B has been pretty lovely throughout the weekend, too. On Saturday morning we faffed about before heading off to Fyshwick (via Queanbeyan, because I was too distracted to navigate) to interrogate minions at ActewAGL’s showroom about the various pros and cons of gas instant hot water vs gas-boosted solar. We had neglected to leave enough time for this and just squeaked through 15 minuted before closing time. I also found a solar equipment showroom near E’s work, so he’s going to interrogate them on the various merits of different solar systems this week. We fed the munchkins barely adequate food from a take-away (E and I adhered to Fuzzy Pink Niven’s rule of not wasting calories), then he dropped me off at Belconnen Mall for Mum’s Time Off and amused the munchkins for the afternoon. I went out in the evening too (my life is a positive whirl of dissipation). B started watching Life of Mammals again (which she is still watching this morning).

Sunday produced some actual house cleaning- the munchkins and I picked up the dining/playroom before I took B to her substitute horseriding lesson, and E vacuumed it while we were out. B has decided that she is sufficiently concerned about her possible allergy symptoms to go gluten-free for three weeks to see if it has an effect, so she and E went looking for some GF foods in the morning. After horseriding, B and I went back to the Mall to look for shoes, and eventually found a pair of velcro-fastening trainers which B pronounced adequate (unfortunately – and she tried on every pair of alternatives in the store – the only ones she could find which actually fit were pink striped). We also made a quick trip to the Reject Shop, originally to look for craft stuff but coming home with a random selection of scourers, CFLs and solar lights instead. B spent $15 of her credit card money on buying a squishy stuffed dog from Lincrafts, then was chagrined to discover a book about knitting dog jumpers at the bookshop five minutes later which she then couldn’t afford *g* I bought her a book of junior Mad Libs instead, after my description of the game intrigued her. K had fallen asleep in front of Play School when we got home, but she was sufficiently intrigued by the new squishy dog when she woke up that B got lots of practice in negotiating turns. We discovered that Roxy (the dog next door) had almost succeeded in breaking through the back fence, so E fixed up a temporary solution, and Joel (Mr Next Door) suggested going halves in getting the whole thing replaced professionally. Probably a good thing to get done ASAP before planting season! After dinner (which E cooked while I played Tummy Ache! with K), B went to sleep in front of Life of Mammals while K and I did some impromptu maths: she gave me the Maths Wars cards so I sorted out the addition cards using digits 1-5 and used spare Junior Monopoly house tokens to demonstrate the principles of addition to K. I was impressed that she recognises quite a few numerals correctly, as well as being able to count past 10. She seemed to get the hang of grouping and counting on, although who knows how much of what we were doing she understood. Then we built towers with blocks, and after our physics prac we did some music as she started experimenting with banging blocks together. E finally took her off to bed, and I eventually succeeded in waking B up so we could go out and shiver in the back garden watching the Perseid meteor shower. We saw maybe three meteors before cloud covered the viewing area, whereupon we decided that it was too bloody cold to stay out any longer, and went to bed.