I hereby do solemnly swear to stop whining and get on with it.
I'm back at work today. There's one more week of school holidays left but the children are with their father for the duration. Despite my moaning, we ended up having a good time. Friday we made furniture for the doll's house out of salt water dough. I'm not sure the finely crafted Edwardian house is quite the match for the funky bright painted sofas, television and beds the kids made but I think they look great.
Saturday we drove down to the beach. We have a beach house which is a haven of peace and tranquility. I love to wake and hear the waves crashing on the rocks or the noisy kookaburras yakking in the early hours. Unfortunately, I reckon the divorce settlement is likely to see my share of it go but I'm philosophical about it - I've had some happy times there and the kids will probably always have it. I've also had the worst Christmas of my life there which precipitated my decision to separate so there's a lot to deal with in that house. I was doing a mental inventory of what things I might want to stake a claim on - most of the furniture is the sort of cast offs you want in a holiday house - but I definitely want the rug I bought and carried back from Kairouan in Tunisia. I was going to travel to Libya but you couldn't get a visa in the UK so instead I flew to Tunis and planned to cross from there. I waited 8 hours in Tunis airport for my girlfriend and her husband to collect me - they'd been stopped at the Libyan border. We drove to Kairouan - the 4th holiest city in Islam after Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem- which is also reknowned for its rug making. I was determined to buy a rug and found this one in the bazaar. We went through the usual ritual of mint tea, pleasantries and gentle bargaining in fractured english and french before handing over my credit card for the purchase. We left carrying the rug. An hour later the man from the rug shop came running up behind us. "Madam, Madam - your credit card limit has been exceeded and we can not process the payment". I look embarassed and then he said "We'll process it again next month - just make sure you get the limit down by then". And he let me take the rug with me with no other collateral. So much for cheating the foreign traveller...
It rained while we were at the beach but we're equipped with jigsaw puzzles and scrabble. It's a very old scrabble set bought for me by my then boyfriend when I was convalescing from some long forgotten illness. The box still has scribbled inside old scores of long scrabble tournaments between myself and E. I played scrabble in London last August with the lovely A and was horrified to find myself beaten for the first time in years by her. Of course, the fact that she has given up drinking and I had got through a bottle of wine might have had something to do with it. Just wait for the rematch now I'm practically teetotal. It's not that I'm competitive or anything.
Yesterday was Australia Day which was ... nothing much. I can't get into this - Anzac Day seems a so much more potent national day. Still, it was an extra day off work which was good. We watched Freaky Friday on dvd which the kids liked a lot. They love Lindsay Lohan since the Parent Trap . Amidst all this PG viewing we also saw the dreadful Honey - please make it stop now - and Spy Kids 3d but in the case of the latter, since I have virtually no sight in my left eye, it was Spy Kids 2d in grey and white. I was disappointed since it had none of the verve and inventiveness of the first two. Still, it was worth it to see Ricardo Montalban and about 30 seconds of Antonio Banderas who I've loved since Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down.
I also finished reading Anything She Can Do, I can Do Better by Rachael Oakes-Ashe which is about the myth of female competiveness. I liked her "skipping theory" about the girls swinging the rope for the girl skipping - they have to hope she trips up to get their chance in the spotlight. But a promising start was just lost for me in the cosmo-style anecdotes and gratingly, jaunty style. So now I'm halfway thorugh Henning Mankell's Firewall. It's my first taste of this gloomy Swedish policeman but I'm enjoying his struggles with his car breaking down, wondering if he'll ever find someone to have sex with again and his ill health as well as the mystery that is facing him.
Saturday we drove down to the beach. We have a beach house which is a haven of peace and tranquility. I love to wake and hear the waves crashing on the rocks or the noisy kookaburras yakking in the early hours. Unfortunately, I reckon the divorce settlement is likely to see my share of it go but I'm philosophical about it - I've had some happy times there and the kids will probably always have it. I've also had the worst Christmas of my life there which precipitated my decision to separate so there's a lot to deal with in that house. I was doing a mental inventory of what things I might want to stake a claim on - most of the furniture is the sort of cast offs you want in a holiday house - but I definitely want the rug I bought and carried back from Kairouan in Tunisia. I was going to travel to Libya but you couldn't get a visa in the UK so instead I flew to Tunis and planned to cross from there. I waited 8 hours in Tunis airport for my girlfriend and her husband to collect me - they'd been stopped at the Libyan border. We drove to Kairouan - the 4th holiest city in Islam after Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem- which is also reknowned for its rug making. I was determined to buy a rug and found this one in the bazaar. We went through the usual ritual of mint tea, pleasantries and gentle bargaining in fractured english and french before handing over my credit card for the purchase. We left carrying the rug. An hour later the man from the rug shop came running up behind us. "Madam, Madam - your credit card limit has been exceeded and we can not process the payment". I look embarassed and then he said "We'll process it again next month - just make sure you get the limit down by then". And he let me take the rug with me with no other collateral. So much for cheating the foreign traveller...
It rained while we were at the beach but we're equipped with jigsaw puzzles and scrabble. It's a very old scrabble set bought for me by my then boyfriend when I was convalescing from some long forgotten illness. The box still has scribbled inside old scores of long scrabble tournaments between myself and E. I played scrabble in London last August with the lovely A and was horrified to find myself beaten for the first time in years by her. Of course, the fact that she has given up drinking and I had got through a bottle of wine might have had something to do with it. Just wait for the rematch now I'm practically teetotal. It's not that I'm competitive or anything.
Yesterday was Australia Day which was ... nothing much. I can't get into this - Anzac Day seems a so much more potent national day. Still, it was an extra day off work which was good. We watched Freaky Friday on dvd which the kids liked a lot. They love Lindsay Lohan since the Parent Trap . Amidst all this PG viewing we also saw the dreadful Honey - please make it stop now - and Spy Kids 3d but in the case of the latter, since I have virtually no sight in my left eye, it was Spy Kids 2d in grey and white. I was disappointed since it had none of the verve and inventiveness of the first two. Still, it was worth it to see Ricardo Montalban and about 30 seconds of Antonio Banderas who I've loved since Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down.
I also finished reading Anything She Can Do, I can Do Better by Rachael Oakes-Ashe which is about the myth of female competiveness. I liked her "skipping theory" about the girls swinging the rope for the girl skipping - they have to hope she trips up to get their chance in the spotlight. But a promising start was just lost for me in the cosmo-style anecdotes and gratingly, jaunty style. So now I'm halfway thorugh Henning Mankell's Firewall. It's my first taste of this gloomy Swedish policeman but I'm enjoying his struggles with his car breaking down, wondering if he'll ever find someone to have sex with again and his ill health as well as the mystery that is facing him.
Very glad you have stopped being grumpy but horrified that you are broadcasting to all and sundry that you have beaten me at scrabble almost every time we've played over the past how many years. Not that I am competitive in any way or remotely concerned about my public image.
Enjoy being back at work.
Anne
Posted by: anne | Tuesday, 27 January 2004 at 11:42 PM