That Friday Feeling

I was going to try for the sympathy vote: 'Oh poor me, Nobby's away for the night leaving me all alone,' but of course I am never really alone with my two little people in tow.

Especially when they interpret 'Time for bed!' as 'Time for a disco in Pickle's room.'

Whose idea was it to buy the Crazy Frog album anyway? I used to love the tune 'Popcorn'; I remember my parents had the original Hot Butter version on vinyl when I was little myself. It's not quite the same with the 'brrrrrrrrrring, bing!'s thrown in by Monsieur Frog.

Though I have to say 'Who Let The Frogs Out?' did raise a titter at the end of a long week at school.

It's been a strange week with almost half the class out with a bug. You'd think that such drastically reduced numbers would be a doddle to teach. Er, WRONG. They reckon since hardly anyone is there then they can just play, otherwise it's 'not fair!' to expect them to work while their contemporaries are at home. 'But all the others are going to miss this; we should wait for them to get better and work next week instead.' (under their breaths saying 'Yeah, we may be 5 but we ain't stupid.') What they don't appreciate is that the others are at home in bed, coughing up a lung and they should count their ruddy blessings.

One boy got so bored he asked his Mummy to turn off the TV, put away the DS and ask his teacher to send him some work from school...

I had the pleasure of teaching my oldest offspring today as her teacher was off sick too. I was not sure how to get her classmates to take me seriously with her wrapped round my leg like a friendly ferret sniping 'Don't be rude to my Mother!' at anyone who shouted out.

Pickle has had an amazing week. He finally sorted out his desk and actually did all his homework. I could speculate as to how long his teacher sat on him to achieve this result but his just reward came this afternoon when he won a competition to invent a blend of tea. Who would have thought he'd take on a challenge like that? we'll make a Jamie Oliver of him yet.

Nobby has asked me not to diss him in my Blog after he hit a rather slippery slope earlier in the week. I just want to record for posterity that I forgive him. But I still think he was a twit.

Now for some staff notices.

- Would the person who has kidnapped Spring please return it as soon as possible because we have all had enough of the chuffing snow. Lovely to see the flowery sentiments and appreciation of how beautiful Budapest looks under a glistening layer of crisp whiteness on Facebook statuses, but these people clearly didn't have to get up at 6am, dig out the ski gloves and shovel the stuff off a steeply sloping driveway.

- Winner of Star of the Week goes to my landlord for a) fixing my kitchen tap without spraying the entire room like I would have done and b) finding me a cleaner who not only makes the house smell clean but actually cleans it as well. In the words of my favourite saying at the moment, Top Banana.

- Please be on the lookout for Tiggy's appetite. She seems to have lost it recently, judging by the barely tickled bowls of biscuits every evening. We've been to the vet; Poppet accompanied me, concerned as she was about the poor mutt, who strangely isn't losing any weight and will accept treats until the cows come home.

This is the same dog who developed bladder trouble when she sussed we were moving house then became perfectly normal once we moved in... Only I could have picked the psycho doggy.

Poppet became less gushing when the vet decided to run a test for microbes and approached Tiggy's rear end wielding a cotton bud and a petri dish... she's decided against vetinary medicine as a career path I think.

The result was negative though, so why-oh-why is the this dog avoiding biscuits yet will pick them up one by one and drop them on the floor to get at any gravy or meat I hide underneath as a crafty reward? And why did it all start on the day I fed some of her food to a mangy stray who'd been hanging round the gate tugging on my heart strings for 3 days?

Well, please think of me tomorrow trying to turn Saturdays into Sports Days for the Nobby household. I remember when I was their age there was only 'boring' Grandstand (sports) on the telly all afternoon but it never occured to me to go outside and run about. Well, my kids are getting the treatment now - wake-up call at 8h30, football at 10 and cricket at 12h30.

Yeah, ok, and McDonalds at 12.

Bribery and corruption before we even start? - I may be 41 but I ain't stupid.