Last night at 10pm Andy phoned me. I didn't answer because I knew it was him and didn't much feel like talking. He sounded tired and said I hadn't phoned him (didn't know I was meant to), and he was going to bring the girls over at 10am next day.
I didn't phone back, and went to bed, still ill.
He dropped them off at about 11am. I was paying bills and doing financial stuff. I should have been working on the newsletter as last posting date is soon and I am worried about going over my deadline, but with the kids here I decided I wouldn't.
I did join authors den for extra book marketing publicity prior to Christmas, and spent some time on that while they were playing with toys. I feel really ill (nausea) and DD4 is hot and has a bad cough so we didn't feel like doing anything active.
Then DD1 says she has £10 and wants to buy a Christmas present for daddy so I had an idea. There was this item I had to take back to Next because it was faulty so I told her if she gave me her £10 for the cab fares, I would pay for her to get a present for daddy on my card, whatever she wanted in store as long as it wasn't expensive.
She agreed and all of them wanted to come out with me so she paid for the cab and we all went to Next, I returned my item and then we looked around for her daddy's present.
She is terrible for making her mind up about things! First we looked in the menswear dept and she was uming and ahhing over the socks and slippers, then she looked at the gadgets (romote control cars, casino games etc for men), then she said no, I don't like this, lets go in the home furnishings dept. So we looked at cushions for his sofa and she said 'no, I hate those furry ones, they look like a sheeps bum.'
So I suggested what about a wall clock? She said no. Picture frames? no, didn't like them either. We looked at chocolates, she still couldn't make up her mind, much much worse than me.
DD3 asked if she could get something for him so she chose a teddy with some chocolates, that her and DD2 and DD4 will give him together.
Then DD1 said lets go back in menswear so we started looking at clothes. Everything I suggested, she said, 'he doesn't like that', or, 'he wouldn't like that.' So I found this top I thought he would like, and she said 'I don't know if he'd wear it.'
She was like a typical woman, y'know, going 'should I buy the pink or the green?' while the man stares at his watch and wonders when he can eat, LOL. I laughed at her and said, 'DD1, you're terrible.'
In the end, she gave up on the clothes and went back to home furnishings and found these candles she wanted to get him (he likes candles, his house is full of them).
So anyway, we purchased the candles and the teddy and chocolates and some blue wrapping paper ('because blue is for boys', said DD1) and went home and they all wrapped them themselves (DD4 got a bit of help from her older sisters) and I gave them some cards to fill out for him and for the neighbour's kids, and we went over the road to deliver them to the neighbour's.
Then they watched a film, we ate spaghetti which DD3 helped me cook, and Andy phoned saying can I have them overnight because he's still busy. I said yes but don't come back till the afternoon as I'm out in the morning. So I got my night dresses for DD1 and DD2 again, and found a pair that said age 5-6 years for DD3, that Alicia normally wears, and they've gone to bed now.
