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 Sat in my FREEEZING cold house in front of the fire, trying to design patterns for the staircase, while dad is in the next room belting out some classical music. I have one dog in my lap trying to eat my hand and the other pawing at my back because he's jealous of the attention. The cat has been in the same place on the sofa for two days because she's injured her paw. Upstairs I can hear mum banging away on her keyboard getting ready for the choir she's running tonight.

It's good to be back in the mad house.

 I've been diving back into my scrapbook this week and trying to fill all the pages with as much as I can find: memories, cards, places, people. It's good to document everything that seems important at its present time. I know that in months and years, what and who were the most important disappear, but I want to hold onto it and keep it all sealed forever. This week I'm going to add some drawings as well, it's been a long time since I drew anything. It was the only thing I was good at in art. People around me would be painting ceiling high portraits and gluing layers onto architectural sky-scrapers, while I was sat loudly singing Nero and sticking small papier mache shoes onto larger ones... But I could draw.

 It's the first time I've seen Mum since she had heart failure, and I was shocked at how skinny she looked. The latest is that depending on her up-coming results for something heart related, Barney, Joz and I may have to go for an echocardiogram to see if it's congenital. If it is, it means we have big hearts! I think that's rather nice. She's in good spirits and I'll be glad when she can finally slow her work down.

This is the design I've been working on for the staircase:

 I'll take some decent photos of the house tomorrow and get them uploaded. The latest projects seem to be: a curtain made from coffee sacks, a felted wall hanging and a new plan to make a vase from cardboard. Mum's current obsession are flowers. She's going to plant a new batch of local ones in the garden. Today I was handing out my cv for some part time work over Christmas here and unsurprisingly she was sending me to the florists to hand it in... I see where that's going.

 Last night we cooked a potato and celeriac tart de flette and covered it in cheese. Unfortunately we left it in the oven at 30 degrees and it was raw when we got it out an hour later, so that's dinner tonight. Typical week in my house so far.