I woke up to sun this morning. One of the great things about not being able to afford curtains just yet is that the first thing one sees when one wakes up is weather! The next thing is usually three cats sitting by the glass sliding door miaowing demandingly to be let in.

Having gone to bed last night with Sky News' coverage of Benazir Bhutto's funeral in the background, I woke up to the news that the cause of her death was a nasty bump on the head
I can quite clearly remember the first time I heard her talking about her politics on Radio 4 - Woman's Hour I think and it must have been quite early on in her career as President. I just keep thinking of those 3 kids and her husband looked as if it just hadn't sunk in.

For the Family Not, today was great. We splodged around on the deck in the sun for a while phoning the Mother Country and supping smoothies for breakfast. The nice shop gave us a lid for Santa's smoothie-maker out of another box despite Mr Not being unable to produce a receipt. Some other unsuspecting soul will now be receiving a lidless blender in the not-too-distant future I suspect!!!

One low point was that Mr Not's Mum sounded terrible on the phone today. Her cancer has now spread to nodes in her neck and within the past week her voice has almost completely gone. Such is her positive spirit that we spent this morning's call discussing her future career running an 0800 chatline using her new-found sultry voice but seriously things don't look bright at all.

The children managed to track down some of their oldest friends on MSN and they had a long chat. They haven't spoken since last Christmas but just pick up with eachother like they have never been away, holding up the dogs for their friends to see again and checking eachother's haircuts!

We spent most of the morning at the libary and when we got home I set up some jumps for the kids and their horses. We don't have anything posh, just car tyres from the local dump and tree branches but they had a whale of a time whilst I toddled about cutting down wonky trees and feeding stock. My little 'Alfie' calf actually ate out of my hand today (sorry, it's not really proper farming is it James ?!)

To finish the day, we sat up until 10.30 playing board games on the deck. The kids thrashed me - I preferred it when they were little and I had to help them to win

Tonight, for the first time this season, I wasn't midged to bits. Maybe this had something to do with the several citronella candles, a bug lantern and a huricane lamp burning citronella oil. It worked perfectly, although everything I drink now tastes of paraffin and lemon soap!!

Well that's my day dayed - Hope you enjoy your Saturday. Nighty morning