Knee Deep in Puddles

Well actually, that should read waist deep, I think! Dropped Emily off at her friend Maisie's house early yesterday morning and she spent all day there having a fantastic time. At one point they went off to Normanby Hall for a couple of hours in the pouring rain and Emily did a fair impression of a wild child with the puddles, rofl. She just can't resist them. Judging from the state of her trousers when I went to fetch her last night she must have been doing more than just jumping in them - swimming in them, perhaps??

Not having overdosed on one another yesterday, Maisie came over to ours this morning for a big play, during which the girls made chocolate pastry valentines jam tarts - YUM - and had a whale of a time playing on Emily's beam in the garden. Emily spent a while helping Maisie to balance while she got her confidence up, which was sweet. Unusual for Emily too, since she's usually the least physically confident in any random pair of children, so I think she liked mothering Maisie for once!
The girls also played LOTS of football in the garden, swapped Valentines cards and pressies, and did makeovers for each other (again! They did that yesterday at Maisie's too, lol).

Yesterday while Emily was out I had a lovely surprise when my friend Margaret called from Poland. They didn't think they'd be able to get their phone line set up for a while yet so I wasn't expecting to hear from her, but she'd just had it installed and was ringing for a chat and to let us know that the Valentines card Emily sent for Kate had arrived. Kate was desperate to talk to Emily, so we promised to ring back yesterday evening when Emily got home. They had a lovely chat together, which was nice to hear.

This evening we've come back from yoga with some great news - Emily's just passed her level six! After Maisie left today Emily just had time for some last minute practice before her test, but she was very worried about crow pose; she was finding it really difficult to hold the balance for more than a second or two. She must have done it well in the test though, because Rachel told me she'd sailed through it. She now has until May to write the three sets of posture sequences and meditations she has to do for levels seven, eight and nine.

Business-wise, things are tricky just at the moment. We've got a huge VAT bill to pay at the end of Feb. Not quite sure where the money for that's coming from just yet - a situation not helped by the news I received by email a few minutes ago....one of our magazine creditors has gone bust, which means I'm not going to get paid for work I did for their Feb issue, nor for the work I recently submitted to their March/April issue. I'm such a soft touch. Sigh. The invoice for the Feb issue was waaaaaay overdue for payment when they got in touch wanting the next lot of copy for March/April, having the cheek to give me a lead time of only 24 hours before the deadline too. After taking their assurances that the Feb invoice would be paid absolutely ASAP I stupidly went ahead and did the next lot of work. Well, that's the last time that will happen. Ever. From now on, anyone who owes us gets no more work until we're paid. And why has it taken me nine years to come to that conclusion?? I'm really not cut out for the cut-throat business world you know. I'm just too nice ;-))