Is that a dustbunny I see before me?

It's Friday!

Today I will spout the tale of a Desperate Housewife.

Tomorrow my best friend and her family are arriving.

She is the bestest woman in the whole world who just happens to be a character clone of Monica Geller but without the wierdness - well, I guess that depends on which way you interpret it - she doesn't yell at you when you make a coffee ring on her coffee table, but she strategically places (naturally and without thinking!) 450 coffee mats on the same coffee table so you can't miss anyway ;-)) She has two black dogs and lots of white carpets and furniture, but you'd be hard pressed to find a hair out of place. She makes and decorates cakes to die for and always looks feckin' immaculate (even at 7am in the morning!) She always has time for everyone and her kids are unbelievably well mannered, even her hubby is a real gentleman - hopefully she'll read this before she arrives and won't be able to fit her head through the door, so I'll get away with the grime and dust that is doing its utmost to reapply itself despite being laser-blasted with Mr Sheen!

It's taken over an hour to sort out the children's bedrooms. The rule seems to be: play with one toy, get bored, move onto next, leave out first toy, get bored of second, leave that out to amuse toy one and move onto next, ad infinitum. I decided to "help" Mr Beehive the elder sort out his desk and shelves...I now need to chemically wash myself down. In the interim, Mr Beehive the younger, whose room was fumigated earlier today, has decided he wants to "do art" so his room is still tidy, but he has moved onto a fresh room - the one I tidied yesterday *sigh*.
So I am hoovering stairs, cleaning the glitter off the carpets, discovering that the younger two have used their initiative in the attempt to dry their art work by lying it over the top of the radiator, however, it's so soggy, the radiator is not on, that, like my make up this morning, most of the glue and glitter has slid off and onto the cream carpet (yup those buggers again!).
My workout today has surpassed the Wii though and the elbow grease from scrubbing the 67 spots of black paint from the cream carpet (oah, there we go again!) has left me with nowt but chicken wings for arms!!

Add to this the fact it is raining (again!) and all the towels are due a wash so I'm sitting here watching the electricity meter spin round on acid with the delight of tumble dryer useage to ensure that all towels meet fluffy, clean criteria needed for guests by half past four, the dog has peed all over the kitchen floor so that needs washing, LMB wants me to play princesses with her (I'm feeling the need to be Cinderella today!), the hoover needs emptying - again - before I can attempt to clean the stairs (what fool puts cream carpets all the way through a rental house? *sigh*), Master Beehive the younger needs to write his remaining thank-you letters (that will be two hours for six words!), I have two assignments to write and a deadline, I need to think of something for dinner tonight (and I'm sure you know that that means something interesting that doesn't make one if not all children go ' urgh, what's that?'), the house buying/selling is giving me a bad feeling in my gut and we're sitting here on tenter hooks, the ironing pile is back up to the ceiling despite my doing it all last night and Little Miss Beehive is "cleaning the windows " (Damn you Montessori!) we're good thanks!

Luckily for me, LMB already sees my purpose in life as she told my cousin on Monday "Mummy is mainly the servant in our house" WTF?!



So, my "To Do" list looks like this:

1. Wash, dry and fold towels
2. Make up beds
3. Tidy and hoover repetitively
4. Cover cabbage plants from persistent arse of a butterfly
5. Clean the loos
6. Have a wee (have to schedule that in!)
7. Take dog to vet
8. Drink Gin!

Repeat to fade!!

Nuts in August

Summer’s nearly over and I am getting desperate for sunshine!! Friends are returning from sunny Spain and my sister is packing for France...bleugh. San Francisco looked great in the throes of snow in March - but now...pah!

Mr Beehive has just informed me he’s squirreling away airmiles and has enough to fly him and I first class to Oz (...and back again – sadly!!) but as we can’t possibly go there for less than three weeks and can’t expect to off load the sproglets onto unsuspecting grandparents for that long, we have decided we’re going to try to use them to get back “home” for a while next summer.

We hope to take three weeks and fly into JFK, hire a car to drive up to CT and catch up with as many friends as we can, then fly down to Florida for a couple of weeks. Ideally we’d like to hang out on one of the Keys and then “do” Disney world (that’s not my idea I’ll hasten to add!) for a couple of days before flying back to this godforsaken windswept craggy outcrop!

