Can you tell it's the holidays - I have time to breathe, bathe and blog. I am really into watching Miranda at the moment. I have just worked out how to use i player, I thought you had to pay for it a la i tunes, but it is completely different and is just like watching tv! Anyway, i am a complete Miranda groupie and even say 'bear with' when I answer my mobile. That is a rare thing to happen, it is usually lost, charging or on silent in my bag, and when it is on and rings I am never sure quite how you answer it.

Today we went to Romsey, which was as cold and bleak as everywhere else, but we were meeting Sandra, a very lovely relation ( my dad's cousin's wife) for lunch. She bravely came to watch R and I do the Salisbury triathlon last year, which I am bravely doing again this year. R is doing the Hart one, which we did the year before. We are doing one each in early May so that the girls can come and watch, having never been before. And then we are both doing a big one in late May. I have also signed up for the New Forest Rattler, a 89mile bike ride in August, although they do do a 49 mile option if its raining or something. Sandra was a great photographer, she kept jumping out of her car at different places on the route and taking photos. She is the only person yet to come and watch us compete, triathlon is not much of a spectator sport as you only get to watch people doing the stupid bits, like running across a shingle car park barefoot, putting wet feet into dry trainers, taking off sweaty clothes and limping out and then limping back over the finish line. However, if you would be interested in getting up early on a Sunday or bank holiday Monday to either look after our children or bring them with you to watch we would like to hear from you, CRB check or no. We had a cold and slow lunch in Romsey, at That Little Tea Room, which is cold and slow. Then we did a trawl of the charity shops ( there are 7, all selling Jaeger and Hilfiger, dahling) and then a sprint round Aldi. Today I also impressed myself by going to two classes at the club, dahling, I did spin this morning with Karl (white too tight trousers, difficult to know where to look, just keep my eyes on the RPM) and then went back this evening for a swim with girls followed by Pilates with a brilliant stand in teacher called Katie. I have not done Pilates for ages and really enjoyed it. Since then, R has gone swimming ( his turn for swimming club, hence my flurry of exercise earlier) and I have watched 3 episodes of miranda, eaten two of yesterday's mince pies and finished off a bottle of wine. Yesterday we had a mince pie making fest, with 7 children in the kitchen applying jam to pastry (a genius idea of Vicky's, who figured early on that children don't like mince meat) in a manner which is more Chuckle Brothers than Nigella. Anyhow, they loved their pastry products and all went home happy customers, whilst I have been trying to get encrusted jam off the floor for all of a minute since.

R told me that a good friend of his has handmade his wife a pair of shoes out of some old bike tyres for a Christmas present. I snorted 'God I am so glad I am not married to him, can you imagine being given an old inner tube fashioned into a flip flop for Christmas?' which R did not appreciate. He said he thought it was romantic. Romantic! who wants an old tyre shoe, even the eco crazies of Bitterne Park themselves!! It takes a rare woman to sound delighted at the prospect of wearing a punctured tyre as a fashion statement, and luckily the person in question has the poise and grace to probably genuinely be delighted. Which is why she is married to her R and I am married to mine. Who gave me a Mister Blobby car sponge. Once. Only once. R had a very generous moment in the gym shop and bought me a lovely top that I have been admiring all summer, it was £40 and has finally been reduced to £10, so R bought it for me, secretly! along with a rucsac (might he be fed up of me borrowing his?) and a more sensible sports T shirt for school wear.

I have wrapped up some more presents, but am bored of wrapping now and am thinking of doing the girls' secret ones in newspaper, to be more eco friendly and because I am annoyed at the fact that we had to buy wrapping paper this year, as usually I salvage enough off other people's presents. At least my recycled cracker gift tags were handy and well used. I left A to wrap up a box. It looks like some piece of modern art, all flourishes and swags of sellotape festooned about. She bought a sweet shop for £1 and now we are all buying sweets off her, and she also bought a book called 1000 things to do which she has not got all the way through. She reckoned about 3 hours would crack it but she only got about 15 minutes focus on it today. 1000 things to do sounds like a quiet day to me.