Thursday, November 29, 2007

No ordinary November!

What a month!
17th Nov: letter arrives saying Katie failed her 11+ by 14 marks. Shock. Everyone, from family to school, expected her to sail through it because of her strong verbal reasoning and writing skills. Tears(Katie)and stress(me)all weekend...why did we decide to push the decorating through to finishing that particular weekend...simply because we never expected the result we got! Still, the stress got the paint on the walls at a spectacular rate and did I take out my frustration with that paint roller!

We decide to go to the review panel and I hand in my review letter stating why she deserved to pass and quoting her Year 5 level 5s, and we start to visit selective and non-selective schools.

The very next day, I get a phonecall from the Admissions Manager at the council to say there was a software error and Katie did in fact pass, with 80 marks above the pass mark and with the maximum score for her writing. Relief! Joy! Excitement! Hurried up to school to give Katie the news, quick hug from her and off she trotted to tell her friends. Teacher opened a box of Celebrations chocolates for the class, bless her.

All sorted, visited half the number of schools now and Katie is ready to choose her favourite.

This week we found out that someone had cloned our credit card and had a whale of a time! What a time to have a credit card cancelled, right before Xmas. Thank heavens I signed up for Tesco's card a few months ago to save for OU courses! So now I am in a muddle searching for receipts so we can tally up what we spent and what is fraudulent.

The run of bad luck continued yesterday when I decided to put a tenners worth of unleaded in my diesel car! It took me a trip to Maidstone and a school run to notice it was spluttering a bit but I put it down to the cold. On my way to collect hub from the station is suddenly dawned me that I might have used the wrong pump. Oh dear, or as son said, " big do-do's". Abandon car in car park and ring mum to collect hub and get car mechanic's tools and some empty cans and a can of diesel.

Two hours later the dinner I left to keep warm in the oven is pretty much ruined while hub and car mechanic friend empty the tank and put in diesel. Car starts and doesn't splutter or smoke. I think I have been lucky, but I'm still wary when I start the car and when I am driving. Fingers crossed for the next few journeys.

What will the rest of the week bring? Hopefully nothing, if, as the saying goes, things happen in threes.

I'm staying home today and doing boring stuff like ironing and washing, and looking forward to destressing at hub's Xmas party on Saturday.

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