Family holiday

I know I'm not the most prolific and reliable of blog-posters, but at least I have an excuse for the last gaping hole between posts.

The four of us went away for the week for a family holiday, a bit of an escape from the everyday grind (me), and work stress (hubby).

We spent lots of time at the hotel pool, making sure that the children got lots of use out of their floaties, and went on a drive to look at Marakoopa Cave at Mole Creek. There was lots of torch use by the littlies, and some mad counting of glow worms on the ceiling by my daughter...... her new favourite number is 57..... the number of glow worms counted while the guide had the lights turned off.

A quick visit with the inlaws over the weekend and then a long car trip with two small children home.... and then lots of unpacking, piles of dirty washing and settling back into home last night and I am feeling a bit unsettled at the moment. It's been a busy morning, and after a week of sleeping late returning to routine is a bit odd.

Unfortunately we had a bit of an accident with a broken olive oil bottle and some library books.... Luckily the rubber floor mat protected the car, but two cloth bags and a whole pile of other stuff was not so lucky..... so this morning I had to return the damaged books to the library and apologise profusely...... and to add insult to injury, the ones that were spoilt were the ones I hadn't read yet. So I am now waiting for a phone call to tell me how much in fines/replacement costs I'm going to have to pay.

The first thing we did last night after unpacking the car and saying 'isn't it nice to be home?' was to check out the garden and to see whether my tomatoes had ripened..... there has been a quite a bit of rain in the last few days, so some of them had gone a bit too far and disintegrated on the bushes (all the nice big fat ones that I had been eyeing off to make sauce with). So after some heavy culling we were left with a large bowlful of various types of tomatoes - beefsteak to cherry and pea, and a huge handful of large purple podded beans, luckily our neighbour had some broccoli going wild so we did a bit of a swap. I see roast chicken and lots of homegrown veggies in my future.

I keep hoping that my pumpkins will fatten up and ripen soon, and that the corn fills out nicely in the next week or two.... I can just see my children eating a large cob apiece (they LOVE corn) as often as I can find some that is ready.