Well that’s the end of the first week of my holiday and I’ve almost finished my Saturday ‘to do’ list.  Unfortunately, it’s last Saturday’s list.  Things have not gone at all the way I expected.  By now, I expected to be snuggled on the sofa, eating my body weight in chocolate while reading the first book I’d have opened since my last time off in June.  I have started the book, I’m pleased to say.  Only I wasn’t on my sofa – I was in an A&E department waiting to find out if Sister 2 had actually broken her wrist or not (happily not).

I’ve spent a day with the Lovely Nut – my good friend in her 70’s.  The highlight of that day was when we walked through a very well to do part of London and I turned around to discover that in the absence of an umbrella, she’d fashioned a rain hat from a Tesco bag – pulling the handles around her ears…

There have been other unexpected moments but the one I’ve told a few people I’d pop on here is the first night with the stick insects (see the last post for details, but essentially, being the genius that I am, I bought Dad the stick insects that are his Christmas present a week early and now have the joy of looking after them until I can hand them over.)

So I thought it couldn’t be that hard.  Norman Cat lost interest relatively early in the evening so I went to bed having pushed them to the back of one of my higher shelving units.  At 1am I woke up to a tapping noise.  I went to investigate and found Norman tapping the side of the tank.  I decided they weren’t safe, so moved them to the top of the kitchen cupboards.  A place Norman has never climbed to and couldn’t, even if he tried.  At 2.30am I woke to a massive crash, rushed into the kitchen and found Norman on the unit he couldn’t possibly reach.  He’d pushed the tank off the shelf, liberally spreading earth, brambles and stick insects everywhere….

You know how when you first wake up, things are a little blurry?  Well now imagine trying to find beige stick insects amongst brambles, earth, brown floor tiles and a beige carpet.  Happily the giant one was still in the tank, I assume, stunned into immobility from her impromptu flight.  The second I found in the brambles, eventually.  The third though seemed to have gone.  I couldn’t move my feet in case I trod on her so I just stood like a doofus, looking around like a maniac and wondering how far he could have flown. Something caught my eye though and I discovered him racing for freedom across the kitchen counter.  I popped him back in with the others, reassembled the tank and realised I had to find a new place to keep them.  I considered the oven but could see that going horribly wrong if I managed to forget them.

So now the three of them live in the shower in my bathroom and every time I leave the house, I get to the end of the road and have to come back to check that I’ve shut the bathroom door.  I’ve even started dreaming about them escaping and accidentally sitting on them.  Hey ho, only a few more days to go.

Now I really have to go and make the Christmas crackers to get me through day one of that list.  There’s only 6 days to catch up on then :o)

(PS: someone pointed out after the last post that I might have spoiled the surprise of Dads present by writing about it.  Actually, my parents are possibly one of the only households in the UK to have no computer and no internet access….they only read the blog when I remember to print it out for them.  For those of you that know me, that could go some why to explaining my incompetence with technology – it’s a family trait ;o)  )

totally irrelevant, but spotted this week and I rather like it.