The One With The Bitten Face

I always feel a mixture of sadness and relief when Babcia goes home after a visit - sadness, obviously because she's my mum, I don't see her very often, and she lives a long way away (in our malignant Northern hometown as you know). But relief because she and I usually end up spending more than we should when we're together and neither of us can really afford it. Well naturally....she's a pensioner and I'm trying very hard to live a frugal life. We had a great visit though - lots of chat, lots of laughs, LOTS of charity shopping (which I'll show you next time); Mr Charming is home from uni, Red came back from London specially to see her babcia and Carb Addict had the weekend here. Big Man spent rather a lot of time in his room to escape the yacking from all of us. It's so nice to have three generations together but such a shame it doesn't happen very often :(
Anyway, Babcia made it home without any trouble this time, which is always good bearing in mind the palaver last time...

So, now we have one day before the house is full of children once again. Carb Addict is home for the weekend tomorrow and on Saturday we have hired a van to collect Red and all her worldly goods from Lewisham then bring her back here. Her plan is to stay at home for 'a month or so', get some work and make some money, then return to London and a new flat (that she hasn't attempted to look for, btw) and hopefully get a job working with people with autism. I'm hoping against hope that it all works out but I have a feeling that things may not go entirely to plan, as they have a habit of doing in this household. Mr Charming of course is already home and is also threatening to get a job since he is down to his last £100. And there was me fretting about having an empty nest - they're never off the doorstep.....!

So although there is lots to blog about I'm gonna make this a short one because I am at work at 8:00 tomorrow - extra hours to try and replenish the coffers. It's a pity I have to go out at all though because not only has some sort of insect bitten me on the face, leaving me with two hideous, hard blistery things near my lip (which are getting worse with every passing day), but when I woke up this morning I had a golfball-sized sore lump in my neck. And indeed still have. My lovely nurse colleague Kasia had a feel, asked if it was painful and when I said that it is, said 'is okay, is nothing. But see doctor'. And luckily the doctor agreed! An infected saliva gland in case you're interested. Or possibly a stone in it. We shall see. Apparently lots of gland lumps and swellings are due to being run down or to stress.
Now why would I be stressed?!