Progress (real this time)

The grass is cut! Hurray! I can imagine the cheers (and mutterings of "About time too") rippling out across the internet. The whole family girded its collective loins at the weekend and attacked the grass that was threatening to engulf Edinburgh our estate the house. The children were bribed with a shiny pound coin each but Husband and I tackled the job out of pure embarassment enthusiasm.

I reckon we looked like a family of middle European peasants from some Breughel painting. I went in front with the strimmer, scything the long grass to more manageable levels. Small children followed behind, bickering, getting distracted and occasionally picking up the loose grass. Husband brought up the rear with the mower, cutting the grass down to what could almost pass for a lawn. Although, as we surveyed the results (it took us 2 days to do both front and back and we have a typically miniscule city garden) Husband did comment that it looked more ploughed than manicured. Whatever. We are no longer in danger of imminently losing the cat.

What's more I derived HUGE amounts of satisfaction from insisting that the boys complete the task to my exacting standards. "If I am paying for this, I want it done right" I smirked. I could tell they were thinking they had seriously under-negotiated their fee.

Not much else happened over the weekend. We decided that First Born is making sufficient progress in his drum lessons that he needs a drum kit of his own. I do not disagree with that for a moment (in fact I was the one who suggested it) but it does mean that this modest Edinburgh house is about to acquire its second drumkit. (Third if you count the kiddie-on electronic thingy the boys have been bashing on since they were toddlers). Our neighbours are going to hate us. (Even more than they already hate us for the whole Amazon-height grass thing).

One of the unfortunate side effects from the grass cutting episode was that my hay fever went absolutely ballistic. My nose was itchy as hell and alternately running like a tap or so blocked up it felt like I had been inhaling Blue-Tack. The net result of this was that I was a tad snorty in bed on Sunday night. By which I mean I was so congested I sounded like I was trying to drown an angry warthog. In porridge.

Poor Husband put up with it until about 3.45am before giving up and retreating to the spare bedroom. Which the children have been conscientiously coating with potato crisp crumbs and bits of popcorn for the past month or two, giving the bed an attractive crispy quality that Husband entirely failed to appreciate. If I want to stay married, think I'm going to have to make more macaroons.