Holiday time

Hmm, not too good at this bloggin lark am I..

This week we've been on holiday, it has been fantastic to be able to spend some real quality time with the boys without having to put other children first.  I really do love my job, but as with all jobs it's nice to take a break.

We've been to the cinema a lot this week.  On Saturday we went to see Inception, courtesy of some free tickets kindly donated by a friend, Sunday we went and took the dog for a walk by the river in Sidmouth but I ended up getting shouted at by some bizarre woman and it kind of took the 'nice' edge off the day.  Monday we went to see Eclipse - wow what a great film!  No idea what everybody sees in 'Edward Cullen', 'Jacob' would have been my choice!  lol!  Tuesday we went down to Sidmouth for the folk festival but it was very busy and I hated it.  On Wednesday we were supposed to be going to Crealy but pouring rain made it necessary to change plans and we ended up at the cinema again to see the new Karate Kid film (one free ticket courtesy of Orange 241), another fantastic film which had the effect of making both Jack and Max talk animatedly about it all the way home!.  Thursday was a day spent catching up with family, long overdue, and getting our pup a new (and huge) crate.   Friday I actually stopped procrastinating and made myself get on with sorting out our front garden!  It looks so much nicer now and was well worth the energy it took to do (we wont mention my aching muscles, lol!).

It turned out to be a very full week and whilst our trip to try out the new rides at Crealy had to be moved to another day it all actually fell together quite nicely in the end.  With regard to the cinema, if you're ever at The Vue and they ask if you want to upgrade to VIP seating I can categorically state that it's well worth the extra £1.40 a ticket to have the comfy chairs!  (But stay well away from the bags of sweets, they also have a £1.40 or more mark up!)

Today Jack is off to River Cottage HQ for the day and Max and I, well I'm not quite sure what we'll be doing yet.  I think it will be a go with the flow kind of day...

Long Weekend!

One thing about working full time that I hadn't really thought about before was how much weekends actually mean to you.  I love my job, I mean I really love my job, but weekends are our time.  That is to say it's the time that the boys and I can please ourselves what we do without having to worry about getting back for deadlines or to be in for parcels, pick up from schools etc etc.  Weekends are bliss!  This weekend has had 3 days which is even more bliss but stupidly I completed wasted yesterday doing nothing very much at all.  This, of course, means that today I have had to clean and tidy and sort all day long which is not my idea of fun...

Meanwhile Jack has busied himself on his laptop doing goodness only knows what and Max managed to sit through the whole quadrilogy of Alien movies including the directors cuts and extended versions.  I'm feeling a bit Alien'ed out right now but he'd quite happily watch them all again if I let him.

We watched Avatar on Blue Ray, I cannot believe the quality - crystal clear!

Ruby's babies are growing like mad.  They're still tiny but seem  so much more rabbity than they did before.  Their little ears look like rabbit ears now instead of mouse ears and their little legs - well you get the picture and if you don't there's a photo underneath this post so you can see for yourself.  The photo (at least on my laptop) is larger than life size!

I also spent some time cleaning up the pushchair I bought in Newton Abbot on Saturday.  With ebay you never really know what you're going to get.  Sometimes you get a stunner at a bargain price, others you pay a whole heap and get a piece of rubbish.  Of all things it really annoys me when people sell on prams without cleaning them, but this time I think it may have worked in my favour.  I could have done without the dried out raisins and biscuit crumbs and marks and stains but in a way I'm glad they were there because it gave me something to work towards, aiming to make it look a little bit nicer.  Now it's a stunner and fit for a princess and to be honest would probably sell for 3 times what I paid for it!  There was a time when seeing the mess it was in would have reduced me to tears and made me feel the word was out to get me.  Nowadays I am so much stronger I just see it as a challenge to be overcome and get to work.  It's something I love doing too! (perhaps I should open a sideline in used prams...).  Not sure why I have changed so much but I think working has a lot to do with it, so again what seemed like a bad thing has turned out to be a blessing in disguise!

Funny how life works out isn't it?

Back to normal...

Well the schools went back today which meant I had to be on my toes this morning and up and out of bed at stupid o'clock to start work at 7.30.

Got back from the school run to find the boys had got all their books etc out and were sitting nicely working away.  This is rare and I was so pleased with them. They're currently using the Galore Park books for KS3 which seem to work very well for them - thank goodness you can also buy answer books which mean they do very well for me too, lol!

I had a friend pop over during the morning so had some adult company for an hour whilst the munchkins had little friends for company, always a good combination.  Not so good for the boys having to work with 5 little munchkins making a racket but they coped and survived so all is well.  I keep reminding myself it would be far worse in a class full of teenagers...

I went to a toddler group in the afternoon and came home to find the boys had a quick tidy up for me!  No idea what's going on here but I like it!  I'm seriously thinking about employing a cleaner as its so hard to find time to do everything but it means I will be working just to pay her (or him) which seems a bit futile.  Maybe I will try a bit harder to do more in the evenings instead of collapsing in a heap in front of a heap of paperwork.

Spent the early art of the evening worrying myself sick as the area near where my oldest son lives is on fire (very badly, needing 16 fire crews) and I couldn't get hold of him on the phone.  No matter how old they are you never seem to stop worrying about them!  So relieved to finally talk with him and find he was ok and well away from the fire...

Just got to feed/water the rabbits now and then it's movie time.  We're finally catching up with the world and watching New Moon tonight.

Ah yes I must get the courgette seedlings in too...