In the school holidays the weather was rainy and so me and Amy and Toby mostly played indoors. We bounced on the bed, drew pictures and baked nice cakes. When the sun came out we went to the park. Gran & Grandad came for a visit and we had our lunch in the garden. We had fun and we laughed. Then we were sad because we caught colds. We had snotty noses and coughs and felt grumpy and ill. We stayed in our pyjamas all day and watched films and blew our noses lots and lots. I like school holidays but I like school time too because you can relax lots when your children are at school and you have time to do your most favourite and best things like knitting and reading. You can also blow your nose in peace and have all the tissues to yourself. I am glad school has started again.

On a more grown-up and serious note, I will be having a quiet day of reflection today and remembering my Gangan who died a year ago today by starting on the memory patch for my snuggly blanket. I have never hand stitched letters before so I do hope I can do it justice as she was quite a seamstress.

It’s been a bit of a strange week here as our routine has been thrown out by Toby’s school play. It happens once a year and means that he goes to school between 4 – 9pm for the middle three days, having his tea there and then doing a performance. He’s coped (just) and although I’ve not managed to get anything done all week (other than keep him entertained) I’ve enjoyed having him around – just him and me, and I’ve been able to concentrate on him without feeling that I’m leaving Amy out. On wednesday evening Amy and I loved seeing him in the play. Toby was quite bewildered by the whole thing but not upset and some of the older children were really amazing and gave a joyful and spirited performance despite some severe disabilities – there wasn’t a dry eye in the hall!

Anyway, because of the change in routine I’m really behind with replying to emails (again) and not much knitting or housework has been done. I did manage to make some real cupcakes though (inspired by a picture I saw over at Dotty Cookie of some cupcakes Ali bought) and I was really pleased with how they turned out. I just made a regular victoria sponge cake mixture, plopped spoonfuls into individual cases then swirled half a teaspoon of strawberry jam through each one and baked as usual. I topped them with pale pink glace icing and a dried strawberry (I couldn’t get the freeze dried kind so settled for the chewy dried ones).

They went down a treat at Amy’s school afternoon tea and looked quite appropriate as we were raising money for breast cancer charities.

Have a good weekend, it’s a bank holiday here and looks like rain so we’ll be bed bouncing!