Thursday 13 September 2007

Thursday 13th September 07

A difficult start to the day, I got up early so I could help our little one with his homework, which is a 10 minute exercise attempting to fill in a 10x10 grid with the 'times tables' on. He doesn't yet know his times tables, apart from 2's, 4's and 5's. Gill said that he shouldn't be made to do it this morning, so instead I told him that I was going to spend just 5 minutes (I first asked him if he thought 5 minutes was a long time, he said 'no') helping him with one of his times tables. When he was dressed, at 8.15, I said, lets do the 5 mins now, before we set off for school at 8.30. He kicked up such a fuss, he kicked me and shouted. It's really really difficult to be a parent, there seems no way to get it right. I am depressed.

Took them to school, they were fine, good cyclists, and when they got to school and put their lunch bags in the right place and collected their book bags from me, both of them kissed me and the youngest one said sorry.

I had taken the garden fork down to school to excavate a compost bin ready for the ongoing 5 or so kg/day additions, but when I went round the back of the school to dig out the smaller bin and put the compost on the raised bed which has been weeded, it had been moved, emptied and the sacks of finished compost removed. I spoke to the headteacher in the playground after she had welcomed new parents, and she knew nothing about where it had gone. She does know, however that there's me on ITV tonight, and I'm a bit worried as in the filming, I came to school (with the school's permission) and they filmed me going in the playground bins to take out fruit for composting, and I complained that there wasn't a system in place to prevent children just throwing stuff away, and that the school wasn't interested in sustainability.

Anyway, the criticism is justified, and it may be that it gets something to change.

I spent 45 minutes digging out one bin, putting the partly composted materials in the next-door one, leaving the original empty to recieve more stuff. Then emptied the playground bins, by hand, and put over 30 kg of fruit skins, cores etc in the ready to use composter.

Came home for 10am and tried to get on with paperwork, but did some blog too, to get it off my chest, aaah!

Had a low day, not feeling good. Headache.

However got on with stuff, Gill and I did a lot of clearing out the kitchen cupboards (mainly Gill actually) and we now have more space, threw a bit of stuff away which was past using, composted lots.

I did a quick trip to town, paying in a Community Care cheque, picking up stuff from Out Of This World and Martin's.

I collected the boys, they'd had a good day, but later in the afternoon/evening there was shouting and anger, tears and when they eventually went to bed, we both flopped down and let out a big sigh, and watched 'Who Do You Think You Are?' about John Hurt's ancestry. I got a tape ready to record ITV Yorkshire's 'Wood You Believe It?'. I saw the first programme last night and it's a bit tongue in cheek, slightly piss-take, slightly tabloid, sensationalism. Part of me is not looking forward to seeing how they portray my lifestyle. However there's nothing I can do about it now!

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