PS

As a postscript to yesterday's posting, it should be pointed out that SBF benefits from our friendship too - mainly in the food and alcoholic beverage department.

Here comes the sun....

In a fit of 'we-must-have-a-party-it's-a-bank-holiday' enthusiasm, we have decided to have a barbecue this afternoon. Seeing as the weather wasn't looking that promising yesterday, everyone I invited lapped up the opportunity to sit in someone else's house and look at the rain in company. Total number of guests including us is now 10 adults and 13 children. Ever practical - and always looking for the chance to browse round Focus - Steve went out yesterday and purchase a 'party gazebo' (read 'marquee'). This outing was, of course, preceded by much internet surfing and running into the garden with a measuring tape. Having concluded that a 9m long tent would only fit if we began felling trees, the 6m option was chosen and acquired within about 75 minutes. It is now coming up to 11am and the first guests are expected for about 2.30. This is not strictly true as our ever-helpful Single Bloke Friend (SBF) has been summoned to appear at 1.30 to aid with the construction of the 'garden lifestyle space'.

Every family should have an SBF. Not only is he great for cat sitting, child minding and helping out with general domestic tasks, he can also be relied upon to still be up at midnight to receive an emergency phone call to beg assistance with more manly tasks. And frankly, this afternoon I would rather be inside than in the rain wrestling with an unfeasibly large piece of tarpaulin and Steve's fraying temper.

Now shall I do Pimm's or mulled wine?

Keep plants where they belong

I finally got out into the garden yesterday to tidy up a bit of the boarder and introduce H to the delights of eating grass and daisies.You will be pleased to know that the magnolia has performed right on cue and the bargain bag of daffodil bulbs Steve purchased from Wilko's last Autumn has not disappointed - I can hardly see the lawn for yellow, and mowing is completely out of the question (shame!)

I note also that many of the patio pots are looking really, really ill. This is actually a good thing as they contain out-sized houseplants that I have been trying to kill for some time. The Mother-in-Law's Tongue, which indoors was so successful it burst out of its pot like some kind of tryphid, is looking decidedly dead and the weeping fig has wept its last. Unfortunately the Aloe Vera (kindly donated by my mother-in-law, incidently) has revived like a phoenix from the flames. Tempting as it is to douse it in lighter fuel to see if it will survive further torture, I'll resist. It's in quite a big tub and is rather too near the patio door, although if I no longer had a house I would not have to worry about disposing of its flora...

What has become of my life?

I think Steve realised that there is method in my madness when I suggested he aimed to leave the house at 10.15 to make it on time for the 10.45 jamboree that is Tiny Tune Time this morning. The venue is a 10 minute walk away, but when you have two essentially helpless people (one more deliberately so than the other) to escort, it is amazing how the 20 minute buffer time goes. They arrived just in time and Steve's comment - which I shall take as a compliment - was, 'I am amazed that you ever leave the house.' Thank you, darling, just call me Wonder Woman.

I had promised someone I would write about my weekend away. Think about weekends away pre-children: Too much to eat and drink, talk late into the night and recover with a long, slow and late Sunday brunch over the papers with the Archers omnibus gently playing in the background.

The new horrors of the weekend away: Someone falling out of bed and insisting on not only sharing a bedroom but a bed with you, an argument in hushed whispers over the folly of the weekend away to fill the 2 hours it took to calm down the faller-out-of-the-bed, repeatedly feeding a baby who every time she wakes up is confused about where she is and panics (loudly).

To cap it all, I was wiping breakfast off the floor by 7am. In the end I locked myself in the bathroom with the Saturday Guardian.

A night away with your small people? Don't do it folks!

Enjoying becoming middle-aged

It occurred to me recently as I wandered through Oxford that I wanted to ram into female students with my over-sized pram, knock them to the floor and yell at them, 'You are so young, so pretty and you look so b****y miserable!' And then I realise that I have come to understand the adage 'Youth is wasted on the young'. Having worked through some of my anger issues (!) and come out the other side, I now conclude that however old you are, you will NEVER be this young again. Call it a mid-life crisis, but I have bought a denim mini-skirt and have taken to wearing it as often as possible because, hey, one day I'll be 73 and will want to stop thirty-somethings in their tracks with a carefully placed walking stick and yell at them, 'You are so young, so pretty...'

How did that happen?

We appear to be a week into the new year already. I thought about making new year's resolutions and was quite keen until about 10pm on 31st Dec when I collapsed into bed exhausted, realising that all my resolve had already gone.

Ho hum, my major achievement of the year is that, rather than picking food off the carpet after every meal, I have removed the patch of carpet underneath Ibby's highchair. I had hoped the surface below would be easi-wipe, I had not, however, accounted for how securely the foam from a cheap carpet can adhere to floor tiles...

Perhaps I have merely replaced one problem for another, but then that's life all over, isn't it?

Feliz Navidad

We flew to Spain on Christmas Eve morning and are spending a week slumming it in my parents´b&b in the mountains. All rooms en suite, all meals provided and more babysitting than anyone can reasonably expect. Their place is on the church square and the current village problem is the church clock. It was put right again this morning and is now more than ten minutes fast - it may as well bong randomly for all the use it is. The first night we were here the call to mass began an hour before midnight, so the bells were tested to the max. Unfortunately, we had just drifted off to sleep. Etholle couldn´t sleep through them (reasonably enough) and having said I was too tired to attend mass I felt that my penance was delivered immediately.

Today we have been to the snow, soooo pretty and sunny. A shame we had to come down the windy (long i) road home. Three of the passengers were ready to vomit by the time we got back, and I´ve had quite enough of that recently...

I´ll add photos when we get home.