Cue loud exhalation, and a look of drunken stupor brought about by AN ENTIRE NIGHT’S SLEEP. Yes, you read that correctly: AN ENTIRE NIGHT’S SLEEP. WITHOUT ONE INTERRUPTION. For some reason, the tiny daughter slept from seven until six-forty without a peep. We, the parental we, were most grateful. And today we’re almost punch-drunk with the sleepiness of it all. In my case, in a nice way; in Quercus’s case, well, let us just say he is busily caffeinating himself as we speak. I’m still hoping, as my sort of first-response thing, that the sleep thing will just resolve naturally rather than requiring the sort of interventionary changes I mentioned in my last post; I don’t want to night-wean and I don’t really want to do anything which involves lots of crying. I’m not going to think that this might be the start of that change, because the tiny daughter has slept through the night many times previously without it heralding a general regime change, but hey, at the same time, I’m still going to be bloody grateful for any extra sleep I get, and for anything which delays the onset of the batshit state which appears when we’re all a bit tired and emotional (without even a hint of alcohol).

So, thank you all for the lovely words and entertaining tales of woe. The moment of utter, crapulous woe of shitery-nasty has passed on this end, and we are feeling a bit better, collectively. For one thing, the lime, while interesting, is not completely buggered; our friend Chris, who is a lime specialist, reckons it’s completely salvageable, though not until any chance of frost has passed. This is good in two ways: way the first – IT’S NOT COMPLETELY BUGGERED!, and way the second – WE CAN’T DO ANYTHING ON IT NOW, which means no firking about in freezing conditions with fingers blistered from both cold and lime burns. Yay! for no burns.

In the meantime, work on the kitchen toddles along. Quercus now has wood for the worktops, and we have wax for finishing them and hard wax oil (!) on order. We’re sort of aiming to have the worktops in position for Christmas, though I’m not sure if we’re going to manage that; at least the oven is now hooked up, and working, and most exciting in that it heats up in about five minutes, which, compared with the Baby Belling of Doom, is nothing short of a minor miracle.

So, here are some jolly pictures, so lighten the doom and kid you all into thinking that I am completely on top of things, with creativity oozing from every pore. (Let us not speak of the reality: it is not creativity but stupidity and, for variety, idiocy which oozeth in this house.)

I am still marveling at the hat that I knitted. I can’t believe I actually managed to follow a pattern, for one.

We’ve been making lanterns from watercolour paper soaked in oil; horribly incendiary in nature, but rather dinky, nonetheless.

Reading continues to be the witchling’s favourite passtime (and, just to ensure that universal balance is maintained, that choas on the right is the ever-present washing stand, which probably represents my least favourite passtime).

Once upon a time, I thought that Chrimbly decorations such as these would be such fun to make; blanket-stitching the hearts together and stuffing them for a padded look is indeed quite fun, but the stars! Oh, the stars! What was I thinking? So. Many. Stitches. So. Little room. For stuffing.

So, moving on from the doom and gloom, we’re slowly remembering that generally, we can handle the shitty bits and bats because life still has some delightful moments despite the flaking limewash. It’s on to Crumphole pudding-making and general mince pie-gorging now. So what have you got left that you’d like to do before the cessation of hostilities?