what do you mean you need a break from the old routine??

I have to say I am enormously glad the Easter holidays are over. 

Not only am I grateful for the return of quiet and order in public places and the meandering routine of our day-to-day lives, but I am overwhelmingly relieved that I don't have to make any more sodding arrangements to 'catch up' with people I only see during school holidays because their offspring are normally a l'ecole. 

Every day for two weeks I have had to be clock-watching and ferrying Oliver around to a) take him to Easter tennis club, b) have the house partially socially acceptable for visits or,  worse, c) meet up with people at varying locations (yuk, yuk).  These things I do for my boy.  To be fair, they are not all unbearable and a few are even driven by me.  Still, come last Thursday I was coveting a day at home.  A day spent in my joggers with unkempt hair and smelly pits watching Masterchef on catch up and letting Oliver just be and do.

On Wednesday night I ended up in a filthy row with my brother who insisted I had agreed to look after his son for the entire day on Thursday starting at 7.30am.  No friggin' way jose.  For the record, this was a loose arrangement floated into the ether on Sunday morning with the proviso 'let me know'.  I always say 'let me know' for two reasons.  Firstly I like to know in advance what time I need to be up and at 'em, and secondly, no-one, but no-one turns up on my doorstep unbooked.  I do not like it, I do not encourage it.  This of course excludes telephone warnings up to 15 minutes in advance - I can bear those.  And I do like company on occasion - I am not a complete social reject.  So this is how I know that I did not leave things that he could just rock up sans warning on Thursday morning at the crack of a sparrow's fart leaving me a ten year old for the day.  Cripes alive.  Cue much yelling and an upset child.  (not mine, but the guilt kept me awake that night).  I managed to salvage a soupcon of everybody's happiness by picking him up for a few hours in the afternoon - with a definite start time, and a definite finish time.  Ha ha. 

So, yesterday was welcomed with very wide and open arms.  This week Oliver is starting a term of tennis at the University.  We have an indoor tennis centre there (hitherto unknown in these here parts) but parking there is a bastard and I am dreading the weekly argy bargy in the undersized car park jostling with four hundred other parents for one of twenty spaces while they drop off/pick up Tarquin and Pippa for/from their lesson.  This horror aside, I have toyed with the idea of going along to the 'adult drop in tennis' while Oliver transmutes into a Wimbledon champion at his class.

I made a tentative enquiry to a very sporty looking sort at the front desk - what sort of standard turn up to the adult session, that sort of thing, to which he flashed his very many white teeth at me and started banging on about matchplay.  What I actually heard was 'dkfjsldfj  jadjk,  ajkdfdf -jaljlasd'.  My fear and confusion must have been apparent, as he then kindly slipped back into english and told me about the adult coffee morning tennis instead.  Clearly my grey powdered curls and bi-focals left him in no doubt that I was not going to be up to matchplay any time soon.  I know when I am beat.  Think I might slip along on a Friday morning for a touch of 'adult starters' - surely even I can manage that?

In crochet 'news', of which there is not much to report, I am still crocheting circles and more circles for the blanket which I may or may not gift to my brother.  I braved the 'join as you go' method, which took me an embarrassing length of time to master (and I use the term 'master' very loosely here) but I am still not convinced it is quite right as it looks rather like a four year old has cobbled them together with a set of plastic needles free with Girl's Stuff weekly.

Which is uncanny, because that is exactly the look I am going for.  Ha ha.

I have unpicked more rounds than I have left standing.  Join as you go, my arse.  That's what I say.