Hello. How’s things? Hope you’re all hail and hearty. What’s been happening in your world? Hope you’ve had a good week. This week I finished all my painting, but didn’t get round to cleaning the carpets…

I did manage to finally clean out my study. It took me a couple of days. Unfortunately it’s become a bit of a dumping ground for everything plus the Guinea Pigs are in there and they are little mess makers in their own right.

The dog is VERY interested in the Guinea Pigs and we have to make sure she is never on her own with them. Although they are almost as big as she is, I think there’s a good chance her terrier instincts will kick in and she might kill them.

The kids and I went a walk along the back of Helensburgh last week and it was fantastic. The walk takes you into the Duchess Woods and it was invigorating. The views were nice and the weather was dry, but blowy (the type of blowy that gives you sore ears and mussed up hair). Me and the boy searched for fairies in upturned tree stumps (the girl is just too old now for that) and the dog had a ball running into mud and feeling the wind pull her ears back like streamers. We then went to Helensburgh for some ice cream at Vanilla/I like Candy. We may have considered going to Dino’s, but the man was so nasty to my girl a couple of weeks ago (she was in there with her friend) that we are now boycotting the shop. In fact, we’ll never buy anything in there again. I hate it when adults think it’s okay to treat young kids badly. She asked him for a bag and he was really off with her.

I’m still reading The Corfu Trilogy by Gerald Durrell and loving it.

We didn’t much else this week. We have taken the dog for walks, I’ve drank a few bottles of wine (well, I am on my holidays!) and did a lot of cleaning and washing (I think our washing machine is on the blink…just testing it now). I also managed to spill an entire bucket of bleachy water all over the kitchen floor (including over my feet)…took me about ten minutes to get it cleaned up properly (after I’d shut the dog in the living room as she insisted on tap dancing across the wet floor!).

I’ve finally started writing again. I have this idea mulling about in my head and I started getting it down this afternoon. Felt good. Hope I can keep it up.

Saw a few folk this week too including family and friends.

But most of all I enjoyed having a wee bit of time to trawl the internet, read my books (I’m also reading Arianna Huffington’s Thrive) and potter about the garden a teensy bit (although the weather’s been a bit off this week…back to being bitterly cold).

Sigh. Back to work tomorrow. Oh well! Maybe some day I’ll be able to give up this working malarkey and be a lady of leisure (who reads a lot). Talking of reading, I also cleared out four bags worth of books which I donated to my local library.  This is good for me as I never get rid of books. My personal library was getting out of hand, though, so I had to do it.

Right on that note, am away to continue watching Rachel Khoo’s cookery programme Little Paris Kitchen. Til next time!

Dawnxxxx