Is it back to school time yet...?

Me head is melted. This summer there were times I’ve said to myself I’d rather be in the bog footin turf with the midges than refereeing the wrangling and bickering between my three. Mentally exhausting, no? You know the score, it starts off all jovial. They master the act of seducing us into thinking that they’re getting on, then all hell breaks loose and it inevitably ends in tears.  I never get it right, I ‘always listen to her’ and I ‘never blame him’ and ‘you’re just the worst mother in the world, d’ya know that’. Cue stomp up the stairs. Cue door slam. And then the kids follow suit. The Small Man is sportin’ a tude like no other. I know, I know,  all part and parcel of behaviour as he sourly kills time queuing to get into the Adolescent Club. The girls are sick to the back teeth of each other. I am ready to go to bed before they are most nights. I envy their inestimable energy. This all very normal sibling grating is however coupled with the wish-we-never-moved-back remarks thrown into the mix. You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t, and I’m damned if we had a choice. Consequently, my retort is when you’re 18 you can live where you like. To top it all there has been the weather, and only the one type at that. The less said on meteorological matters the better. You would think that being born and raised in the West of Ireland that I am now immune to rain in all its guises. The slanty rain, straight down rain, the big drops rain and the misty betwixt n between rain. However, getting out for a run with the wind and the rain lashing against my face, tunes in my ears is my lifeline to sanity and until they go back to school those have been rare as hen’s teeth so the lifeline was spread thin. Bad weather and boredom can foster creative endeavours or breed tetchy underbellies or both. Shenanigans in the kitchen included the three deciding to make pizza from Jamie Oliver’s 30 Minute Meals but in reality and without the aid of a fandangled food processor or a crew to abet it’s a good thirty minutes to take everything out of the presses and two hours to clean up more like. After seeing the fantastic Super 8 they decided to make their own videos and house subsequently trashed to make sets with sheets and cardboard and my one and only good lipstick was decimated. There was fun had and no one lost an eye, that’s always a bonus. The pizza didn’t taste half bad either. Roll on Thursday, I'll be whooshing them out the door, back to school and back to some shape of a routine.