My son...the scruffbag!

We told Mikey this morning that he was to meet us after school rather than go on the bus as the need for new school shoes for him had now reached the desperate stage.

Because of this we only took one car to work as Sophie had asked whether we could go to the gym later in the evening as she said she "had mounds of homework to do". It was actually good to give my poor little car the day off as the amount of miles I've been doing is far more than I anticipated. I've had the Audi for a year now and I've driven almost 14,000 miles in it so about 2,000 more than the average and 4,000 more than the allowed amount if I'd leased it!

At 3.15pm we went off to the school to pick up the kids but only one turned up. When they were younger and at Primary School together, one would always come out early while the other would be the last to emerge, a bit like waiting for luggage to arrive after a flight! We waited another five minutes for Mikey but he was nowhere to be seen so we had no choice but to drive up to the school and do battle with the buses and the other parents picking up their children.

Sophie went off to find him and they eventually emerged with Mike protesting that "I have a lot on my mind" which was basically just an excuse for forgetting we were picking him up...

We dropped Sophie off at work, as I just couldn't handle two of them in Brantano's, both clamouring for the latest fashions. When we got out of the car and went into the shop I was ashamed to see the real state of my son's shoes...the left one was flapping about as the upper had come away from the sole, while the right shoe was all torn. His school trousers were covered in mud and he looked like a complete scruffbag!

We quickly found him a pair of new shoes and I didn't even bother putting them in the box as there was no way I was going to let him wear his old ones again. Keith swears that the shoes weren't in that state when he left for school so I can only imagine what Mike had been up to during the day to get them like that.

As we were looking at the other shoes, Mikey spotted a pair of trainer -type shoes (high-tops?) that he desperately wanted so I bought them for him on the understanding that he paid me back from his savings! (They weren't cheap!)

Back at work Keith, Mikey and I mended a rivet in one of our slides that had come loose. It sounds an easy job but it involved Mikey crawling into the slide and putting the screw through the hole so Keith could then screw it into place from the other side. Keith had already attempted it in the morning and had decided that coming down the slide was a good idea...only it wasn't as he got stuck and couldn't get out!  Our slides aren't designed for burly men! With Mikey helping we managed to do it so that's one less thing to worry about!

When we got home I disappeared upstairs for a soak in the bath and when I came back downstairs half an hour later I found Sophie watching TV. "What about your homework?" I asked, to be told it was all done!

I was pretty mad as it meant we could really have gone to the gym at about 4.30pm, which is the time we usually go. I'd had a bath, was all warm and sleepy and the thought of going out into the cold and doing a workout at 8pm no longer appealed. We ended up having a short, sharp argument with me refusing to go out again and the rest of the evening was spent curled up on the sofa watching "I'm A Celebrity"...bliss!