One word? When seven would do…

I knew it was an error to book early Sunday morning swimming lessons – we all woke up barely an hour before we had to be at the pool this morning so it was a mad rush to get breakfasted, dressed and out of the house in time. Last week there were two out of three triplets at the lesson and I chatted to their grandmother who was saying the third triplet would be there this week too. Ady came home in the week and told me that a bloke he worked with who’s wife had triplets not long after we had Davies were expecting another baby now but for some reason I’d not made any connection, despite the fact all girl triplets are probably not terribly common so it was a nice surprise to arrive at the pool and find the third triplet and her parents being the couple we knew. To continue the bizarre coincidence at the same time as Ady worked with Neil I also worked with his ex-fiance at another job and we bumped into her later today too.

The lesson was fine – I’d got D goggles this week which I’m sure would have helped if I’d put them on him properly but he enjoyed it and if we can manage to go swimming at some point to reinforce some of what he’s learning I’m sure that would help too. Personally I can’t think of anything worse than trying to teach 8 six year olds how to swim all at once with none of them really listening or following instructions but the woman seems to do a fairly good job.

We left there and went off to a car boot sale. Nothing much there today so we came home pretty much empty handed. We did spot a box full of various toy sea creatures including rays, sharks etc but the stall holder wanted £20 for the lot 😯 so we left them there. There were worth it in terms of what they would have cost new and them being in good condition but that is so not what car boot sales are about :lol:.

Home for lunch and then back out again to the optician. In February last year Davies had his eyes tested and was prescribed glasses for a short time to wear each week. He actually really liked wearing them but they broke a few months back and we’d not got them fixed so when we were in town in the week we popped into the opticians and had them fixed and made an appointment for him and Scarlett to both have their eyes checked. Davies’ were fine, the slight astygmatism (sure that’s not spelt right) that was in one eye has cleared up so he doesn’t need the glasses at all any more. The optician said if he wants to still have them for occassional wear when doing close reading or similar then that’s fine (it was a very low prescription). Scarlett was really nervous and where I’d booked appointments one after the other with the intention of her watching Davies have his eyes tested and then doing hers two opticians called them simultaneously so I went with Davies and Ady took Tarly. She did really well though and her vision is fine, no need for any glasses and very healthy eyes, so that was a good investment of an hour or so.

When we arrived in town there were two fire engines parked right across the pedestrianised main street with loads of firemen standing around. One of the engines was hitched up on these four big feet so the actual vehicle was about 2 foot off the ground and then two firemen and a woman from the RSPB with an animal carrier got into the cherry picker bit and were sent up to the top of a 3 storey building where a seagull was hurt and all tangled up in some wire barriers on the roof. There was a massive crowd gathered while they rescued the bird, freeing it from the wire and bringing it back down again. The fireman brought it over to the crowd so we could all see it (he was loving it, the fireman, not the bird :lol:) and there was much applauding and cheering before we all went on our way and the fire engines headed off again. We had a wander round the town after the opticians before coming home.

The children had an early tea with the intention of getting them to bed early in preparation for an early start and a long day tomorrow although they didn’t actually get their early night with both of them still awake after 9pm :(. We all watched Dr Who taped from last night and Ady and I had roast beef.

It feels like the weekend hasn’t really happened, with me working and so much going on today and now, despite the fact the children didn’t manage it, I really am heading off early to bed.

well not quite, but pretty damn close 😳

The headache cleared with the walk into work and the quiet and soothing environment of the library. There were four of us in this afternoon including Frankie who I like most. She has this habit of coming and saying things to me in a very low voice so only I can hear while I then have to deal with trying not to laugh at what she’s said infront of whoever I am dealing with at the time. She is a total bitch and I like her a lot 😆 The first hour was pretty quiet and I was on shelving duty so I mainly stood around with Frankie and Linda and we talked about a new starter and what we all think of her and I had a very protracted period of helping an elderly man photocopy his vehicle documents for a car he’d just sold. For the second hour I was on the counter so that was books in and out, packing up some items ready to go to other branches and occassional dancing behind the counter when noone was looking :lol:. Then it was tea break time and then I had an hour’s Enquiry Desk training. The Enquiry Desk is hallowed ground, you only get to man that when you are Fully Trained and Ready For Anything. It is the font of all knowledge, the place we send all questionners and best of all you get to sit down while you are manning it! I dealt with a few queries, learnt various new things and gossiped with the boss :). You gotta love that all female working envrionment for that aspect ;). My last half hour was spent doing the closing procedures. This includes closing and locking any windows throughout the building which have been opened, turning off the emergency exit alarms and bringing in the traffic cones which mark out Library staff parking spaces in the carpark, putting keys in all the various cupboards, shutting down all the computers and helppoints, cashing up the photocopier, telling any public that we are about to close and finally turning off all the lights.

Ady and the children were in the carpark waiting for me to go off food shopping. They’d had a great day out in the garden, they’d spent time cleaning Ady’s car inside and out with him – he gets his new car delivered next week 🙂 and David the Thankyou Neighbour had been over to sit and listen to the football on the radio with Ady. They’d been bathed (which means they must have been really filthy!) and fed.

We drove to Sainsburys and after a brief hiatus when I marched everyone out into the carpark, lectured them all about behaviour and then directed them back in again all was well. We were in there for ages, mostly because we got the kids to help pick things off shelves and put them in the trolleys. We finished there and got home around 730pm so the children got themselves off to bed while we put all the shopping away and then Ady read Davies a story and I read Tarly one from the massive pile I’d brought home from work.

Bath, much consumption of alcohol and a very late dinner means I will probably not be on top form tomorrow for my turn to get up but as we have a busy day of swimming lessons and opticians appointments planned I imagine I will have to get my head in the game pretty quick!

I’ve got a headache – drank too much wine last night 😳 Children and Ady seem even noisier than normal. D&S are outside caterpillar hunting for the butterfly garden – they have one so far.

Can’t decide whether it is day two or day three of Hatchwatch II but we are being more solicitous in our looking after them this time having read the instructions for the incubator properly, not at all sure yet what we’ll do with the chicks if they hatch!

Right, off to get changed for work and gather up books to take back.

As we pulled into our drive today Davies suddenly said ‘did Granny and Grandad have a sticker in their car with children in a not broken triangle when you were a little girl to show you and Uncle Frazer went to school then?’

I explained that no, they didn’t. He then wanted to know why not and I explained that it was not a regulation that you had a sticker in your car stating the education choice for any contained children within and that ours was an EO sticker advertising Home Education because it is something different to normal. He insisted that it was not and reeled off a list of names of other childen he knows who are Home Educated saying ‘loads of our friends are Home Educated’. I explained that he was the only child at Badgers, Beavers and Swimming lessons that didn’t go to school and it was more than a happy coincidence that everyone at NicCamp, Kessingland and Magical Mondays happened not to go to school. Given the whole Danny and Sandy thing from earlier I think we might just have hit the magical age of worrying about what everyone else is doing…

The weather’s been lovely here again today, very windy but lovely and sunny just the same.

We had to go and transfer some money from one bank to another, which are at opposite ends of town and I’m still on a quest for sunsuits for both children too. Also Davies had some funny squidgy faces from a cheapo shop a while back and burst one (they seem to be made from thin rubber like balloons filled with some sort of powder – should try making them ourselves really) last night which upset him so I said we’d replace it.

So we drove into town and parked up really easily as it was really quiet today. On the way we listened to the OST of High School Musical which I’d borrowed from work. Davies listened to the first song with a thoughtful look on his face and then as soon as ‘Getcha head in the game’ came on said ‘Oh, this is from that film we watched – what was it called again?’ I told him and then he reminded me that it had the working title of Grease 3 which I’d told Ady having read it somewhere, so he wanted to know about Grease 2. I told him it was rubbish! 😆 We talked a bit about how they were similar stories – set in high schools, with lots of singing and dancing and the two central characters playing out some sort of doomed love story. I likened it to Romeo and Juliet (at which he nodded, but actually I’m not at all sure he had any idea who I was talking about!). We talked about how Danny was really cool but Sandy was not so cool and their friends were really different groups and how that was similar in HSM too. But Davies pointed out that in Grease Sandy changed herself to fit in with Danny and in HSM they didn’t change but made what they were cool for everyone. Which I’d never really realised before about Grease but actually that’s a shite message isn’t it – don’t be yourself, be like all the cool kids and fit in! I asked Davies which he thought was the best thing to do – try and fit in to be cool or be yourself and be so good at it that people thought you were cool just for being you. He said he’d think about it :lol:.

