One word? When seven would do…

and now I know 🙂

Ady’s just done a mad dash to the shops to get a lottery ticket for tonight cos the shop round the corner’s machine had broken down. We stopped doing the lottery last month – we used to have direct debit and do five lines a week and I have not really given it a thought, but Ady likes to dream of lottery wins so the NYE one was too attractive a dream for him not to get a lucky dip!

Which set me wondering… do you play the lottery? Do you already have a plan about what you’d do if you won? Would you want publicity? How would you deal with begging letters, friends expectations, family? Give it to the church? Be interested to hear other’s views…

I’ve already done my round up and I don’t do NY resolutions so this is just a round up of today rather than anything monumental.

I popped out to Sainsburys this morning to get a few bits to see us through the next few days – and some more alcohol for tonight!

Called in to see my parents on the way home and invite them over for dinner tomorrow – it’s their wedding anniversary. They declined as they already have arrangements but somehow wangled an invite over tonight. We had known they might try and were semi prepared for it so i was able to lay down a few conditions 😉 (for my dad, no lectures, no patronising and no talking over the TV about what rubbish it was if we chose to watch something! For my Mum no coming over and being all miserable and depressed! They need to bring their own beers and remember that they had requested our company not the other way round!!) felt much better for that 🙂

Came home and have been drinking snowballs all afternoon so am already feeling drowsy!

So, the children have been up since 5am and will no doubt be asleep very early tonight, we have got M&S ready meals so no one has to cook dinner and if I manage to stay awake I will be drinking champagne all night to see out the old year and see in the new one that I have high hopes for.

Happy New Year one and all – look forward to spending 2006 in your virtual – and in many cases real life – company. 🙂 xx

These are a few of my favourite things…

A cuddle from Scarlett, a hot mug of tea
My shiny new laptop, a Will Young cd
Heat magazine full of celebrity chatter
Oh yes I know the things in life which really matter! 🙂

and we never got any snow to play in here 🙁 Yesterday at Drusillas there was barely enough to scrape together a snowball (although I did and chucked it at Ady just as he bent down to set up the camera for a self timer shot and in a never to be repeated fluke of a shot it went straight down the back of his neck! 🙂 Oh how we all laughed! ;-)) and today it has simply not stopped raining all day.

I’d had one of those night’s sleep where you are haunted by all sorts of wild dreams and wake up more exhausted than you went to sleep, I’d spent vast amounts of the night awake and finally fell asleep to a dream so vivid that I woke myself by shaking my shoulders with pretend sobs (I was crying in the dream) and then found I really had been crying and my face was wet with tears. All very odd! Took a while to shake off that really and we had planned to get out and about early to take the kid shoe shopping but decided against it looking at the weather.

Davies and I made up a kit of a replica eye and spent some time looking at stuff with it and reading the accompanying booklet with lots of eye related information. Then we did a couple of the suggested experiments and I also showed him how pupils shrink and grow in light and dark and we talked about how it is even more obvious in our cats’ eyes.

Then we headed over to Chris and Julie’s for a couple of hours. Managed a catch up and round up of Christmas with them and then we decided to brave the rain and nipped to Bognor to get new boots in Clarks sale for Davies and new wellies for both of them. There was nothing remotely suitable for Tarly although she does need new shoes – only 3 pairs in the shop in her size, one was a hideous pair of boots, one was a pink shoe with a vile brown patch and sequins stitched on, one was a very pretty pink and purple style with ribbons – totally impractical for January and they did have some black patent ones with little cut out holes which I rejected on principle as I so don’t want them to have black shoes when they don’t have to 🙂 Black shoes are for school! I’m still coming to terms with her growing out of her gorgeous Boden knee high boots really :-). We’ll sort her out next week sometime.

Just as we were leaving a woman stopped me in the street. I would never have recognised her but she worked for me part time when I was the manager of the Clinton Cards in Bognor. She was delighted to see me with a child holding each hand as I had sworn I would never NEVER have children back then ;-). It was really pouring with rain so it was a brief chat but nice to see her. I was stunned to work out it had been about 8 years ago I was doing that job, which possibly explains why she looked so different – 8 years is a long time bringing up teenagers!

Came home via McDonalds. I do very occassional online surveys for a company which pay in luncheon vouchers so I always use them for Happy Meals and they’d come through about a month ago but not been used, so the kids were very happy with new wellies and Happy Meals. Davies was less happy that his present was a Polly Pocket the same as Tarly’s but he got over it!

Bizarrely we now have Davies asleep but Tarly is still downstairs being noisy – I have a plan for a hot bubble bath, a pampering with my facial sauna and face pack, a large glass of wine and something spicey with chicken Ady is planning to cook. Can’t be bad 🙂

2005, the best of times, the worst of times…

This year has cemented for me that Home Education is the right choice for our family. It has proven itself to me over and over again in watching my own children, the other children I know who are Home Educated and also the children I know who attend school. Listening to education in the news and talking to parents has confirmed what I think I had already felt that education is not something that can be seperated from any other area of development or indeed life in general. I have been as educated as the children this year, I have probably learnt more this year alone than in all my years in school I’ve learnt is that there are no experts on Home Ed it has been nice to speak with confidence on the subject and know that I have actually helped or inspired.

The various camps and get togethers have been huge highlights of this year for me too. I can hardly believe that this time last year I had only met a handful of the bloggers briefly in London and was still looking forward to meeting everyone properly at Melrose. Melrose, Kessingland, Hesfes, Okehampton and indeed our own Halloween party attended by a lot of our HE friends were fantastic experiences for all of us. There were times when they were a process (to nick a phrase or concept from Joyce!) too but one which I am glad we underwent.

