Dud sparklers

This blog is my brave face. From it smiles out a happy, confident woman who can deal with every vagary of single motherhood with a finely polished pun. It suggests that my life revolves around nights out and eating curry.

Sometimes that's not true. Tonight is one of those times. I've had a wearisome couple of days and tonight I don't have my brave face on. Yesterday I ran at full pelt all day and was thoroughly exhausted by the time that I came home. That didn't stop me from trying to be RoboMum and organising a home fireworks display for my son and his friends. To cut a long story short:

1. As I don't have a garden we did the fireworks in the alley at the front of my house. It's very dark. I trod in a huge dog shit and then, brilliantly, walked it over the rugs in my hallway. Leading to me having to throw away my favourite trainers and two rugs.
2. The lighter fuel ran out before I could light the sparklers so three sobbing kids and I had to traipse round the neighbours asking for matches; then after I managed to borrow a lighter
3. inevitably, the sparklers were dud and wouldn't light. More crying from the kids.
4. After all the delays and disappointments I got home to find the dinner I had timed to be ready for the end of the fireworks now fairly comprehensively burnt.

So much for RoboMum. I went to see a band afterwards with Velouria but we hated the venue and felt unsafe so we came home early.

Today was more of the same. Frustrations at work. Complications to do with a house purchase. Finding out that a hen weekend I'm due to go on will cost me triple what I expected. Rain. Rude kids at school. Burning the dinner again for the second night running.

The only highlight was speaking to a lovely friend who is in a similar situation to me. Despite the fact that the conversation was about how it is hard to cope with a marriage splitting up and all the attendant emotions. Because it reminded me that it's ok to be down sometimes. It's ok to be angry and frustrated and bloody awkward. It's even ok to argue with your ex down the 'phone for three hours (as I've done tonight). Right now I feel that all my sparklers are duds and that there's a dog shit lurking on every pavement. But that might not be how I feel tomorrow and by Saturday night I might even outshine a thousand sparklers. And not one a dud.