Late Night Blog Amidst Loud And Decisive Teenagers

Tonight, People, I am in my sitting room on my 12 Year Old Son's laptop. He is doing his French homework in here too as if I had insulted him, all his friends and their grandmothers, and sold his hamsters on Ebay. Such sighing such tutting such waving around of arms and legs as he slides on and off the sofa, such a landslide of French books and papers as he tries to avoid doing any real work. And I tap on, on the laptop, glasses on my nose, in a deeply intellectual way, hoping I may influence him somehow.

Into this comes larger than life happy bouncy 19 Year Old Daughter. She has just come back from a weekend of raves etc in Newcastle and has bypassed her flat on the way home so that she can come here and luxuriate in hot bubble baths and eat mountains of healthy food. I will provide all. She will recover loudly and I will gasp at her youthful rate of recovery from about 4 days of all night parties and junk food. Soon, when she can feed no more, bathe no more and sleep no more, she will get on the train to Brighton and back to her life there. To be fair, she is going straight on to a spate of night duties when she returns to work, so she does earn her down time. Back to tonight however, 19 Year Old Daughter has just come in and joined us and is playing jazz on the piano. 12 Year Old Son is in a furious pile of resentment and French homework on the floor, and I just tap on, teaching my children about concentration and application. Teaching them how to block all outside distraction and finish the task in hand. Only later will they find out I am writing a running commentary about them.

To complete this family update, 16 Year Old Son did come home for the weekend. It was clear to him that I had not changed, I had not acted on all his Training For Betterment Of Character Instructions and had probably never intended to obey any of his orders. So there was a small amount of Locking Of Oneself In Bedroom and Refusing To Eat and Storming Off from him, but we all got over it and by Sunday we had some time together cooking and making a wonderful tea for us all.

My computer got a virus this weekend and has been taken to the PG Doctor. I am bereft. All of my personal stuff and pictures have gone with the modem, and I am reduced to using 12 Year Old Son's laptop late in the evening in the house amidst my large expressive children and their highly emotive ways to make sure we all know exactly what they are thinking. And feeling.

Tomorrow I go to the Hospice to discuss the exhibition. Today friends came and gave me feedback about the paintings, and were very insightful. I am glad they came. It has been a difficult day to achieve anything, and by this afternoon I fell asleep as I sat to take notes on What To Do. So now, later than ever before, I am doing my blogs and sorting out my notes and ideas. Soon, oh thank God, it will be bed time and today can fade gently into the past and join all the other rather insubstantial and unsatisfying days I have got rid of. Tomorrow, after the Hospice meeting, I will just go and paint. That will make it all better again.