I Know It's Spring When ...

The washing line is full of white shirts. In winter, I wear black. Lots of black. I have black tops, black cardies, little black jumpers, a black coat, a black dress, black pants, black skirts. And I won't even start on the black shoes. But when the weather warms up, the palette shifts to white. Lots of white. I currently own four white linen shirts and a couple of white cotton ones too. It's not just me. J's wardrobe also shifts, with more white shirts appearing, although there is still a lot of blue.

So it is officially spring when I can wash a full load of white shirts - as I did on Saturday for the first time in months.

This week, I rediscovered an old 'friend'. Claire Robertson has revived her gorgeous blog, Loobylu. Loobylu was the first blog I read. I think it was in 2003 that it was mentioned in a newspaper's IT pages. I decided to find out what this thing called blogging was and, thanks to Loobylu, I was hooked. Before I knew it, Claire and her family felt like old friends and I was lurking compulsively.

I was a little disappointed, then, when Claire decided early last year to have a break from blogging. Although I don't know how she managed to keep Loobylu and her blog of ideas for parents and kids, Kiddley, going with two small children (I'm finding it hard enough keeping one small blog going with one small child nipping at my elbows). But this week I discovered Claire is back and Looblylu is looking fresh and new. Welcome back, Claire.

Back to Work

Life has begun to return to whatever 'normal' is in our household. Mr M went back to playschool on Wednesday and Thursday, and now begins each day by announcing 'I am not going to school today'. It was orientation week at the university and so the demands of students are beginning to refocus J's mind.

I returned to work on Thursday and Friday to attend a training course. It's easy to be cynical about these things - and resentful because how will the office cope if you are away for two days - but it was a surprisingly useful course. Okay, we all know how to delegate and how to build teams. And we all admit we don't do either of these things as well as we might. But over the two days I had the opportunity to meet people I have never ever seen in seven years in my current place of employment. Not only that, we had the opportunity to get to know each other and work together. Now that was worth going to the course for. The course was called 'Leading From Any Position' and it was a useful reminder to stop grumbling about what you think can't be done and start doing what can be done. It brought to mind a saying I learned (I think) at another course: the only thing you can change is yourself.

The other big achievement for the week (and this is really big) is that I cleaned the bathroom. The sad thing about this is that I can tell you the last two times I cleaned the bathroom and that's not because they occurred in the last month. In the last 12 months I have cleaned the bathroom three times - on Wednesday, in October before I returned to work, and on 15 March before I had surgery. The October cleaning was particularly memorable because I broke a tile in the shower, finally knocked the vanity's wobbly leg right off, and broke a moneybox. I love a clean bathroom but cleaning it is one of the most depressing things I can do. The bathroom is old and the shelves are too full of trinkets and the cleaning process seems to emphasise all it's faults. I dream of the day when it is completely renovated.And I will keep dreaming. But at least, for the moment, I have a clean bathroom, some sense of achievement, and a renewed commitment to cleaning it again ... in less than four months.