The Independent review summed up the 10th series of the Apprentice as the return of the ‘Self-aggrandising nicompoops’ Meanwhile on this side of the pond, the last few days have felt something like juggling all twelve tasks of the Apprentice, combined with the labours of Hercules.
In addition to the normal stuff of life, working, teaching, parenting etc.,
Installed in the spare bedroom we have the fifteen year old, at short notice because the teens home was rendered unexpectedly without running water (I suspect sabotage but we didn’t go into details). She has flitted in and out with boyfriend, slept while normal people are awake and vice versa, and grazed her way through anything that might have contained sugar. Teen. I’m just not used to them.
Installed in the normally unused back room we have ex-prisoner friend, who is here to make himself useful for a few days so that we have an excuse to pay him. As we speak he is taking the garage apart, hopefully in a it-has-to-get-worse-before-it-gets-better sort of way.
The Scouts were selling pizzas in order to start raising money for summer camp. It was quite hard to persuade them to get motivated in October. They don’t normally start thinking about summer camp until about two minutes before the event, at about the time when they realise that they haven’t got any money to pay for it. So it was a bit of a grind, but we sold 62 pizzas in the end.
Joni had his first competitive swimming event on Saturday morning. He won his breast stroke heat, and there were medals for everyone.
I had to gather the paperwork and the rubber stamps in order to sign Danny up for school next year by eight o’clock this morning.
We supposedly had a district Scout event on Saturday evening, for which we had a couple of planning meetings, but in the end was rained off. I have rarely been so grateful for the Argentinean culture of “Any hint of rain stops play”.
We did have a tea and games on Saturday afternoon for the mothers of Scouts, for which I made a cake.
And also a bring and share after church on Sunday evening, for someone’s birthday, for which I made another cake.
And we are helping one of our Scout mums with a barbecue chicken sale. The mum need cancer treatment, and in the government healthcare system, treatment comes free, but you have to pay for the medication. Go figure.
Meanwhile, I was writing my sermon for Mothers’ Day which was on Sunday. I started thinking about “Jerusalem Jerusalem”, slid over into Isaiah, and ended up coming to rest in 1 Kings 17 and God feeding the widow feeding Elijah. And in the event I ditched all my notes and went up to the pulpit with nothing more than my bible. Which worked fine, apart from the fact that I can no longer read the tiny print from the bible under the poor light at the front of our church! Options for the future include printing out the passage in larger font, or to start using those reading glasses.
This weeks tasks include presenting the paperwork to borrow the agricultural college for a Scout event in November. And writing a talk for a Christian kids’ group on the subject of Halloween. The more I think about it, the less I care about whether kids dress up in bin bags or not. So now I need a different line on this if I want any chance of sounding remotely credible. But right now, I need to go buy a new pump for the fish tank, and then I have an English class to teach.