Long holiday weekend, what we'll be doing

 The weather hasn't been that great lately, but that's what I expected when we moved up from the sunny south of France.  However, last year was our first full year here and strangely enough it was as hot here, if not hotter north of the Seine that in Sanary (from end of March till July), so yes this year is a little tough.
As it's a long holiday weekend and the younger children have no school today (they worked a Wednesday instead) they and Alain are doing le pont, in other words having a long weekend without any work obligations.
So as soon as I manage to get up (hard one) we are going to Giverny, to visit Claude Monet's gardens, which aren't far from here.

Photo from Made by Jenni

Then after much negotiations, Alain is going to set to work to build a tree platform a bit like this one, minus the slide and the roof. 
Then in between starting and perhaps finishing the above something rare is going to occur tonight, Oliver is having a couple of friends over (he hoped that we were going away for the weekend). Last time he invited four friends over to hang out, we ended up with twenty five kids here, most sleeping over, one sick, a few a bit drunk and one white rug (Mr H's) ruined due the one who didn't make it to the bathroom.   Anyway, I'm a bit worried, is history going to repeat itself?   One thing with have agreed on is that they hang out in the basement, I even cleaned it last night, they have sofas, and chairs, a tv and an xbox and we won't be far away incase of problems...Oliver has promised that there will be just four plus him and no girls....


I'll also be finishing the deck.
And Alain going to find a builder (or three) to get a price for redoing the front wall of the house which is ugly, but not as ugly as the garden wall!
Oh yes, he's promised to phone his maman too:) lazy boy


News just in, Charlotte wants to know if we are going out tomorrow around 14h, because she wants to invite her new friend...boyfriend here.  sixteen and this is her third one, as long as he's nice, that's all that matters. I doubt we'll be out though, but maybe in the garden, if the weather holds up, then she has peace and quiet in the house.

Landing wc finished

A very small room, our downstairs wc, well on the first half-landing is finished at long last, yes, I had been procrastinating about finishing the painting for months but last week I decided to take the bull by the horns and finish it before December arrived.

We kept the tiles, the sink and the toilet and just bought a couple of things from Ikea.

With some Sophie Blackall prints, a 1945 Alexandria water colour (that's been on the top of my wardrobe for ages ...lots more to frame where this one came from) and one of Marie-Kate's paintings the room is so much nicer. I used White Tie on the walls and Down Pipe behind the shelves and on the door.

Now I've attacked the mud room and I've got my work cut out in here. I am doing it now as I've enough paint left over from other rooms, it's going to look good I hope, painted in Skimming Stone and Charlotte's Locks.

This Old House

Marie-Kate playing with her 1970's dolls house

Ok, it has taken a little time to have a routine since the children returned to school, but I think we're organised now. Five children , four different schools, four different timetables...

1. Oliver 7.20 each day to catch school bus

2. Charlotte 7.45 to be dropped in-front of college

3. Gaby and Alexis to be at school for 8.20

4. MK to arrive in class before 8.40

All children (apart from Oliver) eat at home... first pick-up is MK at 11.20, then Gaby and Alexis at 11.30, dart home, yummy(hopefully) food in oven and Charlotte who's home for 12ish.

Back in car at 13.10, drop-off Charlotte, the G and A before 13.30 and finally MK before 13.40... now I al able to recover, until I begin again at 16.20 just up until 18.00, no until dear hubby arrived home, usually about 19.30.

That's my average day, not that I'm complaining, it's just I

don't have time to check-out my favourite blogs, well at least just up until today.

What has changed?

I've decluttered ( especially in Charlotte's and Marie-Kate's room (that makes me feel so good)

A Corner of Marie-Kate's room

I've signed all school work in advance (quite a defeat for me)

I've cleaned the house from top to bottom. Just the garden to do, but not this week.

Post-Script: Today's Wednesday, guess what? The house is still looking good, even the girls room!

Decluttering: Day One

Still can't decide if to start with the boys room or the art corner.

For the next two weeks I'm going to declutter our house for spring, we've accumalated far too many things over the years that no long serve a purpose or never have!

Sunday morning, Alain and I started decluttering the garage. We managed to get a quarter of it cleared, we've never managed to fit a car in it, it's pretty hard to fit a person in there, well that was before we started. We took two car loads of junk to the tip, four sack loads for charity and a pile of things for friends and neighbours. There's at least 300 books to go through now in there, I am an hoarder when it comes to these, however, space is restricted and I need to find good homes for them.

I have lots of skis to give away too, we prefer cross-country skiing so our alpin skis are now surplus to requirements.

I'll add some before, during and after photos later.