Jamie's birthday and Dorothy's Bad Head

We'll start with my bad head.
No, it looks better to start with Jamie's birthday.
No, my bad head is in the forefront of my mind right now so it gets first mention.

I'm on Day 12 of a bad headache. Yesterday, it also stretched itself over to a my ear and neck, so now I have a headache, sore neck and shooting ear pain. Even my teeth felt weird. I had to sleep with a hot water bottle plastered to my ear, in an upright position and only after I'd taken my husband's back pain medication. Worked though! I'm a bit better this morning and so am not going to make a doctor's appointment after all.

Okay, having got that out of the way...on to Jamie's birthday!{g}
We climbed into bed, all of us, and handed him his cards and pressies. Still debating whether to show the pictures of that. We all look so bad first thing!

See, I knew that was a mistake.

Later in the day we met him in town and went out for dinner in the noodle bar. It was fun eating out for a change! Later he made us all go for a walk. In the dark. Around the old part of the town. I tried to take pictures, but they didn't come out well obviously because it was dark!
Will anyone listen to me when I say the picture won't come out?

Earlier, the kids and I had spent all day at the sports centre an hour's drive from here. I dropped them off to go to their swimming lessons, where they are both developing a rather good butterfly technique, and went to do my weekly grocery shop. It was a challenge as we had to pay for the roof repairs this month and so I had less money available for groceries and a considerable amount of hospitality to do. (30-40 people coming over for supper tomorrow night!) I love a challenge though! I was pretty successful at buying what I needed.

I took a shot of the kids after their day's work out.

So, is that the best you can do? Look fit!

Then I went back to the sports centre. The kids were, by now, doing various sports such as basketball, hockey and football. I met up with the other mums in the cafe. There is a particular group of the mums with older kids who I get on well with and we enjoy eachother's company.

We all have teenagers coming up to moving on from home-educating and it's good to share thoughts and experiences. For some reason, I seem to have developed the role of 'class clown' in this group and they love to be regailed with my funny stories and sharp wit. (Or maybe they are just laughing at my hair?) In any case, we always laugh a LOT! And I love the fact that they appreciate my sense of humour (or hair.) I actually think that we are all so stressed, as most of us have at least one child with special needs, that this is our weekly, cathartic, hilarity therapy.

The cafe staff must wonder what this group of badly dressed, unfit, hysterical, middle-aged women are DOING in their sports cafe all day, but then that is their job. To wonder. And to serve us cappacinos whilst we laugh.

I dropped a friend of Jack's back at his new home and had a cup of tea with his mum. His family have just moved house. And oh... what a gorgeous house it is! Tudor, which is great, because that fits in perfectly with our History studies! But Jack was less interested in the ceilings and oak beams than in the humungous tree house in the back garden, which is so large it even has electricity and its own postal address. Probably.

There is a lovely hidden part to the garden with a stream and a little bridge and oh, how I longed to ask my friend if she wanted to rent me the tree house for a week. Just me. I struggled against the sin of envy.

Then we picked up Jamie and took him out for dinner and went on our walk in the darkness. Jamie drove home as by this time the bad head hurt so much I couldn't concentrate.
And so to bed.