One word? When seven would do…

Yesterday was a lovely, lovely day. Huge thanks to Chris and Helen for their hospitality and to all of the other assembled people for their company, entertainment and friendship. I love these events even more than the camps I think – Chris & Alison’s party last summer, our Halloween party and yesterday have all been days I love to look at the photos and remember – and will I’m sure be among our children’s favourite childhood memories too.

I’ve already flickr’d and am eagerly awaiting looking at everyone else’s ‘capturing of moments’ but this is probably my favourite.

It’s a bit blurry and there are many children missing but it is indicative of the many scenes played out in Chris and Helen’s lovely garden yesterday where all sorts of duos, trios and groups of children found themselves games to play together, exploding the ‘socialisation’ myth over and over again.

I had a nice morning getting my hair cut and trying on various outfits before deciding what to wear and then going through the same outfit deciding charade with both children 🙄 Ady of course was easy and wore his usual uniform of Pompey top – and happily it was a good day to be wearing it as their win and another team’s loss of matches meant they get to stay up which pleased him no end 🙂 and appararently secures his ‘pass’ for attending at least two games next season (Portsmouth : Reading and er, Reading : Portsmouth) 😀 😀

Lovely to catch up with the friends we see fairly regularly as well as the friends we see less often, the weather held well, the food was lovely (particularly the trifle, which I can now disclose was made with lamb chops 😉 ) and an ever evolving fruit punch which changed with every glass thanks to constant additions of liquid kept me quite happy. 🙂

We got home about 1am, Scarlett had fallen asleep fairly quickly but Davies lasted until about 20 minutes from home having dealt very well himself with a nose bleed which kept him awake. They were both up by 7.30am so are far from their best today with lots of tears and short tempers although they are trying really hard to play nicely.

Scarlett and I have been food shopping this morning where she managed to persuade me to buy her some flip flops by being very cute and helpful all the way round Tescos. Davies and Ady stayed home and have been in the garden and played Buckaroo.

We’re about to have roast pork while watching Hunchback of Notre Dam followed by a quiet afternoon and a very early night all round.

Have done my photoblog today, but you can find that over on the Monster & Teeny blog where educational stuff happens! I;ve been meaning to d o it all week and either had a bad day or forgotten, but when I caught Davies ‘reading’ to Scarlett this morning I decided it was too good a ‘first thing in the morning’ educational moment to miss so leap in with the camera 🙂

So at risk of repeating myself, we’ve had a really lovely day again, children mostly entertained themselves in the garden with a brief indoor drawing interlude allowing Ali and I plenty of chatting time. I’ve been feeling very ‘up’ generally this week so it was nice to end it on such a high, chatting about a couple of things I’d pretty much worked through but needed an ear to bend about anyway 🙂

We’ve done the second Family Film Night, this time without the sleepover. I think the sleepover idea is an OK one, but possibly better kept for a seperate night to FFN which is already a late night. They were both exhausted after mucho fresh air and exercise at Ali’s and then in our garden too but the film was pretty good and they were both asleep by about 8.30pm which is no later than a fairly normal night for Davies anyway.

I’ve made the jelly, fruit and sponge first layer of a couple of trifles ready for tomorrow and am about to have a bath and then get an early (ish) night as I’m due at the hairdressers at 9am.

Really looking forward to seeing those of you who’ll be there tomorrow 🙂

Had a very, very productive morning this morning. Lots of cuddles on the sofa and watching early morning (up before 7 – urgh!) TV together and chatting about it as we did so and then they were tasked with giving me an hour to get some work done before we went out.

During my hour I got the fourth load of washing in the machine (I know 🙂 ) and hung all four loads out, got dinner cooking in the slow cooker (beef cooked with red wine, oxo cubes beef stock, chopped up onion, lots of garlic, stirred in gravy just before serving to thicken, served with small potatoes roasted in their skins, peas and sweetcorn – and no Sar, we really didn’t have ANY veg the other night 😉 :oops:), did TWO CVs and was continually interupted 🙄 We then had a standoff when I asked them to put the geomags away before we left the house. They had a 30 minute, 20 minute, 10 minute, 5 minute, 2 minute and well you’ve blown it we’re not going anywhere warning. I divided up the task between them to offer accountability and responsibility, encourage team work and offer the chance for individual failure and success (Sir Alan would have been proud 😉 ) and eventually gave up and yelled Very Loudly.

That did seem to do the trick though 🙄

So we were nearly half an hour late arriving at soft play but that was actually A Good Thing as Julie and Lucy had already both arrived, Rebecca had started playing with Maisie and Julie and Lucy had started talking. I’d be lying if I said that Maisie and Rebecca were not delighted to see Tarly and that Julie and Lucy looked slightly relieved to see me, but I think it was good bonding for them all and the six children all ran round together really happily while the three of us really chatted about all sorts of things rather than me trying to keep up two seperate conversations. So that was nice 🙂

We all had lunch there and then went back in for a further play / chat before Lucy headed off. I spied an opportunity for getting a child-free 15 minutes or so in the library by leaving my two under Julie’s beady eye but blew it by telling D&S what I was about to do infront of Jack and Maisie who imediately decided that they wanted to go to the library too, so we all ended up going.

As we walked in it just so happened to be the beginning of Storytime in the childrens area which sounds very similar to the one The Beans attend with crafts afterwards but none of the children were up for sitting down and listening having just left frantic soft play environment, so I had a quick peep round the fiction but it really is a huge library which needs proper planning by going in with a list and having an idea of whereabouts the books might be residing. Davies played on the computer which has this oversized alphabet keyboard and mouse set up which actually I don’t like (can’t see the point really) and Tarly sat looking at books – she loves books that child, wouldn’t be at all surprised if she just teaches herself to read by hearing books read to her once or twice and then working out what each word is from memory – she was doing it with a book we borrowed and Dad and I read to her once each and was pretty accurate with most of the words.

Davies and I sat on some of the cushions for a while and read a couple of Dr Seuss books and an excellent one called When Mum turned into a monster – which I heartily recommend for every mother and child I know actually 🙂 We borrowed that one! We left with a huge pile of books – I think all three of our tickets must be nearing their limit now.

