Phew!

It’s been a long but worthwhile weekend!

On Friday I woke up feeling lousy and with a large painful lump in my left breast, which strongly suggested impending mastitis 🙁 I got L to drain it as best she could, but it was still tender and lumpy and I was starting to feel suspiciously ‘fluey. In one of those strange “bad things which happen for the best” occurrences Bob should have been catching the bus that day, as his usual lift wasn’t available and we needed the car, but the bus came early (really – he was on time and it sailed past him well before he got to the bus stop) so he phoned to ask for a lift, I told him how grotty I felt and we decided the most sensible thing was for him to take the morning off to look after children and give me some chance of recovering, then for us to drop him off at work in the afternoon on the way to French, do some shopping and then pick him up and come home together. Genius! It made a potentially awful day fairly bearable 😀

The boys got English and Maths out of the way and L and I iced the board (mostly to cover the Christmas patterns on it!) while Bob did odd jobs, then we oiled the table top (did the benches and underneath of table yesterday) and had snack. Bob and children finished weeding trugs and planted remaining primroses while I iced the cake, then L and K helped me to make pink roses and J and I made white roses while Bob did a bit of general tidying up. At some point a friend popped by with a large bag of apples, which got parked in the kitchen to be dealt with later. After an early lunch we set off, pausing en route to collect a parcel (J caught the “We tried to deliver but…” note as postie put it through the door yesterday – didn’t try very hard then!) and then getting caught in heavy traffic on the A14 so Bob was later for work than planned, especially as he still had to collect J’s new French book from his old school and a suit from the dry cleaner.

Having dropped him off, the children and I went on to Browns Field, where we sat in the car park and finished our lunch while we waited for everyone to arrive for French. Music hasn’t started yet, but all three are now doing French (each in a different class) and it was nice to have a chance to chat – and coo over M’s 3 week old baby 🙂
Then there was time to play outside, and chat some more, before heading off to Daily Bread, where half of us met up again – it must be the place to go on a Friday afternoon 😆

We picked up Bob and were heading home when J remembered that he had left his new French book and CD and also his new music theory book, under a lamp-post in the playground 😡 so we turned round and went back there to look for it, to no avail 🙁 By now it was nearly 5:30 and we had told my dad that we would be home by 5, so tempers were starting to fray, but at least the A14 was unusually quiet and we got home quite quickly, to find that my dad and his partner (Tadcu and Mamgu) had managed to get in (he still had a key from his last visit, fortunately) and had made themselves at home. We fed the children pasta and jar and got them off to bed, then planned jobs for Saturday and got off to bed at a moderately sensible time.

Tadcu doesn’t get over here very often, but when he does he likes to feel useful. Mamgu is the same, so she and I spent the morning baking, with help from random children as and when they felt like it. She made a madeira cake while I prepped up a curry for tea and fed A, then L and I made date slice while Mamgu amused A, we all made cheese straws and got the ingredients ready for flapjacks but by then it was lunch time, there was no room left in the oven and the children and I were supposed to be elsewhere at a birthday party…

Meanwhile Tadcu disconnected the heater which can no longer be on the annexe wall because there is a piano in the way, then he and Bob started to think about taking out the dividing wall between the kitchen porch and the annexe, decided the first step was to put up extra shelves in the kitchen to take the stuff from the shelf on the wall, got the shelves (bought for old house but never put up) from the workshop and began drilling. Tadcu is a great teacher/supervisor; once he had Bob started and was sure all was going well he, J and I took a look at the climbing frame cubes and decided how to put them together. We thought two blocks would be more adaptable (and easier to move) than the one large block it used to be. In fact J had very definite ideas, so he dictated and Tadcu did the putting together, while the children and I grabbed presents and sped off to our party, leaving a hive of activity behind us.

The party was great: lots of children (and parents) we know well and just enough structure to keep things busy, with plenty of time to play or chat as well. The children, and many of the adults, painted mugs (made by the birthday boy’s mum and fired but not yet glazed), including a birthday mug with all the children’s fingerprints, which will be glazed and fired for them, then decorated pizzas and played a few party games while they cooked. Everything over-ran, but nobody cared – except when we realised it was 4:30 and the Rainedrops were due back at home for tea… By the time I had rounded up the children it was nearly 5 and we didn’t get home until the time we had expected our guests to arrive. As it happened, we needn’t have worried, because they were running late too 😉

We got back to find the fridge had moved (it had been in front of the door/wall to the annexe) and there was a door where there had been a wall! The new shelves were now fully stocked, the flapjacks made, the climbing frames assembled and a downpipe inserted where there had been an open-ended gutter on the annexe. There were also a few new (to us) toys, including a lovely doll pram for the girls, as Bob’s parents had been and gone while we were out, bringing some bits which used to be SIL’s. Since A was happy in the car Mamgu and I took the chance to nip out to the shops and get a few more bits and pieces for the christening celebrations, which took a little longer than hoped – but again we needn’t have worried as we returned to the news that the Rainedrops had been held up even more and were now stuck on a totally closed M1.

By the time they arrived I had been able to decorate the cake (not great as no piping bag to be found so had to use bought plastic tube thing 🙁 ), get rice cooked and make a spicy tomato and green bean dish (PIL again) to serve with the curry. Then it was a flurry of getting children off to bed, all in the same room as this had been specially requested on condition of getting ready quickly before we could relax and chat – and finish embroidering the christening gown.