10 things

• C's triathlon last weekend was a triumph.  He swam, biked and ran really fast and with great enthusiasm, and earned a medal for all his hard work.  G and I are enormously proud of him, although I am also a little apprehensive that this will mean ANOTHER bike has to come and live in our house.  I am strongly campaigning against this.

• There is great excitement down our side of the street this week because there is a blockage of old bricks down one of the main sewer pipes that runs under our houses. Thames Water have been investigating with cameras and high-powered jet hoses.  There have been 18 blokes in high-vis jackets marching up and down the street looking important and rummaging around in our back gardens looking for manhole covers.  There are a great many people at home during the day in our street, so the water blokes have been made lots of cups of tea and been fed lots of slices of cake.  Despite (or perhaps because of...) this, they have not managed to clear the bricks yet.  The drama continues.
• The Dress is progressing slowly but steadily.  I really love how the Colette patterns are in a booklet format rather than on both sides of a great big sheet of A3 paper.  I wish more dress patterns did this.  It means that each step is much more manageable and I am not wrestling with big sheets of paper as well as big pattern pieces and many metres of fabric.


• I am on Pinterest and have come to realise that I am completely obsessed with notebooks and mugs - who knew?
• Both children are reading Harry Potter - all the way through from books 1 to 7.  C for about the fourth time and O for the first time.  O is utterly immersed in the world and would read at the dinner table if I let her.  She didn't see much of her brother's triathlon because Harry playing Quidditch was much more interesting.

• On my reading pile at the moment: The Art of Camping, The Hare with Amber Eyes and The Thirties.  Love, love, loving them all very much.
• G has just over a week to go until his Ironman race.  He is now in the part of his training called 'tapering'.  This involves doing about half the amount of exercise he usually does, so as to be in peak form for race day.  I am enjoying it all very much.  He is awake!  He is not eating everything in sight!  He is not endlessly discussing his 5k split times!  It is a tantalising glimpse of what life will be like once the Ironman is over.
• My new favourite baking book is this one, which I was given for my birthday.  Even if the recipes were no good, it would be a lovely thing just for its cover.  However the recipes are amazing, and include such delights as fig rolls, treacle tarts and marshmallow teacakes.

• My new favourite savoury cookbook is this one, which I ordered from the library and then made so many recipes from it I had to go and buy my own copy.  The recipes are all for healthy, nutritious food with wonderfully strong flavours.  The flatbread recipe is worth the price of the book alone.

• I am getting very excited about the three day Vintage festival at Southbank later this month.  I am going to be all over it like a rash, but possibly dithering too much at the moment about which ticket(s) to get.