Got back to the car and remembered that I needed to get some food shopping – the poor children were really tired by that point so we went to Sainsburys via my parents and I dropped them and a couple of library books off with my Dad while I nipped off on my own – I was adamant I’d get my childfree time in some capacity today 😉

When I got back Davies had discovered a pair of little Wallace and Gromit figures that my Mum had got him and was full of excitement about it so I told him the phone number for my Mum’s work and he dialled it and asked to speak to her – I was fairly shocked actually, he’s answered the phone a couple of times but never dialled a number and he didn’t falter over any of it – talking quite happily to the woman on the other end asking for my Mum and saying ‘Ok, thanks then, bye’ and hanging up when told she wasn’t there. She rang back about an hour later and came home. Ady joined us on his way home and we had a really nice couple of hours.

The children were exhausted and fell asleep really quickly, I’ve emailed my CVs across, we’ve had dinner and I’m looking forward to the countdown to the weekend. Tomorrow we’re off to see Ali & Freya and then it’s Friday Family Film Night with added KFC tomorrow night 🙂

Got home expecting most of you to be bold in sage and there were only 3 new ones to read – I’m almost reduced to reading the long and protracted conversations on email on the list I always forget the name of where everyone argues about EO! And then I spent ages downloading all sorts of rubbish to try and watch The Apprentice online only to not manage to get it to work and then spot Syed’s face all blocked out with FIRED written across it on the little pictures on the BBC site – so I guess I don’t need to bother watching it after all eh?

So I imagine you are all desperate to hear about my day, given the despicable lack of blogging from most of the rest of you then? 😀

It’s been lovely actually. First thing I did stuff like put washing away and get clean loads out swinging on the line, the children watched some Cbeebies and then some Nick jr and then got bored and wandered off to play in the bedrooms and the playroom – leaving a trail as they went :roll:. I did another CV (which was just as well as another one arrived in the post and I got given two more tonight 🙂 ) and then made some flapjacks and chocolate chip rock cakes by way of compensation for having people round for lunch and not even having any bread to offer them 😳 Luckily they were not expecting lunch anyway (and it occured to me that last time you came for lunch Ros I don’t think I actually did feed any of you other than your own chocolate cake – is that why you ate before you came? :oops:). I’d just about finished that when Ros and crew arrived.

This afternoon has already been mentioned – it was lovely, thanks for coming and thanks for the invite to Adam’s party, already causing excitement and much planning here 🙂

Ady, bless him arrived home extra early and totally took over all of bathtime and bedtime very firmly telling me to go off and get myself ready, so in my Ros -approved outfit, pronounced ‘beautiful’ by both children – although D slightly ruined it by saying ‘you look beautiful Mummy.’ and when I said thank you asked ‘Mummy, why do you need to look beautiful?’.

I was not totally sure of the location of the resturant and whether parking would be a problem or not so I gave myself a good 15 minutes grace for finding a parking spot and wobbling in my high heels to the resturarant. Luckily I didn’t need it, I found it straight away and after going round the block twice a parking space came free right outside, so that was handy 🙂 I then realised that I was still 15 minutes early, had no idea what name the table was booked under and had only ever met one of the people coming before so couldn’t even go in and find the others. So I settled down in the car to carry on reading the book I’d thoughtfully brought with me for just such an eventuality (Garp – really enjoying it Alison 🙂 Far better than Holden 🙂 ) which was lovely.

Dead on 8pm the woman I do know already – Kay – appeared walking up the road (she is the one who posts me the CVs and who’s house I went to for training a few weeks back), so I dashed in a few paces behind her and just said ‘I’m with her’ to the waiter who rushed to greet me and followed her quick to the table. There were six of us for the meal and another lady joined us later and I made the mistake of sitting next to Kay on the end of the table which meant I didn’t get to sit next to anyone else at first. Sitting opposite me was Charlotte – who owns the company so is my actual ‘boss’, sat next to her was her brother who is staying with her visiting this week so she brought him along and sat next to him on one side of the table and next to Kay on the other were two other CV writing women.

Food was lovely – I had deep fried mozarella in spicy tomato and pesto sauce followed by penne alla carbonara which is my traditional Italian resturant choice. I prefer spaghetti but it is too tricky to eat without looking very undignified with pasta strings falling down your cleavage so I went for the easier to spear on a fork penne quills.

I talked to Charlotte lots, she’s very nice. Northern, from near Blackpool and has a 4yo boy and a nearly 1yo girl but thinks I am ‘very brave’ and ‘a bit mad’ to do the whole HE thing as she ‘can’t wait for them to start school’. Liked her a lot though and she has a good sense of humour with a very northern manner – a bit Victoria Wood, but with more F words. Her brother was lovely and I ended up chatting to him across the others in the end as he joined in a conversation about camping in tents and Home Ed in general and then carried on asking me stuff after the others had started a new conversation. We all moved seats after the starter so we could talk to other people but I actually ended up next to Kay and Matt and opposite Charlotte although with different people either side of Charlotte. I carried on talking to Matt in the end though, about New York, Las Vegas, weddings and settling down young (he got married last year and he is 29 and his wife is 23 so he was curious to find out what happens when you’ve been together a long time from a young age, and where good places to go in NY are as he is going later this year. So I shared with him my recommendations of must see places and gave him some good tips for finding the best public toilets the city has to offer – we went there when I was 6 months pregnant with Davies so there is not a public loo seat in the city I have not perched over and rated out of 10 in a complicated and detailed points system I devised while out there. 🙂 So possibly not a great success in terms of bonding with fellow CV writers (what were their names again? :oops:) but I did get on really well with Charlotte – who does after all pay me each month, and I had great fun chatting to her brother :-). Ali – I think I did Stand Up Nic tonight over and above any other Nic 🙂

Tomorrow we’re doing Fun Junction soft play and meeting Julie and Lucy there and I have two CVs to get finished. I also have some Lazy Buggers Autonomy cyclic guilt to work through but I think I’ll save blogging that for when I’ve come out the other side 😉

well maybe tomorrow actually as I’m off out in an hour or so, but just wanted to post a few pics.

