Everything is breaking down

The tumble dryer has no heat. 

The dyson has no suction. There is a label on it that says 'never loses suction'.

The sky digibox is kaput. Even the man in the call centre agrees.

The printer does not print. (Yes, I tried new cartridges. Yes, I switched it off and on again.)

The DVD remote control is lost and the toddler boy is getting the blame. (Actually, I just found it after 2 weeks of searching. It was in the book case hidden from the kids - by me!)

Oh and MFI went bust before giving us a VAT receipt. They can't give us one now because they sold the printers. That is actually what they told me. They have still to replace a broken cabinet and a length of plinth. At least we got our kitchen.

My house is resembling a grubby laundry. Damp clothes hang everywhere. The carpets are thick with dust, hair, crumbs and God knows what else. My 4 year-old daughter said, "I wish our house was as clean as everybody else's." I could have died with shame.

Six things you may or may not want to know about me

I have been tagged by tarte tartan to write 6 things about myself.

I get great satisfaction from emptying a blocked pore.

I am scared I will get ill and die young.

I miss my Grandpa who died 2 years ago. I spent a lot of time with him and loved him dearly.

My husband proposed to me on a ferris wheel despite being scared of heights.

I am very indecisive. I can never make up my mind and sometimes feel frozen by the choices I have and end up doing nothing then regretting it. I always regret it when I let my head rule my heart. 

I want to be 18 again and make some different choices. It is true that youth is wasted on the young. Oh to be young again.

there are beasts that roar in yonder hill

My wee girl and I went out into the garden at bedtime when it was very dark. We wanted to look at the stars as the night before had been magnificent. Millions upon millions of bright stars peppered the black sky. So we made a pact that once our toddler boy was in bed we would wrap up warm and go out to look at them. She was so excited to be going out to look at the stars but there were none. It was a cloudy night. I remembered we had a packet of glow sticks that I had bought for Hallowe'en guising but forgotten to take with us. We twirled them making tunnels and waves and circles. They painted the dark in yellow, blue and green.  The nosey next door neighbour opened her window to peer out at us. We ignored her and carried on having fun and swapping colours. A loud, deep roar erupted in the silence of the night. My wee girl bolted inside to the far end of the house. I ran after her to reassure her and coax her back out but there was no way she was going back out there. It was just a stag in a nearby hill. You could say she shows good instincts to flee from something with surging testosterone.

Hallowe'en in the village

Hallowe'en is traditionally observed in our village. That means the children go guising (not trick or treating) and we observe traditional customs such as dooking for apples. Pumpkins have become a feature of Hallowe'en relegating the turnip to a thing of the past. I had a lovely witches costume for my daughter but would she wear it? No. She didn't want to be a horrible witch she wanted to be a pretty ballerina. No amount of cajoling, threatening to go out guising without her worked. In the end she went as a ballerina. H took her and her little brother, dressed as a pumpkin, round the houses. My girl belted out a gaelic song in each house and they came home with a bag so heavy she couldn't carry it. 

After guising we went to the hotel for the Hallowe'en party. There were loads of children there and all in great disguise. I was worried my little boy would be scared but he joined in and was up dancing and running around screaming in delight. 

Once the children were settled in bed I went down to the hotel for the adults Hallowe'en party. It is an annual event that everyone makes a point of going to. This year I went as a witch - again. The funniest was when some of the villagers came dressed up as other villagers. People were meeting themselves. They all laughed. Everyone laughed. We played silly party games, rank and danced and just had good clean nonsense. 

The next night I stayed in while H played for a barn dance which was a shed warming party. It is a big shed.

We celebrated guy fawkes with the usual bonfire and fireworks. I don't actually know why we mark the occasion as it is an English event that happened before Scotland was joined to England in the Act of Union. The kids didn't come with me as my daughter doesn't like the bangs so refused to come and my little boy fell asleep in his high chair while rubbing potatoes into his hair. We are all exhausted as they haven't adjusted to the clocks going back so get up at 6am. 

The house is progressing well. The sewage and rainwater pipes are in and the ground has been levelled off by the digger and we have a large flattish garden area. It looks huge. Inside, is plodding on. The downturn in the building trade hasn't affected here yet. All our tradesmen are busy. 

