One word? When seven would do…

A New Year search party not being sent out to track me down! I’m here and will blog tomorrow!!

Happy New Year one and all – may you wish a good 2004 goodbye and welcome an even better 2005 in 🙂

A quick post to assure Jax and anyone else worrying that I am still here and fine and will be back with a vengence to my three posts a day average again pretty soon 🙂

It’s been pretty busy really – a sort of extended Christmas cos Lynda (our old nanny from when we lived in Machester – although she became much closer than that over the course of the year or so she was with us) and her husband Stuart came down for three nights so we have crammed as much time spent with them as possible into their trip. My friend Kerry – who moved to Norfolk at Halloween has also been down for a week staying with her parents in Brighton and she, her husband and their two girls EL and K met up with us at Rachel’s yesterday afternoon as well. Hopefully it’s all gone quiet again for a bit as I have some pondering, introspection and reflecting I wish to do and need some quiet time and access to my blog to do it 😉

Tarly has now developed a full range of symptoms for a text book case of H,F&M so my diagnosis was correct – which is good that we know what it was, but bad that she now has had it, as despite never seeing it documented anywhere or confirmed by medical experts I remain convinced it is a virus which you keep in your system and returns to plague you whenever your immune system is crashing due to other illness – Davies first had it over two years ago but whenever he gets poorly he always gets a crop of mouth ulcers. Now Tarly has it I imagine we will have the same with her too.

She is much better today though – on Tuesday she was barely able to eat and veered from being okayish to being really sad and just wailing and clinging. Yesterday morning she was much the same, but I went off to Tescos to remedy the no food situation and picked up some baby rice cakes for her. Once persuaded to try one she ate most of the packet and perked up no end. Lynda and Stuart were here while I was at Tescos, then I took the children to Rachel’s (which in retrospect was probably a bit selfish as there were three other children there so I really hope Tarly hasn’t infected anyone else 🙁 ) while Ady cleaned out, or perhaps excavated would be a better description – the pit that was my car 🙂

E was out with his Dad so Davies and EL had a lovely time playing together – his first words to her were ‘E, I’ve really missed you!’ (aww!), while babies K and A were cooed over by Tarly, Kerry, Rachel and I caught up with chats and tea. Very nice. Kerry then left to continue her round of visiting as they are going back to Norfolk today – I know just how she felt as we used to do the exact same thing when we came down for visits – run around ragged and end up being glad to go back to Manchester for a rest! Ady then came to pick us up as we had walked round there and he stayed for a coffee and played with our kids while I had a cuddle of baby A. Andrew (Rachel’s dh) and E then arrived home so the kids all had a quick run around together before we left to come home.

My parents arrived shortly after we got home as I had said they could pop in to say goodbye to Lynda and Stuart who were coming over for dinner. There were many hints dropped about them staying for dinner too, which we ignored as we have been a but pissed off with them recently turning up, sitting around and being waited on hand and foot without any offer of help, washing up, bringing anything to contribute etc – they used to do the same when they stayed with us up North and I used to get really fed up with it them too 🙁 When it came to it though as usual I had cooked more than enough food for all six of us and as they were showing no signs of going home I ended up inviting them – which they accepted with a little too less gratitude! They all left at about 11pm ish.

I think Ady has spent just a bit too much time in my Mum’s company of late – he is getting really low level hacked off with her. I probably accept her and all her oddities as she has always been the same and I accepted a long time ago she was not going to change, she is not being deliberately malicious and I could either get all wound up about it and suffer or let it go and be laid back – I chose laid back 🙂 She does tend to try and huddle in a corner with Ady and get him to join in with being critical of me though, which he really struggles with. Maybe it’s just classic Mother in Law irritation – I’m sure spending a bit less time with them when everyone goes back to work will help! And he has offered to cook tomorrow night instead of getting a takeaway so he can’t be that cross with her!

Well once again I have been a little less brief than planned! Julie and the twins (pre warned about HF&M) are due any moment so I need to change a very stinky nappy and get the kettle boiling!

Back later, probably!

Yep, we have that traditional annual quandry of a house packed to bursting with ‘food’ but nothing to actually construct a proper meal from! Tonight we have eaten jacket potatoes and posh chicken nuggets 🙂

A pretty good day today all things considered. Over to Mum & Dad’s for the day and Lynda and Stuart came over too. The only downside was Tarly not being too well. She has a very ulcerated tongue (Joyce, I am sure will sympathise…) which is making her a bit crotchety, difficult to eat or drink with and generally not her usual sunny natured happy go lucky self. My theory (and you knew there would be one!) is that Davies caught hand, foot and mouth about 2 years ago while he was at nursery – he was diagnosed by the GP and since then everytime he has any sort of illness or gets run down generally he comes down with these little mouth ulcers and complains of a sore mouth – he also gets really odd smelling breath too – I know that HF&M is some sort of strain of the herpes virus so I am guessing it is one of those things which stays in your system like cold sores do and strikes when your immune system is low. So after he had this flu he ended up with his usual sore mouth and small crop of ulcers – which have now cleared up and now Tarly has them – so I think she has caught it from him 🙁 Convoluted and possibly nonsense but my theory just the same!

So she has veered between being fine and running about loving all the adult attention on offer, and curling up into one or other of me or Ady and crying – poor baby 🙁

By 5pm she had clearly had enough and was asking to come home, so we left everyone there and home we came. She then perked up again, had another relapse and is currently asleep in a very restless and unlikely to last manner. Depending on the night she has I might take her to the docs tomorrow, but I know from Davies’ experience that there is little or nothing they can do to treat it anyway, and hopefully she will be on the up again by tomorrow.

Other stuff? Davies got a magic kit (including wand, a couple of card tricks and a set of marked cards, several disappearing coin tricks and so on) for Christmas from Rachel, which has proved a bit of a hit with him. Wearing his little wizzard outfit he put on a little show for everyone with many an ‘abracadabra’ and a wave of his wand – and a very tolerant audience! I recall being quite into magic tricks myself as a child, although I would have been somewhat older as I was reading the ‘how to’ book myself. But this does seem to have captured his imagination and theatrical nature – so expect lots of ‘pick a card, any card!’ next time any of you meet him 🙂

More other stuff – had a play with my facial salon spa thingy today and it’s fab! My skin is all velvety smooth and glowy – why I ldon’t look a day over erm 30 🙂 One of my NYR will have to be to set aside a night a week to do Nic pampering and we’ll see if I can stave off the aging process a bit 🙂

Right, I have at least 14 other things I should be doing (writing some stories, doing some 2redboots stuff on at least three books I have thought would be great for it, taking the load of washing out of the machine and starting to dry it, writing all the birthdays and stuff on the two new calendars for next year, looking at Jax’ cv etc etc etc) so will leave it there and be getting on with it – or going to bed!

