Thursday, May 31, 2007

Meg's Birthday

May 31st was Meg's 30th Birthday. She spent it alone.

I went to see her at work about 4 p.m. She said Simon and her are not speaking at the moment, though he did ring to wish her Happy Birthday. Kath works Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, but had not rung her YET. Donald rang her. Her dad rang her. The girl she met in Thailand emailed her. BJ rang. (BJ is Belinda, Meg's best friend from the neighbourhood, when they were teenagers. BJ's mother married Meg's father in late 1994, so now they are step sisters.) Susan her best friend from school had not rung either.

Work had bought her a lovely mud cake with WHITE chocolate. Joe her boss offered me a slice and it was YUM.

She was teary but claimed it was not the fact she was turning 30 but that at 30 neither her love or job life was exactly as she had hoped they would be.

I don't know if it was any comfort to her but I said it was worse when you are 40 and that applies! (as it did in my case.)

I'm trying to organise a family meal next Wednesday at the Top Pub (with the shop a dockets.)

Been a slow week.

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Mother's Day Revisited

Meg came back from Thailand on May 8th. So my children took me to the top pub in Morwell on Wednesday 9th 2007 to celebrate Mother's Day together. Donald and Meg paid for my tea.

Unfortunately Cliff was not feeling well and didn't come.

I was quite surprised at the crowd there. It was packed. The surprise came as it is one of the dearest places to eat in Morwell. Found out when the children went to order the meal that they have a discount on the current shop a docket. Order one full price meal and get the second one for onlly $5! Most meals range from $18 to $24, so that is a reasonable saving, but none of us had a current shop a docket. In fact I had emptied my purse of all such things just before going out.

So with the six of us they got about $120, not including the kids meals, entrees or drinks.

I enjoyed the food. I shared a dozen kilpatrick oysters with Simon. Then I had a steak wrapped in bacon with lobster stuffing! YUM! Though there were no vegies with it. It just came on a bed of rice.

Turns out it is Triva Night on Wednesdays. During the half time break I saw Kylie there and said hello. (She is one of my fellow students at TAFE. She turned 20 on Monday 21st May, 2007) She came over and I introduced her to my children.

Then she went off to play and Don Jr had to leave as he has to get up early to go to work. Then Kath and Nathen had to leave to take the kids home. It was 9 p.m. and the next day was a school day so it was a late night for them.

Meg, Simon and I went into the pokie room and Simon gave me $10 to play the machines and after only $5 I won $25. (I gave him $12.50 back.) I was going to give him the $10 and $12.50 but he said no.

Had a good night but as both Meg and I wanted to be home by 9.30 p.m. to watch our T.V. shows we called it a night then.

Sunday, May 20, 2007

Grandparents Day

How remiss of me not to mention Graqndparents Day. On the 6th May Donald dropped in with three of his children. Maddison who turned eight in March. Connor who will be seven in July and Sammuel who was five in March.

Maddy had a questionaire from school. It asked ten questions of grandparents. Like What did you do for entertainment as a child? What games did you play? What was school like? etc. So I sat down at the computer and printed out some of the material from my non fiction project for her. The only trouble was Donald had only left me half an hour to answer these questions as he had to get the kids back to their mother by 6 p.m.

It took me an hour. He said that a sentence was enough per question and was cross I had used all the space. If I had been that slip shod with his work at school I don't think he would have been happy.

Then Maddy handed me an invite to Grandparents Day at her school. It was for Tuesday 8th May. Lucky Meg was away as Tuesday is one of the days we usually go to lunch.

It ran fom 9 a.m. till 1 p.m.

I turned up at 11 a.m. I thought I'd be out of there by midday.

I had never been to that school before. I assumed there would be some sort of signs to show where to go, but there weren't. I began to walk in the playground. It turned out it was break time. I hadn't taken more than three steps when I see a sand pit. Playing in it was a little girl, who from the back looked like Maddy. I walked up to her and said "Are you building castles?" She looked up and it was Maddy. She jumped up and gave me a big hug and said "I didn't think you were coming and I was about to cry." She hadn't looked like she was on the verge of tears to me.
Kids still know how to manipulate adults.

I said "I said I was coming and if I say that then I will."

She showed me her classroom. She said they were overcrowed as they had 27 children in the class. When I was in Year 2 we had 70 boys and girls in our class. Of course the nuns kept discipline by the use of the cane. I think one of the reasons why they need smaller classes is because there is no discipline or corporal punishment.

Then she took me to her art class in the art room.

On the way we saw two of my great grand children. Corey who is six and is in Year 1 with his twin brother. Then Jarred who is eleven and in Year 5. Corey asked me if I was coming to his room to see him and I had to say no. I asked Maddy why Corey would think I was there for him and she explained that it was gradparent's day for Preps to Year 3. So I told Corey that I was usre his grandmother would be coming soon. (That is my ex step-daughter Kim.)

