Friday 16 April 2010

Naughty Mummy

Today after yet another tiresome episode, one of Many, Many, MANY with me doing the 'telling off' and 'reigning in' after yet another sibling argument and potentially dangerous stuation my little 'Best Boy', as he likes to be called and, might I add call himself (thank goodness I have one of each), the boy of few words looked at me straight in the eyes with cheeky contempt in his narrowed eyes and told me I was a "Naughty Mummy".

After this insult he looked away, looked back at me again and then added..."You're fired".

He did. He actually said that. Ellie giggled, it's a phrase she's coined from somewhere and used alot this week. But what surprised me was that he used it in the right context (kind of).

So there we are...I'm redundant. I hadn't expected it to happen so soon, I thought I had at least another 15-16 years in this job maybe eventually moving gracefully into more of an advisory consultancy type of role whilst still maintaining some kind of respect in my field of expertise. Obviously not. I'm on the scrapheap.

Hey ho - onwards and upwards. Do sacked parents get any kind of redundancy package? I only ask because Hawaii looks quite nice this time of year.
Oh yeah and you can still fly that way around the world.

Wednesday 7 April 2010

Tuesday 6 April 2010

Yellow Clouds

Here we are in April, not so long ago we were knee.... well OK, ankle deep in snow and shivering through icy blasts of freezing cold weather. The first day of Spring arrived and we enjoyed some pleasant 75F days and blue blue skies which always help to lift the spirits.

Cut to now, this very week. It seems that Spring lasted, oooh about 5 minutes and just like that....summer did indeed start in April. My car thermometer has been edging higher and higher and this afternoon read 95F. Before Spring Break holiday Ellie was going to school in thick woolly tights and jumpers, yesterday she returned after her holiday in a short sleeved blouse and ankle socks.

The cycle of nature seems to be as equally confused as we all are. Within a couple of days bare leafed trees sprouted thick leaves and blossoms as if by magic. And then there are the zillions of pine trees that grow in North Carolina, which, have to spread their pollen right? But really is so much of it really necessary?!


Everywhere you go, everything you see is cloaked in this sticky yellow dust and just a gentle gust of wind in the vicinity of a pine tree produces clouds and clouds of the stuff. We are yellow. The sky is yellow. The roads are yellow. The cars are yellow. Our clothes are yellow....especially after a morning sliding down slides at the park! There is not a single hope of keeping this stuff at bay. Heaven help the poor people with tree pollen allergies. Apparently this is the worst it's been for years. Apparently it lasts for 2-3 weeks. Apparently we need some rain to dampen things down.


Rain is now forecast for Thursday night, hopefully it will wash away some of this mellow yellow!

And the most topical question being asked around these parts? When will be the best time to wash the car?! Me? Well, I washed mine on Monday to remove all the zillions of insect bodies we managed to accumulate on the windscreen driving back from Washington DC....one of the guys commented, "Y'all new around here...see you Wednesday and we'll wash off the pollen." I had thought that business was unusually quiet at Bunky's Car Wash for a Monday morning!