One word? When seven would do…

If anyone is up for it I’ll post it on list later but just wondered if anyone was up for a trip to Legoland in April?

If we agree on some dates before throwing it open then we stand a better chance of more of ‘us’ being able to go and then seeing if others can make it too instead of trying to co-ordinate everyone’s ideal days.

I can do any day except Fridays and other than that I can do any week really….

The right side of three – count ’em THREE- nights sleep (yes that’s right folks, probably the longest ever stretch of consecutive nights she has slept through in her life!) it was a lovely day 🙂

I was up first – 6am, downstairs by 6.45am but it did give me a lovely couple of hours with the kids doing the drawing blogged in the pics below and I also sat with my laptop in the lounge and did a couple of hours work on and off which I will email across tomorrow, so that was productive 🙂

The sun was shining and the birds were singing here again today. I popped up to Sainsburys for the weeks food shopping without children 🙂 and then after lunch we headed over to Chris and Julie’s.

We had a lovely afternoon in the garden. The kids got muddy, soggy and worn out running around playing games really nicely. I wore my sunglasses and spent most of the time lying on a rug chatting about nothing to Chris and Julie while Ady was videoing and taking pictures of the kids. We covered all sorts of nonsense such as Dr Who, car boot sales, planning the kids’ summer wardrobes and Easter all of which was very relaxing and Sunday afternoon-ish. Don’t know if I have blogged this before but I know I am prone to saying it a lot. When we lived in Manchester one of the first things I noticed (and missed about the South) was how little sky there seemed to be. Not sure if it was the taller buildings or simply a more built up area – bearing in mind I have lived the rest of my life sandwiched in that small strip between the English Channel and the South Downs so there is nothing south of us and just the rolling downs north of us but there just seems to be such a bigger expanse of sky up above us here. Well anyway today was a perfect vast expanse of sky day – the hedges in C&Js garden mean you are not overlooked at all so lying on my back all I could see over the top of their hedges was perfect blue sky with fluffy clouds like the ones on the titles of The Simpsons and the occassional plane leaving a trail across it 🙂 Bliss! We also spent some time trying to recall cloud names from long forgotten geography lessons – infact we all agreed to do some research on them and report back next week so must do that and sort out my cirruses and nimbuses again!

We came home via McDs and kids were bathed and asleep very quickly. Two messages on the answerphone, one from Frazer to cancel coming over tonight and a hilarious one from my Mum calling from Hong Kong – we have an answerphone with no speaker so it does not play out loud while you are recording your message. We have had this phone for at least 2 years and I have told her countless times that calling loudly into the phone ‘Yoo hoo Nicola are you there? Nicola? Nicola? you’re not there are you?’ is pointless and furthermore a useless message to leave! This one was even funnier as she did the whole ‘are you there?’ number before saying to my Dad (obviously stood next to her) ‘I’ve got through to her answerphone but she’s not picking it up’ and then hanging up 🙂 pmsl bless her!

Scarlett fell out of bed with a most spectacular crash about an hour ago so Ady has gone to bed convinced that she is now unconscious as opposed to just asleep. She has just stirred so I went in and she is clearly fine – perhaps it will aid her sleep for another whole night although I am not hopeful of anything at this stage, merely thankful for what we have already received 🙂

Tomorrow Drusillas with Ros and Pea and Boo and Dylan 🙂

Give her a prop and put her infront of a camera and she knows how to work it, baby 🙂

We met up with some friends today who we don’t see nearly enough of as various things in both our lives contrive to keep us busy at the wrong times to get together. We sat with our diaries shortly after Christmas and arranged a date for the first time we were all free – some three months later and today was that day!

