Rather admin-y week so far, except for Tuesday night's writing meeting, which was mostly enjoyable. And quite humbling to interact with people from such different walks of life. Like one member who must be in fifties, left her disfunctional husband 8 years ago after being a stay-at-home spouse for 22 years, started supporting herself from scratch as a doctor's receptionist, lives in a tiny flat, has absolutely no spare cash each month to invest for her future, looks after senile parents, and yet has this inner contentment and positivity and faith in the basic goodness of life. She writes beautifully. And I compare her to myself, with a happy marriage and a relatively big house and a big new car, and a part-time job which pays well but I hate. Not sure whether this nudges me more in the direction of sucking it up and continuing with the mindless job, or dumping it all and having a shot at life slightly more on the edge.

Most of the admin was very annoying, as it was totally avoidable. I hit a curb quite fast on Friday morning after dropping off Daniel, and later realised when I was leaving work at lunchtime that I had destroyed the tyre, bent the wheel rim, and lost the hubcap. Sob. I need to do things more slowly and carefully. Like put the CD on and fasten my seatbelt before I start driving. This particular CD is an audio version of Lady Chatterly's Lover and so far I have listened to the first two chapters. Peter downloaded it to start making our 70km drive each day less boring. It's one of those books I've always vaguely meant to read but never got around to. I didn't realise quite how central a theme sex is in the book. The first chapter talks about little else.

As a result of Friday's incident, this week I spent a sickening amount of money and an annoying amount of time seeing to a new tyre, wheel rim repair, and a new hubcap.

Yesterday afternoon I talk the whole brood for haircuts. They all look awfully cute and smart. Daniel describes himself as a 'handsome prince'. After haircuts we went shopping and the kids were a but stunned by my new very frugal approach to shopping. They wanted a huge packet of meringue mice for R31 (!!) so I decided we would go home and make some for R2.20 instead. We had a lovely time making them. Unfortunately, they tasted totally nasty, and they resembled turds (Peter helpfully said). Lauren is always touchinglyloyal, and tried very hard to eat hers. Even she eventually had to throw in the towel. You have never, ever tasted a meringue this revolting. You wouldn't even have known it was a meringue, actually.

Peter and I were supposed to have a budgeting date last night, but I crashed very early putting Daniel to sleep. Perhaps tonight.

This weekend we are going here.