Quiet day list

I feel some sort of checklist is in order. Admittedly because another day passes when I haven't got a clue what is happening (gone notebooking) and I feel a list may help me deal with my control issues.

Shark. Has seriously fallen behind her sisters in Chemistry assignments posted weekly to Sam. If I ask her if she has any pages to post for Chemistry or Physics, she gives me a fixed stare and says in a firm voice that she is doing it. I am not sure what doing it means when it looks like reading a book on the sofa, but I console myself with the knowledge that Shark is one force of nature who will do what is necessary to get where she wants to go, in her own time and her own way. No threats, nor hufty-pufty parenty pressure will have any impact on her. Her handwriting is, however, appalling, and I am giving her merry hell for it.

Squirrel. Behaving oddly, so everything is normal. She has become inscrutably teenagery of late, shrugging indifferently at me and hanging out mostly in the cellar, having taken up residence with her computer in a pair of old cane chairs that I strapped together in the woeful hope that from this act would emerge some sort of chaise longue. At the time, I rather fancied bringing a touch of eighteenth century aristocratic glamour to my interior design. In the cold light of day, it looks like someone strapped a couple of old cane chairs together in the cellar and a Squirrel sat in them. Anyway, she is quiet and producing the filled in Latin worksheets, so I'm not disturbing her.

Tiger. Gloating, with a vengeance. She is up to date on Chemistry, Latin, Geography, Horse Knowledge, and Goading her sisters, and has enthusiastically begun making a model of a 4-foot horse from willow withies, wire, clingfilm, tissue paper and an electronic circuit so that it glows. It must have articulating legs and a tail apparently, or the whole thing is rubbish. She has worked hard on the knees (do horses have knees?) and shows me the tail proudly. I say nothing except It is very good etc etc etc. I know better than to confront her about anything. She shares this characteristic with her sisters: a quiet determination to pursue some inner driving need, for which they have taught me, better not thwart it.

Monsterology

A few weeks ago we all got Templared. I just paid the credit cards bills for that, so feel the need to do some planning. I need to involve those books in some education. Primarily because it will make sense of that unwieldy, spontaneous purchase of a lovely sparkly book on Monsterology with all the twinkly jewels in the cover. Then there are the little envelopes which you must put your fingers into and squash the plastic seal back again quickly because if Tiger finds out you have been peeping in her book she will sever your fingers and leave you hugging five bleeding stumps.

Of course I can't leave Tiger just to read the thing. We home educators have to turn these opportunities into appropriate learning experiences. And anyway, planning is what teachers are trained to do. They must busy themselves planningplanningplanning all day long! And I am good at planning. My planning will be fantastic. I plan therefore I am. How many books are out there on teacherology that say planning is a really really good thing to do? With proper planning you can keep everyone occupied and stop Kirk getting out the hammer again.

So here I go. Planning. To derive maximum learning experience and impact from Templar's lovelydribbleinducing Monsterology book.

• We can listen to those old tapes of Frankenstein. That abridged copy on cassette. Trawling those charity shops for teaching resources makes me feel good and worthy. And look how those finds from 5 years ago come in useful now!

• Greek legends. They've got monsters. We have about forty books on Greek legends, mostly paid for from the library when the fines became too much to bear.

• Poems. I'm sure I can find poems. I'm sure there's one called something like the Kwackagee.

• Anglo Saxons. We had to give Beowulf back to the library after the librarian started pleading. Go to Amazon. They'll have a copy and Dig has an account there. Spend all his money while he's in Brussels lecturing Parliament on their extravagant waste of commas.

• Invent a monster, shaped a bit like the European Parliament. Mud, wool, bit of old dustbin.

• Body parts. I have a plastic squirting heart. I'll find it and fill it with food colouring. Then we could make a liver. My ambitions are rising as I type. I want a full sized anatomical model with full detachable body parts*.

• Monster dinner. Shark can trawl through Roald Dahl's dinners. I'm sure she'll make something. Last night she made mashed potato and chopped pear. She can serve that with a dusting of cocoa powder and a cashew nut. Uh. She already did.

And then while my head is filling up with all this monsterology planning I am distracted by the possibility of food, having starved from supper last night, so I walk into the kitchen, where I see Tiger patiently trying to squeeze one of the Arseface sisters into a tiny costume.


Arseface will never fit. Not with those legs sewn on round the hips. Tiger is becoming a bit frustrated though and making those strange grunty sounds that I hear when I try on those size 12 jeans that fitted last week and they're bloody fitting this week.

But foolish child! She needs to do more planning about her costume design!

So I tell her that.

