Bumpy: 37+5

We painted the newly plastered walls in our bedroom tonight. Well, I did: Steve was still plastering the chimney breast! I finally feel like I've contributed in a way other than tidying up or looking after Ben.

Of course with sort of white walls I had to make the most of them while they were there. They will be painted ivory tomorrow night.

And I didn't have any pictures taken either up til that point.

Phew. Thank goodness for white paint!

It's been a pretty good day today.

Ben helped me clean up the detritus from last night's ceiling plastering session (mostly all I could hear last night was laughter from Steve and Stuart and Blake!), and then Hayley popped round with soup and cake, and we made it out to B&Q to find they didn't have the paint I needed anyway but there will be a delivery tomorrow lunchtime so Ben and I will be having an adventure on the bus again to go buy paint to use in the evening.

On a frustrating note we discovered a parking ticket on the car this morning - we hadn't realised our residents' parking permit had run out at the end of October so we've a ticket for that; added to that annoyance we don't have a valid tax disk showing either! Somehow that ran out in July - I am sure I got a new one sorted out, but now I'm not so sure. I will have to contact the DVLA about that one.

To be honest, it's amazing that not more stuff like this has cropped up over the summer / autumn. Something evidently had to give with everything that's been going on!

This afternoon Ben and I baked a chocolate cake - I am losing my fear of baking with Ben! That's twice in a week he's helped me bake a chocolate cake. He's learning about breaking eggs into a cup, and he's learning about using the electric mixer (it's hand-held so he's having to learn control as well!). And it's keeping his interest too, all the way through to me scooping the batter into the prepared tin.

Of course he wants to eat the finished product but today it's been put in a tin, as I've not had chance to make the icing yet (his favourite part of a cake).

And this evening he was going to help paint, but I decided that after tea he was actually pretty tired and needed to go to bed rather than stress me and Steve while we worked on the bedroom. Amazingly he actually was tired and went to sleep pretty easily! Must remember that.

So I got to help properly!

In my pyjamas too :o) Wouldn't've been able to do that if we'd had a work party round. Mind you, I don't think Ben would've gone to bed so easily either, if we'd had a work party round... And we got the main jobs done too. The skirting board needs stripping but it's not a high priority. The walls are. And we're on track!

Bedtime now - tomorrow, I must attempt to get Ben bathed.....