Gail Dickson .. my blog from Down Under

My traumatic day is now over and I didn’t cry! Bobby and I both went in late so that we could drop Kyle off at school. He was fine … wandered in and then started playing with the lego and forgot we were there … the usual for Kyle. We left, dropped Regan off at nursery and then went in to work.

I had to leave again at 2ish so that I could get back up to Browns Bay to pick Kyle up. He came running out of his class, all full of excitement wanting to tell me how his day had gone .. It was really nice. We checked out Before and After Care for tomorrow (I can only be a good mum once!) and it looks really good .. He’ll be fine.

Got home and found a “Caught Being Good” certificate in his bag as he was found sitting in the classroom reading a book at lunchtime since it was wet. Not bad for day one.

Anyway, they are both exhausted and in bed and I think we’ll be following shortly! It’s been an exhausting few days.

Day went very well … the party was really good and everyone seemed to really enjoy themselves. Not sure what I was expecting from Ivy Cottage and to be honest, when we first arrived I was a bit dubious however it turned out really well and the kids really seemed to have a great time. The adults at the Cottage were all dressed up as kind of hippy fairies … and the house was similar.

The weather was lovely so they spent most of the time outside in the “enchanted garden” doing treasure hunts etc. When the time came for the food, they all sat around a big wooden table full of goblets, golden plates etc and the food was all homemade and child size.

We picked Kyle’s cake up yesterday from a local cake shop called Chocolate Earth … the guy who does the cakes is an absolute genius! He does custom cakes or he’ll decorate a “normal” cake to suit any decorations you bring in. Since Kyle is mad on space just now we took in little spacemen and space shuttles etc. He had decorated the cake to look like space/planets and it was absolutely brilliant. The look on Kyle’s face when he saw it was an absolute picture … well worth the effort (and cost!) to get the cake. Tastes quite good too ….

Anyway, spent the rest of the day playing with all his new toys and doing his stationary shopping for school tomorrow (typical Project Manager … leave all the home organising till the last minute!). Anyway, done now and he’s now all ready for tomorrow.

It’s a weekend of parties … 5 year old parties! What a social life we have …

It’s obviously Kyle’s birthday tomorrow and I’ll try to blog that one tomorrow night. It was also his best friend Caylen’s birthday on Wednesday and he had his party today. We dropped him off at Caylen’s house and headed off to buy his birthday cake (will upload photo of it tomorrow … it’s fab) and the rest of his presents and then picked him up a bit later once he’d finished playing with all Caylen’s new toys.

Kyle also had his second school visit this week .. This one went much better and he walked straight in and sat with the other kids and took part in the activities, which was good. He had his school uniform on this time and looked soooo grown up (I kept my word and didn’t cry!) … took a picture on my phone but didn’t have the camera with me .. Will do that on Monday and then stick the photos on the blog/Flickr site for all to see. His real teacher was back from sick leave this time so he at least got to meet her before starting properly … she seems okay and is really good at getting them to listen. Not sure she’s up to Kyle type questions though … he asked us why planets were round the other day … is that a normal 5 year old question??? He’s mad on space at the moment and is building lego satellites and space shuttles.

Regan is doing great too … her words are starting to come thick and fast … you can hear her talking to her Bagpuss in the mornings over the monitor … it’s quite cute.

I’ve been for a couple of job interviews too …. And I’m kind of realising that maybe VF isn’t such a bad place after all. The software houses are very small and “basic” and not sure I want to go there. My boss is coming round a bit too so it’s not so bad just now … think I’ll stay where I am for the time being as at least I know they are flexible child wise.

My role is changing a bit too which might help … I’m now going to have overall Programme Management responsibility for Micro Marketing/Business Intelligence. This is a much smaller budget than web & online but doesn’t have a reliance on the SI that is causing me so much hassle. I’ll wait and see how things go and if it’s still not going well then I’ll start looking again.