We went to the first bank, kept ourselves entertained by guessing which cashier number would be called next – similar activity to listening to the footballs scores read out on the radio and trying to guess how many goals – Nottingham Forest one, Wolverhampton Rovers…nil. We got Davies his replacement squidgy face things – he went up and paid for them himself, then off to the other bank. We had a look in Claires Accessories just because Scarlett and I love it in there and then had a wonder round various clothes shops, not buying of course 😉 before ending up in The Works. I got a painting by numbers kit each for Davies and I having been telling them about them the other day and some Disney princess posters and watercolours for Tarly. She also got one of those rainbow sponge paint things which are advertised by JML all the time for about a tenner for 59 pence! A random stranger came up to Davies and gave him a balloon which he’d obviously been given in a shop which nearly caused a fight as of course Scarlett wanted one too then but we managed to calm her down. She went off again though in Woolworths when I wouldn’t double back to look at something again even though I’d already seen it once and agreed that yes, she could have it for her birthday. So I was that mother walking briskly out of the shop with one child screaming behind me and the other trotting along with his balloon bobbing about and hitting people as he walked past them. She recovered pretty quickly when I picked her up and talked reasonably to her though and apologised and kissed me which given the crowd we’d attracted I was surprised didn’t warrant a round of applause. Actually she has been being tricky again lately and I’ve been putting it down to her being tired, which it is, but I possibly haven’t been dealing as well with her as I was a while back, getting pulled into the threatening punishments and shouting at her cycle rather than being rational and calm in response. However that was a tiny episode during a couple of hours being out and about and I was thinking how lovely it was to be able to walk round town and properly look at things without having to push pushchairs, worry about children running off or generally fretting about having them with me. Actually most of the time the children are pretty good company nowadays, they ask interesting questions which make me think, hold intelligent conversations and make me laugh. I’m aware that from September it won’t just be Davies who shouldn’t be with me during school hours, Scarlett will be obviously not in school too. Even though they are pretty little as soon as they open their mouths and speak they mark themselves out as ‘not in school today’. I think that’s what was bothering me at Fun Junction really, suddenly it is obvious that they are different, just by looking at them and anyone overhearing the conversations we have will realise that. I am proud of what we do but I don’t always want to be quite so visible, all the time.

We left there and popped into the CoOp on the way home to get some bits for dinner tonight. We came home and had a late lunch before embarking on the painting by numbers. Davies very quickly got bored of it, Scarlett enjoyed painting her poster and I did most of mine. I had told the children about painting by numbers kits when we were talking about ways of copying things exactly rather than your own interpretation or creativity. I recall doing kits as a child and whilst admiring the finished product as it was indeed a good replica always feeling rather unfulfilled by it as it required little or no real talent, imagination or creativity. Always made me want to muddle the colours up at least and make 1 orange rather than blue and 2 red instead of green just to see what would happen 😆 Davies retired from arty pursuits and went to play on his Xbox – today he was playing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and got to another new level so he was pleased with that. Tarly mostly made a mess with her rainbow painting sponges, but being rainbow coloured at least it was a pretty mess :lol:.

Ady came home, the children had tea and then went out to play in the garden, they came in requiring a bath and while they splashed around for a good half an hour or so Ady and I pulled all the cupboards out in the playroom and gathered a new pile of stuff ready to be listed on ebay. The children got out of the bath and came to join us on decision making on outgrown toys. Tarly is like me, she is quite happy to let stuff go particularly if in doing so there is a chance of acquiring new stuff in return – I love clearing half my wardrobe out, selling it on ebay and then feeling utterly justified in refilling it again afterwards. 😆 Davies is a bit more reticent about getting rid of things and would happily keep rattles and stacking cups claiming some sort of emotional attachment to them despite not having seen them in four years 😆 It probably doesn’t look very different to the casual observer (not that we have many people coming round to casually observe our playroom) but it is clearer, with space for this weeks car boot bargains to slot straight in to :lol:.

Children off to bed, late dinner for us and either The Queen or episode 2 of Prison Break which we watched the pilot of last night and got hooked on straight away. 🙂

‘Nicola – Queen of the library’ but you lot can still call me ‘Nic’ 🙂

Actually it’s not nearly as glamorous or regal as it sounds and doesn’t include a sparkly tiara or a bouquet of flowers. It was a nod to my efficiency and speed of work apparently. My predecessor used to have the crown for being the most super-speedy worker there and they decided today that I replaced her in more ways than just taking her working hours. So that was nice :). I wouldn’t have said but I knew you’d all be keen to hear ;).

It was really busy today actually, loads of people bringing back books so lots of shelving, lots of books in the daily delivery for borrower reservations so lots of phoning people to tell them their books are in and also The Rotation Plan, which we must speak of in a hushed and reverent tone. But all it really means is that print outs of statistics spew out regularly and are looked at by Important People (librarians). One such print out lists books which have not been borrowed for X period of time and are therefore taking up space on shelves but not justifying it. So the first course of action is to move them around to other libraries to see if they get borrowed from there. Eventually they either get sold or last copies get kept in stores. So today’s task was to work off a print-out and pick all the books, videos, cds, dvds etc. listed ready to be packed off to another local library. Not really that taxing and once you know which shelf a book is likely to be nestling on it’s pretty straightforward to go and grab it, but I do still work at Retail Pace and view every task as one to complete and get onto the next one rather than the ‘job for the day’.

I found a recipe for pork chops (planned dinner for tonight) in one of the cookery books so during my lunch break I went and got the extra ingredients for that, stupidly forgetting that I’d walked in to work and would need to walk home again. I then compounded that by selecting a load of books for the children which got heavier and heavier as I walked home until I thought my back was about to break – bet it’s stiff tomorrow, so that was silly, but I did hit more than my specified target of steps for the day. 🙂

The children had had a good day, going to the local park with Lucy & co in the morning and spending the afternoon out in the garden under my Dad’s care. They’d been grazing all day with all the fruit in the house eaten, all the bread and a load of cereal consumed so were not in the market for any tea so we tidied up, watched Shaun The Sheep together and then they got their pjs on and I sat and read them the whole pile of about 10 books I’d brought home.

Ady arrived home during all this with a half dozen fertilised eggs so we can have a go at Hatchwatch II. He’d found a local farm with free range chickens and been to talk to the farmer about the whole thing. He’s seen the farmer’s set up for hatching and talked to him about some of the errors we might have made last time leading to our zero percent success rate. So tonight we’ve set it all up again and have six eggs hoping to become chicks in three weeks time.

I can’t quite believe it’s Friday again already tomorrow, we have a few things we need to do but I’m going to aim to get them done first thing and spend the day doing nice things with the children, today felt like a long time away from them.

We had two possible plans for today, weather dependant. If it had been fine we would have gone for a walk round the lake at Arundel, if the weather was poor we were going to Fun Junction. I was hoping for the lake, the children were hoping for FJ and the rain decided us on FJ.

In the morning I had some online stuff I needed to get done so I was impatient with the children who looked at me intelligently, nodded in agreement and repeated back what I’d said to them to demonstrate they understood that I needed them to give me some peace for an hour so that I could get stuff done and then we could all go out. And then promptly interupted me every few minutes. 🙄

When they weren’t doing that they played with the kliko stuff which is a load of triangles and squares with connectors to fix them together and some wheels which have cogs on them. Davies built something with a series of cogs turning to make the end bit move (which I suggested he try and do something similar with the gears! gears! gears! stuff next time) and Tarly was making mosaic style pictures with the shapes. I made a picnic lunch and we headed off to FJ.

