Just Jo!

Thanks Lin, for this joyous Christmas meme!

Name three things:

* that you had hanging on your tree:
….. bells
….. angels
….. fir cones

* that you’ve eaten / drunk lots of:
….. red wine
….. garlic and herb stuffing sandwiches
….. red wine (can you sense a theme?!)

* that you said most often this Christmas:
….. Go back to bed!
….. It’s too early!
….. Now!!!!

* that you heard most often this Christmas:
….. Can I watch a DVD?
….. I’m hungry!
….. I can’t believe I’m on the nice list *again*!

* that you’ll do again next year:
….. Have an un-commercial one
….. Make my own Buck’s Fizz!
….. Have dinner really, really, really late!

* that you’ll *never* do again:
….. Forget to pay the phone bill!
….. Change my mind about not sending cards, 2 days before last posting day!
….. Let Olivia get up at 6am!

* that you didn’t do this year but hope to do next year:
….. Pay the phone bill!
….. Make more presents
….. Have Adam at home

* favourite presents this year:
….. Red wine
….. Red wine
….. Red wine (What?! I got 3 bottles! Necklaces and Lush stuff were nice too!)

* that you’re glad you didn’t get for Christmas:
….. A turkey!
….. A goose!
….. Or a duck!

Name 3 people to tag:
….. Olivia (Life With Olivia. She wants to do it!)
….. Sianne (educating mummy)
….. Sarah (just another morning here)

My mobile is dead! It needs charging. I have lost my charger. And in the excitement of my new ‘puter, I neglected certain things like….ooh…the telephone bill(!), so I can only receive calls on the landline at the moment. It’s New Year’s Eve. Oh whoop-di-doo!!!
In the next day or so, I will get a guilt-trip call from my mum, “So you’re not talking to me then?”
Others will just think I am a totally miserable and ignorant cow! Oh well, that’s life!
And our cupboards really are bare now, popping to the local shops for bread will no longer suffice, so joy of joys(!!), we got to go into town! Hoo-bleedin’-ray!!
We had to stop off at my friend’s to give back a few DVDs. She’d asked for some educational websites that we use, her son’s got SATs coming up, so we were going to give her those as well. Easy enough I thought, she livesthisclose to the town centre. She wasn’t in, but we were prepared for such an eventuality….everything was already in an envelope to pop through the letterbox. Again, easy enough I thought, except she has no letterbox!!
So we trudged up to the high street, stopping off at the Works, ‘just to have a look’.
We came out with girly Geomags, a kids knit-your-own hat and scarf kit, a dragon pencil (for her), a frog pencil (for me!), an ocarina and a thumb piano. We were slightly more self-controlled in Smiths, just a Klutz Bead Rings book, so any girly birthday presents are also now taken care of!
Then it was Holland and Barrett’s and Sainsbury’s to get what we actually went into town for. Supplies aplenty for a huge fry-up tomorrow breakfast and some snacky things tonight, I’m not going to attempt cooking when I fully intend to see how much alcohol I can safely consume!
We bumped into Jackie in Sainsbury’s, hurrah! So we chatted (yes, we were those annoying people, “Why have they *got* to talk in the middle of the aisle?!”), handed over DVDs, and arranged to go and see them on Tuesday. Olivia desperately wanted to go back to their’s right then. But I desperately wanted to track down some tomato juice for my Bloody Mary tomorrow morning. It’s another of my ‘Things’, birthday and Christmas mornings = Buck’s Fizz, New Year morning = Bloody Mary’s.
We headed home so Olivia could make her Islamic prayer mat. She’s designed it, and painted the background in watercolours, when it’s dry, she’ll use pens to add all the fine detail. Looking good so far though.
Then she got out her new Geomag. I have resisted getting any until now because she has so much K’nex and Lego, handed down from Adam and greatly added to, that I resented buying any more construction like stuff. But, hey ho, it’s her Christmas money, and she’s wanted some for ages because a lot of her friends already have it.
Blonde Alert!
Getting it out of the box, she was muttering to herself, “Cor, the trouble with this Geomag is it all sticks to itself.”
Oh where’s the wine????
Adam is heading off down to Exmouth with some of his friends for the night. They’re getting dressed up as gangsters….again! They all did for his 18th down in Newquay. I’m beginning to think that he likes getting dressed up almost as much as Olivia! (Although I haven’t had to make any costumes for almost a year now.)
We’ll be heading up to my bed later to watch a few films and Jools’ Hootenanny with some bubbly for the chimes. I might even let her have some of her indoor sparklers up there too. Well, it’ll be one way to fill my bedroom with a bunch of firemen for the night!!!
And I had a Lush bath last night. I love Lush. I love Lush so much in fact, that I really do not mind all the detritus that is so often left behind after such a bath. Last night it was a Chelsea Garden bath ballistic.
‘Rose, jasmine and lavender, plus masses of flower petals turn your bath into a herbaceous border. Drop into a warm bath for fizz and floral fragrance.’
Hmmm…..’masses of flower petals’? I think my ballistic must have got the entire batch’s allowance of petals. Let’s just say that 24 hours later, I am still picking petals out of my….. no, I think I’ll leave it there and let you all ponder!!!!
Night night!
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
And as my stepdad always says “The party doesn’t even start ’til midnight!” (He’s Scottish!)

