Both Lily and Joel have had sleepovers tonight. Lily went to a friend’s house while Joel had a friend come here. So from about 2pm I didn’t really get anything done apart from shuttling them around, preparing things and shepherding children. Most work was done in the morning.

One problem with friends visiting is that I’m never really sure what to do about food. I usually feed the children the same stuff that Jude and I have, and that’s usually the day’s recipe from the Kitchen Revolution. The children have long since given up complaining and greet every new dish presented to them with a mix of trepidation and forced delight. It’s interesting to see how different friends react.

Today was chicken wrapped with bacon served with celeriac cooked in wine and butter, broad beans and peas. Perfectly reasonable for a 9 year old, I’d say. However, it’s a good job that I’d bought in some crisps and some bread earlier in the day as it was perhaps one or two standard deviations away from the average meal. This certainly isn’t a criticism, as Joel’s friend was perfectly polite and lovely about it, but I might have judged the meal better with something a bit less celeriacy and bacony.

I’m sure that Lily, on the other hand, is being treated to a sleepover of awesome proportions. My guess is that she’ll be fed all the foods that we never give her, that it’ll be an absolute treat, and that she’ll come back and demand “normal food”. Of course, the answer will be “no, now finish your jerusalem artichokes” (or similar).

Those poor children. When they’re finally off to live on their own, I suspect that they’ll indulge in five years of super noodles and burgers – which, I confess, is a fine meal.

Given that I was trying to squeeze work in the morning and then keep the children’s social appointments met in the afternoon, I had neither walked nor gone to the gym. So at 7:30pm I finally got out the house to walk to the gym.

The journey to and from the gym can be made to be 30 minutes with a slight tweak, so I did just under 3km there in 30 minutes (I was dawdling), got changed and did about 30 minutes in the gym and then another 3.1k back in about 30 minutes. The way back was slightly longer because the gate that I walked to is locked after 8:30pm. Apparently it’s alright for students to be roaming the streets drunk in other parts of the town through the night, but not up Ruff Lane.

The time in the gym was slightly truncated because it closes at 9pm on a Friday – which I always forget. So I got the main exercises in but not the side plank and abs roller that I do at the start of that session (NROL Hypertrophy A). All the mats were taken and I didn’t have time to be waiting around. In any case, I upped all the weights on the differenr exercises, so I felt like I put in a full session.

I’m looking forward to the weekend, though, and definitely to the start of next week. I always start half term with the intention of trying to have a relax and spend some time with the children (which I do) but then end it thinking that there is lots more that I could have done if only they hadn’t been on holiday. That probably makes me really grumpy, but I can’t help it. Next week will be better.