So much to do and so little time to do it in.

From the beginning of January I have dropped my hours at work to 20 per week - 9 til 1 every day. This was done through direct pressure from Alex's school as they thought his day was too long. Well I suppose they were right although he is hardly the only child to spend time in breakfast club and afterschool club with working parents.

However, despite the fact that I was pressurised by the school and the inclusions officer from KCC, I am actually quite enjoying the part day. I pick up Alex at 1.30 - he isn't doing full days at the moment as he is having one to one support and cannot cope with a full day at school. Hopefully as he gets older, he will learn to control his temper and be able to work around the problems caused by his Aspergers.

You'd think that I would have plenty of time now. But some clown has put life on fastforward for me. I have started the Crochet Club with Jane Crowfoot, and it is a really exciting project because there is no way you can guess exactly what the wall hanging is going to look like.

I'm also in the process of finishing the baby jacket that I am knitting for Sue Hill (she was interviewed in The Knitter last year and uses out knitters) I'm hoping that my work is good enough for her because the merino/cashmere blend she uses is a dream to knit with - so soft and has great stitch definition. My only problem, because I'm left handed, is that as I knit I have a tendency to untwist the multi-strand yarn - so I have to be careful not to split the stitch. But I have loved knitting with it.

I'm also working on a hat from The Knitter, with a complicated loop pattern on the edge - slow going because it is very difficult to translate the loop into left handed knitting. It needs to be exactly right otherwise it looks very strange.

Alex turned 6 on the 9th January and we had his party at our local Kidz Planet on 22nd January. Kidz Planet is an absolutely massive indoor play area - one of the ones where there are lots of ball pools and slides and all sorts of exiting things if you are 6 :) They do a fabulous party deal - It cost us £200 (we provided cake and party bags) and they do all the work - providing the meal - hot or cold - and loads of drinks for the children. They deal with the cake and do all the cleaning up - What could be better? Unfortunately Alex came down with a stomach bug on the day and spent most of the time sitting with us - his friends had a good time though - and he got loads of very good presents from them. Mind you over the last two years I've probably spent about £100 on presents for his friends when he's been to their parties.

Generous little chap that he is, he gave me his bug and I spent most of last night being sick. Why do children only get it mildly and adults always go for broke? When I phoned in to work, I was told that I had to produce a sick note because I'd had so much time off sick before Christmas!!! That was stress and they caused it!!! To make matters worse I had to fork out £10 for a sick note!!! There's going to be trouble tomorrow if they don't reimburse me that's for sure.

I'm starting yet another course at the beginning of February. It's an OU course in design and they sent me a box of items for the pre-course activity. This is going to be so much fun. So far I've had to make a banana out of masking tape and there are loads more waiting to be done - hands on stuff - I love this kind of thing. But I'm going to be busy :)

I've also decided to take Alex swimming after school at least once a week. I've been a bit neglectful in that area - basically laziness if I'm going to be brutally honest - and it makes sense for Alex to learn to swim as we do live right by the sea :) It'll do me good as well. Even better is the the swimming pool is owned by the council I work for and part of last year's no payrise deal was that we get free swimming there - so I'll only have to pay for Alex.

I've got plans for some heart keyrings and hopefully I'll be setting up a Folksy shop. I've got loads of plans for little knits - pocket money items - for me as well as the buyers :) and I'm starting to get interest at work for commissions - a friend wants me to knit a dog coat. So hopefully, although I'll never make the amount I've lost in wages, I should still make enough to go towards knitting !!! And at the end of the day that's what matters. :)