Just had the post and in it is the pack for ‘The Attention of the parent of guardian of Scarlett Deborah Goddard’ containing all the information about her school place in September 2007 with the form to return for her school place.
I had Davies’ two years ago and ignored it, I got a reminder which I also ignored and I never heard any more. Hopefully the same will happen for Tarly.
See the thing about a rollercoaster is that although you might have that dread before you get on, that trepidation as it makes that first s l o w climb and then scream your way all the way round yelling ‘oh my fucking goddddddd’ (well that’s what I did anyway, although I tempered the language and blasphemy slightly when I was riding with Anna 🙂 ) by the time it pulls back into the start again you are laughing, exhilarated and ready to queue up to go round again.
Anyway today was the start of one of the climbs back up again, a bit slow and not without the odd jerk here and there but totally back in love with my children again by the end of it. 🙂
This morning they played with geomags and watched LSOH (again :roll:, you know a film has made it onto Davies’ A list when it starts to get abbreviated on the blog!) with them both singing along. I did stuff like put clean clothes away, get a chilli cooking for batch freezing that I wanted to nick a bit of as pizza topping for tonight’s dinner, get a wash on and return some emails.
Lucy, Rebecca and Richard arrived then and Lucy and I managed to chat inbetween parenting. Davies had a bit of a talking to for boisterousness beyond what I consider acceptable with his toys but other than that they all played nicely with the toy cars.
Then we headed to a local park to meet up with Julie, Jack and Maisie. It was not our usual venue and although it’s a park attached to a leisure centre that we drive past most days I’ve never taken the children there. It has just had rather a lot of money invested in a new top of the range playground which is just groaning with all sorts of really interesting looking play equipment from these people. The old playground with it’s oh so retro see-saws and slides is still in situ behind the new one offering a cool mix of old and new contrasts. We set ourselves up inbetween the two and the children had a good old explore of the equipment it was possible to get on due to massive overcrowding from school summer holidays refugees. Can’t wait til they all go back to school and we get to play there on our own :lol:.
Davies was chatting to an older woman for a while so I called him over to find out what was being said. She was asking him his name and how old he was and he’d been pointing out Scarlett, Jack and Maisie and telling her they were his sister and cousins and how old they all were too. She was clearly completely harmless and was in there with a woman who was probably her daughter and a couple of lads who must have been her grandsons but it occured to me that although we’ve talked fairly abstractly about ‘baddies’ who might try and hurt or take children I’ve never really mentioned that actually you need to exercise caution with pretty much every stranger you meet. Davies tends to be very chatty with adults generally and would readily offer all sorts of personal information about himself and the rest of us in conversation if led that way. I have an additional reason to exercise caution particularly in regard to older ladies in that Ady’s mother lives local-ish and is still very much in contact with Chris and Julie despite Ady not having had contact with her for years and I know that she pumps them for information about us and the children, is aware of their names and dates of birth etc and could easily find out where we might be on a certain day from Julie in general chat. She is not dangerous but is desperate and I would really rather not have the children accosted by some mad woman telling then she is their granny. A short time after having a very brief chat to him about how you shouldn’t necessarily tell people all sorts of things about you just because they ask when you don’t know them he was chatting to a group of teens on one of the climbing frames and then we heard a small boy calling him across the playground ‘Davies, Davies, come over here!’ 😆 Davies, a friend to all today!
Predictably it wasn’t long before the playground ceased to hold Davies, Scarlett, Jack, Maisie and Rebecca and they wandered further and further afield staying just in vision. After a while we couldn’t see Scarlett and Jack so Lucy and Julie walked over to check their whereabouts while I stayed and guarded the picnic stuff. They came back to report they had strayed a little further to a circular path round some trees which led back on itself and suggested we all go over for a walk round it. Davies and Jack had gone on ahead and I popped to my car as we walked past the carpark to drop off our rug so I’d not seen Davies for about 15 minutes although the other’s had seen him shortly before. But when we got to the path Jack was there alone saying he didn’t know where Davies was and he couldn’t find him anywhere.
I started to call him getting more and more anxious as he didn’t reply and as I walked further into the path I realised it didn’t go back on itself at all it veered off in various different directions including the other car park, the road, a whole load of allotments, a field which led to the downs and another path to more woodland. My calling started to get ever more frantic as I went further into the woods, I told Tarly to go back to the others as she was echoing my calls and would have drowned out Davies if he’d replied to me. I’m sure it was no more than a couple of minutes but all sorts of scenarios went through my mind with me wondering how soon I could call the police for help when Julie appeared calling me to say they’d found him. Cue a classic lost child reunion with him tearstained and me close to it, both hugging each other as though we’d been parted for months and dramatic recountation to each other of what had happened from our side. He’d realised he’d lost Jack and double backed to where he’d last seen me, I had of course long gone from there so he’d cried and when a couple of old ladies had approached him he’d stayed with them until they caught sight of Lucy who had started to walk back to where we’d last been. Made me realise that we need to have a strategy for getting seperated and we definitely need to have that chat about who is a ‘safe stranger’ or at least your best bet on one. By his age I was going to the local shop on my own and riding round the block on my bike. I don’t think we live in any more dangerous times now than when I was a child really and I refuse to deny my children any freedom at all on the basis there just might be a pedophille round every corner. He is a sensible child who if he knows what he is supposed to do in a situation is more than capable of doing so, so I need to better inform him so we prevent future dramas like that one.
Once reunited we all walked up into the field leading to the downs where we sat down and enjoyed the view of the sea and town below afforded us once high enough while the children ran around together. I thought it was important for both of us that Davies did some wandering off again but this time with a clear plan of who would be where and that they would stay there to ease both our minds. We eventually walked back with Julie heading off to the carpark she’d parked in and Lucy and I standing chatting for a further half hour while the children sat in a circle playing with some stones made from sand and cement. They were even joined by another little boy and they all sat there discussing the properties of the sand they were making by crumbling the stone and whether it would build sandcastles etc.
