One word? When seven would do…

Ady was off today so he came along with us to the Green Diggers event at Tilgate Park.

We faffed around in the morning and didn’t actually get out the house until gone 11am but arrived at Tilgate and had time to sit and have lunch and look round some of the animals before the event started at 130pm.

It was a classroom based event talking about the wildlife you might find in a compost heap complete with slide show, an activity of digging around in some earth and leaves to find (I suspect especially planted) bugs to put in magnified bug viewers, a meet the bugs session and finally a make a plant pot with stickers craft activity.

There was a funny old age mix with some very toddly tiny children, a fair few Davies and Scarlett age children and a couple of rather older ones. This made for a tricky task for the woman speaking to capture everyone’s attention and interest which she more or less did. I don’t think I was ever particularly guilty of dragging D and S along to things way before they were ready and I know that if I have ever realised something is unsuitable or clearly pitched above their heads I have ensured we either quietly deal with the implications of that or remove them from the situation. It is one thing struggling with the younger sibling being disruptive but quite another when there are 2 adults ‘in charge’ of a young child who is very clearly expressing a desire not to be somewhere, not enjoying it and therefore disrupting other’s enjoyment too :(. Anyway D and S got lots out of it and managed to be interested in the classic line up of Giant African Landsnail, Madagascan Hissing Cockroach and tarantula in a box that was wheeled out to show them ;). I learnt stuff about spiders and the bug searching activity was a bit of a winner :).

Ady spent most of the session chatting to the elderly woman sat next to him who had recognised him off the telly. I remain shocked at how many people are recognising him, clearly QVC has a wider audience than I’d appreciated ;).

We then had a fairly brisk -because it was getting cold – walk round the park before heading for home.This was done via Asda for Ady to purchase various vegetables (cucumber, tomatoes, peppers, chilis, aubergine) to have to dress his set for Saturday’s tv appearance and Tesco for McDs for childrens’ tea and me to get milk and chicken.

We started FF 3 (Five Run Away Together) but Tarly who has been very good about the fact she is clearly still under the weather and slept for part of the car journey was ready for bed very early. Davies was still pottering about at 1030pm :roll:.

Ages ago, when I was 15 I used to Hate Wednesdays (deliberate capitalisation).This was almost entirely due to the fact that the 19 year old I had a serious crush on at the time worked in the local Safeways up the road from my Mum’s restuarant evenings on the tills, except for Wednesdays when he was a Scout Leader with his Dad. He was 19, his initials were NY which meant I scoured shops for merchanised with I heart NY written on it in his honour and was convinced we would surely marry. But back when I used to diarise every single eye contact, smile and word of conversation I had with him Wednesdays were (to coin a phrase) exquisite torture as I didn’t see him all day. So I hated them.

Later when I worked at B&Q Wednesdays were the day we gave 10% off to over 60s. This is foolish in terms of marketing ideas. It means that everyone who has access to an over 60 year old relative they can wheel in will come and do all their shopping on a Wednesday and bring Grandad with them. It means you have to lay on extra staffing to deal with the onslaught and your checkout staff are inundated with elderly folk who are deaf and grumpy spending ages telling them how old they are (I’m 84 you know. And I live in Shady Pines residential home but this 10ltr masonry paint in textured white that my grandson is paying for really is for my own use so can I have my £1.27 off it please). So I wasn’t super keen on Wednesdays then either.

I sort of forgot about the whole Wednesday thing for years but just lately my bad days seem to be on Wednesdays again. I’m considering rewriting the lyrics to the Boomtown Rats classic to fit with this phenomena.

But today was ace :).

This morning Ady didn’t have to be at work too early so he took Davies and Scarlett round to Caz’s as it is on his way to work. This meant I had nearly15 minutes all alone in the house. This is noteworthy as being in the house alone is a Very Rare Thing Indeed. True I spent at least 13 of those minutes searching for a Top Cat dvd which needed to go back to the library but it was alone just the same 😆

I had a really nice morning at work, it was very busy, my three most favourite colleagues were on duty with me and we had lots of laughs :).

I nipped home to get changed and went to collect D and S. Caz had an additional 2 girls (aged I think 7 and 5) there that they were looking after for the morning so they’d taken the 6 children off to the bowling alley (Davies won :)) and then to the beach (Tarly collected lots of pretty shells and stones). They all had a great time and I stayed for a cup of tea and a catch up chat for an hour or so while they all finished up their games.

