THAT FRIDAY FEELING!

Fridays are always a great day - it's the day for my regular morning art group with Ruth, Blaze (*name changed to respect her privacy - private joke)  and the rest of the girls, and as always it's all about the coffee, cakes and painting!  But today didn't start out quite so great, in fact it has been one of those days that you would like to rewind, and delete!  My 15 year old son woke up and he was unrecognisable!  No he wasn't hideously swollen from some allergic reaction to a bed bug,  nor was he covered from neck to brow in acne (it can happen)........he had become..........I can barely get the words out.........a sullen moody teenage boy.................  You can stop laughing now. It's all been a terrible shock.  We didn't think it would happen to us, he's always been so communicative and cuddly. We thought we were one of the lucky families - you know, the type you see in American TV programmes like  'Teen Cribs', where they're  all so perfect and have weekly family meetings etc, etc to communicate their feelings.  So, my day started with grunts and groans (stop it you have such a dirty mind) and pretty much set the bar for the rest of the day.    I get to art and the canvass I am working on has been moved during the week from the shelf where I left it out of harms way, to the floor,  so that it can be knocked and damaged - no respect!  My phone keeps ringing and usually I ignore but this time I have to take the call and end up wasting precious art time.......and the lovely hot cappuccino that Blaze got me from the cafe over the road goes cold!   Can it get any worse......oh yes......After recouping some time and getting stuck into some creativity it's all over too soon and the clock strikes 12.30.  On the way out Blaze and I drop into the lovely new Kosher bakery/cafe next door to pick up our weekly Cholla. To our amazement they are doing 'whole-wheat', which we have never seen before - and just as I am about to go and bag one this old man with an attitude beats me to the shelf and begins to touch and prod and squeeze each and everyone of them - yuck! So I said to him, half joking half serious, "you know in my house we have a rule that you have to take the one you touch, so by my count your buying the whole shelf"  Well you should have seen the look he gave me - I tell you if looks could kill I wouldn't be blogging now!  Needless to say I didn't bother with the whole-wheat and stuck to my usual....but I mean really....how disgusting!  Some people just have no manners. Then if things couldn't get any weirder, we made our way back to the car wash, where Blaze had left her car for a very cheap £11 valet and the rather hunky guy directed us to where he had parked it.  As we got closer there was this really odd smell that got stronger and stronger and then BAM! - he had parked the car under this tree and this tree had obviously been home to a flock of birds with gastro-interitus.  There was bird s**t everywhere, and I mean every where.  The car was literally covered. It was the most bizarre thing we had ever seen and the smell was stomach turning.  Needless to say we drove the car back to the car wash and after  much hysterical laughter on both sides they re-washed the car..........for free.......It was on the drive home we began to think that may be Mr I Can-Squeeze-All-The-Chollas-if-I-Like might have been some sort of 'bird whisperer'. Spooky.