It’s roundup time 😉
January
We saw in the new year just the four of us; Scarlett didn’t quite make it to midnight.
I turned 34 🙂
Scarlett, having turned five a few weeks before was eligible for all the groups so she joined Badgers, swimming lessons and Rainbows. She has got a lot out of all of them
over the year and is making friends, learning loads and getting some independance 🙂
. Davies continued with Badgers, Beavers and swimming lessons.
We had plenty of Winter Walks (TM)
and even more exciting than that the children started riding Honey the pony 🙂
It was also the month that all the wood got washed up on Worthing beach
At one of the HE meet ups I organised we met Caz, Archie and Eliot for the first time and Davies and Scarlett made firm friends with A and E. This was a sudden but very good family friendship as Ady and Bid finally were introduced to each other too. We had a fairly teary farewell with them later in the year as they headed off on an amazing round the world adventure. I’m still getting regular updates from them (currently in NZ) and hoping our paths will cross again sometime someday somewhere…
February saw Ady do the first of many TV appearances on QVC as a guest presenter. A very exciting interlude which may well be repeated again in 2009 (only during the gardening season, so Febrary to May -ish) which led to him finding his fan base and even being recognised out in public. Mostly by old ladies 😆
We spent some time in local museums including Littlehampton, Brighton, Booth, Hove, Worthing. Littlehampton was great, a lovely sunny mild day in February which we also spent some time on the seafront including chips and ice cream before the museum on Saturday 🙂
Davies has his first public art exhibition at the library of which he (and I) was very proud 🙂
We ticked another thing off our list of places to go in 2008 and had a visit to The Planetarium.
Davies made a movie, we had plenty of Winter Walks (TM)
During half term we went to a Green Diggers event at Pulborough Brooks where I was sent away with a voucher for a drink from the cafe and told to come back in 90 minutes much to my surprise!
We caught up with schooled friends:
We went to an event at Pulborough Brooks which should have been good but was hampered by extreme cold and the children and I coming down with or in the throes of whatever nasty virus was doing the rounds at the time. We had a trip to Fishbourne for their half term event.
The four of us went to Heathrow for the Terminal five trials. It was a really interesting day although later apparent that the testing had not been anywhere near in depth enough ;).
We had another trip to London to the Ecobuild fair which was an interesting day out with lots of freebies and conversations starters.
March Mothers Day, a visit to Bodiam Castle
our hens finally started laying 🙂
We had 3 weekends in London courtesy of Ady’s work as he had weekend shows at QVC. The shows were either first thing in the morning or last thing at night so enabled us to have most of the days together to make the most of being in London. Although we weren’t paying for food or hotels it would still have been very easy to spend loads so armed with London guide books and plenty of web research we managed to work out plenty of free places to visit. The first time we stayed at County Hall and had a very long walk taking in the Tate Modern, Trafalgar Square, Big Ben and more in a massive 7 mile round walk. We also went to the Movieum that weekend which we enjoyed. In other visits we also took in Museum of London, The National Gallery and the Bank of England Museum. We took tea and Fulham palace and were at Putney Bridge for the boat race. We finished off on the last weekend with a visit to Chistlehurst caves on the way home which was also fab :).
One the one single weekend in March we didn’t go to London we had a visit to another NT property – Petworth house where we were captivated by the beauty of all the daffodils and narcissus.
We had our annual visit to Coombes farm to see the lambing, whilst not as many born right infront of us as last year we did see a couple and also had a tractor ride across the top of the downs too which was beautiful, if freezing!
We went to the Salmon’s Superheros party which was a fab weekend and the kids got to be Dynamic Davies and Super Sparkly Scarlett, complete with capes 🙂
Somehow – and even I am now wondering if March had an extra week or two in it this year given how much we seemed to do during it, we also managed a day trip to Legoland.
Definitely the best one yet as both children were tall enough to go on everything and we had Ady with us which meant we could. Several times 🙂
April
Scarlett won Badger of the month for being ‘kind and helpful’ – this rather made her month! 🙂
just a week apart we had a day of practically t shirt weather at a nature reserve
followed by a day of snow deep enough to build proper snowmen – it melted all away again the same day though
We had our annual Not Bluebell Bluebell Walk 😆 where Davies got his foot stuck in the water (twice)
The kids had a Green Diggers event, this time at Tilgate Park, we had an amazing walk at Pulborough Brooks where we saw adders performing their fight / dance to see which male gets to mate with the female
.
We had 7 more chicks hatch in our incubator (3 were cockerels – one of which died and the other two were rehomed. Another 3 were hens, who we kept and the seventh was Spatchcock, much loved and quite disabled chick who lived a short but happy life, dying of natural causes a while later).