The beginning, and indeed the end of WAG – the local Home Ed group was a steep learning curve. Again one which I am glad I participated in and one which I am still evaluating what I learnt from. I would not even go so far as to say it is something which I would never do again as I still think it could have been something better than it was, but for now I can see other priorities for my time and energy. I am keen to get more involved with a couple of the other local-ish groups in 2006 and see whether there is scope for bringing one in particular slightly further in this direction geographically while remaining under the umbrella of their organisation – after all, why reinvent the wheel eh – unless it’s got educational value as an experiment! 😉

It’s been a milestone year in particular for Davies who would have started school this September. By now he would have been entrenched in the institutionalisation that that would have brought, dressing like 100s of other children for 5/7 of his week, asking all his questions of someone else and be used to being known as one of a number rather than the individual he so clearly still is. I can think of nothing about that to mourn the loss of really and as yet neither can he. Long may that remain! Educationally he is probably about where he would be in school anyway, he has the rudiments of reading and is starting to spell out words, he knows all his letters and numbers and is experimenting with adding and subtracting as he goes through daily life. He can write quite well – either copying or with me telling him which letter to write next, so literacy and numeracy are probably about on track anyway. Rest of his life wise he has grown up a bit this year, aside from occassional bouts of clinginess there is very little trace of the baby he once was or indeed the very needy toddler he was. He is now a ‘real boy’ and in the company of other small boys he exhibits all the classic behaviours he would be showing in a playground! He is sensitive and has a very strong sense of fairness and justice. He still adores his films and plays games inspired by them for hours, he loves drawing and is getting more and more proficient on the pc or the laptop although x box and PS are still a bit beyond his comprehension. ;-). This year he has gained skills in making friends and has clear friendships with a cluster of boys and girls who he would choose to spend time with over and above others, fortunately I like all their parents too! 🙂

Scarlett is pretty much on track at just three for where I imagined she’d be back when she was just two. She continues to be independant, charming, bright and challenging! I actually think Home Education is equally as right for her as it is for Davies but for rather different reasons. She is a very different child to him and would offer a challenge to any teacher or educator in that she is headstrong and not only is unprepared to fit into a mould she would likely throw it across the room and stamp on it if you tried. A school environment would have one of two effects on her – she would either be marked out as disruptive and indeed live up to that tag, or she would be crushed, brought into line and have her spirit broken until she conformed. One of the things I have always most celebrated about their children is their uniqueness, their ‘Daviesness’ and ‘Scarletticity’ and I never want that to change. She is also very into her drawing and creates recognisable representations of things with very accurate colouring in. She has learnt to copy letters to ‘write’ and does so very neatly and precisely. She can recognise various letters already and the sounds they make, she can also recognise a few letters and count reliably to 10 and with assistance into the teens. She is very articulate and has a large vocabulary which she uses to full effect! She also has a good imagination and is often to be found playing either with Davies in one of their pretend worlds or playing alone with her dolls. She enjoys resources like jigsaws, plastic animals and building toys such as blocks and sticklebricks. She likes things like beads to thread and her fine motor skills are sufficiently developed that she can do a fair job on painting her own nails! 😉 She has also in the last few months started to view other children as playmates and there are three or four particular little girls who she adores and speaks often of so I hope the importance of girlie friendships is being covered for her without the regular contact of school.

It would be very easy to fret about failing the children in some ways with the autonomous route we’ve chosen for Home Education. I sometimes do struggle in observing them and seeing that they are clearly both bright and could well be hothoused to academic success. Should I be pushing them to achieve more faster and using the ‘advantage’ of one-to-two ‘schooling’ that so many people percieve to be a plus for HE? I am still inclined to think that if they do have genius potential in any area then it will out itself and they will be asking to be pushed really, I look at the mathematical or musical prodigies we have amoung our number and realise that it is the children asking for yet harder maths puzzles to solve or pushing for more challenging pieces of music to practise. I hope I pay enough heed to the children to recognise when they are asking and provide accordingly, for now I can’t hear them asking for any more than I am offering.

So that’s my educational round up of the year – it’s been a good one!

I don’t really have any specific goals for next year. I think we have as many resources already as we can afford, store and are likely to need so no wish list there; I think we are already covering the socialising and mixing and mingling very well; I think they are probably both on track to be at reading and writing levels age appropriate just be carrying on as we are and I think by the popularity of Christmas gifts which involve imaginative play, arts and crafts or team games and competition we already have our recipe for life and learning mapped out for us. If we do get looked up by the LEA then I am happy that we have rudimentary plans in place for an Ed Phil, my blog posts to review and pull out evidence of basic education to hand and happy, healthy, intelligent children to demonstrate the success of our choices. Of course this could all change and by February you could be reading my blog post pondering which elements of the Sonlight catalogue to save up for. 😉

So, the rest of the year has been a bit of a blur really. Our lives seem to be, and infact are, very busy. We seem to have plans every weekend, at least four things scheduled in for every week and to have been away from home for many many nights during the year – the overnight bag now has it’s own toothbrushes and toiletries packed at all times! We have been to Scotland, Dorset, Devon, Cornwall, Suffolk, Berkshire (several times!), Yorkshire, Cambridgeshire, Cheshire, Warwickshire, Wiltshire, West Middlands and probably more besides. And I love it! 🙂

This year has definitely been the year that I have found some of the best friends I have ever known. Most of them are through Home Education in some way although we do still have friends who are not in that circle. We have felt accepted, loved, wanted and important and shared some tears and much laughter with people who I hope I will know for the rest of my life. It has been a priviledge to be a support to friends in need and an honour to have friends there for us in our own times of trouble. I hope 2006 is a better year for us all and there are many more happy times ahead of us to share. There have also been learning curves and casualties in that virgin territory of making and developing friendships and I think I will always carry a bitter taste as a result. I have realised that with friendship comes a certain level of responsibility and that for some people playground mentalities still remain. They do not for me and perhaps the only lesson to be learnt there is to ensure that others realise the level of honesty they are subject to and are aware that there is no more or less to my personality than what they are seeing infront of them and they either like that or they don’t. And if they don’t there are ways of dealing with that as an adult!