Ros and the children came over today and we’ve had a lovely day. The sun shone so the children played inside and out having a great time while me and Ros gossiped, painted nails, did sewing (!) and generally caught up with each other.

Davies and Adam did a good impression of the Brothers ASBO with their hoodies on:

I also finished painting Totty to go with Wallace today:

And Ros kindly did some remedial sewing on the handcrafted Wallace which she reminded me I have not pictured yet so here he is:

Off out for a very grown up night out which won’t even involve drinking cos I’m driving 🙂

Must issue myself onblog to do lists more often 🙂

I managed almost everything on my list except for my slightly ambitious and actually not necessary completion of all 3 CVs and deciding what to wear tomorrow night. Let’s face it that will be sorted by this time tomorrow regardless cos I’ll be sat there wearing it so I will think about that in the morning.

Aswell as the below I also managed to do various other online tasks including booking my pitch at Kessingland and posting to the camps forum (nudge in your direction if you are on it too as it’s a bit dead over there and we’re running close to the wind), organise further socialising for this week and next by way of email, IM and text (I’m so 21st century 😉 ) and have an almost constant IM chat with Ali about every aspect of our respective days – spookily as I typed her name she popped up again with an IM window and is now distracting me from blogging 😉

I even managed some good parenting inbetween all these bursts of housewifely efficiency. Tarly and I did some cuddling and reading together, Davies and I sat and he dictated details about his created character for the W&G competition for me. We watched some Science type programmes on Discovery Kids together and chatted about it and there was a long (and loud :roll:) story telling session with them both narrating at times both playing instruments to tell the story at others – sort of a badly tuned Peter and the Wolf crossed with War of the Worlds if you will! 🙂 The children were particularly self sufficient today although that may have been more because I leapt to attention whenever they did ask for something. I was called upon to get bananas for them, fill their cups with water and admire, enthuse about and praise their various efforts as required. There was the geomag border round the car playmat, the picture of King Julien from Madagascar (pictured below) and finally and not to take anything away from it at all, the sock puppet show presented by Davies and Scarlett. They asked if they could make sock puppets out of some socks so I sorted out some old ones for them under close instructions that these and only these items of clothing were available for defacing and was then invited into the playroom to enjoy and admire their show. And actually it was both cute and funny with almost a plot line and clear practising of roles and script. 🙂 Favourite bit was by far Scarlett who’s sock was cooking dinner sort of milling around and just saying ‘cook, cook, cook, cook, cook, cook’ over and over again. Then she had to call Davies’ socks to tell them dinner was ready and addressed everyone as ‘Babes’ which also really made me laugh. Love those kids 🙂

Tomorrow we have Ros coming over which we’re all looking forward to so I might do a spot of baking in the morning 🙂 Which reminds me the slow cooker chicken was chickentastic – if you have a slow cooker, and if you eat poultry maybe you should try the baked chicken (two things there – one, that was meant to be said in the same way as the opening bit of The A Team and two, every time I type chicken I have to correct it cos I type children 🙂 )

Oh and last but by no means least my Dad is fine too 🙂 Apparently the worst bit was them trying to take blood, he is still staggered that anaesthetic actually worked on *him*, his heart jumped into place on the first jolt (apparently they give you up to 5 goes to get it sorted) and he fully intends going back to work tomorrow despite having been told not to lift so much as a kettle for 48 hours… ah well. Glad he’s OK 🙂

I must get the following stuff done:

the 3 CVs that arrived in the post this morning (woohoo) – done one, which is probably even more than I would have hoped for actually. I’ve got until Thursday night to get the other two done so one a day is fine, and I’ll probably get another one done later tonight actually.

get dinner on (slow cooker chicken, first time of trying it) done it – used a variation on this recipe and am now trying to think of something different to serve it with? mini jacket potatoes stuffed with something? some sort of flavoured rice? Hmm…

send confirmation letter back for venue for new HE group (very late! :oops:) have completed form and put in envelope with covering handwritten letter – which is in very poor handwriting but my printer is out of action until I work out whether it can be hooked up to the whole wireless set up. Waiting by the front door to be posted.

email to local newsletter about new HE group – all done 🙂

post to yahoo group for new HE group to galvanise people to action for bringing stuff – done

email local yahoo lists about new HE group to drum up any extra bodies for next week – done

look into what BT option we are on as we have changed phone call supplier and need to be sure we are not paying for something with BT that we don’t want anymore – done – and reduced the BT cost from £26.50 per month to £12 per month. As the new company promises to reduced our call charges – which actually are very small anyway – and they gave me a £20 voucher off my electricity bill I think that qualifies as a frugal move for the day 🙂

email my friend Mel about next week – done

email my Granny about next week – done

work out how long it’s going to take to get to C&H’s and see if it is possible to get a hairdressers appointment first thing Saturday morning – two and a half hours according to route finder, weather looks to be cloudy but fine and I’ve booked a hairdressers appointment for 9am, which means I expect we’ll be arriving between 1 & 2 pm at C&H’s- me with swishing hair which I expect many compliments on please 😉

decide what I’m wearing for CV meal out tomorrow night

get Davies to choose which of his plasticine creations from yesterday he wants to enter in to the competition and take photos of it – almost done. He’s chosen one and dictated the details needed for the competition entry to me. It was a ‘make a new friend for Wallace and Gromit’ competition using a packet of plasticine sent through with the competition. He’s chosen one, and named it, given it characteristics and told me why W&G would like it/him. The battery is flat on the camera though so I’ve bunged it on charge and will take a pic when it is back in action – after that it passes over to Ady to get it printed off next time he is near Costco.

gather together some resources / links / ideas for learning a bit about Germany. D is covering it as the theme for Badgers this term (Global Badger badge) and as he is pretty much the youngest there he is likely to know the least about it as I don’t think we’ve ever talked about anything German / Germany related – it’d be nice if he didn’t get all his new information from a source that’s not me (yes I do know how that sounds and yes I do know I’m a control freak 😉 ) but it can’t do him any harm to be a bit ahead of the game either can it. – made a start – created a page in the side bar and have del-ici-ous’d them too for future reference. Will also grab a book or two from the library when we’re next there too, we have a full weeks grace as no badgers next week due to another bank holiday.

