I always keep a promise

Here are the photographs of my flourishing flowers.

(Sorry, it sounded so good in my head!)

My Peace Lily, then Aedan's bean, then my Orchid that refuses to flower.

I'll feed it into submission!

There are also my Blackberries in the background behind the bean, given to me by some treasured family friends when David and I got married because I'd always loved their blackberries as a child. My plants still grow fantastically well and produce a really good harvest come Autumn.

Quiet

Nothing much to report from the children's first week back at school. Unless you count finding Aedan kneeling on top of Rhiannon, punching her. Ah, well. Siblings. Suitably reprimanded, I hasten to add, but there is a limited amount you can do when they deliberately wind each other up sooooo much! They'll get better. In time. I hope!

I forgot to take Conall to Beavers for his first session on Wednesday, blonde or grey day, I'm not quite sure.

I had to go to the doctor yesterday, I've had a sore arm for months and finally decided I'd had enough. (I hate going to the doctor, I always feel such a fraud, it's never something I'm ill with, just a niggle.) So, anyway, the arm. They don't have to amputate, which is good. Tendonitis was the conclusion, for which you have two treatments, except of course, Awkward Annie here can't. Because I'm asthmatic, I can't use anti-inflammatories, so I've to continue suffering the pain while I wait for an appointment with the physio. Apparently, it's a really long waiting list. Deep joy.

David went back onto shift this week, his course having finished. So, the first night shift for six months. Peace and quiet for me, that's what I say!

Oh, did I mention our run on Monday?

It was apparently a year since JogScotland started in Forres this week, so to celebrate they had two 'races', (no competition they said, but we were all timed!) a 5K and a mile. I did the mile, not wanting to overface myself and Lyn, my new jogging buddy and I brought up the rear beautifully. Eleven minutes and twenty two seconds and I ran all the way! So chuffed.

Like I said, it's been a quiet week.

Funny day

It was Conall's sixth birthday on Saturday and we had a party at the local Farmshop Coffee shop. Might sound a bit odd, but being carless, the fact that it is close by had a lot to do with my choice and it is run by friends, which was good too. Aswell as running riot in an enclosed space with a trampoline and climbing frames, they got to feed cows and chickens too. Yee ha! He loved it.

Mummy forgot the camera. Ooops.

Today is my mum's birthday, I rang so that the children could sing Happy Birthday, (out of tune and flat, but hey, they hadn't practiced. Apart from Saturday...) but it turned into an odd conversation.

Mum and dad had received a phonecall very early in the morning. Dad's (a bit) deaf and was obviously struggling to understand the conversation, although he knew he was talking to a 'Nora', (struggles to recognise me!) so mum took over. She was also a little puzzled, but dealt with the call without letting on she didn't know what was going on. Afterwards she checked the number, but didn't recognise it and couldn't reconcile it with any in her phonebook, so she did a little investigation with the code and the telephone directory. It turned out they weren't talking to Nora they know in Suffolk, which was why being told about 'David' having died didn't make any sense. We don't have one in Suffolk. It was Nora dad's sister-in-law. His brother David died last night.

Dad isn't bothered. He disowned him during a family argument over thirty years ago. He won't go to the funeral.

I'm sad. I've never met my Uncle David, Aunty Nora or my four cousins. (They have names, I'm just not sure I'll get them right.) I'm sad that I never will now and that I had no choice. I don't want the same for my children, except they have an Uncle and Aunt they don't know, that's not my fault, but I'm going to have to find a way to do something about it before it's too late.

It's turning into an odd day.

Mad dogs...

Noel Coward, wasn't it? Hmm, well, in Scotland we have an entirely different breed of them. Yes, we are (actually, they are, I am not...) sitting outside in the midday 'sun'. Except, it's not that hot, so not much danger of heatstroke. We're having the first barbeque of the year, today, the 9th April. Bit earlier than usual. The children were in the paddling pool. For less time than it took to fill it, but would they be told? Sometimes they have to find out for themselves.

It is a nice day, no doubt about it, a fabulous drying day, but ofcourse, I can't actually put any washing on the line, because of said barbeque.

David thinks it's funny, bless him, that I love the great outdoors and yet, I am sitting inside on such a beautiful day. I despise sitting in the garden. I do not enjoy the barbeque bit. Foods okay, nice for a change I guess, but what a faff. Shouldn't bother me really, because he cooks it all, which I suppose is the fun bit maybe. I think the 'breeze' is a tad chilly for sitting and in a few months time, it's going to be too hot! Ah well, soon I'll be climbing big hills in paradise. Roll on July!

(Don't mean to be a kill joy, I'm laughing with them, they're having fun, I just think I'm more comfy in here!)

UPDATE
Photographs of the flourishing flowers to follow.

Green fingers

I mentioned my Camellia, I believe? Which is bursting into bloom all over now. Well, my Peace Lily is at it aswell! This came as part of one of those little pots you buy, along with a tiny Yukka looking thing and a pink spotted thingy too. (As you can see, I am hopeless with plants!)

The Peace Lily was tiny, but flowering at the time. After the flowers went, it continued to grow. And grow and grow, but never flowered again, until now. I have a flower! It's a little small in comparison to the rest of the plant, but I am chuffed.

Aedan planted two Broad Beans in a yoghurt pot at school a few weeks ago. He brought home a dinky pair of seedlings to 'grow on'. Hmm, me thought, not good at this. I have been known to snap a sunflower seedling before even getting out of the playground! The beans' chances were obviously improved by the fact I don't collect Aedan...

So, potted on and sat sitting on the window sill in the kitchen, I thought I'd have a little time to plan, choose the correct position in the garden, you know the sort of thing, but the seedlings had other ideas and got carried away. All of a sudden, they needed a bigger pot, NOW! (Because of the cat situation, they have to go in a pot, so they a less likely to be wee'd on and we can then eat the odd bean we may get.) A large pot was found and filled with compost. My next problem was the fact that David had potted them into a ceramic pot, not a plastic pot. Not easy to remove, but I managed and now they are romping on somewhat in an enormous pot with some bamboo supports.

I seem to be killing far fewer things these days, in the plant world. Just need to get my orchid to flower now. A bit ambitious, do you think?

Can you see what it is yet?

Give three children a dust cover, Twister mat, child's broom, a stick, a piece of string and a safety pin, what do you get?

This!

Imagination, creativity and teamwork produce a tent on a glorious Palm Sunday in Scotland. Fantastic! (And from the three least likely to work together without fighting...)