Finished

(this post sponsored by the occasional bolding organization)
No more work till 12th November!
Definitely came up against my limits this month. Much as I like my work and am fairly competent and speedy at it, there comes a point where a body needs to sleep and it asserts that requirement overriding the brain's attempts to turn one language into another in the small hours. I will remember that. Still, great to have done it just this once and to look back and think that was very hard, but I did it.
Yesterday started with a phone call from Tesco saying they couldn't deliver after all. We had no bread or milk in the house and the MTs coming over in about an hour! No more Tesco for me, on top of all their other sins, they have let me down 3 times over the last year, with an apology but no offer of redelivery or compensation. Three times their van has apparently crashed or broken down. One time they delivered and the driver smelt very beery, which might have something to do with it.
I rang Mrs MT and she kindly offered to buy soya milk (without bacon in even - imagine the damage to her reputation if she was spotted - Local Carnivore caught in animal-free aisle) and bread, pesto for our pasta and crisps and chocolate on her way over. What a star! Thanks mate xx
They duly arrived with provisions and the visit started well with us being able to chat and Mrs MT admiring F's sewing and the children all fairly happily engaged (by electronic means!) and little cartoony bluebirds with fat cheeks merrily tweeting around our shoulders singing encouraging little ditties, but after a couple of hours the kids all started to bring out the worst in each other and we cut the visit short, sadly, with F then launching herself into her biggest ever public tantrum (and that's saying something!) as they left, to give the whole street something nice to talk about later. She screeched and wailed at top volume and hurled herself down the steps and when I managed to bring her in, she opened the living-room window wide so that the neighbours shouldn't have to feel they were missing out on the continued screeching and wailing. I held her and soothed her and stayed calm mostly and in the end, after what felt like a very long time, she was a calm and tired and blotchy thing in my arms who needed to flop and watch some telly, so she did (which meant missing Thursday Little Ninjas but there's no way she'd have got anything out of going by that time).
Although my betrayal by Mr and Ms Tesco had left me tempted to rush back to Ocado and throw myself into the comfort of its organic and ethical arms, I was encouraged by J and Mrs MT to give Sainsbury a go, and I got back in frugal mode. I'm used to doing my online shop really quickly from 'Favourites' so this was a long haul, but several lost baskets later I completed my order, then got back to work for my 3 Friday deadlines.
I had a long French legal job, a short Russian contract and a short slightly illegible Russian medical history all due today, which took a lot of time between them, but at least there was some contrast.
Today F played XBox and the Blob game and watched lots of Scooby Doo and did the odd bit of reading incidentally whilst playing. Also did some drawing - we are really short of pens and crayons and she's missing them, so must get some more soon.
Finished everything by just gone 3pm and did a bit of putting away shopping and such before we headed out to Little Ninjas. She did really well, concentrated quite well and had a go at everything. I got excited as they started doing 'forms' which I had thought they didn't do. Don't know why that was exciting but it was.
I still have a few doubts about LNs - I think the structuredness clashes a bit with the rest of our week. But we'll see.
Also, at very many of these kinds of activities for F's age-group, there isn't time (or motivation maybe) for treating the kids as people much, they are expected to drop their personalities at the door and I don't really like that. Hmmm.
Goodness I'm tired, I will go to bed soon.