*on the 'ice'*

Had a really, really lovely day today with Kathryn and Jasmine. Anja and Jasmine had their first taste of ice-skating, although it wasn't real ice, but the plastic stuff which actually I found really difficult to skate on. Anja loved it; she was concentrating so hard on not falling over, so she had a serious expression on her little face the whole time. Love this one:



After the skating, we went to Pizza Hut for lunch, which was lovely right up until the point when I found a dead fly in my cappuccino - is this karma for not paying for my coffee last week??!! I nearly saw my lunch a second time round - still feel sick at the thought of it. The waitresses thought it was disgusting, too, and the manageress is sending it to their Head Office with my name and address. She reckoned it must have been in a vacuum packed bag of coffee... Anyhoo...

We had a bit of time to kill after lunch, so we took the girls to the countryside centre for a run-around - they were hyper after their sweet-covered ice-cream desserts. This is my favourite shot from this afternoon:



Back at home, the girls were eager to try out the kites Anja and I had purchased at Toy City (home of the ice rink!) £2.99 each - very reasonable, I thought. Here's Freya about to launch hers from the top of the slide:



I am now a free woman; Anja is full-time at school from tomorrow. The declutter resumes in earnest, and there is an empty skip to be filled. If you see me loitering at my PC, tell me to get back to work!!!