2nd July - Nocturnal Howlings and things that go bump in the night...

Eleven til one. ELEVEN TIL ONE!

And yes, I am referring to the evil hours of 11pm and 1am, those hours when one is meant to be tucked up having sweet dreams under the duvet.

Not when one is meant to be pacing in and out of a certain young sir's room, picking him up, putting him down, listening to him start howling again, listening to him fall asleep, only to wake up five seconds later, due to some percieved insult, such as his hand being in slightly the wrong position.

At midnight he actually wanted to play. PLAY?? PLAY?? No. Just no. Absolutely not. No amount of cutsie little smiles and cuddly gestures is going to make me decide that playing is a better option than getting some valuable shut eye.

So then, it was tears, and lots of them. Dummies being hurled with enraged abandon round the room (for us to have to turn on the sodding light to find them again, thus waking him up even more), fists being slammed repeatedly against the bars like some livid ape in a zoo...

We did have to have a bit of a giggle at D being so desperate to stand up and grab our attention, that he lunged at the bars, managed to miss them entirely, and launched himself straight through. His surprised expression was a picture.

And guess what, its now 9am, and we are doing exactly the same thing, trying to settle him yet again, because he is yawning his head off. It is starting to feel like a severe case of groundhog day...

In all seriousness, I am not sure how much more of this I can take.

On a lighter note, hubbie and I were going through all the old contracts of people who'd bought this house before us, and it was so cool. I love anything like that, any chance to be a boff and do a bit of research! We discovered who the mysterious 'Joy and Brian' were (whilst picking off woodchip, we uncovered an inscription on the wall, saying 'Joy and Brian 'pappered' this room 1972) - and turns out they are plumbers and still live on this road! Mental!
I got particularly excited though, to discover that one of the previous owners was a Charles Lacey, who not only wrote a book on Thomas Hardy, but went to school with him as well. Fantastic! So Thomas Hardy himself may well have visited this house. Get in!