Knew I’d forget this! But as this is supposed to be a HE blog perhaps I should mention it 🙂

Following on from Davies helping me yesterday while I tried to sort the playroom into some sort of order, I was dealing with all the Christmas food such as twiglets, cheesie biscuits and the chocolate mountain. I started to seperate them into sweet and savoury and had a bash at describing the difference to Davies. Given that I came across as some sort of thesarus (no, not a dinosaur 😉 ) and could only use further words he also needed defining to explain the difference I didn’t think it had gone in, but today on the way home in the car he suddenly started talking about sweet, sour and savoury 🙂 (which was all the more impressive as I had not linked sour into the whole sweet and savoury thing anyway).

I am sure one of the pedants can put me straight about them not all being correct opposite descriptive words but he did a grand job of categorising all the foods I could think of into one or the other – including a few trick ones!

Lynda was saying again tonight how amazed she is by his general knowledge and thought processes – I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again, it’s at times like these when I just *know* that HE with all it’s opportunities to follow whatever tangent he wanders off on is so totally the right path for us 🙂

How when I have Ady around I blog rather a lot less! We had a serious chat today about what we really, really want out of life and where we would like the next year to take us. No real conclusions drawn but a definite agreement that what we value over and above anything else is spending time together – both as a couple and with the children as a family. Not altogether sure where this leads us, but we keep going in big circles and coming back to the same idea of some sort of business… will blog further when we have more than random thoughts floating around. This time of year always has me asking lots of questions of myself. I have no issues with getting older particularly (and at 31 next week I don’t even really consider myself old anyway!) but I guess its a bit of an overhang from childhood where I always felt a bit sad and melancholy when my birthday came round as it meant that was it for me again ’til next Christmas.

Christmas always leaves a slight feeling of over indulgence and anti climax – whether you have had a good one or not it always feels a bit obscene in hindsight just how much money was spent and food was consumed – won’t change it for next year of course, but it is a small period of a lot of excesses. Then New Year comes which always seems like an excuse to beat oneself up over all ones failings and make ludicrous promises to improve beyond recognition – which last until at least the second week in January! Of course everyone is a whole year older at the beginning of a new year, but having a birthday in early January means not only are you actually a year older, but your specific age goes up one too. All of which conspires to make you really re-evaluate your life.

So my evaluation is in the main a positive one – which I will no doubt be sharing at some point in the next couple of weeks when Ady goes back to work and I have time on my hands again 🙂

Anyway, back to today! Over to Chris and Julie’s fairly early to drive onto a local area where we had a brisk winter walk. Very nice actually – it was an area where Ady lived in his teens attached to his job as a gamekeeper junior (whatever the correct term for such a postition is – underkeeper or something I think!) so it was a literal walk down memory lane for him, and a chance to run around in some fresh air for the kids.

Some pics follow:

Scarlett got a bit upset at one point because Davies was holding Maisie’s hand instead of hers but other than that it was all very enjoyable! After that we popped into Chichester where Lush were offering a suberb bargain of a free Christmas box gift (worth about 25 quid) when you spent over £15 🙂 Then back to Chris and Julie’s for tea and chats. The kids charged round playing while we had a defrost infront of the fire before heading home for tea.

Lynda and Stuart arrived in Littlehampton this afternoon so they came over this evening – gave the children some pressies of books which went down very well, then Lynda sat with Davies for ages reading him a bedtime story, then had a drink with us, then left to go back to their hotel. Tomorrow we are all over at Mum and Dad’s as they have more room – and we’ve done with being hostesses too!

Hope you all had the very merriest of merry Christmases. We had a really nice day, the kids were asleep by 7pm on Christmas Eve (possibly the last time ever in their lives!), the presents were removed from hiding places and places under the tree with snowy (well okay self raising flour!) Santa footprints leading from the fireplace to the tree, a huge indian takeaway was consumed and much alcohol drunk!

Scarlett woke back up again at about 11pm, which meant there was much hurried concealing of gifts under the tree with blankets 🙂 Mum and Dad left at 11.30pm and I took Tarly up to bed with me for a brief time while Ady rearranged the lounge and did the footprints, then he had to bring her back downstairs again as she was being really loud and lairy and was either going to wake Davies or get really shouted at by me so he sat with her ’til about 2am when she fell asleep.

Davies woke just before 7am (again probably the latest Christmas Day waking we’ll be getting for a fair few years!) and his first words from his bed shouted to me were ‘Mummy, Mummy, he’s been!’ He brought his pillowcase into our bed where he opened the bits and pieces in there and was shocked at being allowed to eat the chocolate coins so early in the morning. At 7.30am I sent Ady to fetch Scarlett up so she could join in and we all arrived downstairs at about 8am.

Davies opened the biggest box first – which was the Peter Pan Island (well the box for it, the actual thing was readymade and waiting in the playroom), which he was totally and utterly and completely delighted with 🙂 So much so he didn’t actually want to open any more pressies and just wanted to play with that – bless him 🙂

He was coerced into opening the rest and was a perfectly grateful and happy little lad, Scarlett similarly was astounded at the sheer volume of pressies all for ‘Tarly???’ and they spent about 2 hours altogether opening, exclaiming with delight, stopping to play, eating breakfast, eating chocolate and generally being lovely. They both tried some Bucks Fizz – predicatably Davies was not keen but Tarly loved it 🙂 She has been drinking Baileys (heavily diluted with milk) all week and loves it!

I finally persuaded them to get dressed and at midday my parents and Frazer arrived. More pressie exchanging ensued – Frazer’s gifts of the Dora house for Tarly and the wooden pirate ship for Davies were very well receieved! Davies and I then set his ship and Island up in his bedroom with a sea playmat so that when the twins arrived later nothing would get lost or broken. Davies spent ages up there with various adults in shifts playing with him – suffice to say he is very happy with his gifts.

