3rd & 4th

3rd DEC:

Oliver attended his monthly Pokemon TGC tournament today, so in the spare four hours we had,  Mark and I headed off to Sidmouth for a little jaunt.  Our jaunts usually include many charity shops, grub in the cheapest caff we can find and Mark tutting and sighing as I try to skulk off into yarn shops, antique shops or shops full of beautiful things I cannot afford.  So you see, we do live the high life.

Today was a good jaunt.  We picked up:
- The Game Of Life £3.99 (we already have the electronic version but my GOODNESS the moaning Mark does when we play it is not worth the hassle, and he has long hankered after the olde worlde version)
- 2 recipe mags 45p
- pre cut paper chain strips (printed on both sides with festive piccies) £3.99
- Festive fridge magnets to make from plaster of paris. This is a loathsome craft to do, but Oliver will enjoy it and it was only £1.50 new.
- The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady £1.50 (always wanted a copy)

We had lunch in the White Horse Cafe - a very good value and nice clean caff which we have been to several times before.  We were too late for breakfast - quelle horreur!! so we sulkily plumped for egg, chips and peas and a latte each.  When it arrived, I was truly horrified to find that 'peas' meant mushy peas.  Mushy. Peas.  OMG.  Since when have 'peas' on any menu EVER translated to mushy peas.  I have never had them, as to me, they are the work of the devil, but I have to confess my friends, after some very suspicious pokings with a knife and a tentative curled lipped lick, I realised they were really tasty.  Can you adam and eve it.  I am converted. 

I also got a yearning for a Christmas mug.  I have seen Christmas mugs on other people's blogs, and decided that I must have one, being easily swayed, as I am.

Saw a very nice one in a posh shop, which turned out to be £16(!)  I would expect a set of 4 for that price, so my search continued.  I have ended up with a mug from inauspicious Sainsburys, which cost £1.66 and makes me feel very festive - and crafty, for some reason.

4th DEC:

Mark's birthday.  We are going to go to River Cottage canteen (a la Hugh F-W) next weekend for his celebratory birthday meal, and so today was a handing over of some lame presents such as liqueur chocs and more chocs.  Mark is incredibly difficult to buy for.  Since we were going to 'do' his birthday next weekend, I planned on another week to gather together some more tasteful gifts, but it's all gone a bit t*** up.  On the bright side, I found where I had gone wrong in my crochet ripply blanket and got to use my new shade of burnt orange.  Does life get any more funner than this?

On Saturday, I had a phone call from the family who took Harvey in last Saturday.  She said he has settled in really well, and they would love to keep him.  This is a genuine relief to me - a) because I felt reassured by her voice and words that all actually is well and he is not pining, and b) the stress level in the house this week is noticeably lower.  I still feel a tinge of sadness, but I know this will fade, and I am edging happily towards the sure knowledge that it was the right thing to do by him.

Here is the little pooch on the last walk I took him on. (sob)

December 2nd. Nuff said.

Just a quickie, better way post daily wherever humanely possible, or the days will just fall on top of each other and I won't remember sod all about what we've been up to.

A very early start to the day at 5am with Oliver in our room panicking because he couldn't breathe very well.  This has happened before a few times - a simple sniffle has led to a dash to A&E in the throes of an asthma attack.  This was the situation this morning, but being a little older than the last time, we managed to control his panic with calm words and a good measure of inhalers, and he fell back to sleep cuddled by Daddy whilst Mummy sat on the edge of bed watching him breathe for a while before slinking off to a restless couple of hours in a single bed surrounded by cuddly toys, pillows and remote controls.

Kim came over for lunch and cups of tea, which is always nice because she is a guest who doesn't mind me just sitting and crocheting while I bend her ear on every subject under the sun.  I have just taken a stroll over to Whipton to pick up 3 new balls of yarn for my lovely new blanket and I am hopeful of squeezing in a bit of Christmas journalling (my very boring A5 folder turned up today) before my next domestic duty calls.

Have worked out the piccy problems, so will be boring the pants off you with visuals on a screen near you soon.

And we're off!

8.35am

December the 1st.  No day in all the year yields such promise of joy to come.  Today is the day that Christmas - the season of goodwill to all men and twinkliness - begins.  I just want to hug myself with glee.  Well, I would if I didn't have an early trip to the dentist to look forward to.  I hate going to the dentist, always have.  I have tried, with some degree of success I might add, not to pass on my unadulterated terror of the man in the white coat to Oliver, so check ups are always an exercise in deep breathing and inane smiling and using my tight, high pitched voice I reserve for such bottom-clenching occasions.

Have decided to put the time up that I am blogging, since I have clearly got something wrong with my settings as it appears I blog at weird times like 3am and suchlike (I so don't).  I am sure putting it right is easy, I just haven't arsed myself to try yet.  It's on the list with getting photos onto my blog. 

This morning Oliver has eaten his first advent choc - a proper choc from a proper wooden advent box, I might add, not a shite one from a shite calendar with a shite picture on it.  I apologise if you have a particular leaning towards the shite choc calendar - each to their own and all that.  I just have a hankering for the advent days of auld, when each day revealed a glittery illustration of Yule in some form, not a chemical and sugar injected brown lump of pseudo choc.  (sorry again).  So Oliver still has a colouring from Activity Village to do (thanks Corinna and Julia - not a sarcastic thanks by the way!) and a little piccy from his standy-up advent window to do.  Poor little bugger will be worn out by Christmas before 9am on the first day ha ha! 