We were there first so while D&S went off to play I sent a couple of text messages to people I am long overdue catch-ups with and then Lucy arrived. Julie was not too far behind and suddenly we had five BIG children (trailed by Richard) running around being Very Loud Indeed in sharp contrast to all the little toddlers who were the other patrons today. They all just looked too big and were so loud and it just didn’t feel right at all. I don’t really know why it bothered me so much, noone else seemed to mind, they were not doing anything wrong and the staff were only too happy to take our money but it had the same feeling as a gang of teens in the kiddie area at a playground. The fun for them was no longer in just going round the climbing stuff and sliding down the slides though, that’s lost it’s challenge, their games have become more involved and things like climbing up the slides and finding new ways to use the equipment. Maybe I was just having an odd day though…

We came home and the children carried on with their game with the kliko stuff and the toy animals while I got on with some work and then did their dinner. Ady is right in the middle of his busiest period of the year so is working 14 hour days most days which he is finding tough and for once I am managing to pull off the supporting wife role rather than my usual ranting lunatic piling on pressure at home aswell as work. So he didn’t get home in time for Badgers but as Tarly had actually asked if she could come with us anyway that worked out fine. Davies went in and Tarly and I went for a walk down to the beach. On the way she amazed me with her feats of athletics, her running is really very fast, she is a super climber and today she was showing me her ‘superjumps’ (long jump) which to me uneducated eye at least looked very impressive. As she is not a particularly dancey girl and I think even gymnastics wouldn’t be her thing I wonder whether there are such things as athletics groups for little children. I know we did athletics at school in the summer (hockey in the winter!) and did long jump, high jump, javelin, shotput, discus, hurdles, sprinting and distance running, all of which I think she’d enjoy – I imagine she is way too young and it is something she would do from senior school age though, must look into it as that’s the sort of thing that might get picked up in school but could easily go unnoticed by such a physical ignorant as me :oops:.

We had a lovely walk along the beach, the tide was high and there were plenty of interesting washed up things to look at including crabs bits, dead fish, clams, barnacles, cuttlefish aswell as shells and a wide variety of non natural stuff too. We stopped at the fishermens boats, looked at their nets and then looked at all the fish they had for sale with him very kindly telling us what each one was. Then Ady rang to say he had arrived outside Badgers and could take her home while I waited for Davies. She was not going to give up the treat of two parents all to herself that easily though and demanded to go back down to the beach when we met Ady so she showed him all the ‘treasure’ we’d found and told him all about the fisherman. Ady and Scarlett threw lots of stones in the sea and then we all walked back to Badgers. They were playing outside by then and Ady stood in amazement watching Davies playing and shouting just like I do every week while we stood and marvelled about where our little 2 year old had gone and how much he had changed. Then Ady took Scarlett off home and I waited for Davies.

Once home they helped to tidy up before going off to bed, we watched The Apprentice and I am now falling asleep as I type so I’m off to bed ready for a full day’s work tomorrow :).

So my whole tent dilemma and another thread on a forum I visit, and some real life chats today has got me thinking about morals and rights and wrongs. Ady and I have been talking about The Law a fair bit recently too, mostly as criminal and civil law, statute and precedence have been things that have come up a lot in his Health & Safety study so we’ve debated and chatted about them.

I’ve been pondering whether children are born with some sort of inherant instinct of what is right and wrong or whether it is all learnt behaviour and regardless of whether it is nature or nurture what is it that holds people back from doing things they know are wrong, or indeed justifying doing them regardless.

My own upbringing, without making myself out to be spawn of the Great Train Robbers was probably a bit shady role model and lessons in right and wrong wise. I was certainly never encouraged to steal myself but I witnessed a fair bit of it, to gtreater and lesser degrees. However I also saw from the other side the impact of being stolen from when my parents house was very comprehensively burgaled. In the manner of most thieves there seemed to be some sort of odd code of conduct about when it was ‘ok’ to take what wasn’t yours and when it was. I confess to never quite getting my head round any of it and being a bit Saffy from Absolutely Fabulous about the whole thing really and sitting in judgement of them rather a bit.

I am certainly not a paragon of virtue and have my own skewed views on some things but I think I’m basically an honest person. I try really hard to be a good role model to Davies and Scarlett and can be pretty harsh about correcting them on rights and wrongs, talking lots about cause and effect, consequences to actions and so on. I think a lot of moral questions and our actual reactions are shades of grey like most things in life but it seems to be a pretty personal sliding scale and what keeps us on the straight and narrow seems equally personal too.

For me, I can probably trace back to one isolated incident my own fear of getting into trouble with authority. I watched in horror someone get caught red handed doing something wrong and the consequences unfold. For me the idea of being arrested by the police for some criminal act and being publically accused and found guilty of a wrongdoing would be the worst consequence. So perhaps it’s not so much as I said earlier that I’m basically honest, perhaps I am simply threatened so I toe the line.
For someone like me perhaps it is as well that we have the criminal justice system to keep me in order, perhaps I need law and order. Julie cited her Christian Upbringing as one of the things that keeps her in check today. I asked if it was as basic as worrying God was watching and she wouldn’t get into Heaven or something more complicated. She confessed to a brief rebellious stage in her youth once she’d gotten over her childish fear of just that but felt that the religious standards she was brought up with gave her a feel for right and wrong. For others there is the more worthy conviction that they would do unto others as they would wish done to them, but what gives them that conscience, what taught them those values? What happens when they are tested, what would be their stance if society crumbled? What if it was only theft and violence that would feed them and their loved ones or can they honestly say they percieve them and their loved ones needs as no greater priority than anyone else and they still would not steal?

I read somewhere, (I think it was a novel, might have been The Kiterunner, might not have been, and I might well be interpreting it differently to how it was written anyway) that stealing is the only crime. Whether you are stealing their belongings, their freedom, their voice, their wife or their life a crime always involves taking something from someone else. Which means to be a crime there must be a victim, so is it empathy for the victim that would stop, should stop the crime and either a lack of empathy or a perception that your need is greater that justifies a crime? When explaining right from wrong to a child we often use that example ‘think how X is feeling as a result of your actions’ as our most effective method of demonstrating why something is wrong.

So are you good? If so, why?

official tent picture

Our tent

Last week when our new tent arrived the order was somehow duplicated and we got two delivered. Once I’d realised I was quite delighted and fully intended keeping the extra one to sell and recover some of the cost of the one we’d paid for, but a quick ask around proved my sketchy idea that after a certain period wrongly delivered stuff becomes yours was not the case and that actually if I did keep it then legally I had to keep it in the same condition in which it had been delivered. Which meant I couldn’t use it, sell it or do anything with it. Which seemed a bit pointless. The tent had come without a central groundsheet though so I decided to contact the seller about that and mention the duplicate tent arriving, semi hoping that as they are in Germany they may just tell me to keep the extra tent rather than spend money arranging for collection. They emailed back to say they would send me a groundsheet and arrange for collection of the extra tent and thanking me for my honesty.

I told my parents about it all this evening and they are rather colourful and were utterly horrified at me for not keeping / selling the extra one, so now I feel all silly for being honest 🙄 – you just can’t win!

It’s been quite a productive day today. We had a list of things we needed to get out of this month’s budget so as I got paid today we went off to tick some of those things off our list. At Tescos we got Davies some new shorts and trousers and some goggles for swimming, some saucepans and cutlery for camping to replace last years Tesco saucepans and cutlery which had gone rusty in our garage over the winter (and will be put away to store properly next winter) and a fleece for Tarly as she only has heavy winter coats or too small hand me down fleeces from Davies. They didn’t have any of the £2 Tesco Value ones but they did have nice zip up £4 pink ones. The smallest size they had was age 6-7 which looked tiny and when she tried it on was only slightly large on her, so we bought that and she’s happily worn it all day :).

Then we went to Littlehampton and into Peacocks. Both my pairs of cropped jeans from last summer have rips in them and as the denim is lighter weight on the cropped ones I did want to replace them rather than just turning up my normal jeans as I have been doing. Their cropped jeans were £15 a pair but they did have lightweight stretchy jeans reduced to half price from £12 to £6 instead so I got a couple of pairs of them and they can be turned up instead. We were also looking for sandals for Davies and sunsuits for each of them but had no luck on those. Davies has been changing his mind daily about whether to get some pretend crocs like Tarly and me or not and when we looked in a cheapo shoe shop at their sandals and he saw some orange crocs-a-like with smiley faces on he decided he did want those actually instead of sandals. They didn’t have his size but the shop had another branch in the next town so we left Littlehampton and went there instead. We found a parking space straight away and got him a pair of orange ones with smiley faces, which he put on straight away and seems to be delighted with. 🙂 Also got Tarly a pair of the jibbitz with cats on which I have managed to fix her broken strap using on hers so that was good. 🙂 We poppped into the Iceland next door and got various frozen food items too. Lots of interesting conversations in the car as always, mostly War of the Worlds or Dr Who inspired including in depth discussions about why creatures need to evolve, what ‘future’ is and how believing in aliens is a bit like God, Father Christmas, tooth fairies and ghosts – some people do, some people don’t and it’s all kind of up to you really.

