Molly's Early Birthday - pizza, cinema, potential bankruptcy

Every year we have the same problem regarding Molly's birthday. Coming as it does in the summer holiday it means that more often than not, her friends are away on holiday when she'd ideally like to have a party.

Some years we've waited till they're all back at school, other years we've just left it as family only. But this year, seeing as it was end of Year 6 and a major event, what better way than to actually have her friends birthday party on the day after they leave school.

We invited everyone in Year 6 and to be honest had our fingers crossed that some wouldn't be able to make it. Because Molly's plan was to have a pizza party followed by all of them going to the cinema to see Shrek 4. If everyone turned up it was going to be a VERY expensive idea.

We were in luck, just 6 of them in the end, so it was off to Pane e Vino, our lovely, favourite Italian restaurant in Pocklington (and the only Italian restaurant in Pocklington) and then the movie. We've taken her to Pane e Vino with friends before but then we had a table off to one side. This year we took the big and brave step to just book a table for them.

Not brave that anything would go wrong, that's stupid paranoid, Daily Mail type thinking. No, we were more concerned that they'd be just a little bit too loud for the rest of the diners. However, we were assured by the staff when we picked up and paid that all had been well. Which hopefully means the black looks I got off one woman at the table next door was purely of the stupid "How could you leave the children here alone!" type.

Then off to Shrek and by the end of the night, a magnificent early Birthday for Molly.

Summer holidays day 1 - paperwork and birthday parties....

Day 1 of the 6 week holiday. We all got up late, had a lazy breakfast and settled down for a first day catchup sort of day.

Louise is currently downstairs sorting through a pile of cookery mags taking out interesting recipes, Molly's very excited and waiting impatiently for later on when her advance birthday party happens. And I'm (thinking about) catching up with school paperwork.

At work I have many, many systems for keeping track of what they hell I'm meant to be doing. All the staff know by now that something has to be written down somewhere to have a chance of me doing it - not that I'm pedantic about it, just that my poor, pathetic memory is such that I shall immediately forget something if it's just told to me in passing one day in the corridor.

So the two main systems are a clipboard with a regularly changing DO TODAY list. Then there's the invaluable REMEMBER THE MILK, a computer application I just couldn't do without.

And then there's the piles of paperwork. Again, these have a hieracrhy. First there's the pile of things under the clipboard. That's must do or needs doing today. Then there's a slightly bigger pile sitting on top of the computer next to the admin laptop. And then there's the boxfile.

The big boxfile with all the things I really need to look at - AT SOME POINT. Things that aren't necessary for either day to day or term to term. Similarly there's also a Remember The Milk tab labelled TO LOOK AT, which I routinely add websites and applications that should be really good if only I/the teachers ever had a moment to look at them.

The big boxfile was my final day job. Instead, what happened was that, as usual, I finished with no time to spare, grabbed all of the paperwork outstanding and threw it all into the boxfile and took it home. Which, if the holidays go exactly like last year and the year before, it will sit on a shelf until it's time to go back, unopened and unlooked at.

Well not this year, this year I shall do things differently. This year I have the boxfile on the desk. This year I shall be opening it up and working through it (using the paper bin a lot I imagine).

Or at least I intend to. Right after I finish blogging about it. Then I may make a cup of coffee. Thn I think the office could do with a dust. Then it's probably around lunchtime.

School's Out - Oh, yes, there were tears....

Today was Molly's final day of Primary School. Louise and I already knew the sort of emotional day we were due, having already had a phone call from school yesterday telling us Molly would be home a little late because she was really upset saying goodbye to one of the little ones who was off on holiday and wouldn't make the last day.

So off we toddled to the leaver's assembly at Molly's school. And it was a wonderful assembly - with a lot of non-dry eyes all round. They had speeches, they had some gorgeous photos of Year 6 through the years, they had presents and all of us parents were ever so proud of our gorgeous children.

Molly actually kept it together quite well during the assembly, but later on when we went to pick her up she was red eyed and just couldn't stop bursting into tears everytime she saw someone else in school that she was going to miss. The thing with Molly's school is that there's only four classes and all of the older children look after the younger ones, something Molly is really going to miss. So she spent 20 minutes after school hugging the little ones and crying, and crying, and crying some more.