Then up runs Connor and wants to know if I'm coming to see him, cause he needed me. Maddy said I could go after her art class. I asked her what about Sammuel? and she said he hadn't started school this year and I asked why not and she floored me with her answer. Sammuel is mum's baby. When he goes to school as a sinle parent his mother is required by Centerlink to go out and look for work and she doesn't want to work!! So I said oh well she'll have to next year and Maddy said No "Mum is only going to send him to Kinder" (2008). So he won't start school before 2009 when he is seven years old!!

Maddy and I made a scarecrow in her art class.

Then off I went to Connor's room, which Maddy had pointed out to me.

Turns out that Connor too had a questionaire for me to fill in but as dad had carried on about Maddy's one he had't asked me to fill his in.

He also had an invite, which he had left in his bag and thus no-one knew he wanted me to come to his class till he approached me in the playground.

He was learning the ABC sounds. Now this was something I had to do as a child. Make weird sounds with the letters. It never made sense to me and I couldn't see the point and always had trouble pronouncing these strange noises. Then Connor's teacher explained to the grandparents there that words are prnounced diffrently according to the vowel sound in them. This sound might be soft or hard or even silent and thus the vowels had a number of sounds. This also happened with other letters such as 'h.' Ah! now all those weird sounds made sense at last, but I still have no 'ear' for the differnce.

Just before lunch all classes involved in Grandparents' Day had sport. So I watched both Maddy and Connor.

Finally got away at 12.55 p.m. The children's lunch break does not start till 1 p.m. I was glad I had not come at 9 a.m. I don't think I could have endured another two hours. It was so full on.

As it turned out Kim did not go. She did not even know about it. Her eldest daughter, Melissa, is 'not talking to her'. They had a tiff over something. Now you would think that even though the 'adults' are not talking Melissa could have sent a message via her sisters who are still living at home to ask mum to go to see the kids on grandparents' day, so the kids didn't miss out, but apparently this was too simple.

Sometimes I am baffled by the weird behaviour of so called matute people.

Anyway I had a great day and I hope that Maddy and Connor did too.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Mother's Day

A quiet day. Meg was in Thailand with Simon on hoilday, but she gave me a card before she left, with the strict instruction not to open till Mother's Day. I was good and didn't.

Kath rang but I was in the toilet and when I rang her back her phone rang out. Within a minute my son rang. I asked who was with him and he said he was alone. I could hear kids in the bcakground, that was why I had asked. He only gets his kids every fortnight and he had the last week before. As it turned out Kath and her family were there and it was when he saw the missed call on her phone that he rang. Why did he have to lie? It spoilt my day.

Kath, Nathan and the kids dropped in at Cliff's at 9:15 p.m. considreing Monday is a school day what was she thinking to have Kirsten out that late? No wonder the child is tired at school. As she is only eight she should be in bed by 8 p.m. at the latest.

I opened Kath's card first and then opened Meg's and she said "That's right, Meg comes first." I said, "But I opened your card first" She answered "But I was talking." What! so I wasn't to open Meg's card while she was there? Really she is 26! when she is she going to grow up?

Don Jr. did say he would take me out to dinner during the week and I was looking forward to seeing him one on one as we don't see a great deal of each other without everyone else being there, but I have just had a phone call from Meg who arrived back yesterday and it has turned into a family dinner, which means I have to put up with Nathan and miss the chance of talking to Don Jr. Add injury to insult Cliff said e "...does not get one night off..." I pointed out it was not exactly going to work to come out to dinner, but he said "...a night for myself..." I guess he means to sit alone and booze. What fun is there in that?

Maybe at the dinner I will get a present as I didn't get any on Mother's Day, just the cards from the girls.

Friday, May 4, 2007

May Day - Euchre

So we are well and truly into Autumn. Mentioned to a few people at Euchre, on Monday night, that it was May Day the next Day. Considering most of the players are over 60 I was shocked when only three out of the fourteen knew what I was referring to. I don't expect the 'young' people to know about this, but I was sure most of the 'oldies' would. One lady did say she danced around the May pole when she was young. Of course it is mostly an English tradition but as most of the players are from an English-Irish-Scottish background I expected more.

Cliff and I go to Euchre every Monday night from 7.30 p.m. to about 10.40 p.m. We play in pairs. The winning pair move to the next table and each partners one of the 'losing pair' at that table. So we can almost play every member in the club during the night.

We play three games have a brief break to order drinks, toilet etc. Then another three games, a longer break for 'supper' (which is usually party pies and sausage rolls), the drawing of the trivia question asked at the beginning of the night, toilet and ordering more drinks. Three more games another short break and the final two games of the evening. The max: points for each game is 15. So at the end of last Monday my score was 130! The best score I have got in the three years I have been playing. My highest score till then was 124, which I got about two years ago! Though I was not the nightly winner. I was equal third for the night.

As many of the players say we are not playing for 'sheep' farms, but what ever I undertake I always try to improve my individual score. No point in trying to out do someone else as there will always be someone better than you at one point or another.