Two Birthday Cakes and a Tattoo

Another week has flown by and I’m now back at work with my holiday a fading memory. It was my last time off before December and I had so many plans but, as usual, the best-laid plans of mice and Julia are all filed away somewhere.

We did celebrate Miss F crossing the threshold into adulthood and I’m still struggling to believe that she’s 18 and technically an adult. The years have passed by in the blink of an eye and there are only three weeks left until she’s off to university.

I planned to deep clean the house and prepare the basement ready to advertise for a new lodger. Well, after several days of me finding anything else to do other than that, I suddenly realised why I was procrastinating so much. It was because I didn’t want to do it. Not because I don’t want to have another lodger – I have resigned myself to that inevitability – but because this house is going to be in a state of chaos from now until the 8^th of September when we pack up the car and take the long trip North to take my girl to university. Did I want to add viewings and a stranger moving in into the mix?

No, I decided, I didn’t. It made more sense to wait until Miss F has gone, enjoy these last few weeks with her in peace, have no witnesses to the madness of packing, and then when she’s gone, clean the house knowing it will stay clean, and then advertise the room. After all, it will mean all Miss F’s things will be gone from the bathroom so there will be more space for the lodger, and it may even make the room easier to let if potential lodgers know there will only be one other adult using the facilities as well.

So, that’s what I’m going to do. Hang on until the 8^th and hope my funds will stretch that far because I do need to get a lodger. We’ve managed to survive eight months without rental income, but my savings have been depleted and I can’t go on much longer without that crucial boost to my monthly income.

It’s Miss F’s last shift at work today (Saturday) and even though there are a few people she will miss I know she is very happy to be leaving. The manager has been trying to persuade her to stay longer, even going so far as to rota her in for five days a week right up until the night before she leaves for university, but Miss F is sticking to her guns. No, there is a lot to be done over the next couple of weeks and she needs the time to pack up one life ready to begin the next. Also, she’s exhausted. What with all the stress of exams and work she feels, and I agree that a break is essential.

But you didn’t give us enough notice, work is whining, we haven’t found anyone to replace you. Well, she gave them over twelve weeks’ notice which was more than enough time to find a replacement, but they didn’t bother, so frankly it’s their problem, not Miss F’s. She was supposed to work last night but had to cancel because she had her first Covid jab Thursday evening and by Friday morning her arm had turned to concrete and was too painful to move. That is one thing about her going away that I won’t miss, having to turn out late at night every Monday and Friday to make a 50-minute round trip on dark country lanes to collect her from a late shift. My petrol bill will be relieved as well.

As it’s a day shift today, Miss F takes the bus there and back and it will be her last time doing so. I’m working until six so I can’t pick her up and she will be home before me. But I am collecting our weekly grocery shop after I finish work and there is a big pizza in the order to have for dinner and celebrate her last ever shift there. Her work thinks she will be working there in her holidays. Miss F has not disabused them of that notion, but I don’t think she will be going back.

What else did I do on my holiday? Well, I did manage quite a lot of writing and almost 20,000 words were added to my latest book, so that was good. We also had my parents over for lunch on Wednesday to celebrate Miss F’s birthday. We somehow managed to pick the day with the nicest weather and as I was cooking lunch for us, I laid up the table outside and we had a lovely meal in the garden. At Miss F’s request, I did steak and all the trimmings which was delicious.

On Thursday her work had begged her to do an extra shift because they were so short-staffed, and she agreed to do 5-9pm. She hadn’t bothered to check with me first, knowing I was on holiday she had assumed I wasn’t doing anything so would be able to drive out at 9pm to pick her up. But, as I had told her several times, I was going to the theatre for the first time in years that evening, so at 9pm would still be watching the play.

It was okay though, my father offered to pick her up. I drove her there for five then called around to pick up my friend on the way back. We parked at mine, wandered down to a great pub opposite the theatre where we had booked a table for 5:45pm, to give us plenty of time to eat and relax before the play started at 7:30pm.

We wanted to buy drinks when we got to the theatre and order some for the interval and based on previous experience, we knew the theatre bar staff are so slow they couldn’t catch a cold. Heaven only knew how snail-like they’d be now Covid restrictions were in place.

The pub is a lovely old, oak-beamed one with lots of character and the menu is varied and the food fresh and well prepared. We shared a bottle of rose and ate our meal before wandering over to the theatre at just after seven.

