It is Five on Friday day over at Amy's, a perfect opportunity to list five completely random things that occupied my thoughts and time this week.
The Christmas Fair. This is our largest PTA fundraising event and has been long in the planning. The thought of it makes me break out in cold sweat. There are more people than I am comfortable with, particularly over exited children (including mine). There are toy stalls and book stalls, a memorabilia stall with key rings with photos of all the children, craft stalls, games, tuck shop, tombola, raffle, silent auction and of course Santa is coming, too. Santa's elf can't make it this year and Annie was roped in to take the elf's place. My role as the PTA treasurer is to check on stalls, raffle ticket sellers, Santa and all the games, collecting their monies and keep these safe. Everybody also nags me for small change. I also need to make sure that James and Alistair don't buy the toys I put towards the toy stall. In preparation, I put cash floats together and after the event, I count the money. This year I will have two lovely helpers and I must remember to put a bottle of Prosecco in the fridge!
Working full time and children's homework. It is not compatible. Indeed, working full time and having four children is kind of incompatible. I am struggling. We pay Sam good money to look after his younger siblings and he does a good job but he tends to ignore all but the basic homework (reading and spelling). He is not so keen on the 'additional tasks'. I don't blame him. These are usually time consuming. This month it is all about the sixties because the school is celebrating their 50th anniversary in January. How many 7 and 8 year olds are interested in the sixties? I mean, really? Maybe mine are weird but they really don't care. We have to research old money, old school uniforms, make a Warhol piece of art, model a class room from the sixties using recycled materials, plan a sixties school menu, listen to sixties music and rewrite the lyrics, and generally compare then with now. I wrote a note in James homework diary saying that December wasn't exactly a great month for lots of time and labour intensive tasks. Richard said that my note should say it is never a good time for such tasks. He was so annoyed that he wrote an email to the headteacher yesterday.
Wednesday dinner. All of us except Sam were in the Byres Rd area around dinner time, me finishing work, Richard and three kids at the dentist. I got a text saying 'meet at Jack McPhee's?'. This is our favourite fish and chips restaurant and is actually called Mario's Plaice'. It is a very friendly tiny place where every now and then we indulge in the deep fried delicacies that Glasgow has to offer. I had smoked sausage (fried of course) and chips with curry sauce. It was nice. Even nicer was the fact that there was no cooking mess to clear up at home. We brought Sam a fish supper so he wouldn't feel left out.
Alistair's Birthday. It is in ten days. Birthday party invites have been sent out last week. He is going to the Scottish Mask and Puppet Theatre for a puppet work shop. There have been hardly any RSVPs. How hard can it be to type a quick text, or make a quick phone call? Maybe the invitations still fester somewhere in the school bags, maybe people don't want to commit until the last minute in case something better crops up at the last minute. I always think if people don't RVSP they are not coming but there seems to be no correlation.
Christmas decorations and other Christmas preparations: I am taking it slowly. I did buy a few lovely decorative items last weekend at the Parade Artists Christmas sale. I bought a little glass Christmas tree that is now adorning the mantle, two glass stars with colourful points and a few little glass tree ornaments. These are forlornly hanging on the corners of the hallway mirror, waiting to be placed somewhere more suitable. I am itching to make some new colourful stars for the windows but this will have to wait until next week. I only really like a hint of Christmas in the house. The exception is of course the tree, which is randomly colourful, slightly mad and always always real. I do love the smell of a fresh tree.
I made a Christmas cake. I usually make traditional Swiss Christmas cookies, too. I have shared a recipe here before. This extra special cookies are a must and I am compiling a shopping list for ingredients in my head just now. The baking will have to wait until later this month.
How has your week been? Are you all organised for the imminent festivities or are you leaving it until later?
I noticed a trickle of new followers. Welcome to my blog, I am glad you found this place. I hope you'll come back often and that you enjoy my collection of random posts.
Have a lovely weekend my friends! x
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