We definitely won't be in for Christmas at this rate and we have decided to aim for sometime in January. It will be better to finish it and do a good job rather than cut corners and rush to get in. I just can't wait to live there and get out of this shoebox in a goldfish bowl. 

village social life

We are working non-stop on the house and getting tired. There are just not enough hours in the day but this weekend I found time to socialise. A strange thing happens in our Highland village. As daylight gradually disappears and tourists largely disappear for the winter our social calendar suddenly fills up. It is our attempt to make the winter bearable and to prevent isolation setting in but it is also the time of year when many people have more free time to reconnect with their friends and their community. 

I joined my girl friends for a steak in the local hotel. Various locals joined us at different points in the evening and the craic was good. One of my friends is hilarious in her storytelling and had us all roaring with laughter. An estate manager joined us and periodically roared like a stag. Literally. It has just been rutting season when the roar of stags reverberated around the hills enclosing us. 

After several drinks we hatched a plan to go back to C's house and meet her visitors, including a childhood friend of her husbands. He had never met C before so we decided it would be funny to go into the house one by one and greet her husband with a familiar kiss on the cheek and say to the friend, "Hi, you must be S, I'm C, pleased to meet you." The poor guy was very confused but decided that I was definitely the real C. So I poured drinks and pretended to know how to work the stereo! Then we put on the music and started dancing. "Is it normally like this on a Friday?" he asked. "Oh yes," we lied. He must have thought he'd landed in a very strange land.

The next evening I went out with my husband to a wedding dance. It was great. The band was fantastic and everyone could ceilidh dance. There is nothing like a highland wedding with men in kilts, pipes and dancing. We saw old friends we hadn't seen in ages. 

I don't think I have the stamina for two nights out in a row. It is no use when the kids are bouncing on you at 7am and you only got in at 3am. Next weekend there are two halloween parties and a shed warming. Might manage 1 out of 3.

A week in the life

The house is progressing nicely. All the blockwork is finished and the window cills are in place. We have thick concrete cills and mullions which make the house look really substantial and as though it has been there a while. Inside, the ames taper has finished and we have begun painting. If we had built the house before having kids we could have had it painted by now. I love the little darlings but I can't get doing anything with them around. 

Last weekend my husband was home for the first time in yonks so I had a night out with the girls. We decided to venture beyond our village so I volunteered to drive as I wanted to be fresh for painting the next morning. Also, I was tired and developing a painful sty in my eye. We drove on windy roads for about 40 minutes until we reached the disco. We arrived at the wee stone cottage recently built for traditional ceilidhs but tonight loud music belted out from it and disco lights flashed through the windows. It was the five of us and 20 unfriendly Austrian men. We waded through them (they did not clear a path) to get to the wee bar. C wanted a gin and slim. "We don't do slimline." M wanted a vodka, lime and lemonade. "We don't have lime." G wanted a long vodka. "Stick to two ingredients we told her. I had a diet coke and I felt much too sober to be there. Then we all waded back through the Austrians and sat in a row. The place is so small and narrow that there is not enough space for seats to face each other. The disco lights blinded us shining straight in out eyes and then the smoke machine came on. D nearly had an asthma attack. We opened the door. Someone shut it and more smoke came out the smoke machine. C refused to go to the bar again in case she got pregnant. We drank our drinks slowly and left. We looked out the car windows to see the wee stone building with smoke streaming out the crack round the door. It looked like it was on fire.

On Sunday my husband had a fun day with the kids while I painted and painted and painted our new house. It was wonderful to spend time in it and to be on my own for a few hours. As the roller moved paint up and down the bare walls and the rain streamed through the gutters (they are working, phew!) my mind slowly emptied of the noise and clutter and the endless to do list. It was just me on my own with no questions to answer, no phone to answer, no knocks at the door. I went home feeling happy and relaxed and ate a meal not prepared by me. 

Then Monday morning arrived and with it aching muscles from the painting. I went in to work feeling fairly relaxed as last week had gone well and I was well prepared and the day went well. It is demanding teaching non-stop except for a few short breaks. I wished I had an office job so I might make a coffee, check my email and chat to a colleague. And I realised that is the worst part of this job. I have no real colleagues. The other tutor on the course works different days and I spend the day with students. I have no-one to socialise with at work. I rushed home to prepare dinner.