Scarlett similarly loves the Dora house. It is excellent actually – very good quality and IMHO worth the money. You can get various add on bits and pieces such as furniture and character sets which we will start to collect for her on various occassions, but she is delighted with it – the Dora obsession continues…

Chris, Julie and the twins arrived just before 2pm, in time to join in with the buffet food I had been cooking on and off all morning. They stayed a couple of hours during which Davies had a bit of a moment – he complained about being hungry (although he didn’t want any of the wide variety of food offered) and didn’t quite know what to do with himself. ‘Mummy, I’m not having a very good Christmas’ 🙁 What he actually wanted was for me to stay upstairs with him playing with his pirate ship and Island but it was not really practical with a houseful of people and not really what I wanted to do either. Although he didn’t come right out and say it he just wanted everyone to go home! It was too many people in too small a house and probabably just a bit too much attention for him. I do know where he was coming from, much as I love Christmas I also love January when it is all over for another year and we can get on with our daily lives again – I feel the same about holidays really – I love the anticipation, I love being on holiday but equally by the end of it I am glad to get home, sleep in my own bed and get back to my own regular routines! I manage to cajole him out of it anyway and he was fine again later.

They were both asleep very quickly again last night and we had a pleasant enough evening with Mum and Dad watching Christmas Day telly!

Today I wanted to have a low key, at home playing with their presents kind of day. So that’s what we did. Ady played with them this morning while I sorted the playroom out a bit to fit in most of the new stuff they have got – some can stay in the lounge for a bit longer! Then Mum and Dad arrived for lunch after which Mum and I went into town while Dad and Ady minded the kids and watched football.

Only three shops were open in town – WHSmiths, Debenhams and Woolworths! We did manage to make purchases in all three though! Mum bought me a cd in Woolies and I got Davies a couple of half prices jumpers, in Smiths she bought me four books for my birthday and in Debenhams she bought herself a leather coat which was half price as her pressie from my Dad. So quite a result 🙂

Home again and Davies and I played with a couple of his pressies – a make your own window sticker kit and the Usborne Make these dinosaurs book which was nice. They have now been packed off to bed, Mum and Dad have gone home and we have just enjoyed our roast partridge dinner!

Pressies for Nic? I got the Trinny & Susanah book which I had asked for, some Lush perfume I had asked for, Tom Jones & Jools Holland cd I had asked for, loads pf liqueur chocolates, calendar and off his own back a bubble spa bath machine thingy and a facial spa kit (sauna, mud pack warmer, exfoliator etc) both of which would normally be cop out, stored in a cupboard somewhere pressies from most bloked but were actually very well thought out and I am really chuffed with. I adore my baths – the jet thing is great, if a little noisy and extreme with its jets 🙂 I have not played with the facial spa thing yet – tomorrow I plan to have a good go with that!

Ady got a DAB digital radio, which he bought himself and totally adores! I also got him various bits and pieces – socks, pants, a map reader gadget, aftershave, chocolate and so on and a really cool make your own mug kit which I got Davies to write ‘Daddy’ on and draw a little picture of Ady on – which is his favourite present 🙂

So I think that’s everything caught up over the last couple of days… tomorrow we are going for a brisk winter walk with Chris and Julie followed by lunch at their house. In the afternoon Lynda and Stuart will hopefully be arriving so we will either be seeing them tomorrow afternoon / evening or seeing them on Tuesday when they come over to Mum & Dad’s (they have more room and we’re all hostessed out!) for the day. On Wednesday Kerry (who moved to Norfolk at Halloween) and her girls are down for the week and meeting us at Rachel’s house for a catch up. So it is looking like being one of those real Christmasses where you really do catch up with family and friends and enjoy being together.

Below are various pics, hover over them to get a description if they are not self explanatory. Can’t be arsed to put them into the body of the blog, sorry 🙂

And finally thank you to Karen 😉 for the gifts! Very astute on the one for me and Ady! And to my CBR Secret Santa – thank you very much, we are planning to take it for a virgin flight and will post pics tomorrow!

To not blog tomorrow, although having kept the receipt I may be returning that intention for an exchange 🙂 So here it is, Merry Christmas, The Goddard Family are having fun 🙂

So far we are having a lovely day. Up early to collect my parents for us to all go out to breakfast together (Little Chef – but actually an excellent breakfast!), then we walked round Bognor to get the few very very very last minute things – Mum and Dad went off together, I took Davies and bought some pillowcases for the children to decorate instead of stockings, Ady took Scarlett to choose a replacement for the card he had got me from them and has hidden so well he can’t find it 🙂

I worked in Bognor for a year or so a few years ago as the manager of a well known card retailer. The girl who used to be the Assistant Manager and I were very close (I took a chance on employing her as she had been unemployed for a few years and had no real experience but she proved excellent and was promoted to Assistant Manager and even offered my job when I left). She left shortly after I did and went to run a spiritual and alternative gift shop down the road. To my delight, there she was still in there so many hugs and kisses and Christmas wishes and addresses exchanged to meet up in the new year. So that was lovely.

Then we delivered our last couple of Christmas cards, with Mum & Dad still in the back of the car with us. One to an elderly couple who Ady used to do gardening for years ago, who also know Dad, so that was nice. Then one to some friends who love just round the corner but we have only met up with once since we’ve been home. Arranged for them to pop round on Boxing Day for a proper catch up.

Then home. I have made about 200 mince pies (which have already had a big dent made in the pile – thanks Dad 😉 ), Mum & Ady made the pillow cases all festive with Davies & Scarlett using glue, glitter, feathers, sparkling bits and pieces and the last few remaining bits from the MP Christmas craft kit from last Christmas! I was called upon to draw an angel on Davies’ and Dora and Boots on Tarly’s – which I made a bit more festive by adding Santa hats too!

Mum & Dad have popped home for their last few things to do before returning here later for a takeaway and excavating the pressies from all the hiding places around the house to put under the tree. We will also be faking snowy Santa footprints using icing sugar and a wellyboot template up and down the stairs from the chimney.

I can’t quite bring myself to actually turn the PC off for the weekend so I will be around, peeking when I get the chance, but incase it is a couple of days before I blog again…

To each and every one of you a very Merry Christmas. I hope the day brings you all you wish for yourselves. However you celebrate and indeed whatever it is Christmas means to you in terms of what you celebrate I wish you all peace, joy and love…xxx

Further to something going on over on Jax’s blog is something I have been considering of late too.

