One word? When seven would do…

Excellent weekend, thanks all 🙂

Truth be told Ady’s teeth (or lack of them) were possibly not really up to it, so apologies to anyone who might have found themselves talking to him and getting ignored / grinned at inanely / responded to with total irrelevance at any point this weekend – he was in a cocktail of pain killing drugs induced cycle of coming down, flying high or waiting for them to kick in 🙁

We got away at our self appointed time on Saturday morning and as it was pouring with rain when we woke up and I think it followed us all the way to Reading I fear we brought the bad weather with us from Sunny Sussex by the sea 🙁 Arrived at the hotel via Costco for vast quantities of bread and it was indeed a Quality Hotel (as in ‘kin quality mate!), hey-yuge room with a fridge and all sorts. Parent 2 kindly came and fetched us and brought us to party central where the kids went straight into the throng of other kids and set about yelling, running, getting wet and muddy, getting nosebleeds (Davies) and getting stroppy (Tarly). Ady did some mixing and mingling and then some tidying. Despite intentions to spend more time talking to other people I did my usual trick of spending most of my time with Layla! It is really hard in a big group to manage to get round everyone so I’m really pleased that we are managing to start seeing people in a more initimate setting of their or our homes and I did do some diary co-ordinating to arrange a couple more residential visits with people – to the couple of people I have talked to this about but not actually sorted a date yet, I will email when I have worked out when we actually do have a weekend free again between now and Christmas 🙂

Somehow our minimalist packing for a one night stay managed to include three sets of pjs each for the kids (but this was wise rather than foolish given our kids ability to get through clean clothes and also to pretend they are on the verge of sleep, trick us into pjing them up and then going out puddle exploring again!) but no milk drinking recepticles, no purse for me and no camera for Ady. This was actually quite traumatic for me and Ady – me, without ability to spend money!!!! And him without ability to capture magic moments forever 🙁 A compromise was reached by him giving me his cashpoint card so I at least had cash to splash and him using his mobile phone camera to its capacity – some pics here – excuse the quality of pixels (or something) and the ones he was playing with the gizmo thingy frames on his phone with too!

So a lovely afternoon and evening at Alison’s parents – please pass on our thanks for their hospitality – and after a fairly small amount of sleep and a fairly expensive breakfast this morning, we were over to The Portico proper for a further day of socialising.

Despite repeated half hearted moves to leave we managed to have kids pj’d up again and one asleep with another making z’s before we hit the M4 before arriving home at 8.30ish.

Ady’s back to work tomorrow – which is slightly concerning given the effect of his pain relief on his ability to concentrate on a conversation – and we have no plans so I may even manage to achieve some of the tasks I had meant to do last week!

that was a self pitying little post below wasn’t it? Have now recovered from that (two glasses of wine helped) and am ready to PARTY tomorrow! May be back later….

Is pretty much what we’ve been up to today. Bumbled around in the house this morning, had lunch and then Ady felt up to going into town for a wander round. There is a massive market and fairground all along Worthing seafront on the last weekend in July every year. It is full of usual market tat but a sort of tradition to go to it. Obviously we will miss it this weekend being in Reading so we went to have a look at the fair which is already set up and a bit of a walk round town.

The sun is finally shining here so town was packed with kids on summer holidays, our two are both on bad form with Davies tired and whingey and Scarlett tired and attitudey so I think I threatened packing them both into the car at least fourteen times 🙁 They were both really ‘I want’ y too and had the impression that they would be getting presents, which really pissed me off. I don’t think we have particularly spoilt them (well no more than anyone else’s children I know!) and they are certainly not used to getting presents on a regular basis but they were just being horrid and spoilt and have been really clingy to Ady while he’s been home which had irritated me too. A crappy week really with the kids for me 🙁 hopefully they will sleep ok tonight and be improved tomorrow, or at the very least they can get lost in the general throng of children instead of pestering me for a couple of hours 😉 They did end up getting an ice cream in McDonalds and one go each on one of the rides when they had improved slightly after my final yelling session though.

They are currently annoying the hell out of me again by wandering round the house instead sitting eating their tea and keep going upstairs and mithering Ady who is trying to have a lie down while his pain killers kick in again. I could rant for ages about them but I don’t really mean it and would only be makng myself feel crap and look crap I suspect. Instead I will go and be creative somewhere else and try and do something on my educational stuff which I have been meaning to get round to for ages. See many of you tomorrow I hope.

but she’s being a little bitch 😉 Yep, had to give the outfit back today as I was failing badly!

Ady’s fine, he’s been eating, hoovering and pretty much back to normal except I don’t think he’s gotten dressed yet – so he may be attending the party in his dressing gown!

Yesterday when we left the hospital they told him he had to have someone with him at all times for the next 24 hours and could not drive for insurance reasons for the next 48 hours. Well this morning he was not left alone exactly, but his carers were a two year old and a four year old who are possibly not the worlds best Florence Nightingales (although a slight improvement on me!).

I had to have a smear test and it’s been put off for various reasons for most of this year so as I had him home and it would mean not having to give the children a very educational but also possibly pyschologically damaging experience by bringing them with me I went (literally) across the road to the doctors assuring Ady I would only be 15 minutes or so.

WRONG! After half an hour the receptionist came in to the packed waiting room (why does it always rain when I go to the doctors – the waiting room is always filled with people bedecked in dripping outerwear with steam slowly rising off them as they dry out while reading copies of Womans Weekly from 1997 and Hello! magazine featuring the wedding of Posh and Becks) and spoke in that shouty but without inflection way that doctors receptionists have the monopoly on to a very scared looking girl. She told her that the nurse had been caught in traffic but should be arriving any moment. She seemed to be being very careful to be discrete and then blew it by saying to room at large ‘and if anyone else is waiting for smear tests then you will be delayed too’ before flouncing out, leaving the young girl puce and hiding behind her leaflet on pneumonia jabs for the over 65s, several old women who didn’t have smear tests in their day tutting loudly and being drowned out by the obligatory old bloke with the rattly wheezy cough. Resigned to a longer wait I started thumbing through a tatty copy of Top Sante circa June 2001.

Half an hour since my appointment time my old Health Visitor (well I suppose technically she still is our HV but both D & S have been signed off as not needing any further development checks until they are of school nurse age) called young girl in for her smear… this worried me slightly. I first met her when I was 8 months pregnant with Davies, then weekly at baby clinic after I had him until he was 15 months old and we moved up north. She had reduced me to tears by being kind to me when he was 10 days old and slept for just three hours one night, she had reassured me that he and I would not end up on Jerry Springer ‘my toddler weighs 8 stone and he’s only 18 months old’ when he had a big weight gain one week, she similarly reassured me he did not have some sort of juvenile bulimia when he sicked up every feed for three days; she debated MMR with me; share the triumphs of first smile, crawl, words and full nights sleep and gave a big emotional speech when I went to the last baby clinic before we moved away. She was thrilled when we came home again and did development checks on both children, pronounced them wonderful and was pretty supportive and in favour of HE. As HVs go I quite like her.

And now she was going to be sticking a speculum up me and having a good old look!

Waited a further half an hour and started to worry that Ady may not be ok left with the children alone for this long in his groggy state. He had been up since 4am 🙁 Scarlett had woken and I went to her but she was adamant she didn’t want me and woke Ady up by yelling, he then needed to take some more painkillers so would not have been able to get back to sleep and offered to sit with her and then sleep today when I got back from the docs. He had then run me a bath and brought me a cup of tea in bed before collapsing back onto the sofa in his dressing gown.