We came home and Ali and Freya arrived not long after us. The children did lots of indoor outdoor upstairs downstairs type stuff but D and F played with DSs for a good while and there was an exciting round of hedge surfing in a green plastic boat shaped sandpit which looked like something even I would have a go at :lol:. Ali and I managed a fair bit of chatting and we watched TV’s Adrian Goddard do his thing too. The children were predicatably blase about this :
N: Look Tarly, who’s that on telly?
S: Oh yeah, it’s Daddy
3 seconds pass while she feigns interest
S: I think I should probably get back to my game now!

😆

I made some pizza for children, Ali sullied my home and kitchen with couscous and then I made some pancakes for still-hungry children.

Scarlett was having a rather speedy before our very eyes degeneration into full on cough and cold so she was perked up with honey and lemon drink (good Mummy), some six plus medinol as that was all I could find (slightly slack) and some watered down wine for it’s cough suppressant properties (Hmm…). She spoke to Ady on the phone and said she had a cough and he told her to ask me for medicine to which she replied ‘I can’t, I’ve already had a drink of wine!’. Just as well he was alone in the car :lol:.

We had a very fun half hour or so of singing and dancing in my very small kitchen to LSoH music. Ady has rigged up speakers to play my walkman phone through in there so that was fun. We used kitchen utensils for instruments and Davies got so carried away he broke a wooden spoon. He’s so rock n roll 😆 And we did air guitar to Queen 😆

When Ady got home the children were xboxing while Ali and I tried to engage them in a game of ‘we’ll sing the song, you tell us the film’ which they were showing very little interest in really 😆 Ady took Ali and Freya home, I put D and S to bed and finished cooking Ady and I’s dinner. It was a very lovely day :).

Yesterday felt like hard work while I was there but with the perspective of a day it all remembers just fine. We went to Lucy’s for the day where Tarly got to do plenty of kitten-worshipping, Davies got to do plenty of playing really well with and then falling out dramatically with Rebecca and I got to chat lots to Lucy. Although predictably I don’t think we ever quite finished any of our conversations :lol:.

The children and I had some interesting conversations about thinking things through, cause and effect and consequences of actions – which sounds quite heavy but it wasn’t really. I had a bit of a rant about how little they have to be responsible for / think about as children in comparison to how much adults have to think about (eg dinner, getting home, driving the car, telling them off all at the same time!) and then did one of my dramatic speeches about how being a grown up and particularly a stay at home HE mother was bloody hard work, demanding to know whether either of them would have wanted to be me for the day (eh?! Eh?! EHHHHHH?!!!!!!) and then telling them I just wanted five minutes when noone called me Mummy. Davies predictably asked how he was supposed to get my attention then and whether Granny would be a more acceptable way of addressing me? Which hit home on way more levels than he realised 😆 :lol:.

I read lots of Famous Five to them, mostly because we were at a real page turner bit and I wanted to know what happened too 😆 We should finish it tonight – second book in the series and it’s been exactly what I hoped it would be, engaging enough to draw them both in to listening and painting their own mental pictures instead of relying on illustrations, ideal to read over several sittings and have them recall the various bits of the story and spawning various conversations about things, in particular the ‘girls are a bit crap’. I’m very aware that I am quite opinionated and often my views are a bit ‘out there’ on things. While I try really hard to portray my ideas as just that – my ideas rather than fact and to be big on the idea that tolerance and respect of others views is really important I do know I am often so passionate about what I’m saying that I do put it across as fact so it’s nice to discover that Davies and Scarlett are developing questionning and challenging natures and wanting to get more information about things that jar with them as not quite right. And it’s good that my own little girl is enough of her own person to recognise the flaws and not need to identify with either the stupidly girlie and rather hopeless Anne or the denying she’s a girl and showing no signs of emotion George. FF books are great, I love the picture of childhood they paint with freedom, adventure and righting wrongs all in a school holiday’s work and the idea of rowing boats, climbing cliffs, camping out and so on all of which are totally outside of today’s normal 12year olds reach but equally the innocence and romance of the nearly-teens who would probably be obsessed with rather different pursuits nowadays!

Scarlett was awake lots in the night with a bad cough which came from nowhere. She woke one morning at the hotel in London the other week coughing and was croaky-voiced all day – which she loved, she kept talking for the sake of it just because she liked the way her voice sounded 😆 and I put it down to the aircon in the room drying her throat. She’s been cough-y again today at times and not for the first time I’ve wondered whether she might be asthmatic. Many a time I have stood over her in her sleep listening to a barking croup-y cough and watching her struggle for breath, it’s clearly a weakness for her :(.

