I asked Mike what I could type in this post, as I can't remember anything we've done recently. He said:

"Work... eat... sleep... paycheque."

That just about sums it up.

The weekend zipped by. The girls did swimming lessons while Mike sat at the side working on the laptop. Then he and the girls went to the Portland Flower Show and came home with crafts and leaflets.

Meanwhile Mark and I went for a walk in Pratt's Brook Park. Never been there before and thought it looked a bit scrubby and small from the carpark. Of course it isn't like that at all. We are in Maine after all. It's a nice big forest. Big enough to get comprehensively lost if you go in there without a map or compass.

Eventually we all found our way back out by walking towards the sun (well, I knew we wanted to go south).

Ellen and her kids came with us, then they stopped by afterwards for pizza and a play with the bunny.

Sunday I made french toast using Colette's plaited lemon bread, which was almost stale enough, and tasted absolutely delicious with blueberries.

Yesterday was a bit of a nightmare. First Mark cried (again) when Mike took him to nursery. Poor Mike didn't get out till nearly 8.l30am, and he phoned an hour later to see if Mark was still sobbing. Of course Mark was fine by then - it's a Monday morning thing.

Then Mike offered to go home early to do tea with the kids, because he had to be back in Portland by 7pm for a meeting. He left work before 5pm and spent the next hour sitting in a traffic jam caused by a crash on I-295.

Meanwhile I worked till nearly 6pm and came out of work to find paramedics and a fire engine outside. No idea why.

Eventually Mike got almost to the end of the traffic jam, by which time he just turned round and went back to Portland. Which left me arriving home after 6pm, with children to feed and bathe and talk to. I was so shattered they didn't get to bed till after 8pm, mainly because once I'd done tea I couldn't motivate myself to actually stand up for long enough to get them into bed.

Mark paid for the late night by being horrid at nursery today, after which Nadja put him down (nicely but firmly) for a two hour nap.

That's about it for now. My goal for this week is to start going to bed at a reasonable hour.

By the way, look at this photo of the Royal River...



I was browsing someone's photos on Facebook the other day and there was a photo of people snowshoeing along the river with this bridge in the background. Cool.