I asked the receptionist how long it was likely to be as I’d been there for an hour now and my ‘childcare’ would be getting worried. She assured me I would be soon but I told her I needed to nip home and would be back shortly. Ran across the road to find Ady still in the same position he had been when I left him but now covered with glow in the dark road safety hedgehog stickers which had arrived in the post and the kids were decorating him and the house with. Not actually sure if he registered me coming back and going again but he did smile vaguely at me….

Back to the surgery and sure enough Jenny the HV called me in. Asked if I was ok with her doing the smear as she knows me and then proceeded to regale me with her awful morning story. Checked my bp which I explained may well be high due to the hours wait in the waiting room and then running back and forth across the road. Turned out it was below my usual rate, clearly the sitting with Take a Break child free for an hour had done me the power of good relaxation wise!

I’ll spare you the full details of the smear although it was lengthy and does have comedy value if you are of a mindset to laugh at gynaecological procedures on women lying on a couch with their legs open naked from the waist down while the HV tries to find scissors in order to fashion some sort of bastardised tool using a finger from a pair of surgical gloves. She also confirmed that my cervix has abrasions on it, which I already knew, it’s never really held me back although I did use it as an excuse for not hoovering for a while when I first found out – No I can’t possibly whip round with the Dyson, I’ve abrasions on my cervix! Turns out she thinks I may get recalled anyway as she got lots of blood cells on the sample 🙁 Ah well, might be quite a nice little series on the blog….

So a full hour and a half after my appointment I finally arrived home and Ady, now sporting glitter on his chest hair where the dressing gown had fallen open (not sure whether to berate the children for decorating their father during his weak hour or whether to be concerned at what he gets up to when I am not around!) went off to bed. I’d sort of planned with Davies to do the candyland thing and we even got as far as going through a sweet and chocolate recipe book for ideas but he was super whingey and Scarlett kept going upstairs and disturbing Ady so we agreed to do it tomorrow when Ady can entertain her and we can do it in peace.

Lost track of what order stuff happened in but I made a very unsuccessful phone call for finance sorting out, made lunch, it stopped raining so I rearranged the washing in the machine and on the line, bringing a few bits in, I tidied Scarlett’s room, did various bits of washing up before and after lunch and kids worked behind me trashing whatever areas I tidied!

They played with geomags (very popular here again at the moment), Davies did about six pages in a maths workbook and did some nice writing of numbers, Scarlett did colouring. Then I read to them for a bit, their choice and they chose a book about How things work – floating. So we read a bit of that and then got out a bowl of water and a selection of ‘stuff’ to test whether it floated or sank. Talked about why each thing did which and showed them how changing the shape of some stuff changed it’s buoyancy. Then Davies decided to make a snowland scene. He got a book out with north and south pole pictures and dug out various animals from the toy animal box then asked me to make him a polar bear and some penguins – we discussed how they wouldn’t actually meet each other in the real world (although he was adamant that they do, actually, because he’s seen both in the same zoo! but he did grasp what I was saying) so I drew him some animals and then laminated them and he used white, blue and grey paper and tin foil to make a little scene (should have taken pictures but our camera is being repaired and Ady’s work camera is horrid and I can never work it). Meanwhile Scarlett learnt how to climb onto the worktops by climbing up the oven!!!!

Things got a bit shouty towards the end of the day so by the time Ady came down again at about 5pm I was more than ready to escape for a while. I toyed with going back to the doctors to finish reading the adverts on the notice board in the waiting room for second hand travel systems, piano lessons for over 8s and support group meetings for one legged carers of grandparents with wheat intolerance. But I decided instead to head for the library for half an hour and then the supermarket for some stuff for dinner.

Tomorrow it is essential I get out of the house for a while and take the kids with me – they have been inside for two days and have ‘wet play syndrome’ (like when you were at school and the weather was too crap to go in the playground so you had to stay sat at your desk for break time while kids from the older classes came and were monitors for the younger classes – I remember being chosen to be monitor for my brother’s class once – ooh the power trip that was 😉 ) and are just bouncing off the walls, climbing up the cooker and at risk of needing to ring childline to get Esther to come and lock me up if I have to spend a further day trapped in the house with them! Hopefully the weather will be a bit better and we can go out for a walk somewhere for them to run off energy – or we’ll just put wellies on and go puddle splashing somewhere, Ady might even come if he’s up to it – I will get over my issues with his work camera if he does and post a pic of him in his wellies and dressing gown!

He is up (albeit in dressing gown) and has eaten tea. He is not feeling any pain as such (and given the volume of pain killers he is on that is not surprising!) but is still slightly groggy from the anesthetic. He slept for about 4 hours this afternoon and is about to retire for the evening.

His current verdict for the weekend is that he ‘sees no reason why we won’t be coming’…

listening to James Blunt album in the car at the moment and the kids are slowly learning the words. Except that Scarlett always swaps princess and angel about (like me and wonder / wander) so her version where there is a princess (presumably whilst wearing a tiara and a flowing gown to identify her as a princess) on the subway exchanging smouldering looks with random strangers despite being with being with another man (is he a prince? some sort of footman perhaps…) is quite amusing.

Had a lovely day yesterday. First thing we went fruit picking; I met Julie and the twins there and took Davies, Tarly and Maisie on the tractor ride round the fields while Julie and Jack (who had a fit at the thought of getting on the tractor trailer) walked behind us. We picked strawberries and raspberries. We would probably have stayed longer as I had brought wellies for my two and we were really enjoying it but the twins were not wellied up and were getting hungry.

It started to rain just as we left so we pulled into the carpark of the gardens nearby where we were planning to have lunch and ate our picnics in the cars instead. It had eased off enough for us to have an hour in the gardens wearing waterproofs afterwards though so that further wore the children out and they had a great time pretending to be explorers and leading us through all the paths and different areas.

We arrived home not long before Ady and the children played some complicated game with the Bob the Builder toys, megabloks and geo mags which kept them quiet while we got ready to go out. Did a fair bit of random educational stuff yesterday actually, lots of talking about the plants and flowers, their colours and scents while at the garden, and lots of chatting about the various fruits and veg at the pick your own place too. Davies also did some in depth car ed asking me about why we yawn and why we cough and how we do it.

Parents arrived on time, and we were away only about ten minutes later than planned. Picked up Joyce and Bob and were at the pub well into our first drinks before Ros and Tony arrived. Ros was looking newly blonde and lovely, Joyce did casual chic and I did cleavage! Another drink at the pub and then a short stagger round the corner to the restaurant.

A fab place, thanks for introducing us to it Ros. We used to eat somewhere with a similar principle in Worthing years ago although it was Australian themed and always had a really good time there too. Wine and conversation never stopped flowing, much of it I don’t recall anything about other than we all laughed a lot. Some pictures have been added to the when Joyce came set on flickr.

