Not enough hours in the day is the story of working women’s lives all over the world. Men, even naughtie’s men generally have it easier, though granted more things pres on their time than our father’s and grandfather’s experienced.  But this morning was the worst culmination of what professional women and mother’s dread…. missing that vital event in their child’s life, doubly awful when the child asks you to be there and your promise you will be, and why was it missed? not because of a crash on the bypass or a tractor in the road, not even a spilt lorry load… no it was because of work.

Whilst I know times are hard and so we can’t expect things to fall in our lap and make life easy and with all the stresses that go with that there is the need to protect and consider the wellfair of staff it seams to me that there are some that realise the team includes everyone and some that think the team is everyone else.

A large company function for clients needs to be cleared up after, but it is like being at school, you can always tell the different children apart there are the one’s that stay to put the chairs away after assembly and then there are the one’s that don’t. Now the latter have not done wrong or misbehaved or failed to do as they are told, just have not thought about the feelings of the one’s that will be volunteering their services without question.

Well enough said, I cant work miracles and if we succeed then I am sure it will be due to everyone’s contribution, and if we fail it will be my fault.

But in the end it is because I thought I could get to the office, check the bank account, which is pushing against the over draft limit, and be back to listen to my daughter’s first ever performance singing solo infront of her school. I timed it perfectly and was heading down the stairs towards the car with 15 minutes to spare to get back to school. I had even checked with the head “not before 10 to 10 she said”… I was safe. As I reached for the car door handle my mobile phone range “Mrs Duffield, just to let you know Becca will be performing early, she is starting now”. Ohh for a startrek transporter just about now!

Impossible, even at break neck speeds I couldn’t do it, and as I arrived the school was filing out of assembly and I was left to see the tear filled eyes of my 9 year old daughter as I arrived.

I failed and no matter what her teacher said about the fact Becca knew they had to start early, or that they were sorry I was led to believe I would have time to dissapear and come back, or that she was able to sing for me afterwards…. it was not the same. I had failed my daughter and no one can change that fact and why? because I am short staffed at work and I could not take the morning off just to be safe that I would not miss this momentous and unrepeatable moment.

Until people realise they have to go the extra mile to pull as part of the team I will continue to live with the possibiilty on disasters like today. Why to I maintain working mother’s have it harder? yes it is partly their own fault and partly the society that has changed so dramatically over the last 40 years, but still we are conditioned to be riddled with guilt when we cant do everything, and men simply do not suffer with that ailment in any way what so ever….. very black and white “you cant change it, it happened dont worry it is not worth getting fretted about” will they never understand?

My trips abroad are great fun and had work, but it is lovely to come home. Alex and Becca are growing up fast and being in the their company is a privilege; Alex is hungry for information and is loving getting into new things like suduko, but still has the attention span of a gnat! Becca is a beautiful young girl in spirit and in mind her desire to do well is lovely but with a cheeky nature and a real spark.

Two days after I returned my in-laws arrived with a van filled with the contents of their house having just sold their house in wirksworth. catching the last few weeks of the housing market stability yet sitting with completion pending as the bottom fell out of the market must have been a tad nerve-racking. But it all went through with minimal fuss after a few poker faced standoffs.

After unpacking the van into storage they were able to kick back and enjoy the process of house hunting with money in the bank.  They first saw a 3 bed property in Puddletown and then went further afield to Gillingham and Sherborne and several a bit more west.  But time and time the Puddletown house pulled them back. After a little deliberation Puddletown it was. A situation that was welcomed particularly  by both Alex and Becca who could see immediately the wonders of being able to walk home from school to Grandma’s!

The deal was straight forward and bargains were at hand with the prices falling so fast.

During the two weeks the family were all together I was hugely grateful for the endless piles of washing that miraculously got ironed by the iron fairy, the rooms that sparkled after I had spent a hard day at work and the family meals of an evening that materialised from nowhere.

The only dampener wa sthe increased tv remote struggle, but small price to pay for two weeks in my own home being pampered.

For those that read my blog from time to time you may have noticed the new theme. I hope you like it.

Well when you get to travel alot, an ordinary day might be over looked as blog material! But today was just one of thise kinds of days. Waking up to blue skies Kenn the children and I were off to the car boot sale. Some plants and a niknak or two for the children and we were done. Calling in on the way back home to the DIY store we saw the perfect tiles for the utility room floor. The ones that were half price!

