Not a lot is getting done

Oh to think of a more inspiring title. But it is a truthful one. And, largely down to the owner of the pair of feet in the above picture.

Whilst my experience so far has been that a baby is much easier to handle (and a lot more fun) fourth time round than first, there is still no denying the fact that any newborn is knackering to look after and as a result forces you to stop charging about the place at one hundred miles an hour and slow down.

This summer has been taken at an extremely leisurely pace. There will be no big impressive list of all the things we have done with it when asked all the usual questions as term starts back. To be honest, I'll be hard pushed to think what we have done. But it has been nice, and, generally relaxing, whatever it is we have filled our time doing.

Meerkats. We've seen some of them. And other animals, too. Thanks to our safari park passes, a day out to see the animals is a regular feature of the holidays. In my mind, I manage to forget the lump of money handed over at the start of the year to pay for the passes, making it feel like a free day out, where, thanks to picnics we take with us, absolutely no money needs to be spent.

And the garden. Hooray for the bigger garden. If ever there was a time to have a bigger garden that the children can play in, it was now. Our last one was the size of a postage stamp, and had a sheer drop included in that, so not the most child friendly place. We are all loving having a space big enough to swing a hula hoop or three.

And with some nice close ups of our garden produce, I could even attempt to fool my lovely readers into thinking we are proper gardeners. Readers who don't know me in real life, that is. The above tomato is the only tomato we have produced. And the two tiny cucumbers we grew came from plants given to us, and were the curviest ones we'd ever seen. But nice.

The figs are a triumph. Especially if you consider that they all come from a tree that was hacked down to the ground a few years ago. A resilient thing, nature. I'll be eating a lot of them in the next few weeks, as they have been rejected by at least one child and husband on the grounds they are too slimy. Another said she didn't mind eating the skin or the middle bit but could I remove the white bit. Easier said than done I replied - can't you just eat the whole lot and not look at the white bit. Apparently not.

Here is what the garden looks like, weeds, crushed up glass and all. Don't get me started on the last bit of that sentence. It will take a skip and a lot of shovelling to rid the vegetable patch of the rubble someone in their wisdom once saw fit to put underneath the shed which stood here when we moved in. Long term project, gardening, I'm telling myself.

There have been a few search and rescue operations for the cat, as she has taken it upon herself to vanish for a few days at a time by wandering back to the old house. No wonder, really - we have discovered the new occupants have been feeding her pilchards. Not such a daft creature after all.

And cake. There has been a lot of that. Both playing at bakeries with the girls and eating it with family and friends.

If I were to hand on wisdom as a fourth time mum, it would be on the virtues of tea and cake. A large mug of tea at the start of the day gets me over the feeling of `I am absolutely shattered, how will I possibly function today?'. Plenty more cups of tea, and a few generous slices of cake throughout the day helps too. And, there are not many seemingly disastrous situations with small children that cannot be helped by the offer of some cake, either, for that matter.

And on that note, baby is awake again, and so time to go.