Today Julie had organised her annual ‘it’s much too early for bluebells so I don’t know why we’re calling it a bluebell walk bluebell walk’ although of course that’s my name for it, Julie just calls it a Bluebell Walk ;). This year I had managed my own expectations and knew there was not a cat in hell’s chance of actually seeing a bluebell and plan to go on a Bluebell Walk in two weeks time when there will be bluebells aplenty, seas of blue, carpets of purple and you’ll not be able to take a single step without crushing hundreds of bluebells underfoot. We were predictably running late although that was my fault as I was burning a new cd to listen to in the car (LSOH Soundtrack). We arrived, as ever taking wrong turns as we went but being positive and cheery natured folk we labelled them as scenic diversions whilst singing along loudly to our music and seeing who could spot the most pheasants (giddy creatures!). We had to stop just before we got there as there was tree cutting going on which all looked very interesting.

D and S got wellied up and we headed off to catch the others up. We soon found them lurking at some really cool trees for climbing on and about to head off. Julie was there with Jack and Maisie, three of her regular friends, E, K and P who she sees several times a week for various HE get togethers and a new family of an American woman and her two smalls – boy aged about 2 and baby girl aged 6 months. I know K and E and their respective 5 children from various events over the years fairly well but it was the first time I’d met P and her 3 children. Between all of us we had 14 children from 0 through to 8 so it was a nice mix of children who mostly know each other so that was good. 🙂 I spoke to J the new woman for a while and then walked most of the way with Julie.

Davies ran ahead from the beginning but he’s done that walk about 5 times now so knows it well so that was fine. Tarly was holding my hand and chatting to Julie and I while collecting an impressive array of flint stones and one which is almost certainly an animal tooth or claw – quite impressive, Ady reckons we should take it to a museum to get it identified. At one point Tarly had stopped to admire the ‘twinkling grass’ (dew) and I walked slightly ahead with Julie. Suddenly I had Tarly wailing out of my sight behind me about me coming back to look at something she’d seen and Davies calling (albeit in a lighthearted fashion) for ‘help’up infront. Julie headed off to check on Davies and I went back to Scarlett.

By the time I got to Davies he had gathered an impressive audience of awe struck children and adults mostly waiting to see what my reaction would be. It was to laugh, tell him I would help him but needed to take a photo first and then get everyone else to look amazed at him for the photo 😆

The children all looked very respectful of both Davies (cool adventuror) and I (tolerant and indulgent cool mother) while their mothers looked horrified at us both (wild, out of control child and crazy mother!) and all whispered threats to their children about what would happen to them if they did such a foolish thing. As the only children not whispered to it fell to Davies and Scarlett to stand welly deep in the next pond we came across while small girls gasped about ‘what will Davies do next ?’to each other and ‘oh look his sister is equally crazy, wonder where they get it from’ about Scarlett. I laughed again, helped them out and told them if they did it again I would not laugh, I would leave them there while I walked slowly back to the car to fetch a rope to throw them to pull themselves out :).They didn’t do it again :lol:.

We saw loads of birds including a pair of herons and a swallow so even if we saw no bluebells and my children were lunatics it was a really nice walk. And Davies’ wet wellies made very amusing sound effects walking round which entertained him and I lots (probably compounding the other’s views of us as rather weird!). As we nearly finished the walk which is a big circle, ending with a section along the road before arriving back at the car park we came across the tree cutters just winching one of the men up into a tree.I asked if we’d be safe to stand and watch as it was quite interesting and Maisie stood to watch with Davies, Scarlett and I as he harnessed himself up and then pulled himself up the tree. One of the other men confessed he wasn’t going up there to cut branches, he’d just forgotten to undo the knot in the rope before he’d come down earlier so had to go back up to do it :lol:. They chatted to us a bit and then we caught up to the others who’d settled down to picnic.

Julie had said she’d arranged the walk for earlier than usual so we didn’t need to bring lunch but she’d meant on the actual walk so everyone else had lunch with them. Fortunately I’d brought a packet of rice cakes so D and S demolished them and everyone talked about HomeEd communities and expressed great surprise that we don’t ‘belong’ to any organisation. K’s car was parked on the verge just infront of us and at one point all the children were in it (Volvo estate) with someone sat in the passenger front seat with an upside down map and several of the children having taken branches of pine trees inside. It amused us greatly that the children seemed to have set up their own council inside with someone seeming to get evicted every so often so we entertained ourselves doing Big Brother style commentary about it for a while 😆


I’d had half a plan to pop over to the animal shelter place over that way and see if the kittens there were out and about yet but Davies’s trousers and socks were too wet to wear for much longer and I’ve not replaced the spare clothes in my car since I last cleared them out as they were too small so we came home. Davies and Scarlett had a bath and we had a quiet half and hour or so for me to drink tea.