It seems that the whole ‘three’s a crowd’ thing can relate to a mother and her two children at times.

I am very aware that although I quite categorically do not have a favourite child at any given time there is perhaps a favoured one. My relationship with them both is clear and seperate – while I might refer to them here as ‘the children’ they are quite definitely people in their own right and I have a relationship with them each as well as being their mother.

Now the dynamics of these relationships should probably never even be compared and contrasted. Aside from anything else there are so many differences in them – gender, age, birth order, temprement and so on. One of them is very like me, so I can recognise and relate to traits in their personaility and either enjoy and like them, or clash horribly with them. One is very like Ady, so again the aspects of his personality which I find very attractive, I enjoy in them, the ones which make me want to throttle him also bring out the worst in me when exhibited by a small person too.

It does seem that if one is being lovely then the other is being horrid to compensate. Despite the fact they are close and also close in age they do have different needs and both are very good at asserting those needs and demanding that they get their one to one attention – this is good in some respects – bad when they are being assertive at the same time 🙂 As yet we have found very few activities which the three of us really can enjoy together – they are either too advanced for Scarlett, too babyish for Davies or simply require my attention to two children simultaneously which I can’t do (makes you wonder how teachers manage eh? No? Oh yeah, that’s right – they don’t 🙂 )

I like to think I am pretty evenly matched in terms of showing preference to one or the other at times, I do not consistantly support either one of them all the time. I appreciate and understand Davies’ frustration at having an often annoying younger sibling as I once had (and still do have 🙂 ) one myself. So I know how much it pisses you off to make up a big train track and have someone tramp through the middle of it, or run off with your crayons while you are drawing or noisily demand attention the instant you get some books down and ask to learn some letters.

I also know that at Scarlett’s age Davies had me all to himself for hours at a time to sit and do jigsaws, read books, have cuddles, learn colours and so on. There was undivided attention from two adults a lot of the time and he enjoyed being the very centre of our universe for over two years.

There are immense benefits to being a sibling too. I have been watching them this week, playing together and really enjoying each other’s company and know that they are so important to each other and I love that. I once heard someone say that every parent has a favourite child, whether they admit it of not. From moment to moment I guess there are times when I do have a preference for which one I’d rather be locked in a small room with, but in the main I really can say I don’t feel I do have a favourite but I do go through periods of getting on with one better than the other.

This is late and rather wine fuelled. I am sitting with the Christmas tree looking all festive, watching the clock tick round to Christmas Eve and anticipating the looks on their faces over the next couple of days.

This is likely to be added to but this is what I’ve got so far…

1. Refresh what used to be quite a good memory for rules of written English. My grammer, punctuation and so on used to be really quite good. The one teacher who I recall being quite influential in my schooldays was a bit of a stickler for it and disliking school for many reasons I found comfort in the ‘rules and laws’ of the language. It is pure laziness that prevents me from doing it, well that and a tendancy to run away with my words and type as I think instead of constructing proper and cohesive sentences and paragraphs. It is something I am sorry to have lost, would like to get back both from my own pov as a blogger, something I want to pass to the children as we get more into writing and reading and something which bugs me about myself a little too.

2. Take our financial situation a bit more seriously. I do have the capacity and ability to earn money and I really need to pull my finger out and do it.

3. Do enough planning and recording of our HE journey to satisfy me that we are doing it and can prove it. That is all. Do no more than that as it serves only to stress me out and is actually a hinderance to the children learning rather than a help.

For just how bloody cold that gel stuff is when it’s smeared all over your belly for those ultra sounds 🙂 Yep, he came out and said that he understood now why I winced a bit when they squeezed it all over me – also the 15 minute wait to be called was bad enough for him without the full to bursting bladder that I have been sitting with so in all I think it was a good experience for him 🙂 And he didn’t even go there with the fact getting his bits out infront of an audience made him more than a little uncomfortable….

So the good news is that he is fine. No cancer, no suspicious lumps or tumours simply a very common side effect of the snip, which the doc assured him will continue improving over time as it was only 8 months or so ago he had it done. It would appear that it is quite common, but is also quite ‘glossed over’ when snips are being discussed at planning stage. Although to his credit he still said he would have had it done, even knowing about this as it was the better option when all possible permanent birth control methods were discussed after Tarly was born. So huge sighs of relief, glad its been done before Christmas and a bit of a bugger having read up on our life insurance which covers serious illness that our mortgage is not about to paid off after all 😉

The rest of today was a bit of a blur really, we both admitted to having been more focused on the scan than either of us had let on – even to ourselves. First thing he went off to work while I took the kids to the post office to collect a parcel which hadn’t been delivered yesterday cos we were out (thank you Mrs Bowlzer 🙂 Secret Santa lives at your postcode does he 😉 xxx), I also did that typical thing of going into Woolies at the last minute and picking up a couple of last minute impulse buy pressies for Ady which I didn’t really need to do, but made me feel more festive 🙂

Home again and Julie and the twins came over for lunch. Davies was totally overexcited and ran around shrieking for most of their visit – in the end I sent him to sit on the steps while I calmed down after catching him encouraging the others to squirt the juice from mandarin segments at each other 🙁 Scarlett & Jack spent ages emptying all the books off the bookshelf, then while Julie and I were tidying them up they went into the playroom and emptied literally every puzzle box out into a big pile 🙁 That did need tidying up straight away before any pieces got lost so I spent nearly 1/2 an hour sorting them out and putting them away again up high. Why is it you only need to introduce one extra child into an environment for total havoc to be caused? My two would never dream of doing that on their own, and neither would Jack and Maisie, but the instant they all get together they egg each other on like lads on a stag night to down pints in one and have ‘jushst one more for the road’.

And then, to coin a phrase, we had lunch 🙂

Ady arrived shortly afterwards when we had settled the kids down infront of a Brum video. When Davies was about 18 months old he was seriously into Brum, we’ve got all the videos, had various Brum related toys and puzzles and a couple of items of clothing. Scarlett was into it to a lesser degree at around the same age. Jack did a Brum puzzle when they were here last week and has been Brum spotting ever since. So that captivated them all for half an hour and made them calm down a bit too while we chatted about Christmas Day arrangements. Julie left and Dad arrived to mind the kids while we went off to the hospital.

