Road kill

Do you believe her mother would allow such a thing?

No, I don't. Her mother is the reference "control freak" and she must always get her way. Both children are distraught about leaving their schools but their mother really does not care, although she says "it pains me". You know she doesn't care because her actions reveal that she only has her own best interests at heart. My suggestion to her was "Why don't you wait another 10 years before you start your old ways of moving around again? You have other people to consider now." And the answer, as usual, is "Oh no, I will be happier if I move, therefore the children will be happier". This is a false argument of course, one she always uses.

At the moment my daughter is saying she wants to come and live with me, but Alice will try to emotionally blackmail her to stay with her. Other than calling Alice today and asking her to reconsider for the sake of the childrens stability (to which she said a firm "no") I am just sitting on the sidelines, offering my support to my daughter and trying to get her to realize that:

a) it's not the end of the world
b) she has options
- she moves with Alice, i pick her up in the mornings and take her to school everyday and drop her off in the evenings
- she lives with me during the week, her mother at weekends, or some combination of the two
c) nothing is final, whatever my daughters wants to do is ok, she can change her mind at any time

I did ask Alice how she knew that she wouldn't move again and disrupt them again .. Alice said "Oh maybe I will, who knows what life will bring?"

In my opinion this is entirely the wrong type of person who should have children. When you have kids you do have to consider what is best for them as well, too much disruption in their education at ages 9 and 13 can only be counterproductive.

So maybe I will need to mount a legal challenge if Katherine really does want to live with me. Key to winning that will be her not leaving her current school. I'll give it a week or so and monitor my daughter's wishes on this, she has only just heard of her mothers plan. She called me last night and said a lot of things, she also said "If mummy does this now how do I know she won't do it again and move me out of school again?" and "Daddy we are not moving right, we're staying put?" To me this says that stability is very important to her. I said "Don't worry we're not moving, and you shouldn't have to think about this stuff, these are adult worries that you'll get later on in life anyway, as a child you should be happy and skipping in a field of buttercups, don't worry it will all be ok".

She said "Daddy stop it!!" with that jokey voice she uses. It was good to hear her smile.

Alice is the kind of person who when driving on the motorway hears a report on the radio that says there is a big accident ahead and to turn off the road. She duly ignores the advice and carries on regardless. After she gets entangled in the accident she says "Life really does buffet me about, it's so hard, I'm so unlucky, where will it take me next?" She could control her life much more but allows it to control her. I wonder if all "control freaks" are like this at heart? The reason they are always wanting to control other peoples lives is that they cannot control their own?

The girls are waking up to the person that their mother really is, and they do not like it. It is very sad to behold, but had to happen, it will only get worse before it gets better, but it is always darkest before the dawn.

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Only 15 PSI? But air pressure at sea-level is 14.7 PSI anyway .. does that mean the pressure in the cooker is only 0.3 PSI greater than air pressure, or 14.7 + 15 = 29.7 PSI ? Depending on how elevated your kitchen is of course.

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I much enjoyed reading about your biking missive up in the hills, nice job, great photos! You are really plugged into that community pal, but didn't see the "Hells Satans" T-Shirts anywhere :-)