Ady and I have had what I suppose could have been considered testing times this year although they have not felt testing and have actually brought us closer together than ever. I know I speak for us both (which I frequently find myself doing 😉 ) when I say that our sheer amazement and joy at having found each other and being able to share our lives with each other is something we both wonder at frequently. We end this year more determined than ever to ensure that our priorities of enjoying our lives, our children and every opportunity we can grab are met in the coming year and beyond. Sometimes having nothing to lose can be a very positive state to start from and hey, money can’t buy you love!

I think this year has been very experimental for me in some ways – I entered it with life still categorised for me as areas of my own life and personality and feeling that perhaps the balance was not quite right in some areas. I end the year feeling that Nic is more than the sum total of mother, wife, friend, job title, daughter, educator and that actually in the same way that I have decided the children do not receive an ‘upbringing’ or an ‘education’ they are simply ‘living’ perhaps I really am just ‘Nic’. For that I am feeling slightly less torn and tugged in different directions and able to see how actually several areas of life can be made better all at once. I have some plans, I have some ideas, I have some more dreams. If they happen you’ll know about it, if they don’t then they were not meant to and I won’t mourn for them anyway.

So there you go, tragedy or lottery win aside I can’t see how my state of mind will be much altered really. I’m happy. Next year will no doubt brinlg it’s own challenges and chances – hope I get dealt lots of interesting ones and I hope I am able to recognise them when they come a-calling and grab them with both hands!

My turn to get up early this morning and early indeed it was before 6am! Watched TV cuddled up with both children for a while and then they decided to go into the playroom, Davies to play Zoombinis and Tarly to watch him and do some painting – she produced a very g ood likeness of a cat! 🙂

We had a few things to get done today like a couple of parcels in the post of ebay sales, getting the car taxed as it runs out on Saturday and taking a pair of trousers back I’d bought for Ady which didn’t fit so after a very lengthy defrosting of the car before we could set off we did various bits and pieces on the way to Drusillas. Almost a free day out as we went in Ady’s car with company paid petrol, we have season tickets for Drusillas and Ady packed sandwiches which we ate walking round. 🙂

It was really quiet there, probably the quietest I’ve ever known it and although the sun was weakly shining it was bloody freezing! The children actually enjoyed looking at the animals for a chance without being jostled along by crowds and some of the monkeys were on top form performing for a small audience – one in particular wanted our sandwiches and kept banging on his glass to get our attention, gesturing to the top of the enclosure and then dashing up and reaching his arm out in the hope of being passed a bit. Very responsibly we didn’t give him any food and he then got all cross and was gesturing to us slightly differently which I imagine indicated his disapproval! 🙂 Amusing if a little uncomfortable…

Tarly suddenly decided she was too cold at that point and started to demand all sorts of attention, carrying and so on which as usual when Ady is around she was given! Sher perked up for a short while and then started again just before we reached the playground area, which ironically was what she had been making a fuss about wanting to do, but by then it was too late and she just wanted to go home.

She proceeded to reiterate this in a fairly noisy way for the next hour! Most of it was low level and I was insistant that having been talking about it for two days Davies would not have his time cut short by her making a scene so he had a play on most of the stuff and then Ros arrived. 🙂 Lovely to have a brief, catch what you could over Tarly’s wailing catch up with her and the children and also Loretta and Clint and children who were also there but it became apparant that we were coming to the end of our visit when Davies appeared in tears having been told to leave an area of the park by some idiot there with his daughter because I had told him he didn’t need to take his shoes off on the trampoline at this time of year FFS there was SNOW and FROST on the ground, he is only a little kid and he doesn’t bounce hard, the place was EMPTY anyway and who died and made him trampoline law enforcer?! For a change I was very restrained and managed not to let myself down by shouting or swearing – I was loud enough to attract the attention of all other parents there as I marched Davies back over to establish exactly what had happened and why on earth a grown man thought it OK to reduce a small child to tears and send him our of an area of the park. Given by his fairly shame faced responses and the fact I know that Davies is not a liar and is quite capable of taking a telling off from another adult on the chin if it is deserved (as I am sure anyone who had cause to try and stop the gang of boys running up and down the corridors at Okehampton roaring could confirm! Not once did he come in tears to me about that 🙂 ) I felt very Lioness protecting her cub about the whole episode!

Having spent the last four days playing with the real stuff playdoh they’d got for Christmas Ady has been wanting to buy some more of the trade name stuff and wanted to call into Argos on the way home as they have 24 tubs for a tenner which the children have Christmas money they could spend on. But when I put this to Davies he said that although he likes the readymade stuff he prefers the stuff we make cos he can choose the colours and the scent and also it is softer and squishier! So a tenner saved we came home and made ten different colours of geranium scented stuff, probably costing about 50p in total. 🙂

It actually sat on their tables infront of them pretty much untouched as it happens as they both got caught up in Stuart Little and then their tea and a bath, so that’s ready for playing with again next time. I don’t know, home made playdoh and the cardboard boxes from the presents seem to be more attractive than any mountain of plastic we’ve ‘invested’ money in for previous Christmasses! 🙂

Just had a chat with Davies about time difference around the world and how it is already tomorrow in Australia – we were talking about it being the start of a new year this weekend and he asked how that would work in Australia because it is summer there now and of course I’ve been telling him that it is winter at the beginning of the year, then spring, then summer, then autumn and the year ends with it being winter again! See, it does go in and get processed more than you think! 😉

Wondering about a virtual NYE chat for anyone home and online on NYE actually – just a brief one around 11.55pm, although I won’t promise too much myself incase I end up asleep or too drunk to type or something! 😉

I did have plans for all the things we were going to achieve for this week and thus far we seem to have achieved none, but we’ve done lots of lazing and just being together which is very probably far more important than working through the house room by room decluttering really! 🙂

Had a lovely evening last night. Scarlett went to sleep and was therefore blissfully unaware that we’d gone anywhere. Davies sadly was less thrilled at our departure and tried all his full repertoire of tricks to get us to stay from imagined tummy ache to full on begging and grabbing at my ankle :-(. He was fine by the time we actually left and thankfully it was my Dad who arrived to babysit and is far calmer in the face of a wobbly child than my mother who regresses to toddler mentality herself in such situations!

