Good morning everyone! I have been away from the computer for 36+ hours and am trying to get a quick fix in before launching into another busy day with the girls and work.

On Tuesday morning we had an early start, needing to get up, dressed, make a packed lunch and walk to the train station in time for the 9.03 train to Oxford. Made it in good time, met the other local HE family there (with 8y.o. twins and a 6y.o. - all girls .... my girls love being with them) and waited for our 3rd HE friend to join us with her Family Railcard which she said we could all get cheaper tickets with ... and waited... and waited.... and at 9.00 we decided we'd better give up and get our tickets without her. Then of course there was a delay with the man in front of us, and the train pulled into the station while I was in the middle of buying my tickets, so we all had to *run* up over the footbridge to the other platform .... the rest of them went up over the steps and were well ahead of me while I sprinted pushing Shannon in the buggy up the ramp ... felt rather sick at such exertion but had to keep going ... and managed to leap on while the conductor held the train up for me .. . I don't think I really recovered from that all day! I really must do a little exercise every now and then ....

The train was jam-packed so we all had to scatter and sit in separate seats, ruining my fantasy of us all sitting round a table and the kids entertaining each other while T and I chatted ... Instead I had Shannon on my knee needing something to do so I pulled out a sticker book which she is really into at the moment, but unfortunately having to look at that instead of out of the window made me feel a bit travel-sick which I am horribly prone to since having children, strangely.

So not the best start to the day, but once we got to Oxford, and walked from the train station to the Natural History Museum (more exercise!) we were very pleased to meet with the rest of the HE group and sit down for 45 minutes to listen to a talk and hands-on session about insects. It was really good although Jade was very grumpy and just sat in the buggy with my cardigan over her head - she wanted to just go and look round the museum instead but I needed a sit-down! We were introduced to a giant hissing cockroach (again - memories of Kessingland!) and a giant millipede which had some other name which I can't remember. When the session finished we went for a look round, and saw loads of stuffed specimens including a shetland pony, cheetah, fox, badger, beaver, dinosaur skeletons, fossils, fossilised dinosaur eggs and much, much more. We particularly noticed the Nile Crocodile as we have just started our Egypt section of Story of the World.

We went outside on the grass for lunch, and Jade was delighted to realise that the lumps of stone we had to step over were casts of real dinosaur footprints! After lunch we went back inside, through the Nat Hist Museum into the Pitt Rivers Museum, which I had no idea about and didn't know what was there, but it was absolutely fabulous. We didn't have much time to look round and the girls just wanted to rush around looking from one thing to another whereas I would have liked to have time to linger, but they have the most amazing clothing and artefacts from other cultures and times - we headed straight for the real genuine Egyptian Mummy which we spent a fair amount of time looking at, along with the canopic jars and other Egyptian stuff, but we also saw Inuit clothing, dug-out wooden canoes, charms and amulets to ward off the evil eye and various shamanic bits and bobs, a lovely Chinese children's outfit which would have been just perfect for Jade if only it wasn't in a glass case, and there was just so much other stuff there which I didn't get a chance to look at (kids were getting fed up) that I'll have to go back another time.

Headed back into town after that, and spent a happy 45 minutes in Borders browsing, mostly through the parenting books and children's books. Bought some sticker books for the girls plus a Rainbow Fairies stencil book thingy which I am putting away for Jade's birthday. Met up with T and her girls there so that was lovely, and then we all walked back to the train station and home again by about 3.30pm.

I was really tired, so was very glad that Bill was home (off sick with his bad cough) and I just lay on the sofa and dozed a bit for about an hour, I think. Got up to find that my back was rather hurting, which it has continued to do ever since, urgh! I was very glad for a quiet evening and an early night after that.

I had been looking forward to Wednesday as a lovely jolly day out with K, my job-share partner, going down to Glastonbury for the day for a South-West Regional Time Banks meeting, but she's gone and left, hasn't she, so I went on my own , but still had a great time anyway. It was fab being on my own in the car for 2 hours each way, and having my *own* music on all the time *really loud*! How wonderful to be driving without having to listen to "The Wheels on the Bus" and the like! It was a really good day, especially as J, who used to be the project manager when we first started the Time Bank in the North Cotswolds, is now doing the same in Glastonbury so it was lovely to see him again and the day was really useful in terms of sharing experiences and networking. Stayed on after the end to chat with J and see his g/f again (she worked with me for 6 months while K was on maternity leave about 3.5 years ago) and ended up having a lovely meal out in Glastonbury, and leaving at about 7.45pm.

I congratulated Bill on coping all day while I was out for such a long time, and then realised it was only what I do every day while he's at work!

Today the job advert comes out for K's replacement, so I will be at work from 12-3 and getting ready for the trickle or flood of applications, and my Mum is visiting for a couple of days so she'll be here shortly. And now I've blogged as much in one morning as I usually do in a week, I don't know how long it will be till the next one!

Oh, but must remember to blog about Jade's swimming later!