Chickens in a box

A very trucker evening spent on Saturday evening at a 'school disco' organised by St Martins. We met for drinks first and then it was off to dance the evening away. Every song a winner, all the words known, all the moves made. Great fun. Now on the count down to our trip to the States and hoping the the volcanic ash from Iceland doesn't impact on anything. It's so typical; you plan the trip of a lifetime months in advance and then 3 days before you're due to go a volcano decides to erupt. I'm sure we'll get there - the first long haul flight I've done since William was born way back in the Vodafone days and also the first 'new' place that we've been to as a family so it's very exciting.

This week I've been working with a new client and it is so nice to have a change and the chance to learn some new things about my own work and how other businesses do things. Then on the personal front it doesn't require any travel and is a project I can manage while the children are at school. It is so less stressful not being constantly worried about fitting work around the rest of my life or missing an important email. Having said that I messed up the timings for tomorrow so could well find myself on a call outside Little Sunflowers! The boys are either horrible or lovely, fortunately today has been pretty good (perhaps because they've both been at school all day....). We went swimming and they're both doing really well and more importantly trying to improve. If they continue to refuse to have lessons that's fine, but the trade-off is that they have to listen to me and make an effort to learn the basic strokes. Doggy paddle is banned! With Eddie in the US th...

A fantastic do - watching the wedding in the morning followed by an afternoon and evening of eating, drinking, dancing and laughing with good friends. It doesn't get any better than that.

I am a broken record, saying the same things to the boys every day. Do they listen? So far the dog is better trained. Today is Monday, so we went along to the school for Monday Funday as per usual, and as per usual James spent the hour either glued to my lap whinging for a story, or trying to break the photocopier. The Cherries came in 10 minutes before the end, full of beans and singing their favourite songs while the younger siblings joined in. All except William who sat at the back glowering and James who was still surgically attached to my knee and refused to participate. Lurching on through the afternoon and after getting everyone's hair cut we had a play date with Jasper during which William managed to puke over the table in the middle of pudding before following-through on the den carpet just before bath time. Is there something here I'm doing wrong?