Days Indoors...

The boys and I have been suffering from feverish-coldy-grotty-lurgies since last week, although before Monday at least we were out and about. By Monday we were formally off school and feeling horrible. Thus it's been a week of staying in and pottering about. Perhaps inspired by the amusing saga about ironing board covers going on on the other side of the globe (at Sarah's lovely Red Gingham blog), and certainly inspired by Teena's amazing workroom at Kitschen Pink, I've been sorting and ironing my fabric stash. I appear to be the only reader of Sarah's blog who has a lovely ironing board cover! This is ironic, as I probably use mine less than most people...

But here comes a glimpse of it - from the Cath Kidston sale in Edinburgh last summer! Look - there it is again with some of my recent embroiderery finds from Veti Relais...Lovely detail on the monogram 'G'. Do any of you have the initial G? I don't know many Gs!So I've got rid of two of the three broken suitcases which were housing my fabric stash, and put a good part of my collection into this basket, which improves things.Meanwhile, snivelling sons have been entertaining themselves in various ways. Son 1 likes to draw Pokemon, but had never tried a human before. He copied this boy from a Pokemon book and is quite pleased with the result. The Pokemon obsession has actually been improving their Spanish this week! Spanish is their third language, and when Son 2 found a load of Pokemon videos on Spanish youtube a few days ago they spent a lot of time enjoying them and repeating little phrases. Learning through childhood obsessions - why not?Son 2's other obsession this week is a bit more trying. He has various mechanical and electronic toys, mainly bought from Vide Greniers, which don't work any more. He's been 'borrowing' Ben's screwdrivers and taking these toys apart. Once we convinced him of the need to store small pieces in a tub our lives improved, but we're still likely to find spare limbs brushed into out-of-the-way corners, sigh... He took this photo for you, on the chair he stencilled himself some years ago.Currently these sniffing boys are watching Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. When it's over we're going to play Floundering on the kitchen table...

Sniff, sniff, cough, grumble...