Turning it around

 So, yesterday. You couldn't make it up! It was one thing after another:

7am email from the coroner's officer to say the inquest has to be postponed as not all the evidence is back.   Not a good start to the day this triggered all sorts of feelings of frustration, disappointment. Trauma going on and on, what about work? I'd been thinking return after the inquest but now that's delayed.......

9am: Roofer arrives to see what the cause of my leak is.  Turns out the join between mine and the neighbours' roof is a bad job.......however, neighbours' roof is in a terrible state and in his words 'I can improve the join, but it'd be like making a silk purse out of a pigs ear, I couldn't guarantee it". Marvellous now I have to ask the neighbours to get a new roof in order to stop my bedroom ceiling falling in? 

10am decide to stick to our plan of train to Liverpool to go to the world museum. Scrape side of car on a low wall in the station car park. Say 'sh*t' in front of Oliver. Check car, it's really scraped. 

11am arrive in Liverpool, realise I've got us off the train at the wrong station and we have to walk across town to get to the museum

11.15 arrive at museum, phew. It's total bedlam. Every family in Merseyside appears to be here, and it appears they have a culture of going everywhere as three generations, not just to hospital visits.  So many people.  Anxiety triggered massively and I lecture Oliver about staying by my side. 'okaaaay mum'  I'm so paranoid about losing him too I can't help it.  "Shall we see the planetarium show? It'll be really cool!" ( And a half an hour sit down). "Nah" he says. "Oh". I say.

12.00 He's hungry and we have a stand off. Café is on the ground floor. We've just spent ages waiting for the lift to get to the 5th floor space exhibition with a plan to work our way back down the floors via the stairs. He now doesn't want to see the space exhibition, he wants lunch. I tell him off for being spoiled and ungrateful and he storms off to the other side of the walkway.  Deep breaths, I can see him so we wait. Don't let him win this I think. He moves out of sight and wins.  I get down to his level, try to remember that I'm attempting grace based parenting and calmly explain that actually I want to see the space exhibition and we've got all the way up here and it's silly to back down to ground and have to come back up.  We "compromise" on me carrying him through the space exhibition. FML. 

12.10pm we join the cafe queue. It's long. He is bored. cue half an hour of "how much longer" from him and "stop playing with that" from me.  I start to wonder how I'm going to manage child and food tray and find a table alone and silently curse Mark. 

1pm. Sit down to fish and chips! Oliver wanted a table with a sofa and there isn't one free. I'm just bloody grateful for any seat at this point.  

1.30pm we agree to go back up to floor three to look at ancient Egypt. There are mummys there. I feel a bit weird about them being a museum exhibit but thought he'd find it interesting. Apparently not. 

2pm ok let's go home then, I convince him to walk back to the 'wrong' station because there's a CEX shop right by it and I want to try and get a new game for the Wii I bought second hand a few weeks ago. 

2.15pm They've got Mario Kart! Woohoo! Purchase made. Thank goodness as this was my justification for not buying him a ten pound cuddly monster in the museum shop. We have three minutes til the next train and the staff member is new. Hurry up hurry up I'm thinking behind my patient smile! 

We make the train. And relax. 

3.15pm. Mario kart doesn't work. Google tells me there's a difference between Wii and WiiU software. F.F.S. 

TV it is then. 

5pm. I start with stomach cramps and nausea. Turns out I have a sickness bug. The cat has also been sick. 

6.30-10.30pm.  I'm incapable of 'doing bedtime' as running to the loo frequently. I tell him yes he can watch Netflix on his tablet for a bit.  

10.30pm. He finally goes to sleep without my help. Well, that's a first! At least it's half term. 

2am. I try some orange squash. It reappears immediately. I do wordle and nerdle as I can't sleep.

8am I'm looking back and laughing. Well, a wry smile perhaps.  I've kept down some tea and toast, and my LFT is negative hurrah!

The inquest is still upsetting me but I can't change it. Hopefully it will be weeks, not months. 

Work, I can try again on the March audit afternoon. 

Next door are willing to talk about the roof. 

I was thinking of replacing the car anyway, it's not worth bothering about.

Oliver is 5. I'm sure I rushed through museums as quickly as possible at 5 too. Yes. It would perhaps have been easier if Mark was there but the reality is he would have stopped and read every bloody panel and I'd still be running round after Oliver. Lunch would have been easier in that he could queue whilst we found a table.  But we did it, we were fine and it will only get easier as Oliver gets bigger. 

There is a CEX in Chester, I can exchange the disc next week. 

I got wordle in 3, nerdle in 4 at 2am after a hell of a day and no sleep! 

Oliver's having a sleep in 

I've kept down my tea and toast. 

Today is a new (sofa bound) day.

I may not like it......but I CAN do this.