still there!! (and so was the boyfriend, James, and very posh he sounded, too). So why the hell did I have to go and get Belle, why couldn't she have got her? She wasn't dressed up in any way (as she would be if she'd been going somewhere nice, the past has proved this, very modest and prim!), so I'm wondering just why I had to do it??!!