Anyone who says sunshine brings happiness obviously never danced in the rain

All the sleeping and fighting to do simple daily tasks has left me totally drained. Like I have been hit by a bus. It is hard to explain but at the same time exactly as they said it would be. My body aches, particularly my neck, but is this from the bug or from all the sleeping/tossing and turning? D hasn't touched me all week. More so than normal. Like I am a giant germ that might render him into the same useless state. I don't know why I am so bothered, even before I became a germ I had to ask him to hold me or touch me. Something is seriously wrong there. I think he has retreated into his cave on Mars again.

This morning I felt so lifeless I went to stand in the rain to prove to myself I wasn't still sleeping. Standing in a puddle, in my nightie, I let the drops fall hard and fast across my bare skin and watched the goose-pimples stand to attention. It felt so good a chill ran down my back. Warm rain. For the first time in so long, months, I felt like I was alive. Like I was wholly in the present moment. Like nothing else mattered but this feeling of stimulation. Pondering my life for a minute I threw myself back to the last time a pleasurable feeling totally washed over my whole body. Too long ago.

Today I also managed to finish a novel, the first full book I have read since before I met D. Quite an accomplishment. But it left me reeling! The ending had been left open for the reader to decide, and I had read and read incessantly to get my happy ending. So imagine it - I keep telling myself, but I so wanted to read it as part of my achievement. Why am I so bothered by this? When I had finished I began to think about bizarre things like the fact I haven't worn socks or shoes for days, and that the purple pointy flowers on the Budlia in the garden looked like an array of arrows pointing in all directions, like a scene from Alice in Wonderland. Have I awoken my imagination?

My not so little brother has now graduated with a fantastic 2:1 in Business Computing! His graduation ceremony was at the Stadium of Light - much to his horror being a Newcastle supporter, but to my dads delight being a Sunderland fan. It was a lovely ceremony, modern, in fitting with the course. The staff were very friendly and helpful and the indoor suites were great, but the food was not even average. We paid £20 each for a ticket and I was given 2 tiny sausages, a vegetable spring roll, an Indian parcel, a few cold and hard chips, a brushetta, a sandwich and a tiny little tart the size of a £2 coin. All the 'hot' food was cold by the time we got to it and you had to take your ticket up to get your meal so you weren't allowed any further food. It was a shame when everything else had been so impressive.

In a rather comedy moment the guy which my mum had been sat beside during the ceremony, (a rather gorgeous, African guy!) who had also been cheering on his best friend and his brother, asked for my brothers name and stood up and cheered him on too! Very random, but sweet I guess. How unfair is life when it is your mother being chatted up?

Incidentally I have run myself into the ground and left myself open to 'suspected' swine flu. Although no one is being tested anymore so I will never really know for sure. Anti-virals and plenty of sleep required. Mainly I feel as though my throat is on fire and like I have been hit by a bus. And although I don't have D & V, my body does not want food in it and if I eat, it rapidly leaves at the other end, up to 8 times a day! Too much detail I hear you yell. Christ, I'm turning into my mum - she has an obsession with talking about bowel movements. Enough said. Halls soothers and back to bed.

Today Ali found a potato shaped like Sid the Sloth's head from 'Ice Age'! It was hilarious. We were laughing about it so much in the vegetable shop that the owner actually gave it to Ali to take home! How nice! I have no idea how we are going to bring ourselves to eat it though!

