Bring on the Summer Holidays!!

For many of us Mums, today or perhaps tomorrow marks the start of the Summer Holidays, that 6 week epic break from school that we either love or hate.

I fall into the first of those categories.  I love having our kids at home; being able to do things with them, even if that means that on a rainy day we spend the day huddled in the living room with a pile of goodies and a stack of DVDs. 

When your kids are tiny, you just don’t realise how bereft you will feel when they go to school, so I cherish every day of that six weeks as the most time I get to spend with them, uninterrupted by school bells and uniforms.  I only have four of my ‘little ones’ left at home, ranging from 10 years old to 17 (but add dear daughter and darling grandson into the mix too, for good measure on some days).

image from interiordesignarchitects.net
I'd love to be able to reproduce this design

This summer, we are going to decorate one of the bedrooms – ‘teen daughter’ has been waiting patiently for her turn of the paint roller to come around.  That should take us roughly one week of the hols.  We work as a gang – some will be stripping whilst others are sanding or washing and so on.  Last summer we did both of the boys’ bedrooms and I think we all had fun along the way.  Not sure how the lads are going to feel about being spattered with bubblegum pink paint, but it should make for some hilarity when we hit the beach, if we hit the beach but that of course needs some reasonable weather.

Other plans for the holidays are trips on the train to London perhaps or to visit one of the Uncles in the midlands.  Family Railcards are an amazing piece of kit – we get to travel all over the place for a fraction of what it would ordinarily cost.  When you are trooping at least four of your little darlings around with you (up to a few years ago it was up to seven of them), every penny counts, especially on trips to London.

To be fair, my tribe are great kids, they don’t make demands, unreasonable or otherwise and are happy to mostly do whatever comes along.  The museums in the capital make for a good day out on a shoestring budget – as long as you take a picnic of course.

More soon on our plans for the summer, but right now, it’s time to collect some banana boxes so that ‘teen daughter’ can start to pack away all of her worldly belongings.  The strippers move in on Monday morning – 8am sharp!

Does Magenta Exist?

A little more rumination on Magenta as an entity... I stumbled upon an article which tells me that Magenta does not, in fact exist!  I kid you not.  My right index finger went immediately into overdrive, clicking on every imaginable link to find out more about this travesty.  The perpetrator of this alarming claim is one Liz Elliot of www.biotele .com (The Neurostimulation Portal) HERE.  Do take a look at this article as it has some excellent optical trickery for you to play with.

This colour wheel from Blue Lobster shows Magenta very clearly!!

Needless to say, Ms Elliot’s claims are variously debunked by other writers, scientists and bloggers.  I particularly liked the article HERE. Which explains in layman’s terms why Magenta does exist and why it does not.  

So, do I now begin to doubt my own existence?  Am I purely a figment in the imaginations of folk who are trying to bridge the gap between Red and Violet?  I have often pondered on the status of my visibility in the minds of others, particularly those of my children on occasions when dividing up the day’s chores between them etc.

Perhaps then, there is synchronicity in play in my choosing Magenta as the name under which I will work!  I want to find a place in the imaginations of my readers with what I write, and if Magenta truly does exist in the imagination, then I hope that this is a good omen and I am off to a good start.  No doubt time will tell.