We got home and there was more geomag play accompanied by LSOH while I sorted their tea out and made pizza dough before Ady got home to hear the story of Davies getting lost with added dramatic effects ;-).
Tomorrow I am Davies-less as Ady is taking him to work with him. It’s something we’ve been planning for a very long time for them to do every so often when Ady is just going round garden centres for the day. Scarlett is too unpredictable to be let loose and would either fall asleep or get grumpy being in the car all day but Davies will actually be good company for Ady, they can do some valuable bonding stuff, it will have heaps of educational value, give me a break and allow me and Scarlett do to the equivalent on our own. Not sure what we’ll do yet, it depends on her frame of mind in the morning really. We have an invitation to join Lucy at the library and back to hers for the day which might be interesting to see what the dynamic between Tarly and Rebecca is like without Davies around, or we might just do some reading, drawing, jigsaw puzzles etc.
I’m going through a bit of a tricky parenting phase just now. Enough to make us seriously question Home Ed as an option moving forward although both Ady and I and the children want to Home Ed we don’t want it to be at the compromise of other relationships. As it goes it is not Home Education that is the issue, it is the whole 24/7 nature of facilitating it. I adore Davies and Scarlett, I imagine that goes without saying but we seem to be trapped in a vicious circle of bad behaviour and bad parenting right now which is not alleviated any by spending all day every day together.
So Ady and I have been discussing ways of me getting a bit more ‘time off’ which will hopefully result in some ‘good behaviour’. He’s had some stern words with the children and I am determined that we go back up again from here, adamant that I change my tactics a bit and hope that results are forthcoming soon. He is also planning to take Davies out to work with him once a week while his job is a bit more flexible. I think Davies is going into his next ‘phase’ right now and as I have felt before at times I fail him in not providing all his needs at home. The gulf between him and Tarly has widened again but rather than acting up to his standard he is bringing himself down to hers and acting like he’s a three year too. I recall from infant school that boys of six seem to feel the need to be silly, laugh at toilet humour and be very boisterous and I really struggle to accomodate that or provide an outlet for it in any other way. Scarlett is being very assertive – which I have often celebrated about her before and still do at the same time as struggling to deal with her when she is asserting herself against one of my requests to do something reasonable.
In an effort to get organised for Davies’ party and to do something creative together we made some posters of various Wallace and Gromit characters to decorate the walls of the venue with. We kept going until we ran out of paper. This morning Davies had been playing with his newly revived wooden traintrack which rarely sees the light of day and been counting straight and curved bits and working out how many he would need to constuct various things, so education happens even in a warzone I guess. 😉
When Ady got home I headed out for an hour to go walking. As part of my aim to lose some weight, get a bit fitter and also have some clear head space I’m planning to do that twice a week when Ady gets home from work until the nights draw in too much to make it feasible as I’m not confident that tramping around in the dark is the best idea but I reckon I have a good couple of months yet before that happens. So I enjoyed a massive circuit down the seafront, along the coast, through the local town centre and back past the park home again. My legs certainly knew I’d done it, as did my feet which are a bit blistered from me wearing boots without socks – must dig about in the wardrobe and see if I have any trainers still in there, I used to have at least two pairs.
So there you have it, tricky right now but hopefully getting better soon.
Had a lovely lie in this morning and woke to find the rest of the family watching Little Shop of Horrors for the third time. As recommended by at least two friends (Merry and Sarah have definitely mentioned it as one Davies might like) we got it from Tesco DVD rental and sure enough he fell in love straight away. 🙂 I got dinner cooking and sorted out the various shopping I’d got yesterday, finally completed our tax credits form ready to send back right on the deadline and we headed off to the beach.
A testing day today with the children; lack of sleep and uspet about Malice generally are making us all fairly unpleasant to be around and Tarly has had me questioning my anti-smacking policy while Davies has had me questioning whether our relationship is worth the compromise of 24 hours a day contact that Home Education offers. Sure it will pass, but I’m being utterly selfish in my own mourning and not making any allowances for anyone else. Fortunately Ady is being excellent (probably terrified 😉 ) and doing lots of backing me up, spiriting the children away and entertaining them and generally being lovely. 🙂
We wandered round the market for a while before heading up to the beach. I had a complete crisis about Beachwatch which involves rallying a team of volunteers to clean the beach as it is already very clean, which is of course A Good Thing but makes a slightly daunting task. Scarlett and I struggled to collect any nice pebbles for Malice’s grave while Davies sat adventurously on a very close to the sea rock while the waves crashed around him and Ady took lots of pictures. Some on flickr – can’t be bothered to insert them into this post.
Then we headed over to Chris and Julie’s for a couple of hours this afternoon. The children played really nicely although Maisie was feeling ill so she spent most of the time snuggled on the sofa. McDonalds with internet survey luncheon vouchers for the children on the way home and then Barbie Swan Lake on dvd before bed for them.
Tomorrow Ady is back to work and we have nothing planned, actually with the exception of Lucy, Julie and I getting together on Wednesday we have nothing else planned all week so I might just get some of the various tasks I’ve been mentally compiling lists about completed.
Car boot sale this morning which was one of our more successful ones. I managed to get Tarly a gorgeous full length winter coat, which is just *so* Tarly in sheepskin a-like purple with pink fluffy trim for the bargain price of £2.50 – she loved it so much she wore it all round the rest of the car boot sale in the blazing sun! Also a skirt for 50pence. She got a heart shaped box containing two Barbie board books for 20p – that girl is just so into Barbie 🙄 a beanie baby each for the children for 20 pence each and some wetsuit shoes for Davies for 20pence. Bargains a-go-go! 🙂
I dropped Ady and the children off at my parents and went up to Sainsburys to do the month’s food shop which came in at under £150 – and I’m sure you can imagine how much meat a month’s worth of Goddard family food shop contains so I was pretty pleased with that.
Came home and unloaded it all and then went back to my parents for lunch. A fairly pleasant couple of hours there and then home for tea. I’ve managed to list a few bits on ebay – and bid on various xbox games for a quid or so each so hopefully some of them are winners to add to the pile of pressies for Davies’ birthday.
