Well, here I am barely pausing for breath. Played the piano at Mass as usual this morning, an event which ended up in a certain amount of hilarity when the music group forgot that the last verse of the final hymn had a different tune, sang the old tune which didn't match my music... and well, I just gave up in slight hysteria and put my head down on the keyboard, laughing desperately! No one seemed to mind, they were all just a bit perplexed! Afterwards, Finn brought a friend home to play and Asher went to a friend's house, so it was very peaceful. Later Christy and I went to a jewellery party, can you believe it? It was Emma Page crap stuff but we bought a couple of things. My friend is learning to sell the stuff, and so most of the people there were Filipino, as she is, so the presentation was in English with all this Tagalag thrown in! It was fun, really. But now it's five in the evening, I have hardly planned any lessons for the week, the school uniform stuff isn't dry yet, Finn's friend isn't getting collected until God knows when and the house isn't that tidy! Another week of frantic chaos looms and I would so love to avoid that. Maybe if I work hard from now until nine tonight...

Parent interviews at the boys' school this week and I'm dreading it. I had issues of my own earlier in the year with the senior teacher's reward system from last year (only 7 out of 33 children achieved their reward and I don't think that's much of an incentive for children). I wrote to her in February and then her father died and the world stopped around here for that, and she only answered last week, August, when I wrote again to complain about the stupid library system they run there. She tried to tell me not to speak to the students in future and I emailed back and said don't you tell me what to do. So. She's not that bright though, so it's water off a duck's back to her. She's a bully and I tend to just avoid her. But I really need to go to this interview, for Asher's sake... watch this space. Heh.

Yesterday the children all had success in sport - Christy's netball team didn't have enough players, and even with her friend from Year 10, they only had five members for the first ten minutes. That's five against seven. Thing was, to boost our team along, I was giving them heaps of encouragement, and the other team (who go to a spoilt, snobby rich school) complained at half time that it wasn't fair that I was being so encouraging. So while taking score, I had to play silent parent - I didn't really mind, we used to do that when they were at primary school! We still thrashed the pants off them, even with one less player, 26-12, so that was satisfying indeed! And later the boys saw The Simpson's Movie. I was jealous, I wanted to see it too. Spider pig caught my attention. They said the movie was great.

And so I'd better go find all the bits of school uniform that have been dumped in dark corners of the boys' bedroom. And deal with Asher's gashed knee which is muddy all over again. It's rather... yukky! And while we were out, Steve's cooked a roast dinner, which smells good!

I have so much more to say, but I really need to get things done. Any chance I'll get back here later? Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!

And btw The Avenging Saint is definitely my all time favourite Simon Templar book. Just thought I'd mention it. But our copy is completely poked. I'll have to comb the second hand book shops.

ETA: Busy night, four different friends popped in for one reason or another, I have mastered the whole (surface level for Year 12s anyway!) of Byzantine, Romanesque and (the start of) Gothic church architecture, including flying buttresses and Roman and Norman arches, vaulted roofs and all the rest... and this is stuff I never had to learn before, down here in the 'Antipodes'. Very interesting. And thank God for Google. I've made a couple of very nice powerpoints! And now ...to bed! Have a great Sunday, my good buddies.