Leave the children alone while they are playing together happily, engage with them when they are asking me to – possibly my biggest challenge of the day eh? – yep pretty much achieved that too actually. There was shouting but it was justified 🙂

Writing this mornings post motivated me to get the children sorted and we headed off into town. Parked for an hour and a half and thoroughly enjoyed wandering the shops with a child holding each hand. I am a much better mother without the distraction of internet access within reach 😳

I cannot find any of the many pairs of sunglasses I know I have owned over the years – as I have never paid over about a fiver a pair this is not a cause for great concern but I will need to sort out at least one pair. So we did a circuit of cheapo womens clothes shops including Dorothy Perkins, Evans, New Look and many, many more. I found loads but none were under a tenner a pair and given my admitted track record with them in the above paragraph I reckon a fiver is my top budget, so I am still without sunglasses.

We spent time in The Works and ELC too but just for fun rather than for purchasing. I collected some additional contact lenses from the opticians, saved a stamp by paying a cheque into the bank over the counter and did get some very cheap retail therapy by way of a swimsuit (suddenly realised that if I am planning to meet all of my personal hygiene needs for the whole week at Kessingland by just going swimming every day I probably need at least one extra swimsuit), a tie dye vest top (bargain, £3 and I *am* Home Educated! 😉 ) and a pair of not really needed but really very pretty sparkly pink flip flop type shoes. The swimsuit was a bargainlicious £4 and is a perfectly acceptable navy blue crinkle effect material construction but made me laugh uproariously when I tried it on as it has padded boobage! Now without disclosing my actual dress size I think it is fair to say that most women of my size are usually fairly amply endowed when it comes to that area, by default if not original design, so the padded boobage has a real comedy effect of making me look like a very amateurly drawn Jessica Rabbit with hugely exagerated hips and boobs. On the plus side this even greater than normal draw to my cleavage area should take attention off of my nether regions in the time I am in no mans land between dropping my protective round the waist towel at the pool edge and heaving myself into the water. 🙂

I also took Scarlett for her inagural trip to Claires Accessories. She was like – erm suitable metaphors don’t come to mind really other than kid in a sweet shop or kid in a toy shop. She was like a Scarlett in a shop full of sparkly hair things, make up and jewellry, that’s what she was like. Oohs and ahhhs aplenty. No cheap sunnies though 🙁

We had sausage rolls and doughnuts from the bakers for lunch, eaten in the car and purchased from Greggs – there used to be a Greggs round the corner from our house in Manchester and then another in the town we lived in and one on about every single street corner or so it seemed, so it was with delight we welcomed the opening of one in Worthing shortly after we moved back here. It just feels ‘dead northern’ 🙂

At home the children played, apart and together, we did some more drawings, I had some cuddles with them both, fed them an early tea and then it was time to head off to Badgers for me and Davies. He just looked sooo grown up in his little uniform. I know he’d have been in school uniform now for a full two terms but somehow he became a changed child when he put his black trousers and black shoes on with his little Badger jumper. The deal today was that I sat in the next door room to where Badgers is and although he was not allowed to come and visit me, he would know I was there. He did get the chance to peek round the door and blow me kisses twice and my ears pricked up every time I heard his name called or heard his voice but he did really, really well. It was the first week of the new term so lots of not a lot in terms of what they did – the covered fire drill for the building, repeated the Badger promise (I – , promise to be a good badger and try to do my very best in absolutely everything I do) and they had a few cadets there who showed them how to do ‘parade’ involving lining up, spacing themselves out and being ‘at ease’. I could hear Davies joining in, asking questions and being spoken to. At the end they played a game called ‘duck duck goose’ which seemed to be some form of tag or somesuch and I could hear Davies laughing like a drain at the antics of one of the older cadets. He came out full of it and looking forward to next week. I am so pleased, he is getting exactly what I had identifyed as lacking – social contact with a big group – all either his own age or up to five years older, they are a nice bunch of children and all of course very local opening up scope for mates he can ride a bike to play with a couple of years from now and he is even getting contact with older teens and young people in the form of visiting cadets, all of which he adores. He is learning to play games, do stuff without my controlling eye and build some sense of who he is without it being in relation to me. Very healthy and I confess slightly tear jerking for me but I’m pretty sure I am hiding it well in my pride in him and my joy at him enjoying it so much. Of course next week it doesn’t run as it’s bank holiday but the week after we’ve agreed I will sit next door again with a view to just dropping him off the following week. If it were not for the whole dealing with my issues at leaving him somewhere and his issues about being left I would not be in such a rush really – it was actually quite blissful to sit reading my book in relative peace for a whole hour knowing Ady was at home enjoying time alone with Tarly and Davies was having such a good time.

Tomorrow my Dad is going into hospital for electric shock treatment of some sort to try and cure an irregular heartbeat. He has been on blood thinning drugs with weekly blood test for months for a condition he has known about and been uneffected by since boy hood but suddenly started to get all health conscious in his older age and decided to have something done about. It will be his first time in hospital, his first ever anaesthetic and I think he is secretly nervous so I will be waiting to hear it has all gone smoothly and he is home safe and fine. Ironically Ady was also at the doctors this morning for an ECG having gone there last week with chest pains and shooting pains down his arms. He has a history of digestive problems and we paid to go private for investigations a few years back to diagnose a hiatus hernia so he has been on medication all week to try and rule out some sort of digestive problem but the ECG returned not altogether normal results so it looks as though further investigation will be done. I have been resolutely not thinking about it really and will continue to do so until I know what it is I should be giving head space to.

Early start yesterday – my turn to get up with the children and Scarlett rose slightly after 6.30am. Unfortunately she would have preferred Ady to be the one getting up with her and was very vocal about this, which woke Ady and Davies too.

