On an average morning, I can be showered, dried and dressed within 20 minutes, and that includes using conditioner on my hair. I’ll then walk the dog whilst my son has a shower. I don’t hang about. We take turns to walk the dog, and when it’s my son’s turn, it takes him 15 minutes to get out of bed. He then has a 15 minute shower, much to my annoyance and the detriment of my wallet. He then takes 15 minutes to get dried. It takes him a further 15 minutes to get dressed and downstairs to walk the dog, by which time the dog is beside himself with excitement. It drives me crazy!

This morning started off just a little damp but not actually raining. It was my son’s turn to walk the dog and I mentioned the forecast was for heavy rain. He has a coat. We have umbrellas. He took neither out with him, and was in a foul mood when he got back to the house because it had started raining and he got wet. I then had to switch the heating on to dry out his school blazer before he went to school. What a waste of energy and of course money!

He’s been in quite a bad mood recently and he lost his cool one day recently and said something about his Dad ‘effing off to Australia.’ He’s been gone 10 weeks now, and hasn’t once asked my son, or me, how we are. Even if he doesn’t care about me which I understand, the least he could do is ask about his own son. I knew this would happen; he’s such a selfish prick and doesn’t care about anyone but himself, and I’m left to pick up the pieces and deal with an angry teenager. All we’ve had is short emails from him that often include pictures of a wombat, or somewhere they visited. It’s almost like he’s on some extended holiday and is sending us a ‘postcard.’ We’ve had no contact from his wife despite me asking after her, and asking for her email address. I genuinely liked her and thought she at least would keep in touch. I guess I was wrong.

Locally we’ve had some flooding with a family having to be rescued from their car when they drove into 2 feet of water. The lower housing estate had a narrow escape from flooding when the tide mercifully went out – we have a tidal river. I think some gardens may have flooded but I don’t know about the houses – these were built on a flood plain. Whoever thought that was a good idea needs their head kicking in. We’ve lost a tree to winds in our street. The trunk snapped right through and it’s now been cut to the ground. It’s a shame; it wasn’t very big, and each autumn it would be dripping in berries for the birds. In the seven years I’ve lived in this street, we’ve lost 4 trees, 3 of which were cut down by the council, goodness knows why. Lack of trees, building on flood plains, concreting over anything and everything, and they wonder why it floods!

Had a rant, feel better for getting that off my chest so to speak. Enjoy the rest of the week.