What a week!

It's had snails, loo roll, trolls... Let's begin with the troll, shall we? This week we exchanged Ben for a troll. He went to Scandinavia on business (back later today, hurray!) and his place at the table was filled by a Scandinavian trolless. Seemed appropriate... She was created by Son 2, who went with his half-Swedish friends to the Scandinavian Fair in Toulouse - they did this quiz together (I am quite proud to think of my British son doing a quiz on Swedish and Norwegian in French) and generally had a great time.

Now, I warned you about the snails... This is Son 2 again, who adores the smaller, slimier side of life, and currently has about 10 pet snails, who are taken out for 'walks' at least once a day.

Rain or shine (and we've had both this week) you can find him staring rather delightedly at the antics of his snails on my window. Or not my window, this week. I'm going to move those decorations - they're not safe.

Son 1 has been active too, just less photographed! When his brother was at the Scandinavian Fair, he was on a fishing afternoon, and got some great support from experienced fishermen. He caught a carp, which he ate for tea that evening. Bony.

j

And for me, the hightlight of the week has been the blogging/MOPS connection! Thank you so much for all your helpful and fascinating comments on my post below. I referred to some of them directly at the MOPS session, and suggested that the mums log on and read the rest themselves!

j

But what is going on with the loo roll?

Do you have a clue?

Yup, the pre-talk activity was to create two beautiful brides from nothing but loo paper and sellotape. (Aren't I speaking British?)

Don't you think we did well?

And then the icing on the cake - very nearly literally. Son 2 was flabbergasted but delighted to win Sherri B's recipe competition last week. His prize arrived very promptly - the Barefoot Contessa Cookbook, and he opened the parcel and began pouring over the recipes.

This one looks stunning and we do grow both red and yellow raspberries, so it's a possiblilty later on in the year! But I think the chocolate buttercream cake will be the one that gets made this weekend. Thank you so much, Sherri, for this lovely competition and the truly appreciated prize.