So when I left you I was feeling very tired and grumpy and bonding with similarly fed up polar bears on the television in my delirium.

The next night the Grumpy Dutchman went to sleep on the couch mid beer. His half a bottle of beer fell over ON TO THE COUCH and, sadly, my laptop in the night. The GD was in disgrace for a while.

My laptop has been working on and off throughout the week. Sometimes it stops and makes loud whirring noises like it’s going to take off. We leave it alone at those times. It so happens that the computer is working currently but is in hot demand – my eight year old has been suffering this week from serious withdrawal symptoms. He’s been forced to play LEGO and ride his bike with me and play with/torture his brother regularly. It’s been awful for him.

I have been running regularly and I am remembering why I love it – it is REALLY nice to be out and about round the neighbourhood at sunrise – just me and my dog and sometimes the eldest lad on his bike. I really like it when he comes. I tell you what though – it is taking all of my motivation to get out of bed to do it and I have a permanent red face and frizzy hair from it too. Of course I havent run this weekend because….. well because I didn’t want to get out of bed early when it was full of warm cuddly people. And we actually went out on Saturday night!

My mum has had to go overseas to take my Grandad to see his family and because of clashing dates she gave us her tickets to see TOSCA (the Opera). I have never been to an Opera before and initially I said ‘nah’ when Mum offered us the tickets – not really my cup of tea – but the GD thought it would be fun so we went along last night with no real idea of what to expect.

I didn’t know what to wear so I wore a silk dress, with high-heeled boots and jeans. Yup, me and the nineties went to the opera. The GD wore a suit (with chucks) and looked quite dashing. It turned out I was in the mid range of dressed up – I saw one man in shorts and sneakers and there were a number of fur-coat/diamond combos too. We drove around panicking for twenty minutes because all of the rest of Auckland was looking for a park too and then made a mad dash in the rain and got in just in time. Well, the sets were amazing. The voices were amazing and I very much enjoyed the bit at the end of the first act where everybody sang. The subtitles helped a lot as I don’t speak Italian. It was quite funny to hear the long dramatic singing bits and to realise that they were saying things like ‘I could have sworn I put my hat down here – some bastard has moved it, this always happens when I’m running late’ type stuff.

The GD had a different experience. Mostly he slept. I kept noticing him drifting off out of the corner of my eye and would jab him in the ribs. I couldn’t tell if the posh person sitting on the other side of him was annoyed or thought it was funny. It wasn’t so bad – until he started snoring of course. Yup. But it was nice to be out!

It’s been a long-term and we have one week to go. I am not sure it is possible to get more tired than I am but I guess I am going to find out. If I get another turn on the computer I’ll let you know.