We left there shortly after 11, staggered all the more for copious amounts of alcohol, stood on a corner saying emotional goodbyes to Ros and Tony and then we dropped Bob and Joyce back at their campsite with further emotional goodbyes. Got home around midnight and had achieved that state of inebriation where it is probably best for yourself and all around you that you just go and find somewhere to sleep as you are probably not quite as hysterically funny as you believe yourself to be 😉

Woke this morning with a crashing hangover – first one I’ve had that bad for quite some time actually – I blame that lurid coloured cocktail I had at the end 😉 Scarlett had been awake since about 4.30am but Ady was not sleeping anyway due to worry so he came down and sat with her and she fell asleep again on the sofa just before he came to wake me up. He’d run me a bath (bless him!) which I leapt into to wash the smell of pub and restuarant out of my hair and then Dad arrived to mind the kids while I took him to hospital. Both kids were still asleep so hugely confused when they woke up to find Dad here and convinced that I had not actually come home last night!

We spent the car journey both trying not to be sick – me through hangover and Ady through fear! We sat in the waiting room listening to all the other people waiting having odd waiting room conversations then Ady was spirited away to be booked in. He came back for a while to wait with me in his dressing gown, paisley print hospital gown and slippers rather than wait on his own and then they came to take him to the knocking out room so I summoned all my remaining energy and managed to get to Tescos nearby. Quick text chat with Ros confirmed she too was suffering and a half hour wander round the brightly lit air con haven that is Tescos buying soup, chocolates, flan case for a summer fruit flan with picked fruit from yesterday and other soft treats for Ady saw off the hangover 🙂

I then spent a further half hour moping round M&S next door wishing I was richer, taller, thinner and altogether more waif like and could afford and look good in all the boho, sequinned, linen and floaty stuff they sell. Must be getting old when I crave the lifestyle that M&S marketing gurus have sold us you live when you shop there 😉

Got home and had only just put the shopping away and made a cup of tea when the hospital rang to say Ady would be ‘ready for collection’ in 15 minutes! Went to fetch him and was surprised that his cheeks had already swollen to hamster with fifteen sunflower seeds each side proportions 🙁 , after being given painkilling drugs and aftercare instructions he was allowed to come home.

He has sat and chatted with my Dad for a bit, eaten some lunch, taken some painkillers and has now gone off to bed. Dad’s gone home and I am attempting to catch up on two days worth of emails and blogs while encouraging the children to do something quiet, non messy and without squabbling!

The Willy Wonka thing is being taken quite seriously here. Even more so as we didn’t realise there was a channel five weekend going on at the same time as we were watching the movies on dvd! We watched James and the giant peach on Saturday and then I bought Willy Wonka cheap on dvd (presumable due to the new movie being released soon and this one about to be defunct) which has been watched ever since. Probably for the best though as I don’t know what he would have thought to The Witches. I believe we have Matilda kicking around on video somewhere and I know we have several of the books from charity shops.

Davies wants to make a model of the chocolate factory which if we end up staying in like I plan to Thursday and Friday (whilst I run up and down the stairs tending to my ailing husbands every whim!) we might do in an ambitious way with papier mache or something! I’ve turned up this site during some googling which might also have some interesting stuff to do on it.

I remember borrowing a massive heavy hardcopy book of James… from the library when I was about ten. It got renewed about four times while I read and reread it several times and learnt by heart the poem (song in the film):

For dinner on my birthday, shall I tell you what I chose?
Hot noodles made from poodles on a slice of garden hose
And a rather smelly jelly made from armadillo’s toes
The jelly is delicious, but you have to hold your nose!

from which I can quite possibly trace my love of nonsensical poetry 😉

Further blog bumping today in the shape of Ali (not literally in the shape of Ali in some sort of chalk outline drawing of a dead body on the pavement, that would be silly!) and Freya. Quick dash to the bank and we managed to arrive at their house while Ali was still not, erm, quite fully prepared for guests 😉 So I made tea while she sorted that out and admired the clock her and F had been making before we arrived. Lunch was a walk round to the local shop for ready made sandwiches and the children had great fun going in and out of the garden, playing with F’s toys and generally enjoying themselves. They brought us in snails, slugs and bees and learnt a bit about each one in doing so. Davies had us all smelling lavender and roses along the way to the shop and they later called us out to see how they had made ‘snow’ and ‘winter’ and ‘Christmas’ in the garden with some white chalk on the wet ground. This prompted Ali to dig out a Christmas tree which was then set up in the lounge while Davies had us close our eyes and wait for him as Santa to come and deliver all sorts of presents. We played jingle bells on a keyboard until they discovered a particularly irritating version of Bananarams ‘venus’ on the demo bit and the keyboard was relocated to F’s bedroom. They were later eskimos in an igloo tent and there was some very creative play going on in the sandpit, so imaginative play fully ticked off there for today.

Both D & S excelled themselves in genius with Scarlett annoucing that ‘A is in Freya and Davies and Ade (as in Daddy)’ she meant the sound a rather than the actual letter but she is indeed correct – blimey! 😉 Not sure who was most impressed really; me, her or Ali! Davies then appeared during a conversation about school and measuring our children against their schooled peers. I was telling her how Rachel’s E has the task of writing both his names and saying the number above and the number below each number between 1-20 out of orde (as in what is one above 6? what is one below 12?) which I didn’t think Davies could do and everytime I tried to test him he said he didn’t want to do that. He walked through so I asked him what 9 minus 3 was. He thought very carefully and answered 6. I’m pretty sure he actually did work it out (you could see his eyes moving about as his brain ticked 😉 ) but he said he had just guessed when I questioned him as to whether he just ‘knew’ or whether he had to work it out. Ah well, stops me worrying for another couple of weeks anyway 🙂

Ali and i managed lots of chatting on a variety of topics including our school days, older brothers, siblings, writing, pregnancy and baby choices, business, Home Ed, learning processes, blogging and loads more. I really like spending time with Ali as we almost always end up spending loads of time congratulating ourselves on how great we are 🙂 She is always full of compliments for my children too which is always nice to hear! So that was nice.

Got home and Davies was just desperate to make a hedgehog like the long departed Kevin of my youth so I got out oranges, tin foil and cocktail sticks for them both and they made a Kevin each – they then decorated them with beads, jewels (they were quite bling interpretations of Kevin, he has clearly made it big in the rap industry or professional footballing since I knew him!). They’ve watched Willy Wonka again twice today and Davies is now in bed reciting random bits of the script to himself – if ever he needed a reason to learn to read it would be so he could learn his lines! He has also taught himself the Oompa-Loompa dance and most of the words to the songs but he could have worse role models than Charlie Bucket 🙂 My worry is of course that Tarly will then feel obliged to choose one of the other characters to role play and end up as Verucca ‘I want it NOW’ Salt or horribly precocious gum chewing Violet Beauregard – or go in a very different direction and decide to be Grandpa Joe or Willy Wonka himself!

Ady came home early which as usual seems to signify the end of my patience with the children and the start of my shouting so they got yelled at a fair bit between bathtime and bed. Scarlett was late to fall asleep and Davies is still up in his room Oompa-Loompaing but as tonight is a designated no-wine night I am practising alternate methods of winding down – so, if homepathy works by treating syptoms with small exposure to the causes (or is that how you treat snake phobias by making them touch the snake (assuming of course the phobia is a snake and not heights, otherwise the prescence of the snake would be utterly pointless unless it was a very very tall snake and you had to climb on its back)) maybe I should be doing things like trying to install a new printer cartride, driving behind old people doing 22mph in a 60 limit or be forced to sit watching people with no children parking, quite openly, in parent and child designated spaces at the supermarket.

