The truth about PDRs

AUGUST

Sunday 1

Because we were oop north all day yesterday, today is ‘catch up time’.  Shopping.  Cleaning.  Washing.  At 1pm (in the midday heat!) we get bikes out of shed and do the most amazing ride along the canal to the city centre (which is absolutely heaving with people and jazz bands) and beyond.  20 miles.  Three hours.  Arrive home with mild sun-stroke and acute exhaustion. 

Have barbecue.  The bloke next door (the one who cut down my hedge and has been behaving very oddly ever since) starts up his petrol mower and leaves it running as close to us as he can get.  We ignore it and move the table.  I sneak a look through an upstairs window - see neighbour sitting on bench facing the dividing hedge, drinking copiously and just staring towards us.  Refuse to react, which really seems to piss him off!

Iron one item of clothing for work before boredom forces me to watch a film instead (School of Rock, which was okay if you like that kind of thing - infinitely better than the dire Lost in Translation we endured the other night).

Monday 2

I apologise for the following.  I obviously have a sick sense of humour.  On the television news the other night was something about  a training camp for suicide bombers.  I’m sorry, but a training camp for suicide bombers!  How are they trained? (“And Ictbar has just demonstrated how to spontaneously combust.”)  Who teaches them? (experienced suicide bombers???).  What are they taught? (“Die!  Well, go on then, die!”)

Very strange.

On a lighter note, Middle Son started his first temping job today.  Administrator.  Solicitors.  City centre (round the corner from where I work).  Opening mail, delivering mail and faxes.  He’s almost comatose with boredom and whinging like a goodun, but hey, it’s a job, and it pays - I’ve endured much worse for less money (for proof see The Assignments and Top Temping Tips)!

Tuesday 3

I receive this email at work: “If you only have time for one thing this month, read about Basel II and its implications for loan agreements.” 

Almost impossible to resist!

Wednesday 4

Absolutely lashed down with rain all day.  Thunder.  Lightning.  Coming to work in a thunderstorm was a lot of fun!  Roads flooded and became impassable.  My Partner’s works were flooded … all these burly black country men wading around wearing wellies.  My garden was deluged and six foot sunflowers growing in pots had to be rescued from certain death. 

All very dramatic.

Thursday 5

Small Son’s car alarm went off this morning … at 1.30am.  Its one of those alarms that makes all kinds of different noises and its very, very loud.  Partner and I leapt out of bed and peered with bleary eyes through the bedroom window at the driveway below.  The security light wasn’t on and nobody was around.

I banged on Small Son’s bedroom door.  Nothing.  I yelled his name over and over again with increasing volume.  Nothing.  I opened his door and squeezed my arm through the gap to turn on his light, all the while shouting his name in a frantic kind of manner.  Finally, he responds.  “Uh?”

“Your car alarm!  It’s going off!  Its woken the entire neighbourhood!”

From our bedroom, Partner yells, “It’s waking the entire neighbourhood.”

“Yes!  I know!”

The alarm had been going off for about seven minutes by now … it seemed a LOT longer.  I hear Small Son slowly rustling round in his bedroom.  I urge him to hurry up.  He says he can’t find his car keys.  Remembering the state of his bedroom last time I saw it I’m not surprised.  It takes agonising minutes for him to locate them, and then … silence.

Bliss.

Except we can’t get back to sleep again and toss and turn, muttering furiously at each other until the early hours of the morning

Friday 6

Small Son’s car alarm went off AGAIN last night and AGAIN Small Son couldn’t find his car keys in the pit he calls a room and our neighbours must REALLY hate us and somewhere there’s a very stupid cat with a very shocked look on its face.

Again, we couldn’t get back to sleep afterwards (the animosity of our neighbours hating us perhaps?).  Today we are zombies.

But then, its Friday, who cares?!  One of the plans for the weekend ahead (which is ours, all ours!) is to sort out some photos.

Be afraid, be very afraid.  Especially when you finally get to witness …

… Small Son’s Room!!!!!!!!!!!!


No, not a council tip, Small Son’s room!!!!

