Days seem to be going by at an unreasonable rate at the moment. Can’t for the life of me remember what happened on Wednesday, after the Non came back. Traditionally it’s a ‘quiet’ day so probably not a great deal but y’know, there must have been something.

I know we spent Thursday pretty much readying up for Christmas (process not over by a long shot as yet). I wasn’t going to have a tree this year but I didn’t count on the fact that a five-year-old might not have years of tedium of palaver behind them. So we went out and got a put-it-together tree. Then of course there was the trip to the lock-up to get the baubles and things (of course they were at the bottom of the pile – but of course... plus there’s a whole lot that I can’t find but never mind it’s quite enough). Then back home and put the tree together, put the blasted lights on (I hate that bit), and finally the baubles, tidy up the wreckage left behind, and as soon as we’d finished Lillian came round to play (school may be out but it’s Thursday, after all).

 

They had a jolly, jolly good long play. When we were out shopping we’d found a fantastic thing for pre-Christmas entertainment: a cardboard playhouse, in white with drawings on it, which you put together a colour in for yourself. Boy that kept them entertained for a good long while. Plus dancing (to Christmas music and other), plus some families game upstairs in her room, kept them entertained till about 5:30. By this time Lillian’s mum and brother had come to pick her up, but I’d put a little pizza on and all the kids were starving so they wolfed it down all together. So solid play from about 2:30 to 6. Fantastic.

I keep meaning to get all the presents wrapped up in the evenings but I’m inevitably losing consciousness at about 9 o’clock. It’s appalling. Yesterday I just gave up and went to bed (and turned out the lights) at 9:30, and STILL slept until 7:30. The situation is desperate – I’m going to try the vitamin pills again to try and scrabble back some waking hours that are not child-infested.

Likewise, don’t know where Friday went to. Oh, yes – the internet had been down for more than 24 hours and I finally got bored and called the company. Lucky I did, it wasn’t just the usual outage but the modem had to be rebooted (it had got confused over time and lost some passwords). Wonder if one could do the same for a human brain? I could use some rebooting. It was rather unfortunate timing as I’d finally got in touch with my parents and we’d said the Non would skype them in the morning. No skye, no mail, nothing. Anyway, it got fixed so the Non talked to Visnja for a good while, and they both behaved very nicely, which is a miracle of Biblical proportions. Then we pootled off to the library, then off to Coles (we forgot to buy everything that we’d meant to). Pretty dull day weather wise so no beach – there was a thunderstorm with magnificent lightening yesterday which may or may not have had something to do with the modem failure. Painted and pootled at home, then baked some gingerbread biscuits in a leisurely manner to take to the last day of Gym. The Non is finally mucking in a little bit and she cut out biscuits properly (almost), and displayed a genuine interest. I didn’t realise how late it was getting and we went off to Gym with the biscuits still nearly hot – them was some fresh biscuits, alright.  Gym itself was a bit of a cop-out. I think the teachers were dog-tired and they were just playing hide-and-seek for half and hour, nothing to do with gym. Still, the kids seemed happy enough and they scoffed loads of goodies afterwards. That’s it for this year, next term starts in February.

  

  

Now it’s nearly 10 a.m. and we’ve spent the day so far talking on Skype again (caught Deda this morning, he was unconscious by the time the Non called yesterday) and the W&W. Seems Aurora has her arm in a cast over Christmas, the Mino can hear very well with her new hearing aid and the W&W are off the Royston for Christmas, weather permitting. House in the mountains paperwork sorted, now minor details like wiring, water, kitchen and bathrooms being installed for a projected usable date of March (I think? Might have been April).

We have no houses to look at today, for a change. No sure what we’ll be doing with ourselves but I’m sure we’ll find something. I should have a few pics from the last few days so I’ll post asap.

Lots of love to all.