We got home in time to cross paths with the Thank You Neighbour who offered to help me bring my shopping in and asked with a cheeky wink if I was off to go and have a lie down 😯 but I managed to discourage him! The children played with Barbies and Wallace and Gromit and then moved on to doing some drawing and colouring. Ali’s Freya phoned to speak to Scarlett which utterly delighted her. She knew she was going to ring and sat watching my phone, snatching it up as soon as it rang. She chatted away and listened with a smile on her face before saying goodbye and hanging up. Very sweet and very indicative of years to come!

Davies decided he wanted to make a dalek so he went and got an empty loo roll (he has a collection of these stored in his bedroom for just such eventualities) and various bits of paper, scissors and glue and made a good start. He asked for some help in making the sticky out bit so I showed him how to cut a hole in the tube and stick a rolled up bit of card in it which pleased him. Scarlett made something with the paint pens.

I made their tea, Ady came home, swiftly followed by my parents. Bedtime stories from my Mum and a very protracted bedtime with lots of reappearances from both children. Pizza for dinner and lots of general hilarity until a final conversation about Home Education and working mothers which we all very carefully avoided falling out over while all still getting our points across and then they went home.

Tomorrow’s plans rest on the weather, which is forecast to do one thing while I am hoping it does the other.

I was woken this morning by Scarlett yelling up the stairs for me to come down and wipe her bottom. So that was nice 🙄 Once I was up it seemed rather pointless to go back to bed so I was up and about pretty early. The children were watching The Pink Panther video we’d bought yesterday but it has the Henry Mancini theme tune rather than the one with words which we were hoping for. Satisfied ourselves with finding some youtube clips showing the song though. I put some washing out just as it starting raining and then made lunch to take to MM and we went to collect Lucy, Rebecca and Richard.

On the way D&S asked to listen to War of the Worlds, so there was some discussion of that on the way to MM including what the red stuff the Martians covered Earth with was made of, what their eyes were made of, what a ‘living nightmare’ is, what ‘terror’ is and some examples of some things that I find terrifying, why ‘do something every day that scares you’ is a good life motto but some things are best left avoided, why I might be scared of dogs and probably loads of other things I’ve forgotten while Lucy also told me about Wife Swap.

We arrived and there were two great activities laid on at MM today – making Elmers from milk cartons and little pieces of coloured paper and material with googly eyes, and comic / storyboard making with pens and pencils and readyprinted comic strips. We arrived at about 1130 and there were already several people there. D&S both wanted to do some comic making so we went over and had a seat at that table. Davies is familar with the idea of storyboards and layouts of comics but we’d never looked at trying to fit a story into a certain amount of frames before, we normally use as many boxes as necessary. I tried to explain how you’d decide what your story was and work out how to tell it in x number of frames but it was easier to show them, so we chose what I’d done from waking up this morning to arriving at MM in nine pictures. Davies dictated what I’d done and I drew them and we decided on some ‘comic’ effects to liven it up a bit and suggest movement etc.
, Then we moved on and made some Elmers (well the children started and got bored so I did most of, cool activity 🙂 )
D made a dalek from Lego and S was utterly delighted at the arrival and Ali and Freya :).
I chatted, drank tea and enjoyed the busyness of the group and then decided to go and finish my comic strip so sat and did colouring for a while before being joined by Ali, Davies, Scarlett and Freya. The children did some pictures of their own and Tarly did some ruining, sorry, colouring in on mine 😉
D’s comic strip

Then it all got slightly ridiculous with me claiming to be SuperNic and designing a comic strip to show off this superhero alterego with all of my superfeats of the morning so far

And then we cleared up and came home. 🙂

Davies, Scarlett, Rebecca and Richard had all been desperate to come back here and play so Lucy and I, who hadn’t talked much at MM as it makes more sense to chat to other people there, decided that would be nice. Unfortunately none of them seemed to actually want to go and play in the end so after about an hour of constant interuptions and upsets we gave up trying to have a conversation and took them home. Once home D&S magically managed to play together really nicely and then I did their tea and sewed the lastest Beaver badge onto D’s uniform. My Mum arrived so she stayed with Scarlett while I walked Davies round to Beavers and then stayed chatting until it was time to walk round there again to collect him.

The children have done loads more drawing, Davies did an excellent Pink Panther and Tarly did some scribble pictures, Davies has been doing loads of copying writing off things like dvd cases and wrote STOP pretty much by himself today on his comic strip (although his letter wandered about all over the place and were not in the conventional left to right formation :lol:). They are now playing a crazy game with a Barbie jeep, a spider man toy and the milk carton Elmer waiting for Ady to get home before they go to bed.

Oh and he’s just knocked on the door! 🙂 Back later!

Before Scarlett fell asleep last night she asked me to sleep in her bed with her. I explained that I wouldn’t, but if she woke in the night then she could come straight to our bed rather than calling me. So I *knew* she would appear at some point during the night and sure enough by about 3am she was there snuggled in beside me. She failed to sleep through the night for such a long, long time that it’s not something I want to make a habit of but actually she has gone from waking in the night and staying awake thus keeping us up too, to if she does wake in the night (a very, very rare occurance now, less than once a month I’d say) she is happy to snuggle up in our bed and go back to sleep. Wish she’d been like that for all those years before :roll:. I don’t actually object to middle of the night sneaking into our bed and to be honest it is generally because they want to cuddle me, which I am fine with, so it’s Ady who gets kicked out to share their bed with Wallace and Gromit or several hundred cuddly toys when he’s had enough of feet in his head and elbows in his back! 😆 This all meant that when Davies woke in great excitement about swimming lessons starting this morning I was completely tangled up with Scarlett while Ady was downstairs in her bed so he ended up getting up with him instead of me :oops:.

Speedy breakfast and getting dressed to be at the swimming pool just before 9am with Davies really excited about it. Ady and Tarly went and sat in the spectators bit while I took Davies into the changing rooms to get changed and then out to the pool. We were really early so we watched the class before and chatted a bit about what he was going to do, then they all got out so I hopped over into the spectators bit too and we all watched him. I think there was 8 or 9 children in total, all about the same age as Davies and he was one of only two boys, which suited him as he was chatting away to the girls either side of him and exchanging grins with them :roll:. Unfortunately he didn’t listen to the instructor as well as he should have done and a couple of times he appeared to not have a clue what he was supposed to be doing but he really enjoyed it and we told him how well he’d done. They all got a free swimming bag too which he was delighted with and then I hopped back over the barrier to go and help him get changed.

We then headed over to the big car boot sale we went to last week and wandered round that for a couple of hours. I wanted a second rubber mallet for camping which Scarlett spotted and with a winning smile she got for a quid (result 🙂 ), we got various other bargains including five puzzles for 10p each, really good ELC ones with 100 and 200 pieces too so that was great, our puzzle selection is now complete again. Oh and a Pink Panther (the cartoon pink cat not the Peter Sellers films) video too as me and the children really like the theme tune. :). A quick detour home to collect our tent and to the supermarket for beer and salad and then round to Lucy’s for tent putting up and barbecuing for the afternoon.

There is a big patch of grass just outside Lucy’s back garden which was ideal for the purpose of putting up their massive Khyam and our more modest dome tent. We’re really chuffed with ours, it is exactly what we wanted. Having perused tents for the previous two years and initially thinking we’d want a really big one (not dissimilar to Lucy’s new one) the first year we then borrowed a far smaller one last year which did us admirably for three camping trips and decided us that all we actually wanted was one extra bedroom pod for storage of the potty, clothes etc. Cost issue aside (as in, we couldn’t have afforded anything bigger or grander) there is also the issue of space for storage and transporting the tent, time taken to put it up and actually one of the things we liked most about camping was the whole bare minimum-ness of it, I like being all cosy in a smallish area, having to be sensible about what you pack to bring, and I like the light in the smaller, paler tents as oppsed to the darkness inside the bigger ones. I guess if money were no object we might be tempted to have a bigger one too, for longer trips of a week or more but given most of our anticipated usage will be weekends I think what we’ve got is pretty darn near perfect. 🙂 We had no instructions but worked out how to put it up pretty easily and, this is what always amazes me, we managed to get it all back in it’s tiny bag again :).

