Quick! I have time for a mini-Blog while the kids are having a lie-in instead of lumming round my ankles. There’s a price, of course. They are lying in because they didn’t settle down until gone 11 o’clock last night. I did my best to stop them mucking about but once my bottom is on the sofa having done my story-reading duties at 8pm the last thing I want to do is keep trudging up the stairs to shout at them. So I only have myself to blame when they do the same thing again tonight having not surfaced until 10 in the morning. Don’t you just love the holidays.

But we are moving house a week on Friday! How did it come round so quick? And as things stand the whole process is in a mess. I had such plans to get every room sorted and all the junk chucked out before the packers came and until school broke up I was making excellent progress. However, since the end of term even scheduling a trip to the toilet has become a major feat with all the lumming going on plus there’s the lorry-load of books and drawings and other ‘cheese’ they brought home which has been dumped on my desk in a menacing looking mountain. Then I took a peek at the medical claim forms I have managed to accumulate since the E101 ran out in February. Bad idea. And it’s not just in the house that things are bad. Just when you think you’ve got all your ducks in a row having negotiated the removers down from a 7 day move to a more respectable 3, you find out that no-one has told the relocation agent at the Hungary end which date you are arriving and so the rental contract they’ve spent 6 weeks getting signed doesn’t start until five days afterwards. So today I either have to get the contract changed or rebook the removers, dog transporters, flights and hotels and persuade the tenants who want to follow us into this house they need to wait. ARRRRGH!! This move is driving me to drink.

There is some good news though - I found my driving license!! I have only been looking for it since our last holiday which is, oh, about 8 weeks. It turned up in my black winter handbag of course. I am on a summery brown one at the moment. Der.

Plus my parents have been over again for another life saving visit. While they were here playing Lego and Barbies with the brats I managed to motor through a couple of rooms, including the garage which was very satisfying. And with their help Pickle had a lovely birthday party for 14 of his little friends. Well, the kids had a lovely time but since it was raining yet again on the big day the rest of us found it pretty hard work keeping 14 boys out of mischief inside the house. I can tell you, it was ‘wine o’clock’ a lot earlier than usual that night.

I had my own little ‘leaving do’ party this past Saturday night. I managed to get through the whole of it without blubbing, despite a lot of Tequila and some heartfelt speeches and gifts from my closest buddies. I won’t list them all or I’ll start welling up but I must mention that Rose gave me the entire box-set of Friends DVDs. Now that nearly got me going then and there since she knows I have wanted it for years. I can’t say how much I am going to miss the wonderful friends I have made here. It’s so hard to leave them all behind despite the exciting adventure we have ahead of us. I just hope Nobby is prepared for the phone bills!

Anyway, the beasts are stirring upstairs and there are fighter planes zooming over the house so I think I need to take cover. (Its July 14^th, the planes are just on their way to the Champs Elysee for the parade but it’s still pretty unnerving!) And I have a house move to get back on track, what am I doing still sitting here?! Wish me luck.