Stuff to get done this week includes:

some writing – which I might manage to make a start on tonight although I fear my muse of dry white being absent may make it less than creative
sorting out the playroom – the Joyce preparation meant lots of things got put into storage boxes, which look very tidy but do very little for making stuff accessible to the children
sorting out money stuff 🙁
having a bloody good night tomorrow with Joyce and Ros and menfolk
being a Good Wife to Ady as he recuperates from Wednesday onwards
doing some sort of special powers type stuff to encourage fine weather conditions in the Reading area this weekend!

Has been my reason for doing really very little today. I woke up yesterday morning with a bite on my ankle and one on my wrist and assumed they had been from being out in Ros’ garden on Friday evening, but I have woken up this morning with several more so I assume there is something horrid and evil lurking in our house instead 🙁 I had a really bad night’s sleep as I was dreaming that Candle, one of our cats had gone mad and was biting and scratching me and wrapping herself around my lower leg – woke up at 6.30am with Scarlett and found that the ankle was really swollen, very itchy and all red and angry looking 🙁 The other bites are not so bad but my ankle appears to be getting worse instead of better and is starting to feel all sore and tight (hurts to walk on it).

We’ve been at my parents today and Mum wanted to take me to hospital but as I think the average waiting time in casualty is about six hours unless it starts to turn black or my foot falls off I will wait until the morning and go to the docs instead. Have bought up half of Boots antihistime spray, cream, a little electric shock gizmo and sat with a packet of frozen peas on it. Googled to try and find some miracle cure all kitchen cupboard remedies or to find some hideous pictures of swollen and mis-shapen limbs as results of midge attacks but have not really turned anything up to concern me unless I become breathless. But surprised that no one else has been biten, even Ady, particularly as I am now convinced the culprit is in our bed but Ady’s theory is that they are attracted to my high blood alcohol levels and as such he is safe! As such I intend to lay a miniature trap tonight baited with kebabs and tikka masala to catch them all. In the morning they will all be groaning for alka seltzer and muttering ‘tell me I didn’t drink that much blood, someone please tell me’ while the more restrained of their number (cos there is clearly a tribe of the buggers) will be all smug and retelling how they were singing ‘show me the way to go home’ til 3am, laying mouth upon under a steady drip of my blood adn shedding clothes, dancing on our dressing table and telling random other stranger bugs how much they ‘reeelly reeelly loved’ them. I hope those smug sober ones had cameras with them and have compromising pictures of the greedy buggers with which to shame them into biting someone else less inebriated tonight. Bastards!

Ady is convinced this is a ruse to get out of playing nurse maid to him later in the week when he is all toothless 🙂

In other less gruesome news the kids have been introduced to the delights of Willy Wonka and the chocolate factory by way of the Gene Wilder version on dvd which was a fiver in Asda yesterday and Scarlett has been wandering round all day singing ‘oompa lumpa, oompa lumpa!’ while Davies is taking the morals side of the tale very seriously and discussing the various fates befallen by the greedy, rude and naughty children at every given opportunity 🙂 Ooh it’s a veritable Roald Dahl feast here at the moment (James and the giant peach the other day and now Charlie and the chocolate factory – I think we have both books somewhere from charity shops so maybe it’s time to dig them out and start reading stuff to him which doesn’t get finished in one sitting).

Am missing Joyce after nearly 48 hours apart – will have to get used to it again though – sigh! Ros and I have promised to ring her for three way phone chats every time we get together in future but this does mean she will have to carry Pimms in a hip flask at all times to fully join in with long distance socialising – wonder if that will prove tricky at her work? 😉

Scarlett has just been discovered naked and fast asleep on her bedroom floor – she slept through being put into nappy and nightie and plonked into bed 🙂 Davies is rapt infront of Verruca Salt wanting it now! and Ady is getting roast beef organised. It’s been a very quiet, non eventful (potential loss of leg below the knee aside!) weekend which was probably exactly what we needed. I have just looked through my diary until the end of August and we are away for three of the weekends, it’s my Dad’s birthday on another of them and then we are on holiday for two weeks at the beginning of September so we should probably enjoy the peace while we can grab it!

Tomorrow we are supposed to be at Ali’s (ankle permitting – will ring you in the am if we won’t make it Ali) and Tuesday we had planned strawberry picking with Julie, Jack and Maisie but looking at the weather forecast that may well not happen. Tuesday night we have grown up blog bumping with a meal out with the Screamteam and the Westwater adults and then of course from Wednesday onwards we will be on teeth watch to see whether he is recovered sufficiently to make the journey to Reading at the weekend (bet we are both on antibiotics and have to keep Layla company in enforced teetotalism!).

was very much in order after our manic week this week. It was my turn for a lie -in which I enjoyed until just before 1oam which possibly accounted more for my lack of hangover than the hardened drinker status I offered to Joyce as a reason 😉

We did have vague and half hearted plans to get to Brighton early this morning for the Dr Who exhibition on the pier but that was not to be so we mainly bumbled about really. Ady cleared out the cupboard under the stairs (home to the chiller and other various assorted crap) which unearthed things pounced upon with delight – me a pair of bright pink birkenstock alikes I had been looking for since May, and the kids some magic colour changing pens which I had clearly stashed there as a result of some drawing on walls misdemeanour last time they were brought out.

I made lunch, Davies watched James and the giant peach on dvd and then I headed off to Asda for some food shopping while they played in the garden on the new water slide and did gardening. Ady has cleared yet more space to turn to lawn by hacking down another of the hedges – we have encouraged hedges to grow around the perimeter for some privacy (those who have been here will understand what I mean by that as our main garden is infact the front garden with just a smallish strip running round the sides and the back of the house) for the years we have been here but now we are starting to value space over privacy and lopping them back a bit. Read an article in Junior about fantastic kiddie gardens and am now hankering after a daffodil maze and a raised platform with a playhouse, a flying fox and a non drownable but fun to play in water feature!

Davies stayed in his pjs all day – only coming out of them to have a bath and put on a clean pair, Tarly as ever was naked for most of the day. Oh, we’re so free range! 😉

Pottered in the garden with the kids when I got back while Ady finished what he was doing with garden power tools, we played snakes and ladders for a bit until I got fed up with Davies’ constant determination to ‘play it my way’ which basically involved throwing the dice, ignoring what it said unless it meant he climbed a ladder and having at least three goes to my every one! Then got out some paint pens and paper and Scarlett joined us in doing some of that in the garden too. They had tea out there and then I dragged them in for a bath and they were packed off to bed.

Dinner was cobbled together from remnants of barbecue food, I’m back on the wine after a week of alternate pimms and abstention, I’ve totally lost track of Big Brother and my phone has never known such frantic text activity. I will be back reading blogs again next week -probably. Although I will also be doing the whole concerned and caring nursie role too after Wednesday when Ady braves the surgeons knife for his wisdom teeth.

is clearly very very late nights for small children while grown ups get very very drunk 🙂 result is everyone sleeps through the night (well I think the children do, but if they don’t we are too drunkenly unconscious to care or be disturbed by it!)

