It’s official. I can’t keep track. Simply can’t believe it’s Wednesday – and not for long, neither. Dear god where does the time go.

Well catch-up situation’s hopeless so I’ll just start with the most recent. Yesterday morning (so that makes it Tuesday morning on the 19^th) Anna called to say Would Lara like to do some fabric painting with Lillian? Well I think if you asked would Lara like to do some bungee jumping with Lillian she’d probably say Yes, so fabric painting was all-guns-go. Of we were at 10:30, down to Lillian’s where they had paints and fabric all laid out. Lots of drawing, dipping, and I think the Non was quite pleased with the way her T shirt turned out. We hung around playing and talking until well gone twelve, and incidentally suggested that we should perhaps make the sleepover night for that night. (Had planned this at some vague pint but never set it up as such). Once again, all guns go.

Home for a bit of lunch, then rolling around doing I know not what until about 3:00 – when I told Lara to get changed for swimming lessons so that we could stop off at Coles and get a chocolate cake for when Lillian came round. 25 minutes later, she was still downstairs, totally unchanged. Insisting that I MUST come up with her to get changed. Equally there’s me insisting that’s ridiculous, as I’m busy putting on the dinner which has to be ready before we leave. At 3:25 a vigorous spanking is applied to bottom. At 3:30 we leave, Lara fully changed. Why oh why. No idea.

Pretty good participation at the swimming lesson, even a bit of proper breathing at the crawl… well, when I say ‘proper’ it’s not lifting head up nicely to the side but I think she was doing it vaguely on alternate strokes, and not standing up each time, in fact, not standing up at all, so lots of progress. Perhaps she was really trying to get back into Good Books, or perhaps she just decided to listen to the teacher for once. Once again, a mystery, but on this occasion a pleasant one.

Return home laden with chocolate cake and fresh wine (our red rather went off when we left the box in the hot car while we went camping… but that’s another story…) and soon after, Lillian arrives. I believe they immediately ran off to play on Lara’s DS, and as I was about to have a medicinal whisky and ginger I offered one to Anna… so we happened to sit down and started chatting. Very pleasant, but after some reasonable time the phone rang – Aiden. The poor boy was attempting to locate his mother as he was quietly starving at home – and by now it was getting close to 6 p.m.. So Anna dashed off in a hurry. I swear, the time is running faster and faster for everyone round here, it’s not just me. Really can’t tell where it goes.

The girls had pasta and sauce for dinner, followed by lashings of chocolate cake… and I can safely say that Lillian eats at about a quarter of the rate Lara does, about half the quantity (roughly translates as her taking twice as long to consume half as much). I wish she’d eat with us a bit more often so Lara could get a good feel of how annoying it is to have to wait for ever and ever and ever for other people to finish. After this I filled up a good bathfull of bubbles, shoved them both in, they gave each other a jolly good scrub and were nice and ready for bed at the reasonable time of about 8 p.m.. Tucked up, all good.

And then the rumpus began. Thump, thump, screech. Giggle, yelp, thump. At about 8:30 they both came tripping down the stairs saying ‘need the toilet’ (what’s the matter with the two upstairs?) and took turns at the loo downstairs. Patter patter patter upstairs again, goodnight again. Thump screech bang bang bang. Singing. Shrieks. Sounds of things being dragged about… heavy things. At 9:20, patter patter patter, down they both come. We can’t get to sleep – are you playing Lara’s DS?? At 9:35 Ian sends them both back up again with the command – that was the last game, now you really must sleep. Patter patter patter. It was nearly 10 before the noises really quietened down. Soon after this we gave up ourselves and went to bed too, I believe , though the details of the evening are a trifle hazy.

By some miracle I ended up sleeping until nearly EIGHT… yes, as in, 8:00 a.m., on a weekday morning with a sleepover in progress. Woah, well fielded, Daddy. When grogged my way down the stairs they were already ensconced behind a brace of Santa toasts, munching happily.

Once Ian was off, we mooched a bit until gone 10, then went out to the beach, armed with two boogie boards, a dolphin, and an awful lot of sunscreen. Mind you it was pretty cloudy today, so not a lot of hotness going on, thankfully. They paddled very happily in the big pool on the boards (Lillian didn’t want to do any proper swimming, so neither did Lara – never mind) and the built a HUGE conglomerate of castles, with Castle Beanie, a large crocodile, pools, Santa’s Cheese Shop and the Candy Factory, as well as the Littlest Pet Shop store. At 12:30 I finally insisted they pack up and go home, so out to the showers for a scrub again. This time no-one forgot their shoes or their pants, and it all went pretty smoothly.

We were just putting pizzas on when Anna came by to pick Lillian up, so they stayed and had a drink while the girls ate up.

I think after they left we had quite a snuggle-up for a while… what with the late night and all the excitement I think batteries were starting to run a bit low. After a goodly interval, we did get out the workbooks and did some English and Maths (with the help of Grandfather Moose, of course) but I have to admit it slightly petered off.. what with me cooking and her being pretty tired. Early dinner, which merged into dinner with us because Daddy came home in the middle of it, and that’s about it.

I’m going to post this up and try to back-pedal on the stuff from our TWO camping trips I haven’t written about at all, so (although I’ve tried this before and it’s signally failed) check back later for further developments down the line.