Olivia had a phonecall from her ‘young man’ this morning. Except he was too shy to say anything, so all conversation was directed through his dad! Bless!!
She keeps saying to me, “I think you’re right. I think I am too young for a boyfriend. I don’t think I’m really ready for a boyfriend yet. I think I’ll wait ’til I’m a teenager. Do you think that’s a good idea?” (Yeah, ‘cos then we won’t have all this angst then will we?!)
Then, 5 minutes (or less!) later, “I can’t believe I’ve got a boyfriend! D’you think I’m too young?”
“I think we’ve already established that love!”
Anyway, he’s decided he’s going to write her a letter, because they won’t get to see each other ’til Jan. 10th.
Up to bed to watch The Witches. Which resulted in lots of deeply philosophical questions about ugliness of ‘bad deed doers’. She couldn’t understand why the witch at the end was still laughing evilly, even though she was being ‘good’….
Eid ul-Adha…..
I didn’t really find much more, so we kind of winged it. Olivia’s blogged all about it, and reading through it, I think she covered everything we did. So not much point in me repeating everything she’s said.
This is a cunning plan to get more people to look at her blog. She keeps moaning that more people look at mine….and I can afford to be generous because I’m winning!!!
We like ‘doing’ festivals, Olivia does because she thinks she’s getting away with not doing any maths or english or any boring stuff like that. I, on the other hand, know that today she has done geography, maths, english, history, science, art and, of course, RE. Result! Even watching Robin Hood helped, ‘cos she remembered from an episode a few weeks ago that Muslims don’t pray before human images.
Robin Hood also helps in more ways than one…..ie bribery! I have absolutely no shame in admitting that, on more than one occasion today, she was threatened, “Well, if you don’t get a move on, no Robin Hood!”
It was the last episode of the series today….what am I going to do next week??? Aaagh!
She blogged afterwards while I roasted chestnuts. Yes, I know we were going to have them yesterday (as Olivia kept pointing out repeatedly, until I was on the verge of throwing them at her!), but I couldn’t be bothered. We had them tonight and very delicious they were too!
Adam came home tonight, much to the joy of a little sister!
He came bearing gifts from his dad and grandparents for Olivia, which were much appreciated. His older sister is expecting a baby in January. If I was still with his dad, that would make me a granny very, very soon….phew! Dodged a bullet there!!!
He snuck onto the ‘puter to check emails while we scoffed our chestnuts. So I had to drag him off to give him his pressies, a mini punchbag, reindeer poo, batteries (for the punchbag!) and the one he really wanted, the Queen Platinum album. It’s weird…. he’s this really trendy, cool, label-wearing, dude-type clubbing teenager….so I’m not really sure where Queen fit in….
Olivia was telling him that Father Christmas had got her some origami wishing stars, and he just comes straight out with it, “Olivia, he’s not real.”
I give him a filthy look, yes, I know she’s 10, quite naive, if she was at school she probably wouldn’t still believe, but she’s not at school, she’s at home!!!!!! She’s allowed to be naive!
She kicked him (I would have if I’d been nearer!) and ran to get her letter from Santa. Waving it his face, “See, look, it’s from Santa! How can he write it if he’s not real?!” (Logic there somewhere!)
“Even P (Adam’s 6yo brother) knows he’s not….OW!” I got him that time!
He takes his pressies upstairs….. “WHAT’S WRONG WITH MY TELLY??”
“Olivia was watching a video and it got stuck. She didn’t do anything!” (It’s a really old TV!)
“I don’t bloody believe it! What did you do?”
“She didn’t DO anything!!”
Olivia’s starting to get emotional, “She breaks everything of mine!” (Complete lie, he’s the one who has gremlins following his every move!)
Olivia is now indeed crying…..
“You’re bloody lucky!” He’s got the video out and given it to Olivia.
“Can I have the cover as well please?”
“What ELSE do you want???” He was joking with that last comment…. I think!
They very soon made up, but, yep, Adam’s home!!

