Hello Witchling Fans!  It’s been a few days, I know, but I have a tale to tell to make up for it. To set the scene, allow me to break down our daily routine for you.
•    7.00am – Tobes leaves for flash new job in Blackburn
•    7.35-7.40am – Witchling 12 sets off for bus stop which is a 20 minute walk away.
•    7.50-7.55am – Witchling 10 leaves for breakfast club before school
•    8.00am – I leave for work
•    8.05am – Witchling 12 Gets on bus to school.
Everything runs smoothly and we all get to our requisite destinations unscathed and on time for a happy and un-troubled day.  Hooray.
Now let me tell you how things went YESTERDAY!
•    6.30am – Tobes leaves early for business meeting in Londinium with swanky, fancy pants clients.
•    7.35am – Witchling 12 sets off for bus stop which is still a 20 minute walk away/
•    7.55am – Witchling 10 and I set off.  My motorbike (Tallulah) is broken down and in for repair so I an cadging a lift from a buddy to work.
•    8.05am – Bus arrives but Witchling 12 realises she has lost over half of her £1.40 bus money.
Now the fun really begins!
My mobile is turned off as I am going straight into a meeting at work and can’t have it on.  Meanwhile Witchling 12 runs home and lets herself in to the house (Thank goodness we got her a key cut at the weekend!).  She rings my mobile – no answer so she leaves a voicemail.  Then she rings school and tells them that she is all alone at home and doesn’t have enough money to get the bus!  There is no mention of having lost it or having left well before me in the morning.
My battery on my mobile phone is dying.
Next I get an email from my sister in Birmingham to say Witchling 12 is at home and can I please call Grandmera!  I borrow a phone and call Grandmera (who is in Edinburgh!) and she informs me that the school has contacted her as they cannot reach either me or Tobes.  Funny that they never tried my work number.
I try to contact Tobes but he has left his phone in the car and is on a train to Londinium.  When I do get hold of him it is on his work mobile.
•    He tries to call Jade at home – The number is engaged then unavailable.
•    I try to call Jade at home – The number is engaged then unavailable.
•    Grandmera tries to call Jade at home – The number is engaged then unavailable.
•    School try to call Jade at home – The number is engaged then unavailable.
•    We all keep trying to call Jade at home – The number is engaged then unavailable.
•    We all start to panic.
Tobes (because he always keeps his head in a crisis and is a genius) calls our nextdoor neighbours and they kindly go round and put a note through the door instructing Jade that there is change on the windowsill upstairs for her bus and to put the phone back on the hook!
Jade rings school! She tells them that she has money but that she won’t be going to school today because she doesn’t know what time the buses are.
School contacts me to tell me this and that they cannot get back in touch with Jade.  She won’t open the door to the neighbours because she doesn’t know them. She cannot have the day off school. This will be put down as an unauthorised absence.
My phone gives up the ghost and the battery dies.  At this point I am in Nottingham with a client – about 2 hours away. Tobes is in Londinium still and Grandmera is in Edinburgh.
There is no way anyone can get home to her and the phone is STILL not getting through.  I get out of my meeting and my BOSS get’s a text message asking him to ask me to call the school as a matter of urgency.  I call the school.
They have notified SOCIAL SERVICES! They assume, from what Witchling 12 has told them that I swanned off in the morning and left her with no means of getting to school and that I had a broken phone.  At this point I lose the plot completely and try, in the strangled tones of one who is fast approaching the edge of reason, to explain that I would NEVER and have NEVER left for work without making sure the Witchlings are off to school and have the right amount of money.  Witchling 12 had never once mentioned to the school that she had lost or even had the right money to start with.
I race home at the speed of a speedy thing that is having a particularly energetic day to find both Witchlings at home playing on the X Box as though nothing were amiss.
The Witchlings are still breathing and in one piece and it was a very sheepish Witchling 12 that left for school 5 minutes earlier than usual this morning with bus money in purse, in bag.
Here’s to a more peaceful weekend!

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