And then I sneeze just outside Akra Jr’s bedroom… and he calls out “bless you, mummy!” and I melt.

Today I am bloody pissed off.

The move has been delayed yet again as our buyer has changed her buyer yet again. This is getting beyond funny (this is the third time it’s fallen through now?) I am sick of it all – I’m sick of the fact that now everything gets set back again, that yet another person has to do all the searches, queries and survey on her property. I’m sick of the “temporary” separation of our family for the last 6 months which no longer feels that temporary. I’m sick of living in a limbo.

Property chains are the devil incarnate and solicitors, estate agents and council search people their evil minions.

It was the kind of “spur of the moment” outing that required planning of military precision. I had decided to spend some time recharging my “spiritual batteries” and where better than being outdoors in beautiful surroundings especially with the gorgeous weather we’ve been having. However, being alone with your thoughts and having a toddler along are rather mutually exclusive, so plans were made for today, being Akra Jr’s day at nursery.

So, last night I rescued a small rucksack from the back of the dark recesses of the wardrobe and prepared a small packed lunch (including the essential item of a cheese & pickle sandwich – I blame my mother for my association with these and trips out). In a sudden panic that I’d be bored after half an hour, a few books, a pad of paper and a pen were thrown into the bag for good measure.

Kelsey Park in Beckenham was chosen for operation “Pilgrimage to the Park” as although it’s a bit of a trek for me to reach it, it pretty much meets all my criteria for a damn good park: lake with ducks, “woodland” area, stream with little water falls, cafe & loos (oh, and a superb playground, but I couldn’t really justify visiting that without Akra Jr). It was about as close to nature as I was going to get around here without putting myself at unnecessary risk of wandering around on my own in a secluded area. Map was thrown into the bag too.

So the day finally dawns and, as usual for a Thursday, the morning routine is horribly rushed and chaotic. Akra Jr is doing his utmost to be uncooperative. Dash out of the door grabbing the rucksack along with all his nursery stuff on the way. It’s not until I’ve left Akra Jr at nursery and am walking down the road towards the tram stop that I start to wonder what the hell I’m doing. It’s not a warm sunny day like earlier in the week, it’s actually quite chilly, and I haven’t packed a jumper or a raincoat. I have 101 things I need to do at home, and here I am proposing to wander around a park all day. Not to mention that I know I can’t survive that long without a computer and that central heating and double glazing are listed among my favourite of inventions. Have I gone completely insane?! (no, don’t answer that).

I’m still trying to talk myself out of it while buying the tram ticket and waiting for the tram, but on the tram I’m feeling a bit more upbeat. It’s warm behind glass, the journey is picturesque in places, and I’m starting to appreciate the freedom of an empty day in front of me. The rushing around getting ready is in the past now and I manage to relax and watch the world go by. By the time I arrive at Beckenham Junction I’m just feeling faintly silly.

It being only 8.45am I decide to go and have some coffee and breakfast in the Wimpy – delaying the inevitable quick walk around the park and thinking “sod this for a game of soldiers” and buggering off home. Note to Akra: Starburger does better breakfasts. But it filled a gap, was warm, and the waitress left me alone to eat in peace without early morning overtures of friendliness so that was good. After all, spiritual epiphany isn’t going to appear on an empty stomach now is it?! (well, okay, ignoring all the “fasting is good for the soul” rubbish – always thought that was stupid anyhow)

Got to the park. Started walking around trying really hard to “listen”. It was really beautiful there, but I found it really hard to quieten my mind as I kept having an inner dialogue as if I was writing down all that I saw in my head – trying to present it to others. “Woo hoo” I thought, “I’m finally becoming a writer” then I remembered that wasn’t quite the point of being there. You know what? It’s not actually that hard to listen to nature, cos nature is bloody noisy. It was early morning and the birds were singing their little guts out. Somewhere in the trees there was a woodpecker. Canada geese on the lake fighting. Water flowing over rocks and over little water falls. Moorhens making little “peep peep” sounds. The quintessential duck quacks. Okay, you could still hear cars and planes in the background, this was only a little oasis in the jungle of humanity, but you had to try to hear them.

I was really quite proud of myself, actually. Here I was … the city dweller… actually remembering my country roots. I could look and name the trees: oak, sycamore, horse chestnut, silver birch… I even recognised some of the different bird calls. After half an hour of inward dialoguing I managed to stop and start really looking and listening. No, it wasn’t warm, but I found after a while that I wasn’t really that cold either. I saw a heron that I was convinced was a fake one it was standing so still, until I rounded the corner and saw scores of herons roosting on that little island. I saw little tiny spring ducklings. I smelled early morning dewy ground. A squirrel went foraging for food inches from my feet while I kept really still (okay, that’s not much of an achievement, it’s a city squirrel after all, but still). I lovingly stroked the bark of trees (yes, I confess, I am a tree hugger. I can’t help it – the patterns in the bark, the shape of trees, their presence and age…). I would have climbed one of them – it was a perfect shape, but I was worried that I’d get told off by a park keeper or a passerby would have thought I was a crazy person. Oh to be a kid and not to care what people think!

I spent 3 HOURS in that park, and didn’t even notice the time going by. Books, paper and pen remained untouched. I did go home after that though as it started to look like it was going to pour with rain any minute and this stupid city dweller had forgotten to bring a raincoat or umbrella. Am going to try and make a habit of taking time out for myself in future though. I feel really refreshed.

Oh, and yes, I know. I should have taken my camera. I forgot. Sorry.

Following on from my recent exercise quandaries, I have just ordered a T’ai Chi DVD from Amazon. I figured that it should be pretty low impact, and something a bit different from yoga, and a DVD should be easier to follow than squinting at diagrams in a book. Probably won’t meet my 15 minute criteria though, but the fact that it’s also a martial art and can be used as self-defence once you’ve studied for long enough intrigued me. Will let you know how it goes.