Saturday 7

My ex came to the house today to collect Middle Son.  He was here about 30 minutes.  In that time my ex managed to bring up in conversation the following:

• how his last employers (whose premises burnt down) paid him three months salary, and how he struggled to ‘find something to do to the house to keep himself busy’ over those three months;
• how his last employers paid him £400 for all the items he lost in the fire;
• how his last employers paid him a further £400 holiday pay;
• how his present employers left him a ‘lump sum’ for apparently preventing a fire on the premises (hmmm, another fire, is there a pattern here? … I’m joking!);
• how he’s completely redecorating his new house;
• how many hundreds of pounds the Koi carp in his massive pond cost him;
• oh, and he’s got a new motorbike because his Bandit was looking a bit tatty;
• and oh, his girlfriend just got a new car.

I’m not sure what the point of all this was - pointing out that if I’d stuck with him I’d be better off financially and materially perhaps?  Or just basically bragging to make me feel bad?  Who knows.  Did it bother me?  No, it just got very boring.  I should have mentioned my new bathroom suite being fitted in a couple of weeks, and the decorating I’m going to be doing as soon as I can afford it.

And, oh, I’ve just bought myself a brand new lunchbox!

Sunday 8

Yesterday my partner and I bust a gut shopping, cleaning and washing (I even cleaned the living room windows which were disgusting even by my standards!).  Today my partner and I excitedly got up early, loaded pushbikes onto car and set off to the Wyre Forest (just passed Kidderminster), a mere half an hours drive away.

Absolutely brilliant time, although I’d forgotten how hilly it was around the visitor centre  - there were a couple of sweaty head-might-explode moments when I thought I could actually die.  Glad we went early because the temperature, like yesterday, really soared midday (when we’d finished our ride). 

Another cyclist asked how far we’d gone when we went back to the car … I was willing partner to say 26 miles or something impressive, but he admitted it was only 6 (but a flipping tough 6 when you’re struggling up 1:3 hills!).  “How far you going?” I asked the cyclist.  “Oh, I’m just cycling back to Stourbridge,” he said smugly (about 13 miles).

Hauled our picnic out of the car boot and found a table, set it all out.  There was enough food to feed a family of seven!  Thoroughly, utterly enjoyed.

Monday 9

There is this yoghurt in a local canteen which I absolutely love - muesli, honey and slices of fruit.  As its £1.20 I generally buy it on pay day or on days when I Simply Must Have A Bacon Sarnie but opt for the healthier option instead (get me!).  So I thought I’d try making it myself. 

This morning I poured a load of muesli into a bowl (half for brekkie, half for lunch - yeah, I’m on a health kick again).  I started pouring in the natural yoghurt.  And pouring.  And pouring.  It was only when the museli had soaked up almost a whole pint of yoghurt that it occurred to me that putting the museli into the yoghurt might have been a better idea!

So I brought this concoction to work in a tiny tub.  Glanced inside tub before I threw it in the works fridge.  The museli yoghurt was now concrete.  It dropped like a rock into the works bin.

Baquette for lunch then.

Wednesday 11

I think we made a BIG mistake not having a proper holiday this year yet in order to concentrate on house improvements.  Eight months without a decent break from work/the rat race does not a happy person make, and I’m proof of that (imagine an insane zombie with rabies and you’re close). 

Stress makes me tired, really tired, so I went to my doctors and said, “I don’t want anti-depressants.”  He said, “You sound depressed.”  “No,” I said (repeatedly!), “I don’t do depressed, not since my divorce anyway.  I’m stressed, I just need something to calm me down” (like enough tranquiliser to fell a charging bull elephant)  “You’re depressed,” the doctor insisted (I’m bloody not!!!), “I’ll prescribe something.”  I asked what he was prescribing.  “Anti-depressants,” he said.  “Thanks,” I said, and left.

Thursday 12

I get home from work, closely followed by a drugs raid on my neighbours house!!!! (the teenage girls who have been driving me round the bend for months!)  And this used to be such a quiet area!

Two police vans, two marked cars, one unmarked car and about 20 policeman pour into the grove.  A sniffer dog is taken inside. 

It’s all very exciting.  Someone’s obviously had enough (the same as us) and ‘ratted’ on them.