The pub we met Miranda and Harman in was less than half an hours drive away and a real traditional village-y style pub, infact just the sort of establishment I have often imagined myself stood behind the bar at serving regulars in cleavage revealing tops, but that’s a whole other blog post! So we sat and thawed infront of a real fire with a drink and waited for them to arrive. Food was lovely, I had venison, Ady had duck -all washed down with a very nice bottle of wine, excellent company and plenty of laughter. I do like being grown up for short periods of time ;-).

Predictably we talked ‘shop’ with Miranda as usual offering me exciting career opportunities I have no chance of taking all the time I am A Home Educator (and no, as exciting as the latest offer was I was not in the slightest bit tempted to consider it!), although this latest one is the most exciting in a while so I may well ponder further how practical elements of it would be to do around the children.

As the wine bottle rapidly emptied and some very elaborate desserts were brought out (mine was a profiterole with alcohol flavoured filling piled on a plate with icing sugar dustings, raspberry sauce drizzles, a massive cloud of spun sugar and a jug of hot chocolate sauce…) frivolity ruled and conversation turned to all sorts of weird and wonderful topics such as Miranda inviting me on a girls weekend away on a Mills & Boon novel writing course weekend with some of her posh friends and inevitably Home Education. What I adore about Miranda and Harman is that she is so very posh but slightly embarrassed by it which makes for huge piss taking opportunities and he is so very blunt and dry despite English being his second language (he is Dutch) that he and I can be on a completely different level of taking the piss out of her that she is still blissfully unaware! 🙂 Lovely, lovely people and so often misunderstood and pussy footed around that they find us refreshing company in that we utterly refuse to be sycophantic to them even when she was paying our wages. A very mutually satisfying relationship! Miranda also staggered me by presenting me with a beautifully wrapped birthday present way before I’ve given any thought to hers (her birthday is 4 days after mine and normally I am super organised and she is not – this year I got my birthday gift in about August!) and then despite the fact we had squirrelled away enough cash to pay for the whole meal over the last month Harman snuck away before we finished desserts and settled the bill – so a real treat too! 🙂

Today I had a yen to get out and about as the children who are very used to being out most days are starting to get boisterous and in need of physical exertion – it was not to be in the end though as Dad arrived mid morning to go logging with Ady as we have burned all our stocks (now nicely restocked again for a couple more weeks though) and ended up staying for lunch. When the post came it brought the first of the straggling Christmas cards from our friend Jean – ex of Bruce who visited last week and as I was hanging the card up with the rest my mobile rang and it was her! She arranged to come over this afternoon.

While Dad was here I took two phonecalls from various creditors, which is the first time either Dad or Ady has witnessed such calls. Ady and I had chatted a bit on the way to the pub last night about options and plans from here on in and so Dad was brought up to date with a few ‘if this happens then we’ll do this, if this happens then we’ll do that’ type discussions. I’ve always been of the opinion and belief that opportunities show themselves to you and it is up to you to take them – I think we are on the cusp of another such occassion just now although quite what it is is yet to be revealed.

Did some further lazing around, the children played with playdoh lots and Ady did some tidying. 🙂 We made some of the jigsaw puzzles the children had been bought for Christmas – the children did a Disney Princess one of Scarlett’s and then I sat and did a UK map one with all sorts of attractions and natural wonders type things highlighted. When I had nearly finished the children became interested and helped me finish it off and then we sat and looked at all the places and talked about all the ones we had visited and all the ones we’d like to visit. We plotted the locations of some of our friends dotted around the place and where certain things were in relation to other things. So plenty of geography covered there!

We also tried to make a start on Thank You cards but as the children both started asking who had brought certain favourite gifts and then answer was ‘Mummy and Daddy’ for most of them they ended up starting on cards for us first! But they did do some drawing, writing, painting and colouring. There was also a fair amount of playing with Davies’ collesseum and Tarly’s doll house and we had a game or three of Buckaroo and Kerplunk too.

Jean arrived, predictably late and laden down with pressies for the children (more games, Doctor Drill for Davies which is a sort of Operation style game with teeth to be removed with tweezers requiring a steady hand or you’ll set off a buzzer) and some sort of bashing with mallets game for Tarly which I’ve yet to look at but the children enjoyed fairly noisily! Lovely to see Jean actually, although Ady and Bruce have been friends for about 25 years Bruce and Jean got together about a year before me and Ady did so by the time I was introduced to Bruce they were already a couple. They are both 52 and have children my age and grandchildren older than D & S but Jean and I have always gotten on very well sharing a love of gettting drunk and being silly as we do! We were really sad when they split earlier this year and although Ady of course is supportive of Bruce I felt very sad at the prospect of not seeing Jean any more so I was thrilled when she made contact a couple of months ago and we’ve had a couple of phone chats.

Jean headed off just as the children were having tea, they both went to sleep fairly easily, we’ve enjoyed our first ‘proper home cooked’ dinner of the week and our first alcoholic drink we actually really wanted to drink rather than felt we should because it was Christmas (!) and watched Lost which I realised I am going to feel quite bereft without when it ends soon.

Tomorrow the plan is to head over to Drusillas – snow and ice making driving a foolish idea allowing. So wrapping up warm and heading out for some fresh air and perfectly acceptable running around yelling because it’s outside rather than off the walls of our rather small abode is on the agenda.

Right, this was supposed to be the brief ten minute blog after Lost, before going to bed and it’s become fairly epic, so I’ll bid you all good night while it still is night and not morning.