At which point, she turns bright scarlet and starts ripping off every hair from her head. Then the next moment Arseface is hurtling towards the kitchen wall at 5,000 mph while Tiger is screaming like 40,000 bats trapped in a tunnel and pulling the door off its hinges in an attempt to smash it over my head.

I think it may be her hormones. I can detect the start of those cycles. Tsk! More planning for me to do! I could turn Tiger's hormonal cycles into a lesson on PSHE. I bet she'd appreciate that.


*Memo: go to scrapstore. Buy more glue sticks.

10 top tips to survive school holidays with kids

It's July, and I see the kids are off school.

The word from Grit is, ignore the crappy kid-on-holiday advice you read in Femail.

Most of it is written by some London journalist who looked after her own kid for two hours and thinks Judgement Day has come. She will suggest weedy stuff like Get out a bead box! It is great for sorting activities! Pathetic.

If she wrote the truth, she would say When the childminder got chickenpox, which made me miss the first night gallery opening, I threw the fucking bead box at the wall. Anyway I made Tinkertop pick up all the beads. And I realised it is great for sorting activities!

You see? She thinks ten minutes with her own child is a form of torture. But she will create motherhood-martyrdom out of it, scribble down her pathetic idea, earn herself a monthly wage, then shove the kid in childcare and go buy shoes.

Listen to an expert. I have my kids 24/7.

When it comes to child exposure, I know what torture is. Home education means holiday solutions must be much more radical than getting out the bloody bead box.

Follow Grit's ten top tips for surviving the school break. If you make it to September with a smile on your face, you might even considering chucking school altogether.

Ready? This is what to do with your children.

1. Give them away.
We do this more than once a year. There are some excellent organisations* who will take them, submerge them in rivers, throw them down mountainsides, and suspend them on wires over the nettle bed.

The advantage is your offspring are out the house for an entire week. Now you can have sex on the stairs again like you used to.

The disadvantage will be that Tinkertop comes home moaning and groaning with a face like a slapped arse because your miserable parenting does not involve activities like zip wire and raft building.

You can threaten to hold her over the nettle bed, or go immediately to top tip 2.

2. Ignore them.
In the trade, we call this fostering independence. It means slapping down a cereal packet, a pot of yogurt and a jigsaw puzzle with a missing piece all on the kitchen table at 7am, then retiring to a safe distance, possibly behind a locked door. Tinkertop will very quickly starve, or sort herself out. Soon she will be utterly bored and wander off somewhere to make her own amusement.

Caution: do not adopt this technique and then complain the cereal packet is floating in the bath stuffed with tampons, the yogurt pot stuck on the dog's head, and fifteen jigsaw pieces stuffed in the DVD player. You must accept this as the price for independence.

If you do not want to pay the price for independence, go to top tip 3.

3. Throw them out of doors and ignore them.
Then tell yourself that little kids should play with hoses, soil, gravel, twigs, sticks, stones, plants, and the cat, if they can catch it.

When kids are older they should play with the washing machine you have dumped in the garden for the council to collect.

Older still? Play with someone's old sofa found down the back lane.

Let them play freely with kids of the neighbour's, even though you don't approve of the neighbour. Remember, kids teach each other. Best done not in your company but in a pack-like formation led by someone else's older brother. Of course you may just want to slyly check the pack leader is not mad, one-eyed, or carries a lighter and a knife.

But what can possibly go wrong with this one? If you are bringing kids up to be safety conscious and street wise, they will stay clear of Mr Spooky and should not set themselves on fire. They may set up a primitive society but in ten year's time my bet is, it will look like yours.

If, however, you are one of those risk averse parents who worry about wobbly pavements and dog shit, try number 4.

4. Stay at home and argue.
This is good. We do slamming doors, flouncing out of rooms, pointing fingers, throwing puffins, shouting, more shouting and saying things like That is it! I have had enough! This is your final final warning! You will be grounded if you say that once more! Just try saying that again missy!

But relax. Remember you have to do a lot of really bad stuff before you reach the point where you kill them, psychologically damage them or throw them out of a top floor window. And one poxy argument about how plaster of paris got down the sink does not bring on the end of the world.

As we say around here, the argument takes a second, the making up takes the rest of the day. And quite frankly we don't have the rest of the day, so can we avoid the argument in the first place.

However, if you find yourself arguing, be that home educating parent you really aspire to be and try top tip number 5.

5. Visit somewhere educational. Make sure it has a coffee shop.
If you creep along here 11am Monday term time, you may find a cosy group of home educators chatting about how they can source lessons in Latin and where do you find Ancient Greek tutors these days? This is just a cover, entirely for your benefit. When you are out of earshot they will go back to discussing what is the best way to access child porn when you don't have broadband.

