bopeepsheep) thought it best not to spread my germs around. (On the other hand, I'd had to go in on Tuesday to do the laptop exchange despite a streaming nose and sore throat.) Staying at home is generally good for resting and for doing your own thing, but I didn't really get any of that done (and I'm still angling to get the new laptop into service) as I ended up watching smallclanger for most of the day and doing what little I could towards trying to tidy up a bit for the weekend. To that end, bopeepsheep persuaded me to go out shopping on Thursday afternoon and we bought a shoe-rack and a desk (to add to the coffee table and other stuff that were delivered from Argos on Wednesday) - this didn't really help tidy up, though, as it meant more boxes plonked in the hallway!For some reason I didn't get in to work until 11:15 on Friday, which was a bit naughty (probably to do with needing more sleep because of being ill). Meanwhile, Argos delivered a new mattress - so when I got home we had the fun task of getting it upstairs (past the stair gate) and on to the bed.
We did at least manage to clear the sofas by Saturday morning so that my parents had somewhere to sit when they arrived. We went out to Bella Pasta for lunch and were surprised to find on getting there that it had changed its name to Bella Italia (though the receipt, and some of the crockery, still had the old name on it).
Shortly before we finished lunch I sent a text message to the number that
foreverdirt had posted in jiggery_pokery's journal to find out where the `Chris+Meg' meet had got to. Then we exited the restaurant, and there they were, just walking past. Apparently it was fortunate that we hadn't tried to meet them at 1pm because they had only just arrived. So we said hello to them and I accompanied them to G&D's for a brief period while bopeepsheep went to a few shops with my parents in tow. (And it was nice to find out that some of the stuff that Chris has written about dezzikitty is in fact true! <grin> And she has nice eyes.)I rejoined my family just as they came out of Boots to finish their shopping, and we went home. My Dad apparently had a great time trying to put the rings back on the stacker faster than
smallclanger could take them off - this occupied them for a fair while. smallclanger also demonstrated to his grandparents his new skill of clapping, and some of his noisy toys (so next time they hear sounds in the background while we are talking on the phone, they will know what's making all the noise).We had a beef pot roast for tea, and then my parents left to make their way home.
On Sunday we didn't get up very early, but we went to a big car boot sale a few miles out of Oxford, arriving there at about noon when a lot of the traders were starting to pack up. We went home via Homebase for some compost for the front lawn, and after lunch went back out to buy a fence (which is being delivered on Thursday - not as a complete fence obviously, but in bits which we will have to build) and a front gate (although I don't really see much wrong with our existing one).
I built the shoe rack, which turned out to be rather larger than I thought it would be, and this eventually went into the hall. So now you don't have to negotiate past a big pile of shoes to get in and out of the house, but you do have to negotiate past a shoe rack (and a bookcase on the other side). At least the shoe rack is straighter and less likely to move if you bump into it.
smallclanger put up a big protest at bed time, and an even bigger one in the middle of the night and had to be brought into our room for a feed, as seems to be usual these days.Bank Holiday Monday was no holiday, really - there was much gardening to do. But first, we revisited the car boot sale, getting there at the slightly better hour of 10am. After we got back to the house,
bopeepsheep's parents arrived to help with the gardening. I went out to the front and to my surprise discovered that the forsythia had vanished! Well, almost. It had been pruned to half a metre high, and the branches were in the process of being cut up and put into bags. After lunch I then had the task of taking the bags to the Redbridge waste centre (together with a big pile of cardboard which we have accumulated for recycling). I didn't fit all of it in on the first trip, and was trying to rush in case it closed at 4pm.I then made some more garden waste by mowing the back lawn and picking up various bits of bush which
bopeepsheep had pruned earlier, and we filled the car again (taking more care to fit it all in this time) and I went on another trip. Unfortunately, I brought it all back again because I hadn't read the sign properly on my first trip: it closes at 17:30 and I had arrived at 17:36. So now I have a car full of trees, which will have to be emptied before we can go anywhere (the driver and passenger seats are free, but there's no baby seat).In the evening I built the toddler swing, which is a bit bigger than the baby swing (obviously) so I'm not sure if we'll have room to use it indoors very often. It also says on `not suitable for children aged under 18 months' but I think we might ignore that bit as the seating arrangement is not that much different from the baby swing. (Neither of them has a shoulder belt which would stop him from climbing out of it, so he'll have to be watched whichever one we put him in.)
In the evening,
smallclanger put up a lot of protest for no particular reason that we could fathom. Eventually he flaked out on my shoulder, so I took him upstairs and put him in bed. He slept all the way through until 8.30 or so (with only a short break of a few minutes after 7am when we had to disturb him because his mum needed to feed him). Of course, he didn't do that again the next night (I got him back to sleep when he shouted at 2am, but I had to give up and bring him back when he shouted at 4am).And on Tuesday it was back to work again.