Eventually, one of the girls is brought out of the house in handcuffs and taken away.  The police and the suited people disburse.  The girls argue furiously in their house afterwards.  Small Son, who’s outside fixing his car, hears them say, “I bet it was [Small Son’s] mom!”  i.e. me! 

But I don’t care.  If they start on me, I won’t be holding back this time, I've had more than enough.

Hand me that baseball bat!!!

Friday 13

The drugs raid is in the local paper!  Front page news!   

There’s a picture of the arrested girl - cannabis was found in their house.  The Evening Mail wrote: “Police said local communities are now in the driving seat to rid their neighbourhoods of drug pushers.  Many have had to endure months of misery at the hands of dealers, with increased crime and anti-social behaviour.”  Yes! 

I read something in the same article that has me dancing in the office. 

“Three of those arrested yesterday were hit with a double whammy when they were also threatened with eviction. Housing officers served a notice seeking possession of their homes after they were raided by police.  Under the Housing Act, city housing officers can serve the notices on anyone in breach of their tenancy, by allowing drug use or dealing from their homes.”

So they could have been threatened with eviction too!  Fabulous! 

Sunday 15

Get up early, put bikes on car, drive to Sutton Park, cycle 10 miles, get lost, twice, end up cycling along the road asking strangers the way back to the car!

Go to look at shower unit advertised in paper ... I ring for directions, bloke says, "You got bikes on the back of your car?"  Impressed, I gasp, "Yes, how do you know?" (psychic?)  "I'm the one standing in the front garden," he replies, as a bloke standing in his front garden waves at us.

Monday 16

This time next week I shall have a bath in my house for the first time in 22 years.  I am so excited I feel like a child on Christmas Eve and only sheer exhaustion is preventing me from jumping up and down all day every day. 

Went out at lunch and bough four different types of bubble bath.  This woman was standing sniffing them all, so - because I can’t smell - I told her I had a cold and asked which one smelt the best.  She looked at me oddly, so I asked again with n bunged up voice this time … she helpfully said they all smelt nice, so I went for the colours I like the most, as always.

Just need bath bombs, bath oil, a looffer and a plastic yellow duck to complete the collection, and then I’m set.

I can’t wait!

Tuesday 17

Got off bus last night and, whilst waiting to cross the road, this car came towards me.  As it was the same colour and make as my partner’s, I stared at the driver until he came into focus.  At he got closer, the youngish driver noticed me looking and went passed me with a huge smile and a hopeful come-hither look on his face.  I couldn’t stop laughing.

Wednesday 18

Its been a very strange week.  Because Friday is our last day at work for 10 whole days (I’m drooling at the prospect), the days have really dragged.  My body, sensing an impending period of rest, is running on emergency battery power - I could barely drag myself out of bed this morning.  My partner and I have agreed that we’re having a week off in March and a week off in August every single year until we die.  How people turn into workaholics without collapsing in a gibbering heap in the process I don’t know - I guess I’m just not workaholic material (phew!).

Thursday 19

Haven’t had a girlie lunch in ages (especially now that I don’t sit with any of the girlies any more … I sit all on my own and its very bloody boring I can tell you).  So I arranged for us all to go to the German winefest in Victoria Square.  Had one of those foot long hot dogs, but all the girls are on this Atkins diet and wouldn’t eat the bun it came in, then they whinged about the number of calories in wine, so I didn’t have one either.

We did, however, have a damn good gossip. (One admitted she spends about £300 a month on clothes.  I kept the muscles in my face limp so as not to look amazed/horrified/stunned.  "How much do you spend?" she asked me, because she knows I loathe shopping with a passion..  "About £20," I mumbled, looking down at the pin stripe suit that has become decidedly furry of late.)

Note to self ... stop pithering about and GET A NEW SUIT!  (argh!)  (actually, perfect excuse, I can't afford one ... there, sorted phew!).

Friday 20

Had a letter from my building society telling me what my new mortgage payment is now that everything’s been sorted with the ex (oooooh, I love saying that, everything’s been sorted with the ex).  The monthly payment was a lot more than I was expecting.  Went to see my ‘mortgage adviser’ at lunch.  She thought it was a bit high too.  After 30 minutes she discovered that the lump sum added to my mortgage to pay off ex was over a term of 13 years, but my mortgage was still at the original 7.  Had it changed.  It's now only four times my original mortgage payment!

