NEWS FLASH!!!!!!!

So..UPDATE!!! NEWS FLASH!!! The Most Marvellous A at the Most Marvellous Day Centre has just phoned me. He has made a million phone calls on our behalf and everything has been sorted!!!!!!!! I WAS at the review...but the review was 9 months ago..so I had forgotten it! The wording of the letter clearly stated that Jboy was not complex, unpredictable or intense enough and 'does not meet the eligibility criteria' but what they meant, apparently, was that the funding would remain the same!!! They were saying, in fact, that they wouldn't be awarding any extra funding.....shame they didn't just say that. We hadn't expected any extra..the same is just lovely, thank you very much. SO.... Sorry to have aroused the passions of so many of you marvellous, wonderful, caring and lovely people. I can't tell you how amazing it was to read all your comments and to feel your support. The relief in this house is now palpable!

THANK YOU

The End

PS i even had my campaigning hat on today and was ready to get going.....I shall save it for another time as inevitably there will be one!!!!

funding cut.....what next?????

We had a letter this morning telling us that after Jboy's review (what review??? I know of no review), half of his funding for the MMDC will be cut. Not sure of the implications of that one......it surely isn't good news though

Jboy and the early start

So..I have been awake for a Very Long Time on this hot and sultry day. Jboy seemed to think 2.35am would be a good time to start the day. He has been waking at a slightly later hour most recently which has made commenting on the early mornings unnecessary...as they weren't (too early). Today, however ,we resumed crack of dawn patrol. Then, to compound the day, the Boy decided that getting on the bus, Right as it was, was NOT the thing to do today. We had an intense' conversation' about it and eventually, after many minutes, he saw the folly of his ways and reluctantly climbed aboard. Hurrah for the patient most Marvellous Driver and the Luscious Lovely escort!! They are not allowed to intervene but I could feel them cheering me on!! Once he had deigned to climb aboard and the bus had driven off, I continued with the day. Today I have been mostly planting . I ordered a load of 'plug' plants from a cottage garden nursery. They arrived today looking very sad and sorry for themselves...and terribly , terribly small. So I installed them in their place and . hoping that they do not prove to be an aperitif for the deer, they will one day look splendid. Tomorrow is M's birthday. Hurrah for M. As he does Not Do FB, I can reveal the fact that part of his present is an elephant. Not a real elephant. That would have been tricky to keep hidden. He made mention in passing at one of our garden centre visits that he rather liked the look of a stone elephant. Unbeknownst to him, I returned to said GC and purchased little Jumbo. (Jumbolet?). Here's hoping he meant it!! Or Jumbolet may be consigned to the depths of the shed and that would such a shame. Jboy returned home at his appointed hour, having had a similar 'discussion' with the staff at the Most Marvellous Day Centre about getting on the bus, despite its Rightness. Ah well. Unpredictable is his middle name. (Clearly it isn't )

Now, I must prepare The Potato.

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Sunday scribblings

So...today we drove through the rolling landscape of our rural county,passing fields of sheep (we once had visitors from Germany who always referred to more than one sheep as sheeps...and thus it has since been in my mind) and those bright yellow , almost neon yellow, fields of oil seed rape which were once so alien in our landscapes, a foreign invader, but which now are a normal part of this time of year. It was promising to be a lovely day and we were headed to a garden centre (of course). As we went along I was thinking about the passage of time and how nature is a great marker of the passage of time. I have a calendar to help me with that too..not an electronic one, I am not technologically savvy enough for that. No, my calendar is a Moomin calendar, on the pantry door. Why Moomin, you might wonder?? Why not, I riposte!! It was a present from M for Christmas..well, truth be told, I bought it and he wrapped it to give to me, so the choice of a Moomin calendar was mine alone!! I can blame no one else. I prefer the solidity of a real calendar much as i prefer a book to an electronic read really. I like the feel, the smell, the texture of a book. Apparently, books, as in the real paper things, are now becoming a status symbol..according to radio 4 , so it must be true!! A symbol of what status I wonder? Books have the added bonus, for us, of not breaking if and when Jboy throws them!! On the theme of generally being an old stick (paper calendars, paper books etc), there is a move towards 'greening' of driveways. We are doing quite well on that score.....it fits nicely with our general view of life. well mine. M is much tidier than me. Our drive was, today, awash with the buzzing of bees on the plantery that has colonised the top bit of the drive and I can even pretend it is deliberate for it to look like that!!! I win!!

