Yo, Cherub.

On Saturday we did another Kid Tap performance for a school fete. The weather was a mere 29 degrees instead of the 36 - 40 odd we've had for every other day this week, so I suppose we should feel lucky; but cavorting around in the full heat of the midday sun made me drip with sweat, and I am not a highly sweaty person.

Maybe the kids were heat-affected, but 2 of the Dads afterwards said to me the kids could / should have done better. One of those Dads was Fixit. I dunno. I thought the kids were tremendous. And adorable - both when they were getting it right AND when they were getting it wrong. I don't want my dancers to be precision-machine kids with fake smiles, and chests and noses thrust out. I want them to enjoy their dancing. And they're still little. They can barely tie their shoes, some of them, so if they hit a few right steps in their routines and bumble along for the rest, bearing in mind it was hot, and outdoors, then I for one am happy. Plus, not everyone has the same ability for dance and we all have our off-days. I think it makes it all the more special when they all do get something right at the same time.... but then, maybe I'm too soft?

I've loaded a video here because it cracks me up. Obviously The Cherub has been impressed by the stylings of his big brother. In the middle of the littlies' very cute Bumblebee dance he broke out of line on 3 occasions to try his hand at some break-dancing. That's in between hitching up his falling down pants. Talk about Dude Junior.

Full footage here. More photos here.

The other funny moment was in our finale, Louie The Fly. I gave the bigger kids the faux flyspray and the job of exterminating all the little Louies. Of course they made an excellent job of handling the pest control, except that The Climber at the last moment turned the Mortein upon himself and went down in solidarity with all the little flies.

Fixit's first day

The last day of Mister Fixit's motorcycle-mechanic-career was Friday, and his stupid (ex) work mates are so lame and useless that not only was there no present, there was not even a card. It gets worse. When they went out for his farewell drinks that night Fixit had to pay for his own bloody dinner. Ten fucking years he worked there. Fixit hadn't really noticed until I started carrying on about it, but don't worry, he's as pissed off as I am now.

But onwards and upwards.

He must have passed his medical, although we never heard any more about it. He definitely passed the aptitude test. Did quite well apparently. He told me about it afterwards, the first half was all if x closes at 3pm and y doesn't deliver for 3 days when is the latest you can order parts to receive them by Wednesday? which is, you know, just reading the instructions and working through, I could do that. But the second half was all diagrams of pulleys with different sized round things (technical jargon!!!) and you had to calculate which pulley system would lift faster or whether the lever would turn clockwise or anticlockwise. Which I would completely fail because that sort of stuff makes my brain bleed. Not so Mister Fixit! Just as well he'll be fixing our aircraft and not me.

Anyway, he fronted up to his First Day At His New Work promptly at 7.30am and rang me 15 minutes later saying the guy that hired him wasn't arriving till 8am. A bit later an sms informed me that next week he'll start a 5-week block of schooling! My next message from him was his appraisal of the staff canteen; not complimentary, I'm afraid, as it's the sort of servery that favours fried dim sims and pie'n'chips. And then at 11.30am he was home. The hiring guy had 3 meetings that day and no-one else to look after Fixit, so he sent him home, with the assurance that he'd still be paid for the full day. Which was all good. Except Fixit is very keen to sink his teeth into the new job.

So we went out for lunch.

Later we picked up The Climber from school. We'd got half way back to the car before Climber really took in the abnormality of Fixit's presence, then the penny dropped and he asked How was your first day? Closely followed by Why are you home so early? and Have you been sacked?

A good time was had by all.

The boys are back home, safe and sound. (Even including Fixit who, as if I hadn't worried enough this weekend, decided to take himself for a big motorbike ride this morning. But he made it back from that without running foul of any semi-trailers or stupid motorists.) It's nice to have them all back. And it was just lovely getting the fervent hugs from the boys as they ran in the back door. We missed each other.

But!!

I had a super time on my own. Hee!

On Saturday after they left I sprawled on the bed and caught up with the newspaper. I blogged. Then I jumped on Fixit's pushbike - he'd thoughtfully adjusted the seat for me before he left - and cycled gently to the video store to hire the dvd of Little Miss Sunshine. Which I LOVED. Go see it if you haven't. When that gorgeous awkward teenage boy had his melt-down, oh my!!!

I made my own dinner and didn't have to nag anyone about coming to the table now or cajole anyone into taking another mouthful of it. I just enjoyed my spaghetti with fresh pesto, and washed it down with red wine, followed by a cup of tea and some illicitly early mini-Easter Eggs. Shhh. Bertie was a pleasant kittenish companion, pouncing and purring by turns.