Despite being up early I was still sitting in my nightie drinking about my fourth cup of tea when I spied my Dad’s van pulling into our road through the window at around 9.30am so I dashed off to get dressed. We’d been watching the start of the marathon and it stayed on the TV here all day pretty much. We did know one person who was running but I think the odds of spotting her on TV were pretty slim. Davies was quite interested in the whole thing and I told him that maybe we’d go up to London to watch next year. I used to love watching the marathon as a child and always cherished a secret notion of running it one day, so every year when I watch it I always feel slightly shame faced that yet another year has gone by when the chances of me doing so decrease ever further. I think everyone who knows me knows that in the main I am fairly unfussed over being overweight but I do have qualms about how unfit I am. When Davies was 4 months old I started going to aerobics and circuit training four mornings a week at the local leisure centre. It was an all round thing really – I had to be there for 9am which was an excellent motivator to get out of the house with my small baby and not slip into watching Trisha in my dressing gown instead, it was actually slightly lovely to leave Davies in the welcoming and cuddly arms of the lovely four women who rang the creche at the leisure centre for an hour and go and do something by myself, there was the whole getting fitter thing (I didn’t adjust my diet so I didn’t really lose any weight but it did slightly change my shape – later changed back with added bits from having Tarly 😉 ). I did it for over a year and really enjoyed it but when we moved up north it took ages to get organised to find a new gym, Davies was older and HATED the creche, I did a very ill fated spinning class which made me physically and mentally unable to wear anything as chafing as tracksuit pants for quite some while and then I fell pregnant with Tarly. Now of course daytime classes with creches are out of the question – even if they’d take Tarly, Davies would be too old (and I have checked – they are not willing and muttered about not being insured for over 5s or something) not to mention the expense of classes for me and creche charges for the children. I could do a couple of evening ones but they really bugger up our evenings and sometimes Ady struggles to get home by 7pm anyway. Exercise videos at home simply do not appeal but as the nights get lighter the idea of running is actually quite appealing. I’d need to drive somewhere first so that the neighbours are not all hanging out of their windows hysterical with laughter watching me not even make the end of the street before collapsing with my inhaler (exercise induced asthma, which I only knew about when I started exercising :oops:) but this is the right time of year to think about such things, so I might just see if I can dig my trainers out and find my sports bra…

Anyway, just for the irony of having the above bit of the post in the same blog let alone the same post as the rest, let’s continue with the rest of our day.

Having finished Wallace (aside from a final coat of varnish) Scarlett asked for a Totty so while Ady was sorting dinner out and Davies was playing Madagascar colouring in on one of the laptops Scarlett and I ripped up some newspaper, mixed some flour and water and I cut out a Totty shaped bit of cardboard to start us off. My Dad had gone home again to get changed and returned with my Mum for the day – we were having roast dinner at lunchtime but told them if they brought some meat to add to ours they were welcome to join us. Quite good having your hands so messy you can’t possibly deal with getting drinks for children or grown ups, deal with cat sick or wipe children’s bottoms for them – must contrive to be like that more often when the rest of the grown ups are around 😉

So we had a lovely roast beef roast lunch, followed by lemon meringue pie (which me and the children walked round the shop in the rain to buy – nice light drizzly rain on a pretty warm day is actually quite pleasant to be out in). The children played on Nick jr on two laptops sat side by side for a while, there was some game using the pretend food with my Mum, but she got bored and stopped playing after a while, then Davies got all stroppy so I spent some time in the playroom with him drawing and playing with the geomags until he cheered up enough to return to the rest of us by which time it was bedtime for the children.

They both went to sleep really quickly, we’d been drinking wine and beer most of the day so actually we were quite happy to stop and just drink tea for the rest of the evening – I’ve got a new favourite tea – Chai which is lovely – ooh and I’ve just found a recipe for making your own too – how muffiny would that be? 😀 We watched Derren Brown, ate cheese on toast and then kicked my parents out about 10.30pm. A really nice Sunday day. 🙂

This morning we’ve done some Lazy Town drawings which got interupted by the post arriving with Davies’ W&G modelling kit sent away for with Tip Top vouchers. It is not as he expected a kit of make W&G, rather a set of very brightly coloured plasticine and an entry form to design and make a new friend for W&G, send in a photo of it and maybe win a holiday to a theme park, so he’s busy doing that and Tarly is making a bowl of salad (pretend play food) for a toy rabbit to eat. Nothing much planned for this afternoon as Davies has got Badgers at 5pm although I do have a few things I need to do in town which might be better done today than tomorrow (my only other free day this week), so we might venture into town after lunch for an hour or so if it doesn’t rain.

Had a very nice day today. 🙂

Lovely lie in til nearly 9am which is always pleasant, Ady did loads of ‘stuff’ (excuse me for having no inkling of what it was but it all involved garden tools and machinery :oops:) and the children pottered in the garden getting their clothes muddy, sandy and wet but enjoying it thoroughly.

I spent ages on the computer on various pursuits, got a bolognaise sauce cooking in the slow cooker for dinner and then they all came in for lunch. I gave the papier mache Wallace his first coat of paint ‘assisted’ by the children and then we headed over to Chris and Julie’s for a couple of hours this afternoon.

We had a really nice time there actually. They had all their garden toys out and it was a lovely afternoon weather-wise so the children had a great time, Ady and Chris took pictures and me and Julie chatted and gossiped. I also set her computer up with email, signed her up with a yahoo account and an ebay account. I tried to tell her about IM chatting but she looked scared and blank and said she’d start slow and work up to such joys at a later date! 🙂

We came home via Burger King as Davies had seen a TV advert saying their kids meal toys were Ice Age 2 ones and we pulled into the adjoining petrol station for Ady to fill up his car only to realise he had a puncture. So the children sat in the car as it was jacked up and down and ate their BK while me and Ady both got greasy streaks on our hands and jeans changing the wheel.

