Confessions of a bad wife 2

I am back in Stockholm whereas Archaeologist Husband and Number One Son expect to fly to Jersey on Tuesday. After some hard and tough decisions, I decided to return to finish my contract and return to home at the end of the month after returning the keys of my flat. Different carriers seem to be conspiring against me by dropping the easy routes and connections one by one. There is no more SAS flight to Birmingham with a Finnish Blue cabin crew. Similarly, British Airways dropped the City airport route, which was my favourite due to the classy food and the convenient landing time in relation to the cheap train tickets back home to the Midlands. Now it turned out that all Stockholm flights by the british Airways are flown from Heathrow - which is a slight problem if one was to return from Jersey and land at Gatwick...

Thus, there will be one more family funeral I am not attending. I have a bit of a precedent in this, which probably is no consolation to Archaeologist Husband. I hope one can give a sense of support via Skype and texts...

Easter holiday in the sun

The Spiderman watch

After the rain and hale of the first school Easter holiday week, which I spent mainly in Italy, the second week has been a swim in a glorious sunshine. Every other morning has been foggy or rainy, but by the time of the elevensies the skies have cleared and the sun has been out. Some days have been warm, some colder, but it has been an Easter of garden meals and a trip to the garden centre. All would be lovely, if there wasn't the bad news of the last night. A sad loss in the family and the time to tell Number One Son about the loss. "I am now a bit sad", was the answer.

However, it has been a time of recovery for me (overwork is not good for anyone) and I begin to be now ready to face the e-mail boxes, applications and editing again. As always, the fanciful ideas of the trips to London or at least to Nottingham have floated away and made room to play in the park, a play date and family lunches. It is a holiday after all, not a performance test. Anyway, Number One Son's holiday homework - a non-fictional book with a list of contents and an index - has kept me busy. It is difficult to work on this project, since Number One Son is not developed enough to figure out what an index really is and his writing is wobbly at its best, but the chosen topic - the cats - keeps him focused. His drawing of our pet cat is actually pretty accurate image of a slim, long young black cat and his cat mummies are fabulous.

Holly in Haymarket

After the Easter Saturday spent shopping and the bank holidays cooking, I and Number One Son did our normal treat: a bus trip to the Leicester city centre. Nothing is better than a lunch at McDonald's with a toy and a pop to the toy shop. I must blushingly admit that I bought a Frozen watch to myself - and I am wearing it! Number One Son now owns a Spiderman watch, which became handy in the Finnish Saturday School where he was the only child with a watch. On the day of the trip the watch was more important than Jewry Wall, but the bus ride still has its magic.

The first popcorn

The highlight of the week was Number One Son's first trip to the movies. I had chosen the Big Hero 6, since it seemed the only one I dared to watch myself, but I must admit that it was a bit above Number One Son. I think nine- or twelve-year-olds are the correct target audience, but for Number One Son the most important thing was to get his popcorn. He said he did not like the show, but we made it to the end. The computer graphics were fabulous and there was emotional depth to the story, which was relatively dark. Nonightmares, though.

Now the Cat book is almost ready and we have to decide what to do on the last Sunday of the holidays. Number One Son will definitely not want to see a castle, so I think we try to go to a park farther away and replace his petal collection that had wilted in the car.

Conference Mom does Birthday

This year I managed to land a conference paper on the same day as Number One Son's birthday party. And that was not all. I was going to swan to Siena to another conference, even if the departure time of 3.45am from St. Margaret's coach station the following morning was less than fun. I had managed to sort out the venue at the end of the stay home after the New Year and check the details during the half-term. We went for the fully organized birthday party in a Wacky Warehouse, so the only things to do were for Archaeologist Husband to take the list of names to the venue and buy a cake and some sweets and two presents for the children to give during the party games. This was a good choice.

There I was apologizing in the conference the lady from whom I managed to have a cigarette in the wine reception that I cannot stay for her talk and left the conference half way during the last day. I had forgotten my mobile phone at home the day before so could not give the registration number of my car to the organisers in order to have guest parking at the university. But luckily the parking is free on Sundays in Leicester! I could leave the car relatively near, so I moved swiftly before lunch. Then it was home, packing Number One Son, Archaeologist Husband and cake in the car and drive to the venue - where we were embarrassingly early.

The main thing for us was to give Number One Son a good party. We had a mix of coffee group children and school friends and their siblings and all seemed to have good time. At least their chins were bright red from playing and running and they scoffed the food after the intensive play. Number One Son had waited for his party for at least for a month and presented over Skype the presents he had made for himself during the earlier part of the week when I had to teach at Stockholm. He insisted of getting a '6' badge on the last day of the school term that was his real birthday. And he carried that badge with pride. If nothing else, Number One Son knows how to party.