One word? When seven would do…

so far!

We like Kaiser Chiefs – it’s a Nic, Davies and Scarlett singalong regular in the Nicmobile. This is out current fave by virtue of being on the current mix cd we’re listening too – Lily Allen did a good cover too. But Davies (no idea where he gets it from ;)) likes to add bits to songs, so whenever we listen to it (currently 3.42 times a day) he adds the ‘so far’ (a la Homer in The Simpsons Movie).

This morning we had to go into town first thing to pay the mortgage so I got up very early and was super organised about getting all sorts of stuff (ok it was laundry :oops:) sorted before we left the house. The bank our wages get paid into and I therefore have to withdraw cash from is the opposite end of town to the bank the mortgage gets paid into so I managed to park outside the first bank and run in to get money out and then drive round to the second bank and get a parking space outside that too. As we were so super efficient we had half an hour to kill so I got a parking ticket and we had a quick whizz round a few shops too. In both banks I was given the hard sell about transferring our mortgage across – I always feel like wearing a T shirt to the bank saying ‘I’ve got bad credit, you really don’t want me as a customer’ to try and prevent the barrage of selling techniques for mortgages, loans, credit cards, different bank accounts and everything else that I get every single month. They barely stop short of actually saying ‘you don’t even need to pay the money you borrow back!’ except of course you do – twice over!

We went to a cheap card shop to get some mothers day cards for my Mum and Granny and enjoyed looking at all the various names on the fronts – mother, mum, mummy, stepmother, aunt, gran, granny, nan, nanna, nanny and then all the ‘just like a mother to me’ type ones which surprisingly haven’t stretched yet to things like ‘foster carer’, ‘woman at the supermarket who looks kindly’ and ‘that bird wot used to be hooked up with me dad but isn’t any more’. Davies read ‘I love you Mum’ on the front of a giant teddy bear’s T shirt. We checked out the cheap shoe shop for pretendy crocs as I had a dream last night that the weather was so lovely the kids wanted to wear shorts but couldn’t cos they only have winter boots to wear and they’ve both said they want crocs for summer shoes again this year. No joy though, which is probably sensible given it is February :lol:.

Then we drove over to Brighton where we’d arranged to meet EOFFs at a soft play place called Funplex. This entertained me and the kids and we’d been googling the word ‘plex’ this morning to find out what it meant. We decided it must be short for ‘complex’ as in sports complex, leisure complex etc. and decided it meant a complex of fun, fun or all sorts, a plethora of fun. We re-christened it the ‘Plex of Fun’ – interesting how soft play places need to have quirky and wacky names. I’d scribbled down googlemap directions from their website this morning but got distracted by the fact that the road there was the same one I used to travel on every day when I worked at B&Q Brighton and haven’t infact been down since. Blimey that was 12 years ago! So I was telling D and S about it and the landmarks along the way, the pub on the corner where my heart used to sink every morning because it meant I was Very Close to Work and I bloody hated that job. Then I had to explain why I’d hated the job (I was the department manager of the kitchens and bathrooms department – just 22 and trying to manage a team of 7 staff all old enough to be my parents. Two were utterly crap and incompetant, two were very good and knew it and 3 were just jaded and had seen the likes of me with my youth and upstart attitude come and go many times over the years. The store is in the middle of two of the most notorious council estates in the country, very close to the park where two schoolgirls were kidnapped and murdered from in my childhood and every single order for a new kitchen or bathroom invaribly ended up with me taking irrate phonecalls from customers demanding to know where their ‘fucking worktops are?’. Nightmare job – I lasted six months). And then I realised we’d long gone past the turn off where we were supposed to head as I was far too busy pointing out landmarks to the children.

We drove up and turned round which gave us a fab view over Brighton so we paused a minute to look at that and speculate on the layout of the city. There were a few rows of houses that were built arena style in a semi circle, rising in height and we wondered what they had been built around initially. We did manage to get back on track and quickly found the Plex of Fun. And because all the EOFFers are Home Educatin’ folk they were all Very Late and we were the first there despite being late ourselves. Which meant I got to sit and drink tea and read my book while Davies and Scarlett explored, with the help of the very friendly staff member who came out from behind her desk to ‘show them round’ :).

Eira, Lucy and Mel eventually all arrived and we had a very nice few hours there. Scarlett managed to find £1.30 – a pound, a 10p and a 20p fallen down the side of some of the slides. She did get her arm stuck twice doing so though and had to be rescued by Eira the second time :lol:. She was very pleased with her finds though and even took them to Rainbows for show and tell tonight :lol:. Adults managed chatting and it was a good day.

We left to get home to meet Ady who’d gone off to work without keys so couldn’t get back into the house. We had tea and a brief play before heading back out again. We needed to pay our monthly visit to the butchers so Ady got to come too (funny moment when Mick the butcher asked how the steaks would be cooked (eg fry or grill) and I just pointed to Ady and said ‘by him!’ which amused the couple of people queuing behind us :lol:. Then we headed to Tesco to get Ady a new shirt to wear on telly this weekend :).

Home for a quick dash back out again for Tarly and I to Rainbows. We’d been gearing up for her to stay by herself this week as Ady was anticipating leaving for London earlier but she really had got quite worked up about it and he decided to arrive later and stay to be with Davies so I could stay with Tarly instead. I paid her subs tonight and for her Rainbow t shirt too and she is being enrolled next week. Davies and Ady can come along too and we’ve talked about her maybe staying alone the week after. We’ll see. In the same way as we gave her back her dummies after two weeks of torture a couple of years ago having realised that something making one of them so unhappy is simply not the right thing to be doing, nor in line with our parenting philosophies I think leaving her for the sake of leaving her rather than because I don’t have another option is not something I’d be comfortable with, much though I think we all know she *would* be fine.

They did colouring in cardboard dolls and cutting them out, then colouring in rainbows uniforms from other places in the world and cutting them out to go on, in the style of the dress up dolls you used to get in Twinkle comics :). One of the little girls clearly had made it her mission to befriend Scarlett tonight and she is seeming to fit in well there, growing in confidence and being more herself. I chatted to the leader for a while tonight too – she was telling me that she is in the middle of the application process to be a foster carer. She has no children of her own but has been a guide / rainbow / brownie leader for 12 years and clearly has a lot to give.

We got home and Ady headed off – he’s QVCing at 9am tomorrow morning, 1am Sunday morning and again at 8pm on Sunday night, so he’s away tonight, back tomorrow morning and then off again tomorrow evening and back late Sunday. The trade off is that he is off Monday and Tuesday. I’m working in the morning so Dad is coming over to look after Davies and Scarlett til Ady gets home, which means I won’t be able to watch him on air. He’s on again both days next weekend but currently we’re planning to go up with him.

I was only slightly hungover this morning and headed off to work to be greeted with ‘could you do storytime today please Nicola, Yvonne’s off?’.

So that would be 15 children, 17 adults, half an hour of singing, stories and coloring then. No problem! 😆

The benefit of doing Storytime is you get the whole morning off to prepare, so from 9am to 11am I just mooned around choosing some books, read them through a couple of times to ensure I’d be able to read them upside down okay by just needing prompts, thought about a couple of songs and then as there were no suitable colouring in pictures in our stash of mastercopies I freehand drew the outlines of a cat from one of the stories I’d chosen and a parrot from one of the others, photocopied them and then coloured in one of each as examples. Then I had a cup of tea before I faced my audience :lol:.

It actually went fine. I think I prefer storytime to rhymetime as you get more back and are geninely talking to the children rather than their parents. I am less comfortable with the fact that children faced with an adult reading them stories are very keen to get as physically close to that adult as possible. My own children’s snotty noses I can handle, snot not genetically related to me I have rather more problems with :lol:. I read Too Loud, Love like this, Have you seen the crocodile? and Don’t say that Willy Nilly! and I managed to get them all joining in with all the books. I had them making snapping crocodiles every time I said the word ‘crocodile’, I had them making animals noises in Too Loud, repeating the phrases that Willy Nilly wasn’t supposed to say and miming out some of the elephants actions from Love like this. And somehow manage to link in ‘the elephant moves from side to side’, Twinkle twinkle little star, if you’re happy and you know it, wheels on the bus and then took requests and we did Little Peter Rabbit had a fly upon his nose. It went well :).

At lunchtime I had a bit of a charity shop fest and managed to get 6 items for Tarly for £6 including some Next, Gap and Boden tops 🙂 And then went into another charity shop and found two cardigans in my size. I tried them on and one is lovely, big, snuggly and single button, perfect for slobbing at home or wearing to work. The other I spent about ten minutes in the changing room trying to work out how to wear! It is mohair and silk and a lovely colour and feel and in the end I was so intrigued by it that I bought it just to bring home and try and work out. I said the volunteer behind the counter that I wasn’t quite sure how to wear it and she said they’d all been looking at it when it came in and trying to work it out! I got it back to work and Wendy and I tried it on again in the staffroom and tried to work it out and then Ady and I have been looking at it tonight. It is one single button with a totally asymmetric neckline and hemline and odd seams at the back but what is very perplexing is a sort of extra wedge of knitting sewn in on one side which I sort of thought must be supposed to be draping somewhere but couldn’t work out where. Having googled the make inside I discovered it to be some German designer who’s stuff sells on ebay for in excess of £100 and is indeed all quirky and odd with different drapey bits here and there. I paid a fiver for it and actually really like it so will keep it until such times as I decide I’m not actually going to wear it and could do with the money and then flog it :).