It had been left to me to arrange what we did as Clare was working all week so on a bit of an ‘oh shit I was meant to arrange something and now it’s Thursday’ whim on Thursday I phoned them up to suggest ten pin bowling and lunch afterwards. They have a 4yo son A and it was the first time bowling for all three kids so I guess it was probably fairly experimental but it all went well! We know them as Ady and I worked with Matt at B&Q many years ago (I will gloss over the fact that many years ago Matt was also my first kiss and my first love 🙂 ), we lost touch over the years but sporadic contact and an eventual invite to his and Clare’s wedding, a return invite to ours and us having children a few months apart have brought us closer again even if we rarely manage to meet in person (Matt brought A to our Halloween party).

I had concerns over whether Scarlett would be persuaded to wear the shoes at all so that was the first hurdle to overcome (this worry was twice compounded by the fact that a) this is Tarly we are talking about, notoriously strong willed about everything with a particular tendancy towards choosiness over clothes and footwear with the main prerequisite being a definite pinkness to either before she will deign to be seen in them and b) I still bear the emotional scars from my own eighth birthday when I asked to go ice skating,. Me and my four carefully selected friends arrived with my parents at the ice rink to find it was closed for an extended Christmas period and ended up going bowling by way of compensation and I cried for the whole game cos I hated the shoes and they didn’t go with my outfit (specifically chosen to compliment the anticipated ice skates – can’t picture it now but this was 80s so it would have been fairly Jayne Torvill-esque by definition!) and yes I do know where she gets her, erm, ways from thank you!) Anyway, she was quite cheery about the whole business and as you will see from the very poor quality picture beneath she looked very cute in them. (picture was taken with mobile phone camera – for possibly the only time in the kids’ lifetime we went out without a camera – we did realise half way there and seriously considered turning back. Typically there were about a million excellent moments we wished had been caught on camera 🙁 ). Davies and A were similarly happy and the three of them thundered about trying to choose balls.

Anyway, it went very well considering… they have barriers up each side of the lane to stop the balls from going down the side gullys – which all the grown ups used to full cannoning off the sides effect, and a slide type contraption which you can stand at the end of the lane and roll the ball down instead of actually bowling. In retrospect we should have booked two lanes and had the kids playing on one and the adults on the other as with 7 of us playing it took the best part of an hour and a half and all the kids were waning a little by the end. Not sure what the kids scored (totally irrelevant given the fact that they all seemed to be bowling for each other and none of them demonstrated any real comprehension of what was going on!) but I am proud to report Ady won and I came a very respectable second 🙂 🙂 🙂 Quite a cheap event too as Tarly was free so something I think we might well do again – this was the all new spangley bowling alley in Brighton but there is one in Worthing which we might investigate as a good rainy day family event. I used to go quite a bit when I was younger – infact I did an extra credit course thingy at college of bowling (although I rarely used to go, I used to pay someone else to sign in as me so I got the credit and could go to the pub instead!) and I celebrated at least 2 subsequent birthdays there during teenage years (having preplanned a suitable outfit to go with the shoes natch!).

Matt bought drinks for us and I had a coke (in a bucket sized cardboard cup of course) which Tarly seemed to drink most of. Neither of my two have fizzy drinks very often – infact this was probably only about her third ever taste of coke and she certainly got the taste for it – infact she could not be prised away from it 🙂 Not sure whether she liked the sugar hit, the caffine buzz or she was working on the basis that if it was Mummy’s drink then there must be an alcohol content to it but there was a noticable spring to her step followed by an inevitable crash a while later 🙂

We went across to a beefeater for lunch, which was predictably overpriced, poorly served and not particiularly delicious 🙁 I had two very large glasses of wine which meant I got louder and more relaxed about what the kids were up to – until Davies and A started running around with a couple of helium balloons and the waitress got to them to tell them not to before I did – both Ady and I were cross with Davies about that one as he *does* know how to behave in restaurants 🙁

Tarly fell asleep on the way over to my parents and would not be roused – it was 3.30 and despite only having a half hour power nap that set her up til gone 9pm tonight (she also had two episodes of tears and tantrums – one when she pinched my arm (although I now conceded it was not deliberate) and I really yelled at her – it must have really scared her as she looked terrified and could not stop hiccup sobbing for ages afterwards, and then she got stuck down the side of her bed faffing about and I told her off again and went to pull her out hurting her leg in the process – guess she’ll be having nightmares tonight about being screamed at by me whilst being chased by huge bowling balls whilst being trapped inside a giant glass of coke and wearing non pink footwear!).