Anyway, visiting educational sites like museums and art galleries is fantastic. You can set the kids a mission like go and find twenty things that are shades of green, and meet back here at 4pm. Then you can relax and scoff chocolate cake.

But if your child hangs on to your ankles and starts bawling when you try and abandon them in the British Museum, then you might like to try warden baiting.

Many museums and galleries employ wardens to stop you doing things you really want to do, like pick up that silver teapot and run off with it. But baiting them is excellent fun, child friendly, and gives everyone something to talk about at home.

You must first pick your warden. They will wear a blue nylon uniform, a hat slightly too large for them and a plastic badge which makes them feel important like Supervisory assistant visitor attendant. They may have a sticky label which reads here to help or something like that. We all know that is not true. They are there to keep an eye on you and look down their noses at your child like she is bodily fluid.

Next, judge your context. If you are in an art gallery, find a priceless oil and squat Tinkertop directly in front of it with a pile of paper, crayons and a pair of scissors. If you are in a museum, produce from your bag an assortment of old packaging and encourage Tinkertop to model the thing she's looking at, e.g. Stevenson's rocket, with two old baked bean cans and six empty tampon boxes.

In all cases, the nylon warden will be horrified. He will hover. Talk edubabble for his benefit. He will not know what to do. You might be a teacher. He is scared of those. But you are not breaking any rules. You are not following any either. If you edubabble in a foreign language his confused face will be a wonder to behold. Tinkertop might like to try and draw it.

But of course you are busy during the day and cannot possibly take Tinkertop to the museum. Try top tip 6.

6. Make the food your child chooses and eat it.
This is very educational, and you could find yourself winning the school gate uber parent competition if, when you arrive back there in September, you can poke Tinkertop into showing off her knowledge about the 27 varieties of wholesome apples she has eaten in various forms.

If your child makes all the wrong choices, you won't win any awards, but go with it. You may have to make and eat pies, pastry elephants, cake, more cake, several varieties of cake, biscuits, sweets, and lollipops.

The downside of top tip number 6 is that both you and Tinkertop will weigh two stone heavier.

If you can't stomach the thought of this one, try top tip 7 and you can still be uber parent.

7. Involve your child in household tasks.
Number 7 has never worked in this household, possibly because I don't do these household tasks, but I include it here because all children are different. Some, like you, may be born to be house proud.

Of course you can encourage your child to straighten cushions and vacuum the carpets for a few hours, but inevitably she will conclude this is not the exciting work she wants to do daily until she dies.

Eventually she will want to do something more exciting and make a big untidy mess. This is where you have to use your imagination.

Imagine we live in a world where we do not have appliances. Equip Tinkertop (outside) with a bucket, an old dress, a bar of carbolic and a stone. Tell her this is how your granny washed clothes at the riverside. So long as you don't want your dress back, this is a good one.

Alternatively, equip Tinkertop with a nailbrush strapped to a stick, feed her an anti-allergy tablet and ask her to sweep the entire house, collect all the fur mice from under the bed, and make a big dust ball to show daddy when he arrives home. If you have petite, charming, compliant, agreeable and biddable children they will love this one.

As I said, top tip 7 has never worked in our household. But number 8 works.

8. Switch on the TV.
Do not bother agonising. Just do it. Teach her how to plug it in without electrocuting herself, switch it on and use the remote controls. Two weeks of wall-to-wall Cbeebies won't kill her.

When she is totally bored or you have a developed a complex fantasy about stabbing and dismembering Tinky Winky, extend the repertoire to all other electronic equipment including dvd, cds, cd-roms.

Then you could try ripping The Cure onto your ipod, giving her that, and seeing if you can induce early onset teenage misery, where she locks herself in her room for the next month and you can forget about her.

Number 8 might make her dull though. You could try top tip 9.

9. Travel around on public transport.
This is a great one to do. We once travelled all the way to Bletchley by train, then transferred onto the train travelling in the opposite direction going home. We never even left the station! We did it just to say Today we travelled on a train!

I totally defend this. It is not mad, it is just a good way of being out there in society, watching the world slip by and dreaming this is not the delayed 12.44 to Watford smelling of vomit, this is the Trans-Siberian express stopping at Vladivostok.

Do it, and discover the world.

Or until the police arrive because, to the non-converted, travelling aimlessly everyday on public transport is distinctly suspicious behaviour.

If you don't want to have to justify anything at all to anyone, you could always choose top tip 10. My favourite.