It was a good call getting there early, queues stretched away from the bar into infinity, but the staff weren’t going to be hurried, they would go at their own sloth-like pace, and nothing would persuade them to go any faster.

The play was “Absurd Person Singular” by Alan Ayckbourn and it was very good. Dark humour that had us laughing one minute, then pondering the futility of modern life the next. Wandering home at just gone nine I was surprised to find Miss F already home. The restaurant had been quieter than expected and her shift had ended at eight, so my dad had an early night after all.

On Miss F’s actual birthday – Saturday, the 14^th – I picked her up from work to save her from getting the bus and we swung by Tesco on the way back to pick up our weekly shop. Miss F hadn’t wanted a party but did ask if she could choose a big cake and that was going to be in with the shopping. Her only concern was that they would be out of stock of the one she had chosen and substituted it for a cake she didn’t want. We got there and the cake she wanted was in with our shopping – but at the bottom of the crate with a ton of tinned food and a big bag of potatoes dumped on top! The box was crushed, and we tried to examine the cake inside. It was still in one piece but there was damage to the fancy icing on the top and sides.

I showed it to the assistants.

ME: Oh no! Her birthday cake is broken.

THEM: Would you like us to get the shop to bring over another one?

ME: There’s no time. We have guests turning up in less than an hour and we must get home.

THEM: We’re so sorry!

ME: Well, at least they got her candles right, a number one and an eight.

THEM: It’s her eighteenth and her cake is damaged! Look, we’ll refund you for it.

We drove home with our free cake and hoped when we got it out of the box it wouldn’t be as bad as it looked. It was worse. It looked like someone had sat on it and the fancy piped rosettes on the top were squished flat. As I hurried to put all the shopping away, Miss F grieved for her broken cake until I couldn’t take anymore and ordered her to get her shoes back on. Quickly, we rushed to Waitrose where she selected a millionaire birthday cake with triple layers of vanilla, chocolate, and caramel sponge, and enough sweet icing to stop your heart.

And if you’re wondering what happened to the broken cake. Well, it didn’t go to waste. I sliced it all up and Miss F took it to work with her on Monday where it was consumed by all the staff who didn’t know and wouldn’t have cared even if they did, that the icing was smashed on the edges and squashed on the top.

We had my favourite niece and her husband coming for dinner that night, but we were planning to buy a big Chinese takeaway so other than laying up the table, which I had already done, I had nothing else to prepare. We had a great evening. We all love Chinese food and the restaurant we buy from is really good. After dinner, we played lots of games and it was gone midnight when they left.

Last Sunday was a chillout and relax day. We were both tired from such a busy week and it was nice to rest and not have to worry about anything other than a nice dinner and Netflix.

Monday dawned. By this point, I had given up on any plans to deep clean and advertise for a lodger, so I devoted the whole day and Tuesday to writing. Miss F worked both days, so I was able to put my head down, forget about everything else, and write.

Wednesday, the last day of my holiday and the day Miss F was booked to have her tattoo – my main birthday present for her. Her appointment was for twelve, so we trailed down to the tattoo parlour in a party of three – me, Miss F, and her friend Miss T. After a bit of preamble where the artist drew pictures and established exactly what she wanted, Miss F pulled down her top, climbed onto his couch and prepared to be stabbed, repeatedly. It didn’t take long, about twenty minutes. I couldn’t see her shoulder because the artist was in the way, but I could see her feet and they didn’t twitch once, so when she said it hadn’t hurt, I believed her.

She’s very happy with it.

For those wondering why a model plane. Well, there is a tale to be told there. Many years ago, when Miss F was at middle school so about eleven or twelve, she joined an engineering club the school had started in a lunchbreak. Sadly, she was the only girl in the group, even sadder was the fact the boys were a bunch of misogynistic little twerps even at that young age. Their first assignment was to split into groups and build a model plane. YOU can’t do anything; Miss F was told by the others in her group. YOU’RE a girl and girls can’t build planes, EVERYONE knows that! We can’t even trust you to paint it because you’ll paint it pink, so you can just stand there and watch.

Understandably upset by this, Miss F asked the male teacher if she could have a kit to make a plane by herself. She was told no, there were no more kits and that she was to go back to her group. Undeterred, Miss F went to the female teacher, told her what had happened, and was instantly given another kit.