Almost bored of saying we had another lovely day today, but actually we did 🙂 First thing we hot footed it to Jenny’s for business related chat and children communing in the back garden with the two kittens proving a huge hit. Tarly later asked me ‘where Fergus?’ and Davies proclaimed that he ‘loved Carys’ so that was a popular destination obviously! 🙂 Jenny and I even managed some fairly proactive business chat in amongst the general chat which was also lovely – how lucky I am to have so many good local HE friends (and I know HE does not have to be a prerequisite for friends but it is nice!) with the kids all getting on as an added bonus 😉 Had lunch there and as a result of Tarly disgracing herself just as we were about to leave (running late anyway) re her nappyless status (involved a mat, two nappy sacks, a chucked out pair of pants and at least half a packet of baby wipes – not nice!) we arrived at Tumble Tots for the last session of the ‘school year’ late. We dashed in – Scarlett and I – and joined in and had a whale of a time as it was an unstructured, go wherever you want type of session – I went to call Davies in and found him sitting reading a Dr Seuss book with Julie – the main TT2 lady, she then brought him in and he joined in with the end of the session. They finished up with parachute play which both my two love (practically the only thing they miss about TT1 actually) so that was great. I then smuggled Tarly in for most of Davies’ session which was in a similar unstructured vein and ended with more parachute play. I did try to combine good parenting with texting but my battery died so that was the end of that!

Somewhere inbetween classes I managed to have a chat with Julie – the in charge lady about last week and my concerns about Davies’ behaviour. She was totally reassuring that he is lovely and a normal typical boy but also understood where I was coming from and assured me that next ‘term’ he would be treated very differently as he goes up a class, most of that particular clique will not be in his class anyway and they are more into a gym type class without the action songs and so on that are part of it now. So feeling better about that 🙂

Got home to find Ady had delivered one of these and set it up in the garden in our absence so that allowed me to change all the beds and pack up supplied to take over to Ros’ house while they were distracted. He arrived home shortly after us and we were on the road only shortly after we were supposed to be there 😉

Arrived to find Joyce, Bob and Hannah and a new HE contact already in situ so poured my only alcoholic drink (designated driver) of the evening prepared to make it last. Tony was cooking up a storm on their barbecue and our meat turned out to be totally unrequired (hospitality being one of Ros’ many qualities!) Davies was lost into the midst of chez Scream Team almost straight away but Tarly was in a clingy mood having slept all the way there and complaining of a hurting tummy so Ady was to get no respite. 🙁 He quickly decided he would not drink which of course enabled me to do so 🙂 In honour of his great sacrifice it would have been rude not to fully make use of this so I proceeded to keep topping up Joyce and my glasses with wine! Those of you who’s mobile numbers I was capable of recognising through my haze before my phone died again would have gotten some sort of incoherant text from us at that point! 🙂 There was a video text recorded too but I am not sure whether anyone would have actually received that!

Drank steadily until about 10pm, Ady and I both made a show of ourselves by having a go on the trampoline (there is photographic evidence of this – if Ros is cruel enough or indeed if I am looking suitably gravity enhanced in any of ours you may yet get to see it!) before the feeble cries of our offspring to ‘go home now, pleeeeeeeease’ finally wore even me down and home we came. Ady now asleep, kids fell asleep on the way home and I am not long for my bed myself.

Somehow we are managing to fit ‘everything’ in at the moment (although keeping the kids up til 10pm is probably helping 😉 ), I am feeling like we are getting a bit of educational stuff in, they are doing stacks of running around and socialising and I am staying calm, sane, stress free and enjoying being with friends too 🙂 Long may it last – I am not even spending much money!

Spent a short period of time catching up on some of the blogs – have not been round to all of them yet but I’m getting there! Davies was busy in the playroom constructing some sort of city with emergency vehicles, cars, lorries and so on. Tarly wandered in with a box of dominos I had bought half price from ELC yesterday (they are colour coded and numbered) so I showed her how to play and she very quickly got the hang of that. Then Davies appeared so we played a game all three of us and I left them playing it together while I went to get dressed. (I later saw at least two other games going on with various children today so that was a wise £1.50 investment!). They also did some drawing and Davies did a bit of writing to label his pictures, I had to call time on that when he got the glue and glitter out to decorate one and Tarly got hold of it when he’d finished – the carpet still has a disco feel to it when the light catches it right 🙂

Gathered them both up to whizz to the supermarket for supplies for today and tomorrow night’s get together at Ros’ and they behaved like angels as I grabbed meat, salad stuff, fruit and tortillas (if Joyce goes home with just one memory from Sussex it will be that we all use a lot of chemical cleaning products and eat loads of tortillas washed down with Pimms!) My phone had died battery wise last night and I’d forgotten to charge it up so had to go without it which was quite strange given how much texting I’ve been doing of late.

Hung washing out, made pimms, made sandwiches and hoovered up a bit more glitter before Ros, Buzz and Boo arrived. We ate most of the sandwiches (with a little modification 😉 ) and made an admirable start on the Pimms before the Westwaters arrived bringing Pea with them. Kids proceeded to get naked, sandy, wet and grubby, Bob set off for some serious cycling while Joyce, Ros and I continued with the Pimms and the tortilla chips and the chatting. The topics of conversation got gradually more bizare and random and probably not repeatable even if I could manage to capture the beginnings and ends of them to write them down anyway! Slightly subdued by the news from London which meant a few phone calls to check on loved ones before we continued.

Ros took her brood off to do karate in the sea (!) Ady had arrived home so he sparked up his barbecue, I did some titivating with skewers and salads, made a fruit punch creation as we’d run out of Pimms and had a slight to do with Tarly when I had to forcibly remove her from sitting under Ady while he was cooking – she did bring me a peace offering flower afterwards mind you :-). An early end to it tonight as everyone was tired and had probably peaked at about 4pm with a conversation about space orbiting sperm (you had to be there!), we’ve done some tidying, kids are asleep, I’ve finally got all the clean washing I’d been hiding in places away from Joyce’s eyes put away properly and tomorrow is another, equally manic day 🙂

Lije’s shorts – finally found today in the playroom ‘somewhere’

Tilda’s swimsuit – brought from deep in the garden somewhere by Tarly and identified at Tilda’s by the Westwaters

Adam’s trunks and pants

Amelia’s hat

Ros’ cake tin

All currently hanging on the washing line having been washed (except for the cake tin which has indeed been washed but is not on the washing line).

Will return as and when we next see families concerned 🙂

Busy old day today. We were at Rachel’s just after 9am for a catch up as it’s been weeks and weeks since we last saw them. Davies wrote two birthday cards before we went out and his writing is really improving. I reckon he might even enjoy some sort of writing type task and he is often checking how a certain letter is written so he can do stuff like his signs. I like Ros’ idea of getting some books for me to write stuff and him to copy and draw a picture in – might have to sort that out when our current social whirl existance quietens back down 😉

We were only at Rachel’s for an hour or so, just long enough to coo and ahh over baby Amber who has *really* grown since we last saw her, listen to Rachel debating school with herself and Scarlett to disgrace herself with not getting to the potty in time literally minutes after I had been saying how well she was doing – oops! Nice to have a catch up anyway and we’ve planned to get together in a couple of weeks to see if Davies and Elliot are able to find something in common to play or whether they really are totally incompatable!