The afternoon was uneventful, it felt l o n g. I arrived home about five minutes before Ady and thanks to a bit of my famous scheduling we managed to get Davies and Scarlett’s tea cooked and fed to them, dinner on for us, baths had, large chunk of current bedtime story read to children and then in bed all with time to spare before the Masterchef final at 8pm.

I spent some time later in Davies’ room telling him about storytime and managing to remember all of have tou seen crocodile and don’t say that willy nilly which he enjoyed hearing and telling him which bits I got everyone to join in with. Then he wanted pictures drawn of the characters I did for colouring in so I drew them for him too. I think it feels slightly odd for him to hear about me reading to and drawing for other children, as indeed it feels odd for me to be doing it. Nice to still share it with him in some way though.

Tomorrow we’re EOFFing and I need to fit in a visit into town to the bank and be home to wave my famous husband off for his weekend of TV appearances ;).

Thought I could have them instead of Winter Walks – what do you reckon? 😉

Yesterday we met up with Julie, Jack and Maisie this morning at the stables for a Honey riding session. It was a beautiful day, really mild, sunny and still. The bridleways and woodland were full of daffodils, violets, snowdrops. The children played around the farm while Julie got Honey ready although Scarlett came over to have a go at grooming her, fed her some carrots and came over to watch Julie cleaning out Honey’s hoofs and also to see when her chestnuts fell off (and if you have no idea what that is, don’t feel bad cos I didn’t either!).

Davies rode first, again really enjoyed it and learnt a bit more about various things while he was riding

Maisie had next ride so Davies, Scarlett and Jack enjoyed running and playing in the woods while Julie and I walked alongside Honey and Maisie. Davies found some very interesting looking fungi

Then it was Tarly’s turn. Now if Davies loves riding Honey then Scarlett LOVES riding Honey, check out the smile on this child’s face

also check out the fact that she is riding ‘with no hands’. She started doing this mid-walk and was balancing up and down hill, while Honey went over logs and holding her arms out to the side. I was not remotely surprised as if Scarlett was going to be into horse riding then it was always more likely to be dare devil stunt riding where she went bare back on wild mustangs and did handstands on their backs than perfectly groomed gymkhana stuff with braided manes and shiny riding boots :lol:. Julie said that actually riding with no hands is a very important part of learning to ride a horse and getting your balance and centre of gravity in line with the horse’s though and was very impressed with Scarlett. :).

Once back at the stables Davies spent some time clambering on straw bales and muck heaps


before coming to give Julie a hand with muck shovelling in Honey’s paddock

While Tarly disappeared and with the aid of camera zoom I was able to find her spending some time with a new lamb in it’s little enclosure

They really do love it there, the whole package; the animals, the freedom, the variety of things to explore and just the being outside. 🙂

We came home listening to a Mika version of the Police song ‘Can’t stand losing you’ so we talked a bit about suicide and why losing someone you loved might make you feel sucidal and why so many songs are written about sad things. Home for lunch and what must have been about the fourth viewing of Little Shop of Horrors in the last couple of days. When we got home we moved a mattress downstairs. Davies sleeps, Princess and the pea stylee, on two mattresses. Just because someone gave us a spare single bed last year which we kept for accomodating guests for Davies’ party weekend and then got rid of the bed base but kept the mattress as it might be useful. I told Davies and Scarlett about a school trip to France when I was 13 where we’d slept in groups of four in little self contained chalets – two storey with one two bed room on the ground floor and one on the first floor, with a little bathroom in the entrance hall. By fluke I’d been in with some of the ‘cool’ girls that year and had ended up sharing with my best friend Emma and two of the wildest girls in our year – Julie and Paula. We worked out that our staircase was the exact same width as the mattresses and the exact same length as two of them end to end, so put two on the stairs and converted it into a slide. We’d later worked out we could climb out of the shuttered windows and Paula had improved Anglo-French relations in all sorts of ways with some local lads but I didn’t share that bit of the anecdote!

So we put one of Davies’ mattresses on our stairs and although it was slightly too wide it did make a very effective slide that we played on for a while 😆

The shopping arrived, as blogged below and then after tea I took Davies and Scarlett off to Badgers. They made bird food in yogurt pots – our tree is rather groaning under the weight of bird food in yoghurt pots to be honest so I think the bantams might be the recipients of this batch. Lovely to see how accepted Scarlett is into the Badger group of children after just half a term. And even more lovely was on the way out when I started talking about where Scarlett was going to sleep and she wanted to sleep in Davies’ room and he put his arm round her as they walked down the steps together. Bless!

While I’d been sat in the car (in the cold and the dark, playing DS and then reading some of my book) I’d had a phone call from Ady to say that he wouldn’t be staying away from home after all. This threw all the evening plans, not to mention sleeping arrangements out the window, but it all worked out ok in the end.

Davies, Scarlett and I went to collect Ali and Freya from the station and Ady had just beaten us home and took charge of settling children in bedrooms watching dvds, inflating air beds (not quite enough!) and providing just the right level of input into Ali and I’s conversation and then buggering off to bed so we could carry on afterwards. 😆 We had a very pleasant evening with pizza, snacks, wine, chatter and chocolate :).

Like buying Sainsburys for example. In fairness I can’t claim that one liner for my own, I have to give full due credit to the delivery driver. Of course he isn’t just a delivery driver, nosireebob! He is merely doing that to bring in a bit of extra cash while he works nights as a stand up comedian. Infact maybe he’s not even doing it to bring in the cash, maybe it is a valuable dual source of both new material (what could possibly be funnier than delivering someone else’s muller light yoghurt, organic pineapples and flash bathroom wipes?) and the chance to test out his jokes on that harshest and most discerning demographic of standup comedy critics – the bored housewife?! Hey if you can make them smile along with delivering the very shackles that keep them in the kitchen – their ingredients for cooking and their household products for cleaning, then surely you know you’re in business!

So having greeted me with ‘Hello, I’ve brought Sainsburys! Seriously, I have a food mountain out here, you bought the whole shop!’ he went on to further develop his act by talking about ‘we are a well oiled machine we’ve really got it goin’ on now’ when we set up a production line of he brings the boxes, I unload the boxes, Davies and Scarlett scatter the contents of the boxes into the relevant rooms ‘chiller! upstairs bathroom, downstairs bathroom, next to back door to go in garage’ (which put me in mind of Neil’s monologue in Young Ones – ‘we sow the seed, nature grows the seed, we eat the seed’ which shockingly I can’t find a youtube clip of). He sort of gave it up there – doesn’t do to overkill, maybe he’s one of those stand ups who lets the audience do the work themselves, just interjecting comedy ideas and letting the viewer run with them and find the laughs themselves. Or maybe he’s just not that funny. Or perhaps he was having an off day. Or something.

He arrived at 3pm precisely, I signed for the delivery at 3.10pm and by 3.50pm I’d got all the shopping put away. 60 bottles of Stella, 15 bottles of wine, 60 pints of milk and a whole load of tins, packets and jars (I like to keep the recycling van busy, just incase they don’t have secondary careers in the entertainment business and dealing with tins and bottles is their lifes work).

When we lived in Manchester and the children were tiny I often did internet food shops but we had Asda, Tesco and Sainsburys all really close to us and there were so many delivery slots you could often get a same day one booked, doing the shop in the morning and getting it delivered in the evening. I’ve not really done it since we moved back to Sussex as when we first came home you were lucky to book a delivery slot in the next three weeks (similar principle to doctors appointments) so I’m something of an amateur at it really. Of course with the next Olympics this close I’d be foolish to give up my amateur status anyway so there were a couple of glaring omissions from my delivery such as butter (I’d got the value stuff for using in baking but none of the decent stuff for spreading on toast), cashew nuts (essential ingredient in several of our meals) and cheese (staple diet here when we’re not drinking milk, wine or beer!) which I’ll have to pick up later in the week but otherwise it was a success. The only out of stock items were substitued with sensible things clearly selected by a person with a brain so it was a good first foray into the world of interent food shopping. The children were helpful and pleased not to have had to tramp round a real supermarket for the best part of two hours, so I guess we’ll be doing that again. Best part was as the order was over £70 and delivered Tuesday – Thursday it was just £2.50 delivery charge so I didn’t even begrudge that. 🙂

Ady has yet another little extra role at work of being the nominated ‘green’ person meaning he is trying to help the company be more environmentally friendly in any possible ways. He is also tasked with finding new products suitable for selling on QVC so is registered with all sorts of places under that hat. Yesterday he got through his visitor pass for Ecobuild a 3 day event at Earls Court. The only day he could go was today so he asked if we wanted to go along too. It was free to attend and having spend fruitless time trying to ring and email them to ask if we could bring children I found some feedback from exhibitors at last years show talking about how visitors had brought children with them so decided it would be fine and registered them as visitors too.

