An 'interesting' day

This one came in 6 parts:

Part 1: As it was sunny this morning I decided to go out on my own for a quick bike ride. Mountain Man sent me off to do a circuit along country roads. 'It's about 3 miles,' he said. Well that might be 3 miles in his world but in mine it felt like quite a bit further. When I got home he checked. 'Oh sorry,' he said, 'it's actually about 5.' Now 2 miles extra might not seem like a lot to you, but believe me, 5 miles is definitely 5 miles and is certainly a whole lot different from 3 miles. I enjoyed it tho, even if I was out for slightly longer than initially intended, but I'm not sure I'll believe MM quite so readily in the future.

Part 2: A phone call from No. 2 Son to tell me he'd been mugged late last night in Bristol and his face was a mess. The rest of him seemed ok. It's always difficult for a mother to hear her son has been in difficulties, however it seems he'd done all the right things. In my business head injury is always something to be concerned about, but he'd been checked at the hospital and I was relieved to hear that he was alright just battered and bruised. It was a bit of a shock, but obviously not as much as a shock as it was for No. 2 Son. One of the sad (?) things of this is that the bloody 3 people who jumped my boy and his friend didn't gain anything at all except one graphic novel (belonging to No. 2 Son) and a phone and wallet with nothing in it (belonging to his friend). Cards were cancelled, phone was shut down all in minutes and so essentially they got nothing. Nothing except smashing my son's face up. A sad world we live in.

Part 3: A visit to John Lewis to see which washing machine I'd buy. Luckily the sales person just happened to be a supervisor who'd dropped in to do training with the sales force and I felt like I was in expert hands. I've gone for an A+++ rated Bosch, which apparently only uses the amount of water depending on the load and has a 15 minute programme, which sounds like the ideal 'older person's' washing machine to me. The fact that it also had £50 off and £50 cash back so was £100 cheaper than advertised was also a big plus.  Only one slight problem is that the first delivery date is next Thursday. I'm actually away in Edinburgh until tomorrow night and then off facilitating my annual Mindfulness Deepening Retreat on Holy Isle, off Arran and not home until next Tuesday, so the person it affects the most is Mountain Man. Hopefully he'll remember how to do a hand wash. 

Part 4: I started a 10 week poetry course with the Open Learning Unit at Edinburgh University. It was a bit scary to start with as there were only 2 new people out of 14 as all the others had been in the group for quite some time (one person since 2001). Not always easy to be a new girl. It looks like an interesting group and all but one of the ones that have been before are published poets, so hopefully I'll learn a lot from them.

Part 5: No. 1 Son came over for a chin wag. It's always lovely to see him. He came over sporting a new vacuum flask full of his homemade soup. We talked about his brother's mugging of course and it's one of the things I feel really good about myself as a mother, that my boys get on so well. I must've done something right.

Part 6: I had dinner in Edinburgh with my dear friend, N. We went round the corner to El Bar, one of our favourite places. A couple of glasses of wine, some great tapas, good company. A lovely way to spend an evening. Then I went back to N's to help her with her recently acquired iPhone and iPad, but was having difficulties in how both of them worked individually and together. It's in situations like this that I realise I know an awful lot more than I think I do. I managed to get her hooked onto her internet on both and tether them together. I was quite proud to be able to help, and N was pleased to be able to use them both after having had them for almost 3 weeks.

And that's quite enough for one day. Thank goodness tomorrow is a work day, it'll be a relief I think!