What a weekend!

I don't know what was going on - and I'll confess to being a bit grumpier than normal after a busy week with the journey to London etc. - but it was dreadful.

The back story is that both the kids can be a bit difficult to get out of the house at the weekend. To be blunt, they're both something of a couch potato. This is understandable with Alex, and Jessica is just reaching that teenage kind of thing. I don't like to spend all weekend knocking around the house. So you can see there's a source of tension there.

To cut a long story short, it all went horribly wrong. We still ended up knocking around the house, but had at least 3 major ("I hate you all" style) rows with Jessica. This of course set Alex off on the wrong foot too. All hell broke loose basically.

We've agreed that for next week we need to agree a plan of action well in advance so that we can forewarn the kids, and hopefully not row so much. It's reached the point that doing anything at the weekend requires a 2 hour row in the morning to force the kids out of the house. We need to find a way around that.

Changing the subject, my return to Byzantine history continues after my visit to the Byzantium exhibition at the Royal Academy last week. I've picked up a copy of Charles Diehl's "Byzantium: Greatness and Decline" on Ebay cheaply, which should make interesting reading, although it's a little old now. I am currently re-reading Robin Cormack's book on Byzantine Art.

I still haven't really thought through how I feel about the exhibition itself. I need to post again about that I think. I can understand why the minor arts have received so much attention though. Some of the ivories and enamel work is truly stunning.