Back in the days of Dreamieland both Ady and I did various Trade Fairs – mostly at NEC, Birmingham but a few smaller ones at Manchester GMEX and other London venues. My most memorable one was a toy fair in March 2003 where I was away from a 4 month old Scarlett for 12 hours after snow delayed all the trains and had a queue of 100 people at the train station all asking down the queue who was going where and coordinating our own taxi sharing home so we all got home that night (friendly place, Manchester :)). I’d been in agony for hours without a baby feeding from me every couple of hours, started leaking on the train and practically exploded when I got home 😆 My overriding memory other than that of trade fairs is that your feet hurt, the food is overpriced and you get lots and lots of free stuff. We did take Davies and Scarlett to a toy and gift fair at NEC when they were smaller on the way home from a visit down south – Scarlett was still pushchair age and they’d not been the only children there. Our plan was to see how they found it and if it proved unenjoyable or difficult then I would take them off and we’d meet back up with Ady again later today.

So we were out early, parked at the library and caught the 839am train, changed at Gatwick and were at Earls Court just after 10am when it opened. As I was printing off mine and the children’s passes one of the doorpeople came over to say they didn’t really allow children in and that it did say that on the poster outside. I was gearing up to ask just what use a poster outside the venue is when 99% of the visitors will have travelled bloody miles especially to attend and to start ranting about how I’d attempted to check whether it was ok yesterday but been unable to get a reply (still no response to my email even now!) when she very patronisingly said that they wouldn’t turn us away now but we would have to ‘keep the children under control’ and that ‘we couldn’t have them running about or screaming’. I agreed that that wouldn’t be acceptable indeed and in we went.

Davies and Scarlett were utter stars, but to be honest no better than I would expect – and know I am confident to expect of them. They were really interested in the stands and exhibits, being both knowledgable and interested in green issues and also aware that self-building is something we might one day think about doing. For Davies, particularly the idea of learning about environmentally friendly ways of building is of great interest with his passion for architecture. They were, aside from a tiny baby in a sling, the only children there and while I would be lying if I said they didn’t attract the odd glance or even tut (totally unwarranted!) they were far more of a novelty and treated very well by 99% of the people we talked to. We stopped for drinks, lunch, ice cream (oh, the ice cream!) and were there for about 4 hours. They came away with a stress ball each – which they are currently retelling each other and anyone who will listen anecdotes about how I had one when I was in labour with Davies and when it failed to ease any of the labour pains got bitten by me instead! They got two similar rubbery material to stress ball little houses each (great for chucking at people without hurting them much, according to the man who gave them to them), a little gel handwarmer each which we timed the heat output for (35 minutes) and have since reactivated and have ready for use tomorrow, discussed other uses for such technology (smaller ones to fit in gloves, insole shaped ones to fit in wellies made of more flexible and stronger material) and googled to find out exactly how they work, having done a fair explanation in the middle of Earl’s Court which was clearly being listened to by a greater audience than just D and S :lol:. They also got a variety of pens, fuzzy bugs, a very nice rucksack each (which will come in very handy for all those future moments when they want to bring toys, moan that they are hungry or thirsty or ask me to carry things for them – evil cackle!) and loads of sweeties along the way.

Ady talked to loads of people about various things for work – most interestingly some solar powered aircon which is so simple but would be massively effective in the nursery greenhouses (me and the children looked at the solar lighting that bounces light round corners in a reflective tube from a panel in the roof out through light units into rooms in a house – again very simple but effective). He also talked to some of the many, many companies there selling living roofs which was easily the most common product there today. It was interesting to discover that all the companies he spoke to buy in their plants from abroad for the roofs so potentially a market for his company. Finally we were very impressed with a brick company which among other clever ideas have designed bricks which are bat boxes and swift nesting boxes to be incorporated into new builds. Some great ideas :).

We spent a while looking at a very interesting area where they were doing demonstrations of straw bale building, making bricks from straw and mud, making pegs with old fashioned manual wood turning tools and more. Davies and I were really interested in the timber house frame made of shaped wood of cam and dowel style fixings held in place with pegs. We all commented several times on how ‘back to basics’ some of the ideas were, taking inspiration from age old techniques and ideas about construction, insulation, heating and so on that we seemed to have lost somewhere along the way and are now rediscovering. Davies has been very fascinated by the Roman arch building we saw at Fishbourne last week and was explaining the whole idea to Ady when we saw some bridges along the train journey this morning and I was telling him about dry stone walling. We also liked the wool roof insulation and the rain water harvesting systems we saw.

Kevin McCloud was there earlier today speaking although we didn’t see him and we were approached by Five Production company with leaflets incase we were doing anything they might want to make films of and some people from Dragon’s Den came over too to ask if we were looking for investment! Fame and fortune were within our grasp – but of course Ady brushes such things away now with a weary air about him :lol:. There was also a food stand run by River Cottage but Hugh wasn’t there himself and the food was all a bit lentil-y so we ate at the Pizza Express stand instead :).

The most exciting bit for Ady was definitely when he was invited to have a go on the exercise bike and light up four lights to enter a prize draw for a fold up bike. He was unfortunate enough to do directly after a guy who was actually carrying a cycle helmet with him (having probably cycled down from Scotland or something) but did really well and only had to sit down for a while and stop wheezing afterwards. I was most entertained by the fact they didn’t even bother asking me if I wanted a go! 😆 He got a free energy drink for doing it though, and the kids were thrilled.

We were keen to get back for swimming lessons if at all possible and by 2pm reckoned we’d had a good enough walk round to take in anything really interesting or important so went to the station. The best route back seemed to be to Clapham Junction and then direct to Lancing so we did that. The first bit of the journey Davies sat with me and Scarlett sat with Ady and we played two seperate games of ‘one day I went to the supermarket and I bought…’ Davies has my leaning toward the ridiculous though and ours had us coming out of the supermarket, going to B&Q to buy two planks of wood then going back to the supermarket to buy… type twists. Then we played train window scenery bingo (trampoline, horse, plane, road type stuff) and finally what does that cloud look like to you? Once we’d moved and were all sitting together with a little plastic table I got out a bag of little 3cm x 3cm rubber squares I’d collected from one of the stands. It is brighly coloured rubber to be used for flooring and comes in about 70 different colours and loads of different textures and they had all these little colour samples to take. I thought it would be great for mosaic picture type playing so gathered as much as I could without looking very odd and they played with that on the table making pictures. Then we build a tower to see how high we could go before the train movement knocked it down and which was the most stable method of placing the squares (ie not a single stack).

Once we got off the train at Lancing we walked past Woolworths and right at the front of the store was a huge end of Doctor Who figures on BOGOF at £6.99, making them £3.50 each. Davies chose a Sycorax that he’s been after for a while and Tarly chose a Rose so that was an unexpected surprise for them :). We got home with just enough time for them to get changed and me to plait Tarly’s hair before heading back out again for swimming lessons.

They both had a really good lesson – Tarly is really coming along and I can see such a change in her in just half a term, Carolyn the instructor said she just wants to see a little bit more evidence that she can swim across with floats without putting her feet down and she will get her first badge. Davies has definitely passed into being a swimmer and now just needs all that practise on perfecting strokes, building up strength and getting his techniques and things like breathing sorted out. Best £60 each a term my Dad ever spent ;).

Home for tea for them and then bed where they both fell straight asleep after a long and tiring day. They both said they really enjoyed the Ecobuild and were really glad they’d come. I know it wasn’t an event for children particularly but I think sometimes events not designed to be ‘child friendly’ are actually far more interesting and appealing to children than the ones tailor made for them.

We’ve had a very laid back and relaxed day at home today. Davies and Scarlett have been utterly self-directed and spent some time on x box finding a graffitti design extra on some racing game my brother lent Davies where you choose the spray size on the paint and draw stuff. They collaborated on that to create a night sky complete with planets and Orion’s belt. Ady emailed me to say he is going to a very interesting looking trade show tomorrow and did we want to go too, so a quick rearrange of online shopping delivery schedulded for tomorrow and a quick registration of me and the children online to attend and that is all sorted to tomorrow :).

They got their DSs out next and played with them for a while. Scarlett has managed to delete all her progress on Cooking Mama so spent some time working through that to unlock recipes again. Davies played a bit of Simpsons and a bit of Harry Potter which he needed some help with reading on. I snuck off to do a bit of baking (we had some black bananas so I wanted to make cake with them) but Scarlett followed me so her and I made banana and chocolate chip cakes and at Davies’ request some chocolate chip rock cakes. While all this was happening I also did several loads of laundry and spent some time with the bantams.