Everyone feels better here today – thankfully! Not the case over at my parents apparantly where Frazer is suffering, so glad we didn’t go over there today!

Infact with the exception of me braving Tescos for some essential bits and pieces (stuff like Christmas cake which we’d not bought any of, some alcohol and so on 😉 ) we’ve stayed in all day. The children have not got out of their pjs – infact I’m about to change them into clean ones so they can go to bed, they have played really nicely together today, explored pretty much all their new toys, played loads with playdough, done some crafty bits, been on the pc a fair bit, done loads and loads of role play stuff and are currently acting out Willy Wonka while watching it – brought back all sorts of happy Okehampton memories watching them do the Oompa Lumpa dances 😉

Me and Ady have sat infront of the fire, chatted, watched River Cottage loads (it was an all day River Cottage day on one of the sky channels) and pondered different life situations lots, I’ve played online marble solitaire and finished uploading all the photos I had stored on cds to flickr and into sets.

Tonight me and Ady are off out for a meal with Miranda and her husband who are down staying with her parents for Christmas. Really looking forward to seeing her and it will be nice to be doing something grown up for a couple of hours too. Sadly the children were really rather traumatised by my Mum’s dramatic performances last week when she babysat for us so we’ve not told Tarly and I need to get her to sleep before my parents arrive, Davies has been bribed with watching a dvd in bed – something I never normally allow! I’m not even sure which of my parents will come as Mum was saying one of them would have to stay home to ‘look after Frazer’ so hopefully it will be calm here and not hysterical children as we leave!

I’m sort of aware that I have not mentioned anything very educational on this Home Education blog for a while – and when you’ve got as many blogs as I have you do need to make efforts to mention something pertaining to the subject matter of each! Education has, as always been happening around us but the time of year dictates it is focused on what’s going on really and so some of the lessons have been more about being grateful, gracious, polite and behaviour modification rather than the three Rs. Into which you are welcome to read that the children have possibly not been at their best and I have been doing rather more sighing and eye rolling than usual – but I am more than prepared to make lots of allowances and fully expect them to shake down again once all the festive madness has abated!

I did think about doing some New Years stuff but the winds of change are blowing a gale around here and there is still alot more discussion, debate and outside influences to be taken into consideration than simply blogging what 10 things I’m going to change in 2006! I am planning a round up of this year, but I’ll wait until the weekend. Early January is always an odd time for me as once my birthday is gone that is all the years celebrations finished in a fortnight, I am left a literal year older with a whole new year spread out before me like a clean page to start writing on and this year more than any before it has all come at the same time. But for now, as ever, when I do the health, wealth and happiness tick boxes I am happy to report that both the two which really matter are ticked and that is all that really counts.

Not sure if it is Christmas come-down kicked in already, a less severe bout of what laid Ady low yesterday (he’s much better today if a little delicate) or just a case of too much sleep but I’m sat on the sofa in pjs, listening to my new Will Young cd, looking at everyone’s flickr snaps (come on those who have not yet done so!) and feeling quite sorry for myself.

I went to bed at an unprecedented 8pm last night, fell asleep instantly and stayed that way until Ady woke me at 7.30, he’d been up since about 5.30 with Tarly so he crawled back into bed until about 11, most sleep we’ve had in years! 🙂

Me and the children further investigated their presents including playdough, paints decorate your own money box kits. I then had a bath enjoying the peace and reading my Heat magazine with relish! 😉 Then we headed over to my parents.

I was not really in the mood for it, the children were fairly unruly and really just wanted to come home and play with their new toys, Ady sat and watched football with Dad and Frazer, Mum was huffily doing something to the turkey remains so I sat there bored and cold (my parents house is freezing) so we came home again around 3pm. The children have played more with playdough and we’ve sat chatting and speculating on what other people’s Christmasses would have been like and maybe wishing we’d been there!

We’re both planning some big hopes and dreams for what next year might bring – change being the key feature of all of them I think. 🙂

Happy Birthday to Tiegan.

Hope your day is filled with love and laughter in the tinsel 🙂

We’re home again. Ady started feeling unwell this morning and was being ill by the time we arrived at my parents. He did manage a very small Christmas dinner but was looking pretty crap and feeling worse so it seemed a bit crazy to stay there the night on a very ‘make do’ sleeping situation when we only live a mile away and the reason for staying there was so we could both have a few drinks, if he was not drinking anyway.

That aside, we’ve had a lovely day. The children were up at about 6am – well Tarly was up before 5 actually with her first of three tantrums of the day – she’s doing a lot of asserting herself lately that child! But we refused to start Christmas officially until Davies woke at 6 when I got up too.

Their faces were pictures at all the presents under the tree, they spent ages unwrapping and oohing and ahhing, then me and Ady spent ages unpacking, making and inserting batteries so they could play. Hits include for Tarly a Tarly size dolled, predictably christened ‘Scarlett’ and currently sporting the dress she wore herself for Christmas 2003, an ELC soft stuff jewelry kit and a wooden circus, for Davies a roman colleseum complete with Romas aplenty, a soft stuff construction vehicle kit and a matchbox haunted house thingy. We also got Tarly an Ikea dolls house way back earlier in the year when they were reduced to 7 quid and that has been popular with them both.

We headed over to my parents around midday where the children had a couple more presents each including a remote control car paid for by Frazer, chosen by me and actually purchased by Ady which has been by far Davies’ favourite gift of the day.

Mum did a lovely Christmas dinner, albeit with plenty of drama and sighing, we ate that, had a few rounds of Kerplunk – another popular gift, and have headed back for home. I *think* Tarly is asleep now, Davies is very close to it, I fully anticipate finding Ady crashed out on the sofa and I am already in my pjs. I think it will be a very early night all round!

