Some days you are the fly somedays the windscreen..

There are days every so often where you really think that getting out of bed was a serious mistake.....

This morning dawned bright and warm - too warm for gardening which of course set things off on a suitable bent.

Away went the children back to school and management and I faced the miserable prospect of a morning alone together for the first time in a while.

Whistling a happy tune management drove up the drive in the Xantia taking young Gwion to school, all was well with the world.

For a while....

At the bottom of the valley a good place for a day to enter a low point, she met a parent coming the other way. A distressed parent. Turns out there was a training day for the teachers, one that none of us had remembered and said parent was on her way to work with kids in tow.

Only one thing for it, back home came the management not having dropped off one child but picked up another two.....

The scene was nicely set then and a little later I left the house to collect two of the biggies from their GCSE's. Now, management had opened the window this morning to cope with the tropical blast, not a huge problem except the glass had slipped out of the winder and jammed meaning a bit of unjamming was required.

A small ammount of persuasion and nothing was happening so I got a pipe wrench to grip the glass and pull it clear - bad move.

As soon as I gripped the glass and started to pull it shattered into 40 squillion pieces and fell into the bottom of the door.

This was exactly what I needed with a 200 mile trip to a funeral scheduled for the morning.

But of course there was more, tomorrow is also one of the looked after kids birthday so having collected the bigger kids we had to track into bigtown to get his present.

This bit went well and flushed with success we decided to sneak off for lunch on the way home.

A pub we used to stop at has recently re started doing food, so we decided to go and investigate.

Obviously they don't do food Monday lunchtimes, in fact they don't seem to do anything Monday lunchtimes.

Undaunted we decided to make for another pub that has long been on our "must try" list.

Obviously they don't do food monday lunchtimes, in fact they don't seem to do anything Monday lunchtimes...

Daunted and off food I suggested we go home but we could pop into the village pub for a swift half en route.

Obviously they don't......

So home we went and a veritable taxi fest ensued as management went to meet the school bus and I went all the way into school to collect no one daughter from her AS exam which finished late.

Brakes? Now did I mention brakes? The brakes on the xantia were making nasty noises so we had booked that in for a set of linings at the greasy garage as a matter of emergency due to funeral in the morning.

So having dropped the car off back home we came for tea.

Things going at least average.

Parts were late being delivered and then, when they arrived it turned out they were the wrong ones anyway.

So that was the car scheduled to be off up the M4 in the morning minus wheels on the lift.

Dropping everything I raced back into bigtown in the still misbehaving plugeot and just made the motor factors before they went home.

Right parts collected it was back to the greasy garage and leave the bits with the management to fit asap.

Home and a twiddle of the thumbs waiting for the call to collect the voiture.

The job was taking longer than expected, only one thing for it, make coffee.

Sure enought the moment the kettle boiled the phone rung as the grease announced the job was done and the car needed collecting.

So here I am ready to head up the M4 tomorrow in my windowless estate.

Regardless of what the forecast says I know whats coming - tomorrow there will be rain.....

R