Half term

Thank crunchie for the holidays. I thought I was going to explode last week and lo and behold, half term pops up when you most need it. So far it's been a corker and utterly exhausting so today feels like a luxury, waking up lazily in a warm house as the world slowly defrosts beyond the windows. The children are making models out of cat food boxes, stamping ink precariously close to where it shouldn't be and I am drinking strong coffee grateful that the orange cat has returned - she looked like she had broken a leg and then disappeared to lick her wounds. Turns out she was OK and is asleep by the radiator - a sensible place to be on this chilly morn.

Sussex seems to be waking up from its deep winter sleep and has graced us with such beautiful sunshine that the children have taken to not wearing their coats (erroneously). The daffs are poking their heads out of the soil and some are even flashing a touch of yellow. Spring is on its way people. Spring is on its way.

The excitement and joy of their cousins being here over the weekend has calmed as we all slept like proverbial logs last night, catching up on the zeds and appreciating the quiet. The weekend was spent in a whirl of yellow food and games, of screaming and shouting, of mess and chaos and laughter, lots of laughter. Hastings was looking particularly fine as it yawned its way into action, ready for the onslaught of tourists. The fairground rides creaked and groaned as if arthritic and the children squealed and demanded more and more the more we gave them. The final meltdown was extraordinary, in the arcades and with the slot machines where the children learnt about gambling - coming away with nothing made them not very happy at all.

Perhaps we should have stayed on the beach and poked the dead fish and jumped down the pebbles instead.