Weekend Preparations

My brother and his wife are due to travel down from London with their little daughter this evening, but the temperature has plummeted overnight and it is very frosty out. I’m a bit worried that if the frost doesn’t thaw during the day, then by the time they are able to leave home after school for the five hour journey, travelling conditions could be nasty. Our eldest daughter has also woken up to find that the cold she had yesterday has taken a turn for the worse- she now has a raging temperature and the shivers, so we send her back to bed fully dosed up on paracetamol and a hot drink. Not a great start to a busy weekend.

Worried that she may have one of the many cold related bugs that seem to be going around, I send my brother a message telling him the situation and leave it up to him whether or not they still want to travel. As I don’t hear back from him straight away, I get on with my usual early morning jobs and plan my day around making sure the bathrooms and kitchen are clean and the house tidy enough for my own liking- let alone theirs!

Mike has the day off today- the car has to go in for some work, and he says he’s going to be around to help me wherever needed! I'm not sure that’s likely to mean much, but it’s a nice thought anyway. He does the school run for me, and heads off to the garage leaving me to the washing up. Feeling a bit better under the influence of the tablets, my biggest girl comes downstairs for a bit of company as she isn’t really feeling up to reading, Facebooking or knitting- her favourite pastimes. As I’m still waiting to hear back from my brother, I decide to log onto the computer and get a few admin bits done, and blog drafting so that I can be around for her, even though she’s now found some daytime telly to watch.

An hour or so later, Mike is back and playing a game on the computer, and our daughter heads back to bed as she’s exhausted. I head off to start cleaning the bathrooms- after all it is a job which is always needs doing anyway, so it doesn’t really matter whether we end up with visitors or not for the weekend. I’m very aware of the fact that I don’t want to make too much noise around while our eldest sleeps, so once I’ve cleaned the downstairs cloakroom I check on my emails. Having talked it over, my brother and sister-in-law are still going to come and visit anyway- after all their daughter is only six, and just as likely to take illness home from school as they are to pick any up from here!

Having started out so cold and frosty, the day is turning out to be a lot milder in temperature than expected, so maybe it won’t be too bad this evening after all. The rest of the day passes by with lots of cleaning and vacuuming, and making sure there’s plenty of space free on the living room floor, as our visitors are bringing air-beds and that’s the only free space for them! Our poorly daughter spends most of the day asleep, and even her youngest sister seems to respect that and doesn’t hassle her too much on her return from school.

At around half past nine my brother and sister-in-law arrive safe and sound, along with their very sleepy little girl. Most of ours are in bed and asleep by now, and she looks a little disappointed that they’re not up to play with her! It’s probably a good thing though, as if she’s anything like my children she probably won’t be too keen on settling down to sleep yet, having just travelled two hundred and fifty miles- and having playmates around would have only made things worse as none of them would have slept for hours...