Work, work, work

Discovering at 11.30pm last night that I was supposed to put covers on Conor's text books, buy some different covers for some other books because I'd bought the wrong size and provide an ID photo of Conor, all by this morning... was not great.

Somehow with some late night work and some early morning finishing, the books were covered and the photo taken, printed and trimmed. The wrong sized covers will have to wait. Mr B headed to the site to wait for the supposedly arriving plumbers, who turned out to be the not arriving and not even answering their phone plumbers instead.

Still, lots of progress with - we hope - the last of the steel drywalling supports cut. They are lethally sharp and really quite hard to cut too. And, perhaps not surprisingly, screws don't seem to go into them as easily as into wooden framed partitioning, so all round they have lead to lots of swearing and unhappiness. To cap it all, one of the walls built with this method is decidedly wobbly even when the plasterboard is on. Which can't be right.

Anyway, the kids survived school, I discovered that break-time snacks have been banned because of a snack extortion ring that was discovered last term, and Katherine has her first proper homework (though I will have to go and ask the teacher which homework it is as I don't understand what Katherine has copied down in her book. I will also check on the entry in her notebook that seems to be saying "please think to wear clothes suitable for sport on Mondays, and bring a gourd").

Many more figs picked today. I might just make more jam, but does anyone have any better ideas? A friend here says I can just freeze them whole, but I'll take any suggestions.

These kestrels were putting on a fine display around the ruined pigeoniere where they nest. Oh for a proper zoom lens.