Well, it’s almost the weekend again – which is ALWAYS a good thing! We have got nothing planned, so I imagine that most of the time will be spent pottering (which I’m more than happy to do!). Hopefully, we will have some good weather, so that we can get the dogs out for some more lovely spring walks, so here’s to a happy weekend!

But, before that, just a few of the things that have made me smile this week:

1. The garden is slowly springing into life again, after our crazily wet winter. The lawn is still very, very wet,  but the flowers are beginning to bloom, which is adding some beautiful colour all over the place. I am particularly loving my tulips, which I planted in the autumn, and the bluebells, which are just so fabulous.

2. After re-painting our sitting room a few weeks ago, there was just something which I felt wasn’t quite right. I hadn’t been able to put my finger on it, but then I realised that it was the wooden coffee table and nest of tables. The shade of wood just didn’t blend in well with the new colour on the walls, which made them look quite dull, so I decided to paint them! Of course, they had to be white, so I spent a few hours transforming them, and I’m so happy with the result. This is a very light, bright room, as it  has two large windows, so the white furniture just seems to fit in there really well, so I am now far happier with the whole room.

From this –

to this –  

3. As well as enjoying the beautiful blooms in the garden, I have been loving having fresh spring flowers in the house too, especially daffodils and, my favourites, tulips.

4. We have eventually seen quite a lot of the sun this week, which has made walking the dogs far more pleasurable. However, it also helps that Honey has started behaving herself much more whilst we are out too. She has been going through a phase, for the past few weeks, of pulling dreadfully on her lead, and continued to do so even with a new anti-pull lead. However, I have been walking Lottie off her lead a lot more in the past week, which I thought might make Honey worse, but it seems to have had the opposite effect, which is great – and a lot less painful for my arm!

5. We had a lovely day last week when two of my close university friends came over for the day with their children. It worked out so well – the children all get on well together, so they entertained themselves for the most part, which gave us hours of time to chat and catch up, which was so nice – and overdue! It was so good to see them and spend that time together.

6. We had a really fun family night on Friday! We spent the evening playing a new family game on the X Box together, which was very entertaining, then watched an episode of our new favourite series which we ALL enjoy, Vera, ate lots of snacks, and then all slept downstairs in the sitting room together. The evening went so well that we said that we would do it again next time that B is home from school for the weekend!

7. Saturday saw us all taking a trip to the swimming pool together. As usual, it was really quiet, so we almost had the pool to ourselves, which was great, so we had a lovely time.

8. We then continued the family fun by having a “food night” on Saturday evening. We went shopping together, but each had a budget to buy our own food for the evening. This meant that we were all cooking at the same time, but making different meals – it was interesting to see what we all chose to make and how we handled the budget to make the most of the money to get what we each wanted.

9. G organised a fabulous surprise for me, which was so thoughtful. She made up a scavenger hunt around the house and garden, which she knows I absolutely love to do, and then the prize at the end was an early birthday present of a quilted Barbour jacket! I had absolutely no idea that she was going to do this, so it was a complete  shock, but so amazingly lovely.

10. Talking of G, she had two friends over this week, staying for a day followed by a sleepover, and, I have to say, she has the most lovely friends. They get on so well, and are so friendly and polite – it makes us very happy that she has such great people in her life.

So that’s it for this week. I hope that you all have a great weekend, whatever you are up to.

As it was Good Friday last week and we were away, I didn’t get around to writing my Happy Friday post, so this is a quick round up of the things which have made me smile over the past two weeks.

1. B came home from school for his birthday weekend – it was actually his birthday on the Monday, but he wanted to come home for the couple of days before, which was lovely. So we celebrated two days early, first with G and B completing the Closer to the Edge high ropes adventure course. This is located in Markeaton Park in Derby and is a great facility – it was very well organised and structured, and the children really enjoyed it – especially the powerfan descender and the zip wire! We then went on to Cosmo for his birthday meal, which went down very well with all of us.

2. It makes me so happy to see the spring flowers coming up in the garden – this week it has been the turn of hyacinths, but my tulips are very nearly there as well, so I can’t wait to see them bloom in the next few days.

3. The train journeys that B has started taking to and from school are fantastic, I have to say – they make a huge difference both financially and time-wise – and he really enjoys them, feeling very independent and mature. He has a few journeys under his belt now, and is very calm about the whole thing, even when there are three trains and a suitcase involved!

4. As I mentioned, we were away for the Easter weekend in Norfolk, which was as lovely as ever. We are so grateful that we have the house there – it really is the perfect getaway!

5. The weather was better than forecast whilst we were away, so we had some lovely walks – or runs, for the dogs! We seemed to experience every kind of weather apart from snow over the few days, but we certainly made the most of the glorious sunshine.

6. We also had quite a competitive time over the bank holiday weekend, as, when the weather wasn’t so good, we stayed in and played LOTS of games – Blokus and B’s new game, Scattergories, being the favourites – lot of fun!

7. Reading has also featured highly for me the past two weeks, especially with having some time away. My recent favourites have been Harlan Coben’s Hold Tight and Louise Douglas’ The Secret by the Lake.

8. During the evenings, after the children have gone to bed, D and I have been continuing to watch The Good Wife, which we are loving. I think we’re about halfway through the final series though, so the end is in sight!

9. On Wednesday, we popped into the Chinese supermarket in Derby, which was so interesting. I have never seen so many different kinds of noodles! We bought some Chinese sweets for G and B, which were really good, and then some curry paste and noodles, so we had Chinese chicken curry with rice vermicelli noodles for our dinner, which was sooo good!

10. One of the absolute highlights has to be the fact that we – eventually – completed the sale on a second house we owned in Norfolk this week! We bought it, with my sister and her husband, five years ago, to renovate and then sell on. The renovation part went really well. Not so the selling! It has therefore been rented out in the meantime, but we have, at long last, managed to sell it, which I am so happy about.

So the Easter holidays continue – I’m loving the lazier mornings, not having to get up at 6.30am but being able to stay in bed with a cup of tea and a good book, whilst the children lie in, so yes please to another week of that!

Have a great weekend!