"Good morning," she trilled brightly...

I've been awake since about 5 am. It's been productive, but the temptation to overdo it and crash and burn is strong in this one. We're still restoring the front room (which Linnea now calls the Living Room so we might as well give in and start) to its former chocablocness, and later today I hope to empty all the toyboxes one at a time and sort them out so that the labels no longer lie - they are labelled things like Games, Puzzles, Music, Dressing Up, Linnea, and Emer.

The rocking horse is back in, on a Swedish rag rug. I didn't fancy a rocking horse on a hard floor.

Emer's new word today - self-coined as far as I can tell - is Babby-Chair, for the booster seat she uses sometimes. Apart from Rs, her terminal consonants are getting clearer and clearer; CK, P, B and D are very clear. But I do wish Bebop didn't mean Teapot, because it confuses me.

Linnea objects strongly to having her hair done. So from the front she's all Scandinavian glamour and floppy fringe, and from the rear, it's bedhead all the way. Also, she's a Viking - this morning she sang and chanted an epic saga of interminable dullness, for ages and ages and ages and (deep breath) aaaaages.

If all goes according to plan today, we'll go to the library and exchange books and then somewhere else to buy a new mop (possibly a floor squeegee thing) and basil seeds and some plants for the hanging basket, which died while I was ill before we went away.

I've almost dug through the debris to the bag of slings so I can start posting them out to people soon, too. And if there's any justice in the universe I can also lodge the cheques to pay for them. That's another thing I ought to have done before I went away.

I'm back on my full compliment of pills - echinacea, evening primrose oil, pregnacare, antibiotic - and full of hope for the future. I left a message for the GP about my antibiotic dosage. I alternate between being sure I don't have Lyme anyway and I'll be fine and being terrified about the implications for my fertility. Ugh.

When there's food in the house

... we can eat it.

Last night, frittata sandwiches - I fried enough courgette to cover the bottom of the pan, covered it in half a dozen eggs beaten with some rice milk, let it semi-solidify, and covered it in tomato slices. Um, and there were herbs and stuff. Then I mixed some red hot pepper sauce into some mayo, and made sandwiches. It was very good and didn't need the dining table.

Which was good, because after eating we moved stuff from the dining room back into the living room and put it all away. I didn't get to clearing the dining table until about 7:15 am.

This evening Rob mixed up courgettes and broccoli and onions and carrots and tomatoes and made a pasta sauce and we ate it. Now he's ripping the hall carpet and accoutrements out preparatory to laying the hall's laminate. The final stage, which he's currently engaged in, is sawing through the doorframes so close to the floor his knucles might get grazed.

We are both very pleased about the laminate. It had it's first excretory test wipe today and I was - well, not ecstatic, but MUCH less stressed than I would have been had it still been on carpet.

I still need to buy a sweeping brush and some sort of damp-mopping thing like a squeegee. I'm thinking the tiny local hardware and homewares shop up the road.