We had lunch and Davies and Scarlett went off to play again. They got the plasticine out and made various things with that. Davies’ included a fortune teller complete with crystal ball and Scarlett made a rabbit. When they’d had enough of that they cleared it all away and got out the musical instrument box and set about a game where Davies played something and Scarlett had to act out how it made her feel. I wasn’t paying much attention but there was lots of prancing about being a unicorn to the twinkly xylophone banging and much being a mournful puppy to the harmonica 😆 Then they went back to the plasticine.

I spent some time online, drank equal ocean sized volumes of tea and water. It was my aim to increase the water I drink this month. I have certainly done that although it has not been entirely consistent. I’ll continue to keep it up though and be making another small change towards a healthier lifestyle for March alongside it. I sat and read It’s Not Easy Being Green which was very interesting, particularly the bit about keeping pigs. I also skim-read a book called A new you in 21 days which had caught my eye when shelving books the other day at work and looked interesting. It wasn’t! Having seen biggification mentioned by Sarah I googled it to find out what it was and played that for a while – the children moved over to observe and both want to have a play on that sometime soon too.

I made the children’s tea – Scarlett had one bantam egg and one duck egg with toast – very funny contrast between the two sizes 🙂 and having not had the tv on all day they decided to put Little Shop of Horrors on to watch while they ate. Then it was time for Davies to go to Beavers so we walked him round there. Ady arrived home and I went to collect Davies from Beavers. We were kept waiting ages while they finished off some Mothers Day present they were making :). I happened to be in earshot as the leader told the mother of the very disruptive little boy that he has been warned that unless his behaviour dramatically improves he will not be allowed to remain at Beavers any more. It was met with smirks from both her and her son so I imagine it is either not being taken seriously or they have been expecting it a while and have been surprised at how long he has been allowed to stay – I know I have overheard her almost bragging about threats to exclude him from school :shock:. I dropped Davies home and dashed to Sainsburys to get stuff for dinner which meant no stories tonight but they did get to watch Simpsons instead :roll:.

Life in Cold Blood and a lovely curry for us and I’m off to bed early as tomorrow will be a long day and the rest of the week is shaping up to be much the same.

Scarlett is developing some odd little ways. She has been stashing an old tube of kiddie toothpaste that has run out and I had told her to throw away when I bought a new tube a couple of weeks ago. She’s also started to claim to be scared of going into certain rooms on her own – this is totally inconsistent and generally seems to be as a way of avoiding doing something (getting pjs on to go to bed, cleaning teeth, putting toys away) but is accompanied by genuine tears and looks of real fear as though she is able to talk herself into something scary really existing to back up her desire not to do something.

Ady has tended to pander to this rather – when I told her to throw the toothpaste tube on the fire he would have let her either keep it or done the whole getting rid of it without her realising – I am much keener that she not only knows it’s gone, but that she’s been the one to dispose of it. He will also go into rooms with her when she claims to be scared whereas I’m more inclined to talk her through what’s worrying her and encourage (ok shout at her!) to get on with it on the basis that if I believed there was anything for her to be scared of then I promise I wouldn’t let her do something.

At this stage it all seems harmless enough and I recall fretting about Davies tics and twitches at almost the identical age (why do so many things seem to follow like this? I’m so glad I blog so much and can go back and check such things). He still does little things when tired or stressed but as his natural state of being seems to be tired he’d overcomming that and he so rarely gets stressed it doesn’t seem to notice. I often think that he would have been potentially a rather odd child if we’d not handled everything in the way he have along the way (formal learning, school, leaving him anywhere before he was ready etc.) but I wanted to record it in the same was as I did with Davies just because it is something we are dealing with daily at the moment and I am rather perplexed by it.

I’m sure the biggest part is avoidance techniques about certain things, next comes possibly a bit of attention seeking mixed in with watching things like Primeval and Doctor Who that I certainly wouldn’t have had Davies watching as young as she does, so exposure to more wildly scary things to set her imagination off. I do think that many phobias have their roots in minor events in childhood though and I’m keen to ensure we don’t allow unwarranted fright to develop into more than it should be.

We went to a car boot sale this morning. We need a new axe as Ady killed ours on Friday chopping up wood – clearly he’d be a shit axe murderer if he is more likely to kill the axe than kill with the axe! 😆 We didn’t find an axe, or anything else interesting for that matter, so via detours to Tesco for cream cakes and home for my laptop we went to my parents for lunch.

We’d not seen my Mum for over 2 weeks and my Dad only briefly in that time so it was nice to have a catch up. My parents have got all sorts of very odd and complicated stuff going on in their relationship just now, probably not all of which I am even aware of and I am staying as far removed from it as possible. I spent way too much time in my childhood getting sucked into some weird sort of marriage guidance counsellor role which I have no intention of ever happening again really. I think this coming year will be a hard one for them and while I’ll strive to be there for them both in what I think will be tough times ahead what I’d really like to be is *just* a daughter rather than friend or confidante.

All that said we had a nice time there today. We spent some time looking at houses on the internet and talking about our plans in a rather more calmer and rational way than last time. Dad had a minor rant but again realised that he was putting his ideas about ideal lifestyles onto us with our rather different ideals. He tried to pull the ‘well you won’t go anywhere without an ensuite bathroom!’ line on me but was reminded that yes, that was indeed me 3 years ago but I’ve been camping some six times in the last two years IN TENTS, using PORTA POTTIES and started in various youth hostels with no ensuite facilities too. So while that used to be me, people do change and I certainly have and what would have been my dream home a few years ago has vastly changed now. Anyway, like I said, mostly positive.

We came home and I got a roast pork dinner on, the kids played some convoluted game (loosely based on Primeval I think) and then practised a ‘Kung Fu Show’ for ages before coming and putting it on for us in the lounge. It was fairly violent but they seemed to enjoy it. I told then that you can have martial art lessons (although I think Tarly is still way too young) but they didn’t seem that interested at the moment. Davies has said he doesn’t want to move up to Cubs when he is 8 and would like to pick up something else instead so maybe that will be a possibility for then (adds it to mental list of stuff to bring out and think about at a later date sometime).

I spent some time looking at the various paperwork RSPB and National Trust have sent through with our membership and writing dates of various events in my diary. Ady and I coordinated diaries for the next month or so the other night so I have all his QVC appearances logged and we have all our childcare organised for the next while too, but we don’t seem to have managed to do much about holidays yet. We know we want to try a weeks camping in April in Wales to look round at properties, we have some time booked in August (which we could do with spreading to a full ten days or more), NicCamps in December and we are thinking about a camping trip to Cornwall in September too which we should probably book dates off work for – job for this week I think, organising that in work diaries and with each other.

Davies and Scarlett had a bath before dinner and then we all sat and ate and watched Simpsons. They went to bed, Ady and I had baths and watched Lost and then a new series called Being Human on BBCthree which was excellent :).

Tomorrow we amazingly, have nothing planned aside from D’s Beavers in the evening. I have a whole plan of things we could do, am fighting to urge to go out somewhere for the day and just take some time to be home.

We’ve been to Heathrow Airport today to the new Terminal 5 building. The terminal opens next month and they are running trials with volunteers to test it prior to opening. We registered as volunteers a few weeks back and applied for today’s trial and had a phone call to say we’d been accepted on it. We had to be at a hotel next to Heathrow for 845am which meant getting up before 7am. The only time I normally see before 7am is when I’ve not been to bed from the night before yet (normally with Alison :lol:). We made good time and arrived at the hotel where we were parking and then walked across to the hotel the meet and greet was happening in.

Security met everyone at the door – policemen with guns, sniffer dogs to check your bags (Scarlett loved them) and full emptying bag searches. I don’t know why it hadn’t occured to me before but the trials might well have been a magnet for terrorist attacks. We were issued with ID passes to wear round our necks and a profile. We were all on a flight to Delhi and had to check in one piece of luggage each. Davies loved the idea of ‘playing’ someone else for the day, Scarlett was less keen. We had coffee and pastries and then went in for a short presentation explaining what would be happening through the day and a dvd showing us some of the building background of Terminal 5. It was all quite glossy and PR material-like. The word ‘iconic’ was used three times during in and applied to everything including the air traffic control tower 😆

We were then directed back downstairs where we boarded coaches to take us to the airport. They let us off in phases to replicate the trickle of people arriving at an airport naturally. The building is enormous, very impressive; airy, light and quite minimalisitic. There was strictly no camera or filming allowed but I notice a flickr user called terminal5insider has a huge range of pictures of the place up.

