Just Jo!

Well thanks go to Lin who’s sorted my blog out. Ta very much!!
Oh no… now I have to think of something to actually say…. um…. er….. wellll…..
Today is the start of Hanukkah, or a bit later at sundown…. think it might have already begun now I’ve just looked out of the window.
Olivia’s been busy with lots of worksheets on it, and over the last few days she’s been making decorations for it so we could.. um.. decorate the room. Lots of Star of Davids, or should that be Stars of David? Don’t know… We had friends round yesterday to celebrate and do ……. stuff. And a very noisy game of dreidl. Is it supposed to be that noisy? Again, don’t know, but they had lots of fun sharing out candy canes anyway. They also enjoyed the doughnuts, didn’t get round to making latkes, but then they have eggs in, so I wasn’t in much of a mood to make them really. And doing Hanukkah related jigsaws on the ‘puter. We discovered some are a whole lot easier than others and when you’re being timed, it’s really not fair.
But what have we been up to since . . . . ooh, Febuary?
Well, we had a lovely three weeks in Spain, with Adam joining us for the middle week.
We’ve fostered a cat called Maisy. My friend’s allergic to her daughter’s cat, so we’re looking after her ’til said daughter gets a place of her own.
We had a few weeks in Hastings, visiting family. Most of my family live near and around there now. Down here, it’s just me and the kids (and my mum’s weird cousin who does have a heart of gold, but who tends to shovel food in like he has no idea when the next meal is coming from, whose idea of ‘bring a bottle’ is one bottle of Becks, who, after 5 Xmas’ of charades, still insists on talking all the way through, ie. as he’s tugging on his ear,”So this means sounds like”, “and this means…” you get the idea, who calls Adam ‘Dude’ which isn’t much appreciated to be honest, who calls Olivia ‘Ollie’, who then looks really puzzled, “well, who’s that?!” Every family has one I’m sure, and I always ended up in a corner trying not to laugh too loudly while my mum was in the kitchen, pulling her hair out, “he’s not coming next year!” and my stepdad’s just come back from the pub “wass tha promlem?”!)
Anyway, back to me and just the kids, I started to feel a bit isolated and was seriously thinking of moving up there to be closer to family. But after two weeks of Hastings….. well, let’s just say down here looks pretty darn good! Cleaner, friendlier, cheaper, more to do, better public transport, sea not too far, moors, etc….
Adam is now 18 and I am the mother of an adult, which is very, very scary! Far scarier than when I had my fortieth a few months ago. Not that it actually bothered me particularly, it just seems weird to be, like, a ‘proper’ grown-up, when I still don’t feel any different to when I was 18.
Adam went down to Cornwall for the weekend of his birthday. All reports suggest that, yes, Newquay is indeed still standing. Although his dad, who came down from London to go with him and his friends, is older than he previously thought and lost his voice for 2 days. Oh, how I did giggle mischeviously!
What else have we been up to?
Lots of the usual home-edding kind of stuff, quite a few trips to the theatre. Olivia went up into double figures this summer and we went to see Shakespeare in the Park (Twelfth Night) on her birthday which she absolutely loved, ‘got’ it more than I thought she would, so I could feel quite smug in that peculiar home-ed kind of a way!
And we got a spanking brand new computer!
Um…. quick run through now…. Halloween, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah and next is Cristmas…. whew!
Now I’ve got to work out how to put on smilies and photos.
And it’s Robin Hood in a minute, which I have to watch, purely for it’s historical ‘accuracy’!