Eye popping day!

So you know when you pop to the eye clinic on a Monday morning for a check up because there’s a floater in your left eye that makes it look like you’re viewing the world through a pair of glasses with a mosquito squished on the lens. Oh and over the weekend there’s been a flood of little floaters join in so it’s now like you’re a cliche bank robber with a stocking over your face. And in your head all those years of watching Star Trek has cooked up an eyeball-jelly-eating alien worm which is laying its eggs in your eye and preparing to burst out through your face.  The next thing a nurse is slapping a hospital wristband on you, drawing an arrow in biro over your left eye and asking if you might be pregnant for the consent form because the consultant has found your retina is torn in two places and you need immediate surgery, correction *laser* surgery…?

Well that was how my week started 

How did I tear my retina not once but twice?! Was it a badly stifled sneeze? A particularly harrowing episode of Stranger Things? Am I tearing my retina right now? Who on earth knows. Anyway, bloody brilliant service from the Prince Charles Eye Unit on Windsor, in, diagnosed, lasered and out within two hours. Just the rest of the day to try and calm down, the squashed mosquito and alien eggs are still there while my eye reabsorbs them (yuck!) but otherwise all is good. 

How was your day?!!

 

Escaping

Last night I decided to quit Facebook and Instagram. Maybe just for a while, maybe for good. I have loved social media for keeping up with my people, seeing what they’re up to, sending birthday greetings and occasionally asking the meta verse for help with a problem. But lately all I’m seeing is ‘suggested content’ or ‘sponsored post’ junk which has become as exciting as hearing the letter box flap and rushing to the front door only to find a leaflet trying to sell me double glazing. I’m disappointed and I’ve found myself scrolling for longer and longer just searching for a friendly face. I need to escape.

So this morning I decided to start blogging again instead and now you can all come to me. Ha! Having reread my last two posts I realise it’s been many years since my last blog-confession and there is much to catch up on if this is to be a decent record of the life of Nobby and me. But let’s just start with now and work in some back stories later as we go along. 

Quick aside though, given my last posting, ironically Poppet now works at Fright Night at Thorpe Park!! I couldn’t make this up! She graduated from Chichester uni last year with a first in Musical Theatre Performance and took a role in the mazes as her first job. I can confirm that they do only get paid minimum wage but there’s no pick’n’mix bonus. She’s doing long days and is usually out before us. This morning I am up early to vacate my room so she can use our en suite shower without having to creep past sleeping parents, which is creepy. (We’re in discussions with a plumber to have one installed in the family bathroom so I can lie in - who’d have thought my extended slumber would end up costing £1500?! Kids expense just never ends and ALWAYS grows larger like a tick sucking away on your leg)

Anyway, back to me. Yesterday saw Nobby and me in London to do a walking ‘escape room’ on a Jack the Ripper theme plus a cheeky liquid lunch (with sharing platter) at Brewdog, all courtesy of Travelzoo, Nobby’s favourite bargains site. We ended up staying out to watch Al Murray and friends perform a crazy play called The Crown Jewels while Pickle looked after the dog - oh yes there’s a new dog since I last wrote, so much to tell you! By the way Pickle is still lost in cyberspace but does also venture out to work on the Tote at the races every now and then. 

Anyway, the Escape Tours adventure creators are based in the Netherlands and we suspect might not have been to London to monitor their game lately since one of the clues relied upon the inscription on a fountain which is no longer there and another led us down an alleyway in Chinatown past overflowing bins, barrels of used cooking oil and exhausted chefs having their cigarette break. At the end of the two hours we were considerably underwhelmed to have solved the mystery and ‘escaped’, it took a coffee break in Piccadilly and a pint in Porterhouse in Covent Garden to recover. The stats then told us we are 16th of 42 on the ‘leader board’ for the tour. Does that mean only 42 groups have ever done the game?! And if so why don’t they know about the missing fountain and the alleyway of filth?! 

Thankfully the play was an hilarious distraction and the Elizabeth Line transported us back home with uncharacteristic efficiency so all in all a good day out and a nice escape from routine (see what I did there?!)  Next time though I think we’ll design our own trail. Lucky for Escape Tours I’m no longer on Facebook to diss them to the masses. 

How Long?

I didn't realise how long I have neglected the Blog. Turns out to be several years. But then yesterday I realised that I never told my kids' bank our new address when we moved five years ago which would explain why I haven't had a statement in while. Clearly I have been busy.

Busy like this week accompanying 50 five year olds to Windsor Castle on a day trip. That was a lot of fun, although why did I have to get the one who announce 'I need a wee!' halfway round the tour of the state apartments when we were about a mile from the nearest royal chamber pot. Luckily the staff are used to this kind of emergency and cleared us a path to the nearest loo so we didn't have to find him a convenient Ming vase or something.

There's a lot of taxiing around still, including my errant husband who set off on a bike ride only to phone 25 minutes later to say 'I'm a fatty', Well, that's what I thought he said and I wondered why he felt the need for such sudden confessions. But of course he actually 'had a flatty' after cycling over a stray thumb tack, goodness knows how that ended up on a path by Dorney Lake.