Lucy’s brother, SIL and their two boys were there too so the children had a great time playing in and out of the tents and then in the garden while we all ate lots, drank lots and chatted lots (Ady ate lots, I drank lots and Mandy chatted lots 😉 ). The children were all really good and just had a great day, Davies and Scarlett are so excited about having our own tent and we can’t wait to go and try it out :). We ended up staying until about 7pm, having come inside once it started to get chilly and could probably have stayed longer but it’d had been a long day already and I knew if the children started to go downhill it would degenerate pretty quickly so we left on a high :). The children had a quick bath, Scarlett had a complete trauma about her favourite nightdress being in the wash (proving we’d been right to leave, poor child was sooo tired) and then I sat with Scarlett for all of about two minutes before she was asleep, Davies was not far behind.

It’s been a really nice weekend all round, pictures on flickr, and now I am off to bed, to dream of tenting 🙂

I got engaged. Which was better than being vacant I suppose!

After the last post I buggered off to lie on the bed with a book for an hour or so having taken some painkillers. Ady came in and made me a cup of tea at which point I decided I felt better and we went out.

I’ve not mentioned our mice for a while partially because I don’t like talking about them, partially because I sort of forget we have them and partially because round the blogring mice are a bit like noses, everyone has them. But we do have some of our own, in the understairs cupboard. And Ady has been dealing with them with some traps borrowed from work which he baits with hula hoops as they seemed to be their favoured snack when they feasted on food we kept in the understairs cupboard. Normally he disposes of any captured specimens in a rather instant way (and no, we don’t eat them!) but today the children were aware of the captured one so we decided to liberate it in a more humane fashion just this once. So we drove to a local-ish park. Not too local as we don’t want him coming back, so we blindfolded him, did a couple of fake left turns and span his box round four times before opening it to allow him to run (albeit in a dizzy fashion) free. His horizons widened, his opportunities increased and his world made so much bigger, hopefully he will have a better life. I imagine right now he is living it up with his new found mouse friends, trading his hula hoop diet for a Saturday night feast of kebab, walking on the wild side with chili sauce and hearing stories of life on the outside. I doubt for a moment he is missing his usual Saturday night routine with the rest of his mousey family listening to Dr Who through the wall, having their own mini vote on who should play Joseph in TVs Any Dream Will Do while opening a celebratory pack of salt and vinegar hula hoops. Nope, he’ll be loving the freedom, the wind in his fur, the throb of excitement that is life in the wild. Unless of course he has found a toy car and is finding his way back here in the style of Stuart Little, enlisting help from creatures of the night as he goes. Or he may just have been eaten by a cat already! 😆

We then had to go to a Garden Centre. Now I have to admit that I hold people who choose to visit Garden Centre’s at the weekend with a high level of disdain. Having worked in similar establishments over the years and spent many a working hour compiling comprehensive lists of better places to be than there were I not being paid by the hour I am always rather astonished at the lure of such places. For a start they sell plants and things to go with plants, which would involve gardening which has always been way beyond me. Also they have overpriced ornaments and ‘gifts’ and any product which proclaims itself a gift always makes me suspicious. There is a certain type of person, from my observations, who frequents Garden Centres at the weekend and they come with no intention to buy, they may not even have a garden, they come to meander, to partake of coffee and cake served by a sulky teen in the coffee shop and then to go away and compare their experience with Other Garden Centre’s I Have Visited with other people who visit Garden Centre’s at weekends. These people either have nothing better to do (a dreadful crime IMO) or they are Grown Ups. Since when did visiting such retail establishments become a hobby, a past time? But it has, there do exist people who list visiting garden centres on their CV as a Leisure Pursuit. Shocking! But today we joined their ranks, because Ady had to visit this one this week and staying home yesterday morning prevented him from doing it then so we all went and did it this morning. They have a pet section so we went and purused that while Ady did his thing.

Then we drove around for a while trying to find something to do that was free. We stopped at the gliders club and watched some gliders landing for a while and then went to look at a nature reserve but it was very overpriced just to go in and walk round so we headed towards Arundel. On the way we realised we were at the other end of the road where the ill fated bluebell walk had been a couple of weeks ago so we decided to go there. And this time there were bluebells 🙂

We had a lovely couple of hours walking round the mill pond and enjoying the bluebells, we looked at various wildlife and evidence of wildlife and it was just really nice :). We played pooh sticks and took some photos. We did our usual self timer which ended in chaos when I crouched down behind Davies and Scarlett leapt on my back. I clutched at Davies as she threw me off balance and the three of us teetered precariously for ages before finally collapsing in a heap. Because we laughed so much Scarlett thought she was onto a winner so this continued for a while. We got some nice pictures and laughed a lot but we did leave quite a flat patch in the bluebells! 😆

On the least leg of the walk we reached the area where we’d spotted lizards last time and sure enough Ady very quickly saw one and managed to catch it. He opened his hand to show the children and it darted off, as he went to catch it again it shed it’s tail and then stayed very still on his leg, using all it’s defense techniques at once. We felt a bit bad that we’s scared it that much but it was amazing to see how it’s tail kept wriggling for ages and ages afterwards. The children held it and were fascinated by how much it continued to move. We talked about headless chickens and other things moving after death / disconnection from the brain (Davies amazed me by describing in pretty much the same words as I’d use about how movement is controlled by the brain and the brain is in the head). When we got home I looked up some info on the lizard we’d seen and about them losing their tails.
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We came home and the children had tea, Ady sat in the garden and I drank lots of tea. We’d talked about Dr Who earlier today and I’d suggested that the children might like to watch it. When it first came back we decided they were too young and would be too scared by it and actually we have given them the chance to watch it on various occassions since and they have both always refused, but they seem to know so much about it from their friends and be very aware of lots of the plotlines that I thought perhaps they would like to give it a go. Scarlett is still too little and too prone to getting scared really, but I hear Davies reference Daeleks, the Tardis and even Cybermen so often that I almost felt cruel for not offering him the chance to see it, although he’s never asked and if he had done I would have let him. It wasn’t the greatest one to start with as I’d assured him before we started watching that they all had a happy ending (his question, not my suggestion) and of course this one was a two parter so it finished on a cliffhanger but it was the right decision as he’s been upstairs playing Dr Who tonight and seemed to really enjoy putting together all the bits he already knew. Tarly was less keen, but adamant she would watch if Davies did so I let her watch some Max and Ruby before bed to end with nicer mental images and I got into bed with her and read her the whole of the Barbie Swan Lake novelisation book too, so hopefully no pig monster nightmares :lol:.

Tomorrow D has his very first swimming lesson and we’re having the grand errection of the new tent aswell. I imagine there will be pictures to follow :).

Feel crap again this morning. I had a full night of horrid dreams, having gone to bed by 11pm, which is *really* early for me. I’ve woken with a headache, in a really nasty mood and want everyone to fuck off and leave me alone. Ady is cutting hedges outside (with the noisiest hedge trimmer in the world) and the children have been standing out there screaming every time the hedge trimmer goes until I called them in and told them to stop incase the neighbours called social services or the police. They are now running in and out of the house every two minutes yelling ‘Mummmmmeeeeeee!’ to tell me something. Argh, I need to go and be somewhere with no people!

I worked yesterday. Ady stayed home in the morning (really need to properly sort my every other Friday morning out for childcare, I spoke to a local HEor who comes in the library yesterday as she does childminding. Problem is we are now tight to a budget again so that would need to be changed to accomodate childcare and it is only every other Friday morning but would mean I’d need to get the children there before work and then pick them up during my lunchbreak to bring them home for my Dad to have them in the afternoon – Dad only has a two seater van so even if we could sort out childseats for him to go and pick them up, he couldn’t fit them in his van anyway. Oh, it’s all so bloody complicated! And Julie was doing one Friday morning a month for me but now she’s working Fridays too so that doesn’t help any more. Grr). It was really busy in the morning but quite quiet in the afternoon. I walked into work and back though, which was nice. I’ve done a fair bit of walking this week so I’d be feeling all viruous and healthy if I didn’t have this headache making me feel shit.

