One word? When seven would do…

Woken very early by Davies appearing beside the bed saying ‘Mummy, Tarly’s being naughty and doing something BAAAAD!’ He thought she was playing with make up – which would have been bad enough in itself, but no. She was scribbling all over the table with the indelible pen supplied by Jax to write on the wrist bands for wandering toddlers ? ? ? What made it worse was she so clearly knew she was doing something wrong as as soon as she saw Ady she said ‘sorry Daddy’ before he even opened his mouth (he got there first and it was quite funny that his version of telling her off was warning her how cross Mummy was going to be 😉 ). We’ve tried a variety of methods of removing the pen from the table and the only thing which has worked so far was nail varnish remover (see there are benefits to being a princess staying in a caravan with toiletries like nail varnish remover!). But it has sort of smudged ? Ady is going to work and calling in home on Monday so he will bring back some more hardcore cleaning products when he comes back…

Over to HESFES where I saw around drinking tea, Ady dashed around after Scarlett and Davies ran around with Ben and Lije seeming to alternate who was best friends with who as they went. Quite funny as Davies was in demand to run around shrieking about monsters with Ben (which seems to be his stock game with other small boys) or go in Lije’s van and play games which is a new one on him but seemed to have quite a strong pull. He did at one point appear without either of them and was quite put out that he was the odd one out so I shoved him back in the van again and told him not to come out unless he had at least one of them with him – seemed to work 😉

Today I feel like we have done HESFES without doing HESFES if that makes sense – without camping we are obviously removed from the whole experience and although Ady has taken Scarlett to a couple of the workshops I have not really mixed and mingled beyond the MP group I already know. We saw a couple of Activeo folk on the way in today and were invited to their tent for drinks and socialising. I think when Ady goes tomorrow I will make a real effort to do a bit more than sit around chatting to people I already know as although that is very comfortable and easy I will be doing it again in a months time at Kessingland and I would like to go away having felt I have partaken of the whole HESFES vibe, even if that then means I run away screaming never to return! Have tonight returned to the caravan with two filthy dirty, worn out happy children, who have been bathed and put to bed asleep on their feet while we sat down to roast beef ? I have heard several people say that this is what HESFES is all about – letting children have their childhood back in the same way that we remember being kids – and indeed it is, they are running wild and free with their friends, being tasked with looking after themselves, having their own cash to take to the shop, going to the playground and generally living by their own rules for the week. They are waved off in the morning and told to be back in time for tea and although mine are way too young to be off doing that yet – and I know that even when I *know* they are old enough it will be a massive struggle to let them I guess that is what I want to get out of HESFES in years to come. At the moment I am feeling that my initial thoughts that the children are still too young to really get much out of it and in worrying about them I will not get much out of it either is going to prove correct, but nothing I have seen has been a hideous shock and although I can feel the disproval radiating off the locals and even as far away as Bridport when they see my toddler with her pink and purple hair streaks I do think that it all goes with the territory and taking the rough with the smooth I could see this being an event on future calendars that we would not want to miss for it’s once a year, extreme HE in action taste of the alterative side of life ?

An early start with frantic last minute preparations – Davies asking for at least the thousandth time where we were going and what we were doing! Scarlett came with me and Davies went with Ady – rather think I got the better deal as she was asleep within about 20 minutes and didn’t wake up ‘til Bridport – I got to listen to whatever I wanted on the cd player (Rod Stewart, Will Young, Michael Buble, Shakin Stevens et al for any interested parties!) and not answer any inane questions about road signs, whether we were nearly there yet or indeed where we were going (again!). The most stress-free driving experience I’ve had in ooh about 4.5 years infact! Arrived ever so slightly ahead of Ady, found our caravan and was really very pleasantly surprised. What looked like a series of cupboards within turned out to be, well I guess a series of large cupboards housing beds, a loo and shower and a kitchen and living area. All very acceptable for the virgin caravanner! Saw Joyce as we arrived and Jenny rang me shortly afterwards to let me know what caravan she was in, we unpacked and then headed off for the nearest supermarket to get lunch and stock up on provisions for the week.

Bridport being the nearest town, and happily the same town we had stayed close to in October when we came down for a week’s holiday and visited pretty much daily we were quite at home going to the local Safeway for lunch and a shop. As we went in I was vaguely aware of someone yelling ‘Nic! Nic!’ and indeed sort of registered it and thought ‘well we’re in Dorset, loads of people are called Nic, clearly they don’t mean me!’ until Ady pointed out Jax and Small ? Jax did later point out the irony of first catching sight of me at a shop 😉

We had caught sight of HESFES on a hill opposite our caravan park earlier so having brought the shopping home, put it away and donned waterproofs (did I mention it was tipping it down and had been all day!) we ventured forth into the great unknown!

I have to say having read various accounts of it last year, chatting to people over the last year and building up a mental image of what I thought it would be like based on that and my own preconceived ideas of camping, home educators and other such stereotypical ideas it is / was pretty much *exactly* what I was expecting it to be like. My first impression was of how bloody scary the teenagers all dressed in black with red dreads and S.I.N.C t shirts, flip flops in the mud were! We stumbled around a bit trying to work out how to access the field with all the tents in it and eventually just followed where other people were going and luckily found The Portico’s tent and van with Chris inside it so that was where we stayed! Also my first ever time inside a tent ? Probably not the best time to experience such joys when the clearly so not flat field they are camped on was conspiring to make the mud coming off the welly boot pile run towards you and conversation was drowned out by the rain drumming on the roof but the kids scrambled inside the van to watch dvds with The Portico offspring, Tarly immediately took her socks off to join in with the nakedness that is de rigor within their company and Davies and Lije even seemed to actually recognise each other this time! Merry, Jax, Sarah and Barbara (with no trousers!) all popped heads round the tent to say hello and Ady managed to do something heroic to Jax’s problem gas bottle to get it operable.

