Spread your wings and fly away

"Are you ok?" he asked me

"Yes I'm fine" I replied.

And yes I am ok. But I think about the number of times I have sat here, smiled and said "I'm fine" when, in reality, I'm not.

Reality is I want to cry

Reality is I want to scream

Reality is I am fed up to the back teeth of the kids whingeing

Reality is I have a cold

Reality is I have stomach cramps

Reality is I am tired from having very little sleep

Reality is I am bored

Yet whenever anyone asks me if I am ok I just say "i'm fine" and smile.

How many of us do that on a day to day basis, especially on those days when we don't feel fine at all? Those days when we want to stay in bed, snuggled up under the duvet with the doors closed, the curtains closed and not see the world outside. Yet we put a smile on our face and say "I'm fine"

The majority of us I suspect.

With one exception. Today i phoned a friend. I asked her "How are you?"

30 minutes later, after listening to the symptons of every disease imaginable and convincing her that the internet was not the place to look up the reason why she has a cough and what it could be, but to go to the doctors if she was that worried, I realised that some of us are not afraid to tell things as it is. There is no "I'm fine" from people like her. They relish the attention that you have given them. They need to tell you and do we feign interest? Do we listen, nod sagely or offer a word or two of advice?

There is something to be said for saying "I'm fine". People accept it. They stare in horror if you tell them how you really feel.

Oh and for your information I am truly fine, I have had a good day and I am about to go to bed to catch up on some much needed sleep.

But yes, I am fine

So how are you?

Yes I remember doing this as well.

here

I have only just managed to log on.

Not because I have had problems logging on, but because today has been a rather bitty day.

We waited in for the van to be taken away - they were supposed to collect it at 11 and never turned up. So at 12.30, we decided that we really needed to go out as my youngest son is going to take lessons on how to ride his bike and of course needs to be kitted out with a safety helmet. Not an esy task I can assure you. Halfords we went to first, tried on a few helmets in the children's section, quite reasonably priced at £14.99. None fitted.

Shop assistant comes along and helps us by measuring sons head. Now correct me if I am wrong, but what would you measure a child's head with? A fabric tape measure or one of those retractable metal ones that are used by DIYers and buildres? Hmmm. Well he managed to measure his head with a metal tape measure (duh!)

Anyway knowing already youngest child has a big head, he measures it and then shows us to some cycle helmets. "Don't look at the ones on the bottom shelf" he advises us "THey only have a two star rating. The ones on the top shelf are better they are five star rating." Then walks of to leave us to it.

the ones on the bottom shelf range from £26.99 to £29.99. The ones on the top shelf were in the region of £36 - £45. The only difference between them was the name on the front, obviously the make, otherwise they were almost identical. After looking at one or two and muttering "I'm not paying that much for that" we decided to go down the road to Toys r Us or as I like to call it 'The Hell hole for children' and look in there.

Tried on several helmets and for once a helpful young sales assistant. Yes I know, shock horror, someone who works in the Hell hole for children, who actually knows what he is talking about!! He sees we are struggling to find a helmet that fits the large head of small child and assists where he can with tightening or loosening straps, altering the head gear and finding that he is having the same trouble as us - none of them fit young child's big head! So he points us to a small selection of helmets, reasonable priced up at £14.99, and that are for adults! Hoorahhhhhhh one actually fits child's oversized head! What is even better is as we go and pay we are only charged £7.49 for it, a bargain! At least now I can send him of to his cycle lesson knowing that it he falls he is not going to crack open his oversized head though other parts of him may not be so lucky lol

While browsing through the hell hole for children, hubby noticed a special offer on an LCD t.v, quite a large one that will come complete with freeview, HD ready and you can also get a Wii with it as well. Persuaded him that though our telly has blown up, and that the one we had in our room is now in living room which will do for now, we don't need to go out splashing money on a tv just yet. However it was necessary to pop into Comets (another hell hole, can't abide any of the people that work there) to compare the prices of their tellys with the ones we saw in hell hole for children. What we came away with though was a GPS system which all of a sudden he needs urgently as he does a lot of driving in and around London. Now this has confused me, just a little, after all we are talking about a man here, who put him anywhere in a middle of a field, in the middle of nowhere and he will tell you which direction home is in. His sense of direction is impeccable. His map reading skills are second to nune. He gets from A to B without any trouble whatsoever, yet he saw the need to get a GPS system? A toy to play with, a gimmick. And I have to admit, I hate it. Ok it has its uses, we tried it out on the way home and I deliberately took the wrong road despite 'tom' telling me to go left at the next turning, I went straight on, or turned right, and I managed to prove a point, I can confuse the GPS system. It couldn't keep up with me. it even tried telling me to go down a one way street the wrong way at one point - even better it can find every other house in our street, but not ours, apparently our address doesn't exist or so it keeps telling me as I tried to programme it in!! In fact as I pulled into my driveway it tried to tell me I was going the wrong way and I should turn round!! So why does he want one! He has better sense of direction than the satelite that is directing him lol!

He is a pleased as punch with it though, so whatever makes you happy, boys and their toys!!

As I said earlier, only just logged on and had several messages to wade through. One was an invite, that said in his/her message to me
---

hi dear

I have no idea who it is, and most of their blog is about finances anyway so I am not accepting, and who would dear me anyway unless they knew me well. So if it is anyone of you lot, which I don't think it is, I am not accepting as I haven't a clue who it is and not happy with the familiarity of the invite if I don't know you (if that makes sense).

Anyway enough waffling for now, have things to so, like register this GPS system for his lordship, just in case he needs help with getting back from the outer hebrides when he should have been heading towards Hounslow

Hugs xxx