Cooked a lovely roast beef dinner, have had a nice IM chat with Ali and am now ready for bed really.
Tomorrow we’ve planned to go to the seafront where there is always a bank holiday Monday market, I want to gather some nice stones from the beach (I know, sshhh! 😉 ) which I plan to decorate for Malice’s grave and we need to mark out and measure our plot of beach for Beachwatch, which I will be talking about more later this week. Must sort out my family tax credits return form tomorrow too and try and get some more stuff listed on ebay. I’ve gone through Tarly’s clothes and sorted out stuff ready for Autumn and Winter collecting an outgrown pile and I need to do the same for Davies really although he appears to have still not grown since last winter, which means he is either stunted in which case I am being very neglectful in not getting him looked at, about to have a mammoth growth spurt which will mean all of his clothes don’t fit any more or he’d just short generally. Which is probably more likely ;-).
Yesterday, obviously was dominated by Malice. We took her to the vets at 8.30am and all four of us went. We said goodbye to her knowing we may not see her again. Having been told the vet would ring us at 11am we were left with a couple of hours to fill so we went to a massive car boot sale to kill some time. I’m really into car boot sales now for all sorts of reasons, the biggest being the opportunity for people watching and amusing myself with their quirks and oddities. The vast range of people you get there, both buying and selling is amazing.
There are several types of sellers – the classic people who have just chucked every single thing from their loft / basement / garage and want to go home with nothing. They will punt it out at bargain prices on the basis that anything they don’t sell will be going to the tip / charity shop on the way home. Then you get the ones who have brought along their children who’s outgrown possessions they are trying to sell. This is always a bit of a weird one and often their stuff is overprices because they are placing sentimental value on their second hand sticklebricks rather than the 50p price tag they deserve. There are the ‘tradespeople’ the ones who make a living from car boot sales and probably also sell stuff on ebay. You don’t get bargains from them, they are totally clued up on the market value of everything on their stall – which is probably four times whatever they paid for it from some unsuspecting seller from the first category at a car boot sale the week before. Finally you have the people who seem to think that they are managing a fine gift shop stocked with designer toys and clothing which should reach premium prices due it’s nearly new status rather than hawking their second hand tat onto a muddy field on a Sunday morning and appealing to the unwashed masses who have a maximum spend of a quid per item. These are the people who have brushed the Barbie doll’s hairs, matched their outfits and placed them all in individual plastic bags and are convinced that actually they should probably go for more than the new ones in the shops as they must be ‘collectable’ or ‘antique’ by now. They lay out their wares with precision and categorisation and tsk loudly if anyone actually handles anything.
We got various videos from a sensibly priced 3 for a quid seller including Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, 101 Dalmations, Lady and the Tramp and two of the dreadful Barbie ones (Swan Lake and Rapunzel) which have kept Tarly entranced ever since. Davies got yet another Gromit cuddly toy – which brings our collection to a level which if sold on ebay would pay for his university education but has probably cost less than a tenner and has led me to finally put my foot down about any more Gromit cuddlies entering our home even if they are being sold for just 30pence.
We’d left home without breakfast so we had cakes from the bakers and then we headed home to await the vet’s phonecall. That came so I was upset first with everyone comforting me, Davies drew a picture to bury with Malice, my parents came over and Ady went to collect her. We were really touched that the vet waived the £170 odd charge for the last couple of days of treatment and medication saying that there was no way he was going to take any more money from us and how sad he was that she had not made it and he had gotten attached to her over the last couple of months too. Lovely man. We all said a last goodbye and buried her in the garden.
Partially to inject a bit of normality back into the day, partially because spending money makes me feel better – even if just on essentials and partially because the weather has changed to such a degree that Tarly’s only shoes being doodles means she is getting wet feet a lot we went shoe shopping for the children. Our local Brantano shoe shack place has just started selling Clarks shoes and properly fitting kids shoes so we headed up there. Having chatted to the lady there at length about the need for Clarks shoes and width fittings once children are past a certain age and not actually wearing them for 8 hours a day anyway we got a pair of boots and a pair of trainers for Tarly from their own range. There were only very expensive (as in £38 which I wouldn’t pay even if we could afford it for shoes he could grow out of in a matter of weeks) shoes or horrid black back to school shoes in Davies’ size so he got a new pair of trainers which are ok to double as shoes for now and we’ll need to get him some more shoes as and when.
We came home again and I went upstairs for an hour or so to have some time on my own, which I don’t often get and really, really needed. The children had tea and we anticipated an early night for them. Scarlett went off to sleep, she says she’s upset about Malice and she did love her but she’s not going to cry – tough little girl that one. Davies however had been very strong all day and kept trying to comfort me but was suddenly hit by it all at about 8.30pm having already been in bed for an hour. He was inconsolable for a while which was very hard to deal with and finally calmed down but ended up staying up with us while we had our dinner. This of course dictated TV viewing so we watched Brainiac for ages which led to all sorts of conversations and explanations. He finally went to bed about 10.30pm, followed shortly by Ady while I drank a bottle of wine and then fell asleep on the sofa. 😳
Today we had planned to go to Em’s no more nappy party but given the late night for Davies and my own slightly wobbly state we’ve revised that plan to go and see my parents for a couple of hours and otherwise stay close to home. Hope the party goes well Em 🙂
I guess in many ways its been inevitable for weeks but Malice won’t be waking up from her sedation this time. She simply has too little hope of recovery from yet another setback so the vet and I have concluded that it’s time to let her go now.
To Malice, who lived all of her nine lives with grace. My dear friend for over 12 years almost to the day (we got her at the August Bank Holiday weekend). There will remain a Malice shaped gap on the sofa, on my lap and in my heart.
