Now the HOUSE looks like a bomb site!

Sissy went down to Brighton yesterday and got her stuff... at present it is in our front room... which means that no one else can get in there *sigh* She put some of it away earlier, but after spending the bank holiday drinking with her parents and their friends at her parents house (in Clacton) both she and Pingu were knackered and stopped the putting away after three bags... which leaves the bulk of it still in the front room! The other girls weren't happy on learning that they have no tv down there now (as the set in their front room was Sissy's)... but they have been such huge bitches that I feel no sympathy for them. They have shafted Sissy on paying for the last cable bill to the tune of £133! It should have been split four ways, but they are refusing to pay their three shares and seeing as the bill is in Sissy's name it leaves her having to pay for it all herself! One of them has also taken one dvd out of her Friends box set, and as two of the girls had locked their bedroom doors, there was no way she could get it back again!!

Who knows when the rest will get put away... Pingu is back to work from today and that leaves Sissy to put it all away herself (she can be really fussy and I don't want to get in her way... plus I still have to find a place to put all of the stuff that I had to move in order for her to get her stuff in!)

I have put my books away as best I can... "best" being piled up in rows three to four foot high outside my bedroom door! All of my bookcases are full and the floor seemed the safest place, lol.

The good news is (after getting attacked by more dust than I have ever seen in my life!) that on sorting them all out, I found books that I never knew I had and that I was actually going to go out and buy... I found Peter Pan - JM Barrie, The Iliad and The Odyssey - Homer, Classics like The Phantom of the Opera, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and also things I'd forgotten all about, my complete set of Adrian Mole books (which still make me laugh), a huge compilation of all of the Sherlock Holmes stories, my Asterix comic books, a complete set of The Worst Witch stories (I loved them, and on reading Harry Potter it all seemed very familiar having read them), all of my Clive Cussler adventure novels and a book titled Sherlock Holmes vs Dracula... which I'm about to start reading now.

I took my library books back the other day and I was going to have a look and see what they had, and then I thought to myself, why am I bothering?! I probably have more books than they do, and most of mine are unread (or read so long ago they could do with re-reading lol). So I left empty-handed.

I was determined that not one book was going to leave this house, and none of them have... I was even prepared to stack them on my bedroom floor. I put all of the books that I wasn't all that fussed about into a huge wooden tallboy, and then put the sofa back in front of the doors. The books are safe, dust-free and out of the way. There is still lots to do (both in my room and also the rest of the house) but we have the rest of this school holiday off (no kids here) so we can go at our own pace... very handy seeing as Mum's hand still hasn't healed after Josh bit her... it's been four weeks now and she is on her fourth set of antibiotics!! She also has to change her dressing every day, but it is slowly getting better... very slowly mind - but then I suppose slowly better is preferable to not getting better at all!

So, this all means that Pingu has moved in with us (and will hopefully start paying some actual rent from his next pay day, which will help the mortgage)... Sissy has been accepted at one of the uni's up here so she is probably going to finish her degree at the South Bank come September... and everything else will be handled as it comes along LOL! Having made a sort of desk of an old shelf across some books in front of my bedroom window I can update my blog and written journal without the chance of getting "caught" by Sissy, and fortunately the wireless broadband actually seems to work in my room now, which has pleased me no end.

And to top it all off I actually managed to get an egg at DragCave that I've been desperately trying to snag since last year (I'm sure that it being Memorial Day in America is the reason I was able to get it, though... a total fluke, lol!... still, I'm not complaining). A good end to a tiring weekend.

Sissy has left Brighton university!

She just could not stand being down in Brighton any more. She was due to go back there today, but she ended up getting so upset at the thought of it that she almost had a panic attack! She was in a place she grew to hate, with people that she grew to hate, doing a course that she grew to hate... can't see the point of staying and racking up more and more student loans just to say you have a degree in a subject that you have no interest in... plus the only job that her current course will lead to is social work and I doubt she could handle the emotional burden of that career.

She's going to see about transferring the final year of study to up here, but if that doesn't pan out she will probably either get a job and do NVQ's at the same time, or go back to uni up here in a subject that she actually likes... makes more sense, even doing a degree course in something that has more than one job option at the end of it, just in case your choice of career changes over time.

She has had such an emotional day, it seemed as if for half of it she was crying... nearly broke my heart seeing her so unhappy. Pingu is ok about her leaving, he was just concerned about her making the wrong decision, but after seeing the change in her mood when the weight of stress was lifted from her, he soon realised that her happiness was more important.

The people she was most dreading telling were "The Parents"... her Dad was surprisingly accepting of her choice, but her Mum was a different story... she eventually had no choice but to come round to the idea when Sissy stood her ground and told her that it's what she wants to do that is the most important (about time she did that, too!!)

