Busy day

Had a busy and rather lovely day, despite the weather being foul.

Thought we'd try Pineland YMCA pool for a change. It was great - good size, not too busy. Afterwards we went to the farm shop in Pineland and ended up having delicious soup and sandwiches and nice fresh cider for lunch. It's a lovely shop, but was almost completely deserted.

Then we rushed home to get tea ready and wrap presents for Zoe and Kate's birthday party. While we were there the power went out. Hmmm. We have melting snow, heavy rain, high water levels... and now potentially no sump pump working to keep the basement dry.

Not much we could do, so we headed out to the Children's Museum for the party. The kids played non-stop except for a brief break for cake and ice-cream. Naturally Ellie was the last child left at the table. There is always a Zimmerman at a party table after everyone else has left.

It was nice for me to get to catch up with all the mums of Ellie's friends, and meet a couple for the first time. The downside of working is that it's hard to keep up with friends. It was great to catch up with everyone.

Sasa and Renee invited us over to play and eat afterwards, so we arrived there around 5pm and devoured pretty much all the food they put on the table. Then admired their new bathrooms. Hannah fed canteloupe to Loki the dog. The rain got heavier, and we talked about better places than Maine to live. I don't know - I'm not convinced that there are that many better places. The winter is hard, but the summer is lovely. Hmm, but then I could probably be convinced to move to the Caribbean, or maybe some lovely parts of California...

Mark was shattered after all that. He was asleep by the time we got home, possibly related to the fact that we put The Sound of Music on the in-car DVD player!