Trying to be normal

I have no excuse now for taking it easy, being grumpy, precious, letting the world pass me by.  Things that seemed like real achievemnts when I was the little old lady with cancer now seem a bit pathetic. 

One major problem is finding some way of disposing of all the stuff we have sorted out and have no room for: furniture, clothes, bric-a-brac.  After all my freegling efforts I still have large bags of scraps of material, and some larger bits.  I thought there was a re-cycling equivalent of the rag and bone man, but even Kate with her weighed collection in aid of the pre-school now says 'no rubbish.'  Charity shops have become very fashionable and I feel guilty about giving them anything that I don't want to wear myself.  I haven't heard of a jumble sale for years, and the wheelie bin isn't big enough.  I confess that there is another factor now: I am a bit reluctant to dispose of anything that I might possibly wear or adapt, now that I have a future!  If I followed up on this I would put back in the wardrobe all the stuff I retained at the last major turn-out, which would achieve nothing!  I can't even work on the theory that anything I didn't wear last year is not going to be required this year.  Last year was a bit of a non-event.  I don't think I took a summer dress out of the wardrobe; I was cold all the time, and was warned not to let the sun shine on me because of the chemo.

It sounds as if I am moaning about having my sentence remitted.  Of course I am not, it is just taking a little time to adjust.

We went to Topps Tiles in Norwich yesterday afternoon.  We have more Tesco Clubcard tokens than we need to tile the new shower, so thought we might tile above the kitchen worktops.  I confess to being bewildered and a bit disappointed by the choice of tiles.  When we had the annexe bathroom and kitchen tiled for Mum in 2008 I really enjoyed looking at everything in the local tile-shop, and we were spoilt for choice.  This Topps showroom is full of natural stone mosaics, brilliantly coloured glass tiles, and enormous marble slabs.  Hardly a blueish, four-inch tile to be seen!  We have another problem.  The idea is to put a shelf above the tiles and move all the tea, coffee, salt and pepper, daily pills etc up there.  If it is too high I won't be able to reach it, so we settled on 30cms as a good height.  Some of the giant tiles are 30cms if laid sideways, but in bed this morning I had the depressing thought that a 30cm high shelf will prevent us opening the breadmaker.  Back to the drawing board.

Mary-Ann and family were home from Friday until Monday.  It was lovely to see them and the boys were a delight.  They even played outside for nearly an hour on Sunday.  It was bitterly cold, and they found watering cans with rainwater in them, so got wet.  James had to come in and get changed into a pair of shorts, but then went out again and dug in the sandpit with Joe quite happily.

Mary-Ann went for her interview on Friday and to her surprise got the job.  She was convinced that she is too expensive, and that no Head with any sense would consider employing an ex-Head.  However, they loved her class teaching and behaviour control, and said she interviewed very well.  Soon after she heard that she had the job she and Dom decided that they would follow their plan through and come to us for a year, then review the situation.  This means it is full steam ahead to get the upstairs ready for them, hence the panic about the clothes.  Dom is convinced they can get their enormous settee up there, in which case the living room downstairs will stay the same.