Brrrr it’s gone cold again. Steve messaged to say it was snowing again – I was trapped between a very snuggly sleepy Charley, and a sleepy boobing Erika though to get up and see for myself. But they woke eventually and Erika gave Charley a good morning hug and brought me my glasses and expressed such concern that my slippers weren’t where they ought to be that she went on a hunt for them even though I said it was fine, that I’d left them by the sofa! Sure enough there they were and she exclaimed in triumph at having found them “there ‘tis!” and brought them over. Can’t not get up after that really.

I’ve started keeping my clothes in the hall these days. Erika gets cross with me if I go back into the bedroom after getting up, and as they all now expect me to head straight off to the kitchen and workshop to sort the fire and coffee and breakfast I don’t get mithered if I head that way and I can get dressed quickly in the shelter of the hall.

Fire was a good one this morning. Managed to actually set it up fairly well, lit first time, and the whoomphing and crackling when you can hear it from the kitchen is a lovely reassuring sound. There’s been a bitter wind today though and it’s been just below freezing and I struggled to get the boiler temperature up much past 50C.

Cheesey marmite roll leftovers for my breakfast today though – best breakfast in days!! That one is DEFINITELY being added to the baking repertoire. Erika begged for honey and got very giddy at the suggestion of porridge to have with it, so that was the kids’ breakfasts sorted! Perfect day for porridge really, too.

Couldn’t think of anything to make with the sourdough (in hindsight, a batch of dough for another cheesey marmite roll would have been a good idea…) so I left it be, and spent that time snuggling with Erika on the sofa instead.

When lunchtime rolled around, I sorted their lunches and took the opportunity to clear up the yard from last night’s firewood efforts. Ten minutes of brisk activity clearing the branches away and I was finally not cold. Still struggling to get the boiler water temperature up though.

When Erika had her nap we (honestly, even though we all feel slightly guilty about it) breathed a sigh of relief. Ben spent naptime drawing, Charley curled up with the iPad, and I headed out to deal with the sycamore. No longer afraid of using a saw, I took off the long ends of the branches and carted them around to the barn to deal with fully another day (the wood is for next year anyway). I cleared all the twigs and branches away as well as we’d promised Charley we’d get his bike tyre fixed tomorrow so he can ride it again, and he’s going to need a clear yard and path for that! Needed a shower after that and somehow managed to sneak one in while Erika was still sleeping, AND got a few minutes sit-down with my crochet afterwards!

Steve came home late having lost track of time being the only one actually in the office today, but he came home laden with pre-Easter-break groceries, and a machete for me! An “early Easter present” haha. Those of us who know us well will know we don’t really do stuff like that so it was very much a tongue-in-cheek comment 😉

We HAD to go out to try out the machete and we needed to bring a couple more logs back anyway that we left out yesterday evening when the light faded suddenly but we didn’t intend to spend too much time out.

Of course we ended up staying out way too long. The clock change is confusing us both, we’ve been getting used to carrying on until the light fades which used to be around half past seven, but it’s now very suddenly half past eight and oops we missed dinner time again…. so it was microwave chocolate cakes for tea, not that anybody minded.

Ben had been super busy drawing while I’d been outside earlier, and was drawing again when Steve and I were outside as well. He’d drawn a whole Minecraft story to put up on his wall – I think it’s awesome!

And then we started the bedtime shenanigans.

Charley wanted to stay out with me and Erika. He got really upset when it was time to go to bed – turns out he’s been wanting to stay up with us in the hope that Erika will go to sleep, so that he can finally have some Charley-Mummy time. Problem is, after the boys are in bed it’s my time to quickly catch up on housework while Erika has supper, and all my spare attention is on her. It’s our mummy-Erika time. We managed a snuggle though once Erika was settled with her snacks, and he went to bed okay after that but at least I got to understand a little about what he feels he’s missing. I can work with that.