Davies decided to leave Beavers. I stared walking on the beach weekly while the children were at Badgers and enjoyed some blissful strolls. We went to the Safety Day organised by a Home Edder in Berkshire and had an educational and informative time there.
We had our annual This Time There Really Are Bluebells Walk
, a FANTASTIC day to the British Wildlife Centre and a great day in London with LovelyEm visiting the Museum of Childhood and the Diana Playground and we had our annual photoblog day.
May
We had another visit to Petworth House for their annual tunnels open weekend. They have a tunnel connecting the main house to the servants quarters underground so we went along with Mum and Dad and had a really nice day there exploring the tunnel
We spent Bank Holiday Monday at the beach and then at the river bank crabbing. We had the best start to the camping season with an early weekend away at The Sustainability Centre for their Green Fair weekend. Just the four of us, first outing for the new tent and blissfully lovely in every way – weather, location, company, campfire and all 🙂
Ady had a birthday. I had a wonderful weekend away on my own with friends in London, we had Barbecue Saturday where we had barbecue lunch with Chris, Julie, Maisie and Jack while they were still a four person family and then went on to Tom’s for a barbecue complete with horses, chickens and dogs (to run around with, not eat barbecued ;)).
We had a great time at Eve and Rei’s birthday party at the gym and at Wednesday Helen’s afterwards . Our hen hatched some eggs herself – two chicks, one of whom died, the other is our current cockerel.
June Started with me doing a ‘Dad’s Special Rhymetime’ at the library as part of the annual Adur Festival. We went to the Sompting Festival on the village green , we went to an organic farm as part of Open Farm Sunday, Davies, Scarlett and I went to the South of England Show and as usual had a fab day out there, we had a lovely time exploring art exhibitions on the local houseboats moored at Shoreham as part of the local Beach Dreams Festival.
We went along to Springwatch at Brighton, which was another great day out and we had a lovely visit from Katy and Becca 🙂. Baby Lorna finally made her entrance into the world and we had a fabulous holiday in Cornwall. We took the Eden Project, St Michaels Mount, The Lost Gardens of Heligan, a cider factory, an ice cream factory and had lots of sneaky campfires in a barbecue and enjoyed the fab facilities (farm animals, heated outdoor pool) at the campsite.
We had a great time at Buzz and Boo’s Medieval Birthday party at Ros and Tony’s . We had a couple of trips to the local PYO farm and Ady finally made it with us to Fishbourne Roman Villa.
July
My Mum and I had a nice day out to celebrate her birthday, we had a great day out at soft play with not so frequently but local home ed mates, Spatchcock died 🙁 , we celebrated Freya’s birthday with her at one of Ali’s fab parties, had a great time at the Brighton Kite Festival, Davies, Scarlett and I had a surprise viewing of a rehersal for a Shakespear in the park play when we were visiting with Julie, Lorna, Maisie and Jack. We had an excellent weekend away with friends at Wickstead / Festival of History weekend with camping, rollercoasters and reenactments and we had a bittersweet farewell with Caz, Bid, Archie and Elliot at the beach before they jetted off on the first leg of their round the world adventure. We went to the local Fire Station open day and the RSPB family fun day and visited Bedgebury Pinetum where we’d been meaning to go for ages.
My brief foray into competition entering paid dividends with a family entrance ticket to the British Motor Show which Ady took the day off work to come along to with us and we had a great time looking at campervans, having a ride in an off road track landrover, go karting, climbing wall and getting loads of freebies :). We ended the month with a surprise meal out and cinema visit to see WALL-E for the children.
August
My Dad turned 70 – he is now officially old enough to tell all sorts of random strangers how old he is :).
We had a great week away, blighted though it was by truly dreadful weather. The first half was a couple of nights Off The Path, a night with Linda and Stuart (friends in Manchester) and a night at Jay’s – a Feminist Parent friend for a gathering of FP folk. We had planned to sleep in our bought-specially-for-the-occassion smaller tent at all three locations and ended up sleeping inside at all of them instead!
The second half of the week was camping with LovelyEm at Eweleaze which was also blighted by poor weather and cut short for all of us but we did have two perfect nights and one perfect day with one of the most beautiful sunsets I’ve ever seen :).
We had a lovely bank holiday Sunday with Chris and Julie and then at the Big Picnic event in Worthing to welcome the olympic flame where the children took part in an amazing torch parade. We followed this up with an equally lovely bank holiday Monday with my parents visiting Raystede Animal Sanctuary and going out for a meal :).