We arrived at my parents a whole hour later than the very latest I had told them we would be there to snatch a last hour with them before the car came to take them to the airport – Frazer is coming over for dinner tomorrow! He hates being home alone so I think he will be around a bit over the next couple of weeks.

Yesterday night was a bit sad – our friend Bruce came over having made the break with Jean last week. When he pulled up on his motorbike Ady went to move our van so he could put it in the garage overnight (he slept here) and Davies who was just about to go to bed asked who was here. I replied Bruce and he asked ‘Oh and Jean. I like Jean’. Ah 🙁 Cue a very speedy chat about how sometimes grown ups decide not to be a couple any more. Needed to handle this right as I don’t want him to dwell on it as too much of a possibility for every couple he knows, particularly if he overhears or witnesses an argument, but I did need to be quick so as not to have Bruce appear in the middle of it. He seemed to grasp the idea ok although I anticipate some thought through questions on the whole issue at some point in the future knowing Davies 🙂

And that was today 🙂 Tomorrow morning we have not a lot planned, tomorrow afternoon over to Chris and Julies for some garden play (might take the bubble machine actually) and tomorrow evening Frazer over for dinner – and that will be another weekend over!

Feel free to ignore fairly boring job list type post below for my own benefit (I should set up a things to do blog like Merry but fear I would get too carried away with having two blogs and not get anything done!)

Work stuff – for paid employment I must complete this week (and yes I know it’s Friday already!)
competition to send with press release
contact list to be approved of magazine / newspapers / local and regional newsletters / online forums and parenting sites / instore magazines etc to be sent press release
sign off press release submitted as ok with alterations I have put forward
final proof read of website
create email sig / footer for business purposes

I can also tell you all what the business Boss Lady is launching is – well I can direct you to the website and you can all have a peep and let me know what you think (btw it is not my business or my idea or my website – I am simply doing marketing and PR work for it and coming up with further development ideas) so feel free to be critical as it will actually help me in my job if I know what does and does not appeal about it all.

Stuff to do for me / family
re – submit last assignment for online course as have changed the website I plan to design to a different business idea 🙂
Have a bash at creating a home page for said business idea
start that Dr Seuss plan of spin off educational stuff at least on paper with initial brainstormed ideas before I forget them all 🙂
Plot in some quiet time among the madness planned for next week and something to do during that quiet time
contact agency about getting a sitter for one day a week / evening babysitting as and when should Boss Lady’s business take off sufficient for me to earn enough to justify one!
Look through latest edition of local parenting mag and list down all possible clubs and activities for the kids then discuss with Ady what we think would be most suitable – so far suggested – some sort of art class, more formal music based class, drama or dance
Read through all the EO local contact info I have been emailed and try to get my head round it all 🙂

Probably loads more but I think that will do for starters 🙂

Well probably more spring in the air than love, but I really like that record and found myself singing it while hanging the washing out using the wrong words 🙂

Yep that’s right hanging the washing out – first load on the line in 2005. Which makes me shudder a bit that such a fact is not only worthy of even being thought in the first place, let alone being blogged, but it is so there 🙂

Yesterday was a good one – popped into Littlehampton on the way to meet Julie to take back a couple of items i had bought last week and looked crap when I tried them on at home, bought a couple of bits in the DP sale, went into a charity shop and picked up 4 books for a quid (which I have not got out of the bag yet so can’t remember what they were!) and a ‘thing’ for Davies. I say thing cos I am not sure what it’s purpose is really – it is old and is marked ELC PLAY & LEARN and is made of red plastic. It has alphabet letters, a few blended sounds (like TH and SH), some coloured dots on it and is of the style of guess who? so you flip them up or down to discover a picture begining with that letter. Obviously has a educational value somewhere just not sure what! Davies loves it though so for £1.25 it was worth buying just to keep him quiet!

