Yesterday was a full on day.
It began with me madly trying to clean everything up before the social worker turned up. Now, she is a lovely woman and there is no way she would have judged any of it but I felt like the house needed to be acceptable at the very least. But she arrived and took C out for breakfast so that they could have a little chat and see how he was getting on in a more neutral location. They were out a little under an hour before she came back to have a chat with me. The chat was promising; about getting C therapy, helping us be rehoused, figuring out if there's anything we can claim because our money situation is pants rn. The problem is a lot of these things have a 4-6 week waiting list when you submit changes/claims, so we are in the awkward financial interim.
But she went, and I put some more washing on, fed us all lunch (minus C who had just eaten an adult man sized breakfast- he had a snack plate later on) and hung that washing out on the airers. Got the kids swimming stuff ready and pretty soon we were all out in the blazing sun. It felt like when you first open the oven and it does that blast of hot air in your face. Disgusting.
I dropped F off at my friend's house and took C and R to their swimming lesson. I always sit in the viewing area just aching to jump in the pool, it looks so inviting! I love swimming, though I'm not the strongest swimmer, it's just such a lovely feeling being in the water.
The kids got changed and then had their diet coke and crisps on the steps outside before we walked back to my friend's house (she lives like 5 minutes from the leisure centre) and waited for Simon. Both C and R tried to convince me to come home as they didn't want to deal with F crying for hours like he did last week, but I stuck to my guns. The only reason F was crying so much is because his bond with his Dad isn't very good because they need to spend more time together. My friend was like ah no guys, your mum needs a break and she must have reasoned with them pretty well because they left me alone (for a while).
The kids were picking apples from her tree having a great laugh (whilst I desperately tried to recover from the heat as it was also warm af in the leisure centre) and soon enough, Simon had picked the kids up so I could have a few hours off.
F was upset. His face when he realised I wasn't getting in the van had me choking back tears, he was distraught and I feel so guilty. R said "can you at least come back before tea time?" and I was like lol no? My friend told him that that wasn't even possible. But yeah, when Simon drove off with them, I was like fuck sake this is hard I feel really *bad*.
My friend has been there years ago with her grown children and reassured me the kids would be fine & that I need a break - and that once F and Simon develop a better bond, this won't be so difficult. I'm like yep, true.
Next thing I know she's like "come on, I'm taking you out to eat" and I was like omg!! Awesome!! We ordered some Pina Coladas and some picky plates (as she's had a gastric bypass and I'm on the mounjaro so neither of can eat the sort of meals we used to), we had a laugh and took the pizza home with us in a few napkins because all the waiters were MIA. We had a good giggle about that.
Back at hers, we got into the hot tub and we had a few hours of drinking this orangey-peachy fizzy mixer type drink, chatting and having a laugh. It was almost half 11 when we called it a night, I took a shower at hers and then she dropped me off at the end of my street.
It was a lovely night. And then when I got home I noticed Simon had successfully put all the kids to bed, washed up, brought the washing in and put the bed up. He was waiting for me and I was like aw babe thank you so much. Very tipsy. Very loving lol.