We came home and Ady bathed the children while I dashed up to Sainsburys to get next week’s food shopping, bumping into my Mum whilst there so arranging to see them tomorrow some time. I did another coat of paint on Wallace and the children took forever to go to sleep so we taped Dr Who and have just watched it whilst eating dinner. Am now watching the repeat of last night’s Green Wing which I missed in favour of Second Coming.

Hope the weather is as lovely as this for next weekend too. 🙂

is the place where I sit
there isn’t any other place quite like it
It’s not at the bottom
and it’s not at the top
but this is the place where I always stop.

By Kermit’s nephew Robin. A ditty for all occassions that one really, a bit like supercalifragalisticexpialidocious – a word to say when you don’t know what to say (and yes I imagine I have spelt that incorrectly 😉 )

But anyway…

Today started with logic games – we got this peg game thingy from the Wizard store yesterday, which is basically a simplified version of the mastermind game which I certainly had a version of as a child although I don’t think I ever bothered working out how to play it. So yesterday the children just played at making patterns with the pegs but this morning I sat and taught Davies how to play it properly. We chatted about what the techinique of applying logic was all about, played it ‘open’ a couple of times (e.g. with nothing hidden and every move discussed) – then he played at being ‘Code Defender’ (as the instructions insist on dramatically calling it) and I was ‘Code Attacker’ – then we swapped roles. We played in the same style as we play battleships with me explaining every move and walking him through it, but the idea is sinking in and he is learning all sorts of new words 🙂 I quite enjoyed it too and it is certainly good mental practise for some of the logic puzzles I have been messing with this afternoon ;-).

I spent some time IMing and phone chatting with various people and the children played with sticklebricks – Davies recreated all of the weird and wonderful pictures on the front of the sticklebricks boxes and I did several loads of washing, several loads of putting away clean and dry laundry and drank lots of tea.

Ali and Freya arrived for a very pleasant afternoon. I got some much needed reassurance about various things (thanks mate 🙂 ) and eventually the children did take themselves off to play. I introduced Ali to the delights of Holy Clothing and we drank more tea 🙂 And ate chocolate 🙂 The children did put on a show at one point although I confess to struggling to follow the plot there did seem to be one somewhere and it was complete with music using a saxoflute, which later got threatened with confiscation! They ended up watching Madagascar – always a winner!

Davies sat up a bit past bedtime as we happened upon Brainiac whilst channel flicking so he got to sit and watch that with us, sparking all sorts of science questions, ideas for experiments and so on – excellent educational viewing 🙂 When I went to kiss him goodnight he was in bed having drawn a replacement for the temporary tattoo of Alex the lion from Madagascar which he’d been sporting for three baths and had finally worn off (it came free with a box of microwave popcorn) with biro and then drawn a recreation of a can crushed by air pressure experiment on his other arm – erm, art and science anyone? 😉

Children asleep and rather good curry (with the end of the bombay potatoes made for Alison, Layla and Si last week and frozen) plenty of wine and we’ve just watched The Second Coming on video which arrived via ebay this morning. We watched this when it was on TV a few years back and it was the first time I’d come across Christopher Eccleston and Russell T Davies, so I was thrilled when they were both involved in similar capacities in the last series of Doctor Who (and am still mourning the passing of Christopher). We were living in Manchester, where it is set, at the time which made it all the more real as we knew all of the places refered to very well and it has been one of those things you see or read which just stays with you. (Similar to Last Train for me). I’ve sat glued to it and found it even better than I remembered. 🙂

And now my head is all spinny from wine, wearing my glasses today which always makes my vision go all trippy and altogether too much spiritual questionning and logic puzzles of all sorts!

Not at all sure I did much which isn’t already documented here today really 🙂

Ros was planning to come over but couldn’t make it due to delayed piano delivery, which was a shame as I was looking forward to adult company and the children were in dire need of other small people to run about with. We’ve got Ali and Freya coming over tomorrow though so I am sure they will provide an end of week high point 🙂

First thing we popped out to collect a freecycle ‘win’ of a single burner camping stove thingy. Very compact but I imagine useful (I say imagine as I am still of course mightily struggling with the concept of cooking anything over a small blue or orange cannister powered ‘stove’ but I’m seeing it as an adventure and viewing it with the mindset of a fondue evening with retro charm and tasty morsels eating in bite sized chunks with minimal washing up – but categorically NO wife swapping!). We came home via the Wizard store where I had gone with papier mache inspiration in mind. Was not struck with any but picked up some more plasticine, a plastic peg logic competition game which has already been put to massive use although without notice of the instructions ( 🙂 ), some thread for when I eventually get round to sewing Totty for Scarlett, some very cute nail jewel stickers for Nic’s Nail Salon at Kessingland (I know, I know, but they were only a quid!) and some acrylic paint for the painting of the papier mache Wallace. I know, retail therapy but all very affordable – all for about half the price of a CV! 🙂

Home for lunch and I continued with my emailing, blogging, phoning and so on while the children played with the logic peg game and then went on to trash both their bedrooms. Serious lecture time from me about that – I accept lots of mess and toys being strewn about when there are loads of children in the house but not when it is just the two of them and the sole aim of their game seems to be to make as much mess as possible. 🙄

I did some reading with them of a few books, Davies did some colouring of some dinosaur posters – he rarely does colouring in of other pictures prefering instead to draw his own, but I noticed a different in tidyness of colouring and staying within the lines from the last time he did any. He also seemed to be really thinking and planning the finished picture rather than randomly colouring too which was good. I showed them something I used to do loads as a child the other day when we had the paint pens out – scribble pictures. Don’t know if anyone else used to do them but basically you scribble all over a sheet of paper making lots and lots of abstract shapes on the page and then you colour them all in different colours. You could get quite dramatic with effects blurring the edges and mixing colours venn diagram stylee or experimenting with effects and patterns within the main pattern, but it did give me lots of practise of colouring in anyway.