We suddenly realised it was within an hour of the start of Dr Who so we fled back to our caravan to prepare for the expected guests in time for viewing.

We had a full house of Sarah, Abbie and token Puddle children (Fran and Ammi), A full Portico quoto (is there a collective name for Porticos? ? ) Jenny and two of hers’ (the other two arrived later) Hannah (Joyce arrived once the Tardis had gone!) and Jax, Big and Small. A wusses corner was set up for non-viewers with puzzles, games and kiddie entertainment in the way of Ady’s mobile crèche service! Wine was drunk, fish and chips were brought and pizza and garlic bread consumed. Some kids watched, some hid their eyes and some just ignored it altogether – others explained in technical and patient terms exactly how the time space continuum had been damaged creating problems when Rose met her future / past /possible self incarnation but it was enjoyed anyway! I had a really nice evening with friends all around, kids playing happily together, plenty of wine, Ady doing what he does best and playing the host. The kids ran around like loons for a further hour after everyone else went home finally going to sleep around 11 closely followed by me!

Friday

Happy Birthday to Ady ?

TT1 and TT2 passed without any great happenings and then late afternoon we had Mum, Dad, Frazer and my Granny over for blowing out cake candles and singing Happy Birthday

Ady got very unexciting (IMO!) pressies of a dvd player / recorder which he intends to spend hours transferring all our many, many hours of home videos onto disc with; a Carry On film mutli pack dvd (urgh!) and a few other bits and pieces – but all at his request and he seems happy enough with them ?

We had intended to go out for a meal in one of the two pubs within walking distance from home – neither of which we had ever eaten in before. We got out slightly later than intended and had a beer in the first one, checked out the menu and deemed it ok but walked to the other pub to check theirs out too – their restaurant had closed and by the time we got back to the first pub their kitchen had shut too ? We had lots of peanuts and crisps to try and compensate and then went home very early cos the 3 glasses of wine on an empty stomach had gone to my head and in an effort to NOT recreate the drunken Nic incident of a couple of weeks ago we thought it wise to stop consuming alcohol. A very nice evening nonetheless – don’t think we have sat in a pub just the two of us since pre-children ? Came home and Ady cooked himself a curry and I went to bed!

A pretty productive day today – those reading my other blog will know I am on a serious money saving drive and have done a few bits towards that today which I am feeling all glowy about 🙂

So after some phonecalls this morning we managed to get out by 10am. I have started taking Scarlett’s nappy off first thing in the morning and having the potty in the lounge and although she is mainly hit and miss with it she does *know* what she is supposed to do and this morning we not only had no puddles we also had wee and poo on the potty 🙂 So that was a good start 🙂

Drove over to this soft play place to meet Julie and the twins. We were not supposed to be seeing them today as she had other arrangements and I was planning to do HESFES stuff and prepare for Ady’s birthday tomorrow (get kids to write their cards, wrap his pressie etc) but last night she rang to say her arrangements had been cancelled and managed to lure me out instead! Had a great time there, it’s very newly opened so is lacking the usual soft play aroma of socks and nappies and it was fairly quiet first thing which was nice too. Me and Julie got stuck in with joining in the scrambling about and I played on the slides (they have fab slides there – a row of three with double bumps which are really fast and you can go down racing and three huge tube slides which are very fast and you simply can’t help screaming as you go down!) with the kids and Davies braved coming down the big slides on my lap – he wanted to do it again but he is actually very heavy for such endeavours and clambering up there and then racing down had left me too breathless to do it again straight away! We had lunch there too which was yummy and even squashed in a bit of a chat between slides! I told Julie about the My Sisters Keeper book and she told me about a similarly harrowing read she has just finished (all cheery stuff eh!).

We came home via Littlehampton where I took a top back I bought about 3 weeks ago and has been in my car ever since to be returned as it looked awful (one of those dress style affairs to be worn over jeans – made me look huge and lumpy and tent like!) and while we walked round we made up rhyming versions of places we wouldn’t eat green eggs and ham (it’s been a right goer has green eggs and ham in this house I can tell you 🙂 ), even Tarly joined in! Then Davies and I played I spy all the way home in the car – he is getting really good at knowing what sound (we are using 100EL style sounds instead of letter names) are at the front of words and was easily a worthy opponent in terms of guessing what I had spied and coming up with decent spys of his own.

Once home they played in the garden with this while I cleared the car out of rubbish and stuff we don’t need in it, and put some of the stuff I would need for HESFES in. Came in and they had strawberries and cream and played (Davies with his toy cars, Tarly with her Polly Pocket stuff) and then suddenly Ady and my Mum appeared within about ten minutes of each other so the last hour or so was abit chaotic. Scarlett went to sleep pretty quick and Davies didn’t!

Managed to pack all the clothes for HESFES, all but the last minute toiletries, have already done all the kitcheny type stuff so not too much left to do tomorrow. List of still to do’s at the end of this post. Tomorrow is Ady’s birthday, he had hoped to have a fairly easy day at work but a cock up on barcode labels somewhere means they are all going to the office first thing for a crisis meeting and then a team of six of them are visiting all the B&Qs in Essex to relabel stuff 🙁 Not sure what time he might be home. Mum is babysitting so we can pop out for a couple of hours for a meal and a few beers so may well not be around tomorrow – anyone HESFESing (who has not already signed off!) see you there and anyone not HESFESing, will miss you being there and will blog in full (you would expect nothing less!) upon my return!!

still to pack /find

walkie talkies
torch
kid’s bottles
ribena
blankets
towels
coats
shoes
lens solution
spare lenses
glasses
make up
bio oil for Tarly’s pox scars
Ady’s razor
books for me
books for the kids
toys for the kids
Davies’ teds
Tarly’s Doras
cds for the car
dvds for the laptop
the laptop 🙂
assorted laptop tranglings such as leads, charger, card reader
phone charger
camera
batteries
battery charger
caterpillars (who will only cocoon if we leave them!)
ant and cleo for Merry
CASH!!
TICKETS!!!

