international day... in summer 2014 is a creepin' in.

bullets? Well, why not!

after a ridiculously small quantity of sleep, I awoke unable to eat breakfast. This is because I had to hand out letters of resignation today. Libby's mum took it quite hard, but calmed down, and now I feel spurned that she's posted on Facebook that she's looking for a new childminder and does anyone have recommendations! How fickle am I?! When she had gone to work I ate my porridge very quickly...

today was Tally's school assembly. Several weeks ago she had told me that, this year, she wanted a speaking party so I encouraged her to 'audition'. She had the role of narrator 3 and soldier, this involved two lines to say, by herself. If you don't know my amazingly beautiful and clever and funny girl you don't know what a huge thing this is!! Too huge, it turned out. She spent last night and this morning getting herself worked up, and she had learned the concept of Stage Fright from somewhere. I am guessing from those girls who dramatically announce that they're sure they will fail miserably while internally they're loving the attention. Well that ain't how my girl rolls, put the idea of Stage Fright in her head and Stage Fright becomes a reality. As the morning went by she became more wound up, at one point she took a flying kick at Lyf!! The assembly was delayed, Rich and I joked that it was probably tally kicking off. We should learn, those jokes are never a good idea because when the class entered the school hall there was Talaia, face screwed up, red and tears happening big time. She flung herself in the floor at the side of the stage, threw her sword down and refused to do anything for the entirety. Thankfully, when it was her turn to narrate, her teacher pointed to a boy in her class who got up and read her part like a true champ!! She had practiced so hard for the past week and now feels a little disappointed that she didn't do it, we just cuddled her though. That's nothing that can be said retrospectively without sounding recriminating.

toy library. A lady arrived and said that she couldn't fit the climbing frame that she had borrowed in her car and could I collect it please. I do offer to do this if it isn't too much it of my way, but today I really needed to not do it. However I did! I went to her house once we had tidied up so I now have it in my back garden. It's too small for the girls but they've used it as a stage, a boat and many more things already today.

the FBI. I never thought I would have to provide my fingerprints for the FBI but that's what I found myself doing today. My new job requires background checks and, because I lived in the USA for a year many many many moons ago, that year also needs to be covered. So I need to fill in a form for the FBI. I had to download a specific fingerprint form and take it with me to my local police station. The officer was really nice, he told me to relax my finger and let him do it. It's really bloody hard to relax your finger!! We did a few trial runs first until I had got the hang of it, then wham! We were rolling those inky fingers in the required spaces. It all felt rather strange, and I've ticked something off my bucket list that I never knew was on it in the first place!

school pick up. The nerves were wobbly, in what mood would my sweet big girl emerge... She came out slowly but got faster as she came towards us and then clung on to me. I had to get Rich to push Libby in the buggy because I physically couldn't retrieve enough of myself to even touch the buggy! She softened as we got nearer to home and has been chilled and happy all afternoon.

the visit. Each year, the college I attend get an English student of Spanish nationality to work as an assistant. The year before this one - the year that I was studying my A Level - was a lovely lady from Granada. She was 23, soft spoken, funny, caring. Just lovely. She knew Libby and Lyf because they came with me to the classes she did with me, and she babysat my girls every week too. She's visiting this week, staying with the main Spanish teacher (who taught me for two and a half years) so this afternoon they came to visit. C, my teacher; A, the assistant/babysitter and A's mum. It was so lovely to see A and C again, the girls were very shy as it's a year since they last saw A but she brought then some lovely gifts and I gave her €10 I have had lying around in change since our holiday to Spain last summer. A's mum is lovely, she doesn't speak much English so we spoke in Spanish for two hours! A's mum talks a lot and I understood the vast majority of it even with her Andalucían accent! I was pretty pleased with myself, I must admit ;-)

they left at 6.30, luckily the girls had hot dinners at school today so I gave them a quick sandwich before throwing them in bed. And I had a long, cold drink of beer. My head was seriously aching. And it was so nice.

oh, and there was sex.