When I got in we didn’t have any bread (kids wanted sandwiches for tea) so we had a debate about whether they wanted to stay here while I nipped to the shop or come with me and they chose to come with me. They had their sandwiches, Davies played Monkey Ball on xbox and Tarly sat and looked through some books I’d bought home, then they got in their pjs and I read them the whole pile of library books I’d got them to last the week 😆 It’s really nice having Scarlett old enough to listen to a proper story and not worry so much about what the pictures are doing. Recently I read Davies a couple of the Roald Dahl stories with limited illustrations and he really enjoyed them after some initial ‘but there’s no pictures!’ moaning. I think Scarlett is almost ready for the same, which means audio books won’t be far behind I guess too :).

They went to bed, Ady came home (he still had to do his day’s work, just didn’t start it til midday, so he didn’t get home until about 730pm), we had dinner and bath and then I fell asleep on the sofa around 1030, before waking up and staggering to bed at 11. I’m so rock n roll 😆

And now, I am off to go and select a cocktail of drugs to try and combat my headache, hayfever and continued extreme tiredness and try and engage with the rest of the family for the day.

Room, soon, Brigadoon, swooned… I guess your choices end up limited if you decide to write a song which required ryhming words for ‘moon’.

Platoon, spoon, doom, rune, June, loon, dune, boom, tune, cartoon, typhoon, spitoon, afternoon, bloom… yeah I reckon it could have been done better 😆

After our ususal Wonderpets fest first thing we packed up a picnic and left the house, amazingly slightly ahead of schedule to collect Lucy and Co. As we were about to turn into their road I got a text from Lucy to say they were running late so we double backed and went to get petrol first instead of after we’d collected them. This involved driving a little way along the seafront which caught us up in a census going on. The window on the drivers side of my car doesn’ open – it hasnt for 2 summer and I can’t afford to get it looked at so we just sweat 😉 so we had to roll down Davies’ window behind me and I leant back to talk to the census woman about our last couple of car journeys – wonder exactly what the information is used for, I should have asked. Then petrol, then back to Lucy’s. We’re listening to Catatonia at the moment in the car, which is actually way too high for me to sing along to, but I like to try anyway 😆

We collected Lucy and co and drove to Highdown Gardens with the chidlren demonstrating how much I must talk to them without realising it when there is only us in the car by expecting the same level of interaction from me while I was trying to tak to Lucy and then being gits to each other when they didn’t get it and me demonstrating that being around any people at all is a bad idea on certain days of the month! We were late but Julie was later, pulling into the car park moments after us, so that was good. 🙂

We piled out and the children all disappeared off together running round the gardens and then we stopped for lunch. We actually stopped for about two hours and had a lovely time sitting chatting while the children played hide and seek and running about games. They made a new friend, adopting a small girl (she was 4 and a half and called Hannah!) who joined in with their games and generally enjoyed themselves. I was ranty at Davies particularly for a while, but he stopped being annoying and I stopped being a cow and we were fine by the end of the day. There was a brief interlude where I was really cross with them when they’d been walking on the plant beds, something I had just told both of mine to stop doing when one of the volunteers who works in the gardens came over to tell them to stop. Jack and Maisie ran and hid behind a bench so Davies and Scarlett followed and also hid while this woman was talking to them, as a result of their reaction she probably was slightly more ranty than she needed to be, but FFS they shouldn’t run and bloody *hide* when someone is talking to them. So I have D&S a lecture about that and hoped that J&M got some of it. At least D&S both were able to tell me why I was cross (rude to the person talking to them and just not a great demonstration of how they do know how to behave, they should have listened to what she said and apologised and agreed they wouldn’t do it again – and they both KNEW that! :roll:). Julie and I skirted round some chat about the Steiner school stuff she is involved in, admitting that we both knew it was the total opposite of lots of my beliefs but that it was also probably great for J&M.

Eventually the children became restless and the slight headache I’d had when we arrived started to get worse so we walked back to the cars via the fish. Earlier we’d thought about half the fish in the pond were dead as they were all lying, very still, at the surface of the ponds and didn’t even move when some of the more adventurous children poked them. But we realised they were just sunning themselves and Scarlett wanted to go and see if they’d eat some of her leftover bread. We tore off some really tiny bits and once it had soaked in the water some of them did indeed come and eat it. There was one particular one which was HUGE and kept coming up and grabbing a bit then swishing off with a great splash to eat it lower in the water before coming back for another bit. Maisie did the missing child trick for this visit (we always lose one of them there for at least a brief time) so I stayed with Davies, Scarlett and Jack while Lucy and Julie went off to find her and then it was time to head home.

We had something of a repeat performance of whinging on the way home in the car which magically stopped the instant Lucy, R & R got out and I talked to the children, again, about how they should behave in the car, how lucky we are to have a car to use whenever we want, how I need to focus on driving rather than dealing with them being horrid and so on, so they were contrite. They played for a while when we got home but having been up, again, since before 7am this morning and then running around for a couple of hours they were not at their best. I made them tea and they put on a Peter and the Wolf film I’d got from work for them. They are really familiar with P&TW, it being a piece of music we’ve listened to a lot and we have a Disney cartoon version they like to watch, but this is a really nice adaptation so that seemed to calm them down a bit. Which was just as well as my head was really pounding and I was all shivery by then. Ady got home and I retired to the bedroom with a book, really hoping that I’d not developed the flu bug that my Mum has been knocked out for the last fortnight with, having escaped it a while back when Ady and the kids were ill. I read for a while, then dozed off. I woke to hear the children in the bath so I got up and put my pjs on with the intention of coming downstairs to help with bedtime, but looked at the bed again and it’s lure was too much so I climbed in, pulled the covers over my head and slept for two hours! Ady woke me about 845pm to ask if I wanted a bath and any dinner and I got back up again, feeling loads better, if a little woolly headed.

And that is where I am headed back again now. Some pics on Flickr of today, which finally did seem to knock the children out, S was asleep by 730 and D by 800 (apparently, obviously I was also asleep at that time :oops:) and tomorrow is a work all day day.