We had a play with the boarding pass printing machines and then gathered our four pieces of luggage from the pile and got a trolley. We joined a queue to check our bags in but it appeared to be unmoving with the clerk disappearing every so often and people standing around with mobile phones looking harrassed around it. Eventually we moved queues and shortly afterwards someone did come and tell the people remaining in the queue that they would need to move elsewhere – teething troubles of precisely the sort they were hoping to cope with in trials rather than when they ‘go live’. We then went through security where to the children’s great excitement both Ady and I set the alarm off as we went through the gate and had to be body searched and have the handheld beeper passed over us. Mine was a tin of vaseline in my pocket, Ady’s was his steel toecaps in his boots which he had to take off and walk back through without. My bag got pulled to one side too so I had to wait while that was emptied and then rescanned by the xray machines. We gathered some lunch and then went to ‘board’ our flight to Delhi.

Once the other side of the boarding gates we were given new profiles. This time we had arrived in Heathrow from New York for a connecting flight to Manchester. There was no baggage to move about but security was rather different with us having digital fingerprints and digital photo images captured (all against our pretend profiles of course) then back through the gates again where I’d moved the vaseline into my bag so went through ok but Ady had to take his boots off again. We were at our gate about 15 minutes before boarding so sat and watched planes land and take off through the windows including a smaller plane which was parked right outside where we were sitting. On boarding we were directed through doors and realised we were actually in a tunnel onto a real plane 😯 – we hadn’t been prepared for that at all and if it weren’t for the fact everyone else looked equally shocked I’d have started to worry we were actually going to take off! We were all seated seperately but Ady swapped with someone to sit with Scarlett. Davies had a window seat but noone sat next to him so I moved over next to him too.

We had the full ‘welcome on board’ speech from the pilot, the whole safety demonstration from the cabin crew and had to fasten seatbelts so the plane could reverse out, turn round and then pull back in again :). Davies has only been on a flight (funnily enough from Heathrow to Manchester) when he was under a year old and Scarlett has never been on a plane so it was actually quite exciting for them. Our profiles were collected in (each profile had a questionnaire on the reverse for us to fill out and hand in – so we handed in our Dehli flight ones when we boarded that flight) and new ones allocated as arrivals passengers. This time we had arrived from Berlin and although I don’t remember any of the rest of the names we were given through the day I know I was called S Bone which amused me knowing a real life S Bone :). On the way out Ady asked if we could see the cockpit and the very friendly pilot and co-pilot installed Scarlett in the pilots seat, moved in it for her, let her press and pull things to land, climb and take off, pressed the button which lit up all the buttons and started a very American recorded voice giving DANGER LOW TERRAIN! messages which they didn’t play for long because they said they found it too alarming 😆 It was great :).

We were supposed to gather a trolley and a piece of luggage each but the children wouldn’t have been able to push trolleys (the profiles were randomly given out with no looking at gender let alone ages to see if they were appropriate) and in the event as we were the very last out due to our cockpit visit there were no trolleys left anyway. So Ady and I grabbed a bag each and we went to the TRAINS/UNDERGROUND exit as per our instructions sheets. And that was it. We filled in our last questionnaires which we exchanged for goody bags (nothing thrilling, a brushed metal luggage tag, pen, passport holder and universal plug in a T5 bag – there are some listed on ebay :lol:). Then onto coaches to take us back to the hotel where we were parked. That was a much posher hotel than the one the presentation was in so we stood in the foyer at gawped at the grandness of the floors, chandeliers and staircases while Ady gave in our pass to get a free exit ticket from the carpark.

It was a really interesting day out actually. We are unlikely to be using an airport any time soon but they are exciting places and this one is very new and shiny. It was odd to look around at a pretty busy airport (I think there was about 2200 volunteers today doing trials) and realise they were all pretending. The actually going on a plane and seeing the cockpit was a real added and unexpected bonus too. We had things to write on the questionnaires that were really good and others that were less good. You can apply for up to three trial dates, I don’t think we’d bother going up again but we all enjoyed the day – quite cool to have been among the first people in that terminal and to have been a little part of history too. 🙂

The journey home was lengthy, there had been an accident on the M25 and we were all pretty tired. The children watched films. We called into Asda on the way home for a few bits and were pleased to get home for tea and coffee (there had been plenty of water on offer all day but no hot drinks once we arrived at the airport). Primeval watching and straight to bed for tired children. I’m planning a bath and some wine for as long as I can keep awake!

Work for me today. It started off with banking, then I spent the whole morning sat in the staff room drinking tea and basically chatting to Wendy under the guise of doing my performance and development review. Which was clearly getting paid lots of money for doing very little really! During that time the rest of the staff all came up for their tea breaks so that was pleasant to sit and chat too. We discussed information sharing and LEA involvement in HE children which was interesting.

I was on lunch then so scoured the charity shops for a coat to no avail and then had a nice chat with Yvonne who was also on lunch at the same time. I’d told her about our Masterplan on Wednesday and she said she’d gone home thinking about me and feeling envious of my life still ahead of me and a clear plan and dreams which were achievable. She told me I simply MUST do what we want to do with our lives :). She’s lovely.

The afternoon passed fairly quickly. It was a good day :). I picked up Bravo Max – the next in the series of Dear Max books.

Ady and the children had had a good day. My Dad had arrived just before I left for work so he’d spent an hour or so with them here. They’d been testing some of the products Ady is selling on QVC for his next few shows (very exciting irrigation solutions ;)) and made Mothers Day cards and been to Sainsburys for various things where they’d been distracted by cuddly toys designed for Mothers Day gifts. I get a sort of perverse pleasure from noting that Ady is equally short tempered and impatient with Davies and Scarlett by the end of a whole day at home with them as I am, infact possibly more so. 13 hours in he has run out of excellent parenting skills too ;).

I read the end of Dear Max and by popular request (Ady was listening too :)) started on Bravo Max too. I’m loving reading proper stories to them instead of picture books, much though I loved the picture book stage too. I think this is finally starting to light a bit of a fire for Davies wrt reading too as he starts to see the magic of the written word in it’s own right rather than as a side dish to beautiful pictures. Scarlett is doing a lot of ‘what does that word say?’ stuff too, so it can’t be all coincidence that suddenly they are realising that all that wonderful storytelling is tucked away in a page full of print rather than from the pictures. I’m slightly torn between wanting to share with them the treasures of my own childhood such as Enid Blyton and being excited about all the new authors I know from work are popular and have a real buzz about them – avoiding Rainbow Fairies of course 😉

I think that’s probably all I have to say. Tomorrow we have to be up at crazy o’clock as we’re off to Heathrow to take part in the terminal five trials.

I totally overslept this morning, which I obviously needed but meant we didn’t get going until nearly 11am. Davies and Scarlett stayed in the car while I dashed into Tescos for lunchtime supplies and then we arrived at Fishbourne Roman palace. We went a couple of times last year – once with The Beans and once with The ScreamTeam and had a good time both times – with Chris and Helen there was nothing particularly laid on but the company and the novelty of it being our first visit meant it was a good day out. With Ros and co. we had a really good day working through the various tasks set to train the children to Roman Soldier standards, getting their first day’s wage of a Roman coin at the end. This week they have been advertising their Family Fun Day everywhere so as entry covers you for a year we went back today to see what it was all about.

There was plenty going on but it was *really* busy so we bypassed various displays including Roman beauty products (crushed flies mixed with bear fat instead of mascara, ground chalk as face powder!) and just had a quick glance at the Roman remedies of herbs and flowers. Scarlett inhaled a little too deeply when sniffing the lavendar and sneezed most it back out of the bowl :roll:. They both had a go at weaving and the woman running that was very interesting and explained it really well, talking about various patterns and how the stripes on Davies’ top would have been woven. She really listened to their questions and answered them properly.

There was an archaeologist sat at a table with various dug up artefacts from the palace but he was pitching his chat at a rather higher level so we didn’t linger there too long. In the mosaic bit of the main palace were various clay based activities including making pots on a potters wheel, making coil pots and making oil burning lamps – there were huge queues for all of those and Davies and Scarlett both decided not to bother queuing saying we can do clay stuff at home. They declined the chance to dress up in Roman clothes.