Saturday night, my caravan, 6.30pm for 7

*******Dr Who viewing*********

Bring your own alcohol 🙂

Bedroom for hiding in provided for Joyce,

fancy dress optional 🙂

R.O.A.R.

A good day today despite a fair amount of shouting and a very crap night’s sleep.

Spent the morning trying to do financial stuff on the phone and computer and succeeding and failing to varying degrees 🙂 Eventually gave up and went to the beach armed with plastic bags for each child for them to collect stuff for their shoeboxes. A very nice 10 minutes spent beach combing, oohing and ahhing over shells, pebbles, seaweed and driftwood – we drove to Shoreham beach which is quite posh and very very quiet as the beach at the end of the road is currently undergoing all sorts of sea defences made of tonnes of stones and has all sorts of heavy plant machinery backward and forwarding all over it – still only takes 10 minutes to drive to Shoreham and as always when we spend time on the beach I appreciate having it close and wonder why we don’t spend more time there – the sea and sky is so calming and the kids just love it whatever the weather. Infact I pledge to start going there once a fortnight or so and taking stuff to either draw or paint with, or bring stuff home (shh I know it’s illegal to remove stuff from the beach 🙂 ) to do crafty stuff with.

Then we nipped into Lancing to get a few bits to tick off my HESFES list and then on to group.

A nice time there again today. Julie was there with Jack and Maisie which always means Davies and Scarlett have a better time as they have two adults around them and Julie is excellent at bringing really suitable craft stuff for them to do – today it was cut out fishes to stick tissue paper and foil onto which Davies really enjoyed. I cut out lots of ocean life type shapes (fish, starfish, octopusses (should that be pi?) seaweed etc and kids did stick on pictures with that, Davies sat for ages and did his shoebox filling it with all the small pebbles, shells, seaweed, bits of driftwood and so on he had picked off the beach and also added some cut out shapes round the edges – he really enjoyed it and has made a really nice little collage. Then he did some still life of giant shells with some pastels (I started to join in but got all goosebumpy as I have a thing about chalk so I had to stop!). It was another nice group today, won’t be going for the next couple of weeks but I’m feeling much more positive about it again. Jenny and I talked briefly (inbetween comparing how unprepared for HESFES we are!) about some sort of continuing project and something a bit more techinical for the boys to be doing to keep them occupied as ATM we are quite arty and crafty which does not appeal to everyone. Will bring my opitech catalogue to HESFES and we can browse through it for inspiration one evening. Also really liked Sarah / Jules’ groups Pirate theme the other week – that has loads of mileage.

Current fave toys here again today are megablocks and drawing, so I’m letting them get on with it. Tomorrow with the exception of a smear test first thing (sorry to any blokes reading 🙂 ) we have nothing planned which means I will either be totally ready for everything or will have spent the day wibbling about but achieving nothing!

I’ll make a quick start here and see how I get on!

Kitchen stuff
washing up liquid
cloths
brush
tea towels
kicthen roll
antibac spray cleaner
air freshener (I know, chemicals and aerosols are me!)
handwash
washing powder liquitabs things
kids’ bottles
kids’ cutlery

Food stuff
marmite
peanut butter
tea
alcohol
sugar
hot chocolate
long life milk
squirty cream
cereals
crunchies
salt/pepper/herbs
oil
bin liners
sandwich bags / lunchboxes
ribena
ketchup

Stuff for tent / site
more wine
more tea
mug
chairs
walkie talkies
picnic bag / coolbag
milk?

General
sleeping bags and extra blankets for warmth
heater
baby monitor
towels
travel clock

Kids stuff
some toys! no idea what yet 😉
books
colouring stuff
dvds to play on laptop
Davies’ teds for sleeping
Tarly’s Doras for same

Clothes
wellies!
waterproof coats
sunsuits
sandals
lots of underwear and socks
at least 5 changes of clothing as weather flexible as poss (eg jeans and T shirts with jackets)

Tickets!
laptop
photo lead
camera
batteries
cash inc for Jax and for Merry
Ant and Cleo book for Merry
phone charger

toiletries
make up
make up remover stuff
shampoo / conditioner
dry shampoo!
deodrant
nappies
wipes
nappy sacks
books for me!
shower gel
moisturiser
sun cream
eyedrops!!!
spare lenses
contact lens case and soaking fluid
toothbrushes and toothpaste
hair colouring
mooncup
basic first aid stuff – plasters, antibac wipes, antiseptic cream, pain killers, piriton for kids, benedryl for me, calpol/nurofen for kids, bite/sting cream.

wallhangings
rugs from home to make the caravan feel like home
budgie
gerbil
standard lamp
fresh flowers
vases for above

That’ll do for now – more to be added as I jolt awake at 3am thinking ‘gasp and I must not forget x!’

A nice if pretty hectic day today.