We have also been to see Walking with Dinosaurs at the Metro Arena. We really enjoyed it. My mum won some tickets so we took Ali and another couple of family members. Ali was a little scared to begin with but when we pointed out the people and machinery working the models she relaxed. The popcorn also worked as a calming distraction! (All £3 worth). So we got to see the show for free which was great and probably would have been worth paying for - but the merchandise, whoo, extortionate! The cheapest item of memorabilia was a small helium balloon shaped like T-Rex which cost £5. I mean £5!!! Ridiculous. But of course they are very clever. Staff hovered in the doorway as we left the building - so you cannot possibly leave without seeing the balloons, then of course comes, 'Oh look mummy a dinosaur balloon, can I have a dinosaur balloon, please mummy please'. 'No darling, they are very expensive'. 'Oh please mummy please'. (Getting increasingly high pitched and whiny). 'Darling they cost too much money.' 'Ohhhhh pllllleeeeeeaaaasssssseeeee, please mummy please, look they are nearly all gone, please mummy.' And then that is it - the clincher! In about 30seconds they will all be gone because too few are being bought so quickly; so suddenly despite my previous arguments my daughter simply must have a dinosaur balloon and several of us are diving into the crowd, money extended out at arms length in exchange for a balloon. No, they are not stupid, they know how to make money! £12 for a programme - jees - we could have become bloody bankrupt and we didn't even pay for the tickets. Brilliant show though. Unbelievably intelligent, clever clever production. Well worth a visit.

Well it would seem I have competition in the birthday cake department. A few days ago a friend of mine had a birthday party for her son who is the same ages as Ali, and she had created a 'Rory the Racing Car' cake. It was fabulous, so it seems I do not hold the monopoly in the birthday cake market. In fact it could be argued she did one better as she actually baked the cake! Damn. However, I am already planning next years creation! And it seems a friend of mine has challenged me to a retirement cake in the shape of a zimmer frame! After pondering the possibility of this for all of 2 seconds, my best offer would have to be false teeth?!

Having just ploughed on straight from a night shift to a nursery trip out to Whitehouse Farm with Ali and her class, to trampolining club, and on to a parents evening/presentation to inform us about the transition from Nursery to Reception in school; I am now taking a few short minutes to simply do nothing before a sumptuous, well deserved early night. D is reading a guide to 'Florence and Tuscany' which has me very excited. I will have to start leaving more obvious hints while the idea is in his head - get him to follow through! I think I can keep on dreaming!

"Her name was Lola....she was a challenge....for 3+ hours of my life, I built her up with cake and knife."

The giraffe has gone! Hallelujah! It has taken the best part of a week, a helping hand from a family friend and 3, almost 4, layers of paint to make it go away! We are now 'Pavillion' in colour in the lounge - it is like a warm beige colour, and the room looks twice the size! White on the ceiling has created the feeling of an extra foot on the height, and two 'African pot' looking ceramic wall lamps have set the ambiance off beautifully. (Although they do look like alien space ships when its dark!) All in all a successful redecoration project.

It was Ali's birthday a couple of Sunday's ago. She woke at exactly the same time that I began to contract the day she was born - which freaked me out! We had been up until 2am decorating and wrapping presents because I was so late home from work the night before, so I was really lethargic. Ali was buzzing though and seriously excited when she saw everything downstairs. What an array of presents!

Ali had asked for a 'Charlie and Lola' themed birthday party but could I find a Charlie and Lola birthday cake? Could I hell as like! When I realised it was going to cost approximately £60 to have one made I could have cried. So I was on to Asda quick sharp to ask about getting an image transferred onto a cake and whether I should bring it to them on disk or as a copy, but they said no as it was copyrighted! Panic -Panic -Panic. With no other option I had to have a go at it myself! Now the whole world knows I couldn't bake a cake to save my life, so what was I to do? Well, I'll tell you exactly what I did. I took a flat plain sponge cake, reconstructed it in the shape of 'Lola's' head, iced it and decorated it. No one was more surprised than me when it turned out to be absolutely fabulous! It seems that I am a genius at cake decoration! Genius mind you - not fluke! You can be the judge - praising comments always welcome!

Can someone tell me when parenting became so competitive? It's like there is this group of you and a few years ago you were all dragging each other through the hard times, going to baby massage and having coffee while the little ones were in the creche; and now its - my child is cleverer, my child can do this better, my child can do that better, and my child's party will be better than yours.... I really thought I would be above and beyond this but for some reason I can feel myself trying to better the others too, not in a planned or intentional way though, it's weird. For some reason we feel compelled to behave like this. We went to one of Ali's friends parties and she got three presents from one of her relatives - two dressing up outfits and some dressing up shoes. Some being the operative word. Not just one pair of dressing up shoes - five! And I thought Ali had loads of presents, unbelievable. My cake was better though......