Dracula won out in the end.
I admit my medical knowledge isn’t exactly at consultant level, but vampirism as a cure for syphillis? It does seem a touch radical, excessive even….
I came down for my bath and the lure of the ‘puter was too great. Still trying to find stuff on Eid ul-Adha. I did have my bath, but not ’til gone midnight…. ooops. And I do like to wallow a lot.
This morning was grim weatherwise.
I opened the door for Maisy, who looked at me, “If you so much as even think of throwing me out there, I’ll scratch your eyes out.”
“Wanna stay in then Maisy love?”
Olivia had a huge splashy kind of bath, washing all the fake snow out of Polly Pocket’s hair. She managed to wash her own as well. Not easy when she’s a small 10yo and can actually sit on her hair now! She’s growing her fringe too, I will have Cousin It for a daughter!
I had to venture out in the grimness for supplies. Olivia stayed behind in the warm. Something wrong somewhere….. oh yeah, child should go out in cold and wet and wind….. mother should stay in warm drinking hot chocolate.
We felt so virtuous, in a morally uplifting way, after our ‘true meaning of Christmas’ experience this year that we spent hours going through Amazon concocting our wish list….um…. oooh…. might negate the whole principle if we actually buy all our 105(!?!) items.
We have prioritised everything though…. yeah, ‘cos that’ll really make us all virtuous again!
Short blog because that is all we have done today. Jurassic Park 3 in a minute, left over stew and roasted chestnuts after.
On a home-ed note, (desperately trying to rescue something from todays wasteland!) Olivia created a ’scientific’ experiment to see how much water she needed to add to her fake snow to make it stick together so she could make snowballs. I’m sure there’s some kind of technical/mathematical/sciency terminology for it.
And she will be writing her blog later!
Stupid question of the day:
“What’s the time?”
(Me looking at screen) “16:27″
“What’s the real time?”
“16:27. Take away 12″
That’ll be maths covered then.

