Patience is a virtue..... and I don't seem to have it.

So B eventually got in the door from Singapore at 3 o'clock last Sunday morning. His flight had been moved from the Saturday morning to the evening (so he could work an extra day) and was then delayed. To make matters worse, on the morning flight he had been booked into business class due to lack of space in the cheap seats, but when they changed it they managed to squeeze him back in down the back somewhere. In all it made for a lazy start to Sunday and I was glad I'd bought a few bits for a Sunday fry-up. We cooked it all, including fried eggs, on the barby and the weather was very kind to us:

In the afternoon the lemon tree was finally planted into its pot.

 I see from the pics (though you probably can't from the one above) that the few lemons it has clinging to it were very green then, but as I write 6 days on they are turning quite yellow already. I know all the garden books will tell me it's probably a better idea to take the fruit off when the tree is small, but who can resist seeing a couple of lemons clinging to it. I'm far too impatient to wait a whole year for the first ones!!

Monday heralded a trip to Ikea. I had to get a couple of rugs in the interest of protecting the beautiful Jarrah wood floors in the house (and particularly inspired by the fact that our first "house inspection" was due on Wednesday). Thankfully the boys absolutely love the Smaland play area there, because having bought our rugs, we realised we couldn't all fit in the car to get home! Dad and I did a rug run leaving Mum in store with the boys in the play zone, then we went back and all had good old Ikea meatballs for lunch - I don't even want to think what's in them but they're tasty and the boys love 'em.

Tuesday we had a meet up with some of the other kids and Mums from school at a local playpark. The park is on the river and it didn't take the boys long to gravitate to the little jetty and beach nearby and find some jellyfish. Lots of jellyfish actually. Clearly they weren't very strong stingers as all the boys were handling them for about an hour. They seemed to think they could save everyone else from the jellyfish if they put them all in one pool.

I can't honestly promise that no jellyfish were harmed at all but they were kept wet with numerous buckets of water and put back in after, so hopefully most survived!  
Wednesday was the dreaded inspection which, on the positive side, gave me a reason to do a major clean of the house. On the negative side it absolutely necessitated a major clean of the house. At some point I became resentful and imagined all sorts of "conversations" I might have if the agent gave me negative feedback. Amongst other things they all included my offering to come and check how clean her house is at the end of the school holidays. In the event she was very pleasant and all went well, but I do resent the fact that they will re-inspect my cleanliness every 3 months for our entire stay. At some point one of my less than cheerful imaginary chats might just come into play!

Then, today was back to school. Both boys were going this morning, with Alfie joining all his friends and Ru starting somewhere new. He was only offered this very local place late last term so I've kept him on at his original school, but added the new one in as well. They both only offer two sessions of 2 and a half hours so it shouldn't be too taxing. By the end of term we'll see which one seems to be his favourite and go back to just one- if only to reduce the running around I do. He came out smiling anyway and also with a lovely mothers day gift for me (it's mothers day on Sunday here). I can't be expected to tell a 3 year old I'm not opening his present, and I've already explained that I'm rather impatient too, so I've opened it already:

A lovely bead necklace made by his own hand in a box painted and decorated  "all on mine own" too. I suspect he may have had a little more help than he's prepared to admit, but I don't care, I've been wearing the necklace all day anyway :o)