Another one of my friends kids had a birthday party and Ali was invited, just Saturday gone, and it was so fabulous. She is the epitome of the phrase 'earth mother'. She recycles, eats healthily and organically and the family go on many outdoor pursuits. I mean she even used toweling nappies as opposed to disposable when her kids were small. Everything I thought I would be but definitely am not as a mother. I love her to bits though, don't get me wrong, and I don't know how she does it. Anyway, the party. On arrival to this outdoor activity centre/grange she took us up to a small hut and woodland area where there was a huge plastic ground sheet covered with pva glue pots and creative crafts and tools. The kids were given a small canvas bag to decorate themselves as a party bag - which in itself was such a great idea. Following all the impressive healthy food (even healthy carrot cake!) there was a puppet show performed by her friend, to the story of 'Cinderella Green Recycling Queen' - complete with adult jokes for the parents. So funny! And following the show, all the kids got to make a puppet for themselves. Having been on night shift just before the party and going, going and going on no sleep what so ever, I thought I would be beside myself by the afternoon. I didn't really feel it until about 3pm and I think I had just as much fun as Ali did! Worryingly it did draw out the OCD in me as I tried to get Ali to stick on a variety of shapes, colours and feathers equally spaced out and colour coordinated!

My tomatoes - oh my tomatoes...they are coming along just brilliantly. I have some starting to ripen and redden already. I am so excited! Yes I am getting my kicks from growing tomatoes! Something is seriously wrong in my life. We have had 9 cucumbers thus far and there are several peppers coming in also. Not bad for my first attempt at green fingers! Ali loves it though. She cannot wait to try the tomatoes!

'You are feeling very sleepy....no shit Sherlock!'

Well I have spent the whole of my week off flaming gardening. Not under duress but to avoid my own guilt at not helping the MIL. I cannot think of anything else that I have achieved during my 'free from work' time. I haven't even tried to do more to the sort the house out. Alas I had so many plans.....

I did visit a hypnotherapist in attempt to aid my bid to lose weight. It cost a small fortune, but I guess I am willing to try anything now. The first part of the session was more like counselling - I had to be open and honest, cried a lot and tried to figure things out with the therapist. He observed that when I picture things that upset me or made me feel 'low' I always divert my line of sight to the bottom left of my vision spectrum and by simply looking up and to the right when feeling like this, I can feel much better. Of course I thought this was ludicrous but unbelievably it actually works! So part of my homework was to practice this into daily life, and it has been very helpful so far.

The actual 'hypnosis' part, which the therapist referred to as 'trance', was weird. Primarily I was sat in a rattan chair for the whole thing, and not particularly comfortably - but maybe that was to prevent me from falling asleep! I did feel sleepy mostly. I could hear what the therapist was saying, and thankfully I felt I was always in control - that I could have stopped everything at any point. That was what I was most nervous about, so I think that relaxed me. On occasion the room felt like it was spinning but it would stop after a little while. The therapist was talking to my unconscious as if it was an entity, in a respectful way, asking it to help me and making reference to me in a complimentary, confidence building way. Thankfully there were no swinging fob watches involved, as I may have found this very hard to take seriously!

Finally before he asked me to slowly become more aware of myself and open my eyes, he told me that my unconscious would let my conscious self know that it had heard him and that it would try to help me, by creating a 'funny sensation' in my left hand. When fully 'compus mentus' he asked me how I felt, I said 'tired' and within a few minutes of talking I felt a tingling sensation in my left hand! I was like - no way - was this just me imagining it because the therapist had said it would happen? All the way down the street I had this throbbing, pulsating feeling in the centre of my upper left hand, then it stopped. To begin with I was totally freaked out, spooky was an understatement; but for the rest of the day I was just exhausted and had a fuzzy frontal headache.

That was Thursday gone. Two days on and I am not eating any less. He did say the effects would not be immediate but I still feel compelled to eat more than I should, for whatever reason. I am a little disappointed as I really thought it might help. It works for smokers trying to quit, why shouldn't it work for me? The only thing left to try is acupuncture. Of the complimentary therapies anyway. I will give it a bit longer just to be sure before I totally dismiss its effects.