Up at the ungodly hour of 6am when Ady left for inner city London and by 8am we had already watched Cat in the Hat ( a new dvd – the Mike Myers one which Davies adores although he is a bit shocked of the use of the word ‘bloody’ in it 😉 ) and scattered the lounge with megablocks, the toy cars and pens and paper, I had gotten two loads of washing done and ready to go out to dry. Still managed to be rushing around like loons two hours later when it came to getting out the house mind you 😉

Arrived at Ali’s and as the kids headed out into her garden upon arrival was able to enjoy the cup of tea and chat on offer 🙂 The kids played really well again with minimal upsets and set tos. I like the way the three of them constantly change their games and who they are playing with, with them changing to all three joining in the same game to two of them going off to something together while the third entertained themself. Also having observed Davies play with F for a few hours in one quite specific way it was very interesting to watch the almost total personality change when his friend Liam arrived to play this afternoon. At Ali’s he was mature, sensible, mainly sensitive and very nice and caring towards the two younger girls (most of the time 😉 ) with Liam he turned back into a school boyish 4 yo being rowdy, boisterous and cheeky. He sat telling jokes about poo and bums and I suppose being the very junior version of a ‘lad’ – if he knew how to break wind on demand he would have done 😉 I know he probably needs to behave like this at times but for me it’s another great strike for HE that he does not get into that mindset for 7 hours, 5 days a week as I have a feeling it would not be long before the school boy humour overtook the rest of his personality and the lovely boy I know and love would be lost with only the briefest glance still in evidence. Scarlett appeared at one point with a dead bee and told us about how it was dead and didn’t work anymore! All three of them had a good look and poke at it. Ali and I did talk about how if they were older we would have gotten the microscope out, disected it and otherwise done some science-y stuff with it. The kids enjoyed lunch al fresco and Ali I continued to chat with a reciprocal visit to our house arranged for after HESFES.

Home and enough time to tidy up a smidgeon, check emails, do some financial stuff and get out a few different toys before Mel arrived with Liam and Lily. The boys played very noisily with brio and dinosaurs and the girls played with the dollies and some glittery bits and beads on a tray – hugely stereotypical gender play there then 😉 Ady arrived home in time to make them all some tea and then they left (with much protesting, they had had a lovely time!) and our two were chucked in the bath, given milk and off to bed.

Tomorrow is Home Ed group and the theme is underwater – we have a big group activity of creating an underwater scene in a shoe box type thing – have painted two shoeboxes blue inside and weather permitting the plan is to go to the beach with a bucket each in the morning and collect some pebbles, shells, seaweed etc and make some crafty stuff like sparkly fish and seahorses, starfish etc to be stuck inside it. Also might even get round to that HESFES list!

and erm, nobody’s gonna go to school today, I’m gonna let them stay at home! Other than that we are not intending to follow the rest of the lyrics but I do have a lot going on in my mind (Joyce, you so have your work cut out!). Have patched up all the financial stuff for now and will resolve to sort it all out properly when I get back from HESFES (infact one of the tasks during those evenings once kids are in bed and I am lurking in my static is some calculator work!) but have just paid balances for Kessingland and on my static at HESFES so at least that is cash already spent and cannot be cut back on 🙂

But anyway, to catch up since I’ve been gone… (hey all day yesterday and ’til late afternoon today is a long time to be absent from Blogland for me y’know!)…

Saturday night Scarlett finally went to sleep at 10ish – she sat and watched Dr Who with me and I was amazed how much she seemed to follow it actually – she kept trying to click her fingers and then feeling her forehead to see if a zoomy thing had come out of it 🙂 Then when I went to check on her it all having gone quiet in her bedroom she had disappeared but in a ‘slipped into another dimension or the TV’ type movie style way I could hear her breathing but not see her anywhere. I looked in her bed, under her bed and behind her toybox which pretty much eliminates all the potential hiding places until she giggled and I found her in her wicker laundry basket – which is actually a very tight fit for her. Not sure how she managed to get in it but she would never have gotten out unaided so could have ended up sleeping in there for the night! I thought I would get some sort of lie in on Sunday morning, but no! 6am saw me up with both of them 🙁

Which meant Scarlett was very very tired and that coupled with her being two pretty much defined her trip to the dogs 🙁 I think Ady was more affected than me which was a shame as it *was* his birthday ‘treat’. But then again I guess I am far more used to altering my expectations accordingly if I know the kids are coming somewhere with me. He seemed under the illusion he would sit, drink beer, eat food and watch the racing but it obviously didn’t work out quite like that! I quite enjoyed it and having allowed myself 20 quid betting money I came home with £6 left (I did win once about £9 for a £2 bet so nothing huge!).
The food and service is also consistanly poor there – which Mum got uppity about but I have never been there and it’s been anything other than poor so you either expect it and realise you are actually paying more for the table and the view than the food or you don’t eat there and slum it in the bar which would not have been suitable for the kids. You also get people taking your bets from your table if you eat, which is nice for lazy folk like me 🙂
Scarlett cleaning my teeth with lemon 🙂

Tarly cheering on the ‘red dog’

first thing I noticed about this pic? the reason why I have a constant frown line on my forehead although I didn’t think I frowned that often!
We took the kids outside to the track side to watch a few races which if you ignored the chainsmokers drinking their beer from plastic glasses and yelling ‘come on 4 dog, come on my son, bring it on home’ with a desperation that suggested that unless 4 dog did bring it on home they would not be eating for the rest of the week was quite nice!

Davies didn’t seem to take that much in but as soon as we got home he asked to get his megablocks out and proceeded to make six dogs then asked us all to choose one and cheer it on while he recreated races! He even got his camera out to do some photo finishes 🙂

Mum and Dad came back with us and ended up staying for dinner (well actually I think the truth was that they installed themselves ion the sofa and had no intention of leaving!) only departing at 10.30 when Scarlett woke up. We spent the afternoon watching old home videos, cheering on dogs in Davies’ imaginary races and eating the last of the easter eggs still in the house!