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Potting up

So..yesterday I was mostly planting. In pots. M has removed the brick bike shed and the space was begging to be adorned and loved in the form of plants in pots. My days are short..well, shorter than the average (bear....Yogi Bear fans will get this) since Jboy goes anytime between 8.45 and 9.30 and is returned between 3.20 and 3.45 so I have to do all I need to do , which often turns out to be a lot, within those time parameters. I have been doing it for years since those are roughly school hours too...so here I am, aged, silvery haired and STILL working to school hours!!! Yesterday I decided, after the obligatory supermarket visit to replenish Jboy's stock of Free From Everything cake, to Do the Planting. This involved running up and down the garden with the wheelbarrow to gather compost from the heap at the bottom (and our garden is fairly long) then potting up the multiplicity of pots which I had decided needed to be there!! It took several journeys and a lot of digging and heaving but all the pots are complete and in place. At the moment, some of them are looking a bit shocked, having been torn from their comfy little pot and shoved into a larger pot which they are having to share!! I managed to complete the task by 3.10 which gave me time to wash my hands and make a cup of tea before the evening onslaught of Jboyness. He has yet to see the plants and will no doubt comment on them in his own way, as if to say..'Mother, what have you done NOW!' In other news, I found a birthday cake which is Free From Everything and therefore suitable for Jboy to share in..it is M's birthday next week and we will all (all three of us) will be indulging in a hopefully delicious slice of something which looks remarkably like cake...let's hope it tastes as good as it looks!
Today is Saturday and no doubt the delights of a garden centre await....
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ticket to adventure.....

So... Jboy and I found ourselves, pinned to the settee with excitement and anticipation this morning as we watched an episode of Ben and Holly which we had never seen before. For those of you who care, it was the episode where Ben and Holly et al are stranded up Mount Everest. It is the episode which involves magic, a tent in the shape of a castle(A CASTLE!!!) and a certain amount of pre-school peril, which was ,of course , ultimately resolved. (Phew!) What's not to like???? No wonder we were pinned!! They declared that it was a most marvellous adventure(my words, not theirs!) which naturally led me to thinking of the word 'adventure' and all things adventurous. The root stem of the word is, I believe, of Latin origin 'advenire'..which means, if memory serves, to arrive. So an adventure is something which is going to happen. My dictionary says 'adventure' means 1.an unusual and exciting or daring experience:2.•a reckless or potentially hazardous action or enterprise: and 3. an exciting experience. I have concluded after great deliberation(alright, after the couple of minutes before Peppa Pig came on the TV to entertain and delight) that adventure must surely mean different things to different people. For us, an adventure might , these days,be discovering a new garden centre which Jboy will go into!! For parents of small children, the adventure might be having a bath ON ONE'S OWN! Maybe the adventure could be walking the Pennine Way (Susan Hammond). I was once in a group of women, most marvellous of course, who met weekly (and sometimes weakly). At one point I made them all a Ticket To Adventure (say this in portentous continuity announcery tones) as a simple reminder that every day is a new one and therefore an adventure. And yes, life does tend to be the same day after day for many peeps but , when I remember, I try to find the adventure within that! So what is your adventure? Getting up can be an adventure when all you want to do is hide under the duvet, Going into a new place can be adventure if it isn't something you like to do. Walking the Pennine Way? Deep sea diving? Going to Sainsburys instead of Tesco..or vice versa...whatever your adventure is, enjoy it, delight in it.....let's do this!!!!

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another day, another dinner

So...another day...another dinner. What permutation of potatoey delight shall I serve Jboy today? Since he can only reliably eat baked or mashed without dietary consequence, I don't have a lot of leeway. I have been out all day AND it was my turn to be Parent on Duty so any inspiration re:potatoes has long since disappeared! Sigh...once more unto the breach, dear friends and If not the breach, certainly the kitchen.....potatowards I go......

The End

PS the Most Marvellous Social Worker in the World has contacted me to admit defeat on the 7 hours a week front.Apparently the Boy is too challenging and the task too daunting...what is it they say, it's the thought that counts!!!!!