When I went to bed I read my book without interruption. I turned out the light when I had had enough and not because anyone else was complaining about the light being on. A bit before midnight, perhaps.

I slept without waking till 9.30 am the next morning. Oh yes.

Cup of tea in bed with the Sunday paper. Some computer time, some laundry. Got all my winter woollens clean and ready for winter - which I guess will be not too long after the heatwave we'll be having this week.

Then, some girly indulgence. An hour or two in the bathroom, washing my hair, fixing up the brows and lashes, singing along to the iPod.

A leetle bit of housework; dishes, sweeping. Thought about mopping, but decided to leave it.

Jumped on Fixit's bike once more and cycled to the local cinema where I saw Juno whilst sipping coffee. LOVED Juno. Laughed, cried. Cried a bucket, actually. Childbirth scenes, you know? So emotional.

Cycled home, feeling great. A few more dishes and just when I was wondering if I did have time to mop, the car pulled up and my boys were calling out for me.

Apparently they had a great time too.

Fixit's idea of unpacking was to bring everything in from the car and dump it on the clear, swept floor. I'll get that, shall I? Climber was complaining long and loud about his trillion mosquito bites and Cherub was inclined to be generally sooky. But it was so good to see them again!

All By Myself.

For the record, I am an anxious person. I worry about stuff. Every time Fixit goes off on a motorbike jaunt I envisage his death and it's ghastly aftermath. When my relatives fly overseas I picture crashes. Every time I hear about a campus rampage I get twitchy about Climber at his lovely, gentle, peaceful school. It's just the way my brain works. It's why I can't watch any scary movies, ever. The images get burned into my brain and I can't banish them. Has anyone ever seen the chip fryer episode from Season 1 of Spooks? I am still traumatised by that. I won't watch Spooks without Fixit now, he has to be there to tell me when it's safe to open my eyes again.

So although you would think it would be blissful for me to spend a 24-hour period with just me and the too-young-to-be-left-on-his-own-yet kitty, while the boys head to the hills for some Male Bonding and Quality Grandparent Time, you can see how having my sort of brain could interfere with this...

I tell myself to shut up! To relax and enjoy the peace! What a nice break it will be, only needing to look after myself, managing just my meal, playing on the computer as long as I want, watching whatever movie I like, sleeping-in (!!) to my heart's content and only having to answer the the demands of one small hungry kitty.

But then flashes of rogue semi-trailers arrive in my head. As I confessed to Shula during our lovely breakfast blogmeet yesterday, if I lost my 3 boys then I would not be able to go on. And then I would have to work out a way for me not to go on and those ways all sound very unpleasant and messy and scary. You see what a terrible brain I have? But being in Shula's company while my brain was doing nervous twitter stuff was a good thing. She could see the anxiety for what it is, and she neither dismissed it or exacerbated it. We had a very good laugh in fact. Don't mind us a bit of black humour, we don't.

The good news is that now that the first car-trip has been completed in safety (Fixit just rang me) I will be able to relax a bit and enjoy my solitude. I may cycle to the video store for a chick-flick and then whip up fresh pesto for dinner, served with a nice glass of wine. I will definitely take myself out for coffee tomorrow, I may even choose the cinema.

And then I will start to twitch again until they're back home with me, and if you can picture that Dido song about not sleeping till you're home with me playing in the background while you read that last sentence then you're on the same page as me.

Blogmeet

A blog-meet with a difference this week - a blog-visitor from overseas! A group of us met in a cafe in Federation Square and enjoyed a very pleasant brunch.

Seeing as it was Pea Soup organising there was an invitation to bring our knitting. So I did. Which felt pretty cheeky given my novice status; mixing it with clever knitters like this and this and this and this. Anyway I managed a few rows on my purple fluffy hat, and admired the far more complex work of the experts.

It was lovely to meet everyone - the chat was lively and the kids were cute. I had a rare indulgence - pancakes for brunch - and Sueeeus and I chuckled over an unexpected cultural difference : the serving of ice-cream with pancakes. We do it, Americans don't. Sueeeus is off now to meet some Sydney bloggers I asked her to kiss them on the cheek from me.

No photos taken as far as I know which is why I gave you my boys in a box instead. (Climber did ask me how to spell Bertie properly but clearly vagued out halfway through the process.)

Shula and I will be catching up Friday morning ...

Toy Library Fair

I've been..

Getting my new t-shirts ready for sale.

Making props...

...for tomorrow's performance with the Tap Kids.

Watching some balloons fly low as I drove to the chiropractor.

Meeting our new neighbours at their little girl's spooky party.

Now we're off to a family restaurant with our old neighbours.