2007

January saw me turn 33, which all felt very grown up, a visit from Merry and her girls and some snow!

Oh and Davies started at both Beavers and a new Badgers in Worthing after the local Lancing one had folded late in 2006. I got stuck into my new library job having started in December 2006.

February was wonderfully welcomed in with celebrating Kirsty and James’ wedding

There was the whole running out of tea incident, I went on a bus and really groundbreaking stuff had a Girls Night In which was also my first ever night apart from Davies and Scarlett. It was wonderful 🙂
marred only by Joyce not being there in person!
oh and I discovered that there is not enough time on a Saturday morning to get a months food shopping in before getting to work on time.

March We had a NicCamps at Hunstanton which was fab :),

me and the children had a Perfect Home Ed Day and we did lots of Spring Walks!

April saw us watching lambs being born which was probably most awesome for me, the children were more enamoured with the haybales to jump from


. Meanwhile back at home we were embarking on our second attempt at incubating chickens eggs after our first had given us a zero percent success rate. This time we were more diligent about regular turning of the eggs and maintaining humidity levels in the incubator.

We had a trip to Legoland where S was old enough to go on the driving school for the first time
and D was finally tall enough to go on the big rollercoaster for the first time (thanks Si :)).

We had a few Spring Walks including a lovely Bluebell walk

and then I think we spent the rest of April on the beach looking at my flickr pictures!

In May Davies won Badger of the month for the first time (he currently holds Badger of the Month for December too :))

We did our annual photoblog day
, had visits from Layla and Si Ady had a birthday, we went to Adam’s birthday party, Eve and Rei’s birthday party. we went to the beach some more and the eggs hatched! We had five new lives which was enchanting, magical, amazing and wonderful. Of course we went on to lose one to a fox, three to a farm as they were cockerels and we ate one! But back in May it was all about the cute little hatchlings 🙂



And shortly afterwards it was all about me scavenging for old pallets, breaking them up and building a chicken run with my Dad’s assistance!

June saw fit to make up for all that glorious beach weather we’d had in March and April and rained a lot. Mostly during the week we were sleeping in a field :(. We did manage The South of England show
, an Open Day Farm visit and Spring watch day and plenty of strawberry picking on the fine days inbetween showers;
and Davies participated in a Beavers It’s A Knock Out competition too.
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The last week of June was Kessingland, which managed to be very wet, very windy, very miserable for much of the time, punctuated with a crap tent, a night without Ady, glasses or contact lenses or make up, run ins with small children for me and a general total sense of humour failure. It also managed to have high points; all of which were to do with the people rather than the venue or the tenting but sometimes you have to take the rough with the smooth!

July was lots of end of term type stuff for Davies at Beavers, Badgers and Swimming. More fruit picking and Summer Walks. I did some end of the school year type pondering here. We had various out and about stuff happening once everything had broken up for the summer including a trip to Nuneaton for me and the children to camp in the garden of some internet friends for a internet gathering which was ace 🙂 We renewed our membership to Drusillas so had a trip over there, met up with Chris and Helen a couple of times on their trip to Sussex camping including a visit to Fishbourne which was great and followed the next day by a big gathering with Chris and Helen, Ros, Ali and Lucy all coming here to get together. We also had a great time at The Beans’ Castle Day

The children and I had a very cold wet afternoon at the beach (in JULY!!) which necessitated hot chocolate and saw Davies’ first solo trip into the shop to buy squirty cream to go on top of it – milestone moment! 🙂

We enjoyed the whole Hokey Cokeyness of Freya’s birthday celebrations (in – at Monkee Bizniss, out – at Spring Barn Park Farm!) with added haybale craziness and communal wearing of J’s hat 🙂

and we had a nice visit from LovelyEm, Eve and Rei :).

Right at the end of the month we met up with The Clarkes and The Scream Team at a localish Science Centre for a good day out where the sun finally decided to shine again. And there was zaniness..

August was a real landmark month here. Yes we went camping, yes we had day trips to London for concerts, yes we were in local media but mostly it was a big deal because Davies lost his first tooth!.

But to get back to the other stuff, we had a fab day out at the beach doing rockpooling crabhunting type stuff with The Rangers 🙂

Davies had a very big moment at the Wallace and Gromit day at Drusillas when he got to Hug A Hero 🙂

We had a lovely week’s camping in Dorset, which spelled the end for the Crap Tent but was a real test of camping, living on a very small budget, surviving yet more Great British Summertime weather and our first ‘just the four of us’ holiday in years. It was great! 🙂

Another highlight this month was the Noisy Kids concert in London. Again it was blighted by crap weather but I think we’d sort of got used to being wet by that point in the summer and it was a great experience nonetheless.