We did manage to fulfill one ambition that Molly had though - she's always wanted a picture of Mikey (#1 cuddly toy and has been for a long time) with her teacher, and here it is.....

All in all, a wonderful day, incredibly emotional, full of happy memories - exactly as it should be. next up, 6 weeks of holiday for both of us and then onto the adventure that is secondary school.

Luckily, both Louise and I know that Molly's such a wonderful, gorgeous, grounded and lovely child that she's going to have a great time there.

But today was very special, and none of us can believe that it was only 6 years ago we were tentatively walking Molly into her first day at St Chads in Birmingham, a tiny, quiet thing in a uniform that was equally unbearably cute and just a little too big. She left today wearing a shirt covered in graffiti and very red eyes, much bigger, much older but still my gorgeous little girl. Then again, she's always our gorgeous little girl and always will be.

My new computer bug

*

.... and it's driving me mad. Moving around was bad enough but now it seems to be having a rest / has died right in the middle of my eyeline.

Little bastard. Obviously did it deliberately.

(*not actual bug, this is someone else's bug. I couldn't be done with getting the camera out and taking a pic of the screen)

Oh, the joy of pet ownership....... first vet bills coming in

It had to happen, the fun of owning pets is often negated slightly by the vet bills. Molly began to get concerned over the bumps on Buzz's ears. Then she googled it. So off to the vet to see what it might be. So that was my Friday afternoon taken up then.

Everything okay according to the vet, it's either mites or viral. Anti-parasite medication on both rats and see how it looks in a few weeks. And a very reasonable vet bill after all. Molly happy again, all okay. Now, on with the business of the last week of term and a social calender for the youngest member of the family that puts us all to shame.

Countdown to end of term, countdown to a new school.....

Two weeks to go. 10 days. And then it's the summer holidays.

I could start telling you about the amazing amount of work I've got to fit in between now and then, but I'm not going to. Because this year, this summer is a major moment for Molly. It's the end of primary school, the end of Year 6. She goes to secondary in September and is ridiculously excited about it. Maybe a little nervous as well. But mostly excited.

Today was the first of a whole host of leavers things; her prizegiving. Not quite as exciting as last year when she was made head girl, but a lovely, slightly sad afternoon. Molly, as head girl, had to make a long speech with the head boy talking about everything their year has down and did it brilliantly. It's all too easy to forget just how bloody great Molly is, after a few moody strops and sulks too many when she's at home. But sometimes all we have to do is talk to people who aren't her parents or see her in action and we realise how absolutely lovely, clever and special she is.

Strangely there were no tears from the Year 6 leavers, but our inside source tells us that they've been practising the special leavers assembly for next week and they're weeping just at the rehearsal. Oh dear.

Anyway, pictures from the prizegiving....

and here they are, the class of 2010......

Harvey Pekar 1939-2010

Oh crap, just found out Harvey Pekar just died. Wonderful, strident, humane, irascible, brillant comic writer whose work found me at exactly the right moment in my life to create a love of simple, small, powerful stories of everyday life.

Rest in peace Harvey. And thank you.

My, haven't those boys grown......

Well, I had planned to get Molly (far the best photographer in the house) to get some photos of her rats (the boys - Buzz and Woody).

But as you can see, only Buzz (he's the white one) was really in the mood. Woody (The brown one) decided he'd much rather stay in the comfort of his tissue box.

So , you'll have to trust us, they're getting big now. 2 months old now and much loved in the Bruton household. Even Louise, not that keen to start with, has to admit they're lovely.

Volvo in Twilight, Peugeot bag Toy Story 3 - will Voldemort be driving a Ford Ka?

What the hell is the current trend in car ads sponsoring movies all about?

And why does anyone think it's a good idea? And whilst we're at it, should the marketing men behind this abominable idea be shot. Or maybe, as Bill Hicks once brilliantly pointed out - maybe they should all just kill themselves?