It’s Mother’s Day here and tipping down with rain, therefore I had even more permission to loll in bed than I usually do and did exactly that with a stack of magazines, a nice cup of tea and Eggs Benedict. Heaven!

And while I lolled, Miss 9.8 bought me a handmade tissue paper flower with a little poem in it, a big picture on pink card (“Have a Good Day!”) and a store-bought variety one with clues in it to the whereabouts of my “official” present (tracked down later on in her room – a $50 book voucher, yay!).

After arising round 11.30ish I duly did my stint as a daughter and made Mum lunch: homemade Broccoli and Blue Cheese soup and shop-bought crusty bread rounded off with freshly baked scones with jam and whipped cream. All very delicious, but I’m feeling slightly sleepy and very full!

Hmmm…I am seriously contemplating returning to my bed for a bit more lolling…

Anyway, before I do, a very Happy Mother’s Day to all you Mums and Moms – you deserve to be spoilt too!

For the past week or so, just around 1.07am we have been awoken to the sound of gnawing.

That is, hurtled out of blissful, deep, lovely, wonderful slumber by an extremely annoying utterly dispicable toerag of a rodent (hereby known as That Little F@@ker as that’s what I invariably mumble under my breath when I hear him/her) who has absolutely no consideration whatsoever and thinks the middle of the night is the ideal time to feast on the inner contents of our bedroom wall.

In order to stop the gnawing, one has to get out of bed, kneel down to the source of the noise and give the wall a series of sharp, quick slaps.

Unfortunately, after several days of this, That Little F@@ker has copped on that he/she won’t actually come to any harm from said slapping on the wall, and just resumes gnawing minutes later.

That is until the Poison was laid Wednesday morning. Wednesday night? Silence. Golden, delicious, *silence*. It’s goodnight and good riddance That Little F*ker and sweet dreams for me and the Other Harf…

Ahhhh, the first fire of the season, let the cockle-warming begin. It’s as if Mother Nature flicked a switch on the 1st of May…the temperatures sure have dived round here rather suddenly and I’m feeling very grateful for the stacks of firewood the Other Harf and I gathered over the past few weekends.
In other favourite things about winter, a) I was finally able to wear my favourite, extremely comfy long black boots to work today for the first time this year, and b) in our lunchbreak the OH and I paid a visit to a local shoe emporium and purchased new slippers. His ones? Brown, beige and boring. Mine? Fluffy purple and white leopard print! Classy!

So yesterday, for the first time in ten months, I cleaned the house. And before you start to mutter under your breath about grubby, slatternly women who never lift a bottle of Toilet Duck in their lives, I mean that I cleaned it instead of the Other Harf.

Yes, now that the OH’s in (temporary) paid employment we’ve reverted to our roster system for the weekend: one of us takes Miss 9.7 to netball in town Saturday morning and the other one gets to scrub, dust, mop and vacuum. Oh the joy of slipping on those pink rubber gloves! The delightful fragrance of Spray’n'Wipe! The pure joy of extracting every last dog hair off the rug in the lounge with a vacuum cleaner that plainly isn’t as sucky as it says on the box!

Tedious as it was, I do have to admit I felt a tiny glow of satisfaction at the end of it: shining toilets, glistening taps, dustless furniture, fur-free rugs.

But not enough to volunteer for the task every Saturday!

And there’s more Autumn flavoured photos [here...](http://www.flickr.com/photos/kiwifruitfi/sets/72157623847969847/)