Marathons, Ikea and pools.

This is the second of two blogs that I wrote over the weekend.

To semi-quote Arkwrite from the end of Open All Hours; it’s been a funny old weekend.

First off my charge was a little under the weather on Friday, so she got to come home early after I had finished my class for the day, so I spent all of Friday afternoon with her. I had pretty good fun as she introduced me to Charlie And Lola. I have given a good deal of admiration to Dora The Explorer in this blog, but Charlie And Lola is SO much better. I urge everyone to watch it because it’s amazing fun. What I like most about it is that all of Charlie’s tops have his name across them. I want to do that.
Anyhoo, in the evening my cousin was off out doing a nine-kilometre run so I had Catriona for a bit longer while Mummy was away running. But she spent most of the time trying not to fall asleep before her Mum got home. All in all Friday was a pretty good day considering I was looking after an ill four year old.

On Saturday we went to Ikea so Lorna could get a new computer desk and again, we had a good time. We managed to pop Catriona in the crèche and spent our time doing what you do in Ikea; sitting on seats, opening doors, poking things and – of course – eating meatballs (what the hell do they put into those things to make them so damn tasty and more-ish?). Anyway, it’s a well-stocked shop and even I got a little something for a friend of mine. I think she’ll like it but she won’t tell me she likes it, that’s just her way.
After Ikea we headed to a shopping centre that had a big Co-Op (just for clarity, Swiss Co-Ops don’t have anything to do with British Co-Ops, I think that they have something to do with Tesco) as well as a good ol’ Toys R’ Us. No prizes for guessing where Catriona and I went while Lorna was getting some shopping.
The Lego they had was unreal. A great selection of all the Medieval, Space stuff and Town stuff including the hard-to-find railway track. It’s always been a bit of an odd ambition of mine to have a Lego town set up somewhere in my house and that’s the shop to get it all from.
We then came home and had a chilled out evening drinking wine and watching Doctor Who. Well, Catriona didn’t have any wine.

On Sunday Lorna – in her infinite wisdom – decided to do a thirteen-kilometre run so I took Catriona to Murtan to go swimming. We had great fun apart from Murtan being in a German-speaking part of Switzerland. Afterwards we had some lunch and got back to the house about two minutes before Lorna. Good times. I then spent the afternoon building the Ikea purchases (I have to, I’m a man) and then had tea and kicked back with some wine and more Charlie And Lola. You gotta love that program.

So, I’m very tired and have a long week in front of me, but at least I will get to see some friends at the end of the week, so that should be jolly spiffing! It does mean another plane ride, but I have a book that I really want to get finished and planes are a great place to do that. I also find it impossible to listen to loud rock music on the plane. Songs by Lemonjelly, Sigar Ros, Aberfeldy, Kings Of Convenience and Massive Attack are written for plane trips. And Muse are really good for train journeys. Actually, Muse are just really good.

I promise, my next blog will not mention planes…