Whilst in Littlehampton Scarlett fine honed her latest skill. In the style of Max (from Max and Ruby) she has taken to using one single word, whilst pointing a very accusing finger at complete and total strangers. And ladies and gentlemen, that word is:

BADDY!!!!

Yes. Quite embarassing that isn’t it?! And then of course, once she has drawn attention to this poor innocent stranger Davies then swoops in to take up the chant too – they could ruin someone!

They did a bit of this on the train on the way home from London but using my most excellent parenting skills (okay bribes, threats and chocolate!) I stopped them, but there in the heart of Littlehampton (my favourite quote about the town ‘I don’t go to Littlehampton – I am always afraid I won’t come out alive!’) where frankly every other person could well be a baddy of some description this is less likely to be smiled at and laughed off than fronted out with ‘and who are you calling a baddy? EH?’

The first target was a man (well I think it was a man) wearing a bright yellow jumper (as might have been donned by Philip Schofield in his early broom cupboard CBBC days when he was a wild n wacky kids tv presenter working with Gordon the gopher as opposed to his current CV of This Morning with Fern and Test the Nation with Anne Robinson (who looked younger than him last week!) with stains down the front. He had a pair of lopsided glasses on, very odd mullet style hair, walked with a rolling gait suggesting some sort of intoxofication, mental health issue or both, carrying his anorak – Davies actually drew her attention to him by nudging her and indicating with a sideways head movement towards him. Scarlett drew herself up to her full 2 foot sitting in her buggy, loud and proud, brought out her finger and taking a deep breath pronounced in her clearest and loudest voice ‘BADDDDDDDIEEEEEE’. The man / yellow jumper wearer / drunken druggie loony / baddy looked over to check who the baddy was – just in case he was not alerted to the fact it was him by the distinct lack of anyone else around at all Scarlett pointed and proclaimed again, even louder. Davies joined in, I put my head down and walked as quick as I could past him. Davies got the brunt of the the telling off but it has not stopped them as they have been pointing to people walking by this morning and saying it 🙁 On the plus side in the re-telling of this story after a couple of glasses of wine, it got longer and more embellished and is now the new family catchphrase 🙂 Mum and Dad are off to Hong Kong, Thailand and Dubai tomorrow for three weeks so it could well sweep the world! You heard it here first folks 🙂

Anyway we did escape Littlehampton with our lives and purses and went to this new soft play place which has only been open a week. It was so new and shiny Julie and I didn’t know ourselves! We spent ages stroking the clean primary coloured instead of dirty faded crash mats and rigging making comments like ‘where’s the gaffer tape doing an inefficient job of mending the vast tears in the coverings?’ ‘why does it not smell of socks and nappies in here?’ and ‘you know I sort of miss that lucky dip experience of putting your hand in the ball pool and wondering whether you will pull out an old plaster, a condom or a skanky tissue’. The kids had a whale of a time and Davies is definitely coming on with his confidence and ability at climbing and stuff – thanks to TT2 and regular soft play he is far less worried about heights, slides and pushing himself slightly further than he is comfortable with.

We had lunch – which was excellent both in taste and cost and then Davies and Maisie managed to get themselves up to the very top of the scariest slides I’ve ever seen – they open for teenagers in the evenings and I’m not even sure how they managed to get up so high on their own but Scarlett and I intrepidly followed them to the top. Scarlett just clambered straight into one of these tube slides and whoosed away like the kid down the chocolate tube in Willy Wonka, laughing with joy as she went, Davies flatly refused to go down it but could not get back down the steps way and Maisie had a sudden attack of nerves and clung onto me. I saw no option but to go down the slide myself with Maisie then go back up for Davies as I couldn’t leave Maisie alone. It was sooo scary 🙂 Probably won’t be doing that again! My own (not insignificant) weight, added to a toddler’s weight and no use of my arms for holding onto said toddler meant we hurtled down at about 400mph and if it were not for very good non slip matting at the base would probably have been propelled by our own momentum into the next county! And I won’t even start talking about how my jeans refused to stay round my waist prefering instead to offer all spectators a charming view of my knicker clad arse in unflattering positions as I clambered around the place!