Name the song and the artist
1 I don’t like cricket, I love it
2 that’s all right, it’s only money
3 she’s the hunter, you’re the fox
4 your money or your life
5 will we live or will we die?
6 played it till my fingers bled
7 living it up as we’re going down
8 hey driver, where we going?
9 take me somewhere I can breath
10 in the desert you can’t remember your name
11 you paid me twenty pounds
12 she’s got it, yeah baby she’s got it
13 pray for the other ones
14 all the Japanese with their yen
15 the man with the Midas touch
16 how can we be lovers when we can’t be friends?
17 she’s giving me excitations
18 keeps her face in a jar by the door
19 I love you from the bottom of my pencil case
20 I’ve been kicked around since I was born
21 restless lover, spread your wings
22 no need to run and hide
23 get your ass on the dance floor
24 let’s do it like they do on the discovery channel
25 love in the nineties is paranoid
26 this Romeo is bleeding
27 lover of the Russian queen
28 I want to shoot the whole day down
29 and I’m sitting in my tin can
30 pushed around and kicked around I was a lonely boy
31 she stands up when she plays her piano
32 pictures came and broke your heart
33 you had a temper like my jealousy
34 trust the ocean, you’ll never drown
35 no romance, no romance, no romance for me
36 pretend that you love me
37 ooh baby do you know what that’s worth?
38 why do birds suddenly appear every time you are near
39 coz you and I know it’s all over the front page
40 if you got no plans I ain’t going nowhere
41 superstar DJ, here we go
42 I really don’t think you’re strong enough
43 you and me and a bottle of wine
44 he has no concept of the tone of skin he’s living in
45 half of us are satisfied, half of us in need
46 he sings the songs that remind him of the better times
47 I’m begging you darling please
48 a smash of glass and a rumble of boots
49 but do I really feel the way I feel?
50 a spider web and I’m caught in the middle
51 there may be trouble ahead
52 she can’t walk but she’s trying
53 you’ve got me wrapped around your finger
54 you come and go, you come and go
55 hand in hand is the only way to land
56 oh yeah, I wait tables too
57 kissing like a bandit, stealing time
58 joker is the name, poker is the game
59 I think we both kinda liked it
60 words are very unnecessary
61 I depend on me
62 and then you call me and it’s not so bad
63 he got the action, he got the motion
64 she’ll provide you with drinks and theatrical winks
65 where is my friend when I need you most? gone away
66 I love you more than you love me
67 you say to me I don’t talk enough but when I do I’m a fool
68 my mom does more drugs than I do
69 sail away, sail away, sail away
70 and the fishes in the sea have gone to sleep
71 I’ve travelled the world and the seven seas
72 we’re heading for venus
73 I can’t get no sleep
74 through the hard times and the good
75 things you do don’t seem real
76 just a man and his will to survive
77 sex and drugs are the new gods
78 strumming my pain with his fingers
79 a snow white pillow for my big fat head
80 couldn’t see we were never meant to be
81 I am rental kitchens
82 just turn around now, you’re not welcome any more
83 been woken by a million screams
84 and I don’t want the world to see me
85 I’ve got sunshine in a bag
86 let go of your heart, let go of your head
87 try to walk away and I stumble
88 captain america’s been torn apart
89 someone left the cake out in the rain
90 let’s head for home now, everything I have is yours
91 how did you know I needed you?
92 don’t leave me now, now, now
93 pack it up, pack it in, let me begin
94 hand in hand we’ll take a caravan to the motherland
95 born to make mistakes
96 it’s a nice day to start again
97 the twenty first century is yesterday
98 nobody loves no one
99 stop ******* with me
100 January, February, March, April, May
101 although I search myself it’s always someone else I see
102 I don’t want to die for you
103 she stood there laughing
104 girl I’m on a mission to kill my condition
105 I believe I can touch the sky
106 I’d like to take her home, that’s understood
107 oh daddy dear you know you’re still number one
108 l, a, t, e, r that week
109 and we all have our daddy’s eyes
110 the sun’s gonna shine on everything you do
111 hang my head in a crying shame
112 suddenly we’re strangers
113 New York, London, Paris, Munich
114 you should keep on aiming high
115 temptation is on his way
116 hey mister DJ, put a record on
117 it’s easy to laugh, it’s easy to cry
118 she’s into superstition, black cats and voodoo dolls
119 I swear I left her by the river
120 how can you have a day without a night?
121 the good old boys were drinking whiskey and rye
122 he just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich
123 I don’t have no time for no monkey business
124 put your tiny hand in mine
125 I think I caught his spirit later that same year
126 laa laa laa, la la lala la
127 flowers blossom in the winter time
128 I’m brave but I’m chicken ****
129 can I just make some more romance with you my love
130 everyone’s a Captain Kirk
131 Johnny, don’t point that gun at me
132 3 a.m., we ran the miracle mile
133 your love’s like a slow train coming
134 I can eat my dinner in a fancy restaurant
135 he was shot six times by a man on the run
136 you should have stayed at home yesterday
137 another kiss and you’ll be mine
138 there’s a gun in your hand and it’s pointing at your head
139 hey teacher, leave those kids alone
140 you took my dreams from me, when I first found you
141 giant steps are what we take
142 maybe I didn’t treat you quite as good as I should
143 I might be great tomorrow but hopeless yesterday
144 maybe I’m just like my mother, she’s never satisfied
145 Lewis no more
146 twisted animator
147 I took her to a supermarket
148 waving your banner all over the place
149 rows of houses are bearing down on me
150 coz this is the naked truth and this is the light
151 from the very, very young to the very, very old
153 lonely as I am, together we cry
152 thought she was James Dean for a day
154 let’s play twister, let’s play risk
155 we’re going where the sun shines brightly
156 is it me you’re looking for?
157 we talk about love, love, love. we talk about love.
158 the next time someone’s teaching why don’t you get taught
159 she was on a 48 hour fast, just water and black tea
160 I see you my friend and touch your face again
161 so please be gentle with this heart of mine
162 remember me to one who lives there
163 I bet you think this song is about you
164 lasers in the jungle somewhere
165 and I love the thought of coming home to you
166 start spreading the news
167 it’s for your own protection
168 and if a ten ton truck kills the both of us
169 I don’t know why she’s leaving or where she’s gonna go
170 don’t touch me please, I can not stand the way you tease
171 however do you want me, however do you need me
172 and I’m not from Wales
173 my loneliness is killing me
174 learn to speak Arapaho
175 we dress the same ways only our accents change
176 when you coming home dad?
177 if you really mean it just reach out and touch me
178 I like my toast done on one side
179 on the ship, tied to the mast
180 and my brother will be so, so angry
181 you and me, you and me, you and me
182 what ever I said, whatever I did, I didn’t mean it
183 these are the things I can do without
184 I just need a friend
185 it’s such a fine and natural sight
186 for the love you bring won’t mean a thing
187 you make everything groovy
188 American express will do nicely thank you
189 so you’re Brad Pitt
190 on your knees boy
191 going back to Romford
192 I live upstairs from you
193 I know I’ll see your face again
194 you saw brigadoons
195 according to all sources the street’s the place to go
196 listen to iron maiden baby
197 plays by sense of smell
198 come and have a go if you think you are hard enough
199 looking from a window above, it’s like a story of love
200 the girl is all right

Up early this morning as I was working. While we were running around getting ready to leave the house I realised we’d forgotten to put the bins and the blue recycling boxes out. I was on the phone to Ady when someone knocked at the door. I was hoping it was the tent delivery but it was the blue box men – three of them – come to ask if we had any recycling as we normally do 🙂 Really must email the council to commend them about that. 🙂

Picked Lucy & co. up, dropped them all back here and headed off to work. It was really busy this morning and it went really quickly. F was in working and I get on well with her, also the normally mardy old cow D was very friendly today too and a new starter was in for training. She works for the council already and mans a council helppoint in the library a couple of afternoons a week so she knows us all already and knows the building but was learning all about the Dewy Decimal, shelving and issuing and discharging books. I quite surprised myself with how much I could tell her :). There was a slightly hysterical episode at the photocopier when a woman came in with very limited English and two sheets of paper with arabic or similar writing all over them asking for them to be copied onto a double sided single sheet and to have two copies of that. She finally got across to me what she wanted and then I couldn’t get the bloody photocopier to do it, so I called over F, the woman ‘assisted’ me in explaining to F what she wanted, F couldn’t get it to do it either so we called over D too and all told her together what we wanted. We eventually got the key for free vending copies and just tried every setting until it did what we wanted :lol:.

I was home just after 1pm to find not one but two tents delivered 🙄 .

I was home in time for a quick cup of tea and a chat before dashing off again to the dentist. Davies and Scarlett claimed a tent packaging box each and set about decorating them – Scarlett started writing her name, getting stuck on the R and then finishing it off. Davies drew all over the inside and out and got me to spelt out ‘private’ for him so he could write that.

My Mum has lost all of her top teeth due to gum disease and her gums receding so badly that her teeth all became wobbly and were taken out before they fell out. This has understandably hugely traumatised her and although she’s had her false top set for about 5 years now she is still not accepting of it and is currently undergoing some sort of consultation with someone about getting permanent implants drilled into her jawbone. Her problems with her gums started when she was pregnant with me and our original dentist always said it might be a hereditry problem and watched my gums closely for signs, which appeared to be there. I have already been told by our new NHS dentist that they want to see me every 3 months instead of every 6 for that very reason so today was my 3 monthly check up. Sure enough she said my gums were not looking great and she wants to do a treatment on them to do with plaque built up. She’s given me mouthwash and posh toothpaste and I’m going back again in 2 weeks for some treatment costing nearly £50 that she promises will make a difference. It seems a fairly small price to pay if it prevents what Mum’s gone through I guess. Fortunately, aside from the financial cost I have no objection to going to the dentist so at least it won’t be something I have to dread.

I came home and Lucy and co headed off. Davies and Scarlett came inside with me – they’d been in the garden for most of the morning I think, and played really nicely together all afternoon, although they did get loads of toys out :roll:. On Ali’s recommendation Davies watched Bamzooki yesterday and utterly loved it, so he’s been drawing creations and making them out of k’nex ever since, just his sort of thing. 🙂 So there was plenty of that going on.

