The weekend at a glance:

Greatest achievement: Going to the bank on Saturday morning and depositing two cheques. We are notoriously bad at this. Occasionally we get cheques in the post - usually refunds for miscellaneous things. And more often than not by the time we remember to go to the bank, they're older than six months and expired. They're never for amounts that are worth getting excited about. One of the cheques I deposited was a refund, from the hospital, of the deposit I paid for Lauren's birth. Shame. The poor administrator had to send me three versions of the cheque before I actually deposited the thing. The first one expired, the second one I think I never received, or at least that's what I assume and hope happened without thinking about it too carefully, and the third one I have now deposited with a full two months to go before the expiry date! The magnitude of this achievement was in no way diminished by the fact that the third cheque in my bag had, in fact, expired.

Most satisfying experience: Going to the timber shop and getting a whole bunch of prices for wood for the Wendy house. Buying wooden trestles for sawing wood on.

Most annoying: Robyn's meltdown, post timber expedition, for not getting bag of chips she wanted.

Most surprisingly pleasant: Eating lunch out with family immediately after timber shop expedition and above meltdown.

Most 'aahhhhh' moment: Daniel, on lying down for his afternoon nap on Saturday, putting his collection of cars down for a sleep too by putting them on the pillow next to him and lying them on their sides.

Weirdest and most painful: Sunday morning at church, meeting up with two brothers of a guy I dated in matric who died of cancer about three years ago.

Kids best: Sunday afternoonn, going to a party on the beach and playing in the waves. Daniel typical of his age, was fearless, Robyn befriended another girl and engineered some sort of fantasy game with the waves, and Lauren went in the furthest and the deepest and sort-of body-surfed.

Best laugh: Playing Cranium and laughing at the humdinger efforts. And did you know that an oenophile is a lover of fine wines? And that capers used in cooking are marinated flower buds?