a veritable medley of unusual and unexpected activities:

lots of novel events for me this week . . .

monday and an election:

straight to school after work to do gov's stuff (parent gov election) which meant i had to miss the 'sharing in his life' session. it was a shame but the work i had to do was new to me and consequently interesting.

tuesday and the women's group:

it was my 'turn' to have women's group evning. I had really struggled to think of something to do and then on sunday night stella had a crafty idea which sounded a good bet. i looked on the hobbycraft website and also went to the store after work. but in the end i decided i should really have at least practised to make sure it worked and to be confident about showing the others how to do it. and so i abandonned the idea and we just had mulled wine and mince pies to get us in the Christmas spirit - even though it isn't even advent yet!! it was a good evening though. these ladies came: jackie, mary e, sue s, katrina, dorota and liz.

wednesday and my first tutorial:

after looking after lucia i went up to london in the evening for my first german tutorial. it was very enjoyable and didn't even seem like hard work. i got lost getting there (of course) but fortunately i was early so still managed to arrive in time.

thursday and a dancing lesson:

friday will be my first scottish dance! so tonight we practised as many of the dances as we had time for

friday and my first scottish dance:

petra and i have been going to scottish dance lessons for about 2 months now and the association held a 'beginners' dance. It was held in watford at St Thomas's. The experienced dancers were very helpful, it was nice to 'dress up' a bit, both p and i did better than we expected, we all sang auld lang syne at the end and a jolly good time was had by all!! Home exhausted but happy!!

saturday and shopping (yes your eyes do not deceive you - i really did go shopping!!)

left early and was at the 'pie-house' by 9.00 a.m. quick coffee and communing with pies and then stella and i went to leeds ikea. stella bought lots of nice things for the house: some wooden slatted blinds for the kitchen, a shaker-style shelf and boxes for kezia's room, a hobby horse for jago, a red fleecy blanket for clara, some other odds and ends - like one always just seems to do at ikea! - and a lovely present for someone (can't say what or for whom - spies may be reading this - lol!!). i was starving by mid-day having had no breakfast and vitually nothing on friday, so we even stopped for lunch. we were there about 5 hours all told and then called in at the white rose centre on the way back to get stella's maid dress (only they didn't have it in but she has ordered one internetly). arrived back after dark to find clara sitting in her high-chair chatting to herself in the window's reflection, kezia and jago playing and rich just finishing making us all a lovely soup. yumm!! quiet evening.

sunday and a snow journey:

lovely morning with the pies and then set off home after lunch. stella has a rotten cold poor thing so i think she was going back to bed as soon as i left. horrid weather all the way down except for some snow - yay!! - round milton keynes/luton. it was far too wet for it to settle unfortunately but it did look lovely in the head-lights.

and finally . . . i am aghast to think it is only just over a month to the wedding - i am beginning to stress a bit about my 'outfit', frankie on the other hand is remarkably laid back about everything! i now find she has quietly been sorting everything out so that it is all in fact organised whilst conning us all that she is totally disorganised - what a joker!!!