Since Nick went back to work on the 4th and we had nothing planned until the 10th when school restarted, Tom, Lily & I decided to visit Somerset for a couple of days so they could visit with their grandparents and I could nose around the almost completed renovations and extensions to their house.  So after a trip to the dentist for our 6 monthly checks we got strapped into the car for an 8 hour drive and arrived around 730pm in time for some delicious cottage pie for dinner.  The house is fabulous and it was lovely to catch up with the Les's, Martha, Gary and all the cousins and do a little bit of shopping at Clarks Village. 
Tom helped his Gramp out a bit with some plastering and painting and then asked permission for a science experiment involving party poppers and fire...so we got him kitted out with safety goggles, party poppers and a large box of matches under the supervision of Uncle Gar! 
The experiment was a partial success depending on your viewpoint.
There was a very small explosion - partial success, he had tried to blow up 3 or 4 within the confines of a bonfire - but most of the wood was too damp and even with copious amounts of paper and matches the poppers didn't go off with a very loud bang.
Tom didn't blow himself up - huge success.
No massive explosions - failure :(  He had lots of fun trying though and would have stayed out poking around the fire all day and night if he could have got away with it.  I think we have the makings of a pyromaniac on our hands here, hopefully we can channel him towards some clever sciencey engineering explosive type job instead.
We decided to split our journey home on Saturday up slightly so stopped off at Pershore for a look around the town and the obligatory cup of coffee and slice of cake, yum, before continuing up North as far as my mum & dad's in time for dinner again:)  We stayed overnight at Lenzie and then had a short drive home on Sunday morning.
This week I have been out at book club and then again last night for dinner at the Grill House with a few friends which was lovely.  I also went out for a run with Jen yesterday, 1st run in 2 months and we managed 36minutes non stop which we were both pretty pleased with.  I hope to get back out again tomorrow before meeting Jen again on Wednesday.
Nick and Tom have gone off hillwalking today, can't remember where, perhaps Ben Lawers.  Hope the weather is kind to them.

Happy New Year to you all, it has been incredibly windy again today so we lit the fire early and stayed in all day.  Greg came round yesterday afternoon in time for our delayed New Years Day lunch (Nick had been on call so wouldn't have been able to  enjoy a nice glass of wine with his lunch on the 1st) so we had a lovely plateful of beef and yorkies and roasties, along with some veg to make it somewhat healthy and loads of gravy.  After lunch the boys disappeared to Lego for hours before appearing for a sandwich and then disappearing again - Greg stayed overnight and then was here until around half 4 today so we haven't seen much of Tom at all, Lily got a call from Melissa after lunch so she disappeared off for the afternoon as wel,l so Nick and I were able to relax with a book (Nick) /jigsaw (Sarah) all afternoon. 
Earlier on in the week between Christmas and now we drove through to Edinburgh so Lily and I could do a bit of shopping and the boys went to the indoor climbing arena by Newbridge.  We all enjoyed ourselves and apart from that we have done nothing at all except eat, drink and be merry!