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Friday, February 21, 2014

Just look at the quality of that craftwork...


That's Amelie's half-term holiday homework. She didn't make it, obviously. I spent a day's annual leave creating it while she was at her Grandma's. But it amounts to the same thing.

To be honest, the headmistress had pretty much given me permission to do it instead of my daughter. According to the homework sheet that Amelie came out of school with last Friday, they're planning to create a giant mosaic to celebrate the school's Silver Jubilee in June, and "During half term we are inviting all families to decorate a small square piece of card" in any way they choose. It's where we get the phrase 'carte blanche'.

The theme of the mosaic is 'Nature, the Sea and the colour Blue', so I've pretty much covered all the bases there. I was tempted to draw a picture of Lee Ryan being savaged by a shark, which would also have ticked all the boxes, but in the end I went with a 3D collage of the kind of typical wildlife you find off the Sussex coast. Quite a long way off the Sussex coast. The Pacific, if I'm honest. Still, if Amelie had been involved, it would have featured mermaids and The Octonauts, so I'm maintaining more of a grip on reality than my daughter.

Anyhoo, having been off sick at the end of last week, I returned to work on Monday, and toiled away until Wednesday lunchtime, which marked the beginning of my annual leave. I only had 2½ days left for this financial year, and the half term seemed like a good time to take it.

Of course, that was before I knew I was going to be ill again. With impeccable timing, I woke up yesterday morning feeling sick, and within half an hour had a bad headache. And I hadn't even seen Amelie. Despite that, we decided to take Toby to the playgroup at the Methodist Church down the road, the highlight of which was when a mother came up to me at the plasticine table and said "Oh wow, you can really tell he's yours! He looks exactly like you!"

Unfortunately she was referring to a different child. Toby had wandered off to the other side of the hall at the time. I was tempted to keep quiet to spare the lady's embarrassment, but I was a bit concerned that the boy in question might start misbehaving and I'd end up getting the blame, so I let her down gently and politely. As a result, she was completely mortified, and Lisa's now convinced that I'm fathering all the neighbourhood children.

So it was a good morning's work. By the end of which, I felt like throwing up and had the mother of all headaches. I'd planned to spend my annual leave laying some new flooring in the bathroom, but frankly the only thing which got floored was me. I was forced to spend the afternoon in my dressing gown, printing out photos of turtles and cutting out starfish, whilst popping painkillers and sucking on Bisodol. I also painted a shoebox, but that's another story.

I went to bed early feeling like death warmed up, but having made it through the night, I feel as though I'm improving today. So by the end of my annual leave, I should be fit and well for work. It's a bit of a dream come true.

1 comments:

Phil's Mum said...

It's because you hardly ever take time off when you are ill, so something/someone thinks you should be struck down when you are on leave. Nice artwork though. At least you haven't completely wasted your time!