Happy Anniversary to Lovely hub and me on May 7th – the man deserves a chestful of medals after 24 years of marriage but says he’ll be happy with a card and a Chinese takeaway.  A week later and it is Lovely hub’s birthday but this year I think I’ve managed to actually buy things that he wants (that means that he has acquired them rather than letting me run amok on the Internet as usual).  Work first however.

So – the title of this month’s OU assignment is

‘Critically evaluate the contribution that patient case studies have made, not only to our understanding of cognitive processes, but also to the development of cognitive neuropsychology as a discipline in its own right’

 Not necessarily the most inspiring title but definitely less challenging than last month’s statistical horror – still having nightmares about two-tailed hypotheses and ANOVAs.  Shudder.

Lovely hub’s birthday falls on the day before the assignment is due in – we have the week off together and I am determined to get the assignment written well in advance so that my time off isn’t disrupted  by stress and teeth gnashing again.

That said – did I study last night?  Nah.  Caught up on some of the digibox goodies and dozed fitfully until hub came back from work at ten thirty.  Then we jumped into the car and drove off to Manch to collect College Boy and his friend from a gig.  We were a bit early and hub was hungry so midnight found us sitting outside a takeaway in downtown Manch eating kebab, listening to late night rock and waiting for the lads.  Had to make a detour on the way home to Maccy D’s to fuel up the starving teenagers who turned their noses up at the kebabs.  A carful of dubious looking youths pulled up next to us in the car park but ruined their street cred because they were all tucking into McFlurries – aah – bless.  It was quite un-middle-aged to be whizzing off anywhere at that time of the night and for once, my College Boy  was the lovely funny enthusiastic person that I know he can be – instead of the hulking,brooding stropmonster that frequently inhabits his body these days.

 And tonight – did I study tonight? Nah.  We voted.  Hub administered some mild words of warning about not haranguing the Tory Boy lurking outside the polling station again this year – he spoils ALL my fun.   I promised to be good but only if said Tory Boy didn’t accost me and ask me for my polling card number.   I wasn’t good.  I wasn’t that bad either although I vaguely remember muttering ‘Tory scum’ as we came back out of the hall.  He shouldn’t have stood in my way.  Them’s the rules.

We came home and ate, then fell asleep until College Boy’s return from the Astroturf brought a rude awakening – he cannot do anything quietly  so no future for him as a cat burglar or a ninja warrior then.  Hub was on nights but dropped me at the home of my dear friend who enables me to indulge in my vanity of vanities – my ravishing red fingernails.  Dear Friend (DF) is a woman of many and varied talents who transforms these fingernails into the stuff of dreams.  Her own magic fingers are adept at massage, reflexology, manicures and pedicures.  Lovely hub says that when DF has done his feet he feels like he is walking on air – I usually manage to bring him back down to earth with a bump though.

So I have scarlet fingernails with holographic sparkles that make me feel positively skittish and not all respectable.

Tomorrow I will be good. I’m taking a flexi day before my hours reach astronomical proportions.   Hub will be asleep all morning, College Boy will be off harassing his teachers and it will just be me, whingeing cat and reading up for the assignment.  When hub wakes up we may run away to the sea, or a river or somewhere with a view for a couple of hours – all work and no play and all that stuff.  Sometimes you just need to step aside from the things that you should be doing and do things that make you feel at ease again.

This makes it sound as if it’s been a dreadful week – it hasn’t.  It’s been busy and tiring but sprinkled with diversions much like the sparkles on my fingernails; hub’s silly (and sometimes naughty) texts, e-mails from a new friend that make me smile, the random banter of my team mates, whingeing cat’s enthusiastic purr when I pick him up for a cuddle, and the grudging admission from College Boy that we aren’t that bad as parents really (but we mustn’t let it go to our heads).

Bed beckons now and these eyes really won’t stay open for much longer unless I find some match sticks.   I purely love my fingernails.