The other girls that she shared a house with down there gave her major lectures over the phone concerning her leaving, but they fail to realise that if they had been nicer people and not such massive arseholes that she would probably have stayed! They treated her like crap, talked down to her and just generally made her miserable... they seem to think that unless she is the happy-go-lucky party girl that she is somehow not "being herself"... stupid, immature fools. They also think that being at university is "the real world"... yeah, because being handed money a few times a year, attending some lectures, getting cash handouts from your parents and getting pissed more nights than not is "the real world"!! Lindsay Lohan's world, maybe... but certainly not the real world that most adults live in!!

We are going down there to get her stuff on Monday... as it's a Bank Holiday she is hoping that the others will be visiting their parents so she never has to see them again! The only problem on the horizon concerns some unpaid bills, the water rates, tv licence and their Virgin tv and phone... because the last two are in Sissy's name the rest of them will no doubt refuse to pay their share... but we'll cross that bridge if we come to it!

Now it means that Sissy and Pingu are going to be here for the foreseeable future, something we hadn't been planning on happening for another month... bit of a shock to the system, but at least they will be paying rent (which will help us out of out current financial bind... Pingu will pay the rent until Sissy gets a job, but any shopping they want is down to her... seems fair), and Sissy will not be going insane and slipping into depression over being stuck in a situation that makes her so incredibly miserable.

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.

I feel very strange...

... I think I'm coming down with something, and I don't like it. My throat feels sort of scratchy and I always feel as if there is something stuck in my throat and I can't get rid of it. I also feel a bit achey, but I don't know if that's because I'm ill or because I moved a wardrobe yesterday.

I just don't feel 100%... I think I might have an early-ish night tonight and see if that helps.

Sometimes, Sissy drives me insane!! She was meant to not be going back to Brighton for about a month (she sorted it all out earlier this week, even getting an extension on her essay), but now she is going back tomorrow as her friend reminded her that they have tickets for some kind of show... so now she is going back tomorrow, staying tomorrow night/Thursday and then coming back early on Friday. So it looks like I'll be taking her tomorrow (no word on where the money for the diesel is coming from!!) and I'm not sure about Friday, but I know I cannot get her as I'm working (emergency babysitting).

I just wish she could make a decision and bloody stick to it! I love her dearly, but I have no desire to keep going backwards and forwards to Brighton all the damn time... the drive tires me intensely (and she always seems to go back in the dark, which I hate driving in as most of the journey is on motorways without lights and I always seem to get lost on the way back **sigh**)... that and she never thinks to pay for the fuel, and I can't keep affording the £15 per journey it takes to get her there and then get home again!

I feel better today.

I feel so much better than I did last night... at one stage I thought I was going to be really sick, and according to Mum I went totally white in the face and looked awful! I took ages to fall asleep, as I was overtired by the time I got to bed, but fortunately I had a dreamless night, which was great (I was expecting nightmares about people having car crashes, and stuff like that, so it was wonderful that it didn't happen). My eyes are stinging like mad, but that's because Mum has been cutting onions for our tea and my eyes and onions do not mix well (they really seem to badly affect my eyes... weird as they are one of my fave veggies).

We had to go and sort out the parking permit for the car today, gladly it was done straight away (I thought they sent it in the post and it took seven days, but I was wrong) so I don't have do the "traffic warden watch"... they don't come round here regularly, but you can bet that the day I leave the car parked in the bay without a permit, will be the day that they decide to come down the hill, LOL!

We have such a hectic weekend coming up. Sissy is here, her brother, Bradley, is coming over sometime tomorrow, Tony is coming down from Coventry for the weekend. Then on Saturday, Lynn is coming down from Glasgow for the day (and night) and then they both go home on Sunday (fortunately they are both staying in a huge pub just down the road from us). Then I may have to drive Sissy back to Brighton sometime after 8pm as she has (or is certainly in the process of) broken up with Ross and he was due to take her back again after spending the last half of this week with her (which she stopped him doing as neither of them feel well). Makes me tired just thinking about the next three days. Plus we are still working on Friday (three kids), and after doing the school run, I then have to take Josh to yoga. Non-stop central, haha.

Sissy has finally decided that Ross is not the man for her... he is so smothering, and it seems as if he is somehow trying to get her pregnant (probably to force her into staying with him!) He is so needy and clingy and if he isn't sitting in her back pocket, he's not satisfied... she's had more of a laugh with her friend, Steffan (who is here in the back room with her watching tv and chatting) than she has in the entire time she's been with Ross (which is getting on for three months!)

