Not Sure What Happened

Eileen - DH and I agree that we are lucky to have bear. He has some moments, of course, but he is such a sweetheart for a teenager. We are able to give these opportunities to bear because DH works so hard and I really don't mind running around after bear, and we feel that we are privileged to do that. And I suspect that bear does kind of feel lucky. From the tiny fragments that bear lets slip (I swear I would get more info from the Mafia), his friends' parents are a little more strict and stressy. I don't stress about much stuff with bear. I've had years of dealing with father and uncle. The complications of teenage lifts are a pale shadow compared to what they managed!

Bless - I think the new bow will make a difference. The teacher thinks that it will make an amazing difference. I think it would take a flamethrower/chainsaw combination to give that fuchsia much of a set back. As for the weather - on Thursday at pick up it was 20C (68F). The Brits talk about weather all the time because it changes so much that it's always something to talk about. I'm digging out a sweater later. 

Thursday temperature

Don't you love British weather? It dropped 22 degrees Celsius in two days!

I've been feeling a little stressed about the whole writing stuff, so kept off here. However, bear brought home an amazing report. There are lots of good grades (plus English, there's likely to be an intervention), but the best bit was the attitude to learning. There are four grades to that, 1-4, with 1 being the best, and bear got straight 1s all across the board, even with PE which he had to miss for years. I am so proud of that. 

The bow got a little stressy as well. It turned up, really well packaged, and bear struggled to use it. For a while I thought we would have to send it back and then drive bear to Manchester and a specialist shop there so bear to try them out before buying. Fortunately bear had a lesson yesterday evening and the wonderful teacher worked out that it was his bow technique so I was spared a trip to the obscure suburb of Manchester over the summer. 

Yesterday was a little odd. I dropped bear off at school and then raced back. I'm clearning out my hoarded bedroom and it's been tough. I'm asking myself questions about whether I really want to keep stuff. So during the day I filled six bags to donate and a lot of bin bags. I also took down the picture that was father's pride and joy - the 3D pic of Liverpool's 2005 team. It's huge and I'm going to wait for DH to take it downstairs. 

Bear finished his Yr10 at midday, but he was doing something with his pals until around 4pm (no idea - they seem to walk around for hours and it's exercise). Here is where it started to get complicated. I had a truly awful drive to pick up bear. I started late, because I was trying to work out what to do about bear's bow. Then I seemed to hit all the problems. It was like a video game - cars were pulling out in front of me, I was tailgated on two separate parts of the run (and not going slow at all!), and had all the double parking - it was challenge after challenge! I was going to drop off the donations at the charity shop before picking up bear, but I got caught out by a closed road and a weird diversion and went through some very strange back roads before I decided to head straight to bear and managed to make the pick up place two minutes before bear got there. The drive home was ridiculous as well and bear agreed. 

I barely got home when I had to head out again as it was bear's violin lesson. Finding parking around there is horrendous and I don't like parking on residential streets anyway. I keep worrying about upsetting the people in the houses. The violin teacher asked me not to come in because of Covid, so I found the local Tesco express and got some cola as I was feeling so tired that I was worried about being safe to drive and needed caffeine. It was interesting having that short walk as I passed one of the golden post boxes - the post boxes that were painted gold in 2012 whenever someone local to that post box won a gold medal in the 2012 London Olympics. After that I waited for bear and had a quiet knit. 

The drive back from the lesson was also a little scary as I went on the 60mph roads and even though it was evening, they were still fast and busy.

Then I realised that I had a boot full of donations plus a Tesco shop scheduled for the next day that I didn't really need and that DH needed an empty boot if he was going to take the bin bags to the tip. So I dropped bear off at home, and carried on straight out to Tesco. There are huge donation thingies where you can leave the stuff so I put the clothes in there, the books on the Tesco charity book table and grabbed the few bits I needed for the workmen. Because I pay £7.99 each month for the Tesco Clubcard plus I get 10% off two shops per month (which can't be carried forward). I used one of those and saved £5, so that was something. I called in at Aldi and then got home around about 10pm and cancelled the Tesco order. I drove over fifty miles and did over double my normal step count. Today I'm shattered and I can barely move. My step count wasn't that much, but it was more than normal, so I'm still recovering!

And I have sooo much to do today. I feel sort of exhilarated, like it's an adventure. There's certainly going to be dust!

Hugs and good health to all.