Not only did Miss F complete her plane first and correctly, but her plane also flew the furthest in the trials, causing the boys in her group to whine and complain how unfair it was, then stamp on their plane in a fit of denial of male supremacy – or as us girls would put it – they threw all their toys out of their pram! Oh, and she also painted her plane pink and green, because why not?

I wasn’t aware of any of this until much later. All I knew was that this model plane came home from school one day and was put on our dresser where it sat for many years until I accidentally broke it earlier this year cleaning. If I’d only known, it was a symbol of feminism and girl power I would have handled it with kid gloves – but I was only told this after the plane was in pieces and in the bin.

I find it disgusting though, that the next generation of boys is still being raised by example to be such arrogant and unpleasant examples of male chauvinism. Because this kind of behaviour isn’t born it’s learnt from observation of the attitudes and language of the adults around them. Come on people, we can do so much better for our young women than this. Teach your sons it’s not okay to act this way. Teach your daughters to demand respect and equal consideration, or else nothing will change, and this kind of thing will spill onto the next generation and the next.

She says having the tattoo didn’t hurt at all and I believe her. When I had my tattoo done on the other shoulder to hers, it didn’t hurt at all. To be honest, I think breaking in the new Doc Martens she bought herself for her birthday is hurting her more.

After the tattoo, I treated us all to a lovely lunch in Miss F’s favourite restaurant and that was the end of my holiday. Back to work Thursday, Friday, and Saturday with no more time off until December.

And now it’s Saturday morning, I have tipped away my tea because it had a nasty tang and I have a suspicion the milk is off. I’m ready for work and desperately trying to get my blog written because I won’t have time tonight.

I have one day off tomorrow, but there is a ton of housework and other life stuff to attend to, I already know writing won’t happen, and then I’m back to work Monday and Tuesday. And so, my life turns.

Hope wherever you are, that your life is turning satisfactorily and happily, and I look forward to chatting with you next week.

Julia Blake

New Month and Moths!

Wow, look at that, it’s the first day of August. Another month has flown by in a flash and I’m not sure what happened in it. I was busy, of course. I think it’s because I’m so busy that time rushes by without pausing for breath. When every day is packed full of things to do there seems very little time to sit and let the pace of life slow down. I once saw a meme that stated – being an adult is saying “after next week things will get back to normal” forever and ever until you die – and it can certainly feel like that sometimes.

Firstly, let me apologise for there being no blog last week. As you know, I had eleven days off over my birthday which I enjoyed and were stuffed to the brim with activities. I returned to work on Thursday and unusually worked Friday and Saturday as well. I don’t usually work both so write my blog on either of those days. Working all three took me by surprise and yes, I suppose I could have written something in the evening, but they were three long, hard, busy days and to be honest by the time I got home all I wanted was dinner, Netflix, and bed, in that order.

Also, I had nothing to say. It had been a bit of a nothing week. I put my head down and wrote like mad on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, then I worked the next three days and that was kind of that. Focusing on my work in progress those three days though paid off and I’m proud to report that book three in The Perennials Trilogy is now standing at 36,500 words and I’m pleased with how the story is going. Returning to well-known and much-loved characters certainly helps, rather than introducing an all-new cast. I know Lili and her friends intimately, they are my friends, and there is a poignant bittersweetness in knowing this is the last visit I will pay to their world. Being the final book in the trilogy though means that I must wrap up all the stories begun in the first two books, tie up all the loose threads and conclude everything so the reader is left satisfied. So, no pressure there then.

Being Britain, the weather has been peculiar, to say the least. The heatwave that ravaged us over my birthday was blown away in a flurry of violent torrential downpours, strong winds, and a rapid drop in temperature. When I went to collect Miss F from work last night the roads were atrocious with running water flooding across them from the fields and my little car almost being gusted off the road. But today, Saturday, the sun is out, the winds have dropped, the temperature has gone back up and the weather is shrugging its shoulders as if to say “Storms? What storms were they?”

As I said, I’ve been consumed by my latest writing project so I’m prone to staring into space for long periods without speaking and my eyes glazed over. Not so bad if this happens at home but can cause problems if I do it at work. This happened last week with a colleague when apparently, I’d been staring past his right shoulder for a good ten minutes without speaking, lost in the world of my book.

HIM: What are you thinking about?

ME: Whether it’s possible to have sex in a wheelchair.

HIM: ……………….?

ME: ………………..?

HIM: What?!

ME: What?

Yeah, I’m not going to live that one down in a hurry!

