Hurray for the hols

We are now into the last week of the holidays, and the Drama Queens and I have relaxed into a state of torpor. One of the perks of being a teacher is that I can justify all kinds of laid back behaviour on the grounds it is my holiday too. I reverted to my favourite teenage pastime yesterday, lying in the bath in the middle of the day, foot gently jammed against the hot tap, reading a gripping book until my skin went wrinkly and the concerned squeaks of the Drama Queens who feared I was suffering some kind of nervous breakdown, became too loud to be ignored. It was absolute bliss and I resolved I must do it more often.

Husband is still gripped by home improvement fever, I do not regard it as a promising sign that I have somehow mysteriously signed up to a number of Australian homes and gardens magazines who are now emailing me on a daily basis. He painted part of the kitchen at the weekend and I have to say it looks fantastic. It is unfortunate the DQ no. 3 has written to both sets of grandparents setting out in a chatty fashion her overview of the past couple of weeks in the household – in summary she points out that “Poor Daddy is still at work but is also very busy painting things, everyone has jobs to do in the house apart from Mummy who is catching up with friends and having lunch and dinner”. Was very tempted to take out red felt tip pen and heavily censor this gross libel, or else add in a few points of my own in heavily disguised nine year old writing.

One of the downside of the parental painting frenzy is that the children have got in on the act and have been painting a number of slabs of wood. We have a multitude of tester paints in the shed owing to our fundamental inability to decide between hot pink and cool blue and everything in between as shades for each room and the girls have allowed themselves free rein on the artistic front. As a by product we now have an interesting array of footprints in different colours across the tiles and the dog is sporting a rather dashing lavender blue patch which has proved remarkably resistant to both brushing and immersion in sea water.