Thoroughly worn out we left there and went to collect my Dad and brother to bring them over to our house for the afternoon. Father, brother and children happily installed (Dad reading the Sneeches to Tarly and brother building wooden traintrack with Davies) I headed off childfree to Tescos which was nice! Frazer left to go out for the evening, I managed to change both kids beds and bath them with some assistance from Dad and they were all but asleep by the time Ady got home from work (late again, caught in M25 traffic hell 🙁 ) Ady cooked dinner and Mum arrived after having her hair done. A fairly pleasant evening and for once they were ready to leave voluntarily by 11.30 instead of us having to go into our pantomine act of yawning, looking at the clock and talking about an early start tomorrow every few minutes.

Scarlett slept through last night, which was very welcome 🙂 Doubt she’ll do it again tonight though as we have a friend coming over so she is bound to put in an appearance just before bedtime 🙁

This morning we have done TT1 which was slightly less than a success really. It is quite hard to manage the two of them there as there is not very good continuity between different bits of the session during which they both get bored and start to charge around the room. Several of the other older children do join in but I always feel that it is my two who are ringleaders and will be viewed as the disruptive rowdy ones. They both had a moment this morning – Scarlett screamed at me and tried to slap me – it only lasted as long as me telling her off very firmly before she came for a cuddle and said sorry but I would really rather not conduct all that infront of 15 other mothers. Davies just would not sit down so I sent him to sit in the corner by my bag and watch from there for a while until he felt able to come and join in properly. In fairness to them every other child is much younger and I am not convinced it is possible to hold children with such a wide age range – which is why it will be interesting to see how it differs after Easter when they will be with 2.5 – 5 year olds only. If it does not improve I won’t bother paying for more sessions and I will try them with something else as it is no fun for me to sit there feeling shown up by my kids while they are either forcibly restrained from running round or constantly told off for doing it. The whole point of it for me is to get them used to joining in with more structured group activities and to have some fun – running around is something they can do for free in a park. Anyway a break for 3 weeks now so we will see how it improves when we go back.

Ady got The Incredibles for them on DVD this moming so that has been watched once already and is promised again when we get back from TT2. I must make myself some lunch otherwise I won’t have time before we need to go.

Back later…

Well two things actually. The first was the phonecall from Barbara in the morning to say that she had arrived safe at her parents but discovered two spots on Baby R which meant she is now with the pox 🙁 so would not be coming to the museum 🙁 Davies and me very disappointed as he was really looking forward to seeing B and I was looking forward to seeing Barbara again too. So hope you enjoy your visit and find some friends who are not put off by the pox and hope R does not suffer too much with it. xx

And now I am sat here the second thing has once again gone from my brain. Argh, sleep addled, birthed two babies brain cell eating getting on a bit syndrome strikes again!

A very long but excellent just the same sort of day 🙂

Scarlett slept through the night (insert whooping and applauding emoticon here!) but Davies was in our bed from mid way through the night instead!

It was a lovely spring morning so we happily walked to the train station to get our train for what is rapidly becoming my regular weekly trip to the smoke! On the way we debated how we knew spring was coming. They came up with daisies on the lawn, daffodils everywhere, the sun was shining but it was still a bit cold so not summer, they could hear birds singing and ‘it just feels like Spring today Mummy’ 🙂

Train journey was fine there – new train, had a seat, kids ate the first half of their packed lunch (despite it only being 10am and not much more than an hour since breakfast!) , they got a bit rowdy at one point but I had shoved one of the new Dr Seuss books in the pushchair for just such emergencies so the new favourite is empty green pants 🙂