They had various activities going on in the additional buildings on the site which haven’t normally been open and they were quieter and rather more interesting. There was wax tablets to write on with stylus and the lad running that (they use volunteers from local schools / colleges for these events) was really interested in it too. Then they did some writing with pens and ink pots – Scarlett just wrote Scarlett but Davies used the roman letters key to write his in Roman

They tried some Roman food – predictably Scarlett liked the honey sweetened wine, they both liked the spelt bread and the chickpea fritters (traitors ;)) so we picked up a recipe sheet for that. Then into the last building where there was arch building to do. We had a go and then a volunteer came over and showed us what to do then asked me to answer some questionnaire questions while we had another go and did it this time. Very proud of ourselves 🙂

and yes Davies is hamming it up for the camera 😆

We sat in the car and had lunch and then as promised because we were over that way we went off to find the animal resuce place we’d been to at the weekend again so Tarly could see the kittens again. On the way back from there we’d seen a sign advertising a ‘wild bird hospital’ which I assumed was it so we tracked the sign down and followed it. We ended up at the wild bird hospital which we hadn’t known existed and was not it at all! So as it looked interesting we parked and had a wander round there too. There were quails who’d been too ill to migrate to Italy, gulls who’d been injured and rather hilariously had two other gulls landed on their roof who we decided were visiting the sick, various ducks and pigeons and most excitingly of all some owls. They had a 7 year old Eagle owl, a 37 year old Tawny owl, a snowy owl, which Davies knowledgably informed me was a snowy owl and must be a female as it had black markings and females have that to camouflage them on their nests and a smaller owl I couldn’t identify. Amazing 🙂

We were accompanied round by a very enthusiastic member of staff who wanted to point out all sorts of things to us. 🙂

We left there and more by luck than any idea of where we were we found the animal place again. We parked up, saw the kittens, Scarlett asked if she could go in and pet them but was told no :(, looked at the chickens, peacocks, ducks, sheep and goats and were then sidetracked by three puppies newly arrived there. Davies and Scarlett spent ages with them and then spent some time with the big rottweiller who lives there and you wouldn’t catch me going anywhere near. I could just about manage to talk to the puppies through their cage bars :oops:. On the way out we were most amused by the goat easily clearing his fence, the pig who came over to greet us and we bought six duck eggs and six large free range eggs from the birds there too.

We popped into Littlehampton on the way home as I am looking out for a proper really warm coat for myself. I have a vast selection of cardigans, jackets and other outerwear including a posh wool ‘funeral’ full length coat but nothing remotely suitable for wandering round Pulborough Brooks, sitting in Pavillion Gardens eating lunch or other such pursuits that I seem to have been shivering at these last few weeks. Didn’t find anything so the search continues for that one.

In the car we had all manner of interesting conversations including a lengthy one about environmental issues. We discussed roads, traffic, fuels, fires, greener energy, cutting down travel, ignorance and education and responsibilities. Interesting stuff :). We also listened to lots of Kaiser Chiefs very loudly. Oh and Davies made me laugh lots when we talked about the Roman Palace by asking if they only open in the school holidays? I explained that no, they are open all year but only run events in the school holidays which he proclaimed ‘rubbish timing – it will always be busy then!’ 😆 There speaks a true HE child pissed off with people everywhere in school holidays 😆

Davies had been telling me about an advert he’d seen for a new Dr Seuss film about an elephant – the one who hatches the egg – and how he hears voices. I said that must be Horton hears a who and that we have the book at home. He didn’t remember but when we got home managed to track the book down so we sat and read that. He is right, there is indeed a film coming out of it. I just adore Dr Seuss, the more you read his stories the more messages seem to come across from them. Some of the books from amazon marketplace arriving from the US had arrived today so we sat and read them too – Born with a bang and Tree of life. Both were good although I think I still prefer Earth Story and Life Story. I did like the style of writing in Born with a bang though and the illustrations were gorgeous. We have mammals who morph already and are waiting for the middle book before reading that – hopefully it will arrive tomorrow. For a bedtime story we had half of Dear Max which I happened to have handed back into me at work the day after Jax mentioned it on her blog so decided was something we were meant to read. Very good -cries of ‘oh-oh’ when I said I wasn’t going to finish reading the whole thing to them tonight, must order the next couple of Max books tomorrow ready.

Tomorrow I’m working all day – it’s Baby Rhyme Time and I have the rest of my annual review scheduled in. Ady is home with D and S and has some preparation for his next QVC appearance next weekend to do so he has brought the product home with play with with the kids to familiarise himself with it properly.

Wednesdays are an important night round here. Torchwood is on. And it’s on at 9pm. And before that Masterchef is on. So for just one night a week we try really hard to have dinner ready for 830pm so we’re sitting down to eat for Masterchef and noone has to miss any of either show because they’re still cooking. Except we never, never manage it. Ever.

Until tonight that is.

Buoyed up by the sorting of the childcare for next week, the moves towards healthy happy elective time away from each other and topping up of Masterplan energy at 515pm I set a schedule. Ady and the children were very on board with this idea. Ady because he got to echo everything I said in a comedy style way and the kids because it involved ice cream. And a bath. And a story.

1715hours eat toast and tidy up geomags

1730hours eat ice cream while a bath is run for junior Goddards

1745hours get in bath. Enjoy waterbased fun without soaking bathroom floor or arguing about mermaid barbie or who had the doctor who flannel last

1800hours exit bath. enter pjs. snuggle on sofa for stories while bath is run for senior Goddards.

1830hours – storytime ends. Prolonged bedtime commences with various demands to be carried to bed like a horsey / come and tuck you in / requests for hot water bottles / drinks of water / blankets etc. Also included in schedule is three dashes to the bathroom each, hopefully coinciding with each other so that despite the fact we do have two toilets you can squabble about who is using which one.

1900hours bath for me

1930hours cook dinner (potato gratin, pork chops, cider and mustard sauce and asparagus – lovely 🙂 Bath for Ady.

2030 sit down with dinner to enjoy televisual feast that is Masterchef followed by Torchwood followed by next weeks Torchwood on BBC3 as we won’t be around next Wednesday to watch it then.

And we stuck to it. And it worked. Am scheduling genuis.

A catalogue of reasons brought our family to our slightly unique situation of not spending any time away from each other. It has never been deliberate but in reaction to various situations along the way Davies, specifically had issues about being left without Ady or I. Because of this Scarlett never was left so she has similar issues now. Because of this, and because I remember all too clearly the traumas of when I did leave Davies I have issues with it all too. I know this isn’t particularly healthy or normal but I don’t think it is particularly damaging either – just slightly wearing and difficult to work round.

Anyway with careful management and lots of baby steps we had reached points where Davies was happy to be left at Beavers round the corner, was happy to be left at Badgers if I was in the car outside, was happy to be left at home with another adult provided he was at home – leaving him elsewhere was still an issue. Scarlett has managed to be left at Badgers with Davies but is still moved to tears at the prospect of staying at Rainbows by herself. We all of us know this is irrational and that she will be fine, it’s just that we went through many months of heartache being told Davies would ‘be fine’ being left at nursery and he wasn’t fine at all. By any stretch of the imagination. And a five year habit at feeling crap for leaving a child knowing that they are struggling with it unless I have a bloody good justification for leaving them is a hard one to break. And we all feed off each others’ anxiety which whips us all up even more.

So this week my couple of hours on Monday leaving them with a whole room full of people they’d never met before in a place they were totally unfamiliar with was a Big Deal. Which meant that today following hot on it’s heels was Another Big Deal in a Very Small Time Frame.

Caz, who I have met precisely five times had offered to look after Davies and Scarlett fortnightly while I work on Wednesday mornings. I’ve been to their house, they’ve been to our house, I’ve met her husband (who was also going to be there) and liked all of them. The children all get on really well. Caz and Bid are teachers so very used to children and all their quirks, they have two boys almost the identical age to Davies and Scarlett, are Home Educating and love our educational philosophy and approach. Caz went to the same school as me, her father used to be our doctor. In short they are qualified in every aspect to be perfect supervisory adults for Davies and Scarlett for what was in effect a four hour playdate at their house. Which most seven and five year olds have been doing for years with their friends.

But of course knowing all this rationally and being utterly comfortable with the prospect of it is one thing; taking two reluctant children at 830 in the morning somewhere after two very upheaval-y days was quite another.

We’d spoken at length about it all, Davies was armed with a list of phone numbers in his pocket and instructions to ask them to ring me or Ady if he wanted to talk to us about anything, they had planned to look after each other and we all three did a very effective job of being bright and fine about it this morning. We drove there, I saw them in, kissed them goodbye, thanked Caz most profusely for what must be about the 7 billionth time for what she assures me she considers a tiny and inconsequential favour and left to go to work.

I returned five hours later to have to practically drag Davies and Scarlett away, full of what a ‘cool’ time they’d had, how they want to go there to play every time I have to go to work, bursting with stories of the games they’d played and generally very happy, grubby and okay with everything children. 🙂

So I guess that could be considered a success really. On all levels. 🙂 And another milestone. We seem to be passing milestones at an astonishing rate this week. 😉

I had had a fairly good morning at work; very busy which helped and I spent my tea break telling Yvonne all about our masterplan to move which she was very enthusiastic and positive about which was nice. It’s funny how people who have come into our lives at different times see us. And how plans which possibly seem utterly out of character and not like us at all to people who have known us a while seem totally sensible and just the sort of thing we’d do. I’m known of at work as a diehard camper, sticking out tenting in all sorts of extreme conditions, pretty hippy and alternative on my outlook, very crafty and artistic with a fairly bohemian lifestyle – I know my own parents certainly wouldn’t recognise me from that description :lol:.

