So Rob is packing the cars, James and Luke are dispersed around the house in showers, Penny is hiding in the office buying tickets for, well for I dread to think how many Rufus Wainwright gigs. Al, well I presume Al is still sleeping as he has yet to rise from his pit and I’ve taken refuge behind the laptop while the blonde kid jumps in and out of the trailer, runs in and out the house, and generally “helps” everyone with what they’re doing.

Now I’m not saying Jordan is excited but you know “We’re going to Hesfes today and if i help everyone we can get there quicker and if I stand here I wont be in Robs way but I better move because now I’m in Penny’s way Where’s James and what are you doing Mom??? can I get a car our off my case?? and and and I’ve never been to Hesfes before can I have some toast and can I play with this and what’s that for?…..”

So as you see, everything is as normal here, the stressful ones being berated by the laid back ones for being stressed, the laid back ones being berated by the more stressful ones for not taking the organisation seriously the younger ones quite excited and me, well I’m just waiting to get on the road…

…see you all when I get back.

Having just sat here and devoured a third of a Lemon Meringue Pie, which I have to admit was equally as good as Sara Lee’s Chocolate fudge cake, but nowhere close to Krispy Kreme and their perfect doughnuts. I am now feeling quite sickly and rather sleepy.

The rain has given us a short respite today and the “pond” that appeared in my back garden has now subsided, well at least until tomorrow, When, the metcheck website has reliably informed me, its going to start hooning it down around dinner time and not stop for the rest of the day!! Joy of joys, At least it’s given the kids a chance to get outside to play for a while.

I use the term play loosely as at one point it sounded like war had broken out in the street and I was about to sound all alarms until I realised it was just the the blonde kid and Craig arguing over “she’s not my girlfriend”… AND talking of “She’s not my girlfriend” it seems I may have to rename her to….

“She IS my girlfriend”

The blonde kid has admitted, to me at least, that Shannon is indeed his girlfriend because “she told him she was!”. And he very solemnly announced to her when she last came around to play and I interrupted them that “It’s O.K, Mom knows about us!” At which point she pulled her best I’m going to pretend I don’t know what your talking about embarrassed face and blushed from the tips of her very cute little ears right down to I’m sure if I could have seen them the soles of her feet.

Ahhh the complexities of seven year olds relationships!

God damn it, why is it as soon as somebody mentions the words Glastonbury and or Wimbledon the heavens open and it rains and rains and rains…

It is June isn’t it, I didn’t fall into some kind of semi comatose state and completely miss summer?

I took the day off work today, I had an extra day off that need to be booked, so we made plans for the blonde kid to stay off school so we could take him to Ragley Hall on some Home Ed fun day out, and we also had passes this evening to see The Feeling play at Cannock Chase, Rain put a damper on both events.

Ragley Hall asked us to rearrange the booking as there adventure playground was saturated which was fair enough I suppose but then it has done nothing but rain ALL day which made us reconsider our plans for this evening. With the memory of a very very wet V festival last summer still fairly fresh in mind, And tonights concert being an outdoor event that for some reason known only to the organizers had banned umbrellas we thought it best to cancel.

V was ok because as 2 adults we could just put up and shut up with the rain, the mud, the rain, the wind, the rain…I’m not too sure how a tired 7 year old would manage in the middle of the forest with no shelter and no where to sit in those conditions! So now I’m home , listening to Kasabian rock Glastonbury courtesy of BBCi and scouring the internet for weather reports for Colchester in a weeks time praying the weather will have made some sort of drastic improvement by then.

Myself, James and Jordan 1 tent and a couple of hundred kids at the annual HESFES meet is sounding less and less appealing with the idea that it might be held in one very wet mud locked field!!

If life were simple I’d have the time to blog every day and I’d be able to update you all with the very mundane comings and goings of this 26 year old, but its not so I don’t so now you’ll have to make do with a quick update.

Life sometimes sucks, and sometimes it doesn’t end of.

I’m not going to bore you with the bad bits because lets face it this week when things have been bad they’ve been very bad.

However on the flip side of that when they’ve been going good they’ve gone very very good. The epitome being Monday night when…*deep breathe*..

WE WENT TO SEE PEARL JAM AT WEMBLEY…

Oh my god, just oh my g o d. they were marvelous, I am in love with Eddie Vedder, I have liked Pearl Jam since I was teenager taking my first tentative steps towards a lifetime of love and respect for music and have found a renewed respect for them since I met Mr Clarke and we discovered a mutual liking for the band, well I say liking his borders on obsession. I can not even begin to explain how good it was I am at a loss for words…yes me stuck for something to say but it’s true. To articulate it into a coherent sentence is beyond my capabilities it was THAT good!!

So in short THE highlight since I last blogged, THE gig.

Low point since last blog (well the one that I can be bothered to bring up again) being stuck at 8a.m at Wolverhampton train station trying to get a train to Stafford but all being trains heading that way being canceled because of the flooding, finally getting the only train heading north and feeling more than slightly perturbed by the lakes that I’m passing that I am quite sure the day before were fields! Only to arrive at my place of work to find the torrential rain has flooded the shop and bought the ceiling through on the first floor so we cant even open until that has been cleared.

Most embarrassing moment since last blog, being stranded at Stafford train station because of the flooding with all trains south being delayed for at least an hour. I go to get coffee from the very attractive man in the coffee shop. Unceremoniously dumping my bag to scout through it to find my purse. Out comes my phone, camera, Ipod, book, my umbrella all over the counter and a tampon right into his lap, and did I mention he was extremely good looking. I was mortified but apparently by the look on his face he was more so.

All I could do was ask for it back trying not to laugh in his face, while fishing for change in my purse to pay for my drink and rush away to a vacant table sit with my back to the counter and giggle mercilessly at his expense.

