Pre-dinner drinks for one

Hubby's gone up to visit his parents again this weekend, his mum is slowing deteriorating after a long illness and the end is obviously approaching. She spends most of her time asleep and is eating and drinking so little its amazing it keeps her going.

So, the kids and I have had a busy day by ourselves. This morning we discovered that all five caterpillars had transformed into chrysalides, so moved them into the net to allow them space once they do their final transformation to butterflies. Watch this space.

We then went out and, amongst other things, bought a new waterlily for the pond. This meant I had to do some remedial work on the pond before I could put it in. So, I spent half the afternoon up to my elbows in pond water/blanket weed/sludge clearing out as much as I could whilst rescuing any tadpoles lurking in the weed. So the waterlily is now in the pond, along with some new oxygenating plants - hopefully this will reduce the rate the blanket weed returns.

As if that wasn't enough, I then started clearing the area in the garden where we keep empty pots/hose/watercan/junk. Unfortunatley the junk took over a long time ago, so it was Me vs Junk. I won - yay!

So, a glass of wine and some olives before my pizza for one.