If in doubt, ask - don’t assume these big companies know what they’re doing, they’re just winging it like the rest of us!

Finally going to celebrate tonight (and tomorrow night, and all next week).  It’s over.  It’s finished.  I’m divorced and I own a house.

Only took five years!

Saturday 21

First day of the holiday!!!!!  Was really looking forward to a MASSIVE lie in this morning.  Woke up naturally but deliberately remained semi-conscious (pretty much my normal state anyway).  Woke up some more, tossed and turned luxuriating in the sheer gorgeousness of the bed, finally opened my eyes, yawned, stretched, glanced joyfully at bedside clock.

7.00am.

Forced myself to lie in bed until gone 8 o’clock, then gave up and got up.

Did the shopping, the washing, then did something I’ve been dying to do since we cleared out the loft last year – I waded through the dozens of carrier bags of my old diaries and photographs.  Thoroughly enjoyed strolling down memory.

Coughed up loft dust for rest of evening (washed down with copious amounts of alcohol and a fabulous steak meal).

Sunday 22

HOLIDAY, DAY 2: Argued with Small Son.  His teenage angst is driving me potty and is seemingly endless.

I ask him to tidy his room but don’t actually see or hear him doing this.  Later, when he roars off in his car, I text him, “You haven’t tidied your room!”  He texts me back, “Have you actually looked in my room!”  Thinking I may have missed something, I look at his room.  It had been ‘piled’ – instead of mess being spread out all over his floor he pushes it into piles to make it look better.  A dozen mugs sit festering on his windowsill, and plants can be grown in the debris on his carpet.  I text him back, “You have got to be kidding me!”  Teenagers: maximum slobbiness, minimum effort (http://www.qis.net/~jimjr/kid59.htm).

Midday, we went for a lovely drive into the countryside.  Stopped to have lunch at carvery pub in Barnt Green, but it was packed inside and swarming with wasps outside.  Carried on to pub in the Lickey Hills (the name of which escapes me), but didn’t fancy anything on menu so had a packet of crisps between us instead!  Oh we know how to live, us.

Monday 23

HOLIDAY, DAY 3:  It’s started!  They’re here!  The plumbers (Methuselah & Son) have come to fit me a new boiler and a bathroom suite.  I’m going to have running hot water in my house for the first time in decades! 

I stay out of the way whilst the menfolk get to work.  The plumbers wonder how I’ve gone so many years without running hot water, I tell them I’ve no idea, I just got used to it (well, you do). 

My partner dismantles the much hated shower cubicle.  It has, apparently, been leaking for years … the water’s underneath the lino and two walls are waterlogged.  It apparently stinks!  Nice.

Go over to dad’s house for shower.  Dad mentions German cousin is over for a visit.  I mention it might be a good idea for him to put away his prominently displayed collection of war videos.

Tuesday 24

DAY 4. 

I’m desperate to see the bath in the bathroom to make sure it fits (it’s a small room and nobody seems to have measured anything).  Plumbers recommend we clean the stipple off the walls first so it doesn’t ruin the bath, so we dash out and hire a wallpaper stripping machine (flipping £25 for 24 hours – that’s more than a pound an hour!).  Spend all afternoon scraping the stipple off and cursing the stipple company for ever making such a horrendous product.  Eventually, its done and we roller paint the walls white so it doesn’t look too nasty.

The plumbers go home.  Steve refuses to drag the bath into the empty bathroom to see if it fits.

I worry it won’t fit.

Wednesday 25

DAY 5.  The bath is in!  I have a bath!  I have a bath and running hot water in my taps! The bathroom door misses the edge of the bath by half a centimetre, how close is that!  But it fits and its plumbed in and it all looks FABULOUS!

The plumbers have barely left before I’m in there, filling the tub and pouring in copious amounts of bubble bath.

ITS GREAT!!!! 

Thursday 26

DAY 6.  Get up early and dive in bath.  Notice bubble bath bottle has “badscum” on it, not a good marketing ploy (okay, it says “badscuim” but from a distance with bad eyesight it looks like badscum).