Me and Ady are watching some obscure music channel with a ‘Pop Heaven’ show and having a competition to guess the tracks first. Ah the fun we have chez Goddard on a wild n crazy Friday nite! 😆
This morning I took Davies to Toysrus to peruse the shelves for birthday present inspiration. We’ve got the Xbox sorted – we’ve raised half the funds on ebay and my Mum, Dad and brother are chipping in for the other half as Davies’ birthday gift so that doesn’t feel like ‘real money’ when it’s coming out of paypal really. Obviously he’s having his party too but I still want him to have some gifts too. So he and I walked the store twice with him allowed to look at whatever he wanted, not be chivvied along and just able to run to whatever grabbed his attention. I can’t decide whether his quiet and unarguing acceptance that we can’t afford *whatever* he wants is something to be proud of or desperately sad about really…
He liked a k’nex remote control kit – he’s got a bit of k’nex so I’d be quite happy to add to that and he does love a remote control gizmo. He was after another remote control car (he got Herbie for Christmas and wanted Lightening McQueen too – I said he already had one and he said that it would be good for when Lije came and they could play together! :lol:). He also liked a Wallace and Gromit puzzle which I said we could maybe frame if he got it and then hang on his wall – we have various framed jigsaws that I’ve done over the years around the house, mostly of places we’ve been surrounded by photos and other momentos of the place e.g. Las Vegas, New York etc so that might be nice for his bedroom. He quite likes Oidz from the TV ads so we looked at those and then he saw Cube World. I am utterly ignorant about all things gaming but we had thought if we were going to go ahead with an Xbox then an additional portable game would be good for him to have in the car or otherwise out and about. Obviously gameboy etc is out of the question so I’d thought of some other handheld type thing. Cube World appears to cut it really – he hasn’t stopped mentioning it since, apparently he’s seen a tv ad for it and lo and behold when we came home he found it in the Brightminds catalogue that had arrived this morning too, so it must be educational ;-). I’ve tracked down a W&G game on ebay for Xbox and told him he can have the other one if he gets birthday money from his Great Granny, if not then he can wait til Christmas and I’ve spotted a couple of science experiments that I would quite like to get him and know he’ll enjoy even if they wouldn’t be something he’d choose off a shelf himself. So feeling quite happy that his birthday is in hand again.
On the way home we stopped at a big Sainsburys. He’s generally run down and has a coldsore on his lip, a scab on his chin, a twitch in one eye and is getting lots of nosebleeds. The camping last week coupled with excitement about his birthday and the stress about Malice (he’s really quite distraught at the idea of her dying) had really got to him. Sainsburys had all their summer kids clothes at half price or less so we got about six items each for them – all tops – for next Summer for just over £30.
Got home to find Tarly painting which she’s not done for a while so Davies got his paints out too and painted an excellent picture of Wallace. Jack and Maisie had posted Davies and Scarlett a picture each that they’d coloured in so Davies had drawn a tractor and written ‘to Jack Love Davies’ on it. Tarly wanted to send Maisie a butterfly so got Davies to draw it for her and she coloured it in 🙂 like that girl’s delegation ;-).
Then my Mum arrived and we took Malice to the vets.
And that about brings us to tonight. Which is including wine, bagels with chicken, bacon and home made chips.
Back to the vets with Malice again today. She’s going in first thing tomorrow morning for a full X ray and investigation for the head vet to determine whether he thinks that she is likely to recover from yet another operation and go on to be fine other than blind, or whether we are just prolonging her life for her to suffer through countless operations (and further costs!).
This is good in that it was sort of be someone else’s -medically based – decision, rather than one made from sentiment.
If he decides she has used up her last life he will not bring her round from sedation but I’ve arranged to collect her body to bring home as the children want to bury her with various drawings etc. If he thinks it is worth just one more go at fixing her then he will remove the gammy eye, re-sew the already removed one which is gaping open again and then we wait to see if she starts to recover or not.
The vet we saw today is lovely, he is the one who performed most of the early surgery on Malice and is clearly first and foremost an animal lover. He is compassionate and caring and I am very pleased that Malice’s fate rests with his decision making tomorrow. Now we wait…
Yesterday was a bit of a blur really. I was very tired from the stresses of the day before, had a headache and the children are going through a real sibling squabbling phase this week which is generally unpleasant to be around.
We went to the park for an hour or so and met up with Lucy and Julie, both of whom are on very healthy diets which they spent lots of time talking about which I confess to zoning out. We’d taken the childrens’ bikes – Tarly decided she didn’t want to ride hers anyway and Davies informed me he can’t pedal on grass as it hurts his legs, so he pushed it all across the green and cycled round inside the tarmacked playground bit instead. Tarly had two of her ‘moments’ – one because I wouldn’t push her on one of those infant trikes with a parents pushing handle which are designed for one year olds but Julie pushes Jack round on and one because Davies was playing a game and said she was the ‘Scarlett Monster’ and she didn’t want to be the Scarlett Monster.
Do I sound weary? I feel it…
We came home and had a continued noisy afternoon.
This morning we gathered together library books and I read a couple to them, got the dinner cooking, refereed a couple more squabbles and ended up telling them that if they couldn’t live together peacefully then Daddy would have to move out and take one of them with him and the other would stay with me. They surprised me by saying which parent they’d go / stay with 😯 – both at their choice and that they took me seriously and then both wailed and clutched each other saying how much they loved each other and didn’t want to not live together. 🙄 Another great example of sensible parenting eh!
Round to Lucy’s where we parked and then walked together to the library for storytime. Davies insisted he’d heard the story before so we sat in the corner and read another book together. Actually storytime is not really much of a thing for D & S really – the librarian reads a couple of stories (without much passion it has to be said) and they sing some songs – and I confess right here, right now to loathing children’s action songs / nursery rhymes such as wind the bobbin up (see, told you I was cheery!), which for my children somehow actually seem a bit patronising and something they ‘grew out of’ years ago really, and then do some colouring. Chose some more books and then went back to Lucy’s for a play and a chat and some lunch.
