Irony

Robbie got himself into a strop on the phone on Monday. He rang in part to ask if I was going to the supermarket and I said that I hoped not to go because I had a lot of work to do and I wanted to get it finished. He said that he needed to get some bagels, cream cheese and salmon for his lunches this week because I hadn't bought them at the week end. I suggested that he could buy them in Birmingham, because if he chose to stay out all weekend on a 'jolly' I didn't think it was my job to do his errands for him. Almost as soon as I had put the phone down it rang again and it was Robbie asking if I needed anything since he now had to go shopping. I said no thank you and I thought no more of it. Yesterday I was going to the supermarket and shortly before I went Robbie rang again and asked me to get the same things, I expressed surprise in view of his phone call on Monday. His response was "Oh, that was irony" - he will have to try a bit harder next time because that was lost on me!

A Frustrating Morning

I have had a very frustrating morning getting quotes for house contents insurance, they want to know more about me than I know myself! My renewal quote was £720 and I have got it down to £250ish, now I just need to chose one at a realistic price that will let me speak to someone based in England who speaks the sort of English that I can understand. Meanwhile I am waiting for the car insurance people to ring me back about coming to repair a stone chip in the windscreen, so far I have waited three hours for them to ring back “in ten minutes” - I thought people wanted business these days!

A Big Let Down

When I finish work on a Thursday evening I look forward to the weekend, I don't have work again until Monday so if Robbie gets home at a reasonable hour on Friday we can enjoy the evening together and we have Saturday and Sunday to look forward to. The problem is that one way or another Robbie always manages to snatch defeat fro the jaws of victory and our weekends often turn out to be miserable. But this weekend Robbie had promised not to be late home from work and I knew he had a dental appointment on Saturday so I hoped that this would turn out to be a nice couple of days. On Friday lunchtime when I went to Morrisons I was anticipating a good weekend - until I got a phone call from Robbie. He said he'd had an email offeringhim the chance to 'play trains' the following day, so he was ringing to ask me if he could go. For the first time ever I said no, not this time, because I wanted to spend some time with him.

He told me that he would be home on an earlier train and when I saw him I knew instantly that he had ignored me and agreed to go out to play. It took a bit of prodding but eventually he admitted it. It didn't create a very harmonious evening, he was gone before I woke on Saturday morning and I had no contact from him all day. I waited up until well past midnight because I thought he would be home and I didn't want to lock him out. In the end I gave up and went to bed, when I woke up he still wasn't home and there was no contact from him all day. I didn't know where they had gone on, but I thought he had mentioned going north, either the north had been annexed by a foreign power that was blocking phone signals or Robbie was avoiding me. I decided not to worry about it, I knew he would be home when people stopped feeding him! I was right, after two days of silence I had a series of texts as he summoned the courage to ask for a lift from the station. I'm still not overjoyed with him, more about the lack of communication than anything else. I have another week stretching ahead of me and I'm not going to bother looking forward to the weekends!

Looking Forward

I have enjoyed the sunshine this week because Robbie's 'Columbo mac' has not made an appearance - until today. My heart sank when I saw him coming down the stairs, I expected him to get his notebook out and inform me that he had one more question! Oh well, I cant do much about it except wish for sunshine.

I have to pat the balance on our holiday today, I can't believe that we only have a month until we go to Cornwall. I am really looking forward to it, a holiday will do us good.

Do normal people travel by train?

I have a question, do normal people travel by train? It may seem like an odd question but every day Robbie tells me about his fellow passengers or the train crew he meets. I am not sure if Robbie acts as a bit of a magnet to people who are a bit 'out of the ordinary' or if he only tells me about their strange interests. Yesterday he told be about someone he met who was a bus spotter (as well as a train spotter) that wouldn't be so bad if he he didn't give me a verbatim account of his entire conversation. On weekdays we only have a few hours together in the evening, does he really think I want to spend that time listening to a load of drivel about the various types of buses in use in different towns? He chattered on happily as my eyes glazed over (a dangerous thing when driving!) and I wondered why just occasionally he couldn't meet someone ordinary and talk about something a little more interesting than trains, buses, roadworks etc!

Not My Day!

Do you ever get the feeling that is not you day? I couldn't wake Robbie up this morning and when he finally did get up he was like a bear with a sore head, what a wonderful start to the day! Then when Robbie had gone off to work Sam appeared, he thundered down the stairs like an angry troll, he was in a strop because he couldn't find his PE top. Even when his PE kit was found, Sam's strop made Robbie look like an armature! Just before we went out to school Sam announced that he had lost his hay fever medication and I went to get some more from the medical cupboard. Like everything else in this house it is above my reach and I had to stretch up to reach it and I knocked a little blue plastic tube out of the cupboard. When I picked it up I took a closer look at it, a blue plastic tube with a press on lid containing a glass ampule of amber liquid wrapped in tissue paper. I was concerned, I couldn't think what it could be, it really bothered me. I shouldn't have investigated quite so closely, it was a remnant of Sam's Dennis the Menace phase - a stink bomb!!

A Brief Spell of Normality.

I love having the children off school for the holidays, but I must confess to a little sigh of relief when they went back to school yesterday. At last I have some structure back in my day, it is really hard to get jobs done with people there all the time and I found it hard to get my writing done when one or other wanted to be taken here or there. Emily is still at home, she doesn't have to return to university yet and Laura is only back at school for a few weeks before she has exam leave for her A Levels, so it will be a fairly tense time and any sense of routine in my day will be short lived.

I should know better really.....

You know sometimes you just sense when you are wrong, but still you carry on trying to believe you are right? Well 'stupidly' I thought that yesterday and was proved very very wrong, so her I am HUMBLY apologising to my darling wife......SORRY CHRISTINE x x

Triffid Trouble

Robbie spent Sunday morning doing battle with a 'triffid' in the garden that has to be dug out before he can erect the final fence panel – it won! It is still standing defiantly, Robbie had to retire from battle due to exhaustion but he thinks he has a least inflicted some damage to the roots and battle will recommence next week. Maybe his skirmish in the garden put him in an awkward mood because he was in argumentative mood in the afternoon. First he absolutely insisted that I was wrong about the type of shampoo that I use for the dog, then later he insisted that I was lying about the cost of a BT call out when there is no line fault. What stupid things to argue about! He did apologise later when he found that he was wrong on both counts, it was fun watching him eat humble pie!

Mistaken Identity

I am having little success in persuading Robbie not to wear his 'flasher mac'. The other day he became very indignant and told me that I was being ridiculous, apparently it is quite obvious that it is not a 'flasher mac' because it doesn't have epaulets. When I managed to control my laughter I pointed out that if you are unfortunate enough to encounter a flasher I very much doubt that that you would be looking at the epaulets! Someone commented that it made him look like Inspector Gadget, and when I looked at a clip from the cartoon I realised that he even stands like Robbie with his hand on his hip! I just hope that Robbie doesn't decide to wear a hat.

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