It's almost here...

Friday is almost here, OK, OK, so I'm no where near ready!
I had to learn to plough yesterday (sad, but true).
And I had a lot of emails and phone calls to get through, but really I'm just procrastinating.
The Birthday Cake is in the oven as I Blog and smells good.
I've got to make some Chilli and a few puddings, some bread and buy some cheese, that will do, I think.
I think the thing I most dread is what my Mother (Shirl) will give to Sophie for her Birthday present. Last Christmas she gave her book and cd from a pound shop. The choir on the cd murdered every Carol and after one song it was quickly disgarded in favour of Bear Necessities.
Last year there was a second hand Readers Digest book of Nursery Rhymes, printed in the late 70's and had another childs' name badly written in it.
Oh and I forgot about the Bin Liner of second hand videos from a car boot sale, all of them pirate copies.
What did I get for my Birthday you ask?
Well obviously it was a very special Birthday. My husband surprised me with diamond earrings, my mother with an Asda carrier bag containing cheap red wine (£2.75) and a box of reject chocolates from the Tobacco Warehouse in Belgium.

Other presents include:
a Terrys Chocolate Orange that was four years..FOUR YEARS!! out of date.
a pot of Honey ("Wellll, I thought it would come in useful, y'knowww")
a small vacuum cleaner that we discovered she'd won in a competition ("It was very expensive, Darling")
some rubber gloves and clean o pine ("well, I didn't know what to get and I knew you'd use it") All spoken in Barbie tones!

I'm terribly, terribly spoilt by 'Shirl' and so are my children!

Judgement Day

Sophie is 4 on Saturday.
She's having some tiddly peeps here for a tea party on Friday afternoon and I'm already getting worried. None of the Mum's have been here before and I'm going to be judged.
That bath panel that I threw out in disgust and refused to have installed is bothering me now because I have never got a substitute and the underside of the bath is displayed in all it's glory. These rash decisions seem great at the time.

Then there's the television, it's not a flat screen cinematic breakthrough in technology and although there is a DVD player in the house, it's hidden under the pile of videos, oh the shame! We are surely the last home in existence with a video player and even now, not one of us can programme the 'B' thing.

Oh dear, the landing had never been plastered, I don't notice any more. Will our guests think that because that hasn't been done, our beautiful stone walls are destined for the same thing and I'll get asked when we're plastering the sitting room and painting our beams black? A question my mothers' boyfriend used to ask frequently. He now just looks around tutting and with pity in his eyes, wondering if we'll ever be able to afford carpets instead of having to suffer bare floorboards (beautifully oiled in our eyes). Of course to him, unless your skirting board is glossed white and there's not wall to wall fitted patterned carpet covering your entire house, then he is going to feel sorry for you.

But Friday looms ever closer, what am I going to do with the piles of paper that seem to build up, I can't seem to find the right place to file them and so they just hang around, waiting to be shredded, so they can sit in the bottom of the shredder and hear me say, oh my God, I've shredded the wrong pile!

And the garden, so full of weeds, loads of bright coloured flowers and gorgeous roses, but even my Mayor of Castorbridge roses can't disguise the whiff of my pet pigs the other side of the hedge.

How can I hide the fact we have a room full of wellies and waterproof clothes (sheep smelling ones in my husbands' case), dog biscuits by the bucket full and huge sacks of pig food, chain saws and filing cabinets (oh the bliss of being married to a farmer)!

I'm thinking the best option is make a very large jug of Pimms, if they care about it all, at least I won't!