10. Behave like a child.
Drop trying that control thing. Forget about authority. Let everything go. Break rules. Drop being a parent. Blow raspberries at the required reading the school wants you to do while the teachers are on holiday, in therapy, in rest homes, or in prison. There is a reason why they are there and that is the crap they do everyday. Of course they will get you to do it if they can.

But screw that. Relive your teenage rebellion. Stick up two fingers to the system.

Take your child and run around together in the park, roll on the grass, show your knickers, eat ice cream, sing badly, chase butterflies, pick your nose, scratch your bum, fart in public, lick your own noses, lose your shoes, wear a torn tee-shirt with raspberry jam down the front, scream and laugh and cry when you need to, eat chips, read the Beano, put icing sugar in the bath just to see how it feels, go somewhere together because you want to, and do something because it feels good, and makes everyone laugh and be happy, because really, what else are kids and school holidays for?

All of this applies unless you are a home educator. Then you will know that home educators never take holidays. No. We only ever have learning experiences of life.


* PGL. And if they are giving away free weeks, I deserve them. Oh yes I do.

20 Grit threats

This morning I was distinctly out of sorts, what with two monkeys in the mouth and the start of a four aspirin headache, therefore I am posting something I have been saving and adding to in edit mode. (I almost sound like I know what I'm doing.) It is a list of Grit threats, heard over the last week, mostly delivered to Shark, Squirrel and Tiger. It's enough to make you feel sorry for them. Nearly.

And if you don't read them, I shall cry.

1. You're going to school. Right now. I'll drive you. No, on second thoughts, we'll walk.

2. If you do not move those toys I will put them in a black plastic sack and throw them away.

3. If you do that, you will be grounded. And this time, I mean it.

4. I am selling you for medical experiments.

5. I will foster you out. Shall we ring social services now?

6. I will call Childline for you.

7. I will get you up and out of bed very early tomorrow.

8. If you do not get out of the bath, I will lift you out.

9. Eat your meal or I will never feed you again. Ever.

10. I am leaving this family.

11. We are never ever going to do this again. Ever. Ever Ever. So don't ask.

12. I am going to live in a field. I may never come home.

13. I will sell that on ebay.

14. If you do not move it now I will take it down to the tip. Where are my car keys?

15. I am going to live with (insert name).

16. If you do that to the bread again I shall make you wear it.

17. If you scream in the car I will stop. I do not care if we are on the M6. I am stopping.

18. If I cannot find my (glasses / keys / bag / etc) I will smash up the house.

19. If this (dvd / video recorder / TV / etc) doesn't do as I say I will throw it through the window. (Expletives removed on that one.)

20. If the gas man calls again, pretend we are out.

When do the arguments start?

Today has not been unsatisfactory. Here's why.

1. Thanks to Our Supreme Leader, Hobbycraft, the little junior Grits have been quite well catered for and busy all day long, making candles, pictures with acrylic and chalk, balloon modelled owls, bead necklaces, embroidery samplers, and a statue of a dolphin.

2. Dig says the average family argument starts at 10.30 am. Surprisingly, there have been few arguments here today. At 2pm Squirrel had a big to-do over whose make-your-own candle set it was, and no, Tiger couldn't have a go. This was excellent news for Grit who now has a perfect excuse to get Tiger to Hobbycraft as soon as possible during the sale and use the purchase of another make-your-own candle set as an excuse to worship in the aisles where there are those cute little red glass love hearts on wire stems.

3. Although Grit has lost the presents she bought at the charity shop because she stowed them away in a cupboard somewhere and now cannot remember where, she consoles herself with the thought that they will turn up in time for a birthday.

4. Sarah's vegan Christmas pud turned out very well. We use this every year and it is excellent.

5. Dig has been quite nice and not at all complaining about airports / visas / crashed computer disks / Christmas presents costing too much at Hobbycraft / the fact that there are baked potatoes for the main course at lunch today because Grit is anti-Christmas dinner and wants to play with the bead set instead.

6. I manage to watch Coronation Street on TV. This is possibly the first time this year. That John's a bit unlikely, isn't he?

7. Tomorrow Tiger, Shark and Squirrel are opening more presents and perusing all cards and good wishes from friends and family near and far. And I promise to thank all these folk most warmly and personally but thank them here, now, as well. Because I don't think we deserve your thoughts, generosity and kindness, but am jolly appreciative of them.

8. Grit has a bottle of Laphroaig. And it's looking at her this very moment.

Happy Christmas!

Looking for a festive spirit

Even with a plastic tree and two sets of fairy lights, one set being in a tangled heap at the top of the stairs, I am having difficulty getting into the festive spirit here at the Pile. I wonder if this has anything to do with the following?

