Ruling the roost

With his brothers living it up on tour in Ireland, Angus made the most of being the sole child. He didn't know what to do with all the attention! I was back at work so Sharon was bearing the brunt of him dogging her every move until Thursday, when she headed off to conference down in Birmingham.

With the boys away, I took advantage by tidying up their tip of a room. Angus has been a demon in distributing books, Lego pieces, gogos and assorted small toys throughout the house, especially the playroom and the boys' bedrooms. Recently Rowan was sleeping in the bunk bed in the playroom (and loving it) as Angus had graduated from his cot to the adjustable bed. However, Sharon had snared a couple of IKEA beds second-hand on gumtree.com, so I dismantled Sean and Finn's beds and relocated them to the front bedroom, back to where they were originally. This meant the trusty cot finally being dismantled after well over eight years' sterling service and retired to the front attic. No time for sentiment really: the boys are getting bigger and moving on to newer stages in their lives. Angus's adjustable bed was dismantled too and removed to the garage as he seems to have adapted well enough to a bed and should be OK in the bigger bed. Sean and Finn now have their new beds which are a bit wider than before but there are now four full-sized beds with decent mattresses upstairs, so that should do them for a few years to come.

As Angus was at nursery Thursday and Friday, we didn't have that much time together. We went to Sainsburys on Thursday evening, where he said hello to all and sundry, and on Friday we popped into IKEA for some mattress covers. Saturday was rainy and we spent the day sorting out the big pile of washing and new T-shirts the boys acquired on their holidays.

Sharon meanwhile was having a busy, tiring time of it at conference, presenting two workshops, managing her team and having to take Hannah to casualty after Morven fell on her legs. Fortunately there was no serious problem but it was the wee small hours before they got back to bed. Not ideal. Sharon was a tad weary when I picked her up from the airport late (flight delayed) on the Saturday night.