Put on a sodding jumper

Dear Diary,

Grrr.  Mr S has just put the heating on.  When asked why he said it felt a bit chilly in the sitting room.  I suggested that perhaps, at the beginning of March, later in the evening one should not expect to be able to wear short sleeves only and feel temperate.  He agreed, hence why he put the heating on.

This could turn very quickly into one of our very rare but thoroughly cyclic arguments.

I am very comfortable in my thick cotton PJs, under the goose down duvet and a couple of blankets, not to mention the PomDog who is rather warm. 

It is usually me that feels the cold, it is also me that organises the energy bills.  Oddly enough I possess a  number of jumpers! 😉

I know, this is a very small thing and actually it has nothing to do with the cost.  We aren’t rich but thankfully neither do we have to chose between heating or eating. It irks the thwarted tree hugger in me.

It irks the thwarted tree hugger in me all the more because the bloody tumble dryer has been on all day – on this sunny breezy day.

Harrumph!

I have little I can say about the tumble dryer.  Mr S is a good man, he does all of the laundry – the washing, drying and, the thing that earns him star status, even the ironing.  

Doesn’t stop me routinely setting the washing machine temp to 0 as I walk pas, or shortening the tumble dryer cycle by 20 minutes.  I must organise the babies more efficiently and get them to hang loads out.  Problem is Mr S tends to get it done first thing Saturday morning.  After much nagging he consented to using 45 o5 60 min cycles and now all the laundry can be done by the time Tris and I surface at 10.

Sounds silly but the way all things green have rather slid out of view since I got ill really bugs me.  I must try and find some ways around things.

That’ll go on to my ever increasing thinking list, this goes hand in hand with my also ever increasing to-do list.  And it seems, the more that gets added to the lists the less I am physically able to do.  

I am starting to wonder if perhaps I am morphing into a real tree hugger – a three toed sloth.  Pain has been bad this past week which has rather slowed everything down even further but the amount of sleep I appear to recover is ridiculous.

I am probably asleep, dozing or too tired to move for around 18 hours out of each 24 – this sucks.

Almost typed sucketh.  As with my few waking hours I have become the revision supervisor from hell.  I woke the boychild with tea and the text to Romeo and Juliet this morning.  He was less than impressed.  He did get the text read through again before he disappeared to the theatre this afternoon.  Tomorrow the line up is chemistry before brunch, brunch, then a practice controlled assessment on Romeo and Juliet, then 1 hour off, before we hit the chemistry books again.

Mr Gove may suggest that GCSEs are valueless and have lost all rigour but I have to say I completely disagree.  Seems much harder to have exams all the way through and controlled assessments instead of coursework.  Means you actually have to work and revise all the way through rather than just cramming for the last 3 months before final exams.

As it goes Mr Gove and kiss my rather sizeable arse with all his fannying around with the exam system.  Ebacc my arse.  Had to sit through the most tedious evening of my life to date listening to Choo’s head of lower school wax lyrical – or at least bang on – about the Ebacc.  Interestingly the thing that aerated the other parents most was the fact that Latin is not considered a modern foreign language – ye gods!  

It is a grammar school, genetics means that at least one half of the parental unit must be vaguely intelligent….

Latin, that well know dead language that is never meant to be spoken and is really rarely written now – not a MODERN foreign language?  One could start arguing the toss with foreign as well but  I won’t.

And just how does one get to be pretentious enough to hold a whole hall full of parents up whilst you ask if little Jenny will be able to do Latin and Mandarin and Italian and Textiles and could you possibly move the time table around to accommodate and whilst they’re at it why is RE not considered a humanity.  (I sort of vaguely get the last)

We had options evening this past week, to use that well known intellectual phrase – it did my fucking head in. Charlotte knew what she was going to do before we went – we’ve been discussing it for 6 months.  We sat through interminable "chat" (they mean presentation) and then we got to visit various subjects.  

We very quickly decided that we would not be visiting the compulsory subjects – why the school had kept those poor teachers from going home when their subjects are mandatory anyway I’ll never know.

Geography got skipped as it was upstairs – wheelchair struggles with stairs.

Drama teacher was a disappointment – did everything to reinforce that drama was a non intellectual doss subject and nothing to sell any of the positives.  Shame really, won’t stop Choo doing it, just means lots of girls will probably get stopped.

Quite frankly Choo has to do all the subjects I would insist on and has to chose a humanity and a MFL.  With the rest of her choices I don’t care what she does other than hoping is comes a range of different experiences for her and that it is enjoyable.

If she wants to do latin and mandarin then that’s great.  Genetics says she’ll struggle but hey!  She needs at least 5 A*-Cs including maths and Eng – which she’ll get no problems.  i think she’ll learn a lot more by trying diverse things than just sticking with what she knows and is safe.

But I could be a bit barmy.  They say that employers and universities are looking more and more at GCSE grades and numbers of, perhaps I should encourage her to do electronics and graphics and computer science – all things she will excel at but will be bored by

This parenting lark is no joke

Ohhh, ‘The Moral Maze’ has just started, time to go and snuggle with the PomDog.

Fi