Saturday work & play

The perennial bed in our local park looking glorious earlier this week

I have a weekend off, which I had totally forgotten about until yesterday. What a lovely surprise to realise that I have a whole day to put to my own purposes, though if I had remembered sooner, I could have made grand plans for an exciting weekend.

We had a very lazy breakfast whilst we watched old episodes of Count Duckula on Youtube. I loved that show when I was little and so I inflict it upon my own children regularly, along with Fraggle Rock. The youngest, who is about the age I was when I first remember watching them, gets as excited as I used to (OK, still do) when Duckula comes on.

The kids played Junior Scrabble whilst I attended to some long outstanding paperwork and online banking. This is one area I have really slacked off on. Being organised and on top of things does not come naturally to me and I have to work hard to make things work. If I don't stick to a system, things go to pot quickly. I'm going to reestablish a 'desk day', one morning a week, where I take time to deal with the finances, paperwork and calendars. 

I'm also trying to institute a tidy up hour on a Saturday to encourage the kids to tidy their rooms regularly. I've tried the daily tidy up approach and it leads to tears and arguments - a big weekly clean up will suffice, with some encouragement to keep it tidyish in the week. Today they are responsible to for tidying, hoovering and dusting their rooms, with a little help as required. I've bought a pack of superhero transfers and promised that they can each have one if they tidy up without tantrums.

That seems like more than enough productivity for a free weekend. The rest of the day will be taken up with reading, crafting, eating, and perhaps a film, topped off by the first England match of the Euros this evening.

Have a wonderful weekend.