B&B Chez McP

A couple of weeks ago I sorted out a regular babysitter for every other Thursday so that Jules and I could go out to dinner/to the movies and spend some time together. The babysitter has been twice and each time Jules has had a work commitment! The first time I went late-night shopping to get a head start on christmas presents but this week I decided to go to the cinema and saw "An Education" which is based on Lynn Barber's memoirs with the screenplay by Nick Hornby. It is an excellent film and I highly recommend it.

We have started up a band at work and I'm on keyboard and back-up vocals?! We had our first jamming session at professional studios on Wednesday and it was fantastic. I haven't played the piano for about 20 years and I'd forgotten how much I enjoy it. Our trainer has given me an old electric keyboard and I've found all my old music scores - I'm up to grade 4 so I've got quite a way to go. The kids love the keyboard too and are constantly playing on it although it loses it's appeal when Tom is bashing away at 5.45 am!

The weather was beautiful on Friday and Alayne and Leanne were both busy so Tom and I headed down to Clontarf with his boogie board. After some excellent swimming with his googles on looking for fish he decided to try and surf on his board and did an excellent job managing to stand up for at least 10 seconds.

It was the start of the Twilight racing season on Friday and Jules and Emma were joined by Michael, Mark and Craig for the first race in which they came first which is guaranteed to ruin their handicap for the rest of the season! Lisa, Julia and kids were at our house for dinner and we all had a lovely evening. The kids are so used to each other from being at the farm that they all play together beautifully which makes it very relaxing for us. I did a very low key meal and so was able to spend most of the time sitting in my lovely outside area drinking champagne with Julia and Lisa.

On Saturday afternoon the Duthies came over to stay. They arrived at 4pm and we immediately opened the champagne and got stuck in. Zoe, Paul, Sam and Bronte came for dinner too and we had another lovely evening with the kids playing monsters and watching movies whilst we were able to eat dinner in peace, chat and even play a game of Cranium. Zoe made the most beautiful raspberry cheesecake for dessert which I will be dreaming about for quite some time. Incidentally, Bronte is the girl that Tom made cry at kindy the other day by running into her with a pram. I'm sure Zoe "accidentally" stepping on Tom's foot and making him cry had nothing to do with the incident.

We lazed around on Sunday morning nursing sore heads whilst Kate started reading Cormack McCarthy's "The Road" and didn't stop until she had finished! We took the kids for a brief run around the park until a thunderstorm drove us back home where we had bacon sarnies, cheese and more champagne whilst the kids made a huge pillow camp downstairs and watched Disney movies - the perfect way to spend a rainy Sunday afternoon!

During the week I found one of Tess' diaries lying on the sofa so being a caring, involved, nosy mother I read it. She has a number of notebooks by her bed that she writes or draws in before going to bed. The entries tend to be little sentences or thoughts about things we've been doing. I particularly like the entry that she made below - profound thought #1!

"Mum is nice, Dad is kind, Tom is funny, I'm great"