Blogger's sulking at me, so no pretty pictures of Gardening or Knitting, Plans this Evening

So I spent ages the other week trying to publish a post about the gardening I got up to with mamma, but for some reason blogger kept refusing to publish the post with its pictures, it kept coming up as an error. so now I've given up, and will simply tell you that the pots mamma and I planted up were very pretty. I think she possibly has a couple of photos on her blog if you want to see - find her at Mammafairy Sews.Whilst I was at the parents', I also made a block for QATWII; I made Anita's neighbourhood block. I was running out of time, though, so I made the basic block with the ideas sketched out that I wanted, put together all that I could and signed it - and mamma finished it off with a few extra details. I asked her to, as I did what I could in the time, but I could tell that it didn't feel finished. Again, I would show you a picture of it, but blogger doesn't seem to want to allow me to upload any photos, so you will have to wait until some unforeseen time when it stops sulking at me!

I have also very almost finished my first baby cardigan! All that's left to do is knit on the button band and attach buttons! I'm pretty chuffed with how it has turned out, and can't wait to start another one!

I'm out this evening, to spend the night with my discipleship group from church. We're having a sleepover at one of our houses, with a film and lots of unhealthy food! Then we'll all go to church together tomorrow morning. I'm looking forward to it; it should be a lot of fun. The girl whose house it is is leaving in a couple of months to move to South America for a while: how long, we don't know. But that's where she feels she's meant to be, so that's where she's going. We'll all miss her, but we're celebrating for her!

That's all for now - with a bit of luck, blogger will stop sulking at me and I'll post again soon with some photos for you to see!

Love love xx

Poorly sick, Cakes and Knitting

I’m still poorly sick. It just won’t seem to go away, it’s like an uncontrollable cough which makes me dizzy and gives me pain over the top of my head. I went into college on Tuesday, but I’ve had the 2 days since off ill. It’s getting really frustrating, because I hate lying around doing nothing, but every time I try to do anything it just makes me more ill again.

On the plus side, when I was in college on Tuesday I had a lot of fun. I had cooking, and we were baking and decorating cakes as part of a module on planning children’s parties. My party theme is Thumbelina, so that’s the type of cake I did – look:

Even the cake inside was dyed blue! I don’t normally dye cakes, because I like my cakes to look their natural colour. But I think it worked with this cake! My teacher seemed impressed with it. I really enjoyed doing it, too. I think it helped that I planned what I was going to do before I did it – some others hadn’t, and things didn’t quite work out for them.

I’m getting along well with my knitting, too – it’s almost finished! I just have to knit the button bands and join the sleeves into it.

Hopefully I’ll be better soon, and I’ll have more interesting news to report!

Love love xx

Photo March, Blogging April, Easter with Friends and Experiments, Poorly before Placement, College News, Knitting and reading, Work and Another Kind of Work

Hi! It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I’m sorry. Life gets so busy now, and then I find other things to do in my free time, and before I know it, a month and a half has gone already.

So March was meant to be ‘take a photo everyday’ month. Well. That didn’t really happen. I got some photos, but it wasn’t a success. Having to use my phone for photos rather than a camera was discouraging, and life just got busy, and I was too busy having fun to take photos. April was meant to be ‘blog everyday’ month – and you can see how successful that was!!

Easter was lovely – I caught up with lots of friends, and had lots of baby cuddles with my friend’s baby . He’s 5 months now! How time flies! A neighbour kindly gave me lots of baby clothes in 6-9 months to take back for him.

I blew eggs for the first time this Easter. I also dyed eggs for the first time. And filled hollow egg shells with yummy goodness for the first time. Look:

 

 Aren't they pretty?! And I dyed them just with food colouring! And they were brown eggs, not white, so I was amazed the colours came out so vividly.

A few green ones...











 This one was filled with brownie - yum yum yum!

This one looked rather aged, with an antique feel to it. I don't know why, it just came out that way!

 It is meant to look white inside - I filled it with a base of chocolate then white chocolate truffle mix on top. One day I will give you my recipe for it, but that might be challenging, since I don't really measure the ingredients at all...

See? So much fun to do! And so much fun to eat!











I didn't realise the dye would penetrate the inside of the egg, but it did. So the egg was a beautiful colour on the inside, this stunning aqua colour! It was slightly mottled too, which gave a gorgeous result.











I reached the chocolate layer... nom-nom...

Digging in with my spoon - it was a challenge to break into the chocolate on the base, but when I did, it levered straight out in one delicious piece!