My Christmas journal officially begins today - I have had a couple of false starts and last night saw me flying up to Tesco gripped by panic that I had no actual 'journal' set up to actually 'start' with today.  I have since got a hold of myself and ordered a clear plastic A5 ringbinder from ebay for £2.99 which will, WILL do the job perfectly.  So I can get on with it, unhampered by making covers and the usual poncing around.  In Janice World (it's a confusing place to be) it looks a bit like Ali Edwards' December Daily.  In the Real World (a scary place to be) it will probably look more like Elmo's jotter from Sesame Street.

Anyhoo, off to have my gnashers inspected.  Gulp.

Edited to add: I have just popped in to Blogger and looked at my settings.  Seems I was set onto Central Pacific time on some island in the caribbean or somewhere.  Back to jolly old GMT in London now.  Tootle pip.

pockets of sadness and a creeping of yuletide cheer

Still feeling pinches of deep sadness.  Thank you for the kind comments on my last post - that's really nice. 
Today I am going to start Christmas.  I don't feel very Christmassy - largely due to feeling bloody miserable I suspect, but Oliver has his Cubs Carol Service tonight (early this year) and he has a reading to do.  This is very exciting for me, being that type of proud parent, and he will also be receiving his cub silver award from the district commissioner (who?!), which he doesn't know about - so he will be extra chuffed.  So, because of the inevitable singing with joyful voice tonight, and because Mark chucked down the Christmas decs from the loft at the weekend, today the tree will go up and we will have crossed the threshold of Yuletide blessings....

Even though I am two days earlier than normal, and this is waayyy ahead of the rest of my friends,  romans and countrymen, Julia 'I can't be doing with Christmas' Pollard has stolen a march on me and been and gone and Started.  Christmas.  First.  Wow.  Get her mantlepiece.  I am, of course, jealous.  I have no mantlepiece at all. Sniff.

I can't even blog you a pic of the finished decs later, as we have a new computer following last week's minor explosion of compu-innards and Lordy knows how to cyber-transfer pics from my memory card into this baby.  No doubt Mark will know, if I can persuade him to assist.  He hates my bloggy love affair - he blames it for the demise of the last computer.

I have taken the plunge after years of being a bit scared of it - and taken my first steps towards joining the local WI.  Oh yes - I shall be knitting macrame baskets from my knickers before you can say 'pass me the pinking shears Marjorie.... '  An update on that after Thursday.

And this morning I have 'done my roots' and I think that this particular (crap) brand has just dyed the rest of my hair the same colour as the roots, and not the other way round.  Why I am even surprised at this eventuality I really don't know.  You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.  Bet I will be able to macrame a basket from knickers soon though tee hee.

I want my dog back

I am sitting here trying to control the panic I feel when I am gripped by missing Harvey.  He was my little sidekick, and I gave him away.  Can't even describe how much I hate myself for it.  Got to try and keep a lid on my own misery until I get used to him not being here.  It's all my own fault.

Don't it always seem to go

that you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone.
About 18 months ago we adopted Harvey the Jack Russell from the Blue Cross.  I have never had a dog, and was quite unprepared for the adjustments I personally needed to make in order for him to fit into our lives.  He attached himself to me as his 'person' and I felt stifled and irritated with him most of the time.  He was a tie and an emotional and physical responsibility I reached screaming point with many times. The stress level I was feeling and subsequently passing onto Mark and Oliver was something I realised we could not live with indefinitely, and so yesterday, we took him to his new home - a nice family who live in Newton Abbot.

This has been a completely horrible weekend.  I never believed that that bloody dog could be so missed by his absence.  All he ever wanted was to love, and to be loved, and I fell way short of the standard.  I failed him.  My misery is compounded by the unhappiness Mark clearly feels, and the sudden waves of sadness and tears are feelings of grief, which I never expected to experience.  I thought of him as the bane of my life, when the reality was, he was a loving part of it which I stupidly took for granted.

I used to think of all the things I could do if I didn't have Harvey.  Now I am just consumed by the pain of all the things I will never do again because I don't have him. 

Such regret.  So sorry.

Et voila!

Not quite the done to death 'ta dah' - but boy, am I feeling just a little bit smug today!  It has taken me four months to do, and it is the first real proper hobby I have embarked upon, stuck to and finished something 'real' and usable.  Hurrah for me. 

The granny stripe blanket - 87 stripes (a teeny rebellion in the final number there), edged with a deep shell of my own tweaking.  To fit our king size bed, and to drape artfully around the sofa.  Ahhhh.  sigh. 

We have had Halloween since my last missive: 

He was Darth Maul, for the non Star Wars aficionados.  And the annual pumpkin mess amid much cutting, scraping, puffing, panting and swearing. 

Would show you the bonfire night (Guy Fawkes night for the puritans) pics, but they are so crap, it is embarrassing.

There was a resources day with the home-ed group yesterday - a good idea,  where people bring in the things they use as educational aids/materials.  Always interesting and encouraging.  I have come away feeling freshly enthused.  Have felt like that about home-ed quite a bit lately.  I have bought a couple of sketchbooks for Oliver and I to use together.  I have read several times that it is a good idea to work alongside your child, so they will follow your lead in methods/means blah blah.  I am no artist, but think I am quite capable of expressing myself visually well enough to encourage Oliver to do the same.  We shall see. 

Tonight Oliver will be attempting to swim 800m during his swimming lesson, which I am impressed with.  I love watching him swim - he now looks like a real swimmer when he streaks up and down the pool doing front crawl.