Today I have been woken by happy screaming and shouting. Kids playing and racing around the house. Not easy to just roll over in bed when they are being so noisy. The highlight of the morning so far has been the cry of “help I’m stuck in the toilet”. My 5 year old is then trying to open the bathroom door to help him, but he has locked it. New rule the kids are not allowed to lock the bathroom door. He did eventually climb out and I could then hear him screaming, shouting and playing once more.

We have a man visiting today to fix the grill on the oven. The oven was only delivered five weeks ago and we have struggled with it from day one. I am hoping that it is either a very easy fix or we get a brand new oven. It is an expensive cannon oven, so not feeling to impressed with cannon right now.  To grill cheese on toast you have to keep re-igniting the gas, really not good. Hence I have given up on cheese on toast for now.

So not sure what we are doing today, all depends on me and how energetic I am feeling. Right now I want to stay with the comforts of my duvet. It has rained overnight so mowing the lawn is out, yes I still haven’t mowed it. Tackling the weeds again does not appeal.  Last year I was very motivated in my garden, (the photo is last year).  I even joined some Facebook gardening groups and spent way to much in the garden centre. This year I just keep looking at it, watching the weeds grow. It is now end of October so not much gardening time left. The kids like to help me with it but they also like to pull out flowers.

Earlier this year I thought it would be nice to create a little pond. I bought a big washing up bowl from Amazon and some plants, with good intentions of attracting some wildlife. Well my 5 year old liked the bowl and the water and she pulled out the plants, I found them lying dead. I was not happy at all, however as much as I was upset with her she didn’t seem bothered by it. I have not replaced them, the washing up bowl is still there, with rain water and some rocks in it. As far as I know we have have not had any visitors, I was hoping for some frogs. I think all we might have had is maggots, things you really don’t want in your garden pond.

I did have a lovely palm tree last year but that was killed in the very cold UK weather around February time. My other plants looked unwell for a while, my Acers then died even though I had kept them inside. It is very disheartening when you work hard  and then the weather kills your plants.

The kids love to ride their bikes around it and I’m sure I have lost a few flowers and a fuchsia bush.  I have been told that you can’t have a nice garden when you have kids. I want both, a nice place to sit in and my kids happily playing. My 7 year old is frequently kicking his football next door. Why do kids do that? If he kicked it a little gentler it would not go flying over. He has managed to kick it so hard that it has gone flying over our neighbours, into the next neighbours garden. Maybe he is destined to play for England one day.

Anyway so back to monday morning. The kids have calmed down for now, they are watching television with daddy. I’m now going to go and find my breakfast and coffee. Maybe I will try and do something with them later, daddy has said that we should tidy the house. Kids tidy their rooms and we share the other rooms. Sounds like a good plan but I doubt the kids will help and we need to be motivated to tidy, I’m not sure if I am.