Sixteen weeks + 2

It's always a good sign when I'm a little late with my blog, as it usually means that I had a reasonable nights sleep, which I did, despite waking at about 4 ish I managed to drift back off to sleep again, of course I also slept through until about 8 o'clock, which is far too late. Like a lot of people I use my mobile phone for everything, including a date reminder and an alarm clock, and all this works really well until you go to bed and leave your mobile phone zipped up in your handbag in the hall. Oh well at least I managed to get everyone out in time for school, and I have an essay to get a handle on today. I don't know whether I'm needed at Larkshill Engineering or not, they are going to ring me if they do, so until then I should knuckle down and try to at least start this stupid essay. I'm sorry but the character assassinations on the pieces of work that I have to do are only going to get worse as this semester progresses, so you may as well get used to them.

You will be pleased to hear that Xander slept in his own bed last night, which may have had some influence on my nights sleep. I've told him he can sleep with the light on, not a night light, but the main light in his room, I know it's not ideal and not something I would normally encourage, but I get my bed back, so for the time being it will do. I'm pretty sure it will work it's way out of his system eventually, and in the meantime there are energy bulbs in his light so it's not too bad. As for the rest of yesterday, well Neil has plumbed the radiator back into the utility, you see just because I got my sink, it doesn't mean that the project is over, no far from it. Neil is going to box all of the pipes in and I have to tile around the sink. Oh and there is supposed to be a wall cupboard going up as well. These things all take time, and a little bit of money. Talking of money I think I've won the, "lets not buy a caravan now and skint ourselves out", competition mainly by letting him work it out for himself. Plus we went and started our Christmas shopping yesterday, well we bought one present, but we've sorted out what we want to buy for a couple of other people as well, so that's well on the way to being sorted.

I didn't move Malarky to another field yesterday, partly because the other people didn't turn up, which does make it tricky, and partly because Neil has now said that he doesn't want me to. So I'm guessing I now have an awkward conversation to have with the lady who wanted to swap with me, although I'm just going to put all the blame onto Neil and leave it at that. I've made a sad decision, I'm giving up drinking cider, it was a very hard one to make, as I love my cider I really do. Before you wonder I'm not talking 2L plastic bottles of cider, I have far more taste than that. Nor do I mean Magners or the other trendy ciders that they pour over ice, ice, it makes me cry just thinking about it. No I like real cider, normally it comes in 500ml bottles and costs an arm and a leg, although I will drink cans if it's Scrumpy Jack, but no longer as, and it's silly that I didn't work this out earlier, I think it's partly, not totally, to blame for some of the problems that I have with Cyril. I worked it out because when we went out last weekend to the birthday party I couldn't drink cider as there wasn't any decent ones there so I drank wine, and whisky and a lot of it, and Cyril behaved impeccably. Now during the week I had a couple of glasses of cider (yes they were big) and off he goes like I've eaten a vindaloo or something. So no more cider for me, for the foreseeable future. It's not too bad, Neil bought me a box of wine yesterday, so I'm not going without. I still have my appointment with the doctor tomorrow so hopefully that will solve the rest of the problem. But I can tell you I'm a little sad, as I liked being a cider drinker.

What of the rest of the day, well I may or may not get a phone call to go into work. I have ordered my shopping on the internet so I don't have to go out and do that. I do have some housework to do and of course there's Malarky and Ned. The main thing though is starting this damn essay, they are always hard to start, and the first one of the year is always the hardest. I can do this though, if I keep saying that it may help me. Right now though I think I should go and have another cup of coffee and some breakfast, that may get my brain moving. I'll let you know if that actually works tomorrow.