Lurgy.

I have caught Mairi`s lurgy...

Last week was not a good week. Mairi caught some sort of virus last weekend and spent most of last Sunday and the start of the week lying on the sofa coughing pathetically and demanding constant refills of Ribena. She did go into nursery on Monday because her little pal Emily was due to come for lunch and a playdate that afternoon....but Emily had to go home, as she had the lurgy too. There were fifteen out of the forty at nursery absent with the lurgy as well. Ain`t minor childhood illnesses wonderful?

Then on Monday one of the bands that hold the fuel tank in place on my Renault snapped. Oh well, Hubby is on a home working week so we can share his car until the Renault can get to the garage to be fixed.

On Tuesday the clutch cable of Hubby`s Citroen snapped.

Also on Tuesday we got the estimate for our share of the communal roof and building repairs. I can`t even bring myself to write it down, it`s so big.

Also on Tuesday the public sector workers in Scotland were on strike so the nursery was shut. Mairi was still coughing and whinging on the sofa, Hubby was working from home and I had no car.

Wednesday was a lovely fine day and I could have gone to the allotment....if I`d had a car. I could have cycled up, I suppose, but my bike is still covered in winter cobwebs.

Thursday the Renault went into the garage to get a new fuel tank band, the trim that Hubby ripped off it in France replaced and the new door. (Remember Hubby dinged the door a few weeks ago?)The new door is green. (The Renault is red.)Do I care? Nope...the car is on the road again....

Friday the Citroen goes in for repair. Life is looking up...apart from the roof bills and the fact that the two week Easter Break starts today.

Saturday. Bright sunny day, Hubby is taking kids to swimming etc etc. Finally I can go to the allotment...last chance before I am on nearly 24/7 childcare for next couple of weeks. And there is a ton of stuff to do on the allotment. How is it that you go through January, Feburary and March thinking you`re all set for the new season and then POW! It`s April and you`re already four weeks behind?

So I went up the allotment, picked up a fork to fluff up the soil in the potato bed a bit and started to feel a bit weird. I don`t faint, but I can do a good dizzy spell sometimes. Eventually I decided to do something a bit less taxing like clear out the shed. This really needed done because it smells of winter mice.

Did I tell you about the mice? Mice on allotments are a fact of life. I don`t mind them too much (I hate the rats we occasionally get) and so once or twice when I`ve found little nests of baby mice I`ve soft-heartedly left them to grow up and eat the peas and beans later on in the season. I knew I had mice in the shed over the winter because of the smell and the occasional dropping (allotment sheds are pretty grubby places) and....I left a big tub of water in there about a month ago by accident. Next time I went up there were two little drowned mice floating in it. I felt really bad!

So I cleared the shed and found three little mouse nests...no starved babies though, thank Gawd! I felt enough like a murderer already. The nests were beautiful. I often put scrap fleece in the compost bins (the stuff with dags and second cuts etc which makes great compost) and the mice had obviously found this and made beautiful soft little cosy nests in finest Ouessant and Blue Faced Leicester fibre.

I ended up with a carload of trash that needed taken to the dump, which was most satisfying. What was not satisfying was the fact that it was a lovely fine day, I had the afternoon free and a ton of allotment jobs to do....and I felt like shit. I gave up. I drove the rubbish to the dump and went home to cough on the sofa.

And today I feel even worse. I have had a lie-in but I still really need to lie on the sofa and do nothing except cough and sniff and whinge. What I`m actually going to do is go to Tesco and get the groceries while Hubby takes the kids to rugby. Then Duncan has two birthday parties to go to this afternoon and Mairi is going to the second one as well. Meals to cook, party outfits to organise, pressies to wrap, children to ferry around. Plus we have a zoo trip planned tomorrow as it`s the first day of the holidays.

Mothers everywhere will empathise. The sofa is not an option!



Edit. (Later the same day.)

I must be looking bad...Hubby has offered to take the kids to the evening party, yeah! Sofa here I come!

And thank you all for the babysitting offers......;-)