Family ties

Thanks for all your help yesterday - you are kind, and far cleverer than I am.

It's been lovely today, Weeza and co came over in the morning and Phil set of on a 50+ cycle ride home (yes, I know, he did it entirely for fun by a circuitous route) and Weeza and Zerlina stayed.  Phil has had a week off work, so little z has turned entirely into Daddy's Girl and, when invited to kiss Granny hello, said "No!" with a dismissive wave of her hand.  "She's doing it to me too, this week," said Weeza with resigned consolation.  z did kiss me later, when I'd curried favour with a Mini Egg.

In the afternoon, Squiffany and Pugsley came here too, as their mother had an appointment with the hairdresser, so everyone had a lovely time.  I'd bought some coloured pencils and writing pads and Squiffany drew lovely pictures for Zerlina and wrote affectionate messages underneath.  Her writing and spelling are very good - she spells things out phonetically, but also understands that not all words are written phonetically, so says "l - o -v - e 'love'" and "y - o - u 'you'" and has very clear handwriting too.  Pugsley is better with numbers than letters so far, and has never been interested in drawing or painting.  Squiff likes numbers too - having a linguist father and mathematician/scientist mother is showing itself.

The death watch beetle is clicking away in a companionable manner.  It's not a big problem, but we do squirt some Rentokill into the walls where we hear noises.  The house has been here more than 450 years, it'll see us out *shrugs*.

I've been happily watching Fred and Ginger on BBC4.  They sang the song that I associate with the Sage - not that he knows that, of course.  We're far too buttoned-up to mention that sort of sloppy nonsense, my word we are (caught him using the 'a' word not so long ago, however - hah!).  Anyway, given that it's not "A Fine Romance", if anyone can work it out, a small prize will wing their way.

Ooh, the other thing I was going to tell you is how lovely it is to sleep for hours and hours until I wake up naturally.  I had no idea how many times I woke up, but now I don't, and if I do I just read on the iPhone and that makes me sleepy again in no time.  I do get backache, as my left-right balance still has not adjusted - I still don't know if my legs aren't quite the same length or if my pelvis hasn't quite straightened yet, but I'm quite prepared to give it six months to right itself - but I wore heels last night and I had no pain or awkwardness at all.  I really wondered if I'd be confined to ground level for the future, but it seems not.

The benefit of being a close family showed itself last night.  I was due to go out to dinner - not only do I belong to a lunch club, but a dining club too - I know, darlings, I am all you think of me! - but Weeza and co still have my car.  So I just asked Dilly if I could borrow hers, as the Sage was going to one of his clubs too and besides, I've never tackled his clapped-out old van.  It's even older than my elderly and rheumatic Mercedes.

I found a spider of a sort I've never seen before in the greenhouse this afternoon.  A big fat brown body, it had, like a well-filled tick, only brown.  I had it amble all over my hand while I took its photo, but some of you are sensitive, so I won't put the pictures up here.  I'll get a spider book from the library to find out its name.  I saw a black and white wolf spider, but this one isn't the same type - it spins webs.