sneaking up early (and hula hoops)

Would you just have a look at this adorable Viennese butter kiss I had at the Women's Institute yesterday morning! So tiny, and so perfect. That wrapper! Just when you start to think the WI is all jam and sturdy fruit cake, they pop something like this in to surprise you.

(although on the whole I do prefer a piece of sturdy fruit cake myself).

Anyway, that wasn't what I came here to tell you. I came here to talk about getting up before everyone else gets up.

Because that's what I've just done.

As it happens, there's only one other person here to get up before - and I do often get up before him, because I work a long way away, and he often works in the evenings rather than the mornings. But that's everyday getting up before someone.

This is sneaking out of bed trying not to wake them up.

I have no idea why it felt like that this morning, but it did, and I like it. I like that feeling of slipping downstairs, trying not to make the floorboards squeak (utterly impossible in this house, I tell you), looking around at the mess of camping equipment and wondering if you can tidy it before he wakes up, trying to catch the boiling kettle before it starts whistling tooooo excitedly, and then drinking tea and sifting through yesterday's photographs, remembering that I actually sneaked in a little fun project while he was having a nap yesterday afternoon.

(I should point out that obviously I do fun things when Peter is awake too, but there's something quite exciting about a furtive bit of sloping round with the house to yourself, not entirely sure when you're going to be disturbed).

So, shall I show you what I did yesterday?

First of all, I opened ALL the curtains and windows, so I could see and hear the rain.

Then I put Pride and Prejudice on the tv.

Then I pulled out the two bits of plumbing pipe I bought the day before and made a collapsible hula hoop.

Yep, that's right. I LOVE hula hoops. We have one hanging in our shower. But that one's a little bit too small for proper hula hooping.

I've got a friend with a HUGE hoop, it's so lovely to twirl round in, but there's just nowhere to put it round here, and it won't fit in the car for camping trips (if we ever manage to get on any, that is).

So I wanted to make a collapsible one.

I think the guy in the plumbing shop was a little bemused, but he played along gamely, even when his mate came into the shop while he was trying to bend the pipe round his waist.

The two blokes in the hardware shop took my requests all in their stride - they're used to me ambling in saying 'have you got any magnets? I'm trying to attach them to cardboard fish' and the like, so this was perfectly ordinary.

So - one length of waste pipe (cut in half), two easy (well, reasonably easy) quick-connector things, one roll of black electrical tape, and one roll of jaffa tape (*love it*) later, and I'm all set - for the princely sum of £8.

Have you got any idea how difficult it is to photograph a hula hoop?

Or how many dusty mirrors I have in my living room? (a lot, it appears).

(obviously it's entirely necessary to keep one's wellies on while making hula hoops - just in case)

So - by the end of Pride and Prejudice, and the end of the roll of jaffa tape, and the end of Peter's afternoon nap, I had myself a nifty tiger-striped hula hoop.

That just about twirls round in the living room, as long as there's nobody else in there too.

I wonder what little mini adventure I can get up to this afternoon while he's asleep??

Speaking of which, I should probably wake him up with a cuppa in a minute - we're off to our current favourite little cafe for breakfast treats and he won't want to miss that...

You up to anything exciting today?