Garden Day

What a beautiful day today has been. It really has been a lovely weekend. My gardeners worked hard this morning taming the jungle in our back garden, Steve held the baby (and wrapped him up and Charley slept happily), Ben stayed in pyjamas, and I had a shower and emerged with clean, non-greasy hair (hurrah, the experiment has worked, I have learnt the difference between baking powder and baking soda (come on Americans, call it bicarb of soda then I won't get confused!!) and I am now shampoo-free and my head is NOT ITCHY finally!).

I do love my gardeners. They don't come very often, but when they do they work so very hard. And they get paid in full board and lodgings, so it's not a bad deal really ;-) The grass has been cut, an old fence panel dismantled for firewood, and Steve hacked at an overhanging fir tree so we now have more light down the end of the garden. It looks respectable out there again, and if the weather is fine this week I can see us spending more time outdoors now.

Took mum and the boys shopping after lunch, was tempted into buying a whole chicken by the voice on the tannoy saying their fresh hot roast chickens were only £2.50 but by the time we got there they'd all gone. Still, we got a chicken to cook and I persuaded them to stay for dinner.

We had a GORgeous dinner! A friend of mine has been doing a "live below the breadline" challenge this past week, so I asked her for tips on how to make my chicken last a bit longer as even though mum paid for today's groceries (for which I am massively grateful, I think I may have actually collapsed at the checkout otherwise) it still pains me how much meat costs.

So our chicken dinner for four cost us (this including working out how much flour and milk I used in the yorkshire puddings!) £4.50 total. We had chicken, yorkshires, carrots, spinach and gravy. (And there were even some yorkshires left over to have with nutella and icecream, which I didn't account for in that costing!!) The rest of the chicken is waiting to be used: bones for making a stock tomorrow which I'll use some for a soup and some for gravies; legs and wings to have with chips tomorrow night, and the other half of the meat was diced and frozen and we'll probably save that for next week. I'll get a ham next weekend and do a similar thing, then we can use the chicken and ham leftovers together for a pie, and for a rice dish.

Sad to see mum and dad go this evening :( but it has been such a lovely weekend. Ben adores them, even if Charley wasn't so sure this time around! They both had a kiss and a cuddle from Ben once I was up in bed with Charley.

Oh bedtime.

Poor Ben... Charley had had his boobful of milk during dinner, so was fussing and fidgeting when we lay down. So I gave him the side that Ben normally has at bedtime, while Ben was downstairs. Ben came up to bed, I popped Charley off before he saw, and Ben snuggled down as usual. It wasn't long before he sat up and looked at my boob sadly and said "there's no milk". I was a bit surprised, evidently Charley is rather good at draining a boob! But I said nothing and Ben went back to nursing, trying to get milk out. Two minutes later he sits up again all upset and says "mama there's no milk. I will cry." I nearly cried. I said "Do you really like the milk that much?" "Yes..." So I told him there would be more later and that I was sorry... we all fell asleep eventually though. I felt so guilty for giving Charley Ben's bedtime milk... For Ben it's so much more than just milk now. If it was "just" milk, I could give him a beaker of cow's milk. But he has a booby cuddle, with milk. It's special time for him. And so since coming back to bed (where I'm writing this) he's woken up upset three times already, asking for milk... Very out of character. The empty boob upset him quite a lot :(

Here's hoping he settles securely once I stop writing and we can both join the snoring ones!!