Lucy and I managed to chat, D & S behaved fairly well and R was having a bad day of irritating Lucy and not behaving terribly well, which selfishly always makes you feel better somehow, or at the very least demonstrates that actually all children are like that sometimes and it is always worse through a mothers’ eyes than anyone elses.
We came home and Davies and I looked at various coins from his money box and talked about how they are worth different amounts and how some add together to make the same value as just one etc.
After lengthy discussions about birthday presents, X boxes and so on with Davies we have a plan. He and I are heading off to Toys R Us tomorrow to look at potential gifts while Tarly stays with Ady who is WFH. In the afternoon Mum and I are taking Malice to the vets.
I’ve got a susumama order to coordinate – so if anyone else does want anything please do let me know asap, I need to sort out Beachwatch properly, I’ve got further birthday party planning to organise and I got a reminder letter about tax credits which I’ve not even looked at yet this morning.
Oh and I plan to be a bit sunnier 🙂
As tagged by Kirsty (I answered the Homeschooling one tagged by Katy over on MonsterTeeny)
Things that scare me
1 – Predictability – that this could be ‘all there is to it’
2 – dogs
3 – Tarly’s lack of fear
People who make me laugh
1 – Stewart Lee
2 – Victoria Wood
3 – my Dad
Things I hate the most
1 – not being able to pay my way
2 – not getting enough sleep
3 – public parenting!
Things I don’t understand
1 – the mind of a 3 year old
2 – pretty much any language other than English
3 – people who don’t know how to count their blessings. Don’t have any issue with them, just don’t understand them!
Things I’m doing right now
1 – watching a B&Q delivery man and van across the road and trying to decide what is in the box the neighbours are taking delivery of
2 – cuddling Malice
3 – keeping an eye on the clock and mentally portioning my remaining time before I need to leave the house to the following tasks – getting a chilli on in the slow cooker for dinner, getting the children some clothes together and organising them to get dressed, collecting up library books to take back, a quick tidy up before we go out. And knowing I’m never going to manage it all 😆
Things I want to do before I die
1 – Travel. Lots.
2 – Live somewhere totally different, just not sure where yet
3 – see my children grow up to be happy people
Things I can do
1 – write
2 – enjoy myself
3 – admit I’m wrong
Ways to describe my personality
1 – positive
2 – confident
3 – protective
Things I can’t do
1 – remain serious or upset for very long
2 – exercise moderation 😉
3 – touch my nose with my tongue
Things I think you should listen to
1 – your heart
2 – your children
3 – sad songs to make you cry
Things you should never listen to
1 – the promise of a child to ‘never do it again’
2 – the devil on your shoulder
3 – empty promises
Favourite foods
1 – curry
2 – roast dinner
3 – stir fry
Beverages I drink regularly
1 – wine
2 – tea
3 – water
Shows I watched as a kid
1 – Jamie and his magic torch
2 – Grange Hill
3 – Rainbow
People I’m tagging
1 – Chris P
2 – Layla
3 – Alison (although I bet she won’t do it!)
Right, I’ve had an order from Em, but I know various others of you were interested in ordering too. I am planning to place the order next Wednesday to give me time to get it here for Davies’ party the following weekend ready to dish out to anyone coming or anyone who can deliver orders to other people. I will need payment upfront as Susumama operate that way for initial orders so that gives you a week to email me what you want and sort out sending me money too.
Monday night we returned home from our lovely time away and discovered that Malice’s remaining eye was infected as the other one had been a couple of weeks ago. I got a vet’s appointment for yesterday afternoon but had spent the morning convincing myself that this was probably the end for her. We obviously can’t afford the further vets bills to have the second eye removed and I had to ask myself why we were keeping going and whether Malice actually has any quality of life remaining.
After talking with my SIL on the phone for a while I had pretty much decided that I would take her to the vets and request that they put her to sleep and end any further suffering for her. I spoke to the children about it and explained about euthanasia and that it is not right to keep an animal alive when they are in pain or dying when there is the option to let them go with dignity. About how it is the duty of a responsible pet owner to make those sorts of decisions sometimes, however uncomfortable the concept of ‘playing God’ might be. So that was crap 🙁 Nothing like trying to find the balance when the two worlds of pet ownership and parenthood collide. Yes I can make it better for my children by responding to their pleas for their beloved pet not to die but am I just prolonging the suffering of an elderly, blind cat who is in pain? Or I can do the decent, loving thing by my pet and take on murdress status in the eyes of my five year old son who sits sobbing on my lap begging that I don’t take her to the vets to die.
We talked it through more and I gently explained it in more detail eventually deciding that if she didn’t come back from the vets alive I would come back with her body and we could bury her in the garden with some pictures and letters from the children. I got my Mum to come over to take me to the vets and Ady to come home to look after the children and they all said goodbye to her.
But I’d not reckoned on Malice’s nine lives at that point.
The vet examined her, agreed that yes the eye does indeed need to come out, giving her no-eyed status and cosmetically making her even less of a showcat, the eye removed last week has split open above the line of stitches so you can now clearly see into the cavity where once was an eye, that will need to be attended to. But he then checked inside her mouth to see how well her jaw had set as she is still not really eating other than rice pudding. And he found a large absess / ulcer on the roof of her mouth. Which rather changes things apparently.
This could suggest some sort of infection generally – which would explain both eyes getting infected. It could be coincidental but would certainly explain her lack of appetite or it could be an unrelated to the accident but likely terminal indication of a tumor.
So we’ve been sent away to consider the options. If we decide to proceed the first course of action is an x ray of her skull to determine what the ulcer relates to. If it is something treatable then the eye will need to be removed, the other eye will need to be sewn back shut and the bill will pretty much equal what we’ve already spent. Or we can end it now, but as the vet feels there is still chance of recovery to a high level despite blindness.
So we came home again to discuss it further with my parents. The final decision needed to rest with them as they would have to fund any further treatment. Their decision is that we have come this far and she deserves every possible chance all the time the only consideration is financial they are prepared to continue. So Mum and I have an appointment on Friday with the chief vet to discuss the x ray option with a view to going ahead and seeing just what we’re dealing with.