Happy yet so very sleepy

I've have such a headache today... I've had it all day and no amount of painkillers has been able to shift it :(

It was probably all of the driving I did yesterday... five hours solid behind the wheel and most of it on roads that were dark (and I mean dark, no lights save for my own headlights)... plus on the way back from Brighton after dropping Sissy off I got lost, again! I ended coming home on the A24 which is a lovely road (dark, of course) but I really enjoyed driving it... I must see about finding it again in daylight, I think it would be a beautiful drive if I could actually see it, LOL!! At one point the road was almost a tunnel of trees, albeit skeletal branches now that the leaves have gone.

I must have a look in the map book and see if I can find the name of the village where we stopped and had a bite to eat, I would love to go back there again one day soon.


I'm really tired and I think that I'm going to head off to bed now (incredibly early night for me, usually I'm not in bed before 1am)... I am just having great trouble in keeping my eyes open, though.

I am so tired!

Still, I suppose driving to Brighton and back in the pouring rain, then getting lost twice on the way back, might explain that... first time I took the wrong turn out of Brighton and ended up on the A27 down past Lancing (which is on the way to Portsmouth! nowhere near London, lol opposite direction in fact and the furthest south I've ever driven) and the second time I missed the turn off for the A2 and ended up almost crossing the Dartford Toll Tunnel (but managed to turn around in time!)

All told I must have driven about four straight hours (most of them in dreadful visability, with such bad spray it looked like fog!) and adding the "detours" to the total milage I must have done close to 200 miles!! Add to that a school run this afternoon, and also all of the kids being nightmares... two wouldn't do as they were told, one was just having a ball encouraging those two, and the other one started crying because she didn't want to watch Tom and Jerry, or even listen to it, when it was time for someone else to have their choice of programme on! (we have the tv watched in turns, one person watches what they like and all watch that, then it's someone else's turn... none of them like sharing anything, but that's just tough, if they don't share it, they don't watch any at all!!)


Anyway... I am now waiting for the huge rice pudding that I've put in the oven to turn out a total disaster to just put the cherry on the top of a fairly crap day, LOLOLOL!!!

What a tiring day yesterday was!!

I was driving for about 6 hours, and for someone that rarely does any distance over about 10 miles at a time, driving about 150 miles is quite a big thing!

We had to collect Sissy from her friends house in Clapham, then get from Clapham to Brighton, and then from Brighton back to London (I got lost three times, but not badly, missing turnings and having to double back, that kind of thing, hehe)... I ended up coming home the long way round as I missed the turn-off for the M25 (how, I've no idea, but I didn't even see a turn-off for it on the M23... stupid motorway!).

I was completely knackered when I got back home, then I got over-tired and got to bed at about 4am and slept like a log until 1pm (apparently I was dead to the world and refused to wake up, so Mum just left me there! Haha.)

I think that the only one that in anyway enjoyed the journey was the car! It charged the battery... well at one stage I was doing 80mph as I was just so desperate to be rid of Sissy... (she was in an appalling mood, mostly hangover induced, I think!) so it had better have charged the battery, LOL! Seeing as it was a bank holiday, and by the time we got to Brighton it was 6.45pm, nothing was open, so we didn't even get a stick of rock whilst we were there, nor any dinner. Somehow it felt wrong to go all that way and have nothing to show for it apart from a dead bum for sitting in the same position for so long! I didn't even manage to take any pictures (and for me that's bordering on sacrilige!).

I seem to be really getting into blogging/journal writing lately. Maybe it's because that it seems to relieve the boredom that I feel a fair amount of the time. Or maybe it's because I've finally found some kind of outlet for my frustrations and ideas. I feel that I can write about things in a blog that otherwise I'd just bottle up and leave to fester in my brain. Writing them down and getting them out into the open seems to make me a "lighter" person, mentally anyway. Sometimes I just ramble on and on about nothing very important (like now) but it really helps me... when my Dad was in the pysch unit the last time, the doctors there recommended that he keep a diary of his thoughts and feelings, he never did, as he's not a big reader or writer... he does so out of neccesity and not pleasure... both of my parents are the same (which makes me wonder just where my love of the written word came from? I can only assume that it jumped a generation from my maternal grandmother as she loved books as much as I do... thank you, Nana, rest in peace, love).

I also think that a lot of my journal entries come from the weird tangents that my brain takes when I start thinking about things properly. Sometimes I wonder just what the hell brought about some pages of writing, as the start of an entry often times has nothing in common with the end, LOL!! I have no idea, and to be honest, I don't much care. I just know that writing down all the crap helps me to deal with it... I just wish that I'd realised this years ago, the amount of problems that I could have chronicled and learnt from, and I didn't, makes me equally sad and angry!