Sunday evening. Surely, I should be feeling refreshed after a relaxing weekend. But I am not.

Friday evening we had our usual end of month curry night with a group of friends. An execllent evening, but a late one. Saturday morning Tricia went off to do her coaching session, Nikki, who was back for Sat/Sun went off to play hockey (and scored a goal!), Ellie went to a friends party, and me….. well, I got to work with some decorating that is outstanding. Most of Saturday was was spent rubbing wood down, and painting. .

In the evening I was with the school association, doing a bingo evening. We raised a good amount of money, so, whilst I would have preferred to have been at home slumped in front of the tv, it was worth the effort.

This morning we were at a christening. The three children next door were being christened, and Nikki was a godmother to one of them. She has been babysitting for them for a good few years and, Emily, Polly and Freddie adore her. Over the ten years we have lived here, we have developed a strong friendship with their parents Alan and Rachel, and they are sorry to see Nikki having gone off to uni – it means they will have to find a new babysitter now!

It was a lovely morning….and Nikki wore a dress. It is so rare it has become something of an event when she does. Here she is with her godson Freddie. Freddie calls her NikNik.

After changing into her more familiar regalia of jeans and t-shirt, and collecting her freshly laundered clothes – yes, typical student, she bought back a bag of dirty clothes (and promptly exclaimed about the high price of using the launderette on campus ) – Nikki drove back to uni this afternoon. Apparantly she has a lecture at 11 tomorrow, so she will have to be up by 10… hard life.

This afternoon, Tricia has been trimming hedges inbetween long periods of talking with neighbours, and I have been wallpapering. Only lining paper though. The walls are not particularly smooth, so I am putting up lining paper to give a smoother base for the real wallpaper. It means papering twice, but I will only be annoyed if doesn’t look good at the end, so the extra work will be worth it.

Robbie called in from Germany this evening, and it sounds like he is having a really good time. Ninja is on the mend, we have taken his collar off and his stitching looks like it is mending well.

Back to work tomorrow…. I realy should start planning quieter weekends. Particularly as my OU course has officially started now and I will need the study time. Unfortunately next weekends schedule looks chaotic already. Apparantly I am going to be auctioning off items from the harvest festival in church on Sunday – I was volunteered for this by my wife. I will be having words.