Woke in a hazy fashion after a rather disturbed night from Isabelle, and while I tried to work out what day it was, I realised I had a nagging feeling that our car insurance ran out yesterday. I was right. So first job of the day was online to a 'screenscraper' service to get about 30 quotes all at once. Managed to save ourselves a creditable £50 p.a. on that premium, which on top of last week's £100 saved on the other car insurance premium is well worth a little time at the computer! I love the internet!

Today has been a day of much repetition. From the time she joined me in the bathroom to watch me shower, right through to bedtime, Isabelle has been singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" over and over again all day. Very sweet! Mostly just a recognisable tune, which in itself I think is amazing, plus a few distinguishable syllables. And Tamsin has done pretty much a whole bookful of dot-to-dot puzzles, going back to it again and again until this evening when she got quite a tricky one that went up to 48 and zig-zagged about, she found it difficult, threw the book on the floor and declared she didn't like dot-to-dot (rolls eyes!).

We've also done lots of 'art' ("I am an artist" Tamsin proclaimed yesterday) although our watercolour over wax crayon effort didn't turn out like it did on the telly! But she's painted flowers, sky, sunsets, Jack and the Beanstalk (yesterday), and various abstract works, while Isabelle has mostly painted herself. Yes, I know this needs a photo, but I didn't think to take one, sadly!

Also I bought Tamsin a little packet of little craft pom-pom balls from the Post Office this morning, so while sitting together making 'dandelions' with said pom-poms and pipe-cleaners, I sneaked in a little maths by playing about with 9 little balls and doing the various number-bonds up to 9, with addition and subtraction. Then Isabelle woke up from her nap in the car, and because I was just trying to finish a quick e-mail, I waited a couple of minutes, and surprisingly the calling out for me turned into wailing, so I *ran* out to get her and fell dramatically on the wet concrete path, so I now have spectacular bruising developing on my right hip, leg and arm. At the same point, my Tesco delivery turned up so all in all it was rather a manic 10 minutes or so, but it was nice to catch up with the delivery-person who used to be our milk-delivery lady back when I was pregnant with Benjamin and then all the trauma that followed. She's a very hearty country-woman but lovely with it and we had a nice chat about kids and dogs and chickens and life in general! I fielded the usual question to Tamsin, "Oh, aren't you in school today?" just by saying she'd be going in September, so a bit of a cop-out there but there are some people it's worth trying to debate with and others it isn't, I reckon.

I am having pangs about the absent chickens every time I open the back door or gate, but I guess I will get used to them being gone soon, and I certainly am looking forward to not stepping in chicken-shit everywhere I go.

Tonight I have done a little sorting-out of papers and finances (much more still to be done on both fronts) but at least it feels like a little progress has been made. And I can see some of the wooden bits of my desk, not just a sea of papers! Very rare.