Saturday 4 February
I had a horrible bug a few weeks ago and it came back to bite me last night, and way into the early hours of the morning. Looking on the bright side – the hours spent in the loo means that I’ve just about finished my library book!
The morning was spent in bed, not rising till gone 11. Olivia was quietly amusing herself in her room. I think she was just keeping her head down to avoid me making any suggestions as to how she could be profitably spending her time! When I eventually surfaced, I put a wash on, put some porridge on, set Olivia up with some English and went off to wash my hair. When I’d finished, Olivia had gone up to bed for a lie-down. “Er, no, I don’t think so, get on with your work!”
When I looked at her work – mostly finding alternative adjectives and a bit of alliteration – I just thought, “What?! I really try hard not to criticise, but sometimes it’s almost impossible not to, especially when she’s making really silly mistakes – ‘lions’ spelt ‘linoys’? Come on! Anyway, I wasn’t exactly complimentary and nearly half her work got rubbed out …
To top it all off, I remembered that she’s got a friends’ birthday party tomorrow and I hadn’t got a present. So we had to head into town. On a Saturday. In a mood (both of us). With a dodgy tummy. And I really hate shopping. We also had to get her party food ‘cos it’s easier to take her own than expecting someone else to cater for one vegan out of loads of kids. We got the present and, walking past Waterstones, made a detour to buy a children’s Thesaurus.
Getting home, the washing had finished so I hung that up in the kitchen. I’m ill and it’s far too cold to be prancing around the garden with wet washing. Olivia got on with re-writing her English using her new Thesaurus. How much did she like it?
“This is brilliant! Much better than a boring, ordinary dictionary. I’m going to use this loads more!” English was finished in about 5 seconds with no spelling mistakes, result being one happy daughter and one happy mummy. Yeah!
Olivia then started making some Hama coasters to take over as a present for Nanny and Grandad in Spain. She heated up the rest of yesterdays soup for herself and got on with the coasters quite happily. So what was looking to be a truly foul day ended up being saved by a thesaurus and Hama beads. Simple pleasures!