Hassle parking and then a wait in the scan room anyway meant we were gone for about an hour but all seemed peaceful and okay when we got back. Davies was dressed as Jack and Dad was being the Giant and ‘Fee, Fye, Fo, Fumming’ all over the place while Davies dressed in the top and hat from his Peter Pan outfit was attacking him with the foam sword. A scene I would have shuddered at a while ago and one which still didn’t exactly warm my heart, but I guess a totally normal and acceptable game for a 4yo boy and his Grandad…

Mum arrived too and despite huge hints about inviting them for dinner we didn’t so they have gone off home. We are spending all day and evening with them tomorrow and Christmas Day and both wanted a bit of an easy and early night tonight – we are going out for breakfast tomorrow and I don’t think anyone will be sleeping past about 5am on Saturday so a late night tonight would be a bad idea…

Thanks again for all your thoughts, well wishes and reassurances over the last couple of weeks about Ady. It has really helped 🙂

Feeling fairly unaffected by the whole festive thing today. It always seems to happen in the last couple of days leading up to Christmas that you suddenly forget it is infact Christmas and it feels distinctly unChristmassy….

Went to Sainsburys first thing this morning as although we were very organised in getting all the Christmas food last week we mananged to fill the house with food without having any actual dinners for this week. Last night was a raid the freezer for sausages night so today I whizzed round and got dinners and the last few bits we need for the big day. It was brave and possibly a bit mad to attempt this jaunt with both children but they were positively angelic and sat in the trolley all the way round being little cherubs. They watched the scrum that is the fruit and veg aisle three days before Christmas with old folk scrambling to get sprouts like there is a national shortage with wide eyes, smiled at all the old people who wanted to pinch their cheeks and tell them how cute they were and ask them if they are looking forward to seeing Santa and asked for apples and bananas when I promised them treats for being good (which is probably cos they are actually sick of crips, biscuits and sweets but never mind!).

Dropped Jenny’s Christmas card in, dropped the shopping back at home and then went over to Dad’s. I had planned to get him to show me where an old couple Ady used to do gardening work for had moved to so we could take them a Christmas card but ended up staying there for lunch and most of the afternoon instead. Frazer was there and he played with the kids for ages while me and Dad sat and chatted, which was really nice.

Dad has this habit of really teasing the children, he used to do it with me and Frazer and has done it with every child he has ever met. Scarlett is getting better at taking it from him, but it does tend to upset Davies. I am torn between feeling sorry for him and thinking that it is no bad thing that he gets a bit of flack from someone. Ady does not do that classic Dad thing of teasing the kids really, he is more the good cop to my bad one. The thing is I would rather they got teased *nicely* by someone who loves them and they get used to it than dwelling on some hardcore nasty teasing by for example other kids in the playground…hmm not an easy one this really.

Home again and although they are both asleep neither of them are sleeping very soundly, I predict a bad night!

Tomorrow Julie and the twins are coming over and then Dad is looking after the children while I go with Ady for his scan – so fingers crossed it is all okay, and that they are able to confirm that to us tomorrow without waiting for a verdict too.

Weather permitting we are planning a walk round to deliver our very last Christmas card and look at all the various houses decorations tomorrow afternoon once it gets dark. The children will really enjoy that. Then on Friday Ady is planning to stay home with us, as there really is nothing for him to do at work, so we are going out for breakfast with my parents first thing and then have no concrete plans for the rest of the day other than keeping a balance between the children looking forward to Christmas Day but not exploding 🙂

I’m also working on some New Years Non resolutions at the moment which I will probably post in the next couple of days. More a couple of self improvement things for me than anything else but at least one of them is something I could do with some recommendations on.

This cold / flu thing really is taking it out of me. I keep thinking I have shaken it off only to feel crap again by the evening. So glad I was organised about Christmas and with the exception of two last Christmas cards I need to get to people (one of which is your’s Jenny so expect it shoved through your door maybe tomorrow!) I don’t actually have anything Christmas related to do this week.

After the earlier blog I made 48 mince pies – I belive there to be roughly 8 left 🙂 Ady loves mince pies! That did only take up about a quarter of the mincemeat though (I buy cheapish mincemeat then add chopped cherries, walnuts and brandy to it, a trait I have inherited from my mother who always always has to modify or add stuff to things she buys in the false hope it makes them appear home crafted, individual and a ‘bit special’!! Wouldn’t be surprised if my hair is really blonde, she’s just been dying it for me while I slept all these years!) and I have one more pack of premade pastry left, so I will either have to actually make some pastry, buy some more ready made or have half a tub of mincemeat kicking around the fridge til March when I decide to chuck it out 🙂

Kids were fairly unruly this afternoon, a combination of too much chocolate, too much Nick Jnr and not nearly enough maternal attention I suspect. I console myself HE wise that if they were at school then they would have been being ignored by me and sat infront of TV with chocolate this week anyway like all the schooled children I know 🙂

I had plans for tomorrow which I am just not feeling up to doing, so I have dug out the Christmas crafty books I got from the book people way back (July, when Christmas starts for me I believe 🙂 ) and think we might have a bit of a snowflake making, home made tree dec fest here tomorrow instead. And maybe a bit more festive baking.

And that’s it really. I have various things I really should be doing but can’t actually be arsed to do, so I think I’ll let myself off due to sickness and look forward to a nice quiet weekend 😉

I have been a cross person today mainly. It started badly cos I had been having a nasty dream in which Ady had run off and left me so when he woke me up I was already in a bad mood with him! Then he went off to work and the kids were both really demanding of my time while I was trying to get the house into some sort of order before Rachel arrived (she is very houseproud and although I know she doesn’t do it I always worry she might have some sort of dust detector in her handbag!). Hence several occassions of me shrieking ‘WHAT????!!!!!!!’ when one of them shouted ‘Mummy’ for the seven hundreth time! Also my nose has become a snot factory requiring blowing at least once every fourteen seconds which is noisy, yuckky, gets through lots of tissues and is starting to get sore (TMI? tough!)