This cartoon made me smile so thought I would share.

Am forcing myself to write this evening. I am seriously sleep deprived and have done battle with toddler all day.

I knew it probably wasn’t a good thing that I couldn’t switch my brain off last night, and was still awake at 1am when Akra Jr decided to try for some insomnia of his own (just at the point where I’d begun to get sleepy and might actually have got some shut eye). Went to his room and he was inconsolable so resigned myself to him sleeping in my bed for the night. Only when he got there he only wanted to play. He wriggled and wriggled, ultimatums were given, but he refused point blank to go to the cot. Then he wanted a drink (which fool that I was, I succumbed to), then he wanted his nappy changed. Then I put him in the cot and he screamed the house down.

Take him back to my room, ask him does he want to sleep here in the bed or in his cot. “Cot” says the little git with the cheeky smile. Relations broke down a bit at this point (it was 3am in my defense). Light goes on, I make a move to pick him up “BED!” he screams and lies down beautifully. Light goes off, up he sits “COT!” he yells. Repeat until mummy goes mental and screeches at him like an evil harridan. I then twig that he’s loving every minute of the attention, so turn over and “sleep” to ignore him. Akra Jr decides a great way to regain my attention would be yelling “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” in my ear and then jumping on my head. Lovely. I try cajoling, being understanding, yelling, screaming some more, and then around 3.30am we both collapse and actually catch some ‘z’s.

Devil child wakes up on the dot of 6.30am. The day went downhill from there.

EVERYTHING has been a battle. My normally cooperative (well as cooperative as a two-year-old gets) toddler has turned into a MONSTER. I’ve never been so relieved to put him into bed as I have been this evening. Of course, he may be in bed, but he isn’t asleep – I can hear him chatting away to himself over the monitor. GAH!

I feel a bit squiffy… actually make that a lot squiffy.

This is because we went to Akra Jr’s little friend’s birthday this afternoon. Usual drill – various nibbles and birthday cake for the lil’ ones… wine for the mums. Unfortunately I was one of the few who wasn’t driving, so this meant I got the lion’s share.

3 glasses of pinot grigio later (bear in mind this was on an empty stomach, oh and I’m a light weight anyway as I hardly ever drink), I’m weaving up the road wondering if you can be drunk in charge of a pushchair. To be on the safe side, I didn’t give Akra Jr a bath this evening.

Now Akra Jr’s asleep I really ought to think about cooking … hmm, think it might be a Domino’s pizza night.

I’m not a particularly lazy person, but I’m not big on exercise either. I know I ought to do more, but I’m not overweight (if anything, slightly underweight) and I leave the car behind and walk as often as I can (about half an hour every other day on average I think).

However, I am prone to getting back ache and just recently I’ve started getting painful varicous veins in my left leg (noooo it’s not fair! I’m too young to get varicous veins! Oh well, something else to blame Akra Jr for) – plus I’m generally stressed and run down as a result. I’ve started to think about whether I should plan some regular exercise back into my life.

Now, I have tried various exercise things. I have done: the gym, yoga, callanetics, swimming, various exercise bike type things and Mr Motivator. None of these really suited me. I’ve decided what I need to find is something that I can do at home (while Akra Jr is asleep), needs minimum equipment (if I need to get something out of a cupboard, it’s NOT going to happen), is reasonably low impact to avoid joint problems and only takes 15 minutes a day.

Why 15 minutes? Well, I figure 15 minutes a day is achievable – I can fit 15 minutes in somewhere without too much effort. I’m more likely to do 15 minutes a day (with the odd day here and there I skip) than trying to fit in half an hour 3 days a week, or an hour’s routine once a week. I had a 4-minute exercise machine/bike thing once but that was so hefty and awkward to drag out I never bothered – plus I was an exhausted wreck at the end of 4 minutes as it was too high impact.

Okay, so I’m thinking yoga is probably the only thing that’s going to meet all my criteria, but the only yoga routines I can find seem all to be half an hour or more. Or they lie and say 15 minutes when really by the time you’ve figured out what the pictures are trying to suggest then you’ve used 15 minutes up on the warm up.

Any suggestions?

YAY … I have finished my tax return at last. I hereby swear I will never ever EVER do anything that isn’t P.A.Y.E. EVER AGAIN! Argh.

And the bastards make you provide your own stamp.

And the bastards don’t make their stick down envelopes sticky so you have to use your own sellotape.

Happy Easter! Hope the easter bunny hopped your way…

Akra Jr is currently looking rather chocolate stuffed and smug (we were careful not to let it get beyond smug and into chocolate sick mode) – which is good, because the egg hunt got off to a shaky start.

We’d decided to wait until after his lunchtime nap for the egg (in the singular) hunt but unfortunately he was in a rather grumpy mood when he woke up. Akra dutifully “hid” the egg behind a curtain with plenty of cadbury’s purple on view, but Akra Jr decided to sob his heart out on my lap instead (poor little mite). After a little prompting (mainly with me pointing directly at it and saying “ooh, what’s that over there?”), he fetched the egg, it was opened, and sticky chocolatey goodness was accessed. He’s actually quite a clean chocolate eater – he considers the stuff too good to leave on his fingers for long.

Our eggs are sitting in the fridge for after Akra Jr has gone to bed, mainly because we don’t want our attitude of “do as we say and not as we do” in relation to chocolate imbibing to be quite so obvious, at least not this year. I’ve got a Buffy egg, yes, because I like the TV show, but also because it came with a cool radio… and I’m a sucker for things like that. Akra chose a Harry Potter egg… mainly because it was the only egg left on the shelf yesterday that was made by a decent chocolate manufacturer.