I spent some time moving a small plastic drawer unit from Tarly’s room which used to house nappies and was currently mainly used for hair slides and bobbles into the playroom to take up the overspill of craft stuff alongside the plastic drawer unit which had once held nappies in Davies’ room many years ago. So now we have two drawer units full of glitter, glue, pens, crayons, assorted papers etc. Have identifyed a need for a few odds and ends of craft stuff which I may have to satisfy with a BakerRoss order if CVs come through next week though, although the scrapstore is proving a good investment for £8 already having provided all the materials for the W&G sewn toys including the couple still in planning, and the sheets of huge paper. I’m about to get together a consortium for the even more local scrapstore too so we can start to make weekly trips there if necessary and start some more ambitious projects which I think Davies would enjoy.

And that’s kind of it for today really… glad it’s Friday tomorrow, I’m ready for a weekend!

and cos I’m distracting myself from children – I rang up for costs for the other hostels.

Great Yarmouth is cheaper – rooms would work out as follows:
1 x 2 bed – £44.50
2 x 4 beds – £89
2 x 6 beds – £135
1 x 8 beds – £185
1 x 10 beds – £235

Margate is also cheaper and slightly nicer in that it is an ex – hotel so some rooms are en suite. But let’s face it, it is Margate 😉
2 x 2 beds – £54
1 x 3 beds – £81
3 x 4 beds – £108
1 x 5 beds – £135
2 x 6 beds – £162

I think we can probably forget Truleigh Hill given it is more expensive and I definitely – and Ros and Ali would probably agree- wouldn’t be up for paying a couple of hundred quid to stay somewhere practically walking distance from home for a week! 🙂

For the second week Great Yarmouth, Helmsley and Margate all the same prices obviously, Minehead is more expensive. Kirkby Stephen, Lynton and Kings Lynn all slightly cheaper, but not much, and second week would mean no Sarah 🙁

ETA – I’ve created a yahoo group to continue discussions off my blog. Everyone who’s mentioned being interested has been invited – let me know if you don’t get the invite cos I must have got your email address wrong. 🙂

On the basis of numbers, preferences and so on I have provisionally booked Helmsley for 23-37 October.

I need to return the booking form with a 25% deposit within 14 days to secure the booking… so, it’s firm committment time I suppose.

There are seven rooms at Helmsley.

1 x 3 bed
2 x 4 bed
4 x 6 bed

If I divide the cost of the hostel (which is £1090) by the per person when at full capacity of 35 people and then times it by bed available per room that seems to be the fairest way of working it out. Then if anyone shares a room they can work out how to split the cost of the room between them perhaps? On that basis the costs are:

the 3 bed room – £96 with a deposit of £24 due now.
the 4 bed rooms – £128 with a deposit of £32 due now.
the 6 bed rooms – £192 with a deposit of £48 due now.

Which leaves an excess of £30 to be the starting kitty for bread and milk and stuff.

It’s not the cheapest hostel option, certainly pricier than Melrose and I think we might need to do a fair bit of room juggling as there are already 8 families interested with space for another 6 people left over – which would of course adjust the cost slightly for individual families. If that becomes the case then I am more than happy to readjust the maths to make it fairer so that for example the non sharing families (such as myself) are paying slightly more for such luxury ;-).

So what do you all reckon? Too expensive? Not happy with that hostel choice? Too soon to make a committment (in which case I think we need to be realistic about possibly not getting a booking if we leave it much later, certainly for that half term week). As you all know I have £zero so would not be in a position to book anything unless all the 25% deposit has arrived with me – and I guess it would have to be a non returnable deposit too unless you could ‘sell it on’ to another interested party.

Well???

when I noticed it come up in the random flickr shots.

Taken two years ago in April 2004 here is a picture of Scarlett aged 15 months old. Naked, she’d climbed up on top of a unit far taller than herself to get to her dummy (which she was only allowed at night) and my phone (which she was not allowed to touch as she’d broken the previous one by sucking the end of it until water got in and it went mildew).

Only today I had to rescue her having climbed onto the worktops in the kitchen in search of forbidden snickerdoodles.

I find myself resigned to rescuing her every April for at least the next 16 years as she clambers into scrapes she is unable to get herself out of…

having 5 tabs open to try and sort out links for youth hostels we’ve had a bit of an arts and crafts (for girls) fest here today.

After a long and oft-interupted IM chat with Ali this morning during which I got the children dressed, made cups of tea, brushed Tarly’s hair – and yes that is worthy of mention when it becomes a fortnightly event, got loads of nail varnish and other odd things out of it, so that was good! – and even put a wash on although I neglected to hang it out :oops:. Then we nipped into Lancing, took a couple of books back to the library that I’d forgotten last night, got a couple more out for the children, wandered round the charity shops and generally mosied about. We picked up a few bits in the charity shops actually – Davies spotted a cuddly Gromit toy – which brings his total up to 4 of them, but having spent lots of time looking at W&G stuff on ebay I know I could sell it for at least double the £1.50 it cost so I don’t mind. I found a little chinese style dress for Tarly which I have long thought she’d look lovely in, red, which is a great colour for her and for just £1.5o. If you can look past the odd posed grin and the fact she refused to wear it done up at the neck:

I’d been thinking about paper mache in the morning for some reason, having seen something somewhere about papier mache boxes and meant to google for some ideas and found a papier mache book in the ‘4 for 99p’ basket in one of the shops. So I got that along with a M&S version of The Velveteen Rabbit and two Usborne First Nature books – one on trees and one on creepy crawlies. Also picked up a big box of art straws for a quid to go in the craft drawers when we get them sorted out. We also saw the leap pad book of Madagascar which Ady has promised he will buy for Davies when he next makes a leap forward in his reading, so hopefully that will inspire him to get the leap pad out and do some more with it as that really helped bring him on last time far more than sitting with me seems to. Need to bring it out of his bedroom and try and encourage him to use it a bit tomorrow I think.

