Had such a lovely afternoon with a storyteller at a children's centre today. Great cycle of life stories which had the kids, parents and us helpers completely captivated. All done in an outside space and one of the warm ups had us weaving in and out being either fishes or ducks. Really happy.

My colleague was reading out snippets from an Ipswich journal from the 1880s today and relayed a tale about a man who'd been blinded through being struck by lightening but who still made a goodly living through dressing sheep's feet.

What does this mean?

Is it something about preparing food, like a pig's trotter say? Or about treating cuts and grazes? Or about some annual competition for the prettiest sheep footwear which carried a ric prize?

Any offers?

Living in London Road is such a strange, mad mix of the really lovely days when I'm so glad that we're here and feel so lucky to have such a happy house, magical garden, mostly lovely neighbours and the times when I'm kind of aaarrrrgh, I dont understand this place at all and what we're doing here.

I took a day's leave today because of lack of sleep - I've tried to brew coffee with no water, forgot where I parked the car after food shopping and a few other swervey moments which proved a day off was a good idea.

Our young neighbours from the bottom flat next door held an impromptu party in their front yard last night which was in steady swing when we arrived home at 11pm. By 12.30 pm I was feeling ever so slightly pissed off with them. However, not as pissed off apparently as the guy in the top flat, who joined the party at about 1.30 wielding a machete. Seems like he's in police custody.

I was still awake at 2.30 - which was just as well because one of the bottom flat dwellers let Tyson (the rottweiler cross) out into their back garden, followed him part way down the garden and then carried on a conversation with someone still in the house. Tyson didn't want to come back in though because young neighbour screamed at him to 'get in ere' for the next 20 minutes.

So I are kind of tired today. Young neighbours have been round to apologise, which I think was sweet and I really do hope they'll remember not to shout at any of their 5 dogs in the early hours too much as it is becoming a bit of a habit.

But we have lovely apples and pears in the garden now and fabulous sweet cherry tomatoes and it has been a nice day off and 3 year old Beth from the other side neighbours has been modelling her new flowery wellies - so if we can get a quiet night's sleep tonight I might just not be making a For Sale sign.

My baking mojo has definitely gone on vacation. Due to insufficent greasing of the tray, my gingerbread pigs are more of a heap of pork scratchings.

Yesterday I spent the day as a Gruffalo minder. By the fourth stop on the agenda I could get J into or out of the costume in 4 minutes flat - phew.

Five years old seems to be the perfect age to be visited by a Gruffalo. If you're three, you'll likely either be rigid with terror and/or screaming hysterically, or hanging onto the Gruffalo's feet and/or screaming hysterically. If you're six, you can see the zip.

Wickham Market library was particularly good - the best library user of the day was the large black and white cat, who, having sussed the automatic doors and perched on a chair, stared intelligently at a computer screen, then slowly reached out a paw and pressed the print button (no, ok I made the last bit up).

that the concrete floor in the conservatory is not subsiding in one corner. The bad news is - there is no concrete floor. Laminate flooring was cunningly disguising the fact that the floor is made up of a bit of hard core, covered by earth, a few bits of 2 by 4 joisting, some loft board type hardboard and a plastic sheet. The 'joists' are well rotted through, the hardboard has all but disintegrated and the whole thing is sinking gently apart from one corner which is more of a plunge. Ah well, could haven been worse, with the biggish summer party last year, we could have lost a few people down holes and we didn't!

So now we're waiting for a quote - and I thought we were almost finished out there.

Mo was away this weekend and Poppy and Belle kept me company and amused.










Interestingly, Mo has returned with a borrowed book on cat psychology.

this weekend I have been mostly tackling the garden - heh, it doesn't look tackled!!

Today we met up with Sid at the gates of the London Road allotments and now we're the proud owners of a key to the gates and our very own patch of wilderness to convert into a paradise of productivity and order. Hurrah and whimper. (Sid also gave us a large bundle of rhubarb to be converted into a delicious pie, which somehow seems a far easier prospect).

The intention was to go for a half size plot - but after an hour of 'Sid's tour', in which he hardly drew breath, we suddenly seemed to be taking on the full ten rods - oo er.

Right then - black plastic. Lots of black plastic. Oh and apparently we'll need some pallets.

I think it will start to sink in tomorrow that I'm not going back to work as the last two weeks have felt pretty much like a two week holiday. I've just been staying with my sis for the last week and enjoying spending some time with Izzy who's now 7 months old and is, of course, astonishingly intelligent!