We woke at a reasonable hour today…. well, only reasonable when compared to yesterday. These late nights are getting us prepared for New Year’s Eve, still no idea what we’re doing though. Adam’s due back on Saturday, but no doubt he’ll be straight out with all his friends and we won’t actually *see* him ’til well into the new year!
We had sausage, mash and baked beans last night for tea…..bear with me! There’s always a few beans left over. I like them on toast for breakfast the next day. It’s my ‘thing’. Still here? Today, Olivia had the utter gall to ask if she could have them!!!!
“No, they’re mine.”
“But you always have them!”
“Yes. And your point is?”
“It’s not fair! Can’t I have them for a change?”
“No. I repeat, they are mine.”
“Why do you always have them?”
“Because I do. It’s my little treat.”
“Please mummy! I love you!”
“Nope, they’re mine! Go away!!”
“Please!!”
“NO!!”
“Why does it have to be your treat anyway?”
For the love of…..I get little enough in life as it is…..leave me the b****y left over beans!
And the second pathetic argument in 5 minutes?
Maisy had finished her delicious breakfast of biscuits and was waiting patiently by the front door for her morning excursion. Olivia was in the kitchen marmalading her toast (ha!). I said to Maisy, “D’you want to go out Mais?”
Olivia comes screeching through the sitting room, “I’ll do it! I’ll let her out! Let me do it!”
“You’re doing your toast. Go away and finish it.”
“But I want to let Maisy out!”
“You’re in the middle of getting your breakfast. Go away!”
(Maisy’s crossing her legs, “Please, I just wanna go out!”)
Olivia picks up Maisy to give her a big cuddle, “Are you alright Maisy? Do you want to go out?”
“Go and finish your breakfast!!”
I’m staying in bed ’til the afternoon (again) tomorrow! Purely to preserve my sanity you understand!
The hot water was off this morning, and much to the hilarity of a certain child, I had to wash my hair in cold, no, make that freezing water. I’m beginning to think that my teeny tiny little streak of sadism is starting to rub off on her!
We found some more images of Kwanzaa for Olivia’s scrapbook, and I started a stew for dinner. I used up Nan’s veggies…. the turnip was OK, although there was a big hole in the middle. I very gingerly inspected it but luckily there were no ‘remains’! Olivia was quite disgusted that we had no tinned chestnuts to put in. “Get over it! We could have had slugs!”
The second instalment of Jurassic Park lured us upstairs again. Contrary to popular belief, there is a lot of educational value in these films…. Olivia now knows to leave baby Tyrannosaurus’ alone (their mummy’s and daddy’s come looking for them), T-Rex is so much easier to say than ‘trannysoreass’ (yes, I did splutter my tea over my duvet!), some dinosaurs are really mean (”Why are they so mean?”, “It’s in their job description”), everyone cheers when the baddies get eaten…. all of a high educational quality I think you’ll agree!
Third ridiculous argument of the day?
“How many dumplings have you got?”
“Why?”
“I’ve only got 4″
“Ummm…..I might have about….ummm….6…..not sure…..”
“Muuummm! Why do you always get more?”
“It’s in *my* job description!”
The argumentconversation then degenerated into smutty (and childish!) innuendo about ‘dumplings’ with Olivia the one who couldn’t stop giggling and me the one who dropped half her stew down her ‘dumplings’!
We also had a fantastic burping competition, which I won hands down! Oh Yeah!
Olivia had been playing with some of her fake snow again, burying Polly Pocket in it (she is in serious danger of hyperthermia as it is without inflicting that on her!). The point of this diversion is that when we were doing the washing-up, I honestly thought Olivia would like to be covered in bubbles. “Look! It’s snowing!” Honest! Apparently, soap suds are not the same as fake snow!
Grown-up, home-ed alert again…..
Late last night, I was looking for some sites on Eid ul-Adha for kids so Olivia can ‘do something’ on it at the weekend. I only found stuff for Muslim children, who obviously have all the background knowledge and understanding, nothing for an ignoramus a non- Muslim child like what my one is…. So if anyone knows of anything, worksheets, puzzles, stories, that kind of thing, I’d be very grateful.
I now have about half an hour to decide what I’m going to watch this evening…..Perfect Parents or Dracula? I could tape one or t’other, but then I’d forget to watch it, so why bother in the first place? Dracula finishes earlier, so I could still get in an extravagant amount of time in the bath after. Hmmm, if only all life’s decisions could be sorted on how long I get to spend in the bath…..

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Honourable Lady Olivia the Naive of Much Bottom Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

I laughed….. she’s seriously embarrassed!!! My work here is complete!

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Milady the Right Reverend Joanne the Bibulous of Yockenthwait Walden Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

Ha Ha bleedin’ Ha!!!

The blister on my savagely-burned-by-mince-pies finger popped….. in my face!!!
Olivia managed to splutter, “That’s gross!”, while still laughing hysterically! Evil child!
She watched Home Alone in her big brother’s room last night. I’d said she could sleep there if she wanted, “but don’t tell him!” All was fine, very excited to be sleeping in his double futon thing, (”I’m going to sleep here tomorrow!”) ’til about 11.30, a timid knock on my door, a teeny, wobbly voice, “Can I sleep in my own room?”
“It’s your room, you don’t have to ask permission, I’m not exactly going to tie you to his bed.” Turns out the reality didn’t match the dream of getting a sneaky one in over her brother. She said this morning it just wasn’t the same as her own bed. Oh well, he need never know I suppose….
We got up obscenely late this afternoon morning. Olivia worked some more on her scrapbook, a double page each on both Christmas and Kwanzaa.
Then it was back up to my room to watch Jurassic Park. We don’t have TV downstairs and only 4 channels up in my room (Adam’s rigged up some kind of dodgy aerial in his room though). I think that being severely limited in our TV viewing (by choice!) for the last few years has made us more discerning…. I’d like to think so anyway …. so when I was thinking about buying this ‘puter, we all agreed that we’d like one we could watch TV on. Hence this Philips media centre thingy with a big screen…. we got it in October…. we still haven’t worked out the TV bit. Think we might need an aerial…. as you may have noticed I’m we’re not exactly in a rush to get it sorted!
Re Olivia’s dad, the reality that he’s not phoned or anything over Christmas hit home today and there was a wobbly chin on display at one point. She’ll talk about it to me, but not to anyone else and she doesn’t want to put anything on her blog. I’m not really ’supposed’ to either, but he’s seriously p***ing me off and I need to vent….
We cuddled up in bed again to watch The Ruby In The Smoke, mainly because Olivia likes anything remotely Victorian. At one of the stabbings she remarked, “Well, the Victorians were like that weren’t they?”
“Not all of them dear.”
So that’s us today, late rising means we are both wide awake at 11.15, Olivia’s in Adam’s room watching Hook (but going back to her own bed to sleep!) and I’m messing about here. Methinks we’ll be up late again tomorrow.

