Spending the Inheritance.

Dear Blog,

I am very sorry I've been so slack. There have been a few reasons why I've not updated - having two boys playing in different soccer teams this year seems to have taken up large chunks of my life, both in a physical sense, ie having to drive them All The Time to training and games, and in a mental sense, ie I'm going mental trying to sort our various team administration and human relationship type things.  (Don't ask.) Then there's my tap-school, being quite the going concern these days, busy, busy.  But let's face it, the real reason is that a bequest from my late stepfather came through, some of which I immediately spent on a new ipad for me (business necessity).  And just when I'd got that all up and running to my satisfaction, loading apps and music and whatnot, someone introduced me to the game Drawsome and now I just don't have time for anything else.  Must draw pictures for my friends to guess and then guess their efforts. Must.

However, here is a very brief round-up of what has been happening in between bouts of ipad art.

After Easter, we had a couple of other fun days out for what was left of the school holidays, including visiting the Melbourne Museum, where the boys constructed stuff for the Melbourne Gallery.



The boys and I had our first ever ride on Puffing Billy, Melbourne's famous steam train that runs out in the Dandenong Mountains.  Such a lovely day.  It was the last day of the school holidays, the sun was shining and we were with our special and best friends, the Mothers Group gang. If you've never been for a ride behind a steam train, you should.  Apart from the pain of getting soot in your eye, it is a grand way to travel. Puffing Billy has open carriages, so the kids sit on the window ledges and dangle their limbs outside and have the best time.  On the way back I leaned my whole upper body out the door-window for  20 minutes as we rattled along, and it made me feel happy in the same way that sitting outside on the Sydney Harbour Ferry did.





Cherub is now playing soccer in a proper team instead of just diddling around on a Saturday morning with the soccer skills program.  He's had 4 games now, 1 victory and 3 defeats, and is having a good time.  He initially insisted that he was a defender (like his brother, who is a very good defender), but the coach switched him to midfield in the most recent match and he was much better there, and set up 2 goals, much to my delight.



I went away for a gorgeously rushed 24 hour sewjourn (aka craft camp) organised by my friend Jenny, and made a dress in between all the other fun parts - the bath, the food, the drink, the  chocolate, the quiz/crossword, the laughs and the chats.  Nell and Astrid and Suse were there too.  It was lovely.  I'll show you the dress when I finish the buttonholes.

And finally, the bequest from my stepfather has also provided a new trampoline for the boys, because the old one was declared unsafe last November when the springs started flinging off in a highly random and dangerous manner when the kids were bouncing.



I am  trying to spend this money on happy stuff, as opposed to groceries and the inevitable car repairs, and man, it's fun.



Lots of fun.