Got My Goat

My neighbour has really got my goat!

We live next door to this bloke, lets call him Nil (as in nil points), with his wife of ten years or so and they have no kids - through choice.

Therefore, he knows absolutely nothing about:

a) Kids

b) Noise

c) Kids and noise

d) Family life

Incidentally, Nil also owns that pesky cat, Oscar - the one who has yet to have his balls chopped off, so is therefore full of testosterone and always lurking around the bins trying to scare my cat, Tinky.

(Hubby says he may kidnap Oscar and get him neutered, because he has so much 'front' he strolls into our house and sprays everywhere - vile creature! So we're always having to chase him out of the house.)

Anyway, our house was previously owned by an old couple, then it lay empty for a while until we moved in. So Nil had a noiseless house for a few years and obviously got used to it.

After we moved in, it wasn't long before Nil started complaining about the volume of the telly. I am a bit 'mutton' (partially deaf, due to too much partying and standing next to loud speakers), but I don't think the telly was that loud, so to keep the peace we turned it down and now I have to watch it with the subtitles on because I cant hear a damn thing!

He's complained a few times about it so I've got the 'hump' with him, because we never complain to him that he's reading to loud, or drilling too loud or having noisy Tiffin in afternoon - which must have been loud for me to hear it!

Sometimes I really think Nil has nothing better to do than stand next to the wall with a glass, trying to hear our telly!

Cockhead!

I saw him outside in the garden the other day, with his wife. I never see her and have never spoken to her in the 18 months we've lived there.

I suddenly noticed she had got this huge belly!

I thought, right, I'm going to talk to you, so that means you have to talk to me.

Me: OMG! Are you pregnant?

Her: Yes

Me: When is it due?

Her: Couple of months

Me: Congratulations!

Both of them: Thanks

Her: Yeah, you may hear it....

Me: What?

Her: You may hear it crying....

Me (bit bewildered and losing control of my tongue as babies scare me now): I hope not! I've done my time thank-you!

Very awkward silence with shuffling of feet

Me (looking at Nil): Are you ready for this?

Nil: If they're are as good as your kids it'll be no problem...

(!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

I'm afraid I could do absolutely nothing to control the look of utter amazement on my face, neither could I do anything about the uncontrollable laughter that followed......

The man's an idiot!

He obviously chooses to ignore my screams and begs of mercy for my sanity, which must echo around Brighton and chooses to concentrate on how loud my telly is instead!

He popped 'round again yesterday to inform me that he is having a party tomorrow and it could get a bit loud and go on for a while. Cheeky bugger! So he can make noise but we cant....

He also invited the kids over but not me!!!!!!!!!!!

Charming!

Yup, he definitely doesn't like me either.

He's had one of these party's before. Me, the kids and last years students were peeking out of the bedroom window watching all these goatee-bearded hippy types lounging around in the garden, knocking back strange green drinks, children were running amok, flames were coming out of poles, which were placed around the garden. It looked like a kind of seventies, pagan ritualistic commune.

It wouldn't have surprised me in the least if they had sacrificed a goat..........

Maybe I should send the kids 'round to terrorise him, that might be fun to watch....

Either way, this git has got my goat......I hope it pours tomorrow and puts his flames out!

Got My Goat

The Munster Family

I was glancing in the mirror today, examining the appalling state of my roots when I noticed that on one side of my head (in the corner), the colour of my hair.

It was not my natural colour (mouse!), nor was it bleach. It was not grey, nor a sprinkling of grey nor a salt and pepper look - it was pure bloody white! White, I tell you, frigging WHITE!

My hair has decided to skip the stage of grey and go straight to 124 year old white!

I look like that frigging bird out of the Munsters - Lily Munster!

I can only put this down to recent stressful events:

a) Studying - I do a 3 hour paper a day - complete with Algebra, Time Series Analysis, machine and factory budgeting...........Hey! Stop yawning!

b) My eldest son Liam has declared his undying love for flipping 'Rhino' (his girlfriend) saying that he would contemplate marrying her. Stupid boy!

c) Some idiot who works at my Father's solicitors decided to send him a bank statement directly. My Father - not being the 'full ticket' has received this statement with glee and (being somewhat eccentric in his appearance and manner) has been 'acting inappropriately' at car showrooms, by waving the statement under the noses of the car sales people with the intent of buying a Porche!

Not only that, he has been badgering carpet shops as well, and by some fluke has managed to come out with THREE free carpet off-cuts! I think they only did it to get rid of him. He says he is going back there tomorrow to get some more!

