Archive for March, 2008
March 27, 2008 at 10:58 · Filed under Daily Life
In my desperation over my current employment situation, mum came up with a totally unexpected, and much appreciated, act of kindness. I now have the funding I need to start searching for another job, without worrying about the financial implications of leaving my current one.
First stop, buy a suit, and more importantly, convince my co-workers that I'm only attempting to smarten myself up.
Er, yeah… This could be more difficult than I thought.
March 26, 2008 at 11:02 · Filed under Daily Life
Since the Easter break, I've noticed two changes in my journey to work.
Firstly, the annoying on-train announcements have reduced to those identifying the train and next station. Apparently South West Trains eradicated their problem with beggars over the Easter weekend, no longer see unattended articles as an issue and plan to do no more weekend engineering work. If it weren't for the other passengers, my journey would be incredibly peaceful.
Secondly, since they did works on the track over the weekend, the stretch between Clapham Junction and Vauxhall has become much more bumpy. A problem when this tends to be where you do your mascara!
March 24, 2008 at 11:29 · Filed under Daily Life
Saturday saw Y’s birthday party. We all trekked down to his mum’s house in Kent to barbeque food in the freezing cold and generally eat too much. True to the forecast, it snowed, but instead of sending us running inside, we were huddled round the barbeque enjoying it’s warmth. Unfortunately, though, it didn’t settle, and just stayed cold, even when we’d long since gone inside.
Yesterday we drove up past Birmingham, to visit nan. We started off in the snow, which gradually gave way to greyness, and then sunshine. On the way home, TB decided that he absolutely loved Sherl Crow’s song, diamond ring. After singing along once, we had to listen to the song on repeat from the M4 back to Wimbledon so the boy could sing along, and Y could screech. But it was so cute you couldn’t hold it against them. Although I may never want to hear the song again.
March 21, 2008 at 22:23 · Filed under Daily Life
This afternoon we took a trip to Peckham to get supplies for Y’s birthday party (barbeque!) tomorrow. We among the large quantities of meat needed (because it is, after all, a Brasilian barbeque), we also needed mandoica (cassava). Try getting that in Wimbledon. Having lived in Wimbledon for the past two years (and Elephant for a year before that), Peckham is now a completely different world, albeit one I remember much more fondly now than I ever did when living there.
We started by getting rained on, then the sleet started. A huge shower of the stuff, which had be believing that if he rain would only stop, the snow would come at last. But that, is not our cultural education.
What I really miss about Peckham is the food shops. To be precise about it, the grocers and butchers. We managed to get guavas. In the past, I’ve only been able to find them in Church Street Market, and they’re wrong. The outside is too light in colour and the inside is white. They just don’t taste the same as the Brasilian ones which are darker on the outside and a deep pink on the inside.
Best of all, though, was our trip to the butchers we used to get all our meat from. We got chicken wings, chicken drumsticks and steak. On asking for a few bacgs of drumsticks, we were presented with a sack, being told that there were probably about 50 in it; more than enough to take tomorrow and chuck some in the freezer for later. The beef we chose looked big enough for two portions, and at £5, was a bit cheaper than the supermarket. We spent £18 in total.
TB loved it. The chickens hanging from the racks, heads still on. Half whole goats. Chicken feet. Cows feet. I’m sure if we’d gone into one shop we could’ve shown him a sheep’s head. Fish of different colours and sizes, scales and stripes. A crab and still live electric eels. The entire trip fascinated him.
When we got home, I cut up the beef, only to find enough for six steaks and some chunks. On opening the sack of drumsticks, it appeared that there were rather more than 50. I took the time to count them. 109.
Then I checked on the online supermarket. That little lot would’ve cost the best part of £50 from Tesco. I feel we’ve had a successful afternoon.
March 20, 2008 at 14:06 · Filed under Daily Life
Today we found out the results of TB's primary school application. It's damning.
Of the three schools we applied to, he has got into none. This leaves us with two choices: attempt to find another school or appeal. It remains to be seen whether we can do both, one as a backup for the other. Despite being able to view ties application results online, we have to wait for a letter telling us what we should do next.
The problem is, we've now exhausted our three nearest schools (not counting the catholic and c of e schools which we don't want him going to). Both of our first two choices are 700m away. He already attends one of these schools and we were perfectly happy to keep him there. The other would have been a compromise, but one we would gladly have accepted. The third school on our application is 1.2km away, and chosen purely because it's the next closest. We never even contemplated that we might even have needed that backup choice.
The chances of appeal don't look good. For an
appeal to be allowed, it has to be based on an unreasonable decision (the rules as to what constitute an unreasonable decision are incredibly stringent) or an error in the selection process. It seems like our only hope is that one of TB's friends, who lives further away from the school, has gotten a place. Mounting an appeal will involved considerable playground subterfuge.
So now TB's on the waiting list for all three schools. And all we can do is wait. And hope.
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