Into a taxi (and even had a shared eyes to the ceiling moment with the person behing us in the taxi queue about the person infront of us not knowing that as soon as the next cab pulls up you walk down to it instead of waiting for the one infront to pull away! I’m such an experienced London daytripper now, me!). The museum was having some sort of entire ground floor refurbishment going on so we took a convoluted up one floor in one lift to walk to the other lift to go down two floors exercise during which I had a phonecall from Dani (Hi Dani 🙂 ) P & L. We managed to find each other through the throng of school children and made a good attempt at conversation but it was so busy and noisy and loud and I think all four children were fairly overwhelmed by the vast amount of children in uniform milling about so aftery trying again in another slightly quieter area Dani and her two left to find quieter areas while we hung about so my two could finish their very complicated game with bean bags and a toy digger. Luckily Dani and Ali are only down the road from us in Brighton so I didn’t feel too cheated at not managing a proper chat as I am sure we can arrange a meet up more local to home soon.

A while later we decided it was too loud for us too (after I had given some school kids a good talking to for their treatment of Scarlett – it was in a 3-6 years old section, which they were clearly too old for and they were just expecting her to get out of their way instead of having some consideration for the fact she was smaller than them. I let it pass for a while as she is more than capable of fighting her own battles but when she was halfway up some steps and one of them decided they wanted to come down so tried to tell her to go down too , quite forcefully – enough to make Tarly cry – I stepped in and told them to move out of her way in a low dangerous voice, then also went on to tell them, within earshot of the teacher they were with that she was half their size and they should all know better!!! Grr!) so we went upstairs too, hoping to possibly catch back up with Dani if she was still around. Scarlett had a tantrum about going back in her pushchair, we opened our sandwiches and someone appeared from nowhere to ask if I was Nic! It was Sally (waves at Sally!) who said she recognised me from my blog (!!!!!) and her DD – we had a brief chat before they went off too – also live very local to us so have agreed we must arrange a more local meet up – and we were left wondering whether to call it a day, go on somewhere else or face the schoolkid hell downstairs again. Then my phone rang and Ros was there asking where we were 🙂 We stayed put and they came to find us, Buzz and Davies instantly bonded which was very amusing given that they have previously met twice – one of which was a whole week at Melrose – and never paid any attention to each other 🙂 Scarlett fell in love with A (sorry Ros forgotten if it’s Pea or Boo again! 😉 ) who was wearing pink and sparkly attire which left me and Ros to have a good old chat 🙂 We had some refreshments during which the kids ran around and bonded then went back to the 3-6 play area again which was much quieter and the kids had a great time.

Hilariously Davies was adamant that Buzz was called Dylan – no idea why! and persisted in calling him it all afternoon. I kept correcting him until he then called him Buzz and I said ‘no darling, I keep telling you, it’s not Buzz it’s Dylan!’ at which point I gave up. Even funnier was that Buzz then started addressing Davies as Dylan 😀 So there they were the two Dylans loving it! We have arranged to meet up again next week closer to home so they can continue with their mutual Dylan-ing!

We left at about 3.30pm, still in the same clothes we had arrived in (which is something of a novelty for us when visiting London 😉 ) and hailed a cab. I sat having a conversation with the driver about what happens to his cab when he finishes work (does he drive it home? where does he park? does he pass it onto another driver? I need to know the answers to these questions!!), Davies sat interrupting us and Scarlett sat playing with the switches to turn the internal lights on and off 🙂

Arrived at Victoria just as the all the way home train was about to leave so leapt on it and aside from a platform dash at Haywards Heath to ensure we were on the right end for the short platform at Lancing it was a fairly uneventful trip home. Ady met us halfway along the walk home from the station and took Davies home in the car -I was able to walk briskly with the pushchair the rest of the way so we were all home before 6pm – result!

Which makes it all the odder that we only managed dinner at 10pm really! I had three phonecalls to make – one to friends we are seeing this weekend to confirm arrangements, one to my parents to invite them for dinner tomorrow night before their trip and one to Karen to return her call to me from this morning. In the middle of all those calls Ady was talking on the landline to the friend who was about to split up with his partner. They have split and he is coming over on Friday night to drink and talk about it…. long night ahead methinks!