Also in August was the Green diggers event that the children and I went along to at a local garden centre.
We had a fab time there with both Davies and I being interviewed by the local radio station, Davies winning second prize for his pot painting, both children being much photographed by a photographer which later ended up on the front page of the local council paper and learning loads about planting, seeds, types of compost etc aswell as impressing various people with what wonderful children I have 🙂

September saw Davies turning seven, which suddenly seemed to be Big Boy Territory! He lost another tooth, had another big production of a birthday party (who could forget my dalek!) and even seemed to grow a bit 😉

There was the Shoreham airshow which had the tragedy of the pilot losing his life and effected us quite deeply, I don’t know that we’ll be watching the airshow again with quite such anticipation and of course that pilot will never be taking to the skies again. RIP Brian Brown.

We took our hands on biology lesson of incubating eggs, hatching chicks and raising them to adulthood one step further – infact about as far as you can take it. Ady slaughtered and prepared Rhonda the cockerel and we had him for Sunday dinner!

I enjoyed the second of three writers retreat days I’ve been to this year. I’ve not written much about them but they have been very special, cherished days. It’s been great to consider myself A Writer and spend time in the company of other writers, sharing work, praising talent and doing something that was entirely selfish, just for me and very enojoyable. Sharing them with Ali has added to that 🙂 x.

Jack and Maisie, Davies and Scarlett’s cousins turned five and Julie organised a group trip to the Natural History Museum to mark the occassion which we went along to. It was my first time taking Davies and Scarlett on the underground and made it a very different journey to previous London excursions. We had a great day and pledged to get up there more often :).

October we made the most of it being Autumn with two Autumn Walks to the same venue in the space of a week!

Ady was on telly!

We had a nice weekend in Reading for Lije and Lulah’s birthdays with a fab swimming party and a night at Layla and Si’s 🙂

We had a fab trip to Legoland, just the four of us, as a delayed birthday treat for Davies and it was excellent!

Davies and I went on everything, Tarly and Ady went on everything she was tall enough for (which was pretty much everything but the biggest rollercoaster), we went on Pirate Falls and River Splash many, many times, all got utterly drenched and just had a great day 🙂

We had a great time at Fishbourne Roman Villa at their Roman week where Davies and Scarlett learnt latin writing, fulfilled various Roman Soldiers tasks and were awarded their pay of one roman coin at the end of it.

We went Sheffield way to celebrate Ben’s birthday with him, which had the added bonus for the grown ups of a very nice evening with The Babs & Chris, Bob and Katy and Karen and Dom :).

It being October we had the usual Halloween pursuits including pumpkin carving, a Magical Mondays Halloween party and a Spooky Night at the local park.

November started with a bang (boom, boom!) with fireworks at Chris and Julie’s

It progressed apace with NicCamps Sussex which was a great week, we all really enjoyed it. Despite being so very, very close to home we actually quite enjoyed walking the downs, eating chips on the beach and sharing the good bits of where we live with so many friends 🙂

Davies cracked swimming and achieved his 5 metres badge :). He’s looking forward to getting even further with that in 2008.

The rest of the month was fairly quiet with rather less gallivanting and rather more home-based or local stuff happening. We did plenty of walks, visited places like Highdown Gardens, Paradise Park and Slindon. We spent time at regular stuff like Magical Mondays, Beavers and Badgers for Davies, with Jack and Maisie and The Rs.

We enjoyed a birthday party for our friend Lula which had quite possibly the craziest party game ever 😆

We kicked December off with Tarly’s birthday party which I think was universally considered a success, but most importantly was utterly about and 100% enjoyed by the party girl herself.

The following day we all gathered at church for Davies’ SJA carol concert which he joined some other Badgers in singing some Christmas songs at. It was lovely 🙂

Scarlett turned five and we celebrated on the day with a trip to the Sealife centre at Brighton and yet another enormous cake 😉
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It feels slightly odd to be rounding up stuff that’s happened within the last three weeks but December has passed in the way that it usually does with end of term stuff (Davies won Badger of the month again :)), Christmas parties (Badgers, Magical Mondays, Ady’s work one!). We had a good Christmas, blighted though it was by illness as seems to have been the case for many people.

We’ve managed several beach and woodland walks these last couple of days and are planning to see the old year out and the new year in just the four of us. Davies and Scarlett are staying up with us, we’ve got lots of nice food and drink, the fire it stoked up, the music is playing.

It’s been a good year, 2007. We’ve managed to fit loads in, lots of trips, visits, get togethers, camps, breaks away. I’ve settled into my job, Ady’s job remains ever changing but exciting with it. Once again (and this was the highlight of last years round up) we end the year with less debt that we started it. We have plans for 2008, big plans, maybe life changing plans. The children have had a fabulous year, another chunk of their childhoods has passed, new memories have been made, history has been written.

I don’t do NY resolutions, if I think something needs changing then I tackle it there and then. 2008 is sure to bring new highs, new lows, new challenges and tests, fresh ideas, maybe new friends and opportunities. Thanks for sharing 2007 with us, look forward to 2008 in your company.