Recently by Two Point Four Children

It's been a while for me too folks but I'm back with a blog about the subject everyone's talking about at the moment...the weather...and how it's affected my family this last week...

At one point, Son Number Two had three in his bedroom... One for his X Box, one to watch and one on which to dump his discarded clothes...

There are five of us in our office. The two blokes do all of the cooking at home and so do the three girls' husbands. One of the men likes to go shopping and look at kitchen utensils...

27 August, 2009. We were on holiday in Frampton-on-Severn and today was Son No Two's GCSE Results Day...

It was a bit of a mistake we were away this week at all. I had planned to be at home so Son No Two could collect his results in person and then enrol for Sixth Form the next day. We'd booked up on the strength of a letter sent to parents in March which unfortunately had the wrong date on it. (New notifications had been sent out with the students apparently but ours never reached us - possibly still in the bottom of last term's backpack).

So I arranged for his results to be collected and then relayed to us by phone at the earliest possible moment...

We were all sat around the breakfast table in our holiday cottage, watching students collecting results on the plasma TV, with bated breath awaiting phone call, pen and paper at the ready. Suspense was building. We were lucky enough to be staying at Byres Water - a contemporary cottage which had been luxuriously converted from a traditional open fronted cow byre.

The back door opened onto a patio leading down to a one and a half acre lake complete with resident kingfisher, swans that tapped on the kitchen windows and fish that leapt out of the water for our leftover bread. There was also a rowing boat and so Son No Two decided to have a quick circuit around the lake to pass the time - one and a half minutes - his best time yet! Still no call.

I was stressing about an episode I'd had the night before. I'd been tossing and turning thinking about the next day's results when my bedside lamp turned itself on in front of my very eyes and simultaneously my mobile phone screen lit up all by itself. Could it have been a power surge or was it the power of my thoughts. Rubbish, they all laughed and said it was probably the ghost of one of the cows that used to live there...

Several more turns round the lake and we had the results! A Distinction in Media, an A and several B's - congratulations were definitely in order...

All that remained was for us to ring up school later on that afternoon to see how he could enrol for sixth form when he was miles away. He of course, spent the rest of the day on his mobile to his mates exchanging results whilst we all wandered around Bourton-on-the-Water in the nearby Cotswolds.

Incidentally, it must be the most Picture Postcard Perfect village I've ever seen with its little bridges and kids plodging in the flowing stream, cream teas and butterscotch ice-cream and the sun was shining...I was thinking -only another two years to A Level Results Day...

Son No Two aged sixteen uncovered this band when he heard an instrumental piece of music on a Film Four advert. He then trawled the internet to see who was behind it. He's been listening to them for months now.

"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again"

Last night I dreamt I went to Biddick Hall again where leopards and lions kept in the gardens by the local butcher used to roam about the bedrooms...

I did it! I completed 'The Race for Life' last Sunday. Next year the London Marathon?

A few Saturdays ago we were trawling around Newcastle looking for a suit for Son No. Two's School Leavers Ball. (We, being four generations comprising of Son No. Two aged sixteen, me and his gran. And his Gran's friend who was older still.)

He had tried on everything in sight in Burtons and Top Man and eventually we were directed across the Hippy Green to Macdonalds. Not for Big Macs and chips but down the stairs to Macdonalds the tailors. Amazingly, Son No Two saw what he wanted straightaway and then he said he would show us 'Best Vintage.'

It's 2.45 am. I hear the slam of the back door and then the sound of taps being turned on in the kitchen followed by the rush of water. Light switches are pressed. Doors slam. There is the tinkle of a text. The microwave hums and pings. Then someone is thundering up the stairs and throwing open the bedroom door flooding the room with light...

It's amazing how many interesting people I come into contact with on a daily basis and also how many people crop up from the past... Sarah was asking me on the phone if I wanted to upgrade our office photocopier when I discovered she had another job which was rather unusual. She is a fire-eater...