Success comes in halves

9/18 of my OU MT262 tutor group gained distinctions this year. I'm chuffed.

Juggling

Juggling is a mother's life. Balance the needs of teenagers against husband. Remember that old story about the mother who had to be sure that her baby got its bottle and that her husband didn't.

Tuesday I planned supper to be early at 5 o'clock so that I could get teenager to Tae Kwondo without indigestion at 7, but at 4 o'clock, when I should have been preparing the food, happy husband was icing the Christmas cake in the kitchen, so I popped out muttering about getting scones and having tea at 5.30 instead of supper. I duly returned with sweet food, tapped on ceiling to call teenager down, got ignored so ate with husband. At 6.30 went to tell teenager, "I'm getting changed now" to be told that she was too hungry to come to Tae Kwondo. I threw a wobbly and stalked off, returned a few minutes later with my hat and coat on, and found she was half dressed, so I waited in the car until a neighbour wanted to get out and I was blocking her. Left without b* teenager.

Tae Kwondo was great. I had a lovely time. Being the last day of term we didn't practise patterns or sparring but played tag: pair tag, walk the white line tag, chain tag. There were penalties for being tagged, like 3 press ups if you're green belt but 5 if you're above. And we finished with a competition where each team had to learn a pattern composed by the leader, of 12 moves and with a Christmas theme. Our included me doing break dancing, or a form of Russian leap frog. It went down very well, and G probably would have been embarrassed had she been there.

Our team won and we had to do an encore.

See http://www.btkd.co.uk/

GrannyB alias GG alias Mum alias Betty (nee Fear)

Middle of the generations

As gradually your children go, you take on responsibility for your parents.

All her life, A's 90 year old mother lived in Keynsham, only moved to Aylesbury two months ago so she was near both her sons, and several of her grandchildren. J could visit on Saturdays, and Sundays she has lunch with us. The residential home is close and phones us with any problems. Every Friday evening S visits her. I was getting to know her, and through her, to know her son, my husband better. Last week we compared our attitudes on size of families.

But at 4.30 on Saturday morning we heard that she'd gone into hospital. The hospital said she had pneumonia and yesterday she died.

Today is Sunday. We shall miss her at lunch time.

Off to uni again

'Where's Daddy wandered off to?' she queried this morning as she packed her computer and cleared her room. 'If this were you, you'd have had a heart attack by now!' she warned him eventually, as he beamed and bumbled round the house, not carrying her boxes to the car.

She needs even more stuff this year because she's renting somewhere with three lads.

Punctuation free text

Not emergency just inform e went via cellar fnt door wdnt unlock i did it its ok now do i lock inner cellar door and door wher cat food is is open ok 2 close so i can put alarm on o


While on holiday C, our cleaner sent me this text. Punctuationless, it took a while to understand, but it is content full.

When E gets up after we've left, we've locked the front door while she sleeps, so if she finds it too difficult to open, she rushes out the cycle cellar door, which means it's a pain to put the alarm on. The day that C sent this, E also had to feed the cat, because her dad wasn't there to feed it, but she was late and her lift was waiting.

Responsibility of Mothers

What are we mothers that bring up children who self immolate? These are our people and our children, surrounded by our brothers, sisters, cousins, spouses and parents. We nurtured the suicide bombers. We are to blame, and those closest to the bombers must be most to blame.

Family commitments

I have loads of work this week and study too, but have had to devote time to the family. Son’s school had a big production of Grease and he was much committed to it. Consequently, he was out late rehearsing and then for the real thing. Of course, I had to stay up for him, so he and I didn’t get to bed till 1 o’clock a couple of nights.

Granny came to see what her grandson was so proud of. One morning, at 5, I got up to sort out the smoke alarm that was beeping because it needed recharging. Granny was already up, looking to sort it out for me, though I don’t know where she’d have found the ladder she was looking for, let alone go up it. I fixed the problem by switching on the light that charged the alarm and went back to bed, but didn’t sleep too well.

You’d have thought I could work once the holidays started and I didn’t have to worry about their school, but holidays are always more demanding of my time. So far I’ve taken daughter and Scottish friend to the BMW mini factory, which they thoroughly enjoyed, admiring the robots and the beautifully finished cars. I’ve chauffeured son to a party and daughter to a guitar lesson in High Wycombe (the train is not running because of a collapsed tunnel). Oh, and I’ve fetched Scottish friend to and from Luton airport.

Next week

• Family duty requires my presence at a loved nonagenarian auntie’s for a day.
• Son is requesting a lift to Oxford and I still have to finish two or three days work.
• I have three days work to do.
• and a day's study.