 All gone! but see the pretty pieces left over? Well worth it, and something I hope to make a tradition of over the years!

I have a cold. Boo. It’s not too bad today, but yesterday was kinda rough. But there we go!

I start at my new placement tomorrow. I’m at the nursery attached to our Nanny College, which should be interesting. I’ve heard rather mixed reviews of it from other students – many say that there just isn’t all that much for students to do, as the placement operates a really strong keyworker approach. I think the approach is good in terms of forming strong connections with the children. But it must be a challenge for students. It means we can’t get practical experience of nappy changing, and things like that whilst we’re there. But I can understand why the placement works the way it does. For me, a person who hates to be doing nothing, the challenge will be finding jobs for myself to do so that I’m never just standing like a lemon. And of course I want to try to do as many creative activities as possible. They have an outside area there, so perhaps I’ll be able to do some gardening with the children. But we’ll wait and see what tomorrow brings!

We have new heads of Set. In first year, we get a new head and deputy each term. I hope they do well. It’s hard, because we’re asked to vote for the representatives we want; but we don’t know who actually wants to do the job. And without knowing that – well, there are 50 of us to choose from! There are so many people who would perform well in the role, but it’s very difficult to pick. It’s something I think I would be good at, but I’m not inclined to go for it in any way. I did so much of that in primary and high school, I’m kind of over the whole thing. Other people should get a chance, people who want to do it.

I’m knitting at the moment. But I’m not going to tell you what I’m knitting until I’ve finished it! I have some yarn for a pair of mittens too, but I’m going to wait until my current project is done before I start them. My sister has emailed me the first instructions for the mittens, so I’m all excited and motivated to finish the current work. I’m also still reading Sense and Sensibility. I’m really enjoying it, but I don’t often get the chance to indulge in reading purely for the sake of it. All too often I’m trying to do 2 things at once, and reading is not something where I can do that.

Not only do I have my first placement week starting tomorrow, but I have a module to work on next week. It’s a reflective blog, based on our time in placement and with a specific focus. My focus is free-flow. This is where the rooms in the nursery are divided into different types of rooms – creative, technology, sensory etc. and the doors are all open, so the children can all wander in and out of the rooms as they choose. There aren’t many resources about free-flow, but I’m planning to look at typical aspects of running a nursery which the free-flow design might affect, such as challenging behaviour, development, safety etc. This gives me a wider range of resources I can draw on, so hopefully this module should go pretty well! I also have 2 other modules to do this term – 1 on child health, where my focus in my group is immunisations. The other is on Working with families. I’m looking forward to them both, actually; I think I’ll enjoy them.

I also have a regular job! A family have asked me to babysit for them 3 times a week! They're lovely, with 2 boys, and I really enjoyed my first week last week. They're all so friendly, and so I enjoy it and enjoy the experience. The money helps, too - the security of it being regular is reassuring.

I’m hoping to start updating regularly again, but don’t hold me to that! Life can be so hectic, so I make no promises.

Love love xx

Getting to know me for the Crappy Day present Exchange

I will update with what I've been up to recently soon, but for now I'm doing a 'get-to-know-you' post, because I'm participating in the Crappy Day Present Exchange! So here's some information about me:

• I'm vegetarian. I love all food, literally - there is not a single type of food that I don't like. But I'm vegetarian, so I don't eat meat. I do eat fish, though. And I prefer chocolate to sweets.
• I love elephants. I don't know why, I just think they're really cool!
• I have a cat - or at least my mum does. I adore my cat. She's very cuddly, and very warm. And very furry. She moults all the time!
• I love bright colours - cheerful colours. I#m particularly fond of purple and teal, although I love orange too.
• I like watching rom-coms, or Disney movies!
• I spend my free time knitting, sewing, baking, writing letters and reading. I especially like sewing and baking. For my birthday, I asked my parents to get me baking equipment, as there were none provided in the student house I'm living in. They did brilliantly and got me most of the things I would want/need. I don't have measuring spoons, measuring cups or a rolling pin.
• I'm currently a student at Nanny College. I spend one week in college, studying; and the next week working in a placement with children. At the moment I'm working with children aged between 2 and 4. I also do babysitting in the evenings and at weekends. One of my normal jobs is with twins aged about 14 months. I love working with children; they make me unbelievably happy. When I'm in college, I have some lectures and some practical lessons - cooking, sewing, practical skills and personal development.
• I'm Christian. I love going to church on Sundays - the church I go to is really fun, and I find the services really interesting. I also go to a student night on Wednesdays at church, where we have a meal and fun chats!
• I'm a very tidy person. I hate mess! My stuff is all organised into boxes, box files etc.
• I don't drink much alcohol. I like to go out and dance, but I'm just as happy at home with a brew and friends to laugh with.
• I love to laugh!
• I don't generally bother to straighten my hair, wear makeup or do things like that. I like to for a night out, but I'm too lazy to do it normally. I prioritise other things instead.
• I'm very serious about dental hygiene - three of my top front teeth are false, and after all the surgery I've had for them, I don't want to risk compromising them by not brushing properly and regularly!
• I have no seasonal preference - I love how warm summer is, but I love cuddling up under a duvet in winter!
• I prefer showers to baths usually, although I like a bath as a way to relax on occasion.
• I have my driver's licence, but no car. I catch the bus everywhere at the moment, but I love going for walks.
• I love musicals. Last summer I saw Les Mis on stage with the wife. The year before we saw Wicked. Both were amazing - as was the film of Les Mis!
• Beth isn't actually my first name. My first name is Margaret. But I go by my middle name, Elizabeth shortened to Beth.
• My favourite ice cream flavour is Ben and Jerry's half-baked.
• I like colouring in. It's really fun, even as an adult! Adults don't get enough time to do pointless things like colouring in, and it's a shame!
• I can't play any musical instruments, but I wish I could play piano and guitar.

So hopefully there are things here that you didn't know about me before that you know now!

Love love xx

Weekend at my sister's with lots of knitty things, The week since which involves some Sewing and Baking, a haircut briefly mentioned, this weekend in London and the sudden future, Fill In the Blank Friday

Wow - it's been a busy week!

So I spent last Saturday to Monday at my sister's, which was really nice. Whilst I was up there she passed a knitted hat:

and scarf:


















and shawl:

onto me, which was really lovely. Aren't they pretty?! But then she also passed a whole bag of different yarns to me to take home and use if I could find a use for them! They're really gorgeous!

It was a fairly quiet weekend, which I really liked. We spent Saturday afternoon and evening at her flat, and as far as I remember we cooked supper then knitted and watched the film Wanted - a fairly terrible film, but amusing and easy to watch; happy stupid!
Sunday we went to Edinburgh in the afternoon, as my sister had a show to go to at the Fringe. It was mad busy there, which I didn't like. But we escaped into the calm of Edinburgh museum, which was kind of awesome and very interesting. I saw the Chronophage, which I really liked. It was enjoyable to think about, because it has these LED lights in it which denote the hours, minutes and seconds. The second lights would flash up all around the circle every second, moving one full revolution and one extra light forward so that it stopped on the next light every time - like a hand on a normal clock. But this means that it had to travel faster than one revolution a second. Isn't that geekily interesting?!

We also saw the animals room, which was amazing! I didn't grasp the full height and size of animals like giraffes and elephants until I was stood right next to the taxidermied bodies of them. They're huge!! I wouldn't even come up the entire height of the elephant's leg. I found it really interesting, and I found out that they don't taxidermy fish, as their skin is too fragile. Instead they make casts of them.

So that was really fun, and once the museum was closing we went with a friend of my sister and had supper in a little bar/cafe type thing. I finally had the fajitas I've been craving for about 3 months, and they were delicious! Then we walked along to the road my sister's show was on, and said goodbye to her friend, then told me how to get to the train station if my sister wasn't back in time for the last train, then plonked me down in Beanscene, and entirely scottish train of cafes. It was lovely in there. I sat and drank some tea, and knitted and people-watched. And, bizarrely, I saw the wife! I knew she was in Edinburgh that weekend, but it's a big place, and I didn't think we'd see each other, so I didn't tell her that i would be there. But there she was, walking straight past the window! I saw her at the last minute, and did a double-take. I realised she would be headed for the train station to go back to Newcastle. So I didn't call to her. I guess it just felt a little too much like a scene from a storybook. And my life isn't a story.

Anyway, my sister didn't seem as though she would be back  in time to catch the last train, so I set off for the station without her; but she did make it after all, so we headed back to Stirling and collapsed into bed. Monday she was working, so I lazed around in bed in the morning and read a Batwoman graphic novel, then made cheesecake brownies. My sister's SO fried some potato scones for me - I don't think I've ever had them before, but they were oh so very good! Then I packed all my stuff up, and went to Beanscene in Stirling to wait for my sister. We had a drink in there, and we got a full free drink card because they forgot to make my drink at first. Then we went to a little sweet shop and I bought some rosy apples and 'soor plooms'. We walked to the station, said goodbye to each other, and I got on the train and came home. Not altogether that exciting a weekend, but comfortable and relaxed, and the kind I like!