I’m sorry random train station coffee clerk but your face was a picture!!

It seems that I acquired 3 extra bodies in my household, Another 7 year old, a 9 year old and a 5(ish) year old. None of which I am related to but were all quite at home with me and my own 7year old baking cakes and cookies ALL DAY!

I am exhausted but have enough biscuits and goodies to last a month.

Craig the eldest of the tribe at 9 and has ADHD and dyslexia. He loves the fact that unlike at his school we don’t care about he’s “difficulties/differences” however you want to put it and he joins with us with whatever we’re doing. But boy, I thought I could talk but I don’t have a patch on this kid, and some of the stuff that falls out of his mouth is hilarious, like the time he fell and broke his leg on an ant hill, and the other time he hit his head and it bled and bled till he was dead….obviously all untrue but said with such conviction.

Next there is Shannon, 7years and 9 months and the nine month makes a difference because that puts her nearly exactly 4 months and a WHOLE school year older than my Jordan. She is adorable but being bought up in a house with nothing but boys she also knows how to play the lads against each other really well. That girl is going to be a man eater when she gets older and fair play to her.

Then there is Jordan number 2. Jordan number 2 is Shannon’s little brother and he is 5 or there abouts, we actually cant figure out how old he is as every time I ask him I get a different answer!

Finally amongst all the new faces is “The Blonde Kid” or the newly christened Jordan number 1. Jordan is loving the fact that all these children have moved in near where we live and that he has a mom cool enough to let all the local waifs and strays spend the day in our house, and not only do they come and play we do cool stuff like make salt dough and bake cakes and paint stuff.

The blonde kid is also loving the fact that there is a “girl” coming to play. A real life girl who sings and dances and plays them all off against each other…

BUT she’s not his girlfriend..really she’s not!!

Did you know the Happy Mondays were called the Happy Mondays because all their giro’s used to arrive on a Monday. So that day was indeed, for them at least Happy. Bet you’re sitting there thinking “Gee thanks Steph I really needed to know that”. Well I knew it so I thought I’d share.

My Mondays on the other hand for the last two weeks at least have been a bit of a trial, In fact so have most the days in between, hence the lack of blogging activity from myself, It’s not that I’ve had nothing to write about, far from it, It’s just been a chore to find 5 mins to sit in front of the computer and collate my thoughts into any kind of order other than random!

Last week for instance it was one thing after another, the blonde kid managed to bang his face, fall off a wall, graze his leg, bump his arm, trap his finger under a rock and the most spectacular injury of the week happening on Thursday and resulted in me being called up at work to fetch him out off school he fell backwards on the school playground and cracked his head on a wall knocking himself sick in the process. I must have used up a months worth of Arnica and 3 days curing bruises and a years worth of tissues wiping away tears. Dealing with a clumsy 7 year old is enough on its own without the added issue an adjustment to my entire routine as James was bed ridden with the flu! And not man flu a runny nose and a few sneezes but full blown I’m too hot, no now I’m too cold, coughing, shivering, headachey Oh My God I think I’m going to die FLU, and I know it was genuine he went to bed and lost is appetite and trust me when my man don’t want to eat you KNOW something is wrong!

BUT then come the weekend things seemed to look up, Jordan went to his Dad’s and James although still not 100%, rallied enough to come to the Dickos 30th with me Friday night, which was lucky really as we were going as Meatloaf and Cher, it was a fancy dress karaoke not just because we felt like being “different”, And feeling much better on the Saturday to the Deciphers gig at the Jug of Ale in Moseley.

Then Monday came again and James was ill over again he went the funniest colour and was having the most chronic chest and back pains, He even went to the doctors and the emergency docs at that WHICH is unheard of so I suppose I have to give him the benefit of the doubt and not rib him for trying it on. So it looks like I’ll be spending the week caring for Mr Clarke again, I even missed swimming tonight to look after him, he should feel highly honoured!!

So not so Happy Mondays I think you’d agree. I hope he’s better for Thursday, Biffy Clyro is playing at the Wulfrun and we have tickets!!

WHOOP!!!

I’m so tired, the effort of looking after sick people for the last few days has taken its toll and now I’m fit to drop with a sniffily nose and shivers all of my own. This has nothing to do with me having caught whatever it was that infected the boys but more to do with me running around, over exerting myself looking after “the others” and a late night last night.

No I am not the worlds worst mother leaving my ill child to swan off on a night out without him, oh no, I’m way worse than that, I took him with me!! He’d stopped throwing up and seemed a lot perkier and after spending most of last week looking after James, and all weekend watching over James and Jordan we deserved a break, so I took him to his first gig!

I was 14 before my mom allowed me to see my first band “Terrorvision” at Wolverhampton Civic Hall! Actually if I’m honest my fist gig experience was 6 months earlier than that one when I took my younger sister to see “Boyzone” again at the Civic, she had won tickets and I had to be her chaperon, my mom wouldn’t let her go without me, *shudders*. I already knew I had superior tastes in music to her and trust me when I say that experience confirmed it!

ANYWAY last night, we went to the Bar Academy to see “The Deciphers” play. We knew most of the crowd and all the band so it was a safe option for the blonde kids gigging debut and oh how he enjoyed himself. He flitted around most of the people there wooing them with smiles and snapping them with his camera, whether they wanted him to or not. He enjoyed the music through the heavy duty ear plugs we’d adorned him with and sat on the bar asking every passing patron if they wanted a Jack Daniels and Coke so that he could order it for them! By the time we were ready to go home he was a very sleepy but extremely happy boy!!

I got him into bed about half past 11 and lay with him for a while asking him if he’d had fun that night, I think he did as the only response I could from him was, “The music was good, I like Steve’s band but now I can hear grasshoppers in my ears”

I knew exactly what he meant!