Dad arrived as I was getting the kids’ tea and then Davies and I went to Badgers. Davies announced out of nowhere that he was happy for me to not wait in the carpark today and he’d see if he was ok with it. I’ve been to the localish supermarket briefly the last twice we’ve been, having shown him where it is in relation to Badgers in advance so he knows where I am. I’d already decided to take a book with me and wander down to the beach instead of sitting in the car so I told him that and that’s what I did. I took him in and he waved me off and then I walked down to the beach. The tide was right out and it was lovely down there, I found a quietish place to sit up on the stones and watched people walking their dogs, flying kites and walking along, I read my book for a bit and then drew a picture of the pier (not very artisically using the biro and blank paper in the back of my diary, but I think it’s recognisable as the pier 🙂 ) and then I tried to write a bit about what I could see, feel and hear as a writing exercise. It was all quite poetic until I got to the line about being ageless, nameless, careless thinking about how I had sat on that beach as a child, as a teen and now as a wife and mother and may well sit on it as a grandmother and an old woman too and for that brief moment in time nothing else mattered about me or who I am other than sitting on the beach when my mobile rang with Davies’ voice hollering ‘Mummy, Daddy’s on the phone! Mummy, Daddy’s on the phone!’ which rather spoilt the line and gave me at least two of my labels back again – teach me to be pretentious and arty eh? 😉

I walked back up to Badgers and sat in the car for the last 10 minutes watching them playing out on the grass running around and playing Stick in the Mud which was nice and then it was time to go in and fetch him. They’re doing Eco Badger this term and had been making bicarb and vinegar volcanoes which D is an old hand at, but it looks like they’ve got some pretty cool environmental stuff coming up to do this term which is nice. On the way home we talked about how Scarlett will start going there in 2 more terms and how she is braver about going to places without me, but how that is mostly because she has Davies there.

I read Scarlett a couple of bedtime stories then had a bath. I cooked curry and pilau rice for dinner and Davies appeared in the kitchen so tried a bit of it all and helped to put the spices etc. in for the rice before going back to bed, then we watched The Apprentice for some shouting at the screen tv.

Just come to the blog to write a comment and found this picture in the side bar
from two years ago. It is where we’ve just got home from today. Sometimes two years seems forever ago, sometimes just like yesterday.

The children are really tired at the moment, the light evenings mean they are taking ages to fall asleep, despite being utterly worn out from playing outside all day every day, and the bright mornings mean they are still waking at 7.30 at the very latest. Consequently they are both a bit fractious and whiny when there is nothing to occupy them. Today we had no real plans and nowhere to be. I had the doctors first thing about some itchy patches on my feet, elbows and knees which seem to flare up every summer and drive me insane (on Sunday Scarlett stood beside the bath and scrubbed at my feet for me with a body brush which was bliss until I got out of the bath and it was agony. GP diagnosed eczema and gave me some steroid cream which will hopefully sort it out.

I spent some time sorting out the trip to Legoland for a couple of weeks time and sending out group emails while the children were horrid. They couldn’t play together without arguing, couldn’t play apart without baiting each other and wouldn’t leave me alone – I spent about 10 minutes on the phone to the Legoland bookings woman with Scarlett wriggled behind me on the sofa, clutching onto my back and whispering in my ear about peanut butter toast. So by the time Ady got home for lunch before going off to college I’d decided we needed to get out of the house. Much discussion and debate ensued about where to go with the beach, the downs, the park and a walk all vetoed. I was not in the right frame of mind for dragging reluctant children anywhere so I wanted a consensus and finally we agreed on Paradise Park. So Ady took my car to college which is local and I took his car off to Newhaven which is less local and off we went.

On the way, on a complete whim solely because we were almost driving past it we stopped at the RSPCA animal rescue centre where we’d got Malice and Candle from years ago. To get to the Cattery you have to walk though the kennels which for me is the equivaent of that bit in Silence of the Lambs where Clarice walks through the corridor in the prison with inmates leaning against the bars and telling her what bits of her anatomy they can smell while she walks past stony faced looking neither left or right. It’s a walk of terror where I have to fight every impulse to not run screaming or check every padlock to ensure a dog isn’t about to leap out at me Cujo style and get me. Scarlett was in her element and wanted to stop at every dog, be told what it’s name was, how old it was and what breed and say ‘hello Fella!’ to it, but Davies felt similarly to me and we walked rather speedily down that bit to where the rabbits and guinea pigs are.

Lots of rabbits there, plenty of them already reserved and all named by the same, obviously hungry, volunteer after pastries and morning goods. Strudel, Waffle, Muffin and so on. We looked at them for a while and then went to the cattery. It has moved on quite a bit from the mesh fronted cages Candle and Malice were in and every cat had it’s own indoor glass fronted bit (which prevented us from stroking them 🙁 ) with a basket and blanket and an outside bit with some toys. A wide variety of old cats and a tiny 9 week old kitten who just happened to be black – all my cats have been black who we all fell in love with. We stayed there a while before doing the Walk Of Barks back to the car. I told Scarlett that when she’s older she can volunteer to go and walk dogs for them so she can get her fix of playing with dogs while I am safely somewhere else. And we’ve spent the rest of the day explaining why we don’t really want a kitten and why when Candle dies we won’t be replacing her.

Then on to Paradise Park and as usual despite having been there probably dozens of times each time the children are slightly more interested in the posters and information up on the walls and slightly less inclined to run past all the interesting stuff in favour of the dinosaurs at the end. It helped just being the 3 of us too. Oh and me having a packet of maltesers that they wanted to share :lol:. So we walked through looking at and talking about things as we went, which led to Davies asking the question ‘who invented the internet?’ which I promised to look up on the internet when we got home 😆 – I have and there appears to be no real answer, let alone one I can tailor for a 6 year olds comprehension when it is beyond mine, but I’ll have a go and formulating some sort of answer for him later.

We then walked round the outside, for once actually following a set trail (the longest one which takes in the whole place but on a proper route), stopping to play at the wooden pirate ship bit and again at the wooden playpark where you have to get all the way round without touching the floor. I was quite amazed at how well Davies did on that. Scarlett has always been the more physically able of the two of them, she already runs faster than Davies and he is not as adventurous as her so his caution has led to less aptitude for some things like climbing and balancing. He got a lot out of Tumble Tots when we did it and his confidence was improved but aside from the odd bit of tree climbing on our Seasonal Walks TM or clambering round soft play places he doesn’t get much practice for such endeavours so it was great to see how agile he was. 🙂 I guess because neither Ady or I is remotely sporty or physical I’d just decided he wouldn’t be either when he was nervous of heights and risks when he was smaller and not given it any more thought 😳 He has no interest in football or other sports like that but he was really taken with the circus skills stuff at Leo’s party so I really should follow that up and see if there is something along those lines he could be doing. I didn’t bother taking a camera as I already have tons of pictures of them at Paradise Park and I liked the idea of not carrying anything at all too.

It was really nice to be out for a couple of hours and given the childrens’ tiredness and my pre-menstrualness we were definitely better off out than in! We came home, I sorted their tea and then Ady arrived home.

I had reading group so I packed up my two books, plugged in my headphones (INXS again) and walked at a brisk pace to the library. We’ve been reading books from the longlist for the Orange prize this month, as many as we could. The shortlist was announced today and neither of the books I’d read made the shortlist, which I was a bit pissed off about. So there are now six books on the shortlist and we’re having an evening event as part of Adur Festival where we get together the day the winner is announced and all vote for our favourite and see which actually wins. The library does loads of stuff for Adur Festival actually, I’ve never really paid much attention to it before and for the last two years we’ve been at Kessingland so have missed at least part of it. This year even Richard Herring is appearing (actually does anyone want to come and see Richard Herring with me, Ady is not up for it and I don’t want to go on my own!). So reading group was fun, there were only six of us so we had some good chats about things other than the books including children and reading. As two of them are teachers I am always slightly quiet during such talks and I’ve never come right out and said I HE (although obviously the librarian who runs book group and is my boss knows) but some interesting things were said about schools and reading and literacy.

I walked home again, read some of the Shaun the Sheep comic to Davies, then Ady called me in to watch some of Horizon which Davies reappeared and watched with us.

Oh and our tent should have been delivered today but they came while I was out, so it’s coming tomorrow instead – hurrah! 🙂