I have no idea where we'll stay or where is best to go or if Disneyworld will make me mummy of the year or just rapidly decrease my life expectancy.

Other than that... The master Beehives are learning guitar, LMB has now taken up modern jazz as well as balllllaaaaay which is making her more of a drama llama than she already was – but it’s sweet! I’m house hunting in Oxfordshire ready to drag everyone back down South as soon as I possibly can. Edinburgh is a wonderful city, but it’d be more wonderful if it was in….say, Spain?!

It’s just so windy! I had my hair cut off last week – yup – can you believe it! Five years in the growing, it's down my back and I get it hacked off because it’s continually being fished out of my nose or other people’s ears because the wind is so….well, windy really! I can’t even put up an umbrella when it rains because it’s blown inside out in seconds!

Still, culturally it’s an amazing place and we’ve not even touched the sides of Scotland yet (literally for me!) Mr Beehive zooms up to Perth and Moray and the Highlands frequently in search of whisky and a peaty bog (well so he has me believe) and other "man-drinks" – all under the guise that it’s work. I, however, have been here since we arrived in April, bar a wet night in the Lake District with LMB, some incredibly noisy badgers (that's not a metaphor either!) and a lot of mud.

Home education has proven very fruitful but exhausting and each one of my darlings is back off to school in two weeks time to which I will be a touch relieved. Three children who have been in each others pockets since March every day…I’m surprised I’ve not been committed and can string two words together still. From that point I'll hopefully find more time to knuckle down to the Montessori training as I need to organise observations etc and write more.

One of Master Beehive's school friends came out a couple of weeks back, for a fleeting glimpse into the land where men wear kilts and people eat sheep innards with porridge and whisky for breakfast. I think he enjoyed himself albeit it was too short. We’re hoping for other visitors in October and at Spring Bank ;-)

I’ll leave you with a reason why the Scots are known as “tough nuts” and be warned, it isn’t the weather!

Bet I know his reaction on seeing this photo...

"Ach! Bollocks!"

xx

Thesps, Frocks and Foraging

I'm not finding much time to write at the moment, however, I have finally managed to almost catch up on the sewing I've had hanging around for eons. The bobbin case arrived a couple of weeks back, so I've done the spotty dresses for LMB, a couple of fleeces, made a play quilt and also have finished an apron t-shirt dress made with a vintage tea-towel, that I've had sitting around for a while waiting for rick rack and obviously, the bobbin case. I've decided to donate this item to an auction being held in honour of a beautiful little girl, Florence Violet, who lived for just a few short hours late last month. Her mother is an amazing seamstress and a group of women who know her have organised this to raise money to buy some woodland in Florence's name. It'll be held on Hyena cart and will hopefully be up and running next week. Please visit it and if you like something, please bid.

So, here are the dresses:

We drank our first bottle of elderflower champagne last night. It was delicious. It was actually quite dry which made a pleasant surprise as I think we'd expected it to be rather muscat-ish. I had made six bottles but we lost half with an explosion all over the garage!! Still, three bottles for not much more cost than a bag of sugar isn't bad. Foraged food always tastes so much better!

I've made a couple of jars of plum chutney, a few jars of greengage jam from my mum's tree and two small jars of blackcurrant jam. Next on my list is some strawberry vodka!!

We're off to various festival events over the next couple of weeks before school starts. The book festival has some great events for the children and we're also doing a couple of theatre trips, starting with Master Beehive the elder and Master Beehive who saw some Shakespeare for Breakfast this morning.

I can't believe where the last six weeks of school holiday have gone, I'm struggling to get my head around the fact that LMB is back at school on August 19th! I think part of that is the programmed bit of my brain that says school doesn't start until September 2nd. I'm actually looking forward to having some mornings to myself, I'm continuing with the Montessori distance learning course and have to go into schools to do observations and learn how to use the equipment and I'm also hoping to do a couple of evening/weekend courses on owning chickens and herbs and herbal remedies. I have an article coming out in The Green Parent this month and hope to get more exposure, so will enjoy spending time writing in the quiet for a few hours each day....I hope!