Since then I've been to the dentist, and she proclaimed my new false teeth beautiful; I've baked some, and I've sewed a lot. I finally made the pyjama top to go with the bottoms I made a while ago:

and realised I loved the top and thought it so gorgeous on that I was a little disappointed that it was going to be a pyjama top. I might wear it during the day sometimes!

And I made the same pattern in another fabric:

I love this on too, but not as much as the other! But I love them both very much, and feel good when I wear them! I made a huge batch of cheesecake brownies to use up some of the glut of cream cheese we had at home:

I love the cases! See, they're all spotty!
And I followed a recipe for Angel Layer cake. It wasn't very successful, in truth. It's basically like 2 giant meringues in different colours:

It's lovely meringue, don't get me wrong. But it's not Angel Layer Cake. Back to the drawing board!

I got my haircut today - no pictures, sorry! And I also dyed it this evening. See, told you it's been busy! And I still found time to put laundry through, do the dishwasher, eat, sleep...!

Tomorrow I'm going to London to see Les Mis with the wife - can't believe it's finally here! I'm very excited to see it, and looking forward to seeing the wife again! I miss her when she's not with me. And then next week is majorly busy too - meeting up with my high school form tutor and a friend; childminding; visiting another friend; and then there's less than a week before I leave! I have barely a handful of free days left before I go. nanny college was so far away when I first applied, I thought it would never happen. And now it's swiftly becoming a reality!

So last for tonight: Fill In the Blank Friday!

The best thing to do on a hot day is open all the windows, wear as few clothes as possible, drink cold drinks and lie around in the half dark with a book. Alternatively, carry on as though it's any other day but complain about the heat a lot!

The best place to be on a hot day is somewhere cold! Maybe swimming in the sea? Otherwise outside in the shade, assuming there's a strong breeze.

The best thing to eat on a hot day is fruit - watermelon, if possible. And salad. 

Hot days are few and far between in England. They're good for ripening fruits and vegetables, and can make going for a ramble very enjoyable.

My go to uniform on a hot summer day is a loose cotton dress - and underwear, obviously - and nothing else. No tights or socks or shoes, no cardigan. Just a nice dress to let any cool breezes flow through and over my body!

The scent that reminds me of summer is the smell of Asda's giant M & M cookies. Weird, I know, but they smell warm and slightly spicy, and always remind me of how it smelt out in the middle East when we used to live there. Specifically, it makes me think of the evening walks we used to take. And I vaguely remember some kind of droopy tree which dropped lots of leaves and these long seed pods. Couldn't tell you any more than that, though; I was only 6.

My favourite thing about summer is the time I spend with friends in it. The planned excursions and fun we get up to in summer is brilliant!

And that's all. Well done if you managed to get to the end! See you in a few!

Love love xx

Long Post, Letter Writing Paper and a Seal, the Wife's Birthday Gifts, QATWII Latest Block, A Baby Blanket and a Broken Knitting Needle

I did promise an update, didn't I? (Be warned: this is a loong post!)

So, I've spent some time this week writing letters to various people - the wife, EH, and the wife's friend by weird circumstances. I really love writing letters, I have some gorgeous writing paper! Want to see? Of course you do!

There's this one - not my favourite, but nothing wrong with it, and it was good quality and a good price. It is quite pretty, just nothing majorly special. It was from paperchase, like a lot of my letter writing paper!

Then there are these 3, also all from paperchase. The far left has birds on it, the middle buses and the far right butterflies. I really like these. The butterflies are my most recent purchase of letter writing paper, and I love them. But I'm particularly fond of the buses, because they're so quirky and fun! Want to see the backs of them, too?

Fun, right? Of course, I say the back, but other than the butterflies, this is the writing sides of them! You can't see it, but the bird paper has a faint pattern of leaves drawn on it.





None of them are lined, which is a little frustrating for someone like me who can't write in a straight line. But I made myself a guideline sheet which I paperclip underneath, and that works fine. I only use one sheet per letter, too. If I run out of room - which I often do! - I have some packs of double-sided lined A5 paper which I use. this way my writing paper lasts longer, I don't end up with lots of excess envelopes, and I save some money!

