Mayhem Central
It's 10:30pm and this is the first time I have had a chance to really sit down today and do anything of consequence. Work was disrupted mid-day by a visit to the school our youngest will (hopefully) attend next September – more on that in a moment – and then this evening I ferried our middle girl to her school disco and back.
The school visit was wonderful. Our youngest has various developmental delays that mean a normal state school really wouldn't work for her – she would be left behind, and swamped by the workload. We've been trudging through the paperwork for the last couple of years to get her into a more specialist school a few miles up the road – and barring any last minute hiccups, her place is almost assured now. Today was her first visit to actually see the school, and have a look around. I think the part that swayed it for her was seeing the kids in cookery staging their own version of the Bake-Off with Halloween cup-cakes. She was grinning throughout the entire visit. I guess today was all about building confidence – and that was pretty much assured by the incredible head-teacher, who talked non-stop with our daughter throughout the visit.
Anywayto a half-empty house, where they had obviously found some leftovers in the freezer, cooked them, eaten them, and left wreckage throughout the house in their wake. I unpacked the bag full of ready-meals, and wondered what I might do with them all – checking each label to find out if they were “suitable for home freezing”.
While in the middle of tidying up and washing up the phone rang.
“I'm here at Brownies, setting up for the movie night, and the laptop won't play the DVD”.
Ah crap. We upgraded it to Windows 10. Microsoft finally told the owners of the DVD encryption codecs to stick it up their arse (part of the cost of computers is the cost of that codec) – so Windows 10 no longer plays DVDs. She would need VLC installed.
“Bring it home on your way to fetch Miss 10 from dance, and I'll install VLC – it will only take a minute, tops”.
Har har. You know that thing about “best laid plans” ? She came racing home, handed me the laptop, and it wouldn't wake from sleep, so we had to do a hard-reboot. It then launched into two Windows update reboots, and a pregnant pause where it said “Updates 100% Complete”, without appearing to do anything else. She lost her temper with it, grabbed her old laptop that hadn't been powered up for two months, and jumped back in the car. After she left I had a tinker, and got Windows to only install updates when you agree to it (i.e. it will ask, rather than just doing it – because you can be damn sure it will want to do it when you need to use the laptop in a hurry. Every. Damn. Time.
A little while later I discovered I had to drop Miss 11 at the school disco. I shouted up the stairs “ARE YOU READY?”. She replied “YES – I'VE GOT MY DRESS ON”, and appeared at the top of the stairs to do a twirl, before returning to her game of Mario Party with Miss 15 (they have an old Gamecube in their bedroom on a portable television).
Dropping her at the disco was uneventful. Picking her up wasn't. I arrived a few minutes early, and met the female Math teacher, who appeared to have been monitoring the door all night. She smiled as I approached.
“Go and have a look through the doors into the hall”
I smiled.
“No, really – go and have a look at what we have had to put up with for the last two hours”
I scooted past, and looked in at a re-creation of Ibiza, with a DJ towering over a sea of children in the dark, with thumping music causing the entire building to move. The kids were a sweaty sea of shining eyes, glowsticks, and impenetrable noise.
While watching, Miss 11 wandered from the hall, frowning at her phone in great concentration – she was texting me to come and pick her up. She hadn't noticed me. I walked up to her, and whispered hello in her ear.
“I'm just texting you to come and get me.”
I burst out laughing.
A few minutes later – after winning all the kids over with Lunchmoney Lewis “Bills”, and then losing them all with some ridiculously rubbish hip-hop track that the DJ tried to rap over, we went home. While watching the antics in the room I hadn't noticed the sea of Mums appear behind me. On departure we had to walk past an awful lot of smiling faces that knew us. One particular mum grinned at me holding hands with Miss 11, and whispered “Well done” as we passed by.
Miss 11 went straight to bed when she got in – no complaints, and no histrionics. Wonders will never cease.
p.s. I have tomorrow off work. I'm racing to get as many chores done tonight as possible, so I don't have them to do tomorrow. I know it won't work out like that, because it never does (there will always be more things to do), but at least I'm trying.
Oh – and I'm single handed all weekend too – other half is travelling down to the coast with her Mum who is taking part in a running race. Wish me luck (and get in touch – I expect I'll be craving grown-up contact by Sunday morning).