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.