Today is Queenie Teenie 2’s birthday (15).  He had to get up early (shock horror) because we had the alarm man coming for the annual maintenance visit.  So he opened his presents from distant relatives.  As he always asks for money not much to display!  As I went off to work he was glued to Rugby 15 on the Xbox and Queenie Teenie 1 was hidden by the laptop.  Oh well,  I suppose it keeps them quiet.

Older daughter is continuing this week with paid work helping out at a younger kids’ summer sports camp.  She’s having to get up early to be at work by 8 – welcome to the real world!

Because of three of us being out at work, partner being committed to a work appointment at 6pm and his mother being on a coach trip to Windsor Castle (expected back 6.15 ish) the traditional family “cake cutting” will have to take place at 7pm rather than 5.30 as usual.  In fact we are a bit short today as my brother and his wife are away on hols in Lanzarote.   My mother will be collected by one of us on the way back from one of the various locations and will bring the presents from her with her.  Saves her making an extra bus trip.

I didn’t have time to make the cake but we found “Mr Bump” in Asda.  You might think that is babyish but it is an ironic gesture to reflect the injuries QT2 has suffered this year – a broken nose (at rugby training),  a rotator cuff problem (shoulder) and a dislocated/broken elbow (rugby match) all of which mean that his sporting activities this year have been disjointed and curtailed and he has not been able to spend the summer playing cricket as usual.  Hopefully QT2 is on our irony wavelength!  He used to love the Mr Men when he was younger so maybe he won’t be that offended.

So this is my lunchtime and I usually work through but I figured that I may not have time later to grab the computer and write this.

My work is in what is now called Dispute Resolution (most people know it as civil litigation although uncivil litigation is more apt).  That means that it can be pretty stressful not only with Court and other deadlines to meet but also because to the client, their problems are the only ones in the world and, fully understandably,  if one doesnt return their calls or emails quickly enough another follows querying whether the first one was received!

In fact the vast majority of my correspondence is by email and I have little in the way of “snailmail” which is a good job because the Postal system is not at all reliable.  Not sure if that is just here in the Midlands or whether that is universal.

Anyway today is really quiet,  because the schools finished here 10 days ago I guess everyone has finally gone on their hols.  Ours are not until August (and I will tell you about them later!  After all I need to keep this blog going…!)

Partner’s work is also stressful and involves much out of hours work.  However he still does much of the “brat taxi” work as I don’t drive distances and in any event my faithful old 4×4 Hyundai is on its absolutely last legs and often refuses to move.  So a big hug to him (although he’s not reading this).

Thats going to have to be it for now as the boss has returned from his all morning meeting and wants “a word”!