It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.

Its been a while. It has become such a habit for me to write almost every day lately that not writing has been quite difficult. I probably gave it a rest subconsciously because my husband mentioned that it was starting to dominate my and our life I suppose. He doesn't really know why I do this although I have tried to explain.

We never talk about the details of each others work by mutual agreement. He is a 3D animator and his work bores me and vice versa. We talk about the people and the events but never the detail of the problems we might encounter I guess the fields are just too diverse.

Apart from the comment he made the other night his behaviour in the last 48 hours is a main reason why I haven't written.

Thursday night - Animation festival
On Thursday night he went with some work colleagues to an animation festival. I stayed home with the children and worked till midnight (and took a break to watch Kath & Kim) I had been home since 2pm Thursday afternoon working from home. One of my work colleagues told me to get myself home because I am actually not feeling well rather than infect them.

I have some chesty head cold which makes you just lurve your life in summer - nose dripping like a tap, sneezing and hacking etc etc. I have a voice that sounds like I have been eating gravel which happened when my throat became raw from the coughing.

Despite feeling like crap - I still have to meet my work deadlines and managed to put the effort in Thursday to do so and got into bed around midnight. P turned up around then with some company. I promptly fell asleep and then was awoken by him around 2.30am. We then tried to have a conversation which involved me asking him who had come home and he denying that anyone had come home and giggling. I soon realised he was completely trashed no he was worse than that he was wasted and non compis mentis. I have only seen him like this a couple of times in 14 years and while he is a happy jovial drunk he is a complete pest and I could not get him to be quiet or make any sense until eventually I went to sleep with Elliot around 4amish.

I then had trouble sleeping because P was wandering and crashing around the house and I was sure he would wake Gabriella so I had to lead him back to bed.

Friday morning - home life.
Around 6am Gabriella woke up. By now I was completely trashed too - from lack of sleep and my head cold but I had to get up and deal with getting Elliot ready for school.

We had a fairly interesting morning when the tree guys rang to say they would be around in 15mins to chop down the palm trees that P had arranged with them to do earlier in the week. I had to try and get P up to deal with them - and he was still inebriated - when I was trying to get him up he kept saying "Get Heidi (person from work) to deal with it". I managed to get him up and focused on doing his part to enable the tree chopping business to occur.

Luckily my sister turned up and left with the children. After the tree men left - I put P back to bed and finished my work on my paper around midday - and that was just some final editing and sending it but it all took time.

I texted P's office manager to ask him what he did to my husband last night - because it was the worse I had seen him. He said that P and another colleague (the head animator) had trashed themselves it was something they both needed to do given all the tension at their work over the last 3 weeks. Several of the animators were retrenched and P was one of the very few retained - and for the past few weeks he had been helping quite a few of them with their resumes. Many of them would have to move to Sydney for work and the head animator hoped to go to Pixar in San Franciso.

Luckily because P's manager had been babysitting them last night (he was one of my late night visitors) he wasn't overly concerned that P wouldn't be coming in to work that day.

Friday afternoon - out and about.
P got up around midday and we decided to go for lunch and went and had some Indian. This was actually quite enjoyable having lunch out without the kids and checking out a one of my favourite bookstores called Riverbend . I managed to find a great book to help us with Elliot called "4 weeks to a Better Behaved Child" . I told Elliot today that I was reading it so I could be a better parent. Plus I ordered Elliot a Roald Dahl CD rom.

When we got the children back in the afternoon I decided to finally get a few hours sleep so that we could be ready to go next door to the neighbours for a meet and greet with some of the other neighbours.

We very nearly backed out of going - between my lack of sleep and the cold and P's hangover we thought we would be less than sparkling company.

Friday night - out again
Ultimately however probably due to the wine and the company we ended up having a very good time and we left there at 12.30am. Basically Paul did a quinella and backed up quite well all things considered. The people we met were absolutely great - I am sure we will have lots to do with them - there were lots of laughs and many things in common. I am sure we will invite them all over for christmas drinks this year. We have a very good neighbourhood.

A&D who hosted last night showed me that they are extremely decent neighbours despite the fact that their house and ours once upon a time had some great city views. A&D are not bitter that their neighbour (a prominent ex local govt councilor) built this huge concrete and rendered building (and it is monstrous) beside them and took their views. A&D now basically look onto bare taupe coloured walls that I would say reach up about 3 storeys. A&D decided not to be bitter about it and move on and get along well with their new neighbours. I would have to say they are very very generous as I would find it very difficult if I were in their position given that last night I saw for myself first hand what it is like to live in the shadow of that monstrous house.

The remainder of my night though was worse than the previous night because Elliot developed earaches and Gabriella did her usual wake up several times I had my hacking cough. P was of no use to me at all and throughout the night whenever I tried (without success) to get him to help Elliot I ended up cursing P a few times and threatened to divorce him at least once. Naturally I was even more tired than ever.

Saturday-recovery
Then luckily for P he made up for his lack of action last night and this morning he took the children at 6 am and let me sleep till 10am - so today I feel remotely human again.

P and I have had a pleasant afternoon cooking together - I made Ma Po Tofu and he made a Lamb Vindaloo and Lamb Rogan Josh and then we ate our lovely dinner together (without the children).

We also watched "Kill Bill Volume 1" - what can I say a blood spurting killing spree of a movie - I get so desensitized to Tarantinos use of violence and blood that absoutely nothing shocks me in his movies. I become quite blaze about it all. In fact it is almost laughable - not that I found amusement in the movie story just amusement in the movie making.

Thank God Elliot was not home - though its not like I ever would have let him watch it that's why it has taken us so long to watch it -we have had it here for months I would never subject him to a movie like that given his fears at the moment.