Home via the local shops to get some bread and cakes for Joyce and co to pop over for lunch prior to HE group. Joyce texted me to ask whether I could give her and Hannah a lift to group while Bob went off exploring which sent me into a flat spin worrying about getting the car valeted inside and out, upholstery steam cleaned and glove box cleared of sticky travel sweets and mobile phone chargers for phones we have owned over the last three years (that would be at least five then!). Decided we didn’t have enough time and that as my Dad has always proclaimed ‘third class riding is better than first class walking’ – in other words they would get what they got and like it 😉

Arrived at group and was expecting big numbers today as it was the last group in the venue before summer break and everyone had been very enthusiastic about the theme (we called it Red Indians although I know the pc name for it would be Native Americans) and had lots of ideas for activities. As it happened we had one regular who came with her 4 children, one of whom was having some sort of meltdown and they ended up leaving, which left Julie (SIL), Joyce, Ros, Jenny and me 🙂 so that was nice. The kids were off wearing their indian painted faces by Ros and their indian headbands with feathers and having a whale of a time so the grown ups sat and made dream catchers (Julie’s was easily the best!) and chatted. Very nice 🙂

Dashed home to collect pjs, some strawberries and some alcohol free refreshments and then headed over to Joyce’s caravan where Ros and Joyce and children already were. Ady and Tony followed when they finished work and we’ve had a lovely evening eating fish and chips sitting outside their van. I brought over some scoobies so we sat making those, all kids (and Joyce!) with painted faces and in varying states of undress and rowdiness probably further horrifying the security conscious wardens and upsetting the other campers!

Left as it was getting dark, Davies with Ady and Tarly with me. Both kids fell asleep on the way so were transported straight into bed. Davies had been baby-wiped down and I took Tarly for a splash in the sinks at the campsite but they are both overdue for baths so I might do a group bath with them in the morning.

We had planned to go to Portsmouth tomorrow to see the Mary Rose but as the weather is supposed to be lovely Joyce and Ros are coming here instead for the afternoon. Excellent, more Pimms consumption likely 🙂

An enfored quiet day today, which was probably well needed given the kids have been suffering from lack of sleep and were possibly not up to behaving in polite company anyway 😉

Yesterday the sunny skies suddenly clouded over and rain came down just as we were getting in the car to head over to Joyce’s. Although she is only staying about 12 miles away the route to drive is either along the coast (which at rushhour time is very s l o w) or the A27 through the downs which is also quite slow when it drops back down to the coast. So it took nearly 45 minutes 🙁

Arrived and found ourselves behind three caravans waiting to get in so Ady parked up in the ‘late arrivals’ section and I popped into the office to find out what to do. I was greeted and ‘helped’ by a very official man who told me I had to sign in, park where we were and then walk to their van – with two small children, a picnic table, three bags containing stuff including Pimms! and pjs and stuff for said small children – we were just starting to unload everything when along came Hannah with the security card to get into the site so she jumped in the car and we tried to get in. But alas and alak the ‘red hot security’ was on our tails and the man came along, told us off for attempting to breach park security, tapped the sign saying ‘NO VISITORS CARS PAST THIS POINT’ and even pointed at me and said ‘I just told YOU to park here didn’t I?’ (he stopped short of saying ‘young lady’ but it was inferred!). So very sheepishly we turned the car around, unpacked everything and with Hannah’s help set off for the caravan on foot once more.

Joyce had done a lovely pasta bolognaise, Scarlett refused to eat it on the grounds that ‘I am a little girl’ but luckily there were also sausages on offer 😉 Davies also refused to eat it but Ady and I were I hope, appreciative enough to make up for them! Slightly hysterical moment when Joyce handed me a bag of cutlery with individual covers on each knife, fork and spoon. I started to unwrap them wondering just how to broach the subject of dust covers for cutlery and why we didn’t have any at our house (thinking oh no, Joyce obviously was impressed by the cleanliness of our home, but oh, what slatterns keeping their cutlery in one of those plastic trays inside a drawer!) but she assured me that it was new cutlery and the individual bags could be thrown away and she would not be reusing them 🙂

Weather had cheered up enough after food to dispatch menfolk and offspring to the small play area so Joyce and I could get stuck into the pimms and continue our conversations from Saturday – very nice and very sad that we live so far away from each other in the normal way 🙁 Menfolk and offspring returned for dessert but by 10pm everyone was yawning, all children were in pjs so we called time and set off for home. Kids managed to stay awake all the way home chattering and observing stuff we drove past but Davies literally fell asleep as we pulled into the drive and Scarlett was not long after him.

So we were up late this morning (8am, Ady long gone on his way to Slough by then) and as all three of us were filthy I managed about ten minutes in the bath with a magazine before I got ambushed and we all ended up in it 🙂 Very nice as they washed my hair for me, I washed Scarlett’s using posh shampoo and conditioner and as she let me brush it too it has gleamed and swished today and looked beautiful :-), we had discussions on shaving legs and other body hair and then we all got dressed and headed into town for an hour for a few bits. Had text conversation with Ros trying to arrange some sort of get together but it wasn’t to be, also invited Joyce over but she was using her phone for a modem and it is clearly male and cannot multi task 😉

A quiet afternoon planned then with some reading and maybe a bit of craft planned as Davies wants to make a hedgehog due to overhearing me talking about a tin foil and cocktail stick hedgehog me and some friends had made one drunken afternoon in a bar years ago (he was called Kevin and he was enigmatic but one of the bar tenders put him in the blender and made Kevin juice 🙁 ) and we’d talked about water and I’d tried to explain water cycles to him while walking round the shops so I wanted to get a book out and show it to him illustrated to make sense of it.

Unfortunately as I was faffing around getting them into the house, bringing in the shopping and so on I had a slight accident. There were two pints of milk on the doorstep to bring in and somehow as I reached to pick them up I tripped up the step, fell heavily on top of them and smashed them. I got up, glanced down at my arm which appeared to have a big gash on it and several smaller cuts with blood already dripping, broken glass and milk everywhere and two shocked children watching me all wide eyed from inside the house. I totally panicked, grabbed a teatowel and put it round my arm and rang my dad. Phonecall was something along the lines of ‘Daddy, I’ve fallen and done something to my arm, can you come over?’ and he was here within minutes 🙂

I managed to keep it together until he arrived worrying more about the fact my arm didn’t hurt and that Davies was keeping up a running commentary on the blood seeping through the towel. He got here, looked at the arm, dusted off the glass splinters and pronounced it ok (it had looked bad due to the way I had turned my arm over to see if and squashed it therefore opening it up – it’s actually one cut and a few scratches and although sore is not even remotely serious – blush!) and then set about sweeping up and hosing down the steps.

Came in for coffee and spent the afternoon here which was very nice. 🙂 He left and we did indeed sit down and read some books including two on water which amply explained and illustated water cycles with evaporation, condensation and so on, sorts of clouds, why the sea is salty, how water is treated and got back to our taps and how water can be liquid, solid or gas too. So that was science well covered 🙂

Ady arrived shortly afterwards and struggled to keep a straight face at the extent of my injuries 😉 he made the kids some tea while I read some more to them and then to bed they went. Davies was still awake at gone nine mind you. He went up to bed wearing the space man helmet from his dressing up box and wanted an Usborne Beginner book on life in space, we then read the one about Knights and he was sitting up in bed ‘reading’ more when I peeped in at 9. Oh well, at least he was resting!