I read two Alice Hoffmans over the week, the Ice Queen and Local Girls, of which I preferred the Ice Queen, although neither satisfied as much as the River King or The Probable Future. Craig lent me American Gods for the journey home.

I've finished my first sock. Yippee. Um. Now I have to knit another one......

During my long and tedious two months of notice (thank goodness that the demise of EST Connexions meant it was wasn't three, says she selfishly) I made a list in preparation for my freedom days. The list has some biggish projects and some one off things.

Today saw going to Harwich by train on the Bluebell line ticked off. Where I learned that Harwich is a rather strange and mostly deserted place, with some gorgeous Georgian buildings, an horrendous view of Felixstowe docks and some energetic little shorebirds. Also that Samuel Pepys was once its MP and that it had a naval commander called Cyprian Bridge which I think is a marvellous name. And, and, and the Mayflower came from Harwich (yes I know all the textbooks say that it set off from London, but it came from Harwich first, so there).

Home assembly products, don't you just love 'em? All those lovely bits of sprue hanging on....

Today it was the standing up coffin type plastic shed that is supposed to house the shredder and other gardeny overspill. Part way through I realised that my careful measurements were in fact not careful enough - measuring the outside of the shed didn't allow for the reverse tardis effects of thick plastic walls. Sooooo, its gone from 10cm spare to 10 cm just not big enough. Grrrrrr.

I suppose officially the first day is tomorrow as I'm a paid employee until the end of today, but its certainly felt like freedom already :-)

What a glorious day weather wise too. I've got the third and hopefully final coat of paint on the newly plastered conservatory walls, collected a parcel for Mo, been to Focus for some housey/garden supplies, weeded and put some new plants in the front garden and, nicest of all, taken half an hour out to sit with Mo in the garden to enjoy a coffee.

Tonight is the first night of a regular Monday evening stint of babysit for almost four year old twins - hope I've saved a bit of energy for that....

Wonder if I could get in to study criminology and youth undergrad course from sep 2008?????

and very nice hols they were too. Holt proved to be a good choice as a base in North Norfolk. Enough foody places for frequent short trips out, charity shops to stock up with books, interesting little shops.

The cottage was comfy and warm, with solid beams to withstand being shaken about in the earthquake.

We went for a (not very long) walk in Holt Country Park and had a day when we ventured as far as the coast to Blakeney and Cley. We did some writing together on the Railway game.

Lots and lots of reading - some of which I'd brought with, some from the Charity shops and some supplied by the cottage. I started and ended the week with Trollopes, Joanna (cottage) and Anthony (charity), going via Agatha Christie (Ch), Mcall Smith (Ch) Wilbur Smith (Co), and Dean Koontz (Ch).

We had two lovely sociable evenings meeting up with friends we hadn't expected to see.

I didn't think about work at all but now of course I am thinking about it - only 4 weeks left to go....

of bathroom brochures. Yep, I think we may be in with a chance of the record. Having started - or thought about starting - doing up bathrooms three times over the last 4 years we have a mighty collection. And this time it looks like we'll get there (as I've stripped all the wallpaper and knocked off an alarming number of tiles already, we'd bloody well better). We've almost chosen everything - and how? - by walking around stores and saying "lets have that one". Maybe a huge, symbolic bonfire when its all completed would be the thing.

Want to see a pohutukawa. Want to see one NOW (stamps foot). And some tree ferns. I neeeeeed to be in New Zealand.

I've been trying to read this book on my train journeys this week, but I think I may have to give it up as each time I end up with the sadness of a reduced woman - its making my brain bleed, I swear it is.

and that noise finally convinced me (along with stern looks from Mr H) that I really should drag myself along to the docs - and I've been signed off, for a week - bloody hell! Ah well - one of my 2008 'not a resolutions' is to get a bit fitter and healthier, so what a prompt this is.

Sense and Sensibility - I meant to give it a miss, really I did. But on Sunday I used the BBC iplayer to catch up with esipode 1 on the laptop and then watched esipode 2 on the real screen. Janet McTeer - magnificent. As the girls' Ma? Well, not sure about that - but Janet, magnificent. As for Willoughby, I'm sorry, but that face is so wrong! (Not the type of face as such - take Huff's sidekick, dough with charisma, now he could be Willoughby).

Some time over the last year, the Guardian gave us a freebie copy of Bagdad cafe. I remembered loving the film when it first came out, so was a bit worried about spoiling the memory but hurrah - still think its wonderful. Full of awe about Marianne Sagebracht.