Excellent things I have done today

In bullet point form of course!*

– Accompanied One to our local tattoo and piercing shop just up the road where she spent some of her 14th birthday money on having her nose pierced – something she’s been longing to do for a year now. The chap who did it for her was absolutely lovely, very calm and reassuring, and I think he was as impressed as I was with how well she coped with it. Watching the long needle go in through the side of her nose and emerge from her nostril was a sight I will never forget, but though she said afterwards it had really hurt, she didn’t even flinch and was as cool as a cucumber throughout! (I can tell you now I wouldn’t have been as calm as her – I cried my eyes out in the middle of a jeweller’s shop having my ears pierced aged 12 because I hadn’t realised how much it was going to hurt!) Her nose is tender and a little swollen now but looks fab; she is so pleased with it.

– Been summoned outside to watch Three on her bicycle – we took the stabilisers off some time ago during a fairly disastrous attempt to teach her to ride without them at the local park. Now it seems she has simply taught herself and was delighted to show me her cycling prowess as she zoomed around in the alleyway behind the house! I am very proud of her and also very relieved as it means I have been let off the hook of teaching her and will never have to teach a child to ride a bike ever again (that is up there with ‘no more potty training’, believe me!)

– Watched an awful lot of Olympics, especially enjoying the Men’s BMXing with Two. I love to watch the skill of the riders as they fly through the air, but Two has a rather morbid fascination for ‘accidents’ – there were plenty to be seen today, particularly the heat in which seven of the eight bikers ended up in a big heap of limbs and metal on the first corner, and the eighth one tootled round the track with no competition to get first place! Looking forward to seeing Shanaze Reade compete tomorrow (I think) – she is our local Olympic heroine and it would be lovely to get a gold postbox in Crewe!

– Decided on the spur of the moment to set up our folding camping table outside and have our tea out there. It was a lovely family meal with lots of laughter together, and the remains of One’s birthday cake to finish off with.

– Sat outside after tea for the duration of two very large mugs of tea, enjoying the plants and the weather and watching the sky begin to change to twilight as the evening went on.

– Eavesdropped on the most wonderful conversation I have heard for a while, between Three; A,who lives behind us and is five, and T, who lives next door and in my head was totally still nine years old, but it turns out she is off to secondary school in September. Good grief. Anyway, I will leave you with the conversation:

A (to T): You’re a woman!

T: No I’m not a woman!

Three: Yes, you’re a woman!

T: I’m not a woman because I haven’t been through the P word

A and Three: The what?

T: The P word. I’m not telling you what it is!

A: I know! It’s [insert a completely made up word beginning with P that I can’t remember now…]

T: No, it starts with P. I.

Me (in my head): Oh. It isn’t what I thought it was then!

T: It starts with P. I. R.

Me (in my head): Oh, yes it is, she just can’t spell it…

Three (very knowingly; I could just imagine her nodding her head): Oh. Yes. My sister gets those…

*I am, after all, the self confessed queen of bullet points…