Hot hot burny

This is what happens when you start to read an exciting book to your daughter whilst waiting for the scones to cook....
Ah well, I'll just have to make another batch later this week! (they do smell lovely).

(blog title is quote from the Pure Dead series, another series of books we have enjoyed together).

Well and truly got the bug

Three runs in and I've got the bug. It's addictive. I can see now why people go running. I go in the morning and by the afternoon I want to go again. By Tuesday afternoon all my leg muscles were aching. I had aching muscles I didn't even know I had. But by Thursday I wanted to go again, and by Friday nothing ached anymore. I'm heeding the plan's advice though and pacing myself - going swimming and cycling on days I don't go running.
On Friday I had a mad idea. A friend has registered to do Race for Life. Three of us went running on Thursday morning and I thought maybe we should join her on Race for Life for support. Unfortunately the morning race in Bury St. Edmunds is already full, and the other friend can't do the afternoon race. But I can. And I've signed up too. And now that people are starting to donate money, I really am going to have to take this running lark seriously... Now where did I leave my tracksuit bottoms?

What's the chances of that?

Both children losing a tooth on the same night?

N.' s very first one, after a week of 'wobbling', now a very proud gappy boy. Me? My baby is suddenly not a baby anymore!



I.'s first molar:



More pics: kittens as we still call them, although really should call them cats now... About 10 months old we reckon, and despite their feral start, very friendly. Love being near humans - we wake up in the morning with usually both of them on the rug next to the bed, or on our duvet (B. calls them staplers gone wrong as you can't so much as move a toe or they will pounce). Having them around is making the house more of a home...

Snickers (also known as Babe or Snickeypoo):



Token (also known as Tokey):

Running

Last week BlueADT posted a link to a running plan which gets you from couch potato to running 5K in 2 months' time. Now I'll be honest: I've never seen the attraction of running. Until 2004 I was not a sporty person anyway - it doesn't come naturally to me. N. however was a very heavy baby at birth (11 lbs) and I had trouble shifting the baby weight, despite breastfeeding for 10 months. In the summer of 2004 I decided that I needed to do something about it, joined WeightWatchers with a friend and started swimming - the only sport I'd always vaguely enjoyed but not always been able to do due to suffering bad eczema. After N. was born, my eczema cleared up and touch wood hasn't returned, so swimming was finally a keep fit option again. I lost almost 2 1/2 stone in three months and felt so much better for it. Ever since then exercise has become part of my routine, as it helps to keep the weight down and I have a very sedentary job. I now swim and cycle - during good weeks I manage to go 3 to 4 times, during bad weeks it's a bit less... The problem is that I don't have a bicycle at my own place, and going to the gym for a swim takes up a fair bit of time. I needed something else which involved less effort to get started on, and this running plan seems to fit the bill. I have vivid memories of having to run round the athletics track at secondary school, finishing last and completely collapsing, which had put me off running ever since. This plan makes it sound more manageable though, especially as I wouldn't consider myself a couch potato anyway.
This morning after the school run I donned my tracksuit bottoms and felt very self conscious as I crossed the road. I felt even more self conscious after half an hour when I walked back with a red, puffy, sweaty face - but then I kept telling myself 'I may look stupid, but at least I'm doing something healthy'.
Time will tell whether I can keep it up - I did feel brilliant when I came home and on the whole, it didn't feel any worse than a strenuous bike ride. I'm not sure I'll feel that confident come the morning.... (and I'm planning to go again tomorrow morning!)

I can't be the only one who doesn't take good self portraits but this is what a non-couch potato looks like after the first session of the first week...:

Moving day

It was only a little over a month ago that I posted that B. and I slept in his new house for the first time, and that the house wasn't anywhere near finished yet, but that the work didn't seem quite so insurmountable anymore.
After that first night there, it became a rather strange situation. When I was over, we would sleep in the new house, but still go back to his father's house for meals. His father was getting excited about having his space back soon and started to bring over more and more stuff, while B. was desperately trying to get on with finishing it all off. Last week the kittens decided that they could follow us to the old house and come in there too, which was the last straw for B.'s father, enough was enough, and this weekend was to be moving weekend, even though the kitchen isn't finished yet.
B.'s son decided to throw a spanner in the works though by swallowing a pen on Friday night (don't ask - he's 13...) and they ended up in A&E for most of Saturday. After an X ray he was sent home with a bucket and some plastic gloves... He's not out of the woods yet, if it doesn't come out naturally he has to go back to have it taken out, which is a procedure not necessarily without complications. Just a matter of wait and see - needless to say he's getting teased relentlessly!
In the evening we moved over a few necessities, battled the internet connection for a few hours and in the end gave up with a Chinese takeaway. And then we all went to bed. It was lovely, very strange but lovely. I never had any doubts that one day they would move in, but it has always seemed so far away. Even the last few weeks, when the house was so close to being habitable, I've not let myself think about it too much, I don't know why, maybe it has never seemed a reality. But it is a reality now and suddenly it has turned from a building site into a home.

Worth listening to

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/04/2008_16_thu.shtml (there is a link for Listen Again).

This is about a project where members of the W.I. go into primary schools to teach children to knit, who in return teach the W.I. members how to do things on the computer. Sounds like a fantastic idea to me - and all participants sounded so enthusiastic!

Photo post

I'm procrastinating over posting as it's been a while and I've got lots of photos to edit but no time to edit them. So I'm just going to post a photo a day for a few days to show what I've been up to the last couple of weeks!
First up: Lyme Regis where I spent a week after Easter with mum, dad and the kids.