An eventful weekend

This has been, in the history of weekends, one of the best ever. Virtually flawless. Yesterday was Husband's birthday. He is.......old enough now that I will not state his age to the internet. Suffice it to say he is now, even more so than before, the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything. Moving on. I got up on Saturday morning and brought Husband up a cup of tea and a rum truffle from the batch I had made the night before. My Husband could probably survive solely on rum truffles and is perfectly happy to eat one before breakfast. Or indeed for breakfast.

I was accompanied by children bearing cards and gifts, mostly of the edible truffle-y kind. You can never have too many truffles or too much whisky apparently. Husband was delighted with the cards and the envelopes which had been richly decorated and sent "Humpty Post". What, you don't have Humpty Dumptys delivering mail in your house? How odd.

I then handed over my presents which were a pile of John Pilger and old World in Action documentary DVDs (I may not have to speak to Husband for about 6 months now) and more importantly, a penny. An Alexander III silver long cross penny to be exact. Husband is a bit of a history buff, especially Scottish history so I thought he would like to own something that old and I was right. He was sitting at almost midnight last night examining his penny under the USB microscope I got him for Christmas and establishing that it dated from 1280-1286 and had been minted in Aberdeen. Mind boggling that something that small survived all those hundreds of years and ended up in our living room.

The morning was rounded off nicely by the opening of the boys' school reports which were encouragingly positive. They made us read the highlights out loud to them. Ego maniacs in the making, both of them.

The rest of Saturday was pleasantly lazy and not much happened of note. Oh, except I was accosted at one point by Second Born in the kitchen. He sidled in looking nonchalant and asked me how I liked my toast. I said buttered and he said no, how do I actually make it - what setting on the toaster do I like? I answered his queries, pretending hard that it was perfectly normal to be quizzed on my toastual habits by an eight year old with a large reporter's notebook and a coloured pencil.

In the evening we went over to my sister-in-law's house and had a wee family gathering to celebrate the birthday, indulging in the ritual consumption of chinese takeaway and cheesecake.

Sunday morning dawned - Mother's Day - and I was ambushed (eventually - there was a fair bit of scuffling and sotto voce discussion downstairs first) by the boys and Husband bearing gifts. I got breakfast in bed. Toast! Prepared exactly how I like it! How did you know?! (For the record I like setting 2 on the toaster and the toast has to cool down before it is buttered. Can't stand toast with the butter all melted in). And tea, and - full marks for creativity here - Mother's Day Abernethy biscuits. Which look like this:


Thos innocently smiling icing faces did not save them from being cruelly dunked in a hot cup of tea later! Yumm. I also got cards - a brilliant one from the boys which wittily referenced the scene of devastation that is their bedroom and which was also, of course, delivered by Humpty post. I also received a lovely card from Husband, the contents of which I am keeping to myself but the envelope for which I will share because it gives such a pithy and precise insight into life in the Loth household:

You should be able to click to enlarge that, but in case you can't, the whole envelope reads: "To Mum, please can we visit the toyshop now? Please? Can we? Can we? Is it time yet? Are we nearly there yet? My socks are about to run out! This doesn't fit me any more! Mum! Mum! Mum! Where are you? Am I allowed to eat these? What's for dinner today? My leg's sore! Have you seen my microscopic piece of Lego? Can you take me to buy another piece of Lego? Have you seen my library book? What have I got for breaktime snack? Can you take me to Steven's party? Why are you sitting down with that cup of tea???"

That man's a genius, I tell you. Oh, and I also got a brilliant Mother's Day present (organised by the aforesaid genius): a DVD of series 1-6 of Still Game. If you are not Scottish, this will probably mean nothing to you - it's a Scottish sitcom that grew out of a Scottish comedy sketch show and is one of the few things on TV that reliably make me laugh out loud. You non-Scottish readers across the Atlantic can try out your interpretation of Scottish dialect skills on a sketch from the original show if you like - set phasers to Malky!

And now I am off for a cup of tea and some more Abernethys. Or maybe Husband can be persuaded to open that box of Black Magic he got...............