Cold, drive in the sunshine, and books & more books!

Here I am again, with a lingering cold still, a week later! My head and chest are quite congested and makes for a bit of misery when in bed. Seems I'm the only one to have it - neither Peter nor the kids have got it yet - guess I'm just rather run down & should be getting more sleep. I *have* been trying to get to bed earlier, and Abigail goes to sleep early in the evenings as well - but I get woke up a few times in the night by each of my "babies", so getting there early doesn't mean everything! Anyway, hopefully I'll be feeling better soon.

On Monday morning we went to Cromarty. We were picking up a couple of steam cleaners that someone was kindly giving away on Freecycle. It turns out that they (well, the one that works) is really more like a steamy mop for doing tiles, rather than cleaning my grubby carpets (which obviously require a carpet shampooer!), but we were actually glad of the excuse to get out of the house & have a nice drive in the sunshine. We took the scenic route which was only slightly longer, and winds along the water etc. The sun was nearly too bright, but it was lovely after so little of it lately. I don't think we would have seen much of the sun had we just stayed at home, as in the winter, (when it comes out) it only barely peeks over the hills and glides along them until it disappears. Guess whoever decided to build all these houses here didn't think about lack of sunshine during certain parts of the year! We're really in quite a dark place, so when there's ice or snow it can often take a lot longer to melt than in other parts of the town.

Today (Wednesday) we were very busy packing up book orders. It seems that people were buying rather a lot, or at least heavy books/largish sets. I was nearly wondering if we sent out a record weight of books for one day, though I'm sure we may well have sent more before. But I totalled the weight this evening and it was 51 kg (just over 112 lbs!). This included an 11 kg box sent within the UK and 6 M-Bags (sacks with a box inside) to customers in USA, not to mention a number of single books to various places! So quite a lot really, which kept me busy with taping lots of bubble wrap over books and packing them into suitable boxes and then taping the boxes securely etc. And it's not like this was post needing to go out over a long period, as we just sent things out on Monday (we post on Mon, Wed & Fri). Anyway, don't suppose many people are interested in such silly details! :)

Here are a few pics of my children. Afraid they're not very good quality, and Abigail's face isn't showing in any of them!

Music lessons! lol Abigail & Benjamin playing an old electric organ together.

Where I found Benjamin the other night! Sitting in the bathroom floor, nearly wedged between two nappy buckets! He gets excited if he thinks someone is leaving the bathroom door open so he can go exploring! And gets rather sad if the door shuts him out!

My newest laundry helper! Benjamin watching his nappies going round & round!

Abigail "checking" to see that Benjamin knows what he's doing, as really she prefers to be my laundry lady! :)

And one final photo, taken just before I started typing this blog. I was trying to see if I could get a reasonable photo of him without using the flash. He seems to close his eyes every time now (he dislikes the flash so much), so most of my attempted pics of him are rather ruined. Peter brightened this photo afterwards, so it's a wee bit better. Thought it was such a cute smile that I'd have to post it anyway.

Well, it's past my bedtime! Guess I'd better get in bed so Abigail can wake me up in an hour's time! :) She usually goes to sleep around 7-8 (or as soon as I put her to sleep) but always seems to wake briefly around midnight. Sometimes I prefer to let her wake again *before* I get in bed, though maybe an extra hour does help me. OK goodnight!