Dig, just back from Bahrain, is worried about how he is going to get to India for the 2nd of January. Apparently, visa offices close down over Christmas and New Year. Can you imagine that? Inconsiderate sods.

I ring up a car shop to get the Renault Clio ignition coil sorted. Don't tell me you forgot we have a broken-down car sitting outside the house which is somehow my responsibility to mend? This is the car that Big Bro lent to me after I smashed up the Berlingo. Anyway, I ring up and ask how much it is to fit a new ignition coil. I get a pissed off receptionist who informs me that it might not be the ignition coil. I tell her it is. I say I trust my brother's diagnosis; my brother who offered me a broken down car with three dodgy tyres. Pissed off receptionist says it's none of my business doing a diagnostic test. If I want a diagnosis I'll bloody well pay a garage mechanic £44 for the privilege, so there. I tell her to shove it. After I put the phone down, of course. It puts me in a bad mood all day long.

Dig's data disk breaks down. It breaks down big time. It won't even flash, or wink. We may have lost two years work. Don't ask, 'Did you take a back-up?'

Big Bro now says he will come round to fetch the Clio. The Clio was going fine until it started flashing an engine sign at me on the A5. Any car that flashes any type of engine light at me may as well put out a big notice saying STOP! STOP NOW OR YOU ARE GOING TO DIE. Strangely, recalling a car accident and the insurance paperwork for it that is still sitting on top of the non-working radio in the kitchen makes me feel depressed.

While I'm heading down that tunnel of misery, I'll pass the hall mirror to stare at my reflection and consider that my age is now possibly 67 thanks to the grey hair. I conclude I am past everything.

At 9.40pm this evening the toilet waste pipe falls off in my hands. This is the toilet waste pipe installed in the new bathroom less than two months ago at a cost of 5K. You're wondering why I was holding the toilet waste pipe in the first place, aren't you? Wonder on. It's the sort of thing I just have to do.

To do list

I suppose this blog might as well do something useful. Here's the first 10 things on my To do list.

1. Pay the electricity bill. We have electricity bills everywhere. They're all on different accounts. Don't ask me why. This bill is for three lightbulbs. One is outside, one is in the entrance hall, one is on the landing. It comes to £52. £52 for three energy saving lightbulbs? Does that sound right?

2. Pay the milk man. We have milk delivered in case I die. If I die, Shark, Squirrel and Tiger have nothing to eat. So I've added cheese, eggs, bread, fruit juice and biscuits to the order. I cancelled the potatoes because I don't want Shark trying to boil potatoes and then blowing up the house because she can't handle the gas hob properly.

3. Pay the newspapers. After a £50 debt I start to feel guilty that I may be responsible for the close of a small business and the destitution of the Pooni family. Mr Pooni once telephoned Dig to ask him to settle the newspaper account which stood at £74. Unfortunately Dig was in Turkmenistan at the time and was unable to get to the shop.

4. Return overdue library books and pay fine. At least my fine only stands at £2.95. Not like Kris, who stood behind me in the library fine queue and paid £15.80 for three detective novels and a medieval thriller. Cheaper to buy them from the old folks bookshop across the road, Kris.

5. Pay Visa bill. Thankfully the £6,000 debt no longer exists on this account, just £11.98. This is what Squirrel scammed out of me for the Felicity Wishes magazine so she could dress up a cloth doll with little dresses probably made by exploited children locked up in a factory somewhere in a Special Economic Zone.

6. Return the telephone call to parks department lady. I bet this is about tickets for the Hallowe'en walk. Why I have booked a Hallowe'en walk I do not know. Tiger is scared of the dark. Tiger is also scared of dogs, cats, small animals, insects, spiders, fireworks, masks, loud noises and large models of dinosaurs. She denies she is scared of men with hats but I have my suspicions. Anyway, as a result of Tiger's phobia list I have booked the non-scary afternoon Hallowe'en walk for toddlers. I expect the parks department will stick a few fluffy lions around the park again and we will all go Ooo.

7. Write a termination of contract letter to Orange. We got new mobile phones about six months ago and Dig's been putting this off. He says he does not know who to address the letter to or where to post it. I will take over.

8. Make an appointment for an eye test. I cannot see out of these glasses. They are scratched and bound up with sellotape. Something must be done. Urgently.

9. Call the gardener. Correction, first find the telephone number, then call the gardener and arrange a date with him to come and sort out the gravelly patch at the bottom of the garden. No-one goes down there anymore because we cannot get past the brambles.