All of which made for a fairly traumatic and tiring day really. 🙁
Mum and Dad stayed for dinner, which once we’d got past difficult decision making was quite a nice evening, the children struggled to get used to a proper bedtime, let alone a proper bed after nearly a week under canvas.
Today we are off to the local park with Lucy and Julie. I’m taking the children’s bikes and a picnic although it is threatening to pour with rain any moment so quite how long we’ll be there I don’t know.
I have various other things to blog so I’ll be back later 🙂
It’s been a while!
Last week we were supposed to be going to Newgale for a long weekend, joining Chris and Alison, Sarah and Steve and Simon and Layla. The plan was to leave home on Thursday and make a day of the journey with Ady working as we went visiting all B&Q stores along the way. But on Tuesday morning his boss told him he needed to be in the office on Thursday afternoon and possibly Friday too which scuppered that plan somewhat. So with the options left being possibly not arriving until late Friday or even Saturday or leaving on Tuesday afternoon with Ady returning to work on Wednesday and then joining us as soon as he could later in the week we went for leaving there and then! So with great haste we packed everything up and were away by 4pm.
We raced the rain and had a good journey there, arriving at about 8.30pm just as darkness started to fall and getting our first real life view of the stunning shoreline seen on Chris’ flickr account so many times. Unfortunately by the time we’d located Alison’s tent and started to unpack the rain had caught up with us and by the time we had got the tent up we were drenched. 🙁 A hasty chucking of everything into the tent and getting the children settled and to sleep meant our plan of either heading out for fish and chips or cooking some of the food we’d brought with us were both out of the question so we dined on nice biscuits (with me realising after the third one just how much I really don’t actually like nice biscuits!) and went to bed ourselves.
Wednesday dawned very early for Ady who went off back to Sussex visiting B&Q stores as he went. The children and I had a more leisurely start to the day with breakfast, sorting the tent into some sort of order and catching up with the HEMUK children. Then we all headed up to Alison’s parents rented house for lunch, death defying clambering on a brick wall in the garden and very noisy jigsaw puzzle construction.
Back down to the beach again and Chris arrived. Tarly stayed on the beach collecting the biggest stones she could find, including wandering over the bank of the stones back towards the road and scaring us silly when we couldn’t see her suddenly. Davies joined us in the sea for a while and then got cold and wandered back up the beach to – I thought- play with the other children while Alison, Poppy, Tilda and I bobbed around jumping waves until we got too cold. We found Davies in a sobbing heap on the beach as he’d been unable to spot us in the sea and had convinced himself I’d drowned. 🙁
We headed up to Val and Clive’s for dinner which in a somehow quite fitting but surreal nonetheless way involved it being Christmas for the evening. There was the same Christmas cd playing that we listened to at Okehampton, lots of people round a long table with children sitting at a tacked on bit with an assortment of chairs from around the house at one end and a variety of joke telling after the meal. We had a log fire roaring away and all we were really missing were crackers! Scarlett ended the evening with a really quite spectacular meltdown just to add to the festive feeling 🙄 but it did mean so fell asleep almost instantly when we got back to the tents.
Thursday Dawned bright and sunny and brought Simon, Layla and Claudia mid-morning with rain following along behind not much later. It appeared to be a shower though and was sunny again after lunch. A quick phone call to Ady ascertained that he was still planning to join us that evening but his ETA was getting later and later so having agreed a skill swap with Chris I headed off with him to get supermarket shopping leaving Davies demonstrating very vocally why he would be so not suited to waving me off cheerily at the school gates each morning. The disappearance of Daddy coupled with the near-drowning incident of Mummy the previous day was clearly still very much in his mind and no amount of reassurance that he was staying with Alison, Layla and Si and assorted children was enough to comfort him. I believe chocolate chip cookies managed it not too long after I was out of sight however. We stopped at a garage where I found supremely bargainous wetsuits for sale. Davies and I had gone to the next to the camp site surf shop that morning and tried on a second hand one for him which was priced at £28 so I was delighted to find a not as good quality but who cares really brand new one for a tenner less at the garage. And it made a good guilt assuage gift too for the abandonment.
Once back at the site Davies tried on his new wetsuit and Si and Claudia went back to the garage to get one each for them following a classic comedy bin liner related wetsuit left behind situation rendering Si wetsuit-less. When they returned I tried Si’s on for size guidance and persuaded the ever-ready-with-a-lift Chris to run me back to the garage again to get one for me. Clearly they sell way more wetsuits there than they do petrol. 😆
Fully wet-suited-up we all went across to the sea for a bob about in the fast fading sunshine. Newgale is in a bay so the sea has land edging out in the distance to the left and right and we could clearly see a massive storm over the left with a black sky, loads of lightening and thunder rolling ominously round the bay while we still had blue skies and sunshine above us. Eventually we got cold enough to decide we should head back to the tents and cook some tea before the inevitable rain drove us inside again so we went back and had showers etc. Davies and Scarlett were naked under poncho towels in our tent while I was still prancing about in my wetsuit when the rain started in earnest. It was lashing down and filled the saucepans I had outside the tent in minutes. Our tent entrance was a bit flappy in the wind so I ducked out, still in wetsuit, to peg it down a bit more and was joined by Chris with his mallet who then spotted a break in the pole over our bedroom pod so we tried, in vain, to fix that as the rain drove ever harder over us, with thunder and lightening crashing and flashing directly above it suddenly turned to hailstones and was coming in clumps of four or five coupled with a strong wind blowing them almost horizontally. I ducked into the tent to check how the children were doing only to find them backed up into a corner with the edge of a flood lapping against their feet having got a good third of the way up inside the tent.