And finally, I have:

The colour hasn't shown up too well on this, but it's a very pale sort of turquoise which is really pretty. I love love love this! The birds are beautiful, and both sides of the paper can be used. Like the others, it has decorated address labels with it, and this one has some stickers for sealing down the envelope.





I like my letters to be as pretty as possible - I like pretty things! And a lovely friend of mine, EH, gave me a gorgeous wax seal for sealing my letters which I adore:

 I use it on pretty much all my letters. Sometimes the seals survive the postal system; sometimes they don't. I don't tend to find out if they have or not, but EH has let me know on occasion. You can see here it's actually lying upside down. But it's fairly simple, but lovely!




I do love receiving snail mail from friends. Email just doesn't compare; you don't usually get warm fuzzies when you see that you have a new email. But seeing that letter posted through the door and knowing a bit of your friend's personality and affection is inside is just lovely!

Another thing that happened recently is the wife's birthday - Happy Birthday, wifey! She finally opened my gifts to her today, and loved them! I never showed you the card I made, did I?

Again, see how I matched it to the gift-wrapping? I like to keep a theme running through...

 ... And on the envelope, too. Yes, I do have a stamp which says 'wife' on it. And yes, I did use it as the only identifier on the envelope. The wife would know it instantly!







 Okay, okay! And one last photo of the card with the gifts!

Pretty, no? The wife opened them this evening, and spent a little time looking through the contents, which were:

 The Bloggess' memoir, Let's Pretend This Never Happened. It's an amazing book, really hilarious. And since the wife and I both enjoy the blog, I thought what better gift to give her?










But then opportunity presented itself. When I visited the wife in May, we went on a day trip to durham, and whilst we were there we found this little shop tucked away, which looked like someone had lifted the roof of it off and poured in all the contents from 3 1950's houses. But in the window of the shop was this:

That's a taxidermied cat, people. For people unfamiliar with the bloggess, she collects various taxidermied animals, especially ones in clothes. Well, this cat had gold-tipped fangs, false eyelashes and earrings in. Not exactly clothes, but kind of awesome in a creepy way anyway. So we snapped this photo of it and then I emailed it to the Bloggess, who has a fairy godmother to take care of her emails and stuff. Her fairy godmother emailed me back, really sweetly too !), and offered me a signed book plate for my copy of the book. Then I emailed her being really rude and asked for 2. She was lovely enough to oblige, and so the copy of The Bloggess' book for the wife became a little bit more special, being a signed copy now!

I also wrote a message to the wife on this page, but I'm not going to show you that - it was personal, and none of your business!








I also bought her this:

Awesome, huh? I chose this book specifically, because faith is very important to the wife and me, and it's something we share. So it felt fitting to get her the book themed around faith a little.







But THEN another opportunity presented itself. Crazy, huh? I mean, I got the wife the Bloggess' book, and then the opportunity to put a signed book plate in it came along. And I got the wife a Postsecret book, and then... Frank announced that he was doing a tour in the UK. Something I don't think he's EVER DONE BEFORE!! I wasn't sure how long the tickets would last before they were all sold out, so I had to make a quick decision. I bought. 2. Tickets. Really!! I wrote a message in the front of this book too; but then I also wrote a tiny note in the back of this one, inviting the wife to come to Postsecret with me. She didn't notice it at first. But then when she read it, she looked shocked, then held up the book to the webcam to show me, then said, and I quote, "Are you JOSHING me?! is this real? Seriously?!" And I said that no, I wasn't joshing her, and yes it was seriously real, and then she looked at her calendar to find the dates and found where I'd written over those dates to mark them off her calendar already, without her knowing. And she freaked in a hazy excited joyful whirlwind, and we laughed and smiled and life was super sweet!

So, did you manage that saga? Still with me? because I have just a couple more things to show you. First is my latest block for the QATWII:

Do you like it? It wasn't actually too challenging once I worked out what I wanted to do. I found the pattern on the Quilter's Cache.

And here it is with the other blocks made so far for this quilt. I just hope the recipient likes it! I have yet to put it up on flickr - that's tomorrow's job!








And I had a minor disaster this week. I was knitting this baby blanket I've been making for a friend, which I've been working on for rather a while now. I tend to warp my needles rather a lot - I don't know if it's my tension, or what. But this happened:

No, your eyes do not deceive you. That is a bamboo knitting needle snapped in half. And I don't happen to carry spares in every size imaginable. Fortunately the pattern and yarn are very forgiving, so I simply switched up half a size; and so far, I can't see where the change happened. Would you like a sneak peek at the blanket? The pattern is free from Ravelry, and in due course I will of course credit the designer. But for now you'll have to content yourself with a peek at a corner of it!