Birthdays, bedding plants and boiling over!

People weren't kidding when they said that moving house was the second most stressful event of your life - only second to getting divorced, which I very nearly thought we would be. (Well, of sorts given we aren't really married). My word I haven't been able to write since March! The giraffe print wall paper has inspired me to start blogging again, so the dishes in the kitchen sink (no dishwasher) and lunch that ended up on the kitchen floor, will have to wait.

The new house is fabulous! I can't believe how much space we have! We have a little conservatory which is the 'piece de resistance'. It is ridiculous how excited I am about the fact I am growing tomatoes in my conservatory! Ever since my Gran showed me how to 'tickle' them with cotton wool to cross pollinate them when I was younger, I have been desperate to grow them. I can smell the 'tang' before they are even growing. I also have a new rattan rocking chair from Ikea, which just fits in fabulously - this is my Ali chair, a homage to my best friend not my daughter, as she gave me the vouchers for Ikea, thanks hun!

One problem however - the shower is knackered. I noticed a stain on the kitchen ceiling about three weeks into our new home, only to realise it was the shower leaking through from above. Lovely plumber man informed me that the shower was a piece of junk, held together with practically nothing and garden hose for piping. This made me want to cry, because if there is one thing I did not want to break it was the shower. Over 2 weeks of three baths a day and I was to take away. The plumber has been back and forth and luckily has made it usable - but he is not sure how long it will last. Great.

The Garden, oh the garden - primarily it is amazing to have one, but I love it, Ali loves it and D has cut the grass in it several times already! We have a built in BBQ which we have road tested and it is very efficient. We can see all the way to the river at the bottom of the valley and the sun sets over the fence to the back right of the boundary. I can't wait to sit outside on an evening (when the weather improves) and have a glass of wine while watching the sun go down.

Currently, in general, I am high on life, as I have just handed in my assignment to be a mentor to student midwives. It has been the bane of my life and I feel as if I have spent the last month on edge, sat in front of a computer, cursing while flicking through textbooks, and fobbing Ali off with DVD's. Monday 18th I came home from work, had a glass of wine, sat on the sofa, and watched TV - sublime!

Granny is staying with us and for once we are able to offer her a proper bed, in her own room, as opposed to the sofa in the living room. She is tackling the garden for us and simply couldn't wait to get started. I on the other hand could - not being the biggest fan of gardening. But I could have swung for someone when I came home yesterday. I am concerned about getting things organised for Ali's birthday, which is not a million miles away now, so headed to collect a trampoline I had found in a Bank Holiday sale at Netto. Leaving on the understanding that we were planting everything later in the day when it wasn't so hot (it was 28 degrees!) I headed off to plough my way into Kingston Park to find the Netto store; on return I found D, MIL and Ali in the garden and they had been there since I left. Both were subtly insinuating that I had gotten off lightly which put me on the defensive, then on closer inspection I observed the state of my daughter. She was almost tomato red on her neck and shoulders, burning from the midday sun. 'Have you seen Ali?' I said to D. 'She's really sun-burned'. To which I got the reply, 'Well I can't do everything you know'. Boiling over I spouted 'well you would think your burning daughter would be your priority over the garden', abruptly, and took her indoors. Not much else was said for quite some time! I was fuming! I still am.

I think we are going down the line of holding a party at home again for Ali, given that I can't afford to hire anywhere - which is a shame because that means I have to deal with the mess too. Ali has chosen a 'Charlie and Lola' themed birthday party, to which I have agreed because I secretly love Charlie and Lola too, but I cannot seem to stop feeling guilty about the children I wont be able to invite. 26 kids all with a parent would mean 52 people in my house before you even add on family and friends outside of school. Not possible. Sardines in a tin, and mayhem & chaos spring to mind. I thought it would be hard to choose which children to invite but it's not, there are some children I certainly do not want in my house; however I feel so guilty because I know how upset Ali was when she was not invited to one. What can I do though? I haven't got the space or the money to cater for them all. I really need to get this political parenting sorted!