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Saturday, September 07, 2013

You might think the highest priority on my current blogging agenda would be my daughter's first day at school, but having failed to write anything at all yesterday due to a prior commitment I had with a bar of chocolate and a comfy sofa, I'm now going to write about steam mops. No, really. Think of it as a public service announcement for the filthy.

If anyone out there would like a good quality steam mop, then get yourself down to Argos ASAP and buy the Steamworks SW1 model for £25. When you do, they'll give you the Vax S87-T2 instead, which has an RRP of £99.99.

I realise that makes no sense at all, but it happens to be true. One of Lisa's friends posted that info on Facebook this morning, saying that she'd just got herself the Vax model for twenty-five quid, by going into the Worthing branch of Argos and asking for the Steamworks one. A quick search on Google proves it to be a nationwide anomaly, mentioned on websites such as this one.

So we've just tried it. We drove over to the Brighton branch of Argos a couple of hours ago, ordered the Steamworks steam mop, paid £25, and a Vax S87-T2 came rolling down the conveyor belt. The assistant didn't even say anything, despite the receipt clearly saying 'Steamworks SW1'. They had another four in stock, so I was tempted to buy them all and sell them on eBay, but Lisa was already heading next door under her own steam to the Marks & Spencer's food shop, so I decided to quit while I was ahead. You can have too much of a good thing.

Anyhoo, Lisa will shortly be letting off steam in the kitchen, and Toby will no longer have to slide about on grease while he's lighting the gas, but going back to Thursday, I'm not sure if I mentioned it, but it was Amelie's first day at school...

That card came from our good friend Marie, who has made a lot of major life-changes recently and is now a regular churchgoer. She practically lives there. Which is appropriate, as she's Toby's Godmother. And even more appropriate, as she's now caused us a lot of Catholic guilt about the fact that we didn't buy Amelie a 'Happy 1st Day at School' card. Although, in our defence, we didn't know they existed. Much like God.

Anyhoo, all of that aside, Amelie's first day was a triumph. It got off to a slightly shaky start when she called the headmistress "Mrs Huge", but I think that was less down to rudeness, and more of an earwax problem. And let's face it, she calls me Mr Fat, and that sounds nothing like Gardner, so the woman should consider herself lucky.

We successfully delivered Amelie into the classroom without any tears (from any of us), and having handed them £2.10 for her school dinner, we returned home to await the phone call telling us she'd been expelled. To our surprise, it never came. So we decided that while the cat was away, the mouse should play...


Yes, as it transpired, Thursday wasn't just Amelie's first day at school, it was also Toby's first morning at playgroup. I'd taken the day off work, so we took him to the same one his sister used to go to, which is held once a week in a church hall. And he absolutely loved it. Possibly because he was blissfully unaware of how close he'd come to being run over by a trike.

After an initial period exploring the baby mat and toddler toys...


... he was off like a rat up a drainpipe, and marauding all over the hall like Hitler across Western Europe. He was grabbing other children's toys, other children's food, other children's hair, and generally making a nuisance of himself. But judging by the beaming smile he wore throughout, he was having a whale of a time.

Unfortunately, what goes up, must come down, and after 45 minutes of being a tearaway tot, and covering a good half mile around the church hall, his intensive burst of activity ended quite abruptly...


The boy's got no stamina. Much like his father. So we took him home for a nap.

As for Amelie, we picked her up at three, to the news that she'd made a new friend, eaten pizza and broccoli, and sung Twinkling Stars in the Night to all her classmates. I asked if she'd performed The Piglet Song too, but she hadn't. I was gutted.

She had, however, played games, read stories, talked about her treasure box to the teacher, played "in a field", and generally had about as much fun as Toby. Frankly she can't wait to go back. Which is frustrating as her next day's not until Tuesday. But all in all, it was a major success. We're not sure how we've bred such confident children (I suspect a mix-up at the hospital), but we're very proud of them both.

1 comments:

Phil's Mum said...

You need to buy Amelie a field and Toby a church hall and they'll both be happy!