This is turning into a weekly update

I seem to have lost the habit of posting during the week. Must do better. I do have things I would like to post about on weekdays but just don't seem to get round to doing it. And I know you are all out there, desparate for updates on the state of my carpets and whether I ever managed to round up all those damn lentils. (I wish.)

The week itself was rather uneventful. Oh, I did have my almost-at-the-end-of-my-probationary period interview at work and it looks like I am not about to be ordered from the premises any time soon, and will, in a couple of weeks, be the proud owner of a permanent contract. So that's good. I am always slightly worried that my particular brand of mild and flippant sarcasm might be misinterpreted (example: suggesting that when the computer system identifies random cases to be sent to me for audit checking, there should be a sound effect to announce the selection. I suggested a crack of thunder and that bit of Vincent Price laughing from "Thriller"). My habit of occasionally bringing in batches of home-baked muffins for my co-workers seems to have warded off any moves to have me drummed out of the building. So far.

Saturday was a hectic day this weekend. I got up early to take SB along to a children's open morning at a nearby tennis club, as SB has expressed an interest in learning to play tennis. (This might have something to do with the fact that the astroturf football pitches at school on which he plays every breaktime are, at this time of year, converted to tennis courts. He is missing his running-around-and-barging-violently-into-his-mates time.) I dutifully hunted around on the internet looking for venues where he could try out tennis, found the club in question, discovered it had an open morning for kids and promised SB I would take him. On getting out of bed early on Saturday I discovered he had changed his mind. Naturally he did not tell me this until I was up, showered, dressed and ready to go. Sigh. Bang go the dreams of being the mother of the next Andy Murray. So I went to Sainsbury's instead. At least we have bread and milk in the house.

On Saturday afternoon we acquired two additional boys as I had promised our two a treat for various good deeds done and they chose to each have a friend round for the day. The plan was to go to the cinema. Apart from the pain of having to part with £20 or so for 4 bags of popcorn, this had the advantage of being a relatively unstressful way to manage 4 boys for a few hours on a rainy day. And since the film was in 3D I would get to wear glasses and so could doze off unnoticed. (If you put me in a warm, dark place and force me to sit still for 2 hours, I WILL fall asleep.) Of course you can only doze off unnoticed if you don't snore or drool onto your own shoulder - or worse, your neighbour's shoulder - but that's a risk I was willing to take.

However fate intervened and we turned up to find the cinema closed due to lack of lights. What to do with the 4 hyper boys? I took them to the arcade at the tenpin bowling.......rink? Arena? Place. The tenpin bowling place. The boys had a blast playing full-size Mario Kart and riding kiddy-on motorbikes. Myself, I had no wish to spend £1 for the privilege of blasting away at computer-generated zombies. I toyed with the idea of playing the "Deal or no Deal?" machine but decided that would just be sad. Why don't these arcades have a sort of grown-up creche? A wee cordoned-off area with old Space Invaders, Asteroids and Pac-Man games? I can't be the only one who would love that, surely?

Anyway, after emptying my purse into the various machines, I took the boys back home, made them two enormous bowls of popcorn (cheap, home-made popcorn!) and let them hang out in the spare bedroom watching Kung Fu Panda on DVD. We have a triple sleeper bunk bed (double bed on the bottom, single on top) in there and SB and his friend decided the best vantage point from which to watch TV was........underneath the bed. I popped in at one point and all I could see were two small hands occasionally reaching out from the gloom to grab pawfuls of popcorn. I didn't ask. I was sure I wouldn't understand the explanation.

The afternoon was rounded off with a session of colouring in pictures of buses. Buses full of aliens, mostly. (I suspect these would be buses found in Edinburgh during the Festival. Aliens are par for the course here in August.) We celebrated a good day in the traditional Scottish manner: by eating chips. Very satisfying.

Sunday has been more low key. Husband and I had work to do - real, paid work rather than housework - and the boys were very good about occupying themselves and letting us get on with it. We managed to get two thirds of the work finished as well as all the usual laundry, cooking, preparing for the week ahead stuff and are quite pleased with that. A relaxing evening wandering the blogosphere rounded off the day nicely.

I promise I will try to post more often and with a little more originality next week.