Diary of a Minibus Driver

WInter presents for the PC Brigade

Fri, 04 Nov 2005 19:51:17 +0100

So Lambeth City Council wanted to change the Christmas Lights to Winter Lights?! I am almost ashamed to be British when I hear this sort of tomfoolery. Whatever next? Winter presents under the Winter Tree? Father Winter?!

No no no!! It's Christmas and I say this as an atheist. Whether we celebrate Christmas as Christians or as Heathens it is still Christmas. We have to respect that it is the day that Christians celebrate the birth of Christ (and I sort of believe in the New Testament but not at all in the Old Testament) and should we choose to celebrate it as a time to be with family and share consumer goods or just to have a couple of days off work we shouldnt change the name. If the PC Brigade want their Winter Festival then they can darn well choose another day to celebrate it on. Leave Christmas alone!!

We are spending Christmas in the US. Over there no one says 'Happy Christmas!' You have to say 'Happy Holidays!'
You send Happy Holiday cards and sing carols around a Happy Holiday tree and decorate your house even when it's 80F outside with icicles because it's the Holiday season. You can't offend non-Christians because they have a day off work too and wouldnt be allowed this if it wasnt a non-religious festival. I dont want the UK to be like that.

Yesterday I read in one of the tabloids (it was probably a few days old as I dont get a chance to read the news on the day it is printed!) that a cathedral choir was made to change the words of 'God Rest ye merry Gentlemen' to 'God Rest ye merry people' just to keep the PC Brigade happy! What lunacy!! In fact I am embarrassed to be British if this is the way things are going?

Wonder what it's like in the Seychelles? I could cope with living there I think. If it's PC-free then I am on my way!
Oooops - no I'm not because my husband has just frittered the savings away on sandwiches, sweets and whatever else he buys in Tescos and we cant even afford to buy bread this week!

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Need to keep this for prosterityitytyity

Mon, 31 Oct 2005 18:40:25 +0100

This is a compilation of actual student GCSE answers .........

1. Ancient Egypt was inhabited by mummies and they all wrote in hydraulics.
They lived in the Sarah Dessert and traveled by Camelot. The climate of the
Sarah is such that inhabitants have to live elsewhere.

2. The bible is full of interesting caricatures. In the first book of the
Bible Guinesses, Adam and Eve were created from an apple tree. One of their
children, Cain, asked, "Am I my brother's son?"

3. Moses led the Hebrew slaves to the Red Sea, where they made unleavened
bread which is bread made without any ingredients. Moses went up on Mount
Cyanide to get the ten commandments. He died before he reached Canada.

4. Soloman has tree wives and seven hundred porcupines.

5. The Greeks were a highly sculptured people, and without them we
wouldn't have history. The Greeks also had myths. A myth is a female
moth.

6. Actually, Homer was not written by Homer but by another man of that
name.

7. Socrates was a famous Greek teacher who went around giving people
advice. They killed him. Socrates died of an overdose of wedlock. After
his death, his career suffered a dramatic decline.

8. In the Olympic games, Greeks ran races, jumped, hurled biscuits, and
threw the java.

9. Eventually, the Romans conquered the Greeks. History call people Romans
because they never stayed in one place for very long.

10. Julius Caesar extinguished himself on the battlefields of Gaul. The
Ides of March murdered him because they thought he was going to be make
king. Dying, he gasped out "Tee hee Brutus""

11. Nero was a cruel Tyrany who would torture his subjects by playing the
fiddle to them.

12. Joan of Arc was burnt to a steak and was cannonized by Bernard Shaw.
Finally Magna Carta provided that no man should be hanged twice for the
same offense.

13. In midevil times most people were alliterate. The greatest writer of
the futile ages was Chaucer, who wrote many poems and verses and also wrote
literature.