As we drove past my parents house I spotted my Dad in the garden so we drove round the block and went to see him for an hour. Davies and Scarlett got filthy with tree sap which Dad had to get white spirit out to clean off their hands, spotted Fred, Albert and Albert II in the fishpond and were generally wild and grubby. Dad and I chatted, mostly about my childcare nightmare for next week. I’m working Thursday all day and Saturday morning – Dad is doing Thursday afternoon but Ady was planning to do Thursday and Saturday mornings but is away for the night on Wednesday and not back til late Thursday and then up in London all day Saturday and Sunday at QVC. He’s also QVCing both days the following weekend (Mothers Day).

I came home feeling incredibly despondant after various phone conversations with Ady about the increasing number of nights away from home he’s got scheduled in and weekends working over the next few weeks, worried about childcare and not having any family time and wondering how the hell we’re going to coordinate any sort of housesearching with so little free time. And sat and drank endless cups of tea while the childen played with geomags and watched Happily N’ever After.

This evening I’ve managed to sort all my childcare out again for the next month or so and Ady and I have managed a long chat about long term masterplan goals and everything is feeling way more positive again. I will try and post on the other blog the latest plans wrt moving etc. maybe tomorrow as things are shaping up better than I’d hoped really. My Dad and I managed a sensible, calm conversation about the whole thing this afternoon too which made me feel much better. I don’t need his approval but his acceptance means a lot.

So there. It’s been a hell of a week so far, I’m still feeling crappy from my cold, as are D and S and it does feel rather like I’ve lurched from one low emotion to another with rage, worry, despair and general impatience, intolerance and frustration all in there putting in appearances. I couldn’t be anything other than positive and upbeat for very long I don’t think – it’s just too bloody tiring! 😆

Today I spent most of the day either fretting that I was a cross between my own mother (very, very shouty when we were children, retrospectively she was clearly struggling a lot but we were terrified of her and she seemed to be in a perpetual state of near hysteria) and Dave Peltzer’s mom or making plans to run away forever. I feel utterly drained now :(.

We were off out to Pulborough Brooks again for a Wandering about Wildlife event – and no, that isn’t one of my classic wandering/wondering misspellings, that was what they called it in a clever twist on the whole wonder / wander thing as we were wandering while we wondered or even wondering while we wandered or something. But actually we mostly just shivered. And some of us whinged a bit. And there was altogether too few wonderings or wanderings and altogether too many windings and whinings.

It all started off well, we arrived, wellied and waterproof coated up and met the rest of the wanderers, were issued with binoculars and warmly welcomed (lots of w words in this post isn’t there?). We set off and stopped fairly quickly to look at a trodden down area and try to spot clues. There were none but at the next area we found both tracks and poo which identified the perps as deer. We then found fox droppings, rabbit droppings and various other clues around the walk, stopped and spent some time in a hide looking at geese and ducks before working our way back to the centre, stopping to look at various birds along the way. Well that was the idea and in fairness that did all happen. But it was extremely foggy which hampered our view of a lot of things and it was absolutely bloody freezing, which meant a brisk walk would have been fine but lots of stopping to inspect droppings and consult spotter sheets for track references was less enjoyable. About halfway round Scarlett started crying and said her legs hurt and she was too cold to walk any more and Davies was shivering so hard if we could have harnessed the energy outout we could have lit up Brighton Pier off him! They both wanted to be cuddled / carried / have endless amounts of sympathy directed their way and I just wasn’t in the frame of mind for any of the above. I did decide that they must both be coming down with my cold and reasoned that if someone had been dragging me round in the freezing cold on Friday when I was going down with it I would have been less than great company – oh wait, that’s exactly what happened on Friday when I was going down with it and indeed I was less than great company :lol:. So I felt a bit sorry for them and when Scarlett spotted a dead and part decomposed rabbit on the way back and they were both cheered up and far more animated I decided they were poor brave soldiers rather than ungrateful brats who couldn’t tolerate minor discomfort for the sake of nature.

We got home and I was all set to make hot chocolates and stuff when they both dramatically recovered and began endless rounds of squabbling, shouting, being boisterous and rowdy and generally not doing anything I asked. Which led to me totally going off on a rant about behaviour and using the tone of voice I know echoes the one my Dad used to use with us when we had been really naughty and I don’t use with anyone else in the world other than my children (although maybe I should, it is very menacing and dark side) – I should add in the disclaimer that unlike Dave Peltzer’s mom I didn’t throw acid at them, lock them in the cellar or even hurl abusive words at them. I just shouted a lot. Til my throat hurt. And my head ached. And I started to seriously question what the bloody hell I was doing living anywhere other than a quiet hermit cottage all alone with no human contact and just a cat that I occassionally kicked when I was having a really bad day.

We did redeem the day by walking to the post office and on the way back we spotted loads of bees, took a picture of all our shadows (I told them about my lone shadow picture of yesterday)

We got home and I did make them hot chocolate and myself a cup of tea, which sat and got cold while we painted the hands and faces of our puppets then chose various materials from the old clothes we use as rags / dusters to make clothes for them. At this point I got fed up again and they ended up going off to play primeval while I did a bit of material fixing and sewing together. Until I got bored and gave up for today on that project. I can see a few errors in the design already but we’ll finish making them and then work out what we’d need to change to improve them.

I’d utterly worn myself out by then so cuddles were had by all and I made pancakes for their tea while they watched Primeval and I looked at readers group notes online. Ady got home, made all the right pacifying noises about my bad day and I headed off to the library.

It was reading group tonight and as the librarian is on holiday I’d been asked to run it. We had a full house of ten people and talked about The Kiterunner. I’d read it way back last year when it first came out in paperback which felt too recent to read it again, which was the case for at least three others in the group. We covered the ‘we all read the book and we all liked it’ bit fairly quickly so as often happens when there is general agreement over the book within the group we moved to talk about something else related instead. This time we had a very interesting discussion about terrorism and freedom fighters, society and revolution / reform. It’s a very interesting group of people; all ages and with all sorts of political leanings and lifestyles, brought together once a month solely because we all enjoy reading and then talking about books, so some of the discussions the books lead to sometimes are very interesting for all the differing viewpoints and opinions. This time was no different.

The cleaner happened to arrive just as I was clearing up which meant I didn’t have to turn all the lights out or set the alarm, which was good as that was the bit I was jittery about doing alone, so I was happily home by 830pm in time to see both children before they went to sleep and chat a bit about the day (and make up!) before having bath, lovely dinner cooked by Ady and a restorative glass of red wine which always puts things back into perspective and makes me all mellow again.

When I am questionning whether I am fit to be considered a human, let alone live with other humans, let alone try and be a mother to a couple, let alone choose to spend time with them and HE them.

I’ll write it all off as me feeling crap, them coming down with it, it being bloody freezing and it being half term anyway so I’d still be with them even if they were at school. But FFS if they could just stop breathing so noisily….

I can still remember when it used to be this morning!

An early start today with very little waking up nice and slowly which always throws me slightly off kilter for the day. Infact we forgot something and had to double back because I wasn’t really with it yet – Davies and Scarlett would always be doing PE in their pants and vests if they were at school because I’d forget to give them their PE kits on sports days if we had to be out the house by 830am every day! And as for lunchboxes… 😆

So we arrived about ten minutes late to the Green Diggers Event. Green Diggers is the under 12s offshoot of a West Sussex County Council environmental gardening initiative. We have only made it to one previous event way back last year as we’ve been busy for all the subsequent ones but that had been very good with Davies winning a wormery, loads of activities, him and I being interviewed for radio and both of them ending up on the front cover of the council newsletter so we had high hopes for this one!

It was held at Pulborough Brooks in the classroom and on last minute checking of the email invitation I had noticed something along the lines of ‘children will rejoin adults at the end’ and prepared D and S for me not staying with them. They had both been very wobbly at the prospect with Davies saying he didn’t want to go then but in the event being late they were whipped away by the friendly and efficient person running it while I was sent packing with a voucher for a free hot drink in the coffee shop and told to return in 2 1/2 hours!

So I stood, blinking in the sunshine like someone recently released from prison, not quite knowing what to do with my new found freedom! I was very taken with my single shadow instead of a triple one like normal

and the frosty but sunlit path leading away from me

So despite being not very warmly dressed (as usual) I decided to walk round the reserve and take some photos. The difference of walking round along and actually seeing birds before they were scared off, listening to bird song and cows mooing without it being drowned out by children’s noise was amazing. Eventually I started to feel inferior without huge lenses, tripods or fancy binoculars, not to mention a coat like all the other people I exchanged ‘good morning’s with so I went back to the centre to redeem my voucher for a pot of tea. I’d brought a book with me so I sat and stretched my tea for over half and hour and read my book in peace :).