Had a very Christmas Eve-y Christmas Eve so far today and it’s been lovely 🙂

We spent most of the day at Chris and Julies while the four children ran around in the state of excitement that only four small children on Christmas Eve can achieve. Julie and I drank mulled wine and there were mince pies made (and not even by me! She trumped me by using home made mincemeat – something I will try myself next year, but I won as she used readymade supermarket pastry!), we listened to Christmas music and sang along, we reminisced about our earliest and our best Christmas memories from childhood – which is strange to be doing with a pair of brothers who had never heard, nor featured in each others, so a little poignant there. We left there around 3pm, drove home and managed to see 3 sets of neighbours outside to wish Merry Christmas . I wrapped the last of the presents and then the children wrote in my parents card.

We all had baths (I shared mine with both children), the children opened their traditional Christmas Eve gifts of festive pjs, which predictably Tarly flatly refused to wear ;-), we left out mince pie, carrot and red wine (run out of brandy!) for Father Christmas and Rudolph, Tarly is asleep already, Davies is very close and Ady is off to collect my parents in a minute for our traditional Christmas Eve evening of indian takeaway and lots of drink at our house. We’ll be putting all the presents round the tree, sprinkling flour to make footprints from the fireplace and hopefully making it to bed with at least four or five hours before the children are awake again!

We’re off to my parents for the whole day and night tomorrow, so I’ll be back online again on Boxing Day.

And as I did make it back again before the event I will take the opportunity to wish you a Merry Christmas one and all once more 🙂

Happy Birthday to Joseph from Classroom Free – hope you have had a lovely day 🙂

which would be the opposite of the Christmas Staff Do, which is what we attended last night.

I have done many a Christmas Staff Do in my time; I’ve done sit down, buffet, no food at all. I’ve done dressy, casual, somewhere inbetween; I’ve done posh venue, trashy venue and on one memorable occassion multi-venue (the original venue was crap so we all decamped to someone’s house instead – all 70 of us!). If I wasn’t going out in half an hour I might try and list them, each year since my first – which was when I was just 16, so I have 15 years worth with several years attending of two (one my own, one Ady’s) – but I’ve a feeling that might be a lengthy blog post!

So last night’s was at a fairly posh hotel, happily just down the road from us. Even happier one of Ady’s colleagues (the pheasant dealer!) picked us up and dropped us home. We both wore black suits – Ady wore a shirt and tie with his, I wore cleavage and glitter on my nails – we were going to take a self timer photo so you could all enjoy the Nic & Ady do festive feeling for yourselves but the children both had fits about us going out so it was a bit hurried and harried in the end!

Mum arrived crying after a row with my Dad, Davies looked confused and bewildered to be left with a wailing woman in charge and Scarlett was refusing to come out of her bedroom (apparantly she did slam out of it a short time after we left and continued her protest in the bathroom instead! They were both asleep by the time we came home at 11 and neither seem too traumatised this morning though!).

We did the whole battling our way to the bar for overpriced drinks (£3.60 for a coke!!!!) first and then found the least drunken and offensive people to stand next to until we were called through for our meal. Lots of the others were staying at the hotel and had been there since lunchtime drinking (the men) and applying layers of make up, glitter and tinsel and gradually easing themselves into dresses they would like to be the size the label said! (the women). Ady’s not used to everyone not already knowing who I am so he was a bit rubbish at introducing me and my response to ‘and this must be your wife?’ was ‘no, I’m from an escort agency, his wife’s at home with the children!’ was met with odd looks from most people – except one man who ran with it to such a point he was still leaning across the table during dessert two hours later to make comments like ‘oh yes it’s a blonde woman on the picture on his desk’ – I wished I’d had some fake business cards made up actually as I think he would have been interested in the escort agency himself!

Food was lovely, I had plenty to drink, the very attractive man who works there and is the Anti-Ady – dark, dangerous and probably never hoovers – was happily not sat next to me so I couldn’t indulge in that misguided sort of flirting one does when imagining you are not just drunk and loud but really are the most attractive person in the room sparkling with wit, intelligence and the reason everyone is looking at you is because they are just jealous! The combination of lots of food and lots of drink led both me and Ady to a parents of young children slump around 10.30pm so we came home just as the ‘youngsters’ were filling the dance floor to YMCA!

I’d meant to do some sort of equivalent to last year’s nativity on the blog and never did get round to it – I might try and do something for New Year instead.

If I don’t make it back to blog again before I hope you all have a very, very Merry Christmas. Enjoy the challenge of getting your excited children to bed tonight and the magic of watching their faces tomorrow as they open their presents. Whatever it is you celebrate at this time of year I hope the meaning of Christmas is realised for you. xxx

which is nowhere near as silly as the eve of the eve of the eve of the eve of the eve of the eve of Christmas eve type stuff that me and Frazer used to do when we were little!

Had a phonecall regarding finances yesterday which was not the anticipated good news or bad news but just news of further delay – ah well! 🙁

Nipped out to Boots with the children to get a couple of last minute pressies, it was busy, they were awful and I did that hissing type of shouting you do in public but I did manage to get everything I wanted though.

In the afternoon Davies played on the pc – a mix of the NickJr website and a Dora cdrom game. He seems to have clicked somehow with the idea of reading and is quite happily spelling words out to read them and also spelling his name on the keyboard without any hesitation – hands off has worked well for him and he is now doing it because he *wants* to, and asking for assistance when he can’t rather than me standing over him doing it because I want him to. 🙂 Scarlett and I played together although I can’t for the life of me remember at what but I know it made Davies all jealous!

Mum and I headed off to Tesco at 7pm ish to get Christmas food shopping, she’s finishing it off today and it was relatively painless -both in terms of the crowds being fairly small and the paying for it all being down to someone else! 😉 We got back here by about 8.30pm, Dad was already here and Ady cooked up sausage and mash for everyone.

About 1am Davies woke wailing and was sick 🙁 Not at all sure what that was about as he has been fine today and crawled into bed with me and went straight back to sleep where he slept through until gone 8am this morning. He is doing a lot of blinking and twitching and his behaviour is fairly typical of a small boy two days before Christmas really so I think it was probably just excitement and too many chocolate tree decorations!