Today – Scarlett ended up going back to sleep at 2am and was still awake again at 6am so when Ady woke me with a text from Alison to say more of The Portico are puking and it would be wise to not come and avoid infection (hope Poppy is feeling better btw) I had the luxury (!) of going back to sleep ’til 7!

Today we have been into town to get Ady’s birthday cards and a pressie, some art bits for group on Wednesday then to Sainsbury’s via Dad’s where I dropped the kids off with him as they were not in the mood to be dragged round Sainsburys and I was so not in the mood to drag them anyway! They are now sitting on the sofa watching Cat in the Hat (for the second time!) and eating cereal for their tea – their eating habits have totally gone to pot although they are eating mainly healthy stuff we seem to have abandoned mealtimes or any pretense of certain foods for certain times of the day – ah well, good practise for next week then 😉

And that’s about it really. I am about to do my HESFES list which I will post up later so I can keep track of it as I go and I also have an unexpectedly free day on Thursday which is when I can sort out any final bits and pieces. Tomorrow we’re seeing Ali which we’re looking forward to and we’ve got Mel, L and L coming for tea in the afternoon so another busy one.

Faced with the choice of drinking copious amounts of wine to drown yesterday’s sorrows or going to bed very early (by 10.30) and sleeping it all away for once I chose sleep 😉

Woken at 6.30am by Davies having the first of many ‘woke too early and unable to actually cope with the day moments’ and couldn’t get back to sleep again so opened the curtains and lay in bed reading my trashy novel – which is probably just as restful actually as sleeping 🙂 Both kids had been up since before 6am so have been tired and tantrummy all day. Davies luckily has the sense to decide he is being unsociable and unreasonable and takes himself off for some quiet time (although Ady does insist on keeping checking him which seems to irritate him further!), Scarlett OTOH is just very difficult and fickle about who can help her put her shoes on, change her nappy or even look at her! Luckily the weather held most of the day and we were in Chris and Julie’s garden so we were not in close proximity to each other to get too wound up… Scarlett slept on the way over there and is still bouncing around in her bedroom now but Davies at least was asleep pretty early.

A nice enough day at C & J’s – always quite relaxing to just set the kids free in their lovely big garden and sit in the sunshine although there were some horrid undercurrents between C& J who were sniping at each other a lot – which is always uncomfortable to witness and chills me a bit having listened to my parents do it for years as a child. Makes you grateful to be in a relationship where you don’t feel the need to put each other down in public though!

Left there quite early for a change and the kids both ate all their dinner, Davies had a haircut and they both had a bath. And that was about it really 🙂

Tomorrow we are going to the dog stadium – we have a table booked for lunch and Mum, Dad and Frazer are coming too in honour of Ady’s birthday on Friday as we will obviously not be around next weekend. We have not been since we had the kids (infact it would have been Ady’s birthday 5 years ago that we last went as I recall being pregnant with Davies and having to be the designated driver!) but we used to go a lot and it’s always a good time. Davies is really looking forward to it although having explained the idea of both dog racing and gambling to him today he was not at all keen on the idea that if your dog does not win then you lose the bet you have placed and tells me he is ‘not going to do that, it’s silly!’ Let’s hope he retains that attitude as from my side of the family both on Mum and Dad’s side there are some pretty heavy gamblers and given my crap attitude to money genes are not on his side to be careful, frugal and indulge in only non-addictive activities 🙂 Dad always has more than a little flutter so Davies will have to watch him to see how it all operates as me and Ady tend to place bets in pence rather than pounds!

Next week is looking pretty busy – a trip to the Portico on Monday, seeing Ali on Tuesday, WAG (therefore Jenny and possibly Ros) on Wednesday and then of course huge amounts of you at the weekend (sob to all those who won’t be there!). I have some educational speculation and planning to do at some point stored in my head ready to blog but it won’t be tonight – maybe tomorrow…

Woke to my own personal shite election result nationally. Have refrained from outright saying what I vote but I am guessing most of you probably have worked it out already. Suffice to say that Old Tone getting in again is not what I crossed boxes for 🙁

Phone call to the bank revealed more crap – not an outright no but not the save all answer I was hoping for either – speaking to them again next week, will do yet another patch up job on this months finances and try and get my head round it all again next week. It’s a big relief that at least the kids are not of school age otherwise that would be a serious option just now to enable me to get my arse back out to work and start earning my keep again 🙁 (my words, incase anyone was wondering if Ady had turned all nasty on me! For his sins he still loves me and thinks no less of me for all my crap with money ways…)

Kids have been awful all day – obviously just feeding off me but frankly I have enough to admit that I have run up unmanagable debts without taking responsibility for my kids behaviour too 😉 They got yelled at in the house, yelled at getting into the car, yelled at as they tried to dismantle the interior of the car while I was on my mobile taking a call outside TT1 from the bank (very hard to try and sound businesslike and sensible when you have the background soundtrack of your horn being tooted and your windscreen wipers on full as operated by a 2yo!), told off in hushed tones inside TT1 – today they just wanted to run around. I did tell them that if they just want to run around for an hour every Friday morning I will take them to the park and save myself a fiver!!!! They got yelled at in Boots where I went to stock up on nappies and other bits for HESFES (Scarlett sat in her pushchair and yelled her head off back at me for the whole time we were in there 🙁 ) Then we went to TT2 where I told them off again for being unruly inbetween classes – Julie the organiser lady looked at me all sympathetically and seemed like she might be about to come over and ask if I was alright but it would have made me cry if someone was nice to me so I hid!

