Planet Mad

It's all been a tad frantic since last Friday, if lazing around reading books and watching crap TV can be classified as 'frantic'. Friday was parents' meeting at school, followed by Guides. Both went well; yet again, my Guides had obviously read the script when it came to the disability activities (communicating ideas and opinions without speaking) and I love them all dearly for it. I then jumped in the Boringmobile and zooooomed down to Cheltenham for an evening featuring clubs, choons, pizzas and a very friendly taxi-driver-man. Rock'n'roll!

My dislike of Valentine's Day (not known as VD for nothing!) has been noted before in this tiddly corner of the internetwebthing. Last year, being single, it was nothing to worry about. The arrival of a new bloke put a new slant on the matter. Many moons ago, I discussed the whole sheebang with the boy wonder and we decided then to do nothing: no card, no presents, nothing that we wouldn't do at any other time of year. After all, why should the card companies dictate when we can and can't purchase trinkets for our loved ones? We spent the evening of VD curled up on the sofa, eating home-cooked nice food and watching The Simpsons. It was lovely.

Today I came home from Rob's via Stoke-On-Trent. Lesley dropped her sprog a couple of weeks ago, so now I suppose I should refer to the baby as Thomas, especially given my scarily-responsible position as godmother. Mind you, knowing my way of dealing with responsibility, I'm more likely to be his o-my-god-mother, or even his gawdmother. Either way, I digress. I arrived, made appropriate-sounding comments - he looks like a mole but I didn't think it prudent to tell his mother that - then we sent off for lunch and the supermarket. To give Thomas his credit, he only cried once, and even that stopped when I did my teacher look at him. I'm sure this child will need extensive therapy to get over my 'parenting' techniques. The classic moment of the day, however, came in Tesco. I was pushing the trolley, complete with Thomas strapped into a seat-thingy, leaving Lesley and David to collect the necessary food. Some passing woman looked at the sprog, looked at me and said, "Oh, he's tiny - how old is he?"
"Dunno," I replied.
It was only when I saw her jaw drop and her eyes open wide that I realised I ought to explain my lack of knowledge: "I'm not the mother, I'm just the trolley-pusher!"
Something makes me suspect that I've got a long way to go before I'm let loose with one on my own! :-)