I shoved them into Alison’s awning while Chris and I battled with brushes and saucepans to try and clear the water, while moving all our stuff up to the back of the tent. All the while laughing at the madness of the situation and with Chris pleased that the stove was staying alight to get some tea on. He asked Alison for a saucepan only to find she was in the tent, flanked by six children, using all available receptacles, saucepans included, to bale out the water that was flooding their tent too! 😯
Layla and Si were in similar straights so we saw the rain out and had a quick look around the site to see which area was not ankle deep in water ready to stake a claim to a different part of the field. I was still in my wetsuit! 🙂
Having identified a suitable area we moved a small tent for the children to be grouped into and then set about emptying all the tents out, moving them across the field and repitching them, then filling them back up again all with the threat of more rain likely. Out of the woodwork came an army of helpers from all corners of the campsite and we had ourselves organised and set back up again really quickly thanks to the lovely other campers who even offered us tea when they’d finished humping our stuff across a field. Darkness fell, I finally got out of my wetsuit and by about 10.30pm Steve and Sarah had arrived followed very closely by Ady. 🙂 Some time was spent eating hastily boiled food like noodles and pasta, drinking wine and recounting the story of the Great Flood of 2006 to the new arrivals.
Friday Ady had to do some local garden centres and as everyone else had plans and the children – not to mention me! – had missed him so much we decided to go with him. So we did a circuit of some of the nearby garden centres, stopping at Pembroke Docks for lunch and to feed the hoardes of swans that swim along. It continued to be a ropey day weatherwise and we headed back to the campsite around 5pm to find the others preparing for a beach barbecue and campfire. We headed over to the beach where Chris was in charge of catering, Ady went off with Davies and Scarlett to look at rockpools and I enjoyed having none of my family anywhere within hearing distance and several glasses of red wine with my friends. 🙂 As darkness fell we lit a fire, toasted marshmallows and sang songs. A perfect evening. 🙂
Saturday Oh how it rained. Again. The prospect of a day trapped under canvas with so much else to see drove us out again with the plan of seeing an advertised ‘massive’ garden centre for Ady to tick off his list. Once back at the campsite the rain eased a little so we went back to the sea, this time having a go at bodyboarding.
In the evening we gathered in Steve and Sarah’s awning, I managed to cook what had been the most ill fated stir fry in the world finally. And I also managed to cut my finger open whilst washing up. The washing up room has two large sinks side by side and you have to wash up in a bowl. I was standing doing my washing up chatting to the man stood next to me with a young daughter and I plunged my hand into the soapy water filled bowl to feel a rush of pain and see the water start to slowly turn red. For some crazy reason I didn’t want to draw attention to it so I carried on chatting away, did my washing up as quickly as possible (not very well clearly given the water was bloody) and then wrapped the dishcloth round my finger and hotfooted it back to Ady to inspect the damage and play his qualified first aider role to perfection. He banaged me and then applied a plaster when it had stopped bleeding. And kissed me better ;-).
Sunday The best day of the week weatherwise easily. And a fantastic day all round. We all joined the Price / Tooth family on their annual trip to Oakwood Park. Excellent place with loads of rides to suit everyone. The children loved the tamer stuff like kiddie rides, Davies and Scarlett who are on the thrill seeking side anyway adored the scarier stuff like the Treetops coaster, the Snakefalls water rides, the Bobsleigh and Plane Crazy (can’t even type that without feeling a bit queasy) and as we’d gone off with Layla, Si and Claudia, Si and I became ‘Coaster Buddies’ and did a couple of the scarier ones together. We rejoined the others and went round as a group for a while including Si, Alison, Sarah, Anna and I all going on Speed together which was amazing. 🙂 We did some more of the kiddie rides including the Bob Sleigh (which Tarly and I managed to turn into a white knuckle ride anyway ;-)), Brer Rabbit, the pedalos and various other tame ones. We waved goodbye to Layla and Simon during the afternoon while most of the children were watching a magic show. A stop for dinner and then Alison, Poppy, Sarah, Anna and I (can’t wait til my children are old enough!) went off to ride Megafobia in the dark, followed in Anna and I’s case by Speed and Bounce completing the triple. Alison joined us for Speed and Sarah for Bounce before we dashed back to join the others for the grand finale of Oakwood of a singing and dancing show finished by dancing fountains and a firework display. Looking round the tired but very happy faces of all the children, held in parents arms and lit up by the fireworks was the perfect end to a lovely day. And I have very impressive bruises across both thighs from the ride bars on all those rides. 🙂
Back to the campsite where all the children who hadn’t already fallen asleep on the way went to bed very quickly leaving the remaining adults to sit round some burning candles chatting and enjoying the last evening.
Monday A leisurely breakfasting with lots of chatting made for a slow packing up of the tents with us finished around midday. Davies and I had a last swim in the sea while Ady and Tarly walked the beach looking at stones and rockpools and then we decided to get going to get home in daylight, finally arriving home around 7.40pm.
Since getting home we’ve embarked on a whole other rollercoaster but I’ll save the telling of that for the morning. Photos are on flickr and we had a truly lovely week. Newgale is beautiful, the company was great and massive thanks to Chris and Alison for everything. 🙂 xxx
It’s been one of those days.
But I did get some of this from Tesco and I think I’m in love with it! 🙂
I’ve now camped without the portapottie, during mooncup time, in wind and rain, pitched the tent in the dark, taken it back down again in the wind and rain, rethreaded an unthreaded elastic bit from two poles (performing basic tent maintenance!).
Now aside from pitching on the near vertical side of an exploding volcano, carrying the tent on my back to previously untrodden on by human feet soil in distant and unfamiliar lands or tenting underwater please could I get my ‘Camper’ badge now 🙂
It’s because it is quite stoney and without appropriate footwear it hurts! 🙂
We’ve had a lovely, lovely weekend at Jan and Jonathan’s fab house in a very lovely part of the country with very lovely company. 🙂
Friday
Ady WFH’d in the morning while I took Tarly to Sainsburys where we bumped into a friend I’d not seen in a while and stood catching up with her for ages. We came home and I made various baking products to take as our contribution to the party food and packed up things for the weekend.
We got away after lunch around 1.30pm and made OK time considering it was a Friday afternoon in the Summer holidays with a journey taking in large parts of both the M25 and the M1. I think we arrived around 7pm and we had had a couple of stops along the way, so not so bad.