Tomorrow is another mad day, round to Rachel’s first thing, then Joyce and co for lunch, then onto Home Ed group where several of my social circles already crash and bump together anyway. We will have me, Jenny, Joyce and Ros off the blogring, mixing with Julie my SIL and Vickie from TT2 among others. It’s our last session in the hall until September so hopefully it will be a good one. I have prepared absolutely nothing for it (oops!) so will no doubt be dashing about like a loon for most of the morning.

Off to bed as totally wiped out and as ‘somebody’ decided we are having at least 3 alcohol free nights a week from now on I have not even had a restorative glass of anything tonight to buoy me back up, so sleep it will have to be 😉

We’re not, but it feels quite holiday-esque this week with all the socialising with people (some of whom are indeed on a summer holiday).

Probably won’t be blogging again later today as we’re off to Chez Westwater on the road in a bit where I anticipate further Pimms drinking 🙂

We’ve been to some butterfly gardens this morning on an Activeo trip – organised by Julie. Chris took time off work to come too which was really nice, in particular because him and Julie kept an eye on Tarly with Jack and Maisie while I spent some time walking with Davies and chatting to him a bit, so he got quite a lot of educational value out of the trip really (just as well, as at seven quid entrance for me I think it was quite overpriced). We talked about the butterflies and the caterpillars, we looked at the various flowers in the gardens and talked about their names and scents. Then we had a picnic lunch before walking round the rescue centre there.

They seem to take in pretty much any small animal and have a very eclectic mix of creatures nestled next to each other (sort of a car boot sale feel if you will!) so we talked about tortoises rabbits, guinea pigs, chickens, geese, goats and then went into the reptile bit and looked at iguanas (like Isa Mummy, I was told by Tarly who had caught us up by then), bearded dragons, snakes and various other unwanted exotic pets. We covered quite a bit and reinforced a few other concepts such as nocturnal animals, reptiles and mammals and some of the differences between them, animals who hibernate, how long certain animals live, what their eating habits are, what sort of predators and threats they may have and so on. Really enjoyed it 🙂

Both kids fell asleep briefly in the car on the way home, which is not a surprise really. Having been up til 11pm on Saturday night and awake again by about 8.30am yesterday I had thought they would go straight to sleep last night after running around in C & Js garden all day, but no! They have clearly decided that actually lates nights are the way forward so they were both still awake (although in their beds) at gone 9pm last night. The plus side is S is sleeping through the night I suppose! 🙁 Both of them have been behaving really well considering they have the default excuse for bad behaviour well and truly under their belt though, so it was probably no bad thing to have a quick nap to refresh themselves so they don’t show us up at Joyce’s later.

Think that’s about it really. I do have some educational speculation to do at some point but that can wait for now 😉

we’re not, of course, but I love what this will do to Chris’ blog 🙂

Saturday

Further am tidying in the pre-Joyce preparations although there was rather more making of industrial strength pimms and potato salad than there was of hoovering or dusting. I got the kitchen looking like some sort of outside catering headquarters (and started tasting the pimms as soon as the clock chimed 11am!) while Ady emptied the garage into the garden including a mini trampoline to bounce out of the front door onto, parasols, gazebos, slides, sandpits, paddling pools and various chairs and tables. Kids were in their swimsuits by 9am and pretty much naked and stayed that way by midday 🙂

A late night email exchange with The Portico (as they were on their way out to buy the HP book) resulted in a mid morning confirmation that they would also be coming along too.

Joyce, Bob and Hannah arrived around midday bearing wine, an electric coolbox crammed with meat and Lush for me 🙂 They set about integrating themselves into the family by Hannah joining in with splashing and sandpitting, Bob and Ady talking football and caravans and me and Joyce getting stuck into the pimms 😉 I paraded Joyce round the house, drawing her particular attention to the cleanliness, tidyness and excessive levels of organisation in specific areas. Scarlett then came and shattered this illusion of 50s housewife somewhat by coming and opening one of the ‘un-Joyced’ cupboards in the kitchen and setting free an avalanche of cups and plates but other than that she assured me she was impressed. I think I might have scared her rather by showing her the colour coding system for Ady’s underwear 😉

The Portico arrived (much anticipated by Hannah – who had been a perfect example of autonomy and learning through life earlier by impressing us all with mental arithmatic when we were bemoaning the price of bottled water at the Will Young concert compared to the price for a crate at the wholesalers!) and further added to the drinking, cavorting naked (children only I hasten to add) and general socialising going on. Ady cooked, Chris took photos, Bob tickled and teased children, Alison, Joyce and I mainly drank Pimms, Tarly and Buttercup wandered round naked, Davies and Ernest dressed up, ran round with swords and ended up cuddled up together watching a film, Gwennie and Hannah played shops and had some sort of karaoke contest judged by Violet, who was mostly to be found singing herself, reading her HP book or writing notes several of which I found later saying things like ‘I Gwennie Portico will do whatever Violet Portico says if she gives me 10pence’ which I assume she was intending to get Gwennie to sign and adhere to 😉 Like her style!

We ended the evening drinking rose wine while Chris consumed the last 10% of his one tin of beer he had nursed all day (designated driver) with a small firework display which was perfect in it’s beauty! 😉 A hunt for lost items of clothing and other belongings before waving everyone off home precluded our two literally falling asleep the instant their heads hit the pillow (it was 11pm – some 4 hours later than their usual routine dictates 😉 ) and the Pimms catching up with me quite suddenly (realised I had been drinking for 12 hours by then!). We were just about to retire for the evening ourselves – I was doing a final kitchen tody up while Ady cleared the garden up a bit (Joyce is here for a whole two weeks, we need to maintain this level until she leaves!) when there was a huge crash and some sort of dramatic car accident was going on just outside our house. Not sure whether it had collided with a pedestrian or just come off the road but it looked nasty (did not go for a closer look – far too traumatising). It just so happened that three cars behind it came an ambulance which turned its lights on and started sorting it out. Half an hour later when we went to bed there were at least seven emergency vehicles, the road had been closed and they were revving up the cutting out of a car gear so I imagine it was not a happy outcome 🙁

Today

The perfect complement to yesterdays busy day. We were at Chris and Julie’s shortly after 10am for me to go along to her weekly trip to the car boot sales. (Chris goes at 7am to get all the real bargains!). My first time and I admit to going with more than a trace of snobbery about it all. By the end of it I was indeed a fully fledged ‘booter’ and had haggled, walked away, thrown down people’s once cherished possessions with sneers and filled three carrier bags with various stuff all for under a fiver 🙂 Julie said it was great going with me as I have a ‘writers eye’ and was providing an amusing commentry throughout – including instigating a video watch where you got points for spotting the obligatory copy of Pretty Woman or Roy Chubby Brown which you just knew would be nestling in every box of three for a fiver videos. We are thinking of making it a regular thing and creating laminated Booty Lotto cards to tick off when you have seen stuff. Things like exercise sundries such as dumbells, tummy toners stretcher things or rollerboots jostled alongside jigsaw puzzles in carrier bags with labels saying ‘compleat’ ‘make me an offer’ and ‘bargin’ and the stall holders varied from giving you a life story attached to each inanimate object ‘my son loved that, one of his favourite toys. Ah the happy memories of his face on Christmas morning when he opened it, how he brought it everywhere he went for three years and it’s in every photo we’ve got of him. Give us a quid for it?’ ‘yeah I’ll take 50p’ to the ones who tried out a bit of Albert Square type banter with us ‘mornin’ ladies, lovely day. Everything in that box just 50p, can’t go wrong for that love can you? Can’t go wrong’. My personal favourite was the one who was flabbergasted that it was my first car boot sale and gave me a sort of born again car boot seller type speech about how all he ever bought new from shops was pants nowadays ‘see these jeans? see em? bought em for 50 pence I did. the wife spilt her tea on me earlier and you know what I said? What did I say Majory? I said at 50 p a pair you don’t need to wash em, we’ll just chuck em out! Didn’t I say that Majory’ Majory assured me that he did indeed say that and that car booting had changed their lives. Wonder if they have any sort of patron saint?

