Just read my last post on here 'Good list or naughty list?'.  All I'm saying is, we're not together anymore.

Anyway, had my annual review at work today.  My boss wrote " Beki likes her job and enjoys coming".

the good list or the naughty list?

You know things have deteriorated when the first activity of the school holidays is to make a 'star chart'.

At the end of day one there are not many stars on it.

You know things are really bad when a conversation with your hubby goes something like: 'Shall we bother with cards bewtween us this Christmas?' ' Nah, they're very expensive for what they are'  'I agree.  We could buy ourselves a tin of Quality Street for the money'. 

There is now a shiny new purple tin sitting on the table.  Currently sealed and full.  But not for long. 

daytime tv

I'm ill.  In fact I am clearly very ill.  How do I know this?  Obviously I'm feeling a bit crap and I've been fighting it for two whole days now, soldiering on.  But now I'm paying for that, I've only made myself worse and for my sins I find myself on the sofa watching Daytime TV.  It's all I can manage.  I've not got to the point where I have to turn the sound off yet, but then I also have this little machine to distract me, so hopefully I'll make it through.  Besides, I'll have to get up later and trek to school, my eldest is in her school concert this afternoon.

Ooops!

I accidently brought the wrong children home from school today.  I didn't realise at first, they look very much like my girls, but clearly they are not.

My suspicions were first aroused on the way home when the eldest of the two announced that she had been chosen, along with a select few, to sing to the old biddies at a local day care centre next week.  Now, my eldest is a wonderful child and has many, many talents, but singing is definately not one of them. 

Then the youngest of the two announced that she hed received two stickers at school today, one for doing good tidying-up outside and the other for doing good tidying-up inside.  Again, my youngest is a wonderful child who has many, many talents, but she is completely incapable of tidying-up.

The evidence is too strong.  They cannot possibly be my children.  However, I have decided to keep them for the weekend, they are lovely girls and besides, it will make a nice change to have a tidy house and to listen to a pleasant voice accompanying Taylor Swift stuck on the repeat button.

Talking of the repeat button, we put the decorations up last weekend and I duly played the old Christmas CD, even though we've all been listening to the same songs for sometime now, on the TV and in the shops.  After a while my (real) eldest said to me 'Now I understand why you tell me not keep songs on repeat Mummy'.

Oh, and the eldest (aged 8) came home from school last week and informed me that I would be 'going to Hell'.  Charming.  Been in a British school merely five weeks and this is the stuff she comes out with.  Turns out she has been getting some religous education at school (never had any in France and me being a heathen non-believer (is that right?  Or should it just be heathen?  Or just non-believer?  Well, you get my drift) she didn't really get any at home either).  Anyway, she informed me that she has found out that as I am indeed a heathen non-believer I will be going to Hell.  Cue 'friendly mother-daughter chat'.

Weekends washing uniform

Well, we're here.  In the UK.  So far, things have gone quite smoothly on the whole, which is great, but doesn't give me much to moan about on here. 

Although, it has to be said I feel like I've morphed into that strange British phenomenon of 'super-mum'.  I've been altering our curtains, by hand, as I've no sewing machine.  It's been going well, although somewhat slow.  It all went on hold this week when I was given less than a weeks' notice at school to make an Angel costume for Georgia.  No material, no pattern and no machine.  I was still finishing it yesterday evening to hand in this morning.  Then this evening I find myself on a supermarket hunt for muffin cases in order to make cakes for the school fete tomorrow.  Just finished those at nearly 9pm.  And then there's the school uniform.  I don't mind it in principle.  Except for the cost.  And the bloody washing.  Not helped by nothing getting dry in this house, so Friday night, the washing commences, then more on Saturday morning and the last lot Sunday morning, with lots of praying Sunday night that it'll be dry by Monday morning.  Sadly no time for ironing it.

Anyway, local folk have been very nice and friendly so far; it's good, but not a great source of material.  I might, however, have a whinge sometime about our trials with the helpful folk at the benefits offices.  By 'helpful' I of course mean 'thick as shit' and 'wouldn't know their arses from their elbows' and 'economical with the truth' and 'bunch of bloody liars'.

Moving

Well.  That's it.  We're all packed up, the van has been and gone.  We leave this weekend.  Seems a bit strange to think that we'll be back in Blighty (hopefully in our new home) this time next week.  You'll be pleased to hear that the tax office have given us a good old send off in the form of a bill for almost 900€, which we have already paid to the social payments folk.  This bill arrived this morning, but all the relevant paperwork I could use as proof has been packed, so it'll have to wait.  I don't think it will be an easy one to deal with, but I should be used to it by now.  Best make sure we get a good phone package with cheap calls to France, otherwise I can see me running up huge bills trying to sort out continuing huge fuck-ups.

No computer for a while, so I'll sign-off for a bit (again!).  Will try to be more consistent when I'm back, after all, I'm probably going to have some time on my hands for while.....

Breaking Barbie's legs

We had a little party yesterday for the girls, partly a leaving party and partly a birthday party for Georgia.  So I made a birthday cake for Georgia; she likes pink, so I made a pink doll cake like the yellow one I made for Isabella a couple of years ago (on here somewhere).  Last time I made it, as I recall, I managed to use one of those 'fake' Barbie dolls, whose legs come off easily, however, this time, I only had real barbies left as I had been sorting things out to pack and the fake ones didn't quite make it.  I tried to put Barbie in the cake whole, but she was too tall, so I had no choice but to pull her legs off.  I managed to get one off alright, but the other broke (the hip joint, to be precise).  Anyway, she managed to get through the whole 'cake-display' event, poor thing, always smiling through the pain.  But now I can't fix her.  I've packed the superglue and can only find uhu, but it hasn't worked.  Adrian says to tell the girls that it's a 'Limited Edition Heather Mills Barbie'.  Either that or 'Limited Edition Hip Replacement this is what happens if you don't drink your milk Barbie'.

Hopefully, here is a picture of the cake.  But I have problems with the photos on here so it could come out above the text.

Oh it worked!  Fancy that!