Reset - quickly!

Some mornings you just wake up and you have a gut feeling that it was the wrong thing to do. For a start it was pitch black at 6.45am, the wind was howling and the rain was pouring down in monsoon fashion. The country had been promised blankets of snow over night. We just got lots and lots of rain.

Now, as I have mentioned oft times, I am not averse to rain - not the drizzly stuff, not the ploppy stuff and not the stuff that feels like you've walked under a waterfall but I do object to the stuff that should have turned into snow. This is the freezing stuff that is so pissed off that it's transformation into star-like fluffy precipitation hasn't occurred that it secretes tiny little daggers in its drops to really hurt you when you dare to walk out in it. It's angry rain. It's rain who's only aim is to inflict pain.

That's what I woke up to today.

When I finally got Small Son to school, getting jolly wet and cold in the process, I headed to work. On the way around a bend I hit a big flood on the road and almost went off it. Luckily there was nothing coming in the other direction as I ended up on the wrong side of the road. I can't explain to you how dark it was. It was 9.15am and it was like night time. Visibility was practically non-existent. So I turned up for work a bit off kilter and feeling like I should go back to bed. That's when I realised I'd left the mic stands that I'd forced Hubby to beg for from a sister company (for our school Key Stage One Production) at home. It turned out that the school had gone out and bought some without telling me anyway so Hubby wasted his effort. I think I must've looked really annoyed when they told me because the teacher made me tea and gave me a biscuit to say sorry. I didn't mean to make her feel bad, I was just all ack! Then I just felt even more ack for making her feel bad. Then I found out that I was expected to attend a course after school on some bollocky ICT thing I'll never use on Monday when I will have no childcare for Small Son. They'd forgotten to mention it. AAARGH!

We had a photographer in to take photos of the 50 children involved in the Christmas production … in costume. There were space missions that were less stressful. I am not joking.

Playtime was fine.

For my next job I had to do a bit of laminating. As the children learn new sounds they are given the words made up from those sounds for them to read. We laminate them, put them on a key ring and they get sent home to be practised. I was laminating the phase 2 words today. For some unknown reason I put the plastic pocket into the laminator backwards and guess what? It got stuck. I broke it. It was nobody else's fault - it was just me being stupid. GRRR!

Taking the laminator home with me (in the optimistic hope that Hubby might be able to fix it) I arrived back to find that my late return (due to faffing about with a laminator) had agitated Pooch who decided to eat a small package that had been delivered. She tore through the packaging and chewed on the box of the VERY EXPENSIVE X-BOX GAME WE'D ORDERED FOR BIG SON'S BIRTHDAY! They cost nearly £50. The disk is undamaged but the box is a mess. I could have cried.

It was at this stage I made a cuppa and decided to hit the reset button. It's a simple process of going back over the day and de-negativising it.

So … I woke up at 6.45am, it was still dark and all I could hear was the wind howling and the rain lashing outside. I snuggled down under my covers thinking how much I love my bed when Hubby brought me a tea in bed. This is a good way to start the day. I was glad that Hubby always takes the Pooch out for her first walk as the sun came up and I saw how dirty the weather was. I closed my eyes and asked the powers that be that the rain would have dried up by the time it came for me to walk her later.

Small Son had great fun splashing in the puddles on the walk to school. I was glad of my fleece-lined raincoat. It was still dark and raining heavily as I drove to work. I must've been driving too fast because I hit a flooded part of the road on a bend and skidded. Thankfully there was nothing coming and it was a blessing in disguise as it made me realise how slippy the conditions were and I slowed right down. On reaching school I realised I'd left some mic stands at home that I'd volunteered to borrow from Hubby's work for the school production. It didn't matter though because they'd bought some the day before. In gratitude for my effort the lovely teacher made me a cup of tea and gave me a chocolate biscuit.

The photographing of 50 children in costume went fairly well - all things considered - I mean it was 50 kids so … y'know!

During playtime I realised that the rain had stopped and the sun had come out.

When laminating the Key stage 1 phase two words later on I foolishly fed the plastic wallet in backwards jamming the whole thing up. I was unable to retrieve the stuck wallet even when I took the casing off. It's the school's only laminator and instead of being cross they told me not to worry about it and even refused my offer of buying a replacement. Knowing how very handy Hubby is I brought it home with me in the hope that he has better luck with fixing it. Having a handy Hubby is a very wonderful thing.

When I arrived home I found that the Pooch and ripped open an X-Box game that had come in the post and chewed the plastic case. Thankfully she didn't touch the disk itself and Hubby says that he can get a new case at work and he knows how to find the artwork online so he should be able to repackage it so that it looks OK. Hubby saves the day again.

By the time I took the dog out for her walk the sun was shining brightly and it had dried up outside. Someone had listened to my prayer.

I came back from my walk thinking that it hadn't been such a bad day after all. But mostly I thought about how lucky I am to have Hubby.

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And for TINTINTS Thursday I found myself saying;

"Oh my God I've killed it! I'm the laminator terminator!"