Davies and Scarlett did some animation station and playing with the toy animals this morning. We looked at a very cool animation that Jonathan had showed Davies when we were last staying with them, which is all the cooler for featuring Worthing pier and seafront. Davies had made some plasticine dinosaurs the other night and he wanted to do an animation with them so he made a rather cool mini film featuring a lego man and a plasticine pteradactyl.
We have several vouchers for free films at our local theatre – Davies won a family of four ticket at the Alice gala event and we got two sets of two free ticket vouchers in the goody bags we won at the Shrek event. I had looked at the T&Cs on the vouchers and noticed something about ‘new release’ films being exempt though so suspected we wouldn’t be able to trade them for Toy Story 3 but as we all wanted to see it we’d planned to go this week. Ady was supposed to be out tonight so we’d tentatively planned tomorrow for the 830pm show. So we drove into town to the box office (you can book online but the vouchers needed redeming in person so I thought we’d try) to get tickets. On the way Ady rang and spoke to Davies (who was answering my phone as I was driving) and said he wasn’t going out tonight after all so we decided to go for the 6pm show tonight instead (far better all round – not after a full and therefore potentially hurty ankle day at work for me, not too late home the night before we’re off to Chris and Helen’s and not right in the middle of when Ady and I would be eating dinner). Sure enough we couldn’t use our vouchers but Toy Story is a bit of a special film for us and on the basis we won’t be doing stuff like cinema visits next year we went for it anyway and got tickets for tonight.
A quick trip to the nearby pound shop for fishing nets so we can do the OPAL pond survey sometime next week and then home via Morrisons for popcorn and fizzy drink supplies to take to the cinema with us later.
Back at home we had lunch and watched Gimme a Break, a show I’m sure I’ve mentioned before where kids in the family get to decide on a family holiday and make up rules and punishments for their parents. We love it, mostly because we like to laugh at how mean the kids are to their parents 😆 This was one we’d seen before where the usually sunbathing mad mum gets forced to do absailing and jetskiing. Scarlett said to me ‘you’d love that Mummy, you’d do *everything*’ and Davies agreed. So we talked about what sort of rules they’d come up with (limited tea for me and limited housework and tidying for Ady while he spent time with the rest of us instead 😯 ) with both kids making me all teary-eyed with their absolute vision of me as an up for it, seize the day, try anything type of person who loves life. That’s very much who I like to think I am but of course I also see the side of me that sometimes resents being a grown up and pairing socks, worrying about making lunch and gets all shouty about tidying. Am very chuffed the kids see me as the person I like to think I am 🙂 .
I then spent a very happy hour listening to / watching MTV which had on a ‘classic 90s mixtape’ which took me right back to being 17 /18 /19 and in nightclubs dancing til the early hours in my miniskirts and DMs with my heavy eyeliner and wrists full of bracelets, drinking snakebite and black and stinking of cigarette smoke and dry ice. Then it moved onto me being 21/ 22/ 23 and living with Ady, working in fairly responsible jobs but still spending many evenings sitting round drinking with mates while a fug of cigarette smoke hung about 4 foot above the ground and enjoying playing grown ups. Happy days. The songs that really took me back were Mr Wendal, Arrested Development (me and the kids talked about that one and how we can learn something from everyone we meet, often the most from the most unlikely sources – Davies asked if that song was what made me decide to Home Educate :lol:), Two Princes, Spin Doctors (reminds me of a holiday Ady and I went on with my parents to a B&B in North Wales where we got my Mum really merry and all played pool with a load of scousers and had a fab night playing that and an Alanis Morrisette track on the dukebox on repeat), Rhythm is a dancer, Snap, reminds me of dancing on the stage in the club with my friend Polly and then staggering back through dark streets to my then boyfriend Matt’s flat – we had to leave the club seperately as we were secretly together… oh the memories :).
I saw in 1990 in Italy with the first person I ever kissed, I was about to turn 16. I saw out 1999 with my new husband of 3 months, quite possibly concieved Davies that night in the house I’d owned for nearly 6 years. 26 to 36 doesn’t feel anywhere near as dramatically life changing.
Ady arrived home in time for us to drive to the cinema and park and be installed for the 6pm show. They were playing music from past TS films so I was already welling up behind my 3d glasses at Jessie’s song long before the film started. Toy Story was Davies’ first real passion and he used to watch the films several times a day when he was 3. He had dressing up outfits of Buzz and Woody, the toys, the pjs, his first pairs of pants were Buzz Lightyear ones. I remember Ady being on a mission for weeks to get him an Evil Emporer Zurg toy for a birthday or Christmas or something.
Gratuitous Davies as a little kid in Toy Story stuff pictures follow:
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We all really enjoyed the film, quite the best sequel to a sequel I’ve seen. It beautifully ended the story and was poignant and touching. The 3d was quite good, not the best I’ve seen and I think it would have easily been as good without it. Scarlett and I both cried – for different reasons at the same bit but won’t elaborate incase people haven’t seen it yet and are planning to.
Back home for bedtime for the kids and curry for us.
This film has so much attachment to our family also. I sobbed most of the way through it.
Trips down memory lane are just too much, unexpected ones have me on the floor! Misty eyed become flood gates!