Road Trip

The kids and I went with mum and dad to visit relatives in Corby. I had to travel in the back, squeezed in between two cars seats and dealing with endless demands for food, drink, books, toys, pencils.......I don't travel well in the back of a car at the best of times, but even less so when I'm being asked to read ' That's not my Fairy' or look at pictures of aliens.

We stopped at Birchanger services and my stomach heaved a sigh of relief. The rest of the journey was slightly better after acquiring some sickness travel bands and some murray mints.

We arrived at around midday and headed into town....Corby has the best £1 shop in the world, practically everything you could ever want can be purchased for £1 in there, they also have a brand spanking new Primark...some spending had to be done. I managed to buy three items for myself all for £25.00.

For lunch we went to skanky Corby McDonalds....I was so starving that I would have eaten anywhere. This place had not been refurbished for 20 odd years and was brown and dingy. The kids happy meal contained a mini trivial pursuit....good luck with those questions kids!

After town we went to the cemetery to see nan's headstone that had not long been put up and visited my other nan and great nan's graves. It was freezing so we didn't stay long.

We then visited my grandad and then on to Julie's. James had his hair cut, so that saved £6.50....don't feel so guilty about the Primark purchases now.

We ordered Chinese...the kids and I shared egg fried rice; chicken chow mien, and vegetable spring rolls.

We set off about 8.30 for two-and-a-half-hours of car sickness. luckily the kids fell asleep almost straight away....Kaitlyn is the only child however that can have a strop in her sleep, on the journey she started crying, moaning and kicking her legs, but she was still asleep....she obviously hadn't fitted in enough strops in the day, so had to make up for it at night.

We arrived home at about 11 pm - the kids went straight to bed....James woke up and asked for a story....of course James, just lie there a minute and I'll be back.....2 minutes later he was sound asleep. Of course in the morning he reminded me that I hadn't read him a story the night before.

Girls night in!

Emma invited Kathy, Debbie I round for the evening. She has recently turned her home into a pub by acquiring a pool table, darts boards, and a spirit dispensing optic.

Luckily my dad agreed to baby sit for a few hours so I could go round. I think it's probably the first time we've all been together without the kids.

We played pool...I lost, no surprise there. Listened to some old tunes, mine and Kathy's idea of an old tune was slightly different to the others - Debbie was in nappies whilst I was attending my 'Tuesday Club' school discos. And ate Haribo and chocolate.

I had a 10 o'clock curfew.........wild. I dropped Kathy off on the way home and left the youngsters to it!

Memories

I met up with an old school friend today. I hadn't seen Suzanne for about 18 years, but we got in touch recently through facebook and decided to meet up. We met in Cafe Latino in Herne Bay for a coffee (or hot chocolate in my case).

We reminisced about the 'good' old days at school...being tied to the bus, called various unflattering nicknames, having ink splattered on your shirt. It was fun looking back....I guess 18 years numbs the pain.

Skint!

Whoever had the bright idea of paying salaries early in December - great for about a week when your bank balance looks nice and healthy...not so great 4 weeks later when you're skint with still nearly 2 weeks to go until pay day.

Last week I had £8.24 to spend on shopping. I spent £8.18 at co-op and spent the rest of the week living off food storage. I was also really annoyed by a rouge direct debit that I'd forgotten about...as there was not enough money to pay it, the bank kindly charged me £38....oh yeah kick me when I'm down why don't you.

Yesterday I got my tax credits so was able to 'splash out' at Lidl and put some petrol in the car. Now back to being skint......It's Lidls beans on toast for the next two weeks kids.

Car Wars

I have a love hate relationship with my car...love the freedom it gives me to go where I want, hate it when anything goes wrong with it and inevitably ends up costing money.

I've had the AA out twice this week - once to be fair was not totally the car's fault...I left the lights on all day at work and then the poxy thing wouldn't start. I say not totally the car's fault, because in fact the buzzer that tells you you've left your lights on does not work.....so partly the car's fault.

I did have to get the AA out the day after however. I've been having a few issues with it over the last could of weeks...over heating, losing water, heating not working in the car. I did fully intend to have it looked at...but I've been busy alright....and skint. So I just kept topping up the water and getting by.

However on this occasion the car had had enough, it was grinding and shaking, the dashboard lights were flashing a beeping at me and basically demanding I stop the car immediately. The AA were called and diagnosed a problem with the heating sensor thing that had caused all the coolant to come out and thus the oil was being used a coolant and the whole engine was not happy about it.

The AA man saw me home and my dad got a man to come and fix it today. I've been 2 days without a car so appreciate being mobile again....but for how long.

Kaitlyn's Birthday

Kaitlyn turned 3 today...hopefully I will soon see the back of the terrible twos, but knowing Kaitlyn probably not.

For her main present I got her a pink bike. Unfortunately it is freezing and icy today so we couldn't go outside - but she enjoyed pushing it around the living room.

Kaitlyn's friends had been invited to her birthday party - remembering my previous 'note to self' to never have a kids party at home again, the party was booked for Snappy's. It was a joint party with Abi from Kaitlyn's playgroup so it ended up costing about the same a home party.

Most of the kids from duckings were invited and I also invited friends from church and family, Abi had some of her own friends so in total there were 25 kids. As a parent I can highly recommend this as a stress free way of giving your child a birthday party...turn up, watch kids play and eat, go home...no mess, no fuss!

The kids ran around the play area for about and hour, then we went upstairs for party food and a visit from Snappy the Dragon/Dinosaur. The kids all had a brilliant time.

Later at home Kaitlyn was able to open all her presents...her luck was in with so many kids invited to her party she received loads of presents including clothes, hungry hippos, stationary, books and lots more.

Duvet day

One thing that I've really enjoyed about being off work is being able to doss around and not get dressed. Today the kids and I sat on the sofa under covers and blankets and watched various DVDs/videos.

First we watched 101 Dalmatians - the film version, followed by Cinderella, then Mary Poppins, then back to 101 Dalmatians. We ate junk, didn't dress and had a really relaxing day!