Shit day...? You're not alone!!!

Everyone has them, don’t they….?

Those days where, despite the best laid plans, EVERYTHING goes wrong.  And you can’t wait to get back into bed and wake up when it’s all over.

Well, today has been one of those days…!

I’m not one for hysteria (even if I do like to have a moan sometimes!).  It’s not as if anyone has died, or been hospitalized, but…  Today was supposed to be the day when I went to see an old client, to see if he could help me get freelance work.  It was an important day in my life and I wanted it to go smoothly and to arrive in a positive frame of mind. 

I leaped out of bed, ready for the day.  All I had to do was get the kids to the school bus, walk the dog, get dressed for the meeting and go.  Simple!

Well, I thought it was simple until the little one (who had been coughing all night long) announced that he felt terrible; had a headache; felt feverish etc etc etc. 

Having felt his head and examined his pale cheeks, I decided that he was genuinely unwell.  If I sent him to school in that state, he’d only be sent home again.  So I had no choice but to send him straight back to bed.

In the meantime, the big one was up and getting ready for school when he realized he had no idea where his phone was.  He really needed to have it, so that he could call me and let me know when he was on his way home.  Time was ticking by, the bus was not going to wait and finally… I had a fit. I realized that by this stage we had missed the bus.  I had a very important meeting and there was NO WAY I could afford to spend 1.5 hrs in the car - which is what the round trip to school would have taken me. 

I decided to be brutal.   Kids have got to understand that their sluggish behaviour in the morning impacts on them too.  So I told him the big one that he'd just have to go on the tube... by himself...  

The thing is, he's come home by tube loads of times, but this was the first time he’d had to go in the opposite direction.  The bus stops are in a different place… he had to cross three big roads and I could see he felt very nervous…

I took him to the tube station, where the unusually kind lady from London Underground let me take him down to the platform.  But there were delays and it was almost 20 minutes before the tube arrived.

Finally, I got back home to the little one, who had perked up quite significantly since he knew he wasn’t going to school.  At this point I realized it just wasn’t going to be a good day. 

My great friend Julian had taken custody of a new dog the day before, so there was no way he could look after little one for four hours, whilst I went to an interview.

I felt the Karma – and decided to phone and re-schedule the very important meeting with the ex-client.

No sooner had I hung up, than I heard the sound of running water.

It transpired that ‘little one’, who is particularly fond of a bath, had forgotten he’d turned the taps on and flooded the bathroom.  Water was streaming through the light fixture to the hall floor below.

Four towels, two bathmats, two buckets and a load of sponges later, the water finally subsided.

And as I fantasized about being back in bed, duvet hiding me from the world, I got am email from a friend.  It was a response to my outlining my dreadful day.

It simply read:

“Ah, well!  At least you’ve got something for your blog.  And look on the bright side.  You’ve still got a fab arse!!!”

As stressed as I was, it was the best tonic ever. 

No one has died… it was just a shit day to write off as ‘Never Should Have Happened”!

And tomorrow WILL be better!