For years, I have been advised to keep a diary, but life has just been too busy. If I did find the time to draw some letters upon the page, I would either be so tired that my writings were illegible or the dates were so erratic that when reading back, my diary read as a bad dream instead of ‘my life’. Now that I am taking the time to improve my writing, I decided that I could also set aside some time to document the mayhem that takes place. Being as truthful and hones as possible, I aim to share everything with you. Maybe people could learn from my mistakes, and rejoice with me in the moments I win! Chaos reigns.
Sunday evening: (7/7/19)…
…was spent trying to keep my eyes open in children’s A&E (third visit this month) with ‘accident prone’ Sophie. Our nine year old had found what looked to be, blood blisters under arm, from wrist to armpit. With no recollection of knocking herself. We had spent most of the day at the park and she had already acquired three open blisters across her toes and a substantial grass stain over her new shorts, from all her rolling around and acrobatics. I had a suspicion these blood blisters might have been related to her ‘daredevil ways’, but when the blisters/rash did not disappear under the glass (glass test), a hospital trip was required (to rule out meningitis).
SPOILER ALERT, it was nothing serious, just blistering from her relentless climbing. However, due to an extremely high intake of patients that evening and not discovering said blisters until bed time – we ended up sat in the hospital waiting room from 8pm until 1am. What a tired Mummy and child we had on our hands. To be fair, I cannot fault the nhs staff. Being able to hear the advice of a doctor, without having to fear the bailiffs, is a godsend. If I had to pay for every visit, I would be worried about more than just some bruised skin.
Our thirteen year old son couldn’t sleep until we were home and he knew everything was alright, so as you can imagine, the whole household were walking zombies Monday morning – apart from my husband, who slept through it all.
Wednesday evening: (17/7/19)…
…was my last (of six) Short Story course with Comma Press (hosted at Uclan Uni). The goal was to have written a story I was happy to publish in an anthology, with the other ‘would-be writers’, this November. This will be my first publication and the pressure to produce something (I view as) worthy was immense. For four months I have battled with the short pieces I was producing and nothing seemed to hit the high bar I had set myself. Thankfully, I have an extremely helpful tutor and supportive students who all gave honest feedback and advice to progress my writing.
One thing I have learnt from this course, is that, despite wanting the best for my classmates (I have always believed we should build each other up and I want to help everyone reach our potentials), I had extreme jealousy for their works. All these amazing stories they produced, I wished I had written myself. This impeded my own production as I took a huge confidence hit. My words seemed dull and plot lines lacking something special. It was only when I accepted my own style of writing, did I start producing pieces I liked. I am now editing my short story about a hidden village in Wales, where the plague still exists, and am happy with my own ideas again. Hurrah.
Friday evening: (12/7/19)…
…Missing Kylie! One of my close friends, Maggie, had bought tickets for us to see Kylie live at Lytham Festival. Unfortunately, with short notice, my husband had to work, meaning I had no one to watch the children and had no option but to miss the concert. Maggie went with her partner instead.
Watching the news feeds the next morning, I read all the complaints of crowding and being unable to see the performance. Although Maggie loved Kylie’s set, she too experienced crowding issues when returning from the toilets and had to grab hold of a strangers jacket (a tall, strong looking man she thought she could shadow), to get back to her partner safely. I suffer from claustrophobia and a chest to chest crowd would have been my worst nightmare. Cookies and milk, cuddled up on the couch with the kids, watching ‘you’ve been framed’ was a happy substitute.
Saturday: (13/7/19)…
…not my proudest moment but if I’m giving an honest account then here goes; Sophie’s school friend turned nine and a garden fete was had. The day, events and food were put together by the birthday girl’s Mum, Phillipa (Phil to us). She (as usual) put on an amazing event. Phil transformed her garden into a little girl’s dream. Bunting streaming overhead, face painting with glitter, hena, craft activities, circus skills, hair braiding and much much more. She worked so hard to pull of a day her daughter would talk about all year (and she succeeded). With all the excitable children running around her garden, she also had all us Mums helping out (chatting too). The Mums are all fantastic friends, we drink together, help each other out with the kids, and generally grow as parents together. We are very close and don’t judge each other (thank god!).
The girls had had a fantastic day, all the activities had been played, there wasn’t a face not covered in glitter and all arms had smudged hena upon them (including mine). The day was winding down when Maggie and I had a ‘bad Mum’ thought. Since neither of us were driving home, we thought buying a bottle of Gin to share was a good idea (rookie mistake). Something you all need to know is; I am a lightweight when it comes to alcohol, in fact, I am normally extremely squiffy after only two glasses. This added to the fact that Maggie does not sit still in events long enough to drink her drink meant that I was consuming said Gin a lot faster than her. I was glad once the party guests had left and Phil was able to join in the with the drinking but, alas, by then it was too late.
It’s moments like those that I am thankful my children have been raised to be highly independent, and are at an age when ‘a drunk Mum’ does not embarrass them (much). There was a moment during the early evening that I remember walking down the stairs to see Maggie and Phil stood talking. I wanted to tell them I loved them. So, in true Kate fashion, I came up with some crap. “I hear that you can measure a person’s happiness when you add how happy they are with friends with how happy they are alone and half it” I shouted as I hugged them both, ending with “I love you guys”. How embarrassing. It’s a good job that I can laugh about it all now (if I didn’t laugh, I would cry).
I wont mention the sick bucket that was required that evening, or the fact that I slept, fully clothed, on top of my bed (something I haven’t done since I was a teenager). I will say that while I was ‘delicate’ my kids took the opportunity to have drinks in bed (a house rule of ‘no drinks upstairs’ was ignored) and that when my husband got home from work, Sophie ran downstairs to tell him “be quiet, Mum’s drunk” and then followed him around the house to make sure he was. Such a character.
The next morning I sent an apology text to both Phil and Maggie. I received a reply of ‘drunk Kate is fun’ and ‘had an amazing time, you are so funny’, I’ll take that. These two fabulous ladies have seen me in much worse states, talking worse crap and have mirrored my ‘messiness’ themselves, next time I will ensure not to get in such a mess at a nine year old’s birthday though.
Sunday: (14/7/19)…
…was the Cricket World Cup Final, with England vs New Zealand, and my husband had the TV booked for the whole match. I had been telling the children all week that we would be avoiding the game by attending Ormskirk’s Gingerbread Festival. However, I did not foresee my sensitive state the evening before and the fact that I could not (safely) drive the next day. We are very lucky that the man in our lives (Lee) has the ability to put us first. He kindly drove us to the festival for an hour, pausing the cricket, so we didn’t miss out.
Walking around Ormskirk with a dodgy stomach and fuzzy head was interesting but we enjoyed regardless. We even took with us our lab, Archie to get some fresh air. The kids bought sweets (no surprise there), Archie got a pigs ear, and I was over the moon to find a ‘gluten free sausage roll’. I haven’t had a sausage roll in years and since being gluten free (about two years now) I had felt very left out. That evening, I sat down with some mash-potatoes, mint mushy peas and my (long awaited) sausage roll. It was only when I was two thirds into the meal when i remembered that I never liked sausage rolls. What a doughnut! As Lee says “what a waste of money.” Ooops.
REDSMITHS and ROBINS 