Yesterday and today have felt fairly productive. I've been feeling a bit fed-up of being very aimless in our HE, although that is partly to do with a definite lean towards the "better late than early" school of thought. Anyway, I decided to put together a vague topic or two and as the subject of butterflies came up over the weekend, I decided that could be one of them. So after Tamsin was at playschool yesterday morning during which I vacuumed, tidied, dog-walked and napped (following a terrible night's sleep due to Isabelle's emerging cold), off we went to the Butterfly Farm at Stratford-on-Avon. I wasn't sure how Tamsin would cope with the fluttering round her head, but she was really excited and amazed to start with. She excitedly spotted all the different coloured ones she could find and went up to look at them close-up feeding on fruit, and we tried to compare them with the identification sheet we'd bought, although we largely failed to be certain about any of them. We talked about the proboscis and how a butterfly feeds. After wandering round for only about 5 or 10 minutes, though she started to get twitchy about them fluttering round her head, and after a large butterfly landed on my chest and stayed for a minute or so she became largely undone. We made a quick exit into the caterpillar room and studied some pupae for a while (although didn't see any caterpillars) but she was quite anxious still and we left fairly shortly afterwards, only just escaping before she got hysterical. She calmed down quickly once we were in the shop and after buying a lollipop and a cut-out butterfly model book we left.

I still have a few vouchers from Christmas, so we walked over the river into town to see if I could spend anything, but it's just too distracting with 2 small children so I gave up and we came home.

In the evening when the girls were in bed I did some planning and I have a list of activities and ideas on the butterfly theme to pursue over the next couple of weeks.

After another appalling night's sleep - Tamsin came into our bed around 2am and spent the next hour or so coughing, (so Bill made a sharp exit to sleep in Tamsin's bed!) and then not long after she eventually fell asleep, Isabelle woke all stuffed up and hot and was very restless and unsettled from then on - we all slept late this morning but I did remember to check out Class TV for about 10 minutes this morning so we watched a little about the 'ar' sound and about adding up 3 numbers.

Then we went off to our church group and as usual had a good time there with the kids in creche while us mums had some adult time. Isabelle fell asleep on the way home so over lunch Tamsin and I read through a book we had out of the library about the United Kingdom. After seeing an idea on a website somewhere I'd had the thought of doing a 'Country of the week/month' idea and had ordered some library books to start with the UK. So both at lunchtime and again at bedtime we've looked through the 2 books we borrowed and talked about the United Kingdom and how it is made up of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland; what an island is; what a capital city is and that London is ours; about the Government, voting, the 3 main political parties and the Queen; and Beefeaters/the Tower of London/the London Underground/farming/ship-building and about cities, towns and the countryside. Phew!

We've also been to look at a freecycled sofa but decided to decline due to the (not previously mentioned) holes in the back cushions and it belonging to a smoker (yuck!), and received in the post an Usborne order, an Amazon order and a parcel for Tamsin from Granny. I have cleaned the toilet more thoroughly than it's been done for a year or two, made a wholesome and tasty dinner and processed about 3 loads of washing.

Just before dinner I was thrilled to re-acquaint myself with Oprah now showing on ITV2 - I have so missed that programme!! And while I watched, Tamsin did a Hama butterfly, which reminds me I must go and iron it. I must also familiarise myself with the new Usborne catalogue and think about how to drum up some sales parties, and finish Ebaying the current batch of baby clothes.