Anyway, that all calmed down once Rachel arrived and three cups of tea and chats later I am feeling less like there should be booing and hissing everytime I enter the lounge, but still quite snotty. Baby A slept for the whole time they were here and Davies, Scarlett and E played fairly well together. Davies is now dressed as a space man building a big wooden train track, Scarlett has collected all the dummies in the house and growls at anyone who thinks they might take them off her and I have intentions of going to make some mince pies and maybe even some cheesey star biscuits I spotted a recipe for. Should probably think about lunch too really…

I was awake til nearly 2am in the end, played with the blog a bit and tried in vain to be myself on the blogring quiz! I’ve been Ros, Alison, Jan, Jax, Merry and Sarah…so either I am in complete denial about a characteristic Chris sees in me or it is simply not possible to be me 🙂 Aside from anything else there is no curvy and voluptuous option for describing myself 😉

Anyway, the kids did their spooky simulataneous waking thing at 5am and although Ady got up with them as he knew I hadn’t slept well, he did turn on every radio and TV in the house so I did not actually manage to go back to sleep.

So on three hours of sleep I cobbled together the post below which had been floating around unformulated in my head during the night before 9am, and then spent the remainder of the morning trying to be me again!

The kids were angels today, I barely saw them for most of it. They spent about an hour playing hide and seek, then some complicated game involving bouncing on the sofa and eating most of a packet of jammy dodgers, but they pretty much supervised themselves and each other. They are at a lovely age now where the actively play together and really enjoy being together. Of course they also squabble and annoy each other too, but I am seeing them do as me and my brother did as children and that is really enjoying being a sibling 🙂

We then had a small jaunt out to the local shops to get some bread and crisps for lunch, very cold but did us all good to get some (very) fresh air, and Scarlett fell asleep on the way back. I let her have a half hour nap while Davies and I tidied up a bit before Mel arrived with L and L for lunch. In between all this I was fielding phone calls from Ady who was in Ikea buying our Christmas pressie from my parents – a set of their 365 steel pans as to which sizes we wanted.

Mel and I had probably our best chat yet, the kids get on really well but she and I don’t have that much in common really although she is lovely. Today we seemed to find a bit of common ground and chatted quite a bit more. Scarlett and L got on better today too and even disappeared together in the playroom for ages playing with the tea sets and pretend food. Davies and L played really well as usual – they were both so pleased to see each other again – it’s been a few weeks due to various illnesses. They played dinosaurs, hide and seek (which was tricky as I was enforcing the playroom or lounge rule which seriously curtailed their hiding possibilities!) and various other boyish games. They were here for about 3 hours and there was only one slight altercation which did not require any intervention, just a cuddle from each respective Mummy to kiss better whatever it was they had done to each other 🙂 before they got back to their game again. They are having a joint birthday party at the local soft play place (which we have not been to before) as their birthdays are 5 days apart (L will be 2, L will be 5) and Davies and Scarlett are both invited which will be something for them to look forward to after Christmas has been packed up and dismantled.

Ady arrived home shortly after they left by which time I had totally lost my last few dribbles of energy and really just wanted the children to go to bed 🙂 My Mum arrived to collect the pans and give us a cheque for them and ended up staying a bit longer than she had planned which put us a bit behind with our planned bath, dinner and bed by 10. Ady had to return a phonecall to a friend who has left two messages on the answerphone wanting to wish us a Merry Christmas. It was probably the first time I have heard him volunarily telling someone about HE and sounding totally convinced and convincing about it all too. Very proud 🙂

Tomorrow Rachel is coming over for a cup of tea and chats while the kids play in the morning and then we really, really, really must make some mince pies in the afternoon. Also want to tidy the kids rooms a bit to clear some more stuff to be binned, recycled or taken to my parents, oh and depsite two loads of washing being done the pile does not appear to have reduced any!

The (festive Nativity) version (of) Merry was visited by the Angel (Fairy Godmother) Alison of Portico all bathed in a shining light.
“You will have a(nother) child” said she from on high (well Reading actually!)

“But those dates just don’t add up” said The Version Merry “I was at Melrose then. How can this be?”

Angel Alison said unto her “This child will be special. Many will await her birth with eager anticipation. When she is born the message will ring throughout the land via text message and blog announcement. She will help spread the word of Home Education and continue the power of the Hama for many years to come”

The Version Merry told her husband, Max and somehow he bought into the story despite the dates not quite adding up!

Later that year, when Merry was heavy with child it came to pass that the evil government wanted to take a register of HomeEducating families. Merry and Max had to travel to Sheffield to be counted, as that is where all the Home Educators seem to come from. They visited Steve Clarke’s Quality Used Donkeys where they chose a suitable beast to aid and assist them on their journey and off they set.

It was a cold and long and tiresome and weary journey. It seemed to be made even longer by the fact they had to constantly blog about whether or not the baby had been born yet! But on they travelled until finally they reached Meltham where they needed to stop for the night, to rest, recuperate and hopefully find somewhere to plug in their laptop for an internet connection.

It was late and dark when they arrived at the ‘Off The Path quality guest house and inn’ and when they knocked on the door. It was answered by the interchangable Inn Keeper Jan-othan (sometimes a man, sometimes a lady depending on which computer they were using)

“Sorry, there’s no room at the inn” said Jan-othan, “we are full to bursting with Home Educators from all around who are here filming a reality TV show. The Berisford and Clarke families also guest staring the Pollards have taken all the rooms along with the camera man, lighting and sound engineer and the producer and director. The only space we have left where you could sleep is in the stables round the back”

Merry and Max and the quality used donkey duly went round the back to the stable. Luckily it had recently been fitted out by Jax and had a fully operational IT section so they were able to blog and let everyone know they had arrived safely. Merry crafted a manger from hama beads while Joyce the chamber maid popped in to ensure the toilet facilities were adequate (and that everyone had washed their hands!) and they settled down to await the arrival of their baby.

Meanwhile out on a hillside a group of Home Educators were having a field trip with their flocks of children. They were learning all about wildlife and camping. Suddenly the sky was filled with a beautful light and singing came from on high and a vision appeared to the families on the hillside of an angel. She was called Karen and she came to send them a sign (Karen knew about signs, she could do ‘milk’, ‘finished’ and ‘play’), but as none of them could do signing she had to tell them verbally:

“A baby will be born this night, in a stable. This will be a special baby who will help to spread the word of Home Education. Aside from anything else visiting a new baby in a stable is pretty good for ticking off lots of educational boxes, and its a bloody sight warmer in the stable than it is on this hillside, so why don’t you all come and have a peep?”

