Exasperatedly Yours, Manchester

If I could have got near this computer yesterday I may well have written a post entitled
'Thank God it's Friday'
which would have summed up my half term holiday week - kids, extra kids, rabbits, my mother.....the list goes on.

If I had more than two minutes to spend here now, I might write a post called
'Run, Rabbit, Run',
in which you would realise, if you are familiar with the wartime song, why my sympathies lie firmly with the farmer and his gun, gun, gun.

Instead, and since I only have two minutes, I shall relate a small, but exasperating vignette of my day.

Naturally, it involves the Father of This Lot.

Him: Right - I'm watching the football later. If you want to go shopping, you'll have to go early. That's if you want to go.......

Me: Let's see. There have been upwards of seven kids here all week. They have eaten us out of house and home. If we were Jewish we wouldn't have to search out crumbs, because there aren't any.

OF COURSE I WANT TO GO SHOPPING!

Him: I'll have to pick the car up from the garage. Back in a bit.

An hour passed. And another.

I rang him.

Me: Where are you? When you said 'back in a bit' I assumed you meant the five minutes it takes to drive home from the garage....

Him: I'm just helping out...I'm taking signwriting off a van.....it's quite good actually - there's a machine a bit like a paint stripper.....

Me: Spare me the details. Hurry up - I've got to get something for tea......

Him: Right. I'll be about an hour.

That was at half past one.

At twenty five to four I rang again.

Me: Let me guess......the Mare and Foal?

Him: No, actually......The Cotton Tree......

And to think I was wondering only yesterday what to give up for Lent........