Back to Chris and Julie’s for barbecue lunch and usual sitting around chatting while kids played afternoon.

As we were leaving my parents rang my mobile to ask where we were and came over to us to see the kids for a bit. As anticpated they have lurked until offered dinner so I am now off to enjoy said dinner.

A quote I once read somewhere which stated that even as the ship went down the ashtrays were still being emptied on board and the band continued to play – sort of what has been going on here really…

We split the house – Ady got kitchen, playroom and lounge, I got bathrooms and bedrooms. In the morning we still have sofa cover changing (me), playroom completion (me), oven cleaning (him) and final kitchen swab down (him). I started in the en suite bathroom and found myself putting away a few bits of make up then starting to go through my make up stash and chucking out bits and pieces I’ve not used for a while. Why? Surely if Joyce did start going through a storage chest of drawers inside the en suite loo off of our bedroom after escorting her from the premised for being a nosey bint (in the manner of Harry Enfield’s bloke in the pub ‘oi, Westwater No! You might be a highly respected member of the blogring with a documented nice arse, the most popular child for adopting in the event of you and your husbands untimely death and possibly the best career of the lot of us but if you were to come round here, poking around in my make up stash and judging me for having mascara older than your daughter I would cast you out onto the street whether or not you had finished eating your potato salad!) the last thing I would be concerned with was whether she had judged me for having mascara older than Hannah?!

Disclaimer and apology here to Joyce for using her in such a way for comedy value, but I know she’d not only forgive me but feel quite comfortable doing the same back to me 😉

So Ady and I have been doing some bizarre parody of Big Cook Little Cook and saying stuff to each other like ‘have you cleaned the surfaces?’ ‘yes, have you bleached the loo?’ together ‘ all clean and ready for Joyce!’

The fact is that having never been here before the scratching the surface stuff we have been doing until gone 10pm tonight will not make one iota of difference to her opinion of the place, but it was a bloody good motivator to get the place licked into shape a bit, which is was very much in need of 🙂

Forgot to mention earlier (although I have recorded it in the pages stuff down the sides in my ‘when he was four’ roundup on Davies) that we had a chat about God and religion and stuff earlier in the car. Not sure where it came from but we were talking about who would die first. I said I hoped I would as it would be nicer to die of old age before my children. He got all sad and asked a bit about what happened next so I told him a bit about Heaven and a bit about reincarnation. I explained that I don’t believe in God and I am not really sure what I believe happens after we die but I am more inclined to think we might be reincarnated as I don’t think our bodies are what we are, more what’s inside and that I think that is our soul and can easily be inside a different body. We talked about people who think that they have lived many times in many bodies and had many lives. Scarlett who was sitting in the back of the car eating a bag of Quavers and seemingly paying no attention suddenly piped up with ‘when I was a little baby, I was inside your tummy Mummy’ which freaked me out slightly! Davies said that he thinks he might believe in God actually. I am pleased in that at least I have managed to achieve my aim of giving sufficient information to allow him to take all the information on offer and come to an independant decision but worry that he does see this as more of a children believe in Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy and grown ups don’t type example – hey ho!

Really looking forward to tomorrow – Ady and Bob have been in the same place twice now (briefly at Melrose and then again at Kessingland) but actually failed to meet at either so it will be nice to get them together and force them to talk! And I can’t wait to have some time to chat with Joyce either. Weather is supposed to be lovely and we do like playing host and hostess 🙂

Lounge – needs all hard surfaces dusting, sofa covers changing, pile of stuff beside each sofa finding a new home for.

Hall – coats need shoving somewhere as many of them are unlikely to be worn for abour five months! Shoes need putting in shoe box, bookcase needs a tidy up and all books sitting infront of it slotting onto the shelves.

Tarly’s room – Bed needs changing, surfaces need dusting, toys need a quick tidy up.

Playroom – desk needs excavating! surfaces need clearing back into the units below.

Kitchen – window sill needs a wipe down, oven needs cleaning.

Bathroom – sink and bath need foam blast cleaning, stuff on surfaces needs putting away, towels need refolding, windowsill needs dusting.

Stairs – need a hoover!

Davies’ bedroom – surfaces need dusting, bed needs changing, toys need a tidy, books need to come out from under the bed and into the bookcase

Our bedroom – clean laundry needs putting away, bed needs changing, surfaces need dusting, stuff on top needs a home

en-suite – sink needs cleaning, shelves need some stuff chucking (shelves of sanitary protection now redundant due to mooncup need chucking / giving away / selling on ebay! 😉 )

Yep, in less than 24 hours Joyce will be here!!! And the place is long over-due for such an overhaul anyway. As soon as I have finished sitting here trying to summon up the energy to do so I will get started on it!

Off to Ali’s house first thing to finally drop of Freya’s birthday card and pressie which seemed well receieved 🙂 I had planned to simply run in myself but the kids were insistent that they *needed* to give it to her so we ended up staying for about an hour. I met J, kids played in Freya’s new sandpit and bounced on her new trampoline and I sympathised with Ali’s hayfever. Brief but nice 🙂

Realised we simply were not going to make it home in time for lunch and had already chucked their TT2 t shirts in the car so stopped at a garage for sandwiches to eat in the car and drove straight there.

Scarlett did pretty well considering the heat and added distraction of not wearing a nappy. As next week is the last week of TT2 for Davies – he becomes a Gym Bob in September when they go back after summer break I thought I’d sit in and watch his session. I was slightly disappointed to see he is actually sitting with three other little boys (the ones he runs around with before they start the session) and they are being quite disruptive. Davies was no more or less to blame than any of the other three but I was a bit disheartened by it. I don’t know whether I am deluding myself slightly on his behaviour or whether as this is actually his only experience of being in a group without my controlling presence it is unfair to judge him on it but I noted that the women split the four of them up into different teams. Whatever the reason for it, it makes me all the more relieved that I *do* control most of his time with others and that I won’t be learning at a parents evening next year that his education is being compromised and his behaviour is considered a problem in a classroom situation. Made me realised that I could so easily be waving off a child I considered to be a little angel each morning to terrorise teachers and other children while learning nothing and then coming home and being lovely again!

As I was loading the children into the car (and giving him a bit of an ear bashing about not messing about and paying attention in future!) the woman parked behind me appeared and asked if I was Home Schooling (she had noted my EO car sticker and written the number down off of it). She said she had looked into it before she had children and could we have a chat about it sometime. I explained that my two are still pre school age but I am LC for Sussex for EO and run a local group so even if I couldn’t help with practical experience I could certainly point her in the right direction or give her relevant information and reassurance. Will obviously talk about it more next week.

Right off to start that tidying…