I just dug this pic out from the end of June, just after we had Lara's hair cut... it's grown considerably already. She must get her hairiness genes from Ian (god help her).

After lunch and some MORE art and craft, the Neve playdate came to an end at about 1:30 yesterday. I think Lara was quite ready for a quiet sit-down by then. We sat down and read books for about two and a half hours – quite unusual, really, we haven't been reading much at all recently. In fact, we now have no more books from the library, so that'll be the first port of call this morning. Lara's swimming has now finished, and the five days have made quite a bit of difference: she's now able (with a fair following wind and plenty of prompts) to take breaths on her 'freestyle' (as they call Crawl here) all the way across the little pool, and she's generally a little more coordinated. When she feels like it. Encouraging.

In the meantime, great news! Ian's lab is FINALLY done! He came home yesterday with the news – I had the impression it had been pushed back to mid-August but seems I was wrong. After just a year and a half, he finally has a lab! Apparently he nipped out and got some cake and bubbly for a quick celebration but I hope he decides on some sort of a bash because it's definitely bash-worthy. So at last, he can get all the equipment, boxes and people out of his office and Pete's lab. What a relief!

I'm wondering which bits I've missed out on from the last two weeks. There were a couple of days when Jenna came round, one for a whole-day playdate and the other for a half-day. They get on really well, and it was wonderfully smooth both times. No bickering to put a stop to, they seem quite perfectly matched on inclinations, abilities, attention span, and general disposition. They made a lovely mobile with painted fish and so on, they decorated cupcakes and made chocolate bread, they drew and played with toys, they danced... and of course they had their faces painted.

I still don't really know whether there's a Ruby playdate on Monday – her mum is a little hard to get hold of. Apart from that, back to school on Tuesday! My goodness, I need to get back to writing. And doing everything else. I finally made a bit of an effort the other day and gave the place a bit of a scrub because the Holiday Grime was closing in with a vengeance. What with collage twigs and artwork everywhere, bits and pieces, books and papers, unwashed bathrooms and unironed clothes it's a nightmare.

Then on Wednesday we went to Blackbutt again. This was a school-friends picnic, informally arranged. Unfortunately, there were almost NO girls there, and the boy's football games were a bit much for the Non, but we still chatted and played on the equipment and ran around and stuff. And had a picnic. Ruby had said she'd be there but they didn't turn up, and Neve decided against it as well. Still, a bit of an excursion.

I think we might be nearly updated... unbelievably. Hopefully back to normal postings soon. Mind you, what's 'normal' is here is questionable. I've just come downstairs to find Ian and Lara playing the Grand National in the living room, crawling around the place on all fours and jumping over piles of huge cushions and yelling 'neigh'. Oh hang on, it's metamorphosed while I was typing (and giggling), first it was frogs, then (hilariously) a cow race. I'm glad Ian's students can't see him with dressing-gown flapping, unshaven, lumbering about on all fours yelling 'moo' before projecting himself violently into the air over a pile of cushions.