“Oh yeah, and er, do not be afraid too!”

Just as suddenly as she had come the Angel Karen was gone again. The families herded up their children and shepherded them down the hillside to visit the stable. They were quite a tribe – the Wellyboots was their name. There were five of them in a row.

The Wellyboots arrived at the stable just after Kirsty and her family (well she did prefer to get there B4FIAR!) and Barbara who also lived quite nearby. They had been alerted by the musical instruments played by the Scream Team provided by Bonners Music that there was something going on in the stable.

Meanwhile again, far away in the East (well Reading again actually) some wise and pedantic men were travelling. They were Chris, Chris, Tim and Simon (Chris and Tim had been travelling from the north but they didn’t have a map and refused to ask for directions, until finally they met Layla, who was excellent at telling people exactly where to go so she sent them off with Chris and Simon). They needed to follow a star, but there was some disagreement about it. Tim thought they should Follow The Star, Chris argued that as there were more than just the one star they should be follwing a star, Chris was concerned about whether they had brought enough nappy wraps for the new baby and Simon was busy telling Layla where she should go. Eventually they got scared enough of Layla to listen to what she said and off they set, following ‘the brightest fucking star you fuckwits’.

Meanwhile some more, back at the stable the baby had finally been born. Merry tenderly wrapped baby Jo-see in a Hesfes T shirt and a pink cord skirt, while Joyce ensured everyone had washed their hands before touching the baby, angels Alison and Karen flew overhead, the reality TV show people came along to record it all for educational purposes and the wise pedants arrived bearing gifts for the baby of nappy wraps, well taken photos in souvenier wallets of the whole scene and some arnica for bruising and birth trauma. Baby Josie softly cooed knowing that MuddlePuddle was safe for a further 8 years now that she had been born.

Merry Christmas.

When you can’t recognise enough of yourself to end up as yourself in the quiz. The eventual result however, is very accurate:
You are Nic, a woman who does not believe in sentences or paragraphs but does believe in words, as many of them as possible all joined together in as coherent a way as possible. For you Christmas starts in July, an indication of your fun-loving nature…
I think if in the describe yourself bit there had been the option of curvy and voluptuous I might have been okay!

which is not hugely surprising as I didn’t get up til 9.30am this morning and I have spent most of the day lying on the floor at my parents playing unenergetic games with the kids, but as I do have to be up in 7 hours, and you can guarantee that when I finally do become tired and fall asleep Scarlett will wake up about ten minutes later it is pretty annoying 🙁

Ady is totally zonked, as he has been up since about 5am, although me getting back up again and coming downstairs has probably woken him and I expect he is now lying there listening to the sound of me typing, worrying that I am emailing Dwight!

My choices are:
Put the TV on and try and find something mindnumbing and sleep inducing to watch

Get a book and go back to bed to read it so I am at least resting if not sleeping

Go round the blogring again and see if what I thought I saw on Chris’ blog was real and not an illusion that disappeared again when I went back

Do some sort of work / online course….

Think I will do the blogring and then grab a book to take back to bed…

Meant to blog earlier in relation to Davies and Santa his chat with the first one we saw yesterday. He answered about yes he had been a good boy and told Santa what he wanted and recited in an almost bored voice about brandy and mince pies and carrots for Rudolph being left on the hearth, then started looking round the grotto which had been ‘dressed’ to resemble a sitting room with various (probably brought in from the staff’s homes) props, which included stockings on the mantlepiece.
D: so is this your lounge then Santa?
SC: yes, it is
D: so why have you got stockings up then? Do you fill them yourself?
SC: Erm yes

Davies seemed to understand that further questioning was simply going to ruin the day of the poor fat bloke dressed in red and maybe shatter his own innocense, so picked up a little globe ornament

S: Do you use this to work out all the countries you need to visit on Christmas Eve
SC: Yes I plan my route on it (has by now sussed out this is not your average timid 4yo!)
D: (having tried to spin it, presumably to find a specific place on it for further questioning and found it does not actually spin) Why doesn’t it go round then?

Ady removed the globe from Davies’ hand and pointing back to the room behind us where other children were waiting, and pulled Tarly away from trying to talk to the elves and dismantle their workshop we explained that Santa was very busy and we should leave!

D’you know if ever there was a child who dressing Grandad up in a red suit and hoping he would be conned by it would be a total waste of time, Davies is that child 🙂

And I did really want a slightly more comical one, but as I can’t work out the self timer on the camera I had to get Ady to take it and he already has concerns that I don’t really belong to and blog on a HE blogring but am having a torrid affair with someone called Dwight in small town America via the internet asking him to take a picture of me wearing fairy wings and tinsel was always going to raise his suspicions further instead of making him feel reassured about the whole thing!
The other option was to get Davies to take a shot of me, but concerns about the message him replying to ‘what did you do today then son?’ with ‘took pictures of Mummy dressed up in fairy wings and tinsel for her to put on her computer’ was also worrying so here is the best you are going to get of me as the Tinsel Fairy!

Would have blogged yesterday but I seem to have had a relapse and feel crap again 🙁 Yesterday I was torn between taking tablets all day and keeping off them so I could drink wine and eat curry with friends who came over last night – I compromised by taking tablets ’til about 4pm, then drinking wine and eating curry – not sure that is a very good plan really!

Saturday then, as I blogged on Friday night she was up when we got home from the ‘party’ so Ady sat up with her and I went to bed. He was up ’til 2am with her so I got up with Davies yesterday morning while they slept in ’til about 9am. Davies and I were making chocolate croissants when my Dad arrived, so we made extra and all ate them together, which was nice. Dad used to pop in all the time before we moved up North and I really missed it while we were gone. He had called round a couple of times in the week but missed me each time (off on one of my tablet induced fits of activity!) so I am glad we were all in this time. We then set off to Drusillas where we have season tickets to see Santa. We were expecting it to be heaving as Drusillas is a pretty popular local venue, it was the Saturday before Christmas and although it was bitterly cold it was not windy or raining so I would have thought it would have been very busy. We pretty much had the place to ourselves 🙂 I will do a bit on the grotto later in a professional capacity but as expected Davies loved it and Tarly was a little cautious. This Santa was quite well set up actually, the ‘elf’ asked the kids names and briefed him so he greeted them by name which was good (last year we went to one who was clearly hard of hearing and called them David and Charlotte, which Davies has never forgotten. Now I know they don’t have run of the mill, called Jack and Chloe type names but really, we were living in Manchester, capital of odd choices, where the best selling alphabet letter for name plate signs in the gift shop where we worked was ‘Z’ so it was not as though the bloke expected everyone to have a ‘normal’ name!), they got a little pressie each (Davies got a giraffe mask and Tarly a cuddly penguin) related to the zoo and we walked briskly round the animals. We did succumb to a train ride as it happened to pull up just as we walked by the platform before a fairly crap and very over priced meal in their restaurant.