It was a much better week this week … think it was something to do with making my mind up to leave VF so I didn’t feel as pressurised or stressed this week.   Job hunt is going very slowly as there’s nothing much out there just now but I’m in no  great hurry so it’s fine.   Did go for an interview for a part time role but not sure that it’ll give me enough hours/dollars so we’ll have to wait and see.

Kyle had his first school visit on Thursday … all was going really well right up until the point that he saw his new classroom when the heels dug into the tarmac and he wouldn’t move!   I had to almost pick him up and carry him in!!   He sat on a little seat beside me for a while and watched what was going on then slowly began to inch closer to the kids sitting on the floor in front of the teacher.   By the end of the hour, he was being his normal self … the teacher even said he was a bit of a chatterbox as I left …. Oh oh!    So I bought his new uniform while I was there and he will wear it for the next visit which is next Thursday.   I’ll take a photo and put it on the blog as he looks so grown up!

We got a call from Kyle’s swimming school last night to say that they now have a place for Regan as well so as of today, they are both going swimming on Saturday mornings.

Other than that nothing much going on except normal life … it’s getting really cold at night/in the mornings now … gets down to 8 degrees some nights!!   I have really acclimatised now as this seems absolutely freezing now.   Not sure how I’d survive a really cold Scottish morning.

I seem to be apologising a lot just now for not blogging. I guess there are two reasons why …. One, we haven’t been doing much and Two, I’ve been working very long hours and at the weekend too so haven’t really had any time to sit and do this.

I’ll start with work as it’s uppermost on my mind at the moment …. I’m not enjoying it at all just now. My boss has been off for the last two and a half weeks so I’ve been doing my job and his. As I’ve mentioned a few times, the programme is not going well due to a certain TLA SI (three letter acronym systems integrator for those of you not into TLAs) and I’ve been asked to do a daily report on all projects within the programme ….. There are about 10 projects and I have to report on status, milestones, risks, issues etc per project each day. By the time I had finished my meetings/work and my boss’s meetings/work, it was time to go home. That meant I had to catch up with remaining work and the daily report each night …. I think it would be fair to say that most nights I finished about midnight. When you think I get up at 5.30am, that doesn’t leave much time for sleeping.

I am exhausted and feeling like a very bad mother as I’ve been so busy working when I get home that I haven’t spent as much time with Kyle and Regan as I should have. So anyway … to make matters worse …. My boss gets back this week and basically tells me I haven’t been doing enough while he’s been away! >:-[ (that’s my wicked gremlin face btw) So last night, I did no work and will continue with that this weekend and I’ve signed up to the internet job site again and intend to start looking elsewhere (although I will only move if I find something I really want to do, as it could be worse elsewhere). I’ll keep you updated on how this goes.

The moral of this story is …… just because you have a lovely view from your office, does not make it a nice place to work!

Bobby is enjoying his new job … it’s more like the RBS than his last place and since they are the BT of NZ, it’s a pretty big company which is good if you’re an infrastructure designer/architect type person. He has never liked driving in traffic jams and the North Shore commute is definitely not good, so he’s decided to start getting the bus to the city since North Shore City Council have just put in a new bus route which is basically a road that runs alongside the motorway which only the buses can use. He gets to his work in about half an hour and this journey would take him about an hour by car.

Kyle has his first school visit next Thursday. It’s in the morning for an hour and a half and I go and sit with him. He’s getting all excited about it … I’ll get his school uniform while we’re there and he can wear it to his second visit which is the Thursday after.

He’s still going to swimming lessons but is getting a bit bored with it as all they do is swim across the pool then wait for their next turn to do the same. We’re going to look around and get something a bit more interesting for him. I know it’s not all like that as the one he used to go to in Falkirk was much better than this. There’s a few around this area so we’ll start to go around them.

Regan has a bit of a cold just now so is a bit clingy/unhappy but other than that she’s doing well. We’re getting lots of words now and she’ll repeat most things you say to her. She’s very cute when she asks for her Ahpoo (Bagpuss).

It’s NZ mother’s day tomorrow so maybe I’ll get a long lie and breakfast in bed??