I’m all “blah” this weekend, panicking about buying the house, at the same time as getting increasingly excited about it. I can’t take time away from home with packing and business (Easter Holiday, need to be here really), but i’m missing some of my long distance friends and unless people come to me (please invite yourselves!) i’m struggling to fit in a trip until after we move. Which is probably going to be the first weekend of May, in order to miss festivities. I’m feeling odd about leaving this house, which has felt homely, to go into something that is such an unknown like a new estate. Horror stories are banging round my head terribly.

On the other hand, i felt better today when i went to do some paperwork and realised our design is the second biggest house on the development, the biggest there is only 1 of and there are only 4 of ours. So i’m cautiously hopeful that will be good for us when we sell. I feel like i’m struggling to see this house as ours, i’ve rented for so long.

I’m enormously anxious about business, so much depends on it staying good, not just for my pocket now but for the family as a whole and i’m finding it hard to accept that i’m going to have to be more hardheaded in the future. Last night i just lay awake for hours fretting about it and the pressure i’ve put on myself; it relies on so much luck to keep it going, as well as all the hardwork i put in (with others). And i can just see the whole economy collapsing and us losing money on the house, manufacturing going tits up and Max losing his job and people having no money for beads! So erm, i’m feeling very positive!

Anyway. Kids have played in the garden a lot, making dens, stirring mud, playing with sticks. Maddy is looking utterly beautiful at the moment, is asking to learn “about everything in the whole world” and is being very funny. The other day she asked very innocently if reading glasses help you learn to read and today she gave a fake puzzled look and said “my trainers have run away” – which you had to be there for, but it was funny!

Took my brother to see the new house yesterday, the girls tortured him for 24 hours with Mario Party, we’ve emptied the building loosely described as a garage but better described as a building you leave things to rot in so that after 2 years you can safely say you can chuck them without even looking inside and i’ve been through the clothing cupboard. And cried over baby clothes again. HOW is it possible to be so deeply moved by a tiny white fleecy coat?

Fran is still touch typing frantically, Amelie is still doing lots of baby play. She loves her baby still, though it is now called June-y.

Josie has an ear infection, but it is draining profusely and she isn’t hot (if grumpy) so i’m holding off going to the docs for ABs until tomorrow and hoping it clears. I won’t know if she’s avoided Chicken Pox until next Saturday and i really would prefer to keep her off anything while that lurks. Worryingly Maddy and Amelie have a couple of spots that look a bit impetigo-ish which i am watching frantically, as impetigo and chicken pox together – again – i really cannot bear the thought of

Can’t think of anything else; everyone being very autonomous but it makes for boring reading. Sorry