Mr Impossible

During last week Robbie mentioned that he would like to travel on the last HST to Newquay on Saturday and he asked if Sam would like to go with him. Sam had a better offer for Saturday and he wasn't interested in going on a train, but I said that I would think about going with him. On Friday between all my other jobs I went out and bought soft drinks, bread rolls, sandwich fillings and various other packed lunch treats for the train. Oddly when Robbie got home he didn't seem to want me to go with him, he kept reminding me that I don't like HST's and that I would need to take a footstool. In the end I said that if he didn't want me to go I wouldn't go, he then said that he did want me to go, I was totally confused and said I didn't know.

I went to bed at half past midnight and as soon as I got into bed Robbie decided that he had to ransack the bedroom looking for his yellow T-shirt, because (allegedly) he always wears yellow when travelling on an HST – whatever! I got cross and told him to go away, he'd had all evening to sort out his clothes and I was not being unreasonable by wanting to sleep at well past midnight. I don't recall seeing him again, I must have fallen asleep. I went to the bathroom at about 5am and when I got back into bed I prodded him and said that he would soon need to get up. I went back to sleep and when I awoke it was nearly 7am and the room was deserted – he had gone without me!! I was furious, he could have at last woken me and asked if I wanted to go, I was really hurt. He always wakes me up even when he doesn't intend to, so he must have sneaked out really quietly to avoid taking me with him. He didn't wear a yellow top (he thinks I have stolen it), he wore black with luminous green writing instead!

I had plenty to keep me busy all day but I was so angry with Robbie. As always when he is in trouble he stopped answering his phone, so I didn't know what time to expect him back, it must have been after 11pm because I had already gone to bed. He did wake me up when he came to bed but that was much later, I think it was getting towards 4am!
He apologised this morning, but it didn't last long, he had a full scale tantrum because I bought three new knives (to replace some missing ones) without consulting him, and they do not quite match our set. He yelled at me all because of three knives that cost less than £1!

We also had a heated argument about London Midland and their problems. I can't imagine why anyone wants to travel on lurid green trains anyway, but I am fairly sure that the company could have resolved this months ago because the contracts need to be changed to accommodate the needs of the business. It really infuriates me that neither side in the dispute show any regard for the public. The union spokesman needs an urgent course in basic English (not to mention a Gok Wan style makeover!) and the spokesman for the company was totally unintelligible - I found myself wondering if he even knew what a train was! I can understand why they seem unable to negotiate about Sunday working, with both sides in the same room it must be like Bill and Ben meets the Clangers!

So having hardly seen Robbie all weekend he is sitting in the corner playing his music so loudly that I want to go and punch him on the nose. I will resist the temptation. I will go to bed to listen to my radio instead – at least I can get some sensible conversation from Radio 4!

Obsessive Pets

I was half listening to the review of the newspapers on Radio 4 this morning when a story about a cat caught my attention. Apparently a cat in England has become the first feline in UK to be diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder for excessive grooming. It may be the first formal diagnosis but I think obsessive behaviour is fairly common in pets.

Our dog Megan has an obsession about rounding things up, when we had a rabbit she would spend hours running round in circles to make sure that the rabbit didn't escape. We had lawn circles where she wore away the grass. Maybe crop circles have nothing to do with aliens, they are probably caused by demented border collies trying to round up rabbits!

Oreo the cat has an obsession with moths, he has declared the bathroom a no fly zone and he patrols the area to ensure that any moth foolish enough to fly in through the bathroom window is caught and eating in record time. That brings me to his other obsession - food! He will eat absolutely anything, he is like the Robbie of the cat world, he even stole and ate some wine gums the other day!

Dave the cat is a feisty character, but he also has his obsessions. He is very attached to me and whenever I sit down he is there within seconds ready to sit on my lap. He gets on well with Robbie too because Robbie feeds him, but if Robbie sits next to me or attempts to hug me, Dave appears and pushes himself between us to make it quite clear that that he is my best friend and Robbie should go away!

An Imaginary Friend?

Is it so unreasonable for me to want an uninterrupted nights sleep? One way or other Robbie always manages to wake me up. On Tuesday night he came to bed after me, I was aware of his arrival but not fully awake. He did his usual trick of falling asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow, it took me longer, but I had started to doze again when suddenly he jumped and gave a little shout. I wondered what was the matter, my heart was pounding because I thought he had been taken ill, but I think he must have been dreaming. He insisted that someone had been sprinkling talcum powder over him! He was adamant about it, he didn't actually accuse me of doing it, but that is what he meant - unless it was his imaginary friend sprinkling imaginary talc! I pointed out the obvious, there was no talc on him, but he still wasn't convinced so I reminded him that I have better things to do at 2am than sprinkle him with talc! I told him that if he didn't stop waking me up, he would need to watch out for significantly heavier objects, because the temptation to throw something at him was becoming irresistible!

Happy Birthday Sebastian

I just wanted to say Happy 18th Birthday to Seb, I hope you have a good day and I really hope you like the present. Suddenly I feel very old, three of our children are over 18 now!

Sam was really funny when he was writing Seb's card, I wanted him to put more than his usual 'Sam' on the card so I told him to put 'love from....' He gave me a defiant look and said "Mum, he is having a birthday, not coming out!"