We finished off August in the company of friends at Chris and Helen’s splendid Pirate Party (aarh!) but without Ady who went to the airshow with friends from work.
September there was ragrugging, there were final trips to the PYO before it closed for the winter and we had a fire check from the firemen.
We had our loveliest camping trip with friends yet at the Sustainability Centre with Michelle, Marcus and Chloe, LovelyEm, Eve and Rei and Ali and Freya. which included various nice things particularly the day spent at Butser.
Scarlett lost her first tooth, Davies turned 8, we went to Jack and Maisie’s sixth birthday party, we met new (home educating) friends Tasha and Toby and had a good visit to the newly reopened soft play place in Worthing.
The big news of the month was that we got an alllotment :). We officially took it over from October 1st but spent a day there in September as soon as we got the keys starting to dig it over :). and got the unexpected bonus of finding some late potatoes too :).
We had a fantastic day at Tom’s doing some fishing and shooting which the kids really enjoyed :).
October kicked off on the 2nd with a trip to London for one of the RI lectures. This one was about the ear.
We spent lots of time at the allotment and I had another weekend in London with FP friends which was very enjoyable :).
We went to a couple of film week screenings – Nim’s Island, Prince of Egypt and Ady took Davies and Scarlett to see Horton Heard a Who. Ady and I went to a wedding where I enjoyed the welcome drinks, toasting drinks and first dance drinks very comprehensively 😉 – the children had a very nice day indeed with my mum and dad – a rare event indeed!
We had a great time at Ali’s Not Halloween Not Party and we had some official Halloween fun at Pulborough Brooks Trick or Tweet event and Booth musuem’s after dark event.
November
We had our annual ‘sometimes around November 5th’ fireworks event at Chris and Julie’s. We went to a local HE meet up at Spring Barn Farm which was mostly nice but tainted by the weather, the kids getting muddy and then whinging and me being stroppy!
We had a great weekend visit from The Barts which included a mad round trip to Reading to celebrate Claudia’s birthday with a swimming party, a trip to the allotment for Kirsty, the kids and I and the Remembrance Day parade which Davies and Scarlett participated in as Badgers and the rest of us got cold standing and watching.
We met up with Michelle and Chloe and The Beans for the heart talk at the RIand had a picnic in the park afterwards.
I went to the very poignant funeral of a work colleague who chose to end her life.
We saw a filmeducation screening of The Fox and The Child which Scarlett had been desperate to see for months since seeing a trailer for it. She now has her own copy and dreams of her own fox too! 🙂
December saw us heading Northwards again. We spent a really fab weekend with friends Jay and Mark which saw Scarlett beginning celebrations of her birthday 🙂
From there we went to Helmsley for NicCamps does Christmas which definitely takes the title for best camp so far for me :).
Scarlett turned six, we had an amazing trip to France / Bruge with my parents (their Christmas present to us was the trip and the passports for the four of us to enable us to go in the first place :)) , The children and I had two theatre trips – one to see The Bigger Bang (a science show) and one to the ballet of Peter and the Wolf / Carnival of the Animals. Both of which were very much enjoyed by all three of us :).
Scarlett had the truly amazing experience which I suspect will be one of her strongest childhood memories – Keeper for the Day at Drusillas park.
We had another Not Party at Ali’s this time for Christmas (and to meet the new kittens), we had Ros and Tony’s Christmas party, we spent plenty of time at the beach, Christmas at my parents and as I’m about to blog we saw 2008 out and 2009 in surrounded by some of our very best friends.
It’s been another ace year. I know this post is peppered with ‘lovely’ ‘fab’ ‘amazing’ and other such words and truly that is pretty much how our life is. We are surrounded by wonderful friends, have fab times with them, enjoy many holidays, day trips and social times.
This year we have done plenty of soul searching as a family about where we want to be and although what we have now isn’t perfect it is close enough to it for us to have decided to stay put and make alterations to what we have to help it come closer to perfect. We can’t pull off full on self sufficiency without severly compromising our freedom to upsticks and go away so we’re getting close to it with chicken keeping and an allotment.
Once again we end the year with less debt than we started it. 2009 looks set to be an uncertain year for many people financially so it’s good to feel that we are fairly in control of our finances now and still enjoying the luxuries of holidays, day trips and as many free events as we can find to attend to make our money stretch as far as possible.
We have our health, we have our friends and we have each other. If we end 2009 saying the same I will consider us very lucky people – as we have ended 2008 saying it I wish you all a very happy new year and as many blessings as we seem to have :). xxx