Back home a quick sarny and the work began: Kenn on the tiles and me in the garden. Planting, weeking and watering. I got to grips in intervals with the electric tile cutter, as support to Kenn. The childen played well in the garden, the sound of children laughing in the sun, priceless.

Kenn and I slogged non stopp all afternoon in the heat of the sun, and three tiles short we stopped at about 7pm. Kids tea, some Guitar Hero, some clearing up and a curry later we settled down to watch Jonny Dep and Robbie Coltrane in The Hell, about Jack the Ripper.

An ordinary but very nice day.

Well earlier this week I was inclinded to pose myself the question “how can I get out of this?” All week the answer came back “you can’t” or more to the point “You shouldn’t”. No I shouldn’t I agreed. But boy it was last on my list of favourite things to do with my time on a Sunday! No, after effectively being away for 7 weeks and now just settling back in to home life and my garden etc. But Sunday came and so did the preparations and so did my running mates, Sophie aged 5 and Vicky (aged a little older!). What is more, how would it look to Becca if I was a quitter. So off we went.

The sun shone beautifully and the atmosphere was great. We had packed some after race emergency supplies, our phone, money and camera and decided that the back of the runners, but infront of the walkers was our place.

Somewhere at the front of the massive crowd was a stage with a warm up session going on, apparantly being run by Rosemary Connolly, but it could have been Rosemary Boxer for all we could see!

The starting pistol rang out and the massive snake of runners started to move. Our aim was to get round the circuit at Sherbourne Castle in under and hour. Becca and I did it in 40 minutes and Vicky and Sophie in 57, we did it.

We collected our medals and our goodie bags and flaked out for 20 minutes before facing the journey home.

The overwhelming emotion that this simple hour of jogging had left us with, was the hundreds of paper panels pinned to people’s shirts that read out not just one but often several loved lost one’s from the dreaded C. The panels were printed with “I am doing this for:” and people wrote on who they were running this race for. Some said simply “ME”, or “Me 4 years in remission”, others “My Dad” or “My Mum” or “My Nan”. The one that stuck in my throat was “For my best friend Stephen aged 8″. Every panel read out someone that had been struck down, so often well before their time, and for those - such as us that were lucky not to have an immediate family to run for the simple message “Everyone” seamed to encapsulate the feeling of the day.

Well done to everyone who ran, and a special well done to my daughter Becca aged 7 who challenged me the whole way, with both of us pushing eachother to better our expectations and apart from the three bottlenecks at the hills we ran the whole way!

It was my 11th Wedding anniversary and Kenn decided that as I had to spend the day in London on business, and that he had the day off anyway we would both stay over in the city and he would take me on the London Eye on Saturday.

We had a lovely Friday evening, firstly at Peter King’s celebration of 40 years in the city, then we frquented a couple of lively winebars. (As Lemony Snicket would say) “Lively” here means half a dozen people tops, as the city is effectvely dead after office hours, wow what a difference it was to the lunch times I have spent in the Minories.

We stayed in the Chamberlaine Hotel and on saturday awoke to a drizzlely day but we were off to the Eye. We took a taxi, had breakfast and then too our place in the queue.

All went well we were in the second pod of the day and began to enjoy the fantastic view London. Then, as our pod approached the apex of the cycle, we stopped. Nothing, no movement, nothing.

After a while a pre-recorded announcement came over the tannoy explaining there had been a delay. Then 10 minutes passed, a repeat of the announcememnt, and again. Then eventually a different announcement “we appologise for this interruption to your flight on British Airways London Eye, the engineers have established that a repair will not be accomplished within an acceptable time frame and so we have decided to implement our evacuation procedures”.

They just failed to tell us what exactly those evacuation procedures were!

However it materialised that this was to be slowly cranking the wheel in reverse using the engines to slow each pod down as it arrived at the bottom. The fact that everything took so long and the Security officer entered in each pod as it arrived to explain how sorry they were and how we could get our money back, delaying procedures somewhat, was a tad annoying.

However after we had been up there for a total of 1 hour 20 minutes the security officer only partialy joking suggested he should have charged us double!.

We then decided to walk the 3 or so miles back to Tower Bridge, the weather set in a little, and we were beset by small showers. But a stop for coffee in a little Italian Cafe was pleasant and got us out of the worse of the rain. We also saw the Golden Hind, The Click Prison, Hayes Warf and the Globe Theatre.

Finally a little soggy we got back to the car and began the drive home. A strangely lovely day.