Wednesday afternoon a friend took me out for lunch, to lift my spirits, and also ended up talking me into letting them dye my hair! Actually the afternoon of having my hair coloured, washed, dried and styled was really nice. Surrounded by males, I'm not used to any sort of "pampering" so having a young girl friend offer to give me a "girly" afternoon was quite a novelty :-)

Thursday was spent in the garden, finishing the work Roarke had started on clearing the shed and setting up the replacement play equipment.

(hang on, just going to take a photo to upload...)

Ok, I took more than one!

This is the 9ft by 15ft space we've gained at the end of the garden, behind the trampoline.

We've put in the new climbing frame and slide that we got given by Argos. Roarke's triathlon bike is going to be fixed onto the fence behind, out of the way.

Mum gave us a tool tidy which I've put all my garden tools into. We're going to use the old wooden garden table to cut to make a roof to go over it as we found a green garden table behind the shed when we took it down, and it is in better condition than our poor old table!



In the other corner you can see the old table, which we are going to use :-)

There is also an old builder's wheelbarrow left over by the workmen who did the house.

Mum gave us her old tool shed, which I've put all my hand tools, pots, and bags of seed compost in to.

We intend to turn around the trampoline net so that the opening is on the side where this play area now is, as it is higher than the middle part of the garden and therefore they will be able to step onto the trampoline instead of having to climb up each time. It should make it safer for Jonathan to get on and off himself.
I realised when I went out to take these photos that I could now take one from the end of the garden looking towards the house.

The green handrail of the slide is just in shot, giving you an idea of where I was standing. Looking through the trampoline you can't see the middle part of the garden, with all my vegetables growing, but you can see how the back of the house is in full sun all day.

I keep thinking I need to grow a grapevine up that wall...

The window on the bottom left of the house is the kitchen (you can just make out the second window), and the door.

Above that, is Josh's room. To the right you can just see the window for William's room, looking out over the flat roof of the kitchen extension.

The window at the top, where the grey tiling is, is Samuel's room - he's in the loft conversion.

This is the lovely little playhouse that Jonathan now has.

During the day he takes his cooker out there, together with all his toy food.

We had another home ed family over yesterday, with three young children, and the older two of them enjoyed playing "McDonalds" (of course!) with Jonathan and William, with Samuel as "delivery man".

I love how home ed allows kids to play whatever they want - regardless of age. Let's be honest, as adults, we often envy the kids playing with their toys!

I've sown some more seeds, so that hopefully the seedlings will be ready to plan out by the time I've got some space in the veg patch once I have thinned things out.

I'm also really concerned that the cabbages will end up with one of the very many diseases or pest infestations that they are prone to... I've always avoided growing them before now for that reason.

I've grown other brassicas before, and so I'm hopeful...

Anyway, if the pigeons, or catapillars, or anything else gets them, then I'll just pull them up and put something else in its place!

Do you notice how, as the cover for this is torn, I've added bubble wrap (saved from various deliveries we've had) to add insulation?! Very frugal I thought :-)

On the bottom I've got some seedlings for another home educator in our gardening group, and the tomato plants I received in exchange for my cabbage seedlings via freecycle.

Above that there is a tray of beetroot, and a tray half with salad leaves and half with lambs lettuce (my favourite!). On the top is a tray half full of french beans with the other half sown with basil seeds. The other tray is Josh's salad leaves. The middle two little pots have peppers in them - which have finally come through! That took about 4 weeks. I grew them once before, when we lived in Chatham, rather unsuccesfully so I'm hoping this sunny patio will make a difference this time.

Of course there has still been baking :-)

Today I made some oatmeal and raisen gf cookies, and yesterday there was another delicious gluten free briocheWhat have the boys been up to, I hear you ask? Well Josh started another sailing course yesterday. It is aimed at those in the group who have completed up to Level 3 sailing and it should end with them gaining their level 4, and getting a go at competetive sailing.

It helped fill a void left by drama - his teacher unable to get back from Australia due to the volcano.

Samuel has mainly been on his computer. We need to find a way to get him outdoors more as he's looking quite sallow :-( He's had a massive growth spurt and is now taller than Josh by some 2cm, and is only a few centimetres behind me now!

William still has a mark left from where he skidded and fell against the side of the car 2 weeks ago when we were at a friend's farm. We're concerned that he actually did some real damage so I think a trip to the GP will be in order this week. It is SO hard with ASD kids as his sensory processing issues means, as I've mentioned before, that major injuries don't seem to bother him yet he'll scream and moan over a scratch... It is hard to believe he could have broken his cheek bone or somesuch and not have said more about being in pain but... I just hope the GP is understanding.

Jonathan is still super cute. He's sitting with his arm slipped through mine as I type this, playing with my peg bag and watching Winnie the Pooh :-)