Butter and sugar

Tuesday:

We made sure to take advantage of a lovely day today. We spent quite a bit of the morning in the garden. We did some satisfying hard sweaty work trimming the shrubs each side of the driveway, weeding, and generally tidying up the front. Then had ice cream! Then there were a couple of wooden toilet roll holders that I bought online and which unexpectedly arrived as raw pine, so I bought some wood stain and the kids sat outside and painted one each, which they seemed to enjoy a lot. They also created wands with sticks, glue and wood stain.

When tidying up I got some stain on my hands and washing with soap left a tacky residue. I remembered an old trick of my grandmother's and used butter and sugar. Worked a treat, leaving smooth clean hands. Of course you have to then wash off the greasy butter. Sugar is an excellent abrasive. Salt would probably work too, or even sand. But I like butter and sugar.

Aiden bites his fingernails and always seems to have his hands in his mouth. Today we bought some of that nasty stuff you put on your nails. Oh how he hates the taste! He has to go spit in the sink and rinse his mouth. So hopefully it will work.

We went up to the library for my book group, which was nice, the kids sat in the kids' area (surrounded by books, but playing their tablets, growl) while I chatted to the other ladies for an hour about this month's novel. They are all of my mother's generation or older, it becomes more obvious when they talk about training for nursing in the 70s, or how they need an audio reader because they can no longer read print. I guess they are the only ones who regularly have a weekday afternoon free. It doesn't matter anyway, I enjoy talking to them.

Two companies sent people out to give us quotes on removing trees in our backyard. Most of the plants are ugly (in my opinion, their parents probably think they are lovely) but I will try to keep some of the nicer ones like this which is small enough to move:

Jasmine made cookies. Nice day.

Of course I paid for the gardening later. Aching muscles and creaky joints!