I was showing Olivia how to ‘categorise’, “See, you just go here and press ‘edit’…. oops….” Why, oh why do they have to put ‘edit’ right next to ‘delete’???? Result being a wobbly lip and “Muumm!!!”
We enjoyed Casper though, and Freaky Friday. Must be Christmas, we don’t usually watch this much TV.
After tea, whilst doing the washing up, Olivia said she’d quite like to swap with me. But not my hair, she likes her hair way better.
“You’ve got ginger in it.”
“No, I haven’t. It’s because of the grey isn’t it?”
“No, you’ve got silver. What?! (After I kicked her!) Silver’s more polite than grey!”
“No it is not. Silver is older!”
Oh, and while we’re on the subject of general blondiness…. A Kids Christmas CD is playing…. “There’s a lot of kids on this CD”….. Hmmmm.
She’s up to Adam’s room to watch Home Alone (big brother said she could watch any videos in his room while he’s away) and I’m off for a Lush bath

I have fond memories of the days when my children used to sleep in on Christmas mornings. It was always me who got so excited that I’d have to bang on connecting walls to rouse them both.
Yesterday morning? What happens? 6am…. Olivia’s knocking on my door, almost as loudly as when I knocked on Adam’s the other day….
I managed to hold her off ’til 8am, then really couldn’t control her after that!
Santa had left a letter, he’d actually used my computer to type and print it!! But, “Ha! He didn’t turn off the screen!” The reindeer had made a mess of their food, oats and glitter all over the carpet! But Santa thought the home-made mince pies were delicious!
She hadn’t asked for anything from him this year, but was just so excited that he still got her something…. some origami wishing stars.
She loved her pressies, nothing big, I think the most expensive was a dynamo torch she really, really wanted from Hawkins Bazaar that cost about a fiver…. Guess what kind of a Christmas next year? Yep, it’ll be another un-commercialised one. Much more funner!!!
We watched a few DVDs, Olivia got ‘The King and I’ from her Nan and Grandad.
She’d got a card and a poster all about ‘her’ vegetable plot in Bangladesh, so she coloured that in, it’s got a crossword and puzzles too…. and it’s a Christmas present so it doesn’t count as a ‘worksheet’!!!!
And she quite likes (in a roundabout way) sprouts now! I had to slice and fry them with onions, lots of garlic and chestnuts. But she ate them with not a single moan! And she ate roast parsnips no problem too! Hooray!!! They’re my favourite so that means we can have them loads more now!
We had a long chat with my mum and stepdad which was lovely.
On a downer, she didn’t even get a phonecall from her dad, let alone a card or present.
I always used to make excuses for him….’he does love you, he’s just not very good at showing it’, ‘he works shifts and is on call a lot of time, so he hasn’t always got the time’, ‘he doesn’t know he’s upsetting you, try talking to him and let him know’ etc. etc.
Olivia’s relationship with her dad is totally seperate from my relationship with him, so no matter how angry he’s made me, I’ve always kept my mouth well and truly shut. I’ve never so much as criticised him, and I will still try not to, but I will not make excuses for him anymore….
I overheard Olivia, on Saturday, telling her nan that she’s cried the last few times she’s talked to her dad on the phone (last contact was back in July!). Her nan (his mum!) said maybe she should tell him she loved him instead, Olivia replied “Not sure I do though”….. didn’t hear her reaction, but can’t imagine it went down well. But it’s all his own doing, I can hold my head high with no feelings of guilt!!!
Anyway…. neither of us stirred ’til about 11 today. I think I might have had a wee about 8 though.
Breakfasted, a few worksheets on Kwanzaa…. Oh, shut up! It’s only colouring, a wordsearch, crossword, vocabulary matching….
We’re watching Casper in a minute, so I might have to crack the whip a bit!
And I think we may be having some friends round later, but the text came about 2 on Christmas morning…. obviously got a new phone and opened it early! Wonder if she’ll remember?