When it was time to collect D & S they were just finishing their bird feeders from old milk cartons including sticks for perches and various design features. They had learnt about birds and other garden wildlife, made mini gardens in teams with other children, looked at kitchen scraps suitable for feeding birds and generally had a good time :).

It had been an interesting, enjoyable and educational morning, not to mention a big deal about us all being apart and managing just fine with it :).

We drove the scenic route to Tescos where I dashed in to get some bits for lunch before we headed to the park and ate in the car before getting out to meet up with Mel, Liam and Lily – on half term.

They played in the playpark for a while until Davies fell and cut his knee. While he was over getting sympathy and cuddles from me a small dog pushed a ball through the fence and when Davies threw it back over to him fetched it and pushed it through again. Thus starting a game which Scarlett and Liam came and joined in with and lasted a good half an hour. They eventually joined some other children in some tree climbing and then Mel treated us all to ice creams (children) and tea (adults)

We then walked to the top of the park, with Scarlett making friends with every single dog we met

she is excellent about checking first with their owners now about whether it is ok to approach and stroke the dogs- which is just as well as I don’t do any checking for her first!

The children ran about in the sunshine playing, Mel and I chatted and we ended up back at the park for a final ten minutes playing before we started to head for home.

I had time for a cup of tea and then Ady and Julie arrived at the same time – Ady to take over D and S’s tea, bath and bed while Julie and I went off to Ikea for storage solutions for their increasingly family :). We had a nice few hours chatting on the drive there, wandering round, negotiating the flatpacks, persuading someone to assist us in getting it all into the car and then driving home again.

Ady (wonderful Ady) had got a bath run and a lovely dinner ready for me. And now, what feels like days after this morning started I am well and truly ready for bed. Tomorrow we’re back to Pulborough Brooks again, this time for a RSPB event which we’re really looking forward to, so I really should go and get some sleep!

Ady was off and out way before I woke up properly this morning – he’d arranged to go to his mate Tom’s house to collect logs. On the way he’d had a phone call from Tom to say he was running late so Ady had detoured to meet his brother for half an hour or so. He finally got home around 11am with a car full of logs which then took a further half an hour or so to unload and stack up. I was busy feeling sorry for myself with my cold – into phase three now, blocked nose with added irritability and Davies and Scarlett had been watching series one of Primeval.

I made cinnamon french toast for lunch and then the children went to play outside for a while – playing Primeval, Tarly is Abi and Davies is Cutter, it seems to mostly involve a running commentary on where Rex is and what he’s up to 😆 – they are mounting a charm offensive on me to buy them the action figures but I’m trying to remain strong! (OMG no one tell them there is an anomaly playset, we’d be doomed!), while Ady and I looked at houses on the internet.

My big clock which Ady bought me for my 21st birthday present (we toyed with the idea of getting engaged but decided if we ever split up it would mean my memories of my 21st would always be to do with ‘that bloke I was once engaged to’ so I chose the clock instead) and which lives on our lounge wall has been slowly dying for the last month or so. Batteries normally last about 8 months or so in it and then it runs slow until we change it over but it has been losing more and more time despite new batteries and twiddling and eventually stopped altogether. Ady has been doing lots of taking the clock mechanisms off the backs of various other clocks in the house and trying to sort it out but none of them had long enough spindles to fit the big clock. After some online searching we decided to go to the nearest Hobbycraft and see if they had one. It’s only my second ever experience of a Hobbycraft – they are the sort of shops I really should not be allowed in, definitely not unaccompanied and never when I might have any spare money! I managed to restrain myself to only buying the clock mechanism and a craft knife for 59p as we don’t have any decent scissors let alone craft knives and I have a couple of things I want to make that will need such a tool. Ady has replaced the mechanism but either the hands are too big and heavy for the replacement (we kept the original hands) or it is getting stuck somewhere as in two hours it has lost five minutes again already :(. Grrr.

So that little excursion was the sum total of anything productive today really. Scarlett is either coming down with what I’ve got or is just really rubbish at reading hints because she’s been all over me today, which on a day when I am feeling crap / intolerant / impatient / shouty is not the best place to position herself really. Davies is way better at reading my moods and knowing when it would be a good plan to keep out of my way – and just what level of interaction is enough to make me happy. Scarlett does total overkill draping herself all over me and constantly demanding my attention, then stropping and getting upset when I am short with her which makes me feel guilty and be nice to her which gives her licence to be all over me again – vicious circle :(.

The only constructive thing we did do was use air drying clay to make the head and body and four limbs for our puppets complete with holes to fasten them together and to thread the strings through eventually. They are fairly small so should hopefully dry pretty quick so we can get on with painting them soon – Davies, Scarlett and I made one each with the idea of making them in our own form and possibly using some of our own hair for their hair and old clothes for making their clothes for added authenticity (or voodoo purposes ;)). I did some wax crayon and watercolour painting pictures too, hoping it would lure them over to join in but although they told me they looked pretty they were far too busy being Cutter and Abi to do any of their own.

Ady made a lovely roast chicken dinner which we all had watching In Cold Blood repeat followed by some Simpsons before bed for Davies and Scarlett. Ady and I did some more looking at houses online and talking about future plans a bit more. And now, in the interests of actually going to bed before I fall asleep on the sofa tonight – and because looking at the clock running slow is annoying me and with a clock that big it’s hard to ignore it, I’m off to bed before a busy day tomorrow.

I worked yesterday morning. I arrived early as I needed to nip to the collecting office at the post office to get a parcel that had been too big to delivery through our letterbox the day before, so had ten minutes in the staff room reading Heat magazine before I started work – real novelty! 🙂

I felt increasingly crap through the morning, just really spaced out and absent with my nose getting more and more blocked as phase two of my cold kicked in: when the snot comes in. I don’t think I could have managed a whole day but just about staggered through the morning. I came home to be cossetted with tea and cheese on toast from Ady and we opened and investigated the parcel which was our joining pack from the RSPB. I have to say I joined because it will actually be cheaper for us to be members and get in free for our monthly HE meet up at Pulborough as members than to pay for one adult and two children and because there looked to be a good programme of events there which were cheaper for members too, but actually even if you don’t live anywhere near a RSPB site it would be worth being members for the various other perks alone. We had the choice of a bird feeder or a British birds book as a joining gift and I chose the book (obviously, it’s a book!) which is lovely with fab illustrations and small enough to take out with you birdspotting. We’ve also got a couple of brochures to look through about all the various reserves around the country and other things to get involved with which I need to investigate further as some of them look very interesting.

The kids both got stationery sets with crayons, pencils, sketch book and stickers in. Davies got a Bird Life magazine which comes out every two months aimed at the older child, a folder with resuable nature stickers, a game which entertained them both yesterday afternoon for ages, a poster, a membership card (always attractive ;)) and a certificate. Scarlett got a folder aimed at the younger child with more cartoony stickers, a puppet theatre which we made there and then, a Wild Times magazine – again which will come every two months and the same stickers, poster and membership card. All very impressive 🙂 Davies totally floored Ady and I by quickly sharpening his pencils, getting out his sketch book and creating this drawing in about two minutes copied from a picture on an envelope:

he proclaimed it a ‘still life’ so we explained why it wasn’t.

Ady had chanced upon The Old Gardens Animal Rescue Centre near his office last week and bought some eggs there and been enthusing on it ever since so we headed over there in the afternoon to have a look. Scarlett completely fell in love with two tiny black kittens who were probably no more than a couple of weeks old and managed to lure them over to her so she could stroke them, sitting there for about 20 minutes talking softly to them – she hasn’t stopped talking about them since :). Davies, Ady and I looked at the resucued ex battery hens, the variety of large and small chickens wandering free range including some amazingly huge cockerels. We watched two cocks sparring, which kept being broken up by a peacock in a hilarious parody of a boxing match with an enthusiastic referee :lol:. There were sheep, geese, ducks, goats, a couple of dogs, loads of rabbits all on this smallish patch of land right in the middle of a fairly snooty area of Sussex. According to the website they also have pigs – fab place :).

We stopped for a look round Fishbourne Church where a friend of Ady’s is buried and started along a footpath walk which would have taken us round the harbour and quay but I was fading fast again by then and it was very cold yesterday so we came back and came home instead. The rest of the day is rather a blur – I know the kids watched Ratatouille again, I had a long bath but was left far from in peace, Ady cooked a lovely steak dinner and I fell asleep on the sofa again.

although I sort of expected to be some ungodly hour! 😆

Seen at Live Otherwise and at Petits Haricots

You are the moment when the last bell rings and school lets out for the day. You are resistant to schedules and obligations, so you love feeling like you’re in control of your life again. You are the very moment when the second hand hits the 12, and the halls fill with noise and motion. Even if your after-school time is packed with activities, lessons, or a job, somehow, you just feel freer in the late afternoon than you do earlier in the day. Maybe it’s all that blue sky and afternoon sunshine? Nah — even on rainy days, 3:15 is always a beautiful time.

indepth but good ideas

opposite end!