I went to Dad’s on the way home and yelled at them some more there for leaping about on the sofa and scattering books about the place. I couldn’t bring myself to talk to Dad about it all as I knew I would just get all upset so I sat in almost silence while he must have wondered why exactly we’d gone round there!

And that’s all really.

Well OK – there was one sort of nice bit when this kid (not seen him there before but he was horrid and later his little sister went for Tarly with a set of keys and her mother just laughed – FFS!) was poking Davies so Scarlett went over, snatched his hand away from Davies and said to him ‘Stop touching my Davies!!! You are naughty’ which was quite cute in a sticking up for each other sort of way. As ever when I am being a horrid cow to them they stick together and have been cuddled up on a sofa together watching The Incredibles since we came home. Off to get them to bed and read them lots of stories and give them cuddles – cos hey, I don’t care too much for money, money can’t buy me love…. 🙁

Today has been very pleasant actually. It was a picnic in the park at Chichester for the new EO Local Contact team (me and two other ladies who are covering West Sussex between us) to meet each other and any other local HE folk who wanted to come along. We’ve been sending out emails and ringing round the contact list, posting on local yahoo lists and generally putting the word out and thanks to a mention in the Activeo newsletter as well we had a fairly impressive turn out. There were at least four people who are either in the middle of deciding whether to HE or very very new to it who came along and hopefully were reassured and got some support and information to help them. I met a few new faces which was nice, got to feel like a real Home Educator by giving out lots of advice about resources, support and ideas and actually for the first time ever felt very much a part of the local HE community. 🙂 The Activeo folk who were there were all lovely and friendly and several will be at HESFes so I will be making sure I mix and mingle with them as well as the MP campers. Julie came along and Ady also met us there which was nice as he so often misses out on the nice side of HE so that was good. With many of the local schools being used as poling stations there were also various other groups of school aged but school attending children which I am not sure whether was good as we blended in or bad because there were more people around to notice the ‘lentil brigade’ element to our gathering 😉 Whatever, it was a nice couple of hours, reassuring for HESFes and the sun shone too!

Nipped into the town centre as there is the nearest Lush shop to us in Chichester and as part of my ‘final blow out’ before the scary decision is made tomorrow by the bank I thought I’d have one last stock up session in there inlcuding some portable shower products for HESFes! Also went to Boots for some style in, wash out colours for me and the kids hair if we feel so inclined (red for D, pink for S, and purple for me) so I am feeling pretty sorted for HESFes now. I am not too worried about packing clothes etc as I *always* overpack anyway but as we are at Seadown and will have spare space in our van I am fine with that. The only decision left to make is whether to take both cars with us on Saturday and leave one with me for the week or to come up in just the one and let Ady bring it home with him on the Monday. I am tending to think I will want the security of having a car with me incase of medical emergency, food supplied running low, needing to escape home at short notice or deciding I hate it and want to come home right NOW in the middle of the night in the middle of the week…

And it’s lovely 🙂

She did invite me to be nosey and look all around it so of course I did. I was quite tempted to take the camera round each room and post a ‘who lives in a house like this’ expose but fear of bad karma made me not do that incase someone returns the favour by posting unflattering shots of me at HESFes or something 😉

Anyway, first things first eh. Julie, Jack and Maisie came over for lunch which was very hectic – for some reason the hours between 8.30 and 11.30 just disappeared this morning (and yes I know my two blog entries might have had *something* to do with that!) and we didn’t get dressed ’til nearly 11. I then dashed around like a loony trying to gather together everything I needed for HE group and to take to Ros’, wrap a pressie for Buzz, help Davies write the card (which he was mad keen to do, so that was a first for him and writing 🙂 ) and he pretty much worked out the spelling of Buzz’ (very nicely phonetic!) name too :-), shoved two loads of washing on (neither of which I managed to hang out mind you!) and collect together pjs etc for the kids to take with us. Davies was playing with geomags (which he has suddenly gotten really really good with too – leaps and bounds here atm!) when they arrived which meant that they got trashed by J & M until I stopped that. I was a bit cross actually that Julie sat reading one of my magazines while I tried to tidy up the geomags and make lunch and read my emails to get Ros’ address and directions and message about a pirate theme, and encourage my two to eat something and prevent all the dressing up clothes being strewn around the house by small children while I was rooting out the pirate outfit and other accessories, but never mind!

Group went really well today. We were very organised (although for some reason we were all there early today – only one person arrived after 1.30!) and we had paper plate clown faces to draw and colour, hama beads (with much hilarity at suggesting ways to heat them without an iron – under the hand dryer, heat up a knife under the tap and spread them with a hot knife, steam them over the kettle etc!), paper chain clowns with glue and glitter and sparkly sprinkles, sewing and stuffing bean bags, clown print outs to colour in, skittles, magic maize and finally a juggling lesson. Davies did a really good paper chain clown and a nice magic maize creation too – he is ready for a bit more structured stuff I am starting to think – may plan to start something with him after HESFes, but more about that tomorrow. The lady who’s children were very unruly last week didn’t come this week but whether or not that was for another unrelated reason or she took what I said on board and decided we were not the right group for her I don’t know – time will tell. There were more exciting ideas for themes and activities being tossed about too so it looks like we are back on track 🙂

We left slightly early as we needed to come home and change Scarlett’s top as it was covered with glue! Arrived at Ros’ house very easily and were welcomed in and I pretty much lost the kids! It’s a real family home with the kids rooms being child heaven for kids who have not been there before, a fab climbing frame and trampoline in the garden and stacks of room to lose yourself in. My two did their usual trick of mainly mixing with each other and not throwing themselves into the middle of it, but still enjoying it and having a good time. Buzz seemed pleased with our gift (you always worry about getting something a child already has – and know that a 4yo would not be able to not tell you as soon as they opened it ‘I’ve already got one of those’ !) and Ady arrived fairly soon after we got there having come from work to meet us.

