Well, that’s the end of the children’s first week back at school after the half term holiday, which means that they only now have five weeks left until the summer break (which means it’s only just over five weeks until we go away too – hurrah!).

In the meantime, this is what’s made me happy this week:

1. My beautiful walk with the puppies at Kedleston Hall last Saturday – as described, with lots (!) of photos, here.

2. G finishes her exams today, which will make us all very happy. She has worked very hard and deserves good results, so fingers crossed.

3. B has been getting his exam results back this week and they’ve been pretty good on the whole, I have to say, which makes me both happy and relieved! (When I took them to school on Monday, G was facing her first exam and B the prospect of getting his first exam mark back – guess who was the more nervous of the two of them?!)

4. I had a good night out with my sister on Monday. She is member of Soroptimist International (if you don’t know them, they are a global volunteer movement working together to transform the lives of women and girls), and they have an annual fundraising fashion show event which I always go to. It is a fun, relaxed evening, and I always come away with a few real bargains – I think that my favourite purchase this year was a pink summer scarf decorated with beach huts – a lovely reminder of Norfolk!

5. Food! We have had some very tasty meals this week, especially a prawn and vegetable curry, and also the spicy Thai prawn meal shown in the photo above – that was especially good, with the added bonus of being very healthy.

6. Lottie has really discovered the joy of playing with balls this week. She has been able to retrieve one since we brought her home at 9 weeks old, but she has suddenly become obsessed with them this week, and is becoming very adept at catching. The photo below shows the sight I’ve been faced with repeatedly this week, as she drops the ball near me and then sits there looking hopeful until I throw it for her. So cute!

7. The garden is continuing to be a beautiful delight to us, as new flowers and plants emerge. This week has seen the blooming of the amazing peonies – honestly some of the most stunning flowers I have ever seen. In addition to the flowers, it was so lovely when D spotted the beautiful moth shown on the photo at the top of the page on the tree in our fire pit area last weekend. It was about two inches in length and the camouflage markings were so clear and defined.

8. After leaving work a little earlier than I had intended on Thursday, I made the most of the extra time as an opportunity to visit a farm shop which opened a little while ago quite close by, but which I haven’t had time to go to previously. It was lovely and I was very tempted by so many things, but I came away with some lovely fresh, locally made bread, Crunchy Red Onion and Sage cheese, a special bottle of beer for D, some croissants and a bag of huge marshmallows – we are consuming a lot of marshmallows right now!

9. A nice break in G’s revision evenings this week was when we had a meeting at her school about her upcoming trip to France. It was good to find out more about where they will be staying, visiting, and the activities planned, and lovely to see how excited she is about going.

10. A final one for this week was my night out yesterday. I went with some friends to the Red Carpet Cinema, which I haven’t been to previously, to watch “A Royal Night Out”, which was lovely. If you haven’t seen it, it is about the young Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret venturing out of Buckingham Palace to celebrate VE Day, incognito. It is very far-fetched, but I did wish that it had been true – it would certainly have been a night for them to remember!

Someone has just asked me what we have planned for this weekend, and I had to say that I have absolutely no idea! It sometimes feels like such an achievement to actually get to the end of the week, that we don’t actually get around to planning anything. No doubt it will include lots of chilling time for G, a family evening around the fire pit, some good walks with the dogs – and maybe even making a start on sorting out the garage if we feel brave enough!

Whatever you are up to, have a great couple of days.