10. Find my cheque book which I last saw over there. And while I'm at it, find the overdue Tin Tin audio cassette that should have gone back to the library yesterday. Then find the book that tells me how to enter new addresses into the mobile phone, and the sellotape. Find the electricity bill that I last saw on the hall table. Find the slip of paper that the milk man puts under the milk bottle, whereupon the ring of milky liquid inexplicably leaking from a sealed milk bottle causes the print to run and makes it illegible. Find the time to do activities 1 to 10, instead of wasting it mucking about on the blog making lists.

Failing

Grit is a Rubbish Grit. I am totally failing to do anything. In fact I am a total poopy-doo. I am a poopy-doo because I am not achieving anything, apart from being miserable, which I am now quite good at.

This is a list of failure. I have not...

1. Read the article that I ripped out from the Saturday Independent about three weeks ago. It is still on the chopping board, so everyday I look at it and think, just before I do any chopping, 'Hmm, must read that.' Then I move the folded up article onto the weighing scales and move it back again after the chopping's been chopped.

2. Rung the gardener who came round a month ago to cut the hedge. At that point I said I would telephone him to make a date for the pruning and uprooting the brambles in the gravelly patch at the bottom of the garden. This was a mistake. Of course I do not have his telephone number. Tiger had a good idea. She said look in Yellow Pages, which is where I originally got his number from. I think this is a brilliant idea. I just haven't got round to it yet.

3. Worked out how to use my new mobile phone which I got in March. I sometimes carry the instruction booklet around with me in the hope that I might read it. And understand it, of course.

4. Caught up with the blog. I am total rubbish at transformiong draft notes into a written piece. So from now on perhaps I won't bother. Today's entry would have then start as foloows:

We;l; must rinf the the gardener =bucause it's bveen a flipping long while since he came round to sort out the hedge. Now, where did i put his yteklephione number?

Of course bexcause I am a two fingered typer, on the second draft I also correct the spelling mistakes.

5. Looked at ebay. Well I'm sure I must be watching something, or not paid for something, or need to bid on something, or promised Shark she could choose a new denim dress that actually covers her girly bits instead of that short rag she wears that says on the label Age 9. Either Shark's very big, or it's shrunk very much. Surely girls aren't actually supposed to wear their dresses that short?

6. Done any work for weeks thanks to Elizabeth Hurley. She needs constantly looking after. And feeding. The children have taken to calling her Gannet. To her face, actually.

7. Cleaned out the car. I haven't done that since 2003. And then I regretted it and vowed never to do it again after the pair of knickers we so badly needed were at that moment sitting in a plastic bin liner in the hall 250 miles away. So perhaps I won't count the car thing as a failure, but as a success.

There. I feel better now. I've achieved something.

No end. And no beginning either.

It's time for a list.

1. Please do not interrupt me Dig the moment my fingers touch the keys on this keyboard.

2. Oh. Well I can't talk right now since I am trying to organise my thoughts. And since life is a bit spun round, and I have no clear head for anything, I need to sort out what's in my head so I can actually make the list I was going to make.

3. Right. Now I can't actually remember anything that was supposed to be on the list for today. Or tomorrow for that matter. I'm sure I had some things that I'm doing, or what I've done, and perhaps what I'm going to do.

4. It sounds to me like I need a list.

5. Grit has had a pause after listing item 4 and gone down the Co-op to buy a bottle of beer.

6. I must get up properly and not wear the same tee-shirt three days running then go to the Co-op to buy a bottle of beer at 10 o'clock at night. I look like a down and out.

7. Actually I am a bit down and out. If I had a list I would have some sorted out purposeful thoughts to organise.

8. I'm just going to drink this beer and then I'm going to think about making a list.

9. Please do not interrupt me Dig the moment my fingers touch the keys on this keyboard.

10. Oh. Well I can't talk right now since I am trying to organise my thoughts. And since life is a bit spun round, and I have no clear head for anything, I need to sort out what's in my head so I can actually make the list I was going to make.

Ad infinitum. Except for the Co-op bit, which shuts.

Lucky I got several bottles then.

Thursday's list

What a difficult day. I hardly know where to begin. Listing things is always a good idea in these troubled times, so here it is.

1. Gym and trampoline lessons for Shark, Squirrel and Tiger. We are late. Tiger is being irritating just because I have lost her gym costume again. I find it in the laundry basket with apple juice down the front. I get it out and flap it about a bit to get rid of the smell. I promise I will wash it for next week. Tiger reminds me that I said that last week too.

2. I am sure Ermintrude has been getting her own back on me after I suggested she might pay £45 in petrol fees for a lift into town last week. She keeps saying, 'How do I say zeez in English zat I want to go away now. Zeez afternoon'.