Came home and the children did some plasticine modelling with Davies following the instructions from a W&G modelling kit and using pieces of wire Ady had picked up at Hobbycraft yesterday to give more stability. I got a bit involved in that but I try to stay fairly hands off when he does this otherwise he gets disheartened that his efforts don’t look ‘as good’ as mine and ends up just wanting me to do everything. I explain that the only way I learnt to do stuff was by lots of practise but he seems to expect to be able to do everything perfectly at the very first try – and comparing his efforts to mine removes some of his pleasure. 🙁 But he did some great work anyway and when I’d stopped sitting with him he made a really good representation of Morph – who was pictured in the back of his book, so that was good. 🙂

I started looking at my papier mache book and decided to have a bash at something not too ambitious, so I cut out a Wallace shaped bit of cardboard and covered that in papier mache with lots of ‘help’ from Scarlett. It’s already hardening off as I didn’t make it too thick and providing it dries lighter and the head is not so top heavy it snaps I think it will look really good painted up. Scarlett wants a jewellry box next and we have lots of those big fake gemstones which would look really cool imbedded in a chunky box with lots of bright colours so I might have a bash at working out how to construct a box for a base (or pop along to the Wizard store and see what suitable cheapo boxes they might have to just cover instead. Actually I can think of all sorts of craft ideas which would look good with papier mache using stuff from the scrap store but as I don’t want to clutter my own house up with handcrafted tat I might need to save them as present ideas for people instead 😉 Do shout if you have a birthday coming up and fancy a bathroom mirror with 3D mermaids and an intergral shelf on it! 😀

We’d just about cleared all that up and they’d had tea by which time I was getting shouty and fed up with such full on parenting so happily Scarlett fell asleep almost instantly in my arms and Ady is taking care of Davies. Apprentice tonight served with pizza and wine! 🙂

I need to know (in the comments box please):

Name, how many of you coming and whether you will share a room or not.

Any of the choices which would be a ‘No’ for you.

So e.g. I’ll be:
Nic, 4 people, won’t share, all OK

To reiterate everyone who reads this blog is invited to join in, the idea of it is a Halloween themed 4 night youth hostel ‘camp’ with a Halloween party towards the end of the week.

I’ll do some sort of poll to try and work out which would be best for the majority of people although I suspect whatever choice is made will sadly rule somebody out. I’ve checked availability of hostels for two weeks – Monday 23th to Friday 27th October and Monday 30th October to Friday 3rd November. The second week has lots more available options, probably because the first week is half term and lots of the hostels only become available on the Escape To.. scheme from November anyway.

So the list of availables is as follows:

23rd
Great Yarmouth, sleeps 40, 7 bedrooms
Helmsley, sleeps 35, 7 bedrooms
Margate, sleeps 36, weird bedroom set up with lots of single bed rooms (which is not without appeal 😉 )
Truleigh Hill, sleeps 56, 13 bedrooms although lots are 2 bedders

30th
Great Yarmouth, sleeps 40
Helmsley, sleeps 35
Kings Lynn, sleeps 35, 6 bedrooms
Kirkby Stephen, sleeps 40, 8 bedrooms
Littlehampton, sleeps 32, 8 bedrooms
Lynton, sleeps 36, room number appears to be a secret but I can find out!
Margate, sleeps 36
Minehead, sleeps 35, 8 bedrooms.
Truleigh Hill, sleeps 56

Will come back and play with that a bit more later but wanted to get the links in first…

But had to blog again 😉

Just got back from Reading Group and wanted to enthuse again about how much I’m enjoying it really. Ironically given how many of my old pleasures I have recently given up and forgone I am very happy right now. I had my low period a couple of weeks ago but have reevaluated and am feeling very positive and in love with my life again.

The children seem to have shifted slightly again – and as I touched on in a post yesterday much though I would never wish their lives away and each phase and stage has brought with it great joys and new experiences when I pictured myself as a mother when I was a child it was never with baby at breast or small helpless crawling individuals, it was always with a ‘family’ of older children. I like people, I am fascinated by getting to know others, finding out about them, their history, what makes them tick, what their thoughts and motivations are. I think that is why Home Ed and specifically autonomous Home Ed suit me so well actually. Much though it is a joke subject the A level I found most enjoyable was Sociology – and I was bloody good at it too. And being at home with two ‘people’ rather than feeling like a child carer suits me way better than the pureeing carrots and clapping whilst three building block towers were made. I am finally feeling like I might be coming into my own with this whole thing rather than feeling like an amateur who is ‘coping well’.

I am also really enjoying the CV work I’m getting. Obviously the money is very welcome, as is the pyschology of feeling I am financially contributing something to the home again (as opposed to my track record of spending it! 😉 ) and the feeling of usefulness and ability over and above being Mummy that it brings, but it also appears to be something I am really rather good at too. And not surprisingly given my past working life and my love of marketing, interest in people and ability to spin doctor / talk bullshit / write copious amounts about really very little! Match made in heaven really!

And for the first time ever I have an interest and life not just outside of my relationship with Ady but also outside of the rest of the family. I love my friendships with HE mates – local and national, I love my friendships with people like Julie and Lucy but I am really enjoying going along to Reading Group once a month and sitting with people who know nothing about me other than what they see in that couple of hours. They know I am married with children but they are just peripheral cast members who are not seen, they do not know I Home Educate, I write CVs, I am hugely in debt etc etc. They are judging me purely on what I say and do in regard to the books we have been reading and with every month that passes I grow more confident and articulate in what I bring to the group. It has achieved exactly what I wanted it to in terms of broadening my reading horizons – both in the books I have read for group and in the books I have chosen independantly, it has changed the way I read things too and brought back one of the things I recall enjoying in English lessons at school which was reading something and then debating it, finding out how others interpreted the words, what conclusions and pictures they drew from it and so on.

So tonight it was only 5 of us there – Mike, who normally comes with his wife Rose (the English Teacher) but she was ill today, Sandy the cool Canadian, The blonde accountant who squashed reading group inbetween the gym and parents evening for one of her children, the retired lady who normally reads Chick-lit, and me. We discussed Brian Keenan’s An Evil Cradling in a lively and debating manner and came away with the book for next month which is by a local author who is coming along to Reading Group in a couple of months time – Simon Brett – so it seemed only right that we’d at least read one of his books before he arrived.

Anyway, that sort of ran out of steam as my dinner was ready and I reiterated it all to Ady and got real life nods and hurrahs in the right places, but what the hell, I’ll press publish anyway! 🙂