14. Another story was William Tell, who shot an arrow through an apple
while standing on his son's head.

15. Queen Elizabeth was the "Virgin Queen". As a queen she was a success.
When she exposed herself before her troops they all shouted "Hurrah"

16. It was an age of great inventions and discoveries. Gutenberg invented
removable type and the Bible. Another important invention was the
circulation of blood. Sir Walter Raleigh is a historical figure becaused
he invented cigarettes and stated smoking. And Sir Francis Drake
circumcised the world with a 100 foot clipper.

17. The greatest writer of the Renaissance was William Shakespeare. He was
born in the year 1565, supposedly on his birthday. He never made much
money and is famous only because of his plays. He wrote tragedies,
comedies, and hysterectomies, all in Islamic pentameter. Romer and Juliet
are an example of a heroic couple. Romeo's last wish was to be laid by
Juliet.

18. Writing at the same time as Shakespeare was Miguel Cervantes. He wrote
Donkey Hote. The next great author was John Milton. Milton wrote Paradise
Lost. Then his wife dies and he wrote Paradise Regained.

19. During the Renaissance America began. Christopher Columbus was a
great navigator who discovered America while cursing about the Atlantic.
His ships were called the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Fe.

20. Later, the Pilgrims crossed the ocean, and this was called Pilgrim's
Progress. The winter of 1620 was a hard one for the settlers. Many
people died and many babies were born. Captain John Smith was responsible
for all this.

21. One of the causes of the Revolutionary War was the English but tacks in
their tea. Also, the colonists would send their parcels through the post
without stamps. Finally the colonists won the war and no longer had to pay
for taxis. Delegates from the original 13 states formed the Contented
Congress. Thomas Jefferson, a Virgin, and Benjamin Franklin were two
singers of the Declaration of Independence. Franklin discovered
electricity by rubbing two cats backwards and declared "A horse divided
against itself cannot stand" Franklin died in 1790 and is still dead.

22. Soon the Constitution of the United States was adopted to secure
domestic hostility. Under the constitution the people enjoyed the right to
keep barearms.

23. Abraham Lincoln became America's greatest Precedent. Lincoln's mother
died in infancy, and he was born in a log cabin which he built with his own
hands. Abraham Lincoln freed the salves by signing the Emasculation
Proclamation. On the night fo April 14, 1865, Lincoln went to the theater
and got shot in his seat by one of the actors in a moving picture show.
The believed assinator was John Wiles Booth, a suppossedly insane actor.
This ruined Booth's career.

24.Meanwhile in Europe, the enlightenment was a reasonable time. Voltaire
invented electricity and also wrote a book called Candy.

25. Gravity was invented by Isaac Walton. It is chiefly noticeable in the
autumn when the apples are falling off trees.

26. Johann Bach wrote a great many musical compositions and had a large
number of children. In between he practiced on an old spinster which he
kept in his attic. Bach died from 1750 to the present. Bach was the most
famous composer in the world and so was Handel. Handel was half Gernam,
Half Italian and Half English. He was very large.

27. Beethoven wrote music even though he was deaf. He was so deaf he
wrote loud music. He took long walks in the forest even when everyone was
calling for him. Beethoven expired in 1827 and later died of this.

28. The French Revolution was accomplised before it happened and
catapulted into Napolean. Napolean wanted an heir to inherit his power, but
since Josephine was a baroness, she couldn't have any children.

29. The sun never set on the British Empire because the British Empire is
in the East and the sun sets in the West.

30. Queen Victoria was the longest queen. She sat on a thorn for 63 years.
She was a moral woman who practiced virtue. Her death was the final event
which ended her reign.

31. The nineteenth century was a time of a great many thoughts and
inventions. People stopped reproducing by hand and started reproducing by
machine. The invention of the steamboat caused a network of rivers to
spring up. Cyrus McCormick invented the McCormick raper, which did the
work of a hundred men.

32. Lois Pasteur discovered a cure for rabbis. Charles Darwin was a
naturalist who wrote the Organ of the Species. Madman Curie discovered
radio. And Karl Marx became one of the Marx brothers.