A couple of small pieces of financial good news – one, the policy excess of £100 on my insurance claim was paid into my bank. Finally! It only took seven months from start to completion to settle a tiny £255 claim which is ridiculous. I sincerely hope I never have to make a more substantial claim because heaven knows how long that would take! Still, it’s a relief to be able to draw a line under the whole thing and move on.

Secondly, I received the sole occupancy discount on my council tax. Disappointingly, it was a fraction of what I’d been expecting. Way back when I was first considering taking in a lodger in 2005 the discount was a whopping 25% off the monthly bill. It was worth having and something I had to consider when I took in a lodger because obviously, I would no longer be eligible for it. Since then, I’ve never been without a lodger, so it’s not been applicable.

I only applied for a seven-month sole occupancy discount because our last lodger moved out at the end of December and due to lockdown and restrictions, we’ve been without one ever since. Turns out, as the cost of living has gone up and the monthly council tax has quadrupled, the sole occupancy discount has decreased until now far from being 25% it is barely 10%. For the seven months, I received £83 which was hardly worth applying for. Still, I guess it’s a week’s groceries paid for and better than nothing. As Miss F turns 18 in two weeks, I won’t be able to apply for it again unless I am without a lodger at any point after she has moved away to university.

On the lodger front. I’ve made a decision about that. It’s Miss F’s birthday soon and I have another eleven days of holiday booked – it’s technically only three days but my lovely boss has again topped and tailed it with my non-working days to stretch it to eleven in total. Those eleven days are not going to be as full as the ones over my birthday, so I plan to spring clean the ground floor of the house, get the basement room all fresh and ready for viewings, take lots of nice photos showing the new desk and workspace, plus the TV, and then activate the ad on the last day of my holiday. It will take several days to thoroughly scrub the bathroom and the kitchen and rearrange cupboards. We have got used to being able to use the lodger’s cupboard and their space in the fridge and freezer, so I must squeeze all the food back into our cupboards and freezers drawers again.

I must say, I’ve enjoyed having the house to ourselves – but needs must. We’ve been without the rental income of £500 per month since December 2020 and that is a lot of money to do without. We’ve managed, but only just and only because there have been one or two windfalls along the way and because I’ve called upon savings. Well, they are all gone so now I have no choice and must get a new lodger this month. It won’t be so bad, after all, we’ve always had lodgers. For the last sixteen years we have shared our home with a succession of people – some nicer than others – so we can do it again, and anyway, with Miss F off to university at the beginning of September it will mean fewer people in the house trying to use the facilities and the company might be nice.

Have I ever told you that Miss F is lactose intolerant? Well, bless her she is, and we tend to be a dairy-free house. Sometimes though, if it’s a special occasion, Miss F will take a lactase pill that breaks down the dairy in the food so she can eat cheese or cake or ice cream without experiencing the severe pain she usually does. So, why doesn’t she take them all the time, I hear you ask. Firstly, they’re expensive and, secondly, it’s probably not good for her to take them all the time.

Anyway, the cheapest way for her to buy them is in bulk from Amazon and as she was running low, she ordered £80 worth ready to take to university and they were due to be delivered last week. They came, she took the box from the delivery driver and then I heard her calling me in disbelief. I went into the dining room to find she’d opened the box and instead of the packets of pills she’d been expecting there was a vape pen!

A vape pen! Sent to a 17-year-old by mistake. She had not been asked to sign for it nor produce any form of ID so there was the law broken straight away. I grabbed the box and ran out into the street where the driver was climbing into his van. I showed him the pen. He scratched his head. Is the address correct? Yes, it was addressed to Miss F, but it wasn’t what she ordered. He phoned his supervisor. As the package had already been delivered could he take it back? No, because it had been delivered, he couldn’t. We should have refused delivery. Even the driver rolled his eyes at that one and realised the stupidity of it. We’d been expecting a parcel of about the same size so until we’d opened it how could we possibly have known there was a vape pen lurking in there?

We contacted Amazon, explained the problem, they emailed a return label and a code we could use to leave the parcel in a local Amazon dropbox. It would take ten working days to refund us – that always makes me cross – they can take your money in ten seconds, but it takes ten days to refund it! No, they want to keep your money in their account gathering interest for as long as possible. I often wonder how much money big companies make that way.