I did remind him that I got him a new carpet for his room 4 months ago - and its still brand spanking new.

I may as well save my breath!

d) My Hubby is driving me mad! When he is not here I miss the extra pair of hands, when he is here is nothing but a pain in the arse! He has this habit of tapping - constantly strumming on tables, chairs anything. Its so off-putting when you have your head in a paper. I think he has a problem. When I hear it - I say:

Honey - those jungle drums are going again - it says.....West Ham Nil......Manchester City 2.

If I don't make a joke out of it, I'd throttle him!

e) Olly is in isolation at school. After the recent scissor incident he is still in his classroom but has to sit away from everyone and on his own. He can spend his break with the other kids, but lunch-time he has to eat his lunch then do library duties. He is painfully bored. But I think he does have to be punished for lobbing the scissors. This is to continue until next week I think.

I did consider taking him away from the school - but there is only a short time left now until he leaves and he would miss out on quite a lot - the school play, going to visit his new school with the SENCO, and all the other end of terms bits.

My Mother thinks he should stay, ride it out and deal with the punishment. Hubby thinks this way too, because if he had taken a kids eye out..................well, you cant even contemplate that.

I'm in two minds. He does have to be punished for what he has done - but does he understand it?

He is not sleeping at night and is now wetting the bed again (we had come so far with that), and he threw another tantrum this afternoon........

Oh, its exhausting!

Well, at least I have earned all of my white hair!

PS Have you noticed its all the men in my family????? Whats that about?

PPS - For once, Amber has been a god-send by singing her head off (Hello Dolly) and its really lovely to listen to..............xx

The Munster Family

Bang head here

Dear readers

Firstly I would to apologise if I have not been commenting on your blogs recently, the last few days have been ghastly, to say the least, and today seems to have escalated to a most hideous proportion.

I had been summoned to school this morning regarding the scissor incident with Olly, that happened on Wednesday.

Apparently my son Olly is now considered as some sort of scissor-wielding maniac that is considered by other parents as a threat to the school and society at large.

The parents of the child, who was unfortunately hit in this incident, have been marvellous. I have extended my utmost and profound apologies to this child and the parents, to which they have most graciously accepted, and understand that it was a most unfortunate and isolated incident.

Olly is to make the child a card and to apologise.

However, there are SEVEN sets of other parents who have complained profusely stating that they do not think that the school is safe when Olly is around.

They seem to think that the school is located in some war-torn inner city country, that is rife with gun wielding, grenade-lobbing child soldiers and knife throwing thugs, and the parents of these children MUST be some drug-taking alcoholic, so off their face, they let their child run wild till all hours of the night, stealing cars, robbing old ladies and generally raising menaces to society.

How do I say this?

Oh yes....

MY SON HAS ASPERGER'S!

He is a mathematical and computer genius - I actually asked him for help with my accountancy exam which is at degree level and he showed me how to do it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There isn't anything he doesn't know about animals, space, maths and computers...etc.

He can be the most wonderful and caring boy of this earth, he just as an inability to see the consequences of his actions and reactions. He would not purposefully harm a living thing.

Olly was threatened with suspension again and the Head-Teacher was really pissed off having to deal with these parents.

I will be writing a letter to the school so Olly's side is documented and filed. I have also rang up the ASC group and received advice from them - they put it down to moving to high school, just finishing the SATS and also having Supply Teachers.

This situation has been blown out of all proportion - it was an extremely unfortunate and isolated incident - Olly has never done anything like that before.

We live in a society where everyone is so paranoid; the buying of head-gear for babies so they don't hurt their heads when they are crawling. Playing with conkers in now banned unless you are wearing goggles. You cant even cross the sodding road because there are railings all over the place to stop stupid people from running out into the road.

Health and Safety has gone mad and it wouldn't surprise me that after this incident, scissors will now be banned from schools too.

You must excuse me now as I am going to cry and bang my head on a firm surface until I am unconscious. And no, I wont be wearing a helmet.

Bang head here

Trouble Ahead

Olly has been riding a bit of a smooth wave at school over the last month; I have received no phone calls, no meetings, no complaints, no nothing from the school - which is........unusual!

Having a child with Asperger's is not easy, so when things are 'plain sailing' in a particular area, you wonder when the calm waters will give way to stormy weather. (If its one thing I have learned through all this, it is that unpredictability is actually, predictable).

