Chaos...

Ella is now looking at me with what looks like pity. I'm finding the odd ten minutes in the day when the little rubber bands are calling my name. I probably need to move them away from the kitchen island where my iPad also lives during the day. The combination is fatal. YouTube, a plastic loom and a bowl full of tiny rubber bands. I recommend it, it's therapeutic in the midst of chaos, really.

The chaos involves a bath full of cricket whites, club kits, county kits, my kit, Ella's kit. Beside the sink is Vanish, stain removing soap, Ariel stain remover. Nothing seems to get the grass/mud stains off.

The fridge is chaotic. We've been eating out of picnic baskets for the last few weeks. Eating far too many fish and chips late at night on the way home from a match. I swear I NEED a campervan for this lifestyle. I could just rustle up some nice soup, beans on toast, pasta... Actually that's my entire repertoire. Anything more complicated and I leave it to M.

I am both nervous and excited about playing my first match of the season tonight. I washed my kit. It didn't smell too good having been folded up in my bag next to Jake's hand me down cricket shoes. It's quite handy having a son with big feet. His spikes fit me nicely and so do last year's all weather surface cricket shoes.

So, let's talk about what's important right now. Yes, the Triple Chain Cuff, the Raised Triple Rope and the Starburst have all been mastered by yours truly. I am pretty chuffed. The Starburst is my favourite not least of all because I subconsciously chose colours that remind me of the formerly named 'opal fruits'. Whatever was wrong with that? I think senility is creeping in because I called a Snickers bar by its former name the other day too, anyone fancy a Marathon? Stupid name, but then so is Snickers.

I'm now using a size 3mm crochet hook for this new hobby of mine. Each tutorial on YouTube represents a sort of mind bending type puzzle to me and I like to keep my brain alive if I can. Crochet is a lot like that. Motifs for example. Once I've cracked the pattern I'm sometimes not so fussed about doing anything with them. I suppose that's why I enjoyed Maths and went on to do it at A Level. The Pure and Applied side of things was like a series of little puzzles to solve. Not that I'm a natural Mathematician, I just like a challenge. M likes crosswords. He does all the ones he knows and then he gets me to finish it.

Which leads me to another puzzle in life. How does Jake get through so many pairs of shoes? It doesn't seem to matter whether we buy £60 shoes from Clark's or £30 pairs from elsewhere. He swears he doesn't play football in them but how on earth can they get wrecked just by walking? This latest pair is barely two months old.

Naturally M doesn't blink twice about paying large sums of money for cricket related kit but he's having a hissy fit over the shoes. He's on a school trip today so not for the first time we will have to buy a pair he hasn't even tried on and hope for the best. Boys. Grrrrr. E has had the same pair for at least two years! I wouldn't mind so much if he just grew out of them.