3. I have to bring everyone home after their gym and trampoline lessons and feel the need to force-feed three Tesco value pizzas to the entire family. Ermintrude looks especially glum.

4. I rush Squirrel down to the theatre for ballet Rehearsal 3. I have a timetable where it says Clouds are needed at 4.15 and 4.30. When we get there, no-one seems to know where Squirrel should change or wait. I worry that I have missed everything because by the time we find a corner to change it is 4.25. Then of course, I stop worrying. Twig is running 2 hours behind schedule, so I install Squirrel with the rest of the Clouds at the back of the theatre, and drive home to fetch Squirrel's tea. I bring it back to the theatre along with a foot-dragging Ermintrude.

5. I then go back home again and get Shark and Tiger in the car for drama. Fortunately they love drama and cannot get in the car fast enough. Getting into the car too fast means you fall down the front step and cry.

6. I run back to the theatre to find Cloud kicking the back of the seat in front of her and irritating the hell out of a Mountain fairy. I get from Ermintrude, who is sat in a different row reading Cosmopolitan, that she doesn't think Clouds are needed now because Twig changed the running order after I left and swapped Clouds over with Buttercups. So I drag the Cloud costume off, apologise to the Mountain fairy, and take Squirrel over to join in the last 40 minutes of drama. I take Ermintrude home where she disappears into her room.

7. I have half an hour to idle around. Dig tells me he just said goodbye to a man who came round to look at all the bathrooms, which leak. I bet Dig did not show Bathroom Man the bathroom in the office. The office bathroom is so disgusting that in 2002 I refused to go in there ever again. Apparently, Bathroom Man is putting in a quote to rip out two bathrooms and install new ones. I reckon that once he's seen the inside of our house and the bathroom painted like a jungle, he strangely forgets to quote for any work at the Pile, ever, even when he's telephoned to be reminded.

8. When I pick everyone up at 7pm I drive home and we eat pasta. I forget the kiddie RSPB meeting which also starts at 7pm. Unfortunately I make the mistake of shouting out this oversight at 8.30 pm, which is when it ends. Shark is inconsolable because she has 20 photographs of a nest box and 15 photographs of a blurred blue tit outside the office. She has been carefully saving this lot up for this evening so she can show Pied Wagtail. I say that she will have to show him next time.

9. It is 11.30pm and Aunty Dee is arriving from Newcastle. She wants to see Squirrel on the stage dressed as a Cloud. I tell her the performance is running at four hours so far and Squirrel's part is five minutes. I say Aunty Dee is lucky: the tickets are apparently going like hot cakes. In fact I was unable to get a ticket for myself at all.

10. Midnight. I search in vain for my iPod again. I have to conclude it really isn't me that has misplaced it. It has been stolen. And for that, I may have to try and kill myself.

Make a list

Dig is off today for his not-holiday in Asia. As usual, when Dig goes, I become ulta-focused and make a list. These are the things that are on my list.

1. Pack for Kent.

2. Clear up the kitchen.

3. Buy food. We have nothing to eat in the house except pasta and frozen bread.

4. Buy a season pass for the summer events in the parks which are run every year for children and which are fab, but when I ring up the parks department to ask if there are any tickets left for the event in August am told 'That event is fully booked'. Strange. So I will buy a pass and then they cannot stop me.

5. Vacuum. The TV licencing people might call. They have been threatening to for the last three years.

6. Make some more lists with things on them so that I remember what I am doing everyday. When Dig goes, I usually get involved in child things and I can't remember what else I could possibly do all day long.

A timetable for organisation

It's Tuesday. It's 48 hours since Nanjo left to be a mature student somewhere in Warwickshire and the house is descending into its usual chaotic condition. While she's here, Nanjo organises everything and this is a very good thing. But when she leaves, nothing gets done. There's a lot of boiled tinned tomatoes to eat, a lot of laundry on the floor and a lot of Squirrel, Shark and Tiger slamming around the house having big fights.

So for the days we are at home and not out at lessons or visits, I resolve to be more organised, like Nanjo, and everything will get better. I have made a timetable based on what Nanjo does. This is a timetable of How To Be Organised On The Days We Are At Home. I promise to do it all. Honestly.

1. 8.30 Plan the day. This is why Nanjo can fit in twenty impossible things before tea time. She plans. She doesn't get distracted, wander around the house vaguely and, when she walks into a room, say existential things like 'Why am I here?'

2. 9.00 Ask the children what they would like for tea after breakfast. This is a very good trick. Their tummies will be full and so they will say something like 'bananas' or 'toast' and this makes tea possible and their responsibility when they don't like it. So I can say 'Here are your bananas and toast', and when they complain it is not cheesy rice, lentil dip, or three-coloured home made pasta, I can say, 'It's what you asked for'. Most importantly, it leaves time in the afternoon when I am not preparing tea to achieve Other Things.

