Project 366 Week Twenty

 

I am weeping with tiredness as I write this: it’s been a busy week, I’ve been up far too late watching DVDs with DH each night and haven’t slept more than three hours uninterrupted since Monday. But we’ve had some interesting days, not least because of the vacillations of the British weather: one day blazing sunshine and the next torrential rain, all mixed up with jolly cold nights and muggy days.

Sunday was beautiful: the perfect day for painting the Man Cave. We spent all day in the garden, drawing chalk pictures on the patio and using spray guns filled with water to clean them off. The Girls turned a paint-brush-cleaning session into a paddling-pool session, splashing bubbles everywhere!

It poured with rain on Monday so The Girls and I stayed in and built a tent in the sitting room. When they got bored, we switched to making some bunting for The Queen’s visit. Then Granny popped by to visit, as we were still car-less and couldn’t collect her as we usually do. The Girls love the ritual of drinking tea with their Granny- something than never happens on other days as neither DH nor I drink tea.

I sent LBG skipping off to school on Tuesday morning: another mum has very kindly been taking her, and LBG loves going in her two-door car with her little friend. It’s been a wonderful treat for me which I knew I would miss when I was back to doing the school run myself. Once she was gone, Dimples and I prepared ourselves for a long wait- we headed up to the High Street to wave at The Queen. And it was a long wait, though there was plenty of entertainment, but she was very patient and was thrilled to see The queen drive past. I was less thrilled by the woman who felt it was OK to lean right across the pushchair to confirm for herself that there was nothing to see, squashing poor Dimples in the process. Despite me saying something, she didn’t learn, so I hoisted Dimples into my arms and ended up taking photographs of Her Majesty with flag-happy two-year-old in my arms.

That two-year-old wasn’t as happy the next morning when she was dispatched to school. But I headed out to the hairdressers with a light heart, even managing to score a little pinboard for a bargain 50p in the nearby charity shops on my way. Afterwards, with Salon-perfect smooth locks, I got a cab over to the BMW garage to be reunited with our car (and yes, I did kiss it.) It had been so long I had almost forgotten how to drive. The best moment of the day was looking at DH’s face after we had moved his desk across to the Man Cave. Unofficially installed, he happily pottered away in there for the rest of the day whilst I began the process of sorting the room he left behind into what would be our playroom.

The school run on Thursday began badly: LBG simply did not consider our car to be a satisfactory replacement for the whizzy sports car her friend’s mum drives! I spent a couple of hours talking another school mum through the vagaries of Facebook, before dashing madly around getting birthday bits together for LBG. More importantly I moved all the toys into the playroom, which was beginning to take shape. I had the chance to do some more work on it as LBG had return-unnaccompanied-playdate. Later that night as DH andI headed to bed, I leant over her to kiss her goodnight and whispered ‘Happy Birthday’ in her ear. Her eyes pinged open with excitement,  and it took a bit of persuasion to get her back to sleep!

But on Friday morning she needed no waking, and had great fun opening her presents, not even minding when Dimples ‘helped’ her. There were chocolate-chip pancakes for breakfast, followed by a screening of the Care Bears DVD she got as a present (thanks to The Boy and Me for running that particular giveaway.) Granny came to visit with more gifts after we had lunch and then friends turned up for a birthday tea which featured cheese and ham penguins, jam sandwiches, fruit, crisps, jelly and ice-cream before we sang Happy Birthday. There was Pass-the-Parcel too, and more playing, to end what LBG called ‘the best birthday ever’.

And on Saturday it was more of the same: we headed to a birthday party for more jelly and cake, more dancing and laughing. Sadly though, due to a child-versus-table-leg incident, there was also great emphasis on First Aid. I know people always say that heads bleed a lot, but you have no real concept of what that means until you have a bleeding newly-four-year-old on your hands. In the end all was fine: she had a bath at her friends’ house and was happily jumping around on the trampoline in her pjs with all the others until we put our two exhausted girls in the car and brought them home to bed at 9pm after a brilliant day, a brilliant week. No wonder I’m so tired.