Thursday

This morning it was easy to get Little Prince ready for school as they were having a pyjama day for the last day. Well I did insist that he got changed into clean ironed pyjamas (and anyone who knows me, knows I HATE ironing so I don't normally iron pyjamas) rather than wear the ones he wore to sleep in, which was what he wanted to do!! He took his monster feet slippers with him to school, and was quite miffed that I wouldn't let him wear them to go to school and insisted on trainers instead!! He also took boxes of chocolates for his Teaching Assistant and the Substitute Teacher who has taken over from his regular teacher, who is off after an operation.

Mr Messy came home after dropping Mrs LMS off at work, so that he could unplumb the old, broken dishwasher, so that the delivery men could take it away when they delivered our new one. He couldn't find his adjustable spanners so had to go to the shop to buy a new one, Princess Lollipop wailed when he and Drama Teen left, she wanted to go :-( When they got back Mr Messy sorted the old dishwasher out and then decided to take Drama Teen out with him to buy a new laptop for Mrs LMS. Hers is falling apart, literally its held together with duct tape in places, and she has needed an upgrade for a few years now. As Mr Messy can legitimately claim the laptop as a work expense (Mrs LMS is OUR shop's Gallery Manager) he decided to treat her. They were out for ages, and when they got back they explained they'd done some shopping too while they were out - Drama Teen has her Daddy wrapped round her little finger and always manages to wheedle shopping out of him lol.

While they were out Garden Man and his Labourer were working away, finishing fitting the new gates on the cottage at the bottom of the garden. And today they FINALLY finished YEAH :-) The garden looks so much better, and is so much safer for Little Prince and Princess Lollipop to play out in this Summer :-) It has taken three weeks rather than the 2 days initially quoted, but I did keep adding jobs on and the garden looks fantastic :-) The surplus large garden toys are for sale on the internet and should be out of the way by early next week, although I do have to jetwash them first. Garden Man is going to come back soon, to load his small trailer with some rubble/bricks left around the newly fenced in oil tank.

When I picked Little Prince up from school I was going to take him straight to the next village to get some hand made chocolates for his class teacher. When I saw all the other children coming out of school in their pyjamas I remembered "Pyjama Day" urgh! I'd have to take Little Prince home to get him changed and then go out, but he bounced out of school in his PE kit with his pyjamas in his bag. We drove straight over to the other village and sorted out the box of chocolates, and a thank you card for his teacher. Then we drove back over to our village and dropped the chocolates off with his teacher, along with a hug from Little Prince and lots of thank yous from both of us. She is a star of a teacher, and really devotes herself to all the children in her care, and has helped Little Prince so much. I can't say enough good words about her, she is a gem and we are very grateful for all her help, care and love for Little Prince.

We then had to drive over to Little Prince's friend D's house, as the boys had arranged that D would come to our house to play. After picking D up we finally returned home and the boys ran out into the garden to play, they LOVED it :-) Mr Messy, Drama Teen and Princess Lollipop went out to pick Mrs LMS up from work and take her to OUR shop to talk to the author she's been working for about some more edits he needs doing. I hardly saw the boys all evening, they barely came in from the garden and had a whale of a time :-) The garden "makeover" might have taken longer and cost a lot more than we anticipated but it is worth every moment and every penny :-) It will be a Godsend over the Summer holidays, providing the English weather co-operates!!!

When Princess Lollipop came back she ran to the open patio door, looked out and jumped up and down cheering "Garden YEAH" :-) Once she had her shoes back on she ran outside to play with Little Prince and D, they patiently tried to include her in their games and played very nicely together.

Mr Messy went straight to the kitchen to install the new dishwasher that was delivered earlier. Connecting it up to the water pipes and electrical sockets was simple. Getting it into position under the worktop was another matter. The kitchen is tiled with slate tiles and the feet of the dishwasher kept getting caught in the mortar spaces and Mr Messy just couldn't move it. He ended up losing his temper and getting pretty foul, so we all left him to it and kept out of the way! Eventually after many different attempts at getting it in place, Mr Messy took the feet off altogether and jammed it under the worktop. He isn't sure how stable the dishwasher will be, but its in place now and Mr Messy has calmed down, so I'm sure it will be fine :-)

Once the littlies were in bed I had a lovely long chat with a good friend :-) We bounced ideas around of where we could meet up for a short break over the Summer holidays. We looked at loads of different places, and just couldn't decide! Well we did decide it WON'T be Butlins or Pontins or somewhere like that lol!! We left it that we will try and come up with some ideas and then chat again, I'm really looking forward to getting together as we live a long way apart and don't get to see each other (or each others children) in person very often. I'm sure we'll manage to work something out!!