Having said that, home life hasn't exactly been easy lately;

The odd destruction of a mobile phone, innocently washed under a running tap,

The shattered garage window, (still not fixed!),

Getting his foot stuck in an empty box at the supermarket and trying to kick it off and knocking stuff off shelves in the process!

Ripping a pair of his school trousers to shreds because he was too hot in them....

All these things are really relatively normal in this house.

However, today was very strange.

I received a phone call from his teacher today saying that Olly had got into an altercation with another child at school and the end result was that Olly had lobbed a pair of scissors at this particular kid. However, this kid had ducked and the scissors hit another kid in the head! Fortunately it was the plastic handle side.

For frig's sake!!!!!!!!!!!

I apologised profusely - informing the teacher to please pass on my sincere apologies to the parents and the kid.

I was utterly mortified. I sometimes wonder, if Olly carries on like this, he might end up in prison!

(OMG! I'll be Mimi McGuire from Shameless, visiting her son in prison, then I'll put a contract out on my husband because the drug money has run out! Oh Lordy!!!!)

I raced down to the school and picked him up immediately - he was looking very forlorn. Then I noticed his hair. What was up with the hair???????

It looked like someone has taken a pair of barber clippers and shaved the sides of his head (you know, where the side burns are, but it went up almost an inch higher!).

After much cajoling this is Olly's side of what happened:

Olly had not had his regular teacher, Miss Pringle, for the last few days and so a supply teacher had come in. Olly didn't like the supply teacher one bit and said the lessons were really boring. So during the class he had somehow got hold of a pair of scissors and decided to cut the sides of his hair!

The class then moved to another room where they were supposed to have a singing lesson and whilst they were queuing up outside, some of the kids noticed his hair and started to laugh at him.

What with the queuing, going to another classroom, having a crappy teacher he didn't like and being thoroughly bored, (all pressure points for a child on the autistic spectrum), he lost his temper and lashed out....unfortunately he still had the scissors in his hands.

(What was he doing with scissors in his hand? Where was that bloody supply teacher? Why had she not seen him with the scissors? - Probably some 23 year old puff-head who was too stoned to notice!)

I tried to explain to him, (apart from the fact that he could have seriously injured someone and he was lucky the police were not called), that laughter is a very powerful thing. The kids were laughing at him because he had done a silly thing and the best way to overcome this was to laugh at himself, saying 'yes, wasn't I silly, look what I did'. Laugh with them.

I think I will write a letter to the school asking why my son had a pair of scissors in his hand when he should have had a pencil....however they are off tomorrow due to 'polling day'!

It might give me time to sort out his hair.....it looks terrible.

Maybe he should go into school saying this is the new fashion...I'm sure we've had a hair fashion like that before - no sideburns.

Olly is due to go to senior school this September, and he doesn't like change. So this year is going to be difficult for him. I have a feeling this is just the beginning...................

(me singing) There maybe trouble ahead......lets face the music and laugh!

Trouble Ahead

Luck of the Gods

It has been a very peculiar last few days!

Olly decided to throw a tantrum with the handle on his bicycle! He couldn't stand the bike up properly against the garage window, so he shoved it really hard, and the handle went through the window and shattered glass everywhere!

Something else ruined.....Ho-hum!

I've been studying really hard lately for my exam, (2 weeks to go!) - at least to try to get through a (past) paper a day....Hubby has not been helpful at all.

Found a new mate he has - a biker chum!

I told him I didn't want a load of beer-swilling, leather-clad, bearded road hogs on my lawn, revving their engines, with ZZ Top blaring out of some crappy stereo.

Anyhow, they all took to the roads (relief), but I was left trying to study at home with the two kids continually fighting and in a 34 degree heat. (!)

Git. (Hubby, not the kids).

Later on, I had a complete meltdown which included a panic attack, (very nasty), and me behaving like a petulant child, complete with protruding lip.

(Well, sometimes, in order to be heard by our nearest and dearest, a tantrum is required, however, it didn't do any good because Hubby has now buggered off to Johannesburg!)

Went off to college today and completed another god-forsaken nightmare of a paper. When I showed it to my tutor he said 'I'm impressed'!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh joy of joys!

Then, as he continued to talk in depth about the paper..... I lost my concentration and started thinking about the cat getting a flea jab tomorrow.

Mmm......I dont think that's a good sign.

I got a massive surprise when I got home, apparently David Mcmahon author of Authorblog , chose my blog as one of his Pick Of The Days!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think he is a Blog God - he certainly is a God of photos! Check out his website - its fabulous.

Oh happy days......xxx

Luck of the Gods