28 July 2006

Dear Dennis,
My apologies for leaving you like that – I’ve just resuscitated a starving cat. It was pawing at the window pathetically and making as if chewing its arm – I think the teeth marks in the food sachet were going a bit far but I got the message and gave it two sachets to make up for starving poor “Thompson” (ginger tom) [ thinner than it used to be].

Last night I found a brilliant way to silence our dribbling, swearing, raging, shouting, screaming, kicking nine year old … I shoved him out of the front door in his pyjamas to stand on our front step – he shut up immediately and asked very politely to be let in and promised to be good and to go to bed without disturbing his brother. You see, in our street some of the kids go to bed at normal times and others are allowed to roam around well into the night. Charlie comes into the first batch but would dearly like to be in the second and I presume until now has hidden the fact that he goes to bed at a normal time (8:30) from the first batch. Whilst he was outside the front door in his pyjamas he could hear the roaming batch coming up the street kicking the dustbins and, I would think, he correctly imagined what would happen if they saw him standing there. Another fine weapon for my arsenal.

Anyway the upshot is that I now have less than a day to return the house to some semblance of order and to feed the kids all the food I was supposed to have been feeding them whilst the brunette has been away.

Actually I made a salad for lunch the other day – half way through Charlie said he didn’t like cheese, he didn’t like quiche (I don’t blame him), doesn’t like potatoes, doesn’t like hard boiled eggs, isn’t keen on cucumber, Oh and he thought the lettuce and tomato’s tasted like they had “gone off”. He only liked “squeezy cheese” and hot-dogs.

Did I tell you I emailed MP Jim Murphy [mailto:jimmurphymp@parliament.uk] with my problems regarding the Unemployment people – I told him the whole sorry story (he is the minister in charge of that lot after all) I had an email from his secretary yesterday saying he couldn’t help as I wasn’t a constituent of his (Renfrewshire) and that she had forwarded all my emails to the DWP !! I’m for it now, they’ll tie my claim up in red tape and pointless to’ing and fro’ing between different offices for months ! Bugger ! There that’ll teach me to complain ! I won’t do that again in a hurry. I’m stuffed now. When I go in to sign on next Tuesday I just know they’ll give me a good spanking.

My sister just emailed – she wants me to go over and help her empty our Dads loft – is she mad? It is going to be the hottest day of the century and she thinks she’ll get someone to willingly go and work in a loft? Why today? Why at all? Why would anyone want their loft emptied? Well it could be an excuse for not being able to tidy the house before the brunette gets back … but at what price? It’s going to be hot in that loft and not to mention the wasps nests he seems to cultivate. But the silly old sod needs help so I’d better go … he can feed the kids hmmm