Target Practice

I can't cope with the shower not working, yesterday evening with Robbie was not a joyful experience, it was like Bazil Fawlty crossed with The Tasmanian Devil! It was so bad that I even offered to take him to my mum's to have a shower. He refused because he has to have his shower at 5am, he allows three and a half minutes to shower and one and a half minutes to dry himself so he can't fit the journey to my mum's house into the timetable! He'd better get it sorted soon because I really will harm him if he is not very careful!

Anyway after his bad behaviour yesterday, he had to make a bit of an effort to get back into my good books, but only Robbie would use a line like this as a sign of affection. His exact words to me this evening were "did you know, today was the start of the partridge shooting season?" If I had a gun I can assure you it would not be trained on any partridges, I have a much larger target in mind!!

Timetable Chaos

Robbie was absolutely evil this morning, the shower had put him in a bad mood - it has died! Ge was like a gorilla in a rage, charging around the house thumping and bumping and growling with frustration, not to mention the string of expletives that we were treated to. I can understand him being frustrated but it is not the end of the world, we have plenty of hot water and he can still have a bath until the shower is back in action. When I tried to point out that it wasn't an insurmountable problem he almost bit my head off, but it became obvious what the problem was - it has messed up his timings and thrown his whole morning timetable into chaos! The shower is not quite 5 years old, surely it should last longer than that!

People Who Don't Know Where They Are Going......

I have mentioned before that for many years I had a poster on my office wall that said 'People who don't know where they are going usually end up somewhere else'. It seems that Robbie is living proof that the poster is correct, he went to a meeting earlier this week, but he hadn't checked the venue and he found that he was in the wrong place! Fortunately he wasn't too far away and he was able to get to his meeting, but he has suffered a bit of teasing about it. I hope these little slips don't happen more often now that he is officially 'old'. No, he hasn't had a birthday, but his son Seb, will be 18 next week and that makes Robbie feel very old!

Longing for Normality

I was so angry with Robbie last night that I shouted at him. He didn't have much to say during the evening because he was glued to this laptop. I was busy too and by the time I went to bet at about a quarter past midnight 'Noddy' was dozing with his head resting on the computer keyboard. I woke him up, but I knew that he would be dozing again within moments, so I left him to it and went to bed. I was woken by a thumping and bumping in the bedroom and Robbie spoke to me in a sergeant major sort of voice. What he said was a bit 'out of focus' because I was sleepy, so I ignored him and tried to cling on to sleep. The next thing I knew something sailed past my face and thumped onto the pillow, I don't know what it was but it was intended to wake me up and it worked. Robbie informed me that he had been talking to me and with menace in my voice I asked what was important enough to wake me up. I am used to Robbie, but I couldn't believe the answer - he wanted to tell me that CrossCountry had produced a blow up guitar to celebrate the Reading Music Festival. He had seriously woken me up to talk about a blow up guitar! I did a spot of 'fortune telling' and all was silent until Robbie's voice broke through the darkness to inform me that it was a limited edition blow up guitar. How do I make him understand that I have absolutely no interest in blow up guitars, not even limited editions!!

I thought he would try to be a little more more 'normal' this morning, but he only had one topic of conversation - the pros and cons of the new hybrid FGW season ticket. it almost made blow up guitars seem interesting.

Getting Him Up!

Robbie is impossible - but that may not come as a surprise to many blog readers! The cause of my annoyance this morning is his inability to wake up when the alarm clock goes off. Before we went on holiday a situation had evolved where Robbie has just one alarm clock on his side of the bed and I had three! The were all set by Robbie to the time that he wanted to get up, in fact he had it so that they went off at five minute intervals and he didn't need to get up until the last alarm sounded. It was a lot of nonsence, it woke me but (in fact it drove me mad!) but Sleeping Beauty slumbered on and when I tried to wake him he would call me unpleasnt names.

At the start of this week I insisted that Robbie should have the alarm clocks on his side and take responsibility for getting himself up. He was very reluctant but I insisted, after all he is the one that needs to be up at that time, not me. It is a disaster, on Monday I finally woke him up by throwing the alarm clock at him, on Tuesday he went bask to sleep and called me a 'stupid woman' for making him late and this morning I woke him up five times to ask hin to turn the alarm clock off. He found a number of different ways to tell me to go away and in the end he passed me his mobile phone and asked me to turn it off when the racket was being created by one of the alarm clocks not the phone.

We have a sofa bed in the lounge, it looks as if it will be getting a lot of use!

Pain and Suffering!

When I got home yesterday evening Robbie was nursing and injured finger. He had achieved a variation on a theme, and instead of hopping around with blood pouring out of his foot after stepping on something, he had sliced the top off of his finger instead! Apparently he had put his hand in his toiletry bag to find his razor and came into close contact with the blade. He pointed out countless times that it was his middle finger and he couldn't function without it. He spent the evening making a series of grimaces worthy of a Gurning Contest, and he cradled his hand with the middle finger stiff as if constantly ready to make an ungentlemanly gesture. As they say every cloud has a silver lining and at least the injured finger took his mind of his cold!

I am so annoyed with one of Robbie's colleagues, he has introduced Robbie to a new website that enables you to track ships, to see where they are, where they are registered and a plethora of other facts about them. Needless to say Robbie felt obliged to share his new discovery with me and for several hours he read out countless facts about every ship he came across. I think the creators of the site should market it widely as a soporific!!