I've been working harder than Ron Jeremy's thingy-ma-bob

Blimey, the last three days have been a bloody whirlwind, so sorry if I haven't been over to visit your blog. I've been busier than one of Paris Hilton's condoms. 

You know that I put my London house on the market on Thursday? Well, by Friday afternoon I had two viewings arranged for Saturday morning; one at 10am and a second at 11.15am. How cool, yet how inconvenient at the same time.

'What the blazes do you mean by inconvenient?' I hear you cry, 'I thought you wanted to sell the blasted place!'

I do (kind of) want to sell it, but I had arranged to go to Loughborough for the weekend to stay with my Cousin Jane and new nephew, Mitchell. Bollocks. It was looking like all my cunning plans were unravelling. 

So I pondered my dilemma and then made the madcap decision to do the viewings in London first, and then drive to Loughborough afterwards. Let me tell you, I am one crazy sausage. A bit like Charlie Sheen except that I haven't got two girlfriends and drugs habit. 

 Pic.No.1. A map showing my crazy wazy schedule

For the first time in a gazillion years, I got up at 7.30am (ugh, it was horrible) on a Saturday morning and drove the 100 mile round-trip to London (I quite like driving, it gives me chance to catch up on my Radio 4 podcasts). 

You will be pleased to hear that the viewings went very well indeed, with both sets of couples positively gushing about how much they loved it. Of course I was in my element, highlighting all the house's features with gusto, and a flourish of the hand. It was like being on stage dahlink. But then the excitement ended and I was back on the road to Oxford, where I was due to pick Izzy up before driving to Loughborough.

Because the journey to Loughborough is a 200 mile round-trip, I didn't get there until 4pm.

Jane greeted me, "you're bloody late. By four hours."

"Sorry about that, I got held up in London," I said. 

"What the bloody hell were you doing in London?" she asked incredulously. 

"I had two house viewings," I replied, "and I conducted them both myself."

"Oh god, you did 'em?" asked Jane, "I thought you wanted to sell the place?" 

I wasn't entirely sure I knew what she meant by that remark, so I let it fly over my head and changed the subject, "are we all still going out for dinner?"

Jane nodded. 

"Cool let's go then!" I proclaimed with the same flourish that I used on my house viewers (I wanted to impress Jane a bit).

Martin (Jane's partner) had chosen the place where we were eating, and I was a bit dubiuous because Martin's favourite food is Donner Kebab, which is made from meat that's been jet-washed off a sheep's carcass. But the boy done good, and he chose a pub called The Otter in a village called Kegworth.

Pic.No.2 This is the outside of The Otter pub. That is Izzy in the bottom left of the picture. She is wearing a fur coat and if she falls over she looks like roadkill. Izzy asked me what an otter was, so I told her they were like a rabbit but with a long tail, and they lived in rivers

Pic.No.3 The Otter has a marvellous seating area that looks out onto the river. In the picture are Izzy, my cousin Jane, and nephew Mitchell (in the pram obviously)

Pic.No.4 Looky here. If I move my camera (no ordinary camera mind you, a Canon Powershot S95 no less) a little to the left, you get a better idea of the view from the veranda

Pic.No.5 This is Izzy inside The Otter. Once she saw that I had my Canon Powershot S95 with me, she immediately commandeered it because she loves gadgets (good girl). The following pictures are indicative of the fact that I had lost control of my camera ...........

Pic.No.6 This is 'Cuddly Snuggly', Izzy's superhero teddy bear, also known as 'Fat Cat Supercat'. She insisted on bringing the bloody thing out with her

Pic.No.7 Izzy's feet. After examining my camera, I found another 97 similar pictures all taken by Izzy. So I told her to take some pictures of people instead, particularly me, so she obliged

Pic.No.8 This is my cousin Jane with baby Mitchell. I like the way his head is lolling so that she can keep her right hand free for her glass of wine

Pic.No.9 From left to right; Martin, Jane and Moi. Our food hadn't arrived yet, so we had to fortify ourselves with wine. It was terrible

Pic.No.10 When our food arrived, I noticed that Jane had ordered a salad. "Ugh what's that green shit?" I asked her. She told me it was salad and that it was healthy but I wasn't convinced because vitamins always have a bit of a bitter taste

Pic.No.11 The salad did go up a bit in my estimation when I realised that you could use the leaves to make comedy ears

Pic.No.12 I had ordered fillet steak with hand-cut chips (that's fries to you who hail from across the pond). It had rocket salad on the side but I picked it off because I am not a rabbit

Pic.No.13 Then Jane made me a princess crown from a napkin (oh yes, it was a sophisticated night out). When she was a soldier in the Royal Air Force, she used to be their national napkin-folding champion. She can make virtually anything out of a napkin, including boats, swans, flowers, crowns, heavy artillery etc. 

So all in all, it was a rather enjoyable evening out and I would highly recommend The Otter if you want reasonable food at a reasonable price. In particular, my starter (appetizer) of Red Pepper and Goats Cheese with Balsamic Dressing was the dog's danglies.

When we got back we watched 'The Last Samurai' and I was disappointed to note that the Samurai hero got killed at the end. I suppose the clue was in the title. It goes to show though; knives are for losers, and guns are the way forward. Huzzar!

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Sunday was quite leisurely really: We walked the dogs (Naughty George got lost for an hour, the git), went to a 'Mother and Baby Show' to buy some things for Mitchell, and then had an enormous roast lunch that Martin cooked for us. Following which, it was back to Oxford in time for Sunday evening and getting Izzy's stuff ready for school. 

Blimey, I was bloody knackered, and as if that wasn't enough, I have spent all day down at my London house again today, working on the garden to get it all ship-shape for potential buyers. And I got a blister on the palm of my hand from too much digging. Phew It's all too much dahlinks! I am designed to be a lady of leisure. And guess what? Yep, I am back down to London again tomorrow. I might simply perish.

P.S. So what did you get up to at the weekend then?