33. The First World War, caused by the assignation of the Arch-Duck by an
anahist, ushered in a new error in the anals of human history.

Comments

Life is a lemon and I want my money back

Sun, 30 Oct 2005 11:32:10 +0100

Sunday is a day for reflection. Reflection today was cut short by rain. Did manage a bit though and we also found an as new Monopoly game to boot.

On a day like today where rain halts play/car booting I would usually call in on my Grandma. But my Grandma isnt there any more. It feels so weird because she should be there. She was invincible. She should have outlived even me. She was the only person who I could call a dirty slapper and survive without getting a black eye!

I have plans - I *know* that one day I will see the Taj Mahal (subject to it not being blown up by terrorists), will walk along the Great Wall of China and will buy a dodgy Rolex in Hong Kong. I have to have plans because that makes the hum drum of everyday life worth living. It means that having to deal with magazines that cock up your advert doesnt get you down too much, the rain and cold weather stopping the kids from playing outside so they take to writing on the walls instead isnt too bad and trying to turn £5 into £50 because bills need paying isnt too frightening because tomorrow I might win the lottery (this is a figure of speach - because I dont often but lottery tickets!)

Without plans for our future how do we survive from one day to the next? How can we live knowing that each day is going to be the same? That nothing exciting will ever happen and the highlight of the day would be finding all the wholewheat pasta in Tescos reduced to 10p a packet. Monotony is boring. Dreams are needed - we all need dreams or we become boring ourselves.

So I guess the moral of the story is that you should live each day as if it were your last - because you never know what might happen tomorrow. But then again this can't be right because if that was the way to live then I should be jetting over first class to New York, buying up the contents of Macys just for the heck of it and then dine in the most lavish restaurant there - and putting the whole lot on credit cards because I wont be around tomorrow to pay for it. Not my problem!

I will have to ponder this problem some more

In the meantime I am going to dry off, read 'The ultimate Guide to Dinosaurs' (hardback, £1, Bursledon press)and drink hot chocolate before I go in search of the washing machine and see if the thing has magically washed and dried all the nappies itself - or whether I need to do it myself

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Ok....today....

Thu, 27 Oct 2005 19:21:11 +0200

Today is one of those 'Beam me up Scottie!' days

Phil was out so the kids went wild. Porridge on the walls, poo on the walls, tomato soup on the skirting boards, KNEX everywhere, Jude tried to wash his cotton nappies down the loo. Loo needed flushing.....
Jude tried to eat 24 weetabix at once, without milk. Soon gave up and sprinkled them everywhere - then found some milk and the stuff is stuck to every crevice in the house.
He then added a touch of coffeemate to finish it all off

Very pretty....me not happy as I had orders to pack. Orders have to be sent or we cant pay the bills. I refuse to degrade myself and stand on street corners just in order to pay the mortgage and so the kids have to understand that Mummy has to sell clothes. They are beginning to see the link between money and Mummy working and have even offered me some old socks to sell so I can buy them some sweets. Trouble is the socks dont match and they are MINE!

Never mind. All is not lost as the little cherubs go back to school next Monday and I can start cracking the whip at Phil and see if he really does know how to paint the house.

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Why minibus driver.....

Wed, 26 Oct 2005 21:40:47 +0200

Because that is what I am. Too many children have meant car is now too small, husband is too tall for a Landy 12 seater, husband refused to have legs cut off in the middle and so all that was left was a minibus for transporting the mob.

Our first effort at buying one ended in disaster. NEVER buy a car off Ebay. Sellers think that because you have won, and because you have driven for 5 hours to get there that you will buy it even if the description does not match the real condition of the vehicle. No way Jose. I might look like a mug but I am not one in reality!

Second effort resulted in a year old bus which had never been driven. Complete with warranty and a fire extinguisher.

Just need to master reversing now. Yes, I know you use the mirrors but mirrors dont tell you when to stop reversing!

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