How to keep me smiling

Today Andy and Alex were going to be busy painting our living room and as I'm allergic to paint and Connor gets bored with the process, we decided to take ourselves off to the mall for a little bit of shopping. We came back around lunch time to see our living room transformed into a beautiful deep blush colour and on Friday when we have our new cream carpet laid (getting rid of the nasty green thing) our front room will be much improved. We want to keep it as minimalist as possible, however with all the business paraphenelia Andy has, and all the books I have, its a little difficult with the limited space. Anyway, I am digressing from my point. We came back to find A&A almost finished but still hard at work. They'd treated themselves to the chippie for lunch and as Molly was continuously trying to eat the paint Connor and I decided to take her with us in the truck for some lunch and a walk on the beach.



Just before leaving though, I had let Molly out to do her business. It was a bit of bad timing though, as a few idiots decided to set off a few fireworks. This is something quite common in England at this time of year due to the forthcoming Guy Fawkes celebrations on November 1st (a night when the community council hold a fireworks display but so do a multitude of people around town - some are obviously very keen to get started.). I found it pretty neat the first year I was here, to see a multitude of random fireworks exploding over the village, but it soon got tiresome and annoying. Anyway, some losers were setting them off today in broad daylight and happened to do so while I had Molly out in the back yard. I heard her petrified bark and was just heading toward the back door to let her in when I saw her hurtle herself straight at it. She must have been waist high in her desperation to get back inside. If this keeps up she's going to hurt herself. As usual when something frightens her i.e. vacuum, lawnmower, etc. she came straight in, went upstairs and hid under my bed. Alex had to drag her out so that we could get her in the truck.

Connor and the dog had a great time racing alongside the water and although it was overcast with a few raindrops, we weren't deterred. To see them having such fun was worth a few splatters.

Tonight, we just came in from seeing Tim Burton's new flick, The Corpse Bride and it received a thumbs up by all four of us. The paint is almost dried and although the scent is giving me a slight headache, by tomorrow all will be well.

The highlight of my day though came when Connor and I were shopping with my friend Carol-Anne and her little girl. We were at the checkout, the children happily 'assisting us' with our purchases when the gal ringing through my purchases grinned and said 'darling kids'. I just smiled. That's when Connor leaned into my hip, arm around my waist and said 'Yeah, but Madeline's not your child, I am'. Does it really get any better than that?