Drawing Day

The ear infection I've been carefully nurturing for the last couple of days finally exploded last night, leaving me to enjoy a fairly sleepless night, lots and lots of owww factor and a fair amount of dizziness and nausea. Mindful of the fact that if it got any worse I wouldn't be able to get to the doctor's tomorrow (out all day) I thought I'd better give in an make a doc appointment today. Ha. Easier said than done. The receptionsists at our surgery are quite a fearsome lot and I was told in no uncertain terms that no, I couldn't have an appointment today and wouldn't get one tomorrow unless I rang at the crack of dawn either, and even then only perhaps.

I slunk away downstairs feeling thoroughly miserable; my knight in shining armour hubby, however, was having none of it and rang them back insisting that I was in a lot of pain and needed to be seen. Thanks entirely to his persistence, a doctor phoned us about an hour later and told me to come down to the surgery whenever was convenient to me. So I went straight away and was seen within five minutes of arriving. My hubby's a star :-)) Turns out that the infection is apparently "extremely nasty" and was liable to rupture my eardrum at any time, so I've been given a double dose of some antibiotics plus double dose of some gunky stuff for my ear. Feeling slightly better physically at the moment. It's not as if I'm at the flippin surgery every five minutes; I think the only few times I've been in the last five years have been for ear syringing, the last excruciating ear infection I had plus smear tests. I wish they'd develop a better appointments system; the one they have at the moment stinks.

Anyway, whilst I was indisposed this morning, Emily and Daddy did some fabulous drawing together. They didn't make it to tai chi because Daddy's poorly too, and we didn't make it swimming this afternoon, obviously, due to my icky ear. Emily enjoyed spending most of the rest of the day drawing away to her heart's content, producing a mixture of fantasy figures and cats. These are Emily's witch emerging from a crystal ball; oriental dragon; siamese cat; Severus and Voldemort fighting; Turkish Van cat.






Although feeling in a bit less pain ear-wise, I must confess to be extremely down in the dumps at the moment. I think "things" are getting to me and I'm finding it very hard to get motivated. Which of course isn't fair because it means Jon has to do practically all the work, which in turn makes me feel guilty and even worse.

On top of feeling intensely resentful about the Grandad situation, I'm also feeling depressed and insecure about the way we home educate. I am *so* fed up of being criticised; whether it's people who don't home educate fretting that Emily's not getting an education at all (because of course we abandon her all day long to her locked-in broom cupboard), or even a fellow home educator who feels that Emily is doing far too *much* work (because of course we're forever forcing her to do things she really, really doesn't want to do). It's all totally ridiculous as anyone who knows Emily can see that a) she's happy, b) she's well educated and c) she spends hours upon hours playing/creating/doing whatever she wants to do AS WELL as the time she spends doing more "structured" work. It is also, of course, none of anyone else's business and I'm normally perfectly able to see that. Put it together with my current mood and outlook on life, however, and I just want to scream at people to shut up and go away. Really need a break away from here. We're going off to St Bees for Halloween week, which can't come a moment too soon. It does mean we'll miss out on a friend's Halloween party, which is a shame, but we just need to NOT be here.