We were greeted with food and tea for grown ups and shrieks of ‘Davies’ and ‘Scarlett’ for the children which was all very nice. I’d origininally bottled out of pitching the tent after all as it was getting dark and the rain was on and off but I was shamed into reversing that decision by Chris French, single-handedly remembering poles and arriving later than us and still heading into the field to pitch so we changed our minds and with assistance from Katy we got ourselves pitched and ready in the dark after all.
Most of the house dwelling children were off to bed at a semi-respectable hour but we struck a deal with Davies, Scarlett, Elinor, Marcus and Alex that if they were quiet they could stay up later. They didn’t of course manage the keeping quiet although Tarly was entertained by a princesses bingo puzzle type thing for a while (washed down with a few sips of wine :roll:) before we all headed off to bed together sometime after midnight. Of course the instant I finally got comfy and cosy in bed I realised I was desperate for a wee and having not brought the portapottie I was forced to bare all in the pitch dark outside the tent round a corner instead (or trek back to the house!), which meant I never did get warmed back up and spent at least 2 hours lying in the tent feeling cold but not cold enough to rummage for more clothes. Foolish virgin camper! 😆
Saturday
A lovely breakfast of pancakes with some of Katy’s special chocolate sauce which Babs has amusing video footage of Tarly getting the most out of (I think she’d even choose it over pink wine!) and everyone scattered to various corners. Children played outside in different combinations – some more succesful, peaceful and friendly than others ;-), a feast of a lunch was served and we found various pockets of people in various rooms to have chats with which was lovely.
After lunch Jonathan organised a literal field trip down to the stream and pump house, so taking first prize for most unsuitable footwear to step off the path in (flipflops with little beaded bits!) we all slipped and slid down the slope, chancing DIY vasectomies as men stepped over barbed wire fences to the stream at the bottom. I’ve still not quite worked out how come Beth and Catie walked across and it barely touched their pants as they held their skirts aloft but somehow my calculation that my knees were about level with their pants and as such rolling my jeans up to above my knees would suffice was incorrect. Also I’ve not quite worked out how come no one told me we weren’t all going to paddle across the stream and actually I was the only adult who did – while all the rest congregated on the bank taking photos and pointing and laughing! 😆 My main concern was not for wet underwear, loss of dignity, pride or the overwhelming photographic evidence of Nic being a loon yet again, it was not that I only had an already slightly damp pair of cut off jeans as my only spare change of clothes, it was not even that I had a small child clutching each hand and if I went I’d take them both with me – it was that if I did indeed do what everyone was anticipating and slip over on the very slimy, frog inhabited rocks that made up the very uneven surface of the stream my phone which was in my pocket would probably die!
I managed not to slip and actually got across to the other side to join the annoying drier than me children congregated on the other side and the adults and other children who had simply walked along the bank on dry land at the other side, only for Jonathan to return and tell us we were all trespassing anyway. So I paddled back!
Jonathan then conducted a three children at a time, very interesting and informative talk on the purpose and method of the pumphouse. Clearly if I had the pumphouse on my land I’d be selling commemorative T shirts, pencils, fridge magnets and postcards of it and ensuring you left the stream via and overpriced gift shop, having had a motion sensored digital camera take a snap of you with an ‘ooh argh!’ expression as you encountered the slimy bottom of the stream with a bare foot, to be sold in a souvenier wallet bearing the legend ‘I stepped off the path’. And then we all walked back up the hill again. 🙂
There was then a ritual kidnapping of all males over 18 to go to the pub which Ady got swept up in 😉 There were womenfolk doing handicrafts in the house but as my repertoire does not extend beyond sewn cartoon characters with scrapstore offcuts of material I stayed in the garden pushing children on swings and generally overseeing Davies’ degeneration into overtired and slightly obnoxious boy. Fortunately he was in good company in the overtired stakes so the work of a mediator was called upon a fair bit! 😆
Further food was unveiled in the evening, with more people arriving which was lovely. Ady and I took our two very tired little people to the tent around 9pm and they were asleep within minutes freeing us to return to the house for further chatting, eating and drinking. Ady retired before me and I enjoyed a very pleasant evening in very lovely company. 🙂
This morning we woke later than planned so amended our plans to be away by 10am and went to the house to join everyone else for breakfast. The great search for missing belongings then began in earnest while Ady and I dismantled the tent and repacked the car up. All stuff except a small camera case which Tarly had filled with stones recovered we said our goodbyes and thankyous and headed for home. I think we were away around 11.30am in the end.
We had a brief lunch stop about halfway home and we were slowed down lots by huge storms on the M25 but made it home in good time and have enjoyed very deep, very hot baths all round, Charlie and Lola arrived from Tescos DVD rental so that has been watched several times already, they were both alseep looking very comfortable in their own beds again by 9pm and we’ve enjoyed a roast dinner while flickring some shots from the weekend.
Thank you so much to Jan and Jonathan for opening their lovely home to us and to everyone else who was there for their company. 🙂
When Nic first met Ali it was all about Home Ed
‘You do, I do it, let’s meet up’ Ali said
‘Come to my house for a visit, the kids should all get on,
we can talk about John Holt and the LEA, what could possibly go wrong?’
But as time went by and we met up more the truth began to dawn
we were very different people but a true friendship was born
despite the fact Ali was a lefty liberal and Nic a true, true blue
despite Nic eating dead animals and dairy products too
While Ali, the crap vegan ate cheezely, soya milk and tofu
aswell as milk chocolate, honey and probably lamb chops too 🙂
So Ali, Happy Birthday mate, hope your day is filled with as many amusingly named fake festive foodstuffs as can be, may your wine be red and very alcoholic, your birthday presents be just what you always wanted and heres to buying replacement twin swimsuits this time next year 🙂 xxx
Ali 🙂 Have a great day with lots of love from Ady (in boots), Nic, Davies and Scarlett xxx
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