So very tired

It’s been fun having the kids here, but I’m SO glad they’re going home tomorrow – I’m exhausted!
Niece and I had our special “girls only” day today.  When I asked her what she wanted to do, she said “Shopping!”, so our first stop was Riccarton Mall.  I was relieved to discover that her boredom threshold for shopping is not much longer than mine, so after wandering around the mall for about an hour we gave up on shopping and went to a playground instead, followed by icecreams, then the museum, a spot of giraffe hunting, and a late lunch at C1, just so we could get curly fries delivered by pneumatic tube.  Lots of fun, but exhausting!
By the time we got home, just after 3, Niece was asleep on her feet, and Dad and the boys (ok, mostly Dad, with a bit of grudging help from the boys in between sneaking back inside to play on the computer) had successfully stacked my firewood, repaired my fence, trimmed the ivy and secured my bookcases (yes, it’s taken four years since the earthquakes for me to properly eq-safe my house).  Once I was home, Dad went up in the attic to have a look at the leaking roof (for some strange reason he didn’t trust the boys to hold the ladder and not wander off and leave him stranded up there…) and the good news is the damage isn’t as bad as I’d thought, and he’s pretty certain he’s found the source of the leak and can fix it easily.  A definite load off my mind there!
Cards again tonight, this time “Warlords and Scumbags”, a game I learnt on the truck in Africa and taught the boys years ago.  It’s a pretty simple game, with no bows or trumping, just basic following suit, so Niece was able to play too (with a bit of help from time to time, plus we all had to pretend we couldn’t see her cards, because she still struggles to hold a hand, so usually just spread them out on the table in front of her).