Meanwhile the small people (one of which is bigger than me actually) keep coming up with jobs for me, but one I am very proud to carry out is filming my lovely daughter at her singing performances. So please have a look at the preceding entry to be wowed by her talents.

Promise to be back soon ... (heard that one before)

Poppet sings 'I Would Give My Life For You' from Miss Saigon

Here we are again!!

I am finding my Facebook musings are getting a little long for the text box provided. Well what did I expect given my incessant verbal diarrhea and endless opinions about life, the universe and everything? So I decided to fire up the old Blog again and update the world on what is going on in the Nobby household. Just in case the world wants to know.

The latest interesting development is the sudden fearlessness of my now thirteen year old Poppet who has been to Thorpe Park Fright Night not once but twice in the last week. I have never braved it even once, but then I am a bit of a wuss; I can't even make it from the bed to the bathroom during the night, a distance of about 3 metres, without a full spotlight to guide the way and protect me from the nasties I am convinced lurk the shadows after dark.

I wonder if I had that teenage bravado back in the day, the one which had her strutting through the scary Horror Mazes, packed full of aspiring actors in full zombie make-up and a standing order not to break character under any circumstances or forfeit their minimum wage payment and bonus bucket of pick 'n' mix. Apparently while grown adults cowered along the walls then went flying out of these freaky labyrinths screaming hard enough to bring up a lung, having been separated from their friends and frightened out of their wits in settings such as the Blair Witch Project and Saw, my girl was trying to high-five the zombies and cop a go with the homicidal maniac's chainsaws.

These actors probably thought they were most at risk of being punched by some adrenalin-filled over-protective young blokes during their scaring stints, little did they bank on the cocky teen walking past their best beastly acting and flipping 'yeah, nice rags mate, you should get yourself to New Look.'

Meanwhile the boy has become something of a computer nerd and lost himself to cyberspace. We don't see much of him at the moment unless we are taking plates of food to his curtained off 'office' under his high-sleeper bed or retrieving his empties though we do hear his presence with the intermittent 'watch out! there's a creeper behind you!' or similar while he's battling in Minecraft with his mates, or 'Shut The Door!' if we've been remiss exiting his room after a food delivery.

In fact, he spends so long each day on the computer, especially at weekends when he rarely gets out of his PJs, that when we managed to drag him away for a trip into London yesterday we couldn't find any casual day clothes that actually fit him. We don't need to measure his screen time in hours any more, we can actually do it in centimetres of growth!  Whilst I am very impressed with the amazing Minecraft worlds he is building with his international team of 'devs' who he chats to constantly on Skype, I am now slightly worried that one day I will call him down to dinner and his chair will have to come with him because he can't physically prise his bottom out of it.

Anyway, half term is upon us and this time I am dumping the pair of them with my Mum and Dad while Nobby and me take off for a dirty long weekend in Seville to celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary. So it may go quiet for a few days here but I do plan to be back.

Balls in the air

There are many balls in the air. Thinking of venting here again....

What Not To Wear

Poppet and I were having a lovely shopping trip after school.  I thought she deserved a little treat in the middle of her Year 6 SAT test week so we did the usual places - Claire's, Clintons, charity shops - and she hinted, wheedled and downright bribed her way to quite a few treats.  I am such a sucker.

Though I'm feeling a bit down myself this week as Pickle is away from home on a school residential trip for the first time ever.  He had a teensy wobble about it the morning I schlepped his case into school for him, until he saw all his mates and the double decker coach and started planning all their shinnanigans.  I barely got a goodbye in the end, sniff.  Still, retail therapy is a powerful tool...

So, there we were, girlie shopping,  however Poppet did deign to accompany me into the Post Office, which was surprisingly kind of her.  Until she asked very loudly in the middle of a very long queue:

'Why are you wearing the same thing as yesterday?'

I gave her a loaded look, indicating she should kindly zip it, lock it, put it in her pocket.  But she went on to comment, at a similar volume and now accompanied by a huge grin,

'You'll really start to smell if you wear it again tomorrow.'

Yup.  Cheers shweetie.  Just my luck to go in at 4pm when there are only two windows open and I have to keep up the eye-contact-avoidance for a full ten minutes before being served.

Anyway, I suppose I should take the hint and rotate outfits a bit.  After all, I secured a new job this week (Hurrah!) and the 3 to 6 year olds I will be working with will no doubt be just as free with their opinions if 'Miss' keeps turning up in class wearing the same thing.

I went to the school for some practice last week, just a small reception class of 26... Oh boy, what a lively lot!  And very low chairs, I am going to have buns of steel after a term in that classroom.

Speaking of buns, I must add my new skills to my CV before I forget.  My lovely doggy had to have an operation on her knee this month.  She didn't get the full bionic replacement but there were pins and grafts and other unmentionables involved.  Plus some very extensive shaving.  I reckon the guy with the clippers was a frustrated sheep shearer in disguise because her entire leg was nude.  Naturally she had to wear the cone-collar for a fortnight to prevent her from pulling out the stitches but sadly it also meant she couldn't scratch the re-growth round her butt area.

But I could.

Mummy to the rescue.  Now there's something for the Post Office queue.