Then The Builder came back from inspecting the seed potatoes. We can't possibly plant them with the way the weather is at the moment (it was SNOWING!!! this morning when I got up; only briefly, true, but really proper snow), so we put them down in the empty potato drawers in the cellar but it can be a touch warm for potatoes down there, hence the inspection. It wasn't warmth that was the problem. It was a mouse!!! At least, we assume it was a mouse that had been chewing the insides out of the seed potatoes. It definitely wasn't me. And it might explain why Marlo has been showing an unusual interest in what might be happening behind the washing machine in the kitchen.
So. We rescued the unchewed potatoes and I decided that, rather than waiting for the Easter holidays, perhaps I should clean out the cellar now and move any mice I might happen across while I was down there. I don't think the cellar has been cleaned in any normal definition of the word for years. I don't remember doing it. And given the amount of soil I brought up and deposited in the garden it really hadn't been done for years. Looks all bright and shiny now. And mouse free, as far as I can tell. There weren't any mice down there when I was there - but if I were a mouse I would have definitely hidden from someone wielding a broom and a wash cloth!
So the clearing, cleaning and de-cluttering has started. I have started turning out the landing cupboard now. The Builder and Marlo are making sure that they move regularly so I don't decide that they are gathering dust and surplus to requirements :-D
It was Cally's birthday last week. She turned two. I'm not sure that she fully understood the import of turning two, or even what a birthday is. But she and her parents went swimming at Ponds Forge in celebration of the event and then dropped into the Adsetts Centre to say hello to me. I gave her a chocolate crackle (chocolate seems and appropriate birthday present to me, when you are two years old :-) ) Mind you, buying one chocolate crackle for a two year old proved to be much more complicated than I had anticipated - the till was programmed only to sell two chocolate crackles. I didn't want two ;-( I only wanted one. It wasn't even as if they were partnered up and bound in holy plastic wrapping. No, they were sat, unwrapped, individually in a basket. But if I wanted one then I absolutely had to buy two. So I did. And left the second one with the perfectly pleasant till assistant who could have been in absolutely no doubt that I wasn't entirely delighted about this!
Anyway. Cally enjoyed her swim and her chocolate crackle. I think she was quite pleased about having roast chicken for dinner. And Freyja went for dinner too, so that was also nice. Then at the weekend, Cally went to her friend Dylan's third birthday party on Saturday and on Sunday she and Dylan and various other little children went to the Play Arena for an afternoon of merriment. It should have been an afternoon of merriment and chocolate cake but the Play Arena, although it was perfectly happy for me to bake a cake and take it to the children, were deeply regretful that we would not be able either to cut it or to eat it for insurance reasons. So that was, effectively, a No then. Still, the children didn't know that there was going to be cake and all had a lovely time anyway. And then Cally and her parents came to Pizza Hut in town, where also The Builder and I had gone, along with various other grown ups. And we all had pizza in celebration. Cally likes pizza!
She likes trains as well. There were lots of train related presents. She was especially taken with the Raa Raa the noisy lion train and characters that Stella and Tony had sent for her birthday. Playing with that kept her amused for the whole time that we were in Pizza Hut.
Speaking of Stella. she was released from the hospital after a couple of blood transfusions - and then almost as quickly recaptured and taken back - although to a hospital in Mornington rather than in Frankston. And there she remains, having had several more blood transfusions, almost two days of fasting and various different -oscopies while they try to find out precisely why she is losing haemoglobin quite so spectacularly. For lunch today they fed her a tiny camera!! I don't know what the results of all the -oscopies were, nor what the pretty pictures taken by the tiny camera revealed. But she was very relieved to be taken off her enforced fast and given soup, sandwiches and ice cream for dinner. Although I have to say that soup, sandwiches and ice cream do not sound like iron-rich food to me. Steak, spinach and dried apricots, yes. Soup, sandwiches and ice cream (though tasty and delicious), not so much. I suppose it depends on what was in the soup and sandwiches!
In the meantime, Cally has been stricken with chicken pox. She, I believe, continues to smile, bounce and bound. Were it not for the spots, you wouldn't know she had become plague ridden. But if she has chicken pox now, then she must have been plague-ridden on Sunday and possibly even last Thursday. Goodness knows how many people are going to come down with poxes now!!
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