Today we have had a nice day actually. This morning the children made Christmas cards for Ady while I wrapped all the remaining presents. Davies did a picture of Ady, me, Davies and Scarlett with a snowman and then with minimal help wrote ‘Daddy, Merry Christmas, Love Davies’ really nicely. Scarlett drew a picture of me dressed up as a Christmas tree (a pink one!), a picture of Ady dressed up as a robot, herself as a fairy and Davies as a snowman – fairly recognisable too! Then she copied her name for the first ever time and did an excellent job – it actually brought tears to my eyes to see her first ever attempt – very emotional!

Then we painted a mug each for Granny and Grandad from some kits we’ve had kicking around for ages – Davies did Granny’s and painted the word Granny and an underwater scene, Scarlett did Grandad’s so I painted Grandad and she did some vision in pink, which I’m sure he’ll love. They need to dry for 24 hours before being baked and then I can wrap them tomorrow.

My Dad arrived then and played with Tarly while I made a start on the final batches of mince pies I’ll be cooking this year (about 120 done today, that should last and if it doesn’t then I have no more mincemeat anyway – and if anyone leaves a recipe for one I will delete their comment 😉 !) and Davies played Zoombinis which he has been doing for hours today! Ah well, that’s educational! He’s sitting in the playroom with a Christmas cd playing and singing along to it as he plays – can’t believe he knows all the words to all the songs – clearly an inherited talent! 😉

Ady arrived home shortly afterwards and then David and Jeanette – the Thank You neighbours called over to deliver presents for the children and stayed for tea and mince pies. I realised too late that I have been calling the mother Doreen for ages and her name is Joyce – oops!

We’re about to settle down to watch A Christmas Carol on C4 and tonight Ady and I are off to his staff Christmas party – apparantly a few of them are looking forward to meeting me – this on the basis of being a Home Educator (bit odd!) and that Ady once had me on speakerphone in the office while I was talking to him and broke off to yell at someone about jumping the queue in a carpark (feisty and a bit scary!). Happily the frugal life seems to have meant I’ve lost a few lbs (I’d like to pretend it was stress and worry but the truth is that not drinking alcohol for half the week will have ensure the weight has come off – I was the same with both previous occassions of not drinking – pregnancy, so I know it to be the case. Fact is I’d rather be fat and pissed than skinny and sober, although I imagine the latter is probably more attractive 😉 ) so my nicest dressy suit fits me rather than requiring all sorts of uncomfortable scaffolding underneath – I will be accessorising it with sparkles and cleavage naturally!

I’m feeling really quite festive today – Christmas? Bring it on!

Just to see if it works really!

Had a lovely day yesterday at Ros’ open house. Ady managed to arrange his day so he could pick us up at lunchtime and drop us off at Ros’ then do some local stores to Eastbourne and come back after work. The main benefit of this was not that he got to see Ros and Tony too you understand although that was a happy addition, it was so that I could participate in festive mulled wine drinking! 🙂

I think we were the last to arrive so my two made themselves at home straightaway – Davies dashed off to play with Buzz and co, Scarlett joined me in the kitchen where the cheesy balls and mulled wine were. She did disappear for a while into the conservatory where Ros had thoughtfully provided glitter, glue, paper, card and other festive crafty bits for the children to chuck around the place and cover the tablecloth with! She also played with Pea and Boo lots later in the afternoon which was nice to watch. I spent most of my time there perched on a worktop in the kitchen talking to Let, who as Ros has previously mentioned and I am now able to confirm is lovely 🙂 She drinks and bitches too, so we got on very well! Also chatted to the procession of other HE folk who popped in and out of the kitchen – an ecclectic mix from the charming to the downright odd!

Ros then insisted (although I didn’t take much persuading!) that we all gather in the parlour for singing so we did that which was excellent and then people started to drift away. Ady arrived back and Ros very kindly fed our children (and offered to feed us too!) while Ady, Buzz and Davies watched films on the huge screen and the girls all made each other glittery things. Tony came home and we stayed for a bit more chatting before heading off for home.

Pictures of the day at Ros’ are here.ho

Tarly fell asleep on the way, Davies was asleep shortly afterwards, we had late dinner of curry that I’d bunged in the oven before we left and then I wrapped all the kids’ presents while watching Lost and topping up the alcohol level in my blood which had dipped to a frighteningly nearly sober level!

I then watched a really interesting programme about Live 8 before heading off to bed.

This morning I have been super efficient again – put all the clean, dry washing away, matched up loads of odd socks (in the summer I match them on the line and we never end up with odd ones, in the winter somehow we end up with loads of odd ones, what’s that about then?), cleaned the fish tank out and got another two loads of washing sorted. I’m waiting in for the IVA people to ring me back and let me know exactly what is going on and then we need to pop out to deliver two more Christmas cards and get a couple of bits. The children are playing a mazes game on the pc and exercising autonomy to it’s limits, I have a plan to make some home made sweets later for pressies for my parents so I might enlist their help in that, and in decorating some wrappings for them if we make them.

Tonight I’m going to the supermarket with my Mum to assist in the selection of festive food for the weekend, which I imagine will be a living bightmare! And I think that’s about it!

Right you lot can you not detect sarcasm and irony when you see it?! I’m not *really* a housewife. I’m Nic, you know, Nic, gets her cleavage out a lot, drinks too much and leaves all the housework to her trusty Adybloke.

And as for leaving recipes here I am disgusted with the lot of you! 😉

But to answer your question Merry I use the recipe I was taught by my very old fashioned home ec. teacher at my all girls school (before I went off the rails) which is half fat to flour – so 8oz SR flour with 4oz fat (use stork in foil for pastry normally), sift flour, add fat in small chunks and rub in til it resembles breadcrumbs.

