Hurry up and Wait

Life has gone all peculiar on us - Kit's forthcoming 11+ sits there like a black hole, bending all our existences around its event horizon. You daren't look straight at it - it's like staring into your blind spot, or trying to imagine octarine, only not nearly as much fun. Our days and hours are constructed around practice schedules, and I have to bite my tongue to stop myself issuing punishments for the most minor infractions, the punishment always being '. . . so go to your room RIGHT NOW and read your book for half an hour!' (Vocab., of course. Major component of all 11+ exams.)

Even Jeremy, who is in the middle of n performances of Don Giovanni, has to stop what he's doing and come home early, because not only do we have the strain of this exam, we also have the round of secondary school open evenings. Our first one tonight, to Kit's second choice, was cracking. The Head, the staff and the pupils we spoke to were all enthusiastic, articulate, well-mannered and tidy. A tiny bit Stepford, but in a good way. His first choice, tomorrow evening, has a tough act to follow.

A list, a two-syllable-word-beginning-with-L and a very loud bang.

Ok, pay attention, because there is going to be a quiz after this.

This was my list of absolutely-MUST-dos for yesterday -

• Guitar practice, and lots of it
  
• Knitting (Sid is going to need a new jumper very soon)
  
• Tidying up that obscure but extremely ancient mess on top of the drawers

Question: Whose cleaner called to say she couldn't come in?

*sigh* In other news, we recently purchased a set of ten Global knives at a staggeringly good price. Kept most, gave some away, got rid of the random collection of still-perfectly-serviceable knives we've used for years (gave them to my Ma. What? What?). They are a joy to use, being famously sharp and pointy. Being loth to damage the pointy ends when washing them, I put them in the rack to dry handle down. The fun bit is that 'sharp and pointy' also means 'vanishigly thin' ha ha, so putting further cutlery in the rack with very little in the way of visual clue that an extremely sharp, pointy knife is already in the rack, blade pointing upwards, has become a rather risky business. Particularly as I will have already forgotten that I put it there not three microseconds before. I'm staggered I still have all my fingers.

And the very loud bang? Me bursting with pride at the news that the elder of my sons is now House Captain of Milton House.




Ok, ok, the 'two-syllable-word-beginning-with-L '. What kept me from posting yesterday was the lack of one, ideally one to do with purchasing knives or cutting fingers off - it would have made a euphonious title. That, my friends, is the sole reason I didn't post - I couldn't think of a good title. But the 'Sinckapace Galliard' is coming along a treat.

More Cake

See? Only these were slightly different - because Jeremy took the children out for a couple of hours while I made them, they have remarkably little infant spit in them. (The dotty one was MINE, destined to bear LARGE quantities of candles, the chocolate one for the other birthdays yesterday. They got one candle each.)

But to begin at the beginning - on Garden Party Day, waking to the pitter-patter of not-so-tiny raindrops meant much clutching of heads, frantic searching for possible alternative venues, and eventual erection of two gazebos. The food was delivered looking and smelling GREAT (from Chalfont Classic Cuisine. Use These People - They Are Fab!) and I cheered up Quite A Lot. And with the first guests, a break in the weather. It never got great, but we didn't get wet either. Which was fine.)

My beautiful eldest god-daughter brought her boyfriend, who turned out to breath fire! He gave us a demo in the garden (not his usual type of venue, but the audience was appreciative) and some of the younger members of the party wondered whether maybe his grandma had been a Real True Life dragon. (To my horror, I found him browsing my DVD collection. But he stumbled upon my Anime and Yay! I'm cool! (Or whatever the adjective is these days. Bad? Sweet? Oh - no - being 50 and all, COOL has probably swung right back into fashion. Erk.))

And I got presents too - mostly books, plants and chocolate. I really am that transparent.

So this morning was all about The Great School Shoe Run (yawn) but as the boys had just spent a bit more money on some more bloody Gogos, they kept themselves (and half the waiting customers (the younger half)) amused during the inTERminable wait. I meanwhile was in a slight (only slight) tizz, having left the house, closed the door and discovered that the keys I was holding were not my usual house keys, but the keys to the garage. It took me two and a half hours and three frenzied but ultimately bootless telephone calls to key-holders to realise that, if I could lock the garage doors with my un-usual keys, I could also unlock them . . .