Yuk! I spent the whole of yesterday in bed.  Thankfully Peter arrived back home on Thursday night otherwise I'm not sure how I would have coped.  It's not often that I stay in bed but I could hardly move and felt so, so bad.  Today I feel a better but still not 100% but there is a bonus, I've managed to lose over 5lbs!!  Big thank you to my friend Julie who took Lauren to her ballet class!

My morning was also brightened when the postman delivered my new freebie jute shopping bag from Which? in support of their Kid's Food Campaign.  I can't wait to use it to collect my fresh fruit and veg (plus it's got properly padded handles so is really comfortable and strong!).

The last fortnight has been a bit of a blur. We seem to have done loads of things but when and exactly what I am not 100% sure of!!

Last week we spent a lot of time outdoors doing jobs like felling trees and cleaning vehicles.  This week has been hard as Peter has been away all week again, however the girls have been behaving themselves which has made it a lot more pleasant.

Today we had a lovely morning with my friend Natalie and her son Zak (he's a few months younger than Martha).  We met up at Hesketh Farm Park and although the weather was drizzly, it was mild with little wind.  The first big event of the morning was feeding the lambs.  Everyone sat in a square on hay bales armed with feeding bottles.  The staff had advised us that the lambs come rushing out so don't get a fright.  When they opened the pen, true to their word, they came flying out and about 4 made a beeline for us as we were sat right opposite the pen!  Lauren and Martha were really calm and didn't get scared at all, Martha actually started going to them (she was so excited!), Lauren just followed the instructions as to how to feed them and got on with it giggling all the time.  After feeding was over (about 1 minute!)Martha helped collect all the bottles from everyone in the group and put them away (she's very tidy!) and then tried to pick a lamb up!  Afterwards, we saw some pigs and to Lauren's delight piglets which were gorgeous.  We then went to see some guinea pigs and rabbits and again the girls enjoyed holding and stroking them all.  There were lovely chicks that made them both laugh and tadpoles which I haven't seen for years.  We then went outside again and saw the donkeys, goats and more lambs.  They had a chicken run and Lauren & I went to collect eggs whilst Martha played on some ride-on tractors with Natalie and Zak.  Peter has been talking about getting some hens and I think if they had the set-up here that they had at the Farm, I'd be happy to have them, I just don't want too many as I know that I'd end up looking after them all the time, it would be nice to have some fresh eggs though and I could even sell some at the end of the lane (our main road lane is one of the few that doesn't have eggs for sale along it, so it might be an opportunity!!).  After lunch, we played for a bit longer and as both Martha and Zak were getting tired we decided to go home.  The girls bought a mask each, Martha a sheep, Lauren a cow (she's not taken it off very much!).

Tonight I spent the evening sewing elastic onto Lauren's ballet shoes which took me longer than the 10 minutes I thought it would!!

I watched The Apprentice and was annoyed when Claire was in the winning team, I wanted her to go this week, she just seems (or at least is edited to appear so) so vindictive and smug grrrrr!

I've updated the April Photo Album finally!

It's been a lovely afternoon and evening today.  This morning was marred by Lauren's misbehaviour however I'm going to focus on what the day became...

After lunch, we all headed into Harrogate to buy Lauren her first proper pair of ballet shoes in preparation for Friday's class (yes, her place is confirmed!).  We realised that neither Peter or myself had change for parking so decided that I would jump out with Lauren whilst Peter & Martha stayed in the vehicle (or rather they visited a friend).  Stupidly I thought I'd remember where the dance shop was but didn't really so we spent 20 mins wandering around where I "thought" it was!  We found an another dance shop and we entered...

Lauren's face lit up as she "ooh'd and ahh'd" over all the dresses, shoes, costumes etc.  She sat down nervously in the chair whilst a really friendly assistant asked her questions about her ballet class.  Lauren was probably the most animated I've seen her when talking with a stranger!  We left, wallet lighter and armed with a big bag filled with the tiniest ballet shoes, ballet kitbag, headband (in pink of course!), tights and a little purse filled with some hairbands.  I'm going to take a photograph of her all dressed up tomorrow and I'll post it on here.

After dinner, the evening was so lovely, we decided to have a walk around.  Our elderly neighbour had a big tree that had blown down in the recent high winds that needed clearing up so we helped to do that.  The girls were a great help putting branches into the tractor bucket and to be honest we stayed out later than we should have and certainly 45 mins past their bedtime of 1900hrs but they were on such good form and enjoying helping Howard that we ploughed on - they have both worked so hard!!  They both fell asleep about 5 mins after I left the room, hmmmm, I wonder if it's going to be a nice evening tomorrow!?!?