3. 10.00 Set up an activity that works. Do not get out the Teach Yourself Physics book and attempt to read and understand the theory of gravity while simultaneously reading the instructions on the Have Fun With Physics box that came from the Oxfam shop last year for only 99p because all the rubber bands are missing. Any activity set up like this will fail. Nanjo says that having a sense of achievement early in the day is A Good Thing, so do something you know will work and everyone will like, because this prepares the ground for Organisational Rule Number 4.

4. 12.00 Give the children an activity that does not work. Provide them with an egg timer and suggest they time how long it takes a flower bud to open. They will scamper off into the garden, spend 20 minutes looking for a dandelion, stand on it by accident, lose the egg timer, get distracted and start playing Unicorns Fighting in the Mud. While they are about the impossible task, get out the physics book and make lunch. If there is a fight, haul one in to chop onions, even if we are not eating onions today.

5. 1.00 Run a lesson over lunchtime. Read aloud from the Teach Yourself Physics book while the audience is captured and their mouths are full, so they can't answer back.

6. 2.00 Go out, even if it is a stay-at-home-day. Walk to the Post Office and buy a stamp. Walk to the corner shop and buy more onions. Walk to the library and return the overdue fairy books. When the ordeal is over, all agree that we have achieved something, and it didn't take hours. This is good for team-building and morale. Now tell them to go off to play, and do Organisational Rule Number 7.

7. 4.00 Do the Other Things while the children are playing. This is a sub-list and includes things like: Ring the Environmental people at the Council and ask for a sticker for the bin because they won't collect it without one. Email Jo, aka Pied Wagtail, and say we would like to come to the Kestrel display. Ring the dentist and rearrange the appointment because I am a chicken.

8. 5.00 Get out the bananas and toast and say 'It's what you asked for'.

9. 6.00 Demand that it's Dig's turn to look after two, and grab the remaining child for one-to-one time.

10. 7.00 Do the boring things like putting the unicorns in the washing machine and the tea plates in the dishwasher. Do not say 'I will do it tomorrow'.

11. 8.00 Bathtime and story-reading. Now this is supposed to be Dig's area. I'll say no more. Theoretically any time now is for Grit to read the Teach Yourself Physics book in preparation for tomorrow, typeset another chapter of 'A Historic and Linguistic Analysis of Verbs', write about the lovely home educating day on the blog, hide in the bathroom and eat chocolate, or lie on the floor and drink wine.

12. 12.00 Go to bed, happy that a day of achievement has been had.

I'll try that tomorrow, then.

Upsides and downsides

We have had a mixed day today, so I have listed it.

Upsides

1. Nanjo is back.

2. We have bought organic extra thick double cream for the ice cream maker.

3. The children have been self-directed and absorbed in educational projects.

4. We have bought a day bed from Ikea for the au pair who is coming over soon to be interviewed by Shark, Tiger and Squirrel.

5. The weather is lovely and we have all the doors open to the garden. 'Tra la la' everyone is singing with the joys of spring.

6. I made delicious stuffed mushrooms for tea thanks to a can of spicy Greek beans in tomato sauce. And mushrooms, of course.

Downsides

1. Nanjo is worn out after a heavy Easter weekend and has collapsed on the sofa in front of James and the Giant Peach which she says is rubbish anyway.

2. We have lost the spindle that clips the paddle to the motor in the ice cream maker.

3. Squirrel spilled yellow paint all over the yard. My knickers, which were hanging on the line without pegs, because we have no pegs, fell in the yellow paint. Then Tiger locked herself in the top flat and refused to come out. Shark screamed herself hoarse in the garden because she had seen a bee.

4. Raj at the Ikea checkout put his elbow on Hot key 7 and I paid £1.49 for Glimma Tealt 1o. We had no Glimma Tealt 1o. But I didn't notice until the transaction was complete which meant that I had to go to the Returns desk. Unfortunately, because I had no Glimma Tealt 1o I had nothing to return. A very fat lady had to come down from a different floor and enter a special code for invisible returns. It took 20 minutes.

5. The blackbird who lives outside flew in the kitchen and proceeded to bang its head against the window repeatedly while pooping everywhere. We opened a window nearby and Dig started to wave a broom wildly about which he called 'encouragement'. I fled the grisly scene and wouldn't go back in until all was quiet.

6. I burned my hand on the pan handle. It stings a lot and I've wrapped round it a bag of spinach.