Anyway, we resealed the parcel and I drove Miss F to the nearest drop box which was located at a garage about half a mile away. She plugged the code into the machine and a locker door sprung open. It was a very small locker. She looked at the box, then looked doubtfully at the space it was supposed to fit into. She tried. The box was too big. She pushed and struggled. Nope, it wasn’t going in, not anyhow, no way. She shrugged helplessly at me,

It was a blistering hot day, I had other things to do, and had just about had enough, so I got out of the car and went over to her, took the box out of her hand, put it on the ground, and stamped down all the edges – the box was big and the vape pen was small under lots of packaging so I knew it wouldn’t be damaged. I stamped all the way around then tried again. This time it fitted. Back home, Miss F emailed Amazon that the box was on its way back also mentioned that as she was underage and hadn’t been asked to produce any ID when taking in the vape pen, it was not on. Amazon thought about this. Two days later the refund was back in her bank, and she received her pills.

I cannot believe that in two weeks my baby will be eighteen and technically an adult. Where have the years gone to? Those of you who’ve been reading my blog since the beginning will remember me blogging about her Prom and her Sixteenth birthday party – those blogs are still there if any of you want to scroll back and read them, both are funny. She didn’t want an eighteenth party or anything like that as parties aren’t her thing. My parents will come over to see her, as will other family members and friends. I told her I wanted to give her something special from me, something that would last and remind her of her mother and told her to think about what she wanted. I was expecting her to say a piece of jewellery, instead, she came back and requested I pay for a tattoo.

A tattoo. Okay, it’s not what I anticipated and to be honest, not what I wanted, but, as she keeps reminding me, she will be eighteen and old enough to do it with or without me. I’d rather it was with me. She checked out all the tattoo parlours in town, I insisted it was a registered one with excellent references and a waiting list, no backstreet ink jockeys were getting their hands on my baby’s skin! She found one that met the criteria of both of us and an appointment has been booked for a few days after her birthday. Her best friend is coming with us and afterwards, I’ll take us out to lunch. I guess we will learn how high her pain threshold is.

I will be buying her a few other bits and pieces, but tattoos are so expensive that it will probably eat up all my budget. People can’t believe I’m doing this, but really, what other option do I have? She’s going to do it with or without my approval and she doesn’t need my consent anymore so it’s not like I can stop her and anyway, do I have the right to? I’ve raised her to think for herself, to decide what she wants and work to get it. I can’t complain when she does that just because she’s not thinking the way I want her to. I also don’t want our last few days together to be spent fighting over something that she will do the minute she leaves home anyway. Besides, I guess she is right when she says as an eighteenth birthday gift it does tick all the boxes – it is special, it is expensive, it will last, and it will remind her of me every time she catches sight of it in the mirror!

I will keep you all posted…

Nature has been invading my house lately in the shape of spiders that have been spinning cobwebs over every surface. I think Autumn is coming early this year and they’re all coming in looking for shelter for the winter. I hate cobwebs – as fast as I take them down, more appear hanging from every surface. I wish there was something we could spray on walls and ceilings that stopped spiders from attaching their webs to them.

Worse than the spiders, we’ve been infested with clothes moths! Horrid tiny silvery flying things, they are everywhere! They’ve eaten holes in almost everything I have – even a brand-new top I treated myself to from Next! I hadn’t had a chance to wear it and it was hanging in my wardrobe with the tags still on it. The little bastards chewed holes all over it! Every time I draw our curtains a cloud of moths flies out! They’re behind our sofas, eating our carpets and in our drawers. I’ve never known anything like it.

I went to Wilks and asked if they had anything I could use to kill moths. The assistant took me to the gardening section and showed me something for killing moss in lawns. Bloody masks. No, I explained, not moss – moths! And I wouldn’t care if they were outdoors, these sods were inside and eating everything. She took me to the home care section and sold me mothballs. I bought two packs and have put them everywhere. They smell like chemical orange. I have no idea if they will work or not, I hope so because I’m at the end of my tether. Although, all the cobwebs I keep finding in the house are full of clothes moths’ dead bodies so I’m a bit conflicted. Get rid of the webs and the spiders and hope the mothballs work, or allow the webs to remain for a while and hope the spiders solve the problem? Maybe the spiders have been moving in in force because the word got out it was an all you can eat buffet of moths in our house!

Anyway, it’s almost midday on Saturday and if I want to get anything else done, I will need to finish now. There’s a lasagne to make, beds to strip, and a book to write, none of which will happen by themselves.

Take care everyone and wherever you are stay safe, stay happy.

Julia Blake