Jelly, flying, and sleep.

From yesterday:

1) We spend a morning visiting friends. They get the kids making their own homemade pizzas for lunch, followed by raspberry jelly.  M (who is something of a jelly fiend!) was blissfully happy!

2) S lets A play with his Flight Gear – they fly over Isle of Skye and Mull. A is enthralled.

3) By bedtime, A isn’t feeling too well, and M is exhausted following her late night the previous night. I put them to bed and implore them to be kind to each other, and themselves, and let each other go to sleep.  Five minutes later, they are both out for the count.

Hats, lunch, and shopping.

1) Hard at work the workmen, in their fluorescent jackets, have accessorised their outfits with Santa hats 🙂 .

2) At the end of our annual shopping expedition, Dad and I enjoy eating lunch together. Across the way, I notice a little girl eating spaghetti with her fingers. Opposite, is her daddy. They look like they are having lots of fun and I find myself hoping that maybe, like us, they’ll be still doing the same in a couple of decades time (although, perhaps she’ll have figured out how to eat her spaghetti with cutlery by then!).

3) We have a highly successful shopping trip, even though it included a bunch of stuff that we hadn’t gone for (although it was for my brother, so it wasn’t as bad as it sounds).

It’s okay, breathe easy, and safe.

1) The house key is in the door and I’m outside de-icing the car.  M comes out shuts the door, and brings me the key. I take the key, we jump in the car and off we go 🙂 . Two hours later I return, put the key in the door, and realise that the door had been closed, but was unlocked*. Once again, I’m grateful that we live in a fairly safe neighbourhood!

2) When I head up to school at lunchtime, I can’t find my bag.  I don’t worry too much, reassuring myself that I must have put in down in an unusual place when I returned to the house earlier (cf 1)). Four hours later, I return… I look for my bag. And I can’t find it. I look some more, and I still can’t find it.  And I look still more, and I still can’t find it.  Did it somehow fall out the car in the shopping centre carpark this morning? Surely I would have noticed? I check the car for the third time.  And I find my bag.

3) I spend the afternoon in school helping to set up for tomrrow’s Christmas Fayre.  M’s teacher personally escorts her to the school hall and brings her to me. A little later, one of the playground assistants tells me that she’d been watching A as he left the school at lunchtime to come out to the car (he was coming home for lunch).  I’m so grateful for the diligence of the staff at the school, that they know my children, they know me, and they make sure my kids are safe 🙂 .

* Lessons in how to lock up the house properly commence tomorrow!!

** I’m seriously contemplating putting a fluorsecent stripe down the side – a small black bag is far too easy to lose!

Glühwein, baking, and staying home.

1) Mum and I met a friend in Edinburgh this morning. After lunch, we wandered through Princes Street Gardens, where the Christmas Street Fair, and German Market were just finishing setting up.  We sipped piping hot glühwein as we walked.

2) Yesterday I baked six (well, eight really) cakes.  Today I covered and decorated them.  A big job, but hopefully they’ll sell well on Saturday, and it will all have been worthwhile!

3) My friend picked up A when I dropped M off at Explorer’s.  Later, she brought both children back home, which meant I didn’t need to go out again 🙂 . Thanks R!!

Aeroplane lift, averted, and no lunches.

1) It’s been ages since I gave anyone an aeroplane lift – I guess it’s mainly that A isn’t four years old anymore!

2) As I raked through the medicine box, I remembered putting migraleve on the shopping list… and it slipping off the bottom (because it requires a proper pharmacy, not just the medicine aisle in Tesco!). Thankfully there was some in my emergency stash – I’m feeling much better now.

3) We decide to bring the kids home from school for lunch tomorrow, meaning we don’t need to make packed lunches tonight 🙂 .

Just an ordinary weekend.

Three Beautiful Things from the weekend:

1) To garden – clearing away the weeds and preparing the garden for winter.

2) To go through the pile of accumulated mail, filing, sorting, organising, and preparing for the week ahead.

3) It was a soup and sandwich lunch at church. The hall was so full that they had to bring in extra chairs and tables, and the chicken and veg soup was delicious!

Scottish National Portrait Gallery

From yesterday:

1) A friend and I visited the Scottish National Portrait Gallery – I was struck by the beauty and architecture of the building, the muted colours of the décor, the lighting, the space, the carefully placed exhibits. Altogether, there was a feeling of space and calmness, quietness and reflection.

2) I particularly enjoyed the Jitka Hanzlová’s Photography Exhibition. Many of her photographs made me feel that I was right there – that I could reach out and stroke the horse’s mane, or step into photo and enjoy a stroll in the forest.

3) We also visited the BP Portrait Award 2012 exhibition. I wish I’d noted down the artist, but the first portrait I saw was larger than life, a black and white, head-and-shoulders picture of a girl, so detailed and lifelike that I had to look twice before realising it was a painting, and not a photograph.

If you happen to be in Edinburgh, and have some time, I’d thoroughly recommend a quick visit…  oh, and the café did a pretty good lunch too!

Together, four for lunch, and sunset.

1) On the way home from dropping the kids at school, I bumped into a friend. We walked home through the cold crisp morning together.

2) K arrived safely home from London this morning, and the kids came home for lunch. It was a rare treat, a mid-week lunch for four 🙂 .

3) As we got in the car, A exclaimed “look at the lovely sky, Mummy!”. He was right, it was very much worth looking at – and, if the number of photos shared on Facebook of that same sunset was anything to go by, lots of others agreed with us!

Holiday at home: lunch with friends and a walk in the sunshine.

1) Friends come to visit for lunch. We talk a lot about knitting :-). Which was very good. Then we enjoy lunch of good hearty chicken, carrot and squash soup, freshly-baked Norwegian mountain bread, vintage cheddar cheese, and homemade plum chutney. It was also good.

2) We walk in the sunshine through Fairy Glen – a bit muddy in places, but a lovely walk alongside a rushing stream, under trees of autumn golds and reds, and even some sunshine overhead.

3) We were about to make a phone call, but they beat us to it 🙂 .