We still weren't dressed at 10am on Tuesday.  We were having a lovely relaxing morning singing and dancing in our pyjamas when I got a phone call from MFI saying they were outside my house with my kitchen. The kitchen was supposed to be arriving next month and was supposed to be delivered to the new house. "Just give me a few moments to get the kids ready", I said. We rushed out with hair like scarecrows and in ill-matching tracksuits. The delivery van followed me to the new house and we waited a while until the walls of the house being built next to us were moved out of the way by the crane. So now I have half my kitchen in boxes. 

The electrician was there so we went through the list of items I needed to order for his next visit. Things like sockets and lights and all the necessary little things in a house. I went home and ordered the goods immediately then parcelled my girl off to nursery.

That night I had a community council meeting in the local hotel. Afterwards, I went to the bar with my friend and then more friends joined us and we sat sipping wine and chatting by the fire until 2am. The matter-of-fact, no subject taboo, German told us all about his night in a hotel with some girl. He told us he had shaved all over. He always tells me that. It was as if I was there with them such was the detail. A Scots man and an Irish man joined us who have lived in America for over 20 years and were taking Americans on a cultural tour. Some Americans briefly joined us and an old friend joined us. It was very nice but far too late.

On Wednesday all the finishings arrived - doors, skirtings etc. We need to stain them and my brother is starting work fitting them on Monday.

On Thursday I missed a very important meeting to campaign for a Gaelic school. No babysitter available. My husband arrived at it an hour late when it was all over. His shinty commitment was obviously more important than our children's education.

On Friday my husband  managed to do a little bit more painting and remove and clean the scaffolding and that is it. With his work and our kids there has been no time. He is away again this weekend. We could have painted! 

It rained all day today so we played inside and went to the Farm Shop to buy a chicken but came home with so much more. I am sitting in alone again. The kids are sleeping, husband is away and you know what? I quite enjoy my own company. Reading, writing and watching films with a wee glass of wine. 

My wee girl is at last starting to look forward to the new house. Probably because she has got it into her head it will be like a farm.

My girl said, "Guess what we are going to have in the new house?"

"What?"

"I'll give you a clue. It barks, it eats dog biscuits and it has a lead."

"And guess what else we'll have?"

"I don't know"

"It neighs, it eats grass and it lives on grass."

"A cow"

"Yes we'll have a cow but it's not that."

She wants a farm. I just want to be in my new house.

my first day at work

My first day at college started well as I was shadowing a class. I couldn't find my old work bag so carried everything around in a canvas shopper. That's just not very cool, is it? The girls in the class are aged between 15 and 19 with one older one at 23. There are a few confident chatterboxes and the rest are quiet, shy, lacking confidence. They go red when you ask them to talk and just haven't become comfortable in their own skin yet. I had forgotten what an agonisingly self-conscious time it is being a teenager. 

It got worse when without warning I was dumped with the class for the afternoon. I had just received the course materials and was left to get on with it. This was bad. It could set me off on the wrong foot with the class for the rest of the year. They were bound to see I didn't have a clue. All I could do was recap on the mornings work, get them to discuss things in groups and feedback and then I spent some time just getting to know them and hear about their reasons for doing the course and what they would like to do in the future. I confessed I hadn't prepared anything for them as I had not come in to teach them today. They were fine. The real test is Monday when I have to teach them two courses over the whole day. What have I got myself into? At least I am prepared this time.

At lunch I nipped out to see my kids who were coming out of gymnastics. It sounds daft but I was missing them as I love going to gymnastics with them.  They were so happy to see me I could have cried. Later, at home, my baby boy was not talking to me and wouldn't come into  my arms. He wasn't well and had been looked after all day by his Granny and now only wanted her. It was like a punishment for going back to work and dumping him. 

My new boss asked if I had enjoyed the day and getting out of the house. I was never stuck in the house in the first place. We were out doing things every day. There is such an assumption that mothers are desperate to throw off the shackles of domesticity. I used to be but lately I had really been enjoying being a stay-at-home mum. My main motive for going to work is to increase our income. Although, if it works out I will be happy to have a career for myself for the future.