 

My friend knows what sex the baby is, but is currently keeping it to herself. So I'm hoping this lovely light green will seem neutral enough. It's certainly pretty - at least, I think so, anyway! I hope she likes it!







And... I think that's just about all! I did go on a 2-hour walk today, to a nature park place near my house called the Flash. But otherwise, apart from cooking supper a lot, that's all there is to my week! Oh - I did work 2 days, and they were fine. Fairly unremarkable, usual fun to be had with lookign after a 3-year old and 6-year old.

Love love xx

Evening with friends, Grandparents and Creme Caramel, QATWII, Supper and Knitting

So something really weird happened to me yesterday. I went round to the wife's to spend the evening with her, the boyfriend and a bunch of our friends - you know, chinese takeout, DVD, much laughter etc. And we ordered our chinese, drove up the road to collect it, paid for it and headed back. As everything got handed out, the wife's bf realised he should have ordered some sweet-and-sour sauce to go with his meal. So the wife and I headed back to the chinese to get some. She waited with the car whilst I went in and asked for a small tub of the sauce, which cost £2.00. The guy on the counter headed into the back and got a tub of it, and brought it out and handed over, just saying, 'Thanks.' I said, 'Are you giving it to me free?!' And he said, 'Can I have your number?' ... This is not something which usually happens to me - and certainly not something I'm prepared for!! I simply panicked and said something along the lines of, 'Sorry, my phone's at home and I don't know my number.' I didn't want to give it to him, but I didn't want to hurt him either, brave guy. The wife was concerned at the look on my face when I returned to the car, but simply laughed in my face when I told her. Then she of course told everyone when we got home, who laughed, and the wbf celebrated getting his sauce for free. I'm still not sure how to respond to this.

Anywho, I ended up only getting home at half 2 this morning, and getting to bed at 3, and then waking up before my alarm at 7:15, which means I only got 4 hours sleep. But despite that, I have visited my grandparents - who seem very well - and arranged to spend my Sunday morning  with them, learning to make crème caramel; and I have sewn the next block for the QATWII. This one is for a lovely lady who sent her starter block along with a craft magazine as a gift! She asked for gridlike blocks. So I came up with a design, and tried to connect the two a little by using similar colours. Wanna see? Of course you do!

 This is what I made. It's not perfect - things didn't line up exactly - but I tried oh-so hard, and I think it's okay.

And here is my square next to the starter block. What do you think? Okay together? I hope she likes it!








So all in all, not an unproductive day for someone functioning on 4 hours' sleep! And now I'm going to enjoy an extra simple supper of crumpets and... poached eggs, maybe? I think perhaps so! And then I'm going to do some more knitting on this baby blanket for this friend of mine.

Love love xx

One Week Left At Work, Knitting And Goodnight

I have one week of work left. Plus a couple of extra days in the summer, but effectively one week left. The girls have grown and changed so much! B has lost her first tooth, attended her first after-school club and learnt to cooperate with her sister (sometimes!) BB has been toilet-trained, grown more active at playgroups, and started socialising with other children her age in an amazingly grown-up way. B reads independently and silently; and she reads more challenging books to me. BB listens to longer stories, sometimes learning them so she can look through them alone; and she asks interesting and appropriate questions about the story. Both of them have started to understand the concept of jokes, and to try it out - often being funny simply in the ridiculous nature of their attempts ('Why did the horse cross the road? Umm... Neigh!'). It astounds me to think of what they were like last September when I met them, compared with how they were today. Sure, there have been ups AND downs - the squabbling, lazy pants-wetting and lack of road safety all spring to mind. But overall, I have found so much incredible joy in this job, and I will be sorry to say goodbye to them. I remember hearing each of the girls tell me they loved me for the first time, and it melts my heart. Such amazing little people, I can only pray that they grow up to be even more wonderful than they are today!

All that smushiness aside, I am exhausted! I've now been up for about 18 hours, and I am definitely ready for bed! I've spent my evening knitting more on the baby blanket I'm working on for BM. Pictures tomorrow. Hopefully I'll do some sewing tomorrow, too - either my quilt block for the person before me in the QATWII bee, or some pyjamas, or both. We'll see.And tomorrow night I'm off to the wife's to spend an evening with her, her boyfriend and some of our friends. But for now - goodnight!

Love love xx