Small Son and girlfriend ‘messing around’ in back garden.  Partner goes into kitchen and I hear him say, “Now, that’s what you call a normal headlock, but to really get a good grip you need a half nelson.”  Well, I thought it was funny.

We slob for most of the day, recovering from our three hectic days of plumbing.  We go into the bathroom a lot to admire it.

I own a house, and a bath.

I have it all!

Friday 27

DAY 7.  Get up early and dive in bath.  I love my bath!

Work on garden.  Cut front hedge.  Cut back hedge.  Cut lawn.  Spend three hours trying to start up strimmer then give up.  Feel I’ve worked up enough sweat to …

… have a bath.

Realise (because we’re on holiday and time is immaterial) that its actually Friday.  Partner makes supreme curry - its so supreme I actually help myself to seconds.  It’s the first home cooked meal we’ve had this week, all the rest have been takeaways!  Glance in mirror and notice barrage balloon proportions staring back at me … obviously concave mirror, must replace. 

Saturday 28

DAY 8.  We decide we must properly and officially celebrate the house going through and the bath going in by Going Out For a Meal.  We have an afternoon nap to build up the stamina (worrying, since we’ve been having afternoon naps pretty regularly these last few days – sign of old age or just a recovery period?). 

We buy bottle of champagne (£5.50 from Somerfield, no expense spared).  Give Small Son a taste, telling him to be careful, very very careful, with the lead crystal glasses.  Partner promptly elbows mine out of my hand and smashes it, Small Son can’t stop laughing.  Champagne 11.5% proof!  I’m bladdered before I even leave the house.

Small Son says he’ll take us to Chinese restaurant on the Wolverhampton Road (!!!!) – its an experience!  I’m scrunched in the back of this Metro, one arm rigid against the front seat, the other arm braced against the window.  Partner in front seat, absolutely totally silent (“Just do what I do and go limp,” I tell him, “Don’t watch the road, imagine yourself lying on some sandy beach somewhere and think happy thoughts.”).  Normal journey time: 15-20 minutes.  Small Son time: 9 minutes. 

Arrive in one piece though partially deaf.  Drink, eat way too much.  Decide we’ve had enough, would like to go home and have a yak in comfort of own home.  Ask waiter if there’s a phone anywhere whilst, between us, sits a phone.  He says no.  We go outside to phonebox, spend many minutes figuring out how to use it (30p for a call!  2p last time I used one).  Ring Small Son.  “Can you come and fetch us?”  “Now?” he cries.  “Yes please.”  9 minutes later he’s there and I’m ruffling his hair and calling him my baby and he’s smiling in embarrassment and saying “Just get in the car, mom, you’re drunk.”

Get home.  Its 8.15pm!  “We’re crap at going out,” I drunkenly tell Partner whilst pouring a drink.  He agrees.  We settle down in comfort of own home and watch a film.

Bliss.

Sunday 29

DAY 9.  Luxurious lie in til 9.00am.  Go to Merry Hell Shopping Centre, buy Clarkes shoes ready to go back to work (like getting ready to go back to school!).  Buy another three varieties of bubble bath and a bath cap (not sure why) and some bath bombs, after which we both say we’ve had enough and leave.

Get home.  Discover a major event has occurred in our absence.  I consider calling the Pope to inform him of this miracle, or the national newspapers, but Partner manages to calm me down.

SMALL SON HAS TIDIED HIS ROOM.  Not just tidied as in pushed it into separate piles, but actually cleaned and moved furniture around  and vacuumed! so it now looks like a proper bedroom.  It looks habitable.  You can see the bed.  You can see the carpet!

Feel like cracking open another bottle of champagne.   

Monday 30 (Bank Holiday)

DAY 10.  An extra day to our holiday, but I still spend the day wailing, “I don’t wanna go back to work!”  We slob, conserving as much energy as possible ready for our return to the hamster wheel of life tomorrow.  My partner shakes the enormous apple tree in the back garden and is bombarded by fruit – promptly makes an apple pie and an apple crumble (diet postponed until … oh, until I can be bothered).