The Half Term post...

It's half term and I am a happy, happy bunny.  There are many and various reasons for this:-

• I work in a school.  This is not something I have shared with you up until now because the potential to cause upset/insult by (advertently and inadvertently) slagging off the staff, the pupils and the parents (oh the parents...) is so enormous as to make a game of hopscotch in an Angolan minefield look like a fun day out.  However, I am beginning to feel that I can resist the urge no longer - such are the rich pickings to be had from a blogging point of view... 

• Because I work in a school, I have a week off from today.  Myself and TD were planning to visit her cousin and my sister-in-law oop North for a few days but that has been postponed for reasons of necessary revision on the part of the girls.  While it is a shame not be seeing them, I find myself quite giddy at the prospect of 3 extra days to play with. 

• This is the first holiday in which "Clean Crap Cottage" has not featured large on my To Do List.  This is because (drum roll please...)  We have a cleaner.   You may think I am utterly pathetic for being so patently excited by this turn of events, but what the hell.  I haven't had a cleaner for 20 years, having been put off by the last one who cleaned feck all, never declared anything she broke (things just mysteriously disappeared) was morbidly obese, so could only ever clean anything at her waist height because bending and stretching were out of the question and flounced off in a huff when I told her to sling her hook erm, that I couldn't afford her paltry services any longer.  Anyway, although Ewa has been in residence since just before Christmas,  (well not actually in residence you understand - what do you think we have here?  Maids' quarters?) the whole process of her appointment was so traumatic that it deserves a whole post of its own and I have only just recovered enough to contemplate it.

•  My baby girl turns 16 soon. This provides me with an unrivalled shopping opportunity although the possibilities for Getting It All Wrong are immense (see previous remarks about Angolan Minefields).  I had a clearout yesterday and we came across a load of baby photos of the two of them that hadn't seen the light of day for years. She was beautiful then and she's beautiful now; the only difference being that nowadays she's a good two inches taller than me and slender as a reed. Because she is on half term too, we get to spend some proper time together which is a delight.

• Because we didn't have to get up in the morning, TD and I decided last night to watch the first episode of The Promise that we taped weeks ago.  This holds a particular poignance for me as my dad was part of the British Army contingent that spent two turbulent years in Palestine after the war.  So gripped were we that we then had to watch two other episodes to bring us up to date (both around an hour and three quarters long) and ended up bleary-eyed and gagging for the next episode in the wee small hours.

•  Having only a week off (and no cleaning to do - sorry but I just have to mention it again), I feel I can justify sitting in the kitchen, still in my pyjamas at midday (oh the delicious, degenerate sloth of it!) composing this post whilst simultaneously indulging in my guilty pleasure which is daytime TV or, to be more precise, morning TV.  There are utter gems to be viewed such as Homes Under the Hammer (or how to buy a flea-infested pit at auction and turn it into a des-res in 6 weeks) and the joy that is Cash in the Attic.  I have just laughed myself into severe abdominal pain watching Jenny Bond interviewing a crone with a gigantic mop of unfeasibly dark brown hair.  "You have amazing hair," Jenny begins, with the air of someone who wishes she had never ventured down this avenue. "Where do you get it from?"  The crone looks a little taken aback and, while I am crying with laughter, replies that she inherited it from her father.  I suspect it was found amongst his effects...