Add a splash of water at a time, mix in with wooden spoon until bonded then knead it with your hands – secret of good pastry is as little handling as possible and to keep it cool, so I bung it in the fridge for 15 mins or so before using. (today I made two batches and then went to paint my nails, normally I would go and sit down and drink wine while I’m waiting!).

Mincemeat is the cheapest I can buy and then in flusher days I used to leave it soaking with brandy and add in chopped nuts and cherries (cheaper to buy them and add them yourself than to buy the luxury mince meat – and feels more authentic!).

I have no pastry cutters but pint glasses make the bottoms and skinny glasses make the tops – or as today I used the forbidden word shapes instead, prick with a fork, brush with some milk and bung in the oven. Drink more wine while they cook.

When they come out I sprinkle icing sugar over them with a sieve which hides any imperfections and gives them the buxom wench feel – serve with more wine! I was even complimented by a small child on them today! 😉

About the only type that suits me really!

Very industrious morning here chez Goddard. I have made 48 mince pies with star-shaped tops which amused the children greatly as they are apparently ‘just like sneetches!’ of the star-bellied variety as described by Dr Seuss! Also made a load of pastry stars for Davies who doesn’t actually like mince pies so I normally make him empty ones – loads of pastry stars sprinkled with icing sugar have delighted him!

Have also done 3 loads of washing and now have some tumble drying and the rest draped artfully round the house – if I add tinsel do you think it will pass as decorations?! 🙂

Me and half the children are dressed – just need to track down the other half of the children and get her dressed too. Have managed to be detective and track down a pub described using directions in an area I am totally unfamiliar with using the wrong name for the pub – book a table there for dinner and get my Mum’s grudging agreement to babysit so we can go out for a meal with Miranda who is down visiting her parents for Christmas – be nice to see her anyway and she is my best chance of employment too!

And it’s not even midday 🙂

Ady should be home soon to transport us over to Ros’ for carolling and Christmassing – looking forward to that lots 🙂

See, nothing to this housewifeliness 😉

Listened to that 13 times in the car today 🙂

For the first time in several weeks the phone has not rung with anyone chasing money and the post brought nothing but Christmas cards and the vouchers for my shiny new laptop which I will be heading out to purchase as soon as Ady arrives home. 🙂

I have spent ages on the phone today though, just as we were leaving the house I had a phonecall from a woman I used to work with years ago. She’s about 60, completely loony, northern and exactly what I would like to be like when I grow up! Spent about an hour on the phone with her catching up on gossip, throwing insults at each other, bitching about people we both know and debating the pros and cons of men and rabbits! Apparantly all she wants for Christmas is a rich and ailing old man to marry! 😉 She told me not to be so bloody stupid about HE and to send ’em off to school so I can drink wine all day and watch daytime TV – and on a bad day she probably has a point! 😉

Headed over to Chris and Julie’s for an Activeo session held there with two other families aswell. The children headed off into the throng and I sat around chatting with Chris and the other two mothers who came. One was the woman who’s little boy always dresses as a girl – she’s lovely as are her children but she is so funny about labelling them and then discussing them at length infront of them. She was debating taking a council flat in a tower block today and saying ‘well it might be awful with all the homophobic beatings that D would be subject to!’. Mind you I suspect if one of my children had quite such an obvious trait I would be inclined to harp on about it all the time before anyone else could too! It was nice to be there with HE folk again though in a group and made me more determined that in the new year I will get more involved in Activeo and try and bring it more over to West Sussex. WAG was obviously not the right thing but Activeo is fairly alternative with lots of automous educators and I notice several new members from Worthing joined when WAG finished so if I organise a couple of events over this way hopefully we can grow that arm of it – all of the socialising and contact making with none of the responsibiilty – result! 🙂

While we were there the children played outside for about an hour, Davies had looked out of our window this morning and seen ice on the sandpit which has no sand and is full of water and wanted to and explore it but I’d said no. So he was delighted to discover ice on the sandpit lid over there and do lots of science-y type stuff with it including smashing it to pieces! So they got lots of fresh air and exercise, plenty of socialising and free – ooh how I ticked those boxes ;-).

Came home via four stops to drop off the last of the deliver by hand Christmas cards – I have two left here now – one for Ros and one for some friends who live the other way which I will probably deliver on the way to Ros’ tomorrow. Listened to Frosty the Snowman another 8 times, I think all three of us know all the words to that now!

Ady has rung me about 20 times today as he was out doing the very last of the Christmas shopping as he was doing Lakeside B&Q today – for anyone who does not know Lakeside is the shopping mecca of the South probably – it’s just the northern side of the Dartford Tunnel and is the destination of many an Essex lottery winner ;-), so was able to brave Argos, ELC and Toys R Us on my behalf :-). He managed to totally finish all our Christmas shopping which is – with the exception of the year I had Tarly when I was organised for Christmas by October in preparation for birthin’ in December – the most organised and stressfree it’s ever been – hurrah for being poor! 😉

As soon as Ady arrived home I headed off to PCWorld to redeem the insurance vouchers which arrived this morning and this blog post is brought to you with my new shiny, so small and pocket sized it looks like something Ros would have laptop :-). Love it! And no it’s not an ibook – I decided I was not in the mood to be learning new operating systems and all and it has been very straightforward to set up – it asked me whether I wanted to connect to the wireless connection it detected and the most arduous task has been copying across the address book from the laptop – which has necessitated a further cull! 😉

Arrived home with my pretty little box to find my mother here making sarcastic comments about how my lifestyle hasn’t changed much considering our new financially challenged state – WTF!!! – shortly replaced by our friend Bruce who had brought over some pressies for the children.

Job list for the week is going well – mince pies to be made tomorrow before heading over to Ros’ for mince pies and carols 🙂 Present wrapping in the evening and then we have two days at home to do present and card making / abusive mother yelling at children to leave me the hell alone while I play with my new laptop!!