Wow ... does anyone hear that? That, my lovelys, is the sound of peace and quiet at home! That never happens! I am actually home sick today which is why, aside from the cats, Jo and Gloria, I have the house all too myself.

A few major things have happened lately which would explain my lack of blogging. Biggest one is that, shock horror, we have been banned from using the internet at work for anything but work related things! Aaaaahhhh! How I am supposed to update my blog and catch up on everyone in blog land if I can't spend my 40 working hours using the internet? It just seems so hard to find the time at home! Both boys are back to school now which means tai kwon do, ATC, swimming lessons, croquet games etc have all started up too. Mix that up with my walks, exercises etc and there really is not enough hours in the day.

Our work, aside from cutting out the internet(!), has monthly competitions amongst the different teams in the building. Each month a team choses a wee team building competition which generally seem to involve food (foods of the world, death by chocolate, muffin day .. get the drift!) ... this month, food unrelated, we are having the Oscars so each team had to decorate their area based on a movie. My team chose Titanic and I was chosen to organise it. So much work went into it. The whole of the weekend the BF and I were paper maching (sp) an iceburg, making a titanic ship out of cardboard, making life preservers etc. Was quite fun but so time consuming. Today was the day (and I missed it cos of being sick) .. hope we went ok. My boss organised some sailor costumes, I organised two team members to dress up as Jack and Rose and we set up a wee dining room based on the Titanic also. Will find out tomorrow if we won an Oscar!

Without going into too many boring details, we have been having a battle with BF's ex-wife over access with his daughter (who is 6). The ex-wife threatened to take us to court, BF was not prepared to do this as we thought it was unnecessary so BF has given up access rights to his daughter. Has been a rather long, confusing battle really and BF knows he has made the right decision. While feeling sad for BF I are really quite pleased. Is that totally mean of me? It has been rather a strained 'relationship' between the ex-wife and myself and I have totally had enough of her personal attacks on us. I understand that she doesn't have to like me and I don't expect her to. I don't expect, however, to be told that we are lesser people because we don't always dress up, because we don't have our own 'personal cell phones', that BF is not a nice person because he doesn't even shave every day (I kid you not!), that while we have a coffee table we can tip upside and the children can use as a pirate ship, or a counter in a shop, that we are not up to the ex-wifes standard because her coffee table is glass plated. We don't have a new large car, nor a brand new BBQ, a new lounge suite or a large wine rack but it doesn't make us sub-standard humans (although in her opinion we are). I don't also expect to be told that we can't have BF's daughter to visit because we don't feed her McDonalds every Saturday, that we actually make her eat salad sandwichs (obviously a big no-no), that we don't do enough with her - we take her to the beach, the river, set up the paddling pool outside, read with her, talk with her but we don't take her shopping and let her watch TV all day ..... see I am a bitch!

C1 and C2 are (fingers crossed) being taken camping for a weekend by my ex's parents on the 11th of March. BF and I have so not had a weekend to ourselves for ages so have big plans! Going to go and visit BF's sister who lives a couple of hours drive away and stay with her for the night. Can't wait. Will be so nice to just pack up the car and go.

And .. in case anyone wants to know .. Nancy's number for the day is 86. That is right. 86. 86 more days to go until I go to Italy. How goddam exciting is that!

xx