Saturday

Saturday night, with assorted bangs and splatters going on outside. Oh, yes: fireworks went on sale today. It was a gorgeous sunny day in the Bay today, and turned into a very productive one too. After hubby got the lawns done I got a lot of washing out, and then we went to have a look at the Home & Garden Show. It was okay, but as small daughter said, "There was a lot of home but not a lot of garden there, Mum!" A couple of interesting things that we've been looking at but nothing particularly new.

This afternoon small daughter and I were doing some more work in our library. We've been doing a bit each weekend for the last few weeks - we've run out of bookshelves again but came up with the good idea of putting books on the top of the bookshelf (once I found all the bookends again) to gain extra shelf space, but we're also going to sort through the books to see if there's anything we don't want any more - next weekend's job, I think! I got a bunch of stuff stored away properly and we moved the filing cabinet. I want to set up a proper office space in there and I can't work if it's a mess!This week has been completely manic at work so it was nice to just do some pottering around at home with the family.

Speaking of pottering around, daughter and I have just finished reading Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and she chose Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix for her next reading-aloud book. We've read the first four Harrys already, but did them pretty much one after the other so took a break before OOTP. We've had some great books we've been reading together recently, including:

• Just So Stories
• The Jungle Book (the original Kipling version!)
• The Little White Horse
• Swallows and Amazons (the first three in the series)
• Enid Blyton's Circus books
• Harry Potter 1-4
• The BFG
• Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
• The Hobbit

She has read all of the Roald Dahls for herself, and is now tackling Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone on her own. At 7. I'm proud of her because it's not a particularly easy read - her primary school won't even let kids her age get it out from the school library (which I completely disapprove of - if she wants it, let her have it!). She reads because she loves it: she has been captured by the power of Story, and I'm so happy about it! Fairly high on my agenda is Anne of Green Gables and Black Beauty, along with a few other classics, as she comes to an age where she will enjoy them.

Last weekend was Labour Weekend, and it was wonderful to have that extra day on Monday! We had gorgeous weather too (which is unusual for Labour Weekend: it's often fairly unpleasant, but the Bay had a corker) - we had a bit of rain for about an hour on the Sunday afternoon, but took advantage of it to have a family movie afternoon, mitt popcorn and snacks. On the not-that-big-screen was The Princess Bride, one of my favourite movies of all time. Small daughter hadn't seen it before (I'd been waiting impatiently until she was old enough to enjoy it) and she absolutely loved it. My problem was resisting quoting all my favourite lines along with the movie so I didn't spoil it for her!

Well, not much else to tell right now. Things have been crazy busy but I hope that there is light at the end of the tunnel soon....