A few pics then:

I also had a bash at cutting Tarly a fringe which promptly had gotten lost back in the mess of the rest of her hair, this is the only evidence remaining of it (and that is weak too!)

We then went on to Paradise Park which is on the way home to see the Santa there too. We combined this with a bit of educational stuff by looking round the dinosaur and planet earth displays again – which feels like the kids’ second home as we go there so often! Again, I will do more on the grotto in a bit, but this one had a slightly longer queue. On the way out Ady bought some chocolate and we bumped into an HE friend of Davies’ and his Mummy, who we have not seen in a while despite exhanging lots of emails and who will be coming along to our new group – so it was nice to wish them a Merry Christmas in person 🙂

I guess we could be accused of spoiling the mystique of Father Christmas a little by taking them to two in the same day, or simply just spoiling our children! But we were interested in the whole Grotto thing from a business ideas possibility and the very best judges of them are small children, Davies is pretty switched on anyway as he saw all behind the scenes of Grottos in Manchester and has drawn his own conclusions about the whole Grotto thing. He seems to believe in the concept of Father Christmas and coming round on Christmas Eve with reindeer delivering presents all round the world, but he accepts that Mummy and Daddy buy the presents and that all the various Santas he sees out and about are simply helpers for the real bloke. Tarly – well she just sees a big fat bloke dressed in red who gives out presents so she doesn’t much care above and beyond that 🙂

So the Grotto thing then – probably pretty boring for you all so feel free to skip ahead but I want to blog while it’s all fresh in my mind for my own purposes. At the company we worked for in Manchester we ran very successful Santa’s Grottos two years running as a bolt on part of the business (which was a children’s ride, gift shop, kids parties and toddler groups etc). They ran daily from the first weekend in November to Christmas Eve. The first year we had two seperate Santas operating at once, the second year we had three – which meant a large staff of santas and elves and a lot of co-ordination to ensure children did not realise there were three santas there all at once! We offered various packages to see Santa including a go on the ride, a pressie, a photo (choice of photo gifts including keyrings, fridge magnets etc), enhanced gifts (more pricey) and so on. We organised off peak trips from schools, playgroups, scouts and brownies etc and disabled access times too. It was a massive operation and Ady and I pretty much managed it between us. Miranda wanted to operate a grotto business and the early part of this year was spent putting together various business plans and proposals to various places and conducting meetings to sell the concept to places. Sadly nothing ever came of it, but having visited two grottos this year, both of which would have been done on a sizable budget and have reputations as good grottos we could see plenty of improvement opportunitites in marketing, efficiency, presentation, add on sales, customer satisfaction levels and profitability – all of which make us want to do something about approaching people again for next year. At times like these Ady and I once again wonder what we are doing working for other people when we know we could work so well together as a team doing stuff like this – we’ll see….

Anyway, home again and Davies spent yet another night doing his best not to go to sleep (four late nights in a row makes a very whiny little boy 🙁 ), Bruce and Jean came over and we had our beers and curry (very hot, very nice!) before getting a reasonably early night.

Today we have spent most of the day at my parents and actually had quite a nice day. There is a bit of friction at the moment as we are doing Christmas at our house but we are not having a Christmas dinner – the kids don’t eat it anyway, it means one or both of us spends all morning cooking instead of enjoying being with the children, we don’t have anywhere to sit everyone to eat it anyway and it seems like an unnecessary amount of time and effort spent for something which only lasts 20 minutes, creates loads of washing up and makes everyone feel bloated and sleepy for the rest of the day. Instead we are doing loads of nice buffet type food for everyone to help themselves to throughout the day, which we think will be loads better but my Mum is all disappointed about. She has been asking every week ‘are you really not doing a Christmas dinner then?’ with this little pouty face on her and then today she said ‘ooh, what are we doing Christmas eve?’ Before kids we always went out for a meal with them on Christmas Eve, since kids we always get a takeaway delivered and spent the evening drinking and arranging the kids presents round the tree, leaving ‘evidence’ of Santa and Rudolph coming and feeling festive. ‘Because lots of people I know are having their Christmas dinner in the evening on Christmas Eve this year – isn’t that a great idea?’ she asked…..Cheeky mare! We established that no, we would be doing our usual takeaway and laying out of pressies (cos actually Christmas Eve is probably an even crappier time to be spending providing a full roast dinner for people when we have two overexcited children to wrestle into bed to sleep, pressies to dig out of every corner and crevice and cupboard and so on… I sincerely hope she has finally got the message now, Ady did offer to get her a Birds Eye turkey dinner microwave meal for one if she wants 🙂

So that was the weekend. Ady is cooking roast lamb and I am planning a bath and another early night – no wine 🙂

This week we are sort of busy – tomorrow we have Mel. L & L coming for lunch, Tuesday morning Rachel, E & A are coming over, Wednesday I really do want to try and get to Roslyn’s (if it’s still happening – will email you Ros), Thursday Chris and Julie and the twins are coming over and Ady has his scan in the afternoon and Friday we are planning to go out for breakfast with the kids as a treat and Ady wants to finish work by midday. I really want to get the playroom and the kids rooms tidied up. We took some toys over to my parents today which still get played with but take up loads of space and I know I can clear out a few more so that the Christmas pressies will fit into the house once they’ve been unwrapped! I have a mountain of washing to wade through, I need to make some mince pies and I have three assessments I want to complete on my online course before they shut down for two weeks over Christmas.

And finally…. a massive thanks to Jax for getting my archives across from my old blog. I am overjoyed that I will never have to visit blogger again 🙂