Have not even started reading round the blogs yet – and tomorrow we are off to a brand new soft play place which sounds really good fun. I’m such a busy bee!

some small but nonetheless enjoyable victories in various areas.

Dinner was chicken curry, rice and a nan bread. Davies proclaimed it smelt ‘delicious’ but gagged on the rice (and it was genuine bless him) he did like the chicken and curry sauce but as I had done an efficient job in stirring it in with the rice he was unable to eat it. He did dip his (and Scarlett’s) nan bread in the sauce and eat all that though 🙂 I didn’t start eating rice til I was in my 20s so I am pretty pleased with our continued progress again today.

Scarlett was a different story – she looked at it, dipped the nan bread in the sauce, then chucked it down and proclaimed ‘don’t want it. Don’t want tea, don’t want tea Mummy!’ I simply said ‘OK’ and she continued ‘don’t want tea Mummy, don’t want tea.’ thought for a moment ‘ I want coffee!’ which had me in fits 🙂 Given her tenacious nature, ability to quite comfortably outdo me in determination and how much I would be kicking myself if she appeared at 11pm complaining of being hungry I offered her apples or bananas as an option. She ate three bananas and one apple! Well a diet of fruit and toast is still an improvement on chicken nuggets and smiley faces so I still consider it progress of sorts 🙂

Davies amazed me by counting along with Dora up to 100 tonight. He had wobbles and was not entirely sure of all the tens, but he for the first time grasped two things – one that 70 comes after60 and that is logical cos 7 comes after 6 and that the 1,2,3,4,5 thing goes on inbetween and secondly (and I have to credit starship maths on Class TV for this from this morning) that the tens are said as six-tee, seven-tee etc when the 0 is after them – explaining this all wrong but basically the germ of comprehension for tens and units went in his head today 🙂 He has done some dressing up as a knight and a dragon and he spent ages on his Incredibles Leap pad book tongight doing educational stuff.

We also had a small art session which I will no doubt live to regret when I took a biro off Scarlett and absentmindedly started to doodle on my jeans. They are an old, ripped, wearing round the house pair (knicker exposing, unflattering and very ill fitting – infact the very pair I was wearing yesterday when I met my well groomed friend!) and I just did it without giving any forethought to what a bad bad idea this was to do infront of Tarly 🙂 I went through a phase in my teens of ‘customising’ jeans and T shirts with drawing on them (I fondly recall a plain white T shirt which I drew a stiped waistcoat on in fabric paint and I thought at the time looked very cutting edge 🙂 ). Anyway, Scarlett soon wandered off bored but Davies drew a very good picture of himself on one leg and wrote his name on the other. We covered how we were only doing it cos they were old jeans and I had said it was ok but I do have some fabric paint pens tucked away so I might get some cheapo value T shirts for them both and let them go wild 🙂

Finally became a member of enchanted learning today. I have been meaning to do so ever since I decided to HE but never gotten round to it. I was looking for St Patricks Day stuff and found quite a bit, but as we are going up to London for the day tomorrow I don’t know how much, if any of it we will do. We are seeing Julie and the twins at a new soft play venue over lunchtime which does not leave much time to do a lot – we’ll see. If I am not too knackered tomorrow evening I might do a bit on it in preparation for the afternoon. Also decided to set up a couple of other activity type ideas – one for St Georges, which we have plenty of time to prepare and now have the costumes for – I am thinking of writing a little play about George and the dragon and teaching it to Davies to see how he gets on with the concept of learning a ‘script’ and whether Tarly will join in or not.

Also decided to do something around the Dr Seuss obsession going on here – loads of ideas which I will write down properly when I have the time (which could be next week now!). Not sure who is and isn’t coming to London now – I know Barbara still is and so is Ros so Davies is thrilled about seeing Barbara’s B which will keep him happy at least.

Davies’ playdough zoombinis.

Davies on the pavilion pier, me and Tarly on the ‘look mummy, stone!’ beach.