Broken

Better day today. Mostly. Up to a point. Hubby went out for an interview in Hove, we managed to get dressed and out to the stationers, and met hubby on the way back when he walked up to meet us.

(A little aside here: we watched a train go by at the level crossing and Bean waved, which he's not done in a while. A lady waved back to him - I don't know whether he spotted who had waved or not but he said it was his friend-girl, Frances. Frances you may recall is who he calls the little girl who lives opposite my parents' house!)

Good interview, they were selling him the company as much as he was selling himself to them! Bean went to preschool quite happily, and Hubby and I went off for a coffee and a catch-up with the Bear in tow.

When I picked the Bean up from school I got chatting to the mum of one of his best friends at preschool, I'll call her "Miss S". Miss S's mum told me that she had stopped talking or laughing or smiling within a week of Bean not being back at school after New Year, and had cried on Friday because he wasn't there! They came out one after the other and after saying 'bye to the teacher on the gate (who was visibly relieved that Bean was back and Miss S was back to her happy self again) Miss S went to give Bean a hug but Bean was a bit slow to respond so she stopped herself, until I nudged Bean to give her a hug - and she LEAPT on him and gave him such a big squeeze!!! She had missed him SO much. It totally got to my heart!

Roast chicken for dinner. It had just finished cooking when the oven door exploded.

I am grateful for many things: that both the children were out of the kitchen, that the glass was toughened safety glass so shattered rather than splintered, and that our dinner had finished cooking! There was glass all over the kitchen floor. I'm glad we have a policy of wearing slippers / house shoes in our house. Came in very handy this evening. Took a while to clear up all the glass off the floor, get the glass shaken off the pile of still damp laundry and back in the machine to rinse, tap the remaining bits off the oven door, and tip it all out of Bean's car seat which is still in the kitchen. And keep two inquisitive children out of the way at the same time. And finish cooking dinner. I am so tired.

We had rice with our dinner, cooked in an excess of water so I could keep the starchy water for a paper-making experiment... I hear that adding rice starch (or other starch) to the paper mulch makes the final paper easier to write on and the ink doesn't bleed into the paper fibres so much... we will see!

Glad we got the kitchen in some kind of order before bed though. Chicken stripped: meat in the fridge, carcass in the stockpot with the veg peelings (parsnip peelings and cabbage leaves this time) ready to boil up tomorrow, big things washed, dishwasher on, tumbledrier ready to go - it makes a HUGE difference to a morning. Here's hoping tomorrow is better again.