Why I never achieve anything

Sometimes, when I read blogs written by wonderfully creative people who pour forth rainbow-coloured streams of quilts, aprons, socks and paintings, I wonder what I’m doing with my life. In my head, I’m quite creative. In my life, I prepare teaching materials, teach, mark students’ work, do ironing, wash the kitchen floor, endlessly tidy up… .

I always delude myself that the weekends are going to present great swathes of free time but they never do. For example, last weekend was more social than usual – so was nice – but was as ever filled with action.

Friday afternoon: a friend was coming to eat with us and to spend the evening, so I was leaving work in reasonable time when our son phoned, having arrived home to find Cassie catlet walking on three legs only, the fourth having changed from a little furry leg to a BIG FAT FURRY LEG. We wondered if she’d broken it. However, Son whizzed her to the vet, who diagnosed a wasp sting and gave her an antibiotic and an anti-inflammatory injection, which soon eased the situation. (We never found the wasp. Did the kittens eat it? Seems fair.) These kittens are more stressful than babies.

Friday evening: I ironed while talking to the friend. She hates cats so wasn’t sympathetic to our little wounded pet – who was actually fine again. Then I went and spent the night with my mother, as I do on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

Saturday morning: Daughter 2 and I went up town first thing to buy some presents for Daughter 1’s birthday the following day. There she is above with my mother and below with my father. He's reading to her, though by the time of this picture she could read to herself and indeed spent most of her childhood doing just that.

Saturday afternoon: I took my mother to the supermarket. I usually just do her shopping for her, but sometimes she likes to go too. She enjoys picking up and examining each of the 60,000 items of merchandise. We got back to her house at 3pm, the time I was supposed to be at another friend’s house, and Mum couldn’t find her key. We went to our house (only a couple of minutes’ drive away), got a spare key, returned to hers and found her keys down the side of the car seat. Having carried in her shopping and then taken mine home, I was at the friend’s about 3.30 and had a nice chat with her and another friend.

Saturday evening: I did some housework and prepared a birthday repast for the next day.

Sunday morning: we went to church and then, very interestingly, Daughter 1 and I went for coffee to the home of the parents of Rosemary, a Scottish blogger who lives in Southern California. Daughter 1 and she had exchanged comments for several years before realising that they had met when they were four and formed a friendship but had then been in separate classes and later different schools so had never really been able to get to know each other well. Rosemary was home for a holiday and she, Daughter 1 and the famous and fantastic Shauna of Dietgirl and Pussycat fame had met up on the Friday. Daughter 1 and I had SUCH a nice time at Rosemary's – what a lovely family.

Sunday afternoon: Daughter 2 and I finished preparing the birthday meal, and we had my mother and my aunt, together with the offspring and their significant others to dinner (most of these people come every Sunday, so this wasn’t much different, except that it was darling Daughter 1’s birthday. Twenty-eight! How time flies (etc)! Happy birthday, dear Daughter. I’m so proud of you).

Sunday evening: cleared up (with assistance) and prepared for the next day by marking work.

And that’s why I never seem to get round to making anything.

I wonder what Michelangelo’s weekends were like. Or Jane Austen’s.

Did they have kittens? Such as Sirius?

Or Cassie?