It was really nice to see Ros’ home, meet Tony and sit listening to the chatter of people I know of from Ros’ blog and see some of the children from her photos in real life.

Ady brought Davies home who fell asleep pretty much as soon as he got to bed and Scarlett came with me and was asleep by the time we left Ros’ road, I’m about to have a bath and then watch Desperate Housewives with a bowl of soup. Have some educational stuff to blog tomorrow – maybe!

as it’s messing with my layout 🙂

So a round up of today’s plan should do the trick.

Last night was the third night in a row of crappy crappy sleep thanks to Scarlett who has been awake for *hours* in the middle of the night and then slept in the next morning. Hope it will be better tonight.

So this morning I didn’t surface until 8.30 although Davies had been in the bed with me wittering on since about 7am 🙁 It’s now 10.30 and none of us are dressed 🙂 The kids are playing with their box of musical instruments and have been watching their Tumble Tots dvd and playing along – now Davies has just put Mary Poppins on do to the same which would seem like the ideal moment to get myself dressed.

Julie and the twins are coming over for lunch and then coming to HE group with us – the theme is the circus. We’ll see whether having a proper theme and some very set activities makes any difference to whether it is a free for all or something vaguely resembling Jenny’s and my vision… There are more attendees expected today at least which should help.

After that we are going to Ros’ to help celebrate Buzz’ birthday which Davies is very pleased about so quite a full day really.

That should be enough wittering to push the quiz down past the pictures 🙂

a href=’http://quizfarm.com/test.php?q_id=13060’>What philosophy do you follow? (v1.03)
created with QuizFarm.com

That was quite an interesting one actually as I do regularly ponder about religion. Hope in writing this I won’t offend anyone as I am totally respectful of other people’s views on religion but these are mine…

I have never held any sort of religious belief – I recall asking my Mum as a very small child whether she believed in God – I think it was probably even before I started to doubt the existance of Father Christmas and she didn’t really have an answer. Both my parents are sketchy in what – if anything – they believe although they did have a church wedding and both me and my brother were christened aside from other B, D & M type occassions we never went to church.

Although I went to C of E schools they didn’t push religion much further that a hymn and the Lord’s Prayer in assembly each day – I used to sit and sing Rick Astley’s ‘never gonna give you up’ in my head as a protest to stop myself joining in with the prayer 🙂 I did do religious studies at GCSE simply because by then I developed a curiosity in the concept of religion and why people believed. I had a close friend at school who aged about 14 found God and was very vocal on the subject – her and I sat for hours and hours talking about it all.

Later at college I did A level sociology with a fair sized chunk of the course on religion. Again I really enjoyed that and found myself getting high grades for my essays about subjects such as ‘Marx described religion as the opiate of the masses. Discuss.’ Again I found the subject fascinating but in a very detached way, pertaining to why people believed as opposed to questioning whether or not there was anything to believe in.

I have over the years come into contact with people who have very strong religious beliefs and those who are happy to discuss it with me have given me all sorts of reasons for their belief. Faith is a very personal part of someone’s life but also a very large part. Reasons people have shared with me are that their faith makes sense of the world for them – quite often they are people who have suffered great sadness, bereavement or other difficult periods during their lives; I have met people who have strayed very far from the path and in trying to get back on track they have found God and that has helped them and aided them in forgiving themselves for their wrongs (real life Nicky Cruz’ if you will). I have met people who are simply ‘good’ and their faith is an extension of that and sadly I have also met people for whom religion is an excuse for their lifestyle choices – be it violence or prejudice in the name of following ‘their god’ . I also know a huge amount of people who have faith without any of the traditional trappings of organised religion – with God simply being a part of their everyday lives.

For me I find it impossible to either choose to believe or not to – it simply makes a mockery of the whole thing if it is about me deciding whether or not I have faith. Many people have told me that God found them as opposed to the other way round and I do feel that if there is a God (which I don’t actually believe there is at this moment in time) then that is how you should meet Him. Or is that wrong, is the responsibility ours to go and find Him – don’t know…

I think religion and belief and faith can give people meaning in their lives, help make sense of the crap the world has to offer, offer comfort in dark times, focus in times when the path has gotten lost; I also think religion is used as an excuse for all sorts of dreadful happenings and that if you look hard enough for something you will always find it.

Ramble over 🙂

But I guess you could say I’ve learnt my lesson!

This morning we did food shopping and as a sort of final blow out before I grasped the nettle finances wise we went to Toys R Us and I bought them a few bits each – in for a penny eh!

Home for a late lunch and the scariness of the phonecall I should have made months ago really was getting to me so I got out all the credit card statements, all the loan agreements and a calculator – Fuck!

