Make a note to buy the Echo THIS Friday, when I will absolutely be in it, in our beautiful new garden. It really looks awesome. R spent the weekend pinching paving slabs from people's drives and laying them in the corner as a shed base, only for the shed men from Wolverhampton to say it was not level enough, so this weekend he is concreting it. Hence the new shed in a heap in the middle of the grass, and all the contents which will go in it getting rusty outside or in the lounge looking savage. So this am as I left for work and it was spitting with rain, I did a world's strongest man style event, lugging bags of cement from the bag on the end of the drive to the porch, before cycling to work on my racer. On Tuesday I cycled to and from Swaythling and Netley on the yellow and purple machine, and apart from a sore neck I am doing ok. I look stupid but I can get my feet in the toe clips, and out again quickly enough, which is the important bit.

We had a look at the new thing on Google where you can see your road at street level, and there's a blue Merc parked on our drive!! We think it must be the garden designer's but its an unusual thing to happen to us. It's weird how the photos have immortalized a second in the life of every street - there was a chap changing the bin bag in the bin at our bus stop. I hear people got in a paddy because it showed them commiting burglary and picking their noses - but doesn't that add to the fun of it!

I have been busy at work with teaching children how to cross the road and other important features of life for 5 and 6 year olds. We counted over 100 today! Also learning to count in french, only up to 12. I also led singing practice which was fun, as we sang the Spring Chicken and the Little Seed and another song about getting bugs in your pants. A great sentence was written today in my class - 'Worms flop around all the time'. It had a full stop, finger spaces, was spelt correctly and was only lacking a capital letter.

For our date night last night I was going to take King Pin R to the new bowling complex in Eastleigh, but there was an hour's wait so we went to M and S for a coffee instead. Also an enormous piece of coffee cake. On Tuesday night I went to IKEA for the first time, and it was a very cheap night out - 74p for a hot chocolate. So, next date night that is where we are headed. Time is running out for running before the first event I am entering, however I can run for over 30 minutes now, and can do 5km outdoors ok, so with a bit of competition I should be able to put the 2 together to hit 30 mins, if not too many hills. I have had some fantastic runs in woods near our house, in the sunshine, and after 10 minutes I really love running, even if I am overtaken by dog walkers. So this weekend is a big warm up, my last chance to make any real improvement on my time. Its that or take a scooter with me to hide in the bushes and jump on.

Working 3 days a week seems to be leaving me statistically more tired than 2.5 days did! And thats with my extra 0.5 being time without the children for planning etc. I have been trying to cook tasty and nutritious family meals as well, which is probably where I go wrong, especially as no one is ever grateful and I could just as well get takeaways. Before I get to work at 8am I have motivated H to get out of bed, put laundry on, emptied dishwasher and made breakfast. I have hit on getting the girls to make their own lunches, which is going well at the mo, but might be the novelty factor. I think I need to lower my standards of cooking and cleaning for 3 days. Or get an au pair. This weekend I have an exciting night out with a monk in Winchester. I saw my nun this week and told her, she might know him from her days in London where she worked with some monks. I hope she is not worried that I will forget all about her and get all monkey!