Rang the bank and have done the processing of the application to extend the mortgage to cover paying everything off and extend it back up to full mortgage term of 25 years. Was so scared by the amount it totalled up to that I didn’t even think about adding in the extra money we were thinking of borrowing to do more work to the house – if they agree to this then we will have to sit tight for a while longer and see how it goes from there. If they don’t agree then I’m not actually sure what to do next really – they should have a decision for me by Friday. I’d love to say I feel better for having taken the first step to being sensible with money but actually I just feel sick 🙁

Right off to email Miranda to drum up some more work for me – kids are happily playing, Tarly is being a doctor and ‘reading’ Mr Men books simultaneously (multi tasking toddler girl 🙂 ) and Davies is in his bedroom building an elaborate plastic train track (he’s been playing with lego and k’nex all morning so clearly has engineering promise which I am ignoring the chance to foster and hot house) while I intend to read Heat magazine and try to pretend it’s not all hanging over my head until Friday…

Let’s get the crap out of the way first then shall we… Went out with my parents for the day today and after a very nice morning and lovely lunch we went to the local park for a play and some ice cream. Given it was a beautiful day weatherwise it was pretty busy everywhere in the park and we took out ice creams to a grass verge and sat down to eat them. I was vaguely aware of a group of kids nearby – some preteen, some early teens playing a rowdy game of cricket and shouting to each other but didn’t really pay them much attention until my Mum suddenly jumped and said something had hit her arm. We looked round and a group of two girls and a lad who were sitting about 30 feet away from us were playing, quite blatantly with a gun. Mum found the plastic ball bearing thingy which had hit her and we sat for a while debating what to do – She had been sitting with Davies cuddled into her so a fraction different shot would have hit him and could have caused a fairly nasty injury on a small child. Eventually Mum walked over to them and gave them a bit of a lecture about having it near small children and so on but as she walked away they sort of smirked and sneered and I couldn’t help myself asking if they thought it was funny. They said no and I asked why they were laughing then – suddenly Dad strode over and whipped the gun off them – which is what he had wanted to do anyway but we had told him not to. He was all for chucking it in the lake ( 🙂 ) but Mum went off to find a park keeper or someone similar to hand it in to. At this stage the small group had gone very quiet. Mum came back having handed it into the cafe onsite as the only place feasible and Dad went back to sit in the car while Mum and I took Davies and Scarlett into the playground area really expecting that to be the end of it.

I was playing with Scarlett on the slide when a teenage (taller than me but probably no more than 15) came over and started giving me a ‘telling off’ about having made his little sister cry by ‘mouthing off’ at her. I stated that they were playing with a gun which was totally inappropriate in a public place with small children about, the gun had been used to ‘shoot’ my mother and as such we had confiscated it and it would not be returned. He stepped closer and I said that I was not prepared to continue the conversation with him any further. He then said again that I had made a child cry and I lost it and said I couldn’t give a shit about any child who was toting a gun about, I only cared about my own children who were in the vicinity of guns. He asked if I was now ‘Mouthing off’ at him and I replied ‘looks like it doesn’t it?!’ They then walked away but started to gather in a crowd just outside the palyground. Mum and I began to feel uneasy so we decided to leave.

As soon as we were outside (bearing in mind we were then two women with small children) they crowded round us and were basically demanding the gun back and giving us grief about making a child cry. I confess to losing it totally then and giving them a fair old mouthful of abuse, Scarlett got upset because I was getting really angry and Davies just stood clinging to my hand. I continued to state that I didn’t care about upsetting any child if there was a gun being used to shoot at people, in a public place with small children around. I also – very mistakenly – said that the gun was no longer in our possession, we had handed it into the cafe and I suggested that if they wanted to take it up with them then they did so. One of the girls (I think the one who actually shot it) then started on me about my camera and whether that was appropriate to have in a playground incase I was taking shots of other people’s children to use for paedoohile purposes (FFS how do kids get so fucking worldly wise!!!) I laughed in her face at comparing a camera to a GUN! Told them to fuck off away from me and my family or I would ring the police for them harrassing us and we left.

Before we went my Mum went back to the cafe and repeated that they should not give the kids the gun back – they assured her they wouldn’t and as we pulled away out of the car park we saw the gang of kids leaving the cafe with their gun!!!!

I was shaking, angry beyond belief – both at myself for totally letting myself down in public, infront of my children and resorting to foul language. I wanted to go back to the cafe and have a pop at them too but Dad stopped me. In the end I pulled over and rang the police from my mobile I just had to do something. We got home and the police rang back and asked us to go back down to give a statement and ID them if they found them. Of course they had long since gone and when the police asked what we wanted them to do it was clear that there was nothing for them to do, so there was no point in giving a statememt anyway. They did tell us that they had been called there this morning about kids with a BB gun too which made me feel slightly better about it. I had also composed myself and was able to give the police men an impression of a well spoken, nice, non loony woman who was concerned about the safety of her children and felt threatened and intimidated by a gang of youths – which reassured me a bit!

I rang Ady who of course said what we should have done straight away which was to ring the police from the grass verge and say there was a group of kids with some sort of gun while we were all still sitting there. The police would then have arrived in plenty of time for us to identify them and get them cautioned without any need for the sort of altercation we ended up involved in. Scarlett has clearly forgotten it – she just assumed I was cross and telling them off I think. Davies has recounted the story a couple of times already but fortunately he is unfamiliar with the sort of language I was using so that at least went over his head 🙂 Ady also told me off for putting myself and the kids in a situation which could very easily have gotten completely out of control – and so close to where we live too – it is entirely possible that I will encounter them again and very likely they will recognise me with all my distinguishing features! Ah well, can’t help the way we react I guess. On one level I am also slightly reassured that my fight or flight reaction is geared to aggression level 😉 All in all a fairly ugly situation and one I am still churned up about 🙁

The rest of the day was really nice in direct contrast – went to Highdown Gardens this morning where the kids ran about in the bluebells, we walked about chatting and Davies put his foot and leg upto his knee into a pond 🙂 Then for lunch at a restuarant which always pleases the kids. Ady got home at a decent hour having left at an undecently early one and encountered virtually no traffic on the roads. Mum and Dad are staying for dinner and I am just hiding here in Davies’ bedroom with my smuggled up laptop in order to have a theraputic blog about the whole thing! Must go back down and drink some wine to compose myself properly!