We needed to go to the butchers so they got dressed again and we popped along there. Half a cow was resting on the butchers block ready to be cut into joints so that was very interesting and there was much talk about jointing, tieing and so on, D and S had both taken Mick the butcher a couple of their everlasting Quality Street easter tins from Great Granny which were gratefully recieved and he answered questions about topics as diverse as his mincing machine which was made in 1967 and whether he watches Doctor Who (for anyone interested in the viewing habits of our local butcher he’s not watching the current series although he used to watch it back in the 70s /80s and no, he doesn’t watch Primeval either! :lol:). He taught them how to use the bag sealer machine and they were tasked with doing that for all our purchases today :).

Once home we decided to watch Curious George so all cuddled up infront of that, the children had dinner and then I finished the Famous Five book just as Ady arrived home.

I woke this morning around 7am and promptly went back to sleep. At 8am Ady brought me a cup of tea but I dozed for a while before drinking it and around 830am I started reading my book in bed and decided to stay there til I’d finished it.This took until just after 10am.

In the meantime it started to snow, really heavily and to great excitement from downstairs with regular bulletin updates to me still in bed. Ady and the children went out to play in the garden, built a snowman, made snow angels and introduced the chickens to snow 😆

I finally got up and while Ady got the roast dinner on I found waterproofs, wellies, gloves (none of us had matching pairs but I at least found eight gloves between us :lol:) and coats for those of us who own such things and we set off to the park. Snow is just not something we ever really get here – and certainly not at the huge depth it fell in today. One of the isolated occassions when it snowed in my childhood to such an extent was when my Dad’s cousin, his wife and their dog were staying with us and while neither of my parents would ever have played in the snow the dog still needed walking so we went to the nearby park which I recall being an almost neverending blanket of white. It seemed like the very best place to take Davies and Scarlett to enjoy the snow at just 10 minutes drive away so we dressed up and headed over there. A few other people had the same idea but it really is a massive area so we had a huge space of virgin snow to play in whilst admiring other people’s snowmen efforts across the park – there was one very impressive one standing a good six feet tall :).

We had a fab hour playing in the snow until we got wet and cold. We made snow angels, a snowman, a small snow dalek, what I thought was the start of a snowman:

but turned out to be the place to rest the camera for the selftimer shot 😆

And then the hugest snowball fight between me and Ady with additional ambushes from the children, which had us breathless with effort and helpless with laughter -can’t remember the last time I had so much fun!;)

Home for lunch and a much needed lazy afternoon.

Instead of a chapter of Famous Five D and S asked for a library bookwhich they both really enjoyed and got lots of nice trivia about building materials from which I imagine we’ll be hearing lots about – glass being made of sand being a particular revelation to them although I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before.

Ady and I watched The Man Who Sued God which we both liked. I’m not a big Billy Connolly fan but I do think he’s a good actor. Liked him in Lemony Snicket too.

A lovely weekend really and off we go launching ourselves into another week…

I had a really crap nights sleep last night, no idea why but I seemed to spend hours awake and when I did fall asleep it was to dream convoluted and scary dreams about chickens :lol:. Ady left for London at about 5am and then my Dad, who is never late for anything ever cut it very fine to get here this morning to look after D and S while I went to work. Dad has Stuff Going On atm, not all of which I’ve talked to him about but he gave me a hug and kiss this morning which he appeared in need of so things are clearly tough :(.

Ady was on TV selling 3 products all of which sold out. Teasing him aside I am very proud of him and his QVCing. Not because he’s on telly which frankly I couldn’t care less about but because he has risen to a new challenge, utterly unlike anything he’s ever done before, something which I sincerely doubt I could pull off and not only is he doing it but he is doing it well. The rewards for it are yet to come in really but to be able to say he is appearing on live national tv pretty much twice a week and achieveing tangible results from his efforts is surely something to be commended. 🙂

My morning at work was good. I spent 2 hours playing with crepe paper and staple guns to create a display, an hour sat at the enquiry desk and my teabreak talking to Tom and Sara, the Saturday assistants who are both off to uni in September about their plans and dreams.

I arrived home within moments of Ady and Dad stayed to have lunch with us and see Pompey win the semi final of the FA cup. Clearly this was a big deal for Ady ;).

Davies and Scarlett have been getting on well today and played upstairs together for ages. I sat around for a couple of hours and then decided to go for a walk. I’ve been fairly low key about it but I have this plan to hit 35 (January) in better shape than I met 34. This involves one small positive change a month and I started in Feburary with drinking more water. In March I upped my fruit and vegetable consumption and in April I am aiming to include some excercise into my life. I walked down to the seafront, which I reckon must be 1.5miles and back at pushing myself all the way pace. And I nearly died. Twice! I was wearing utterly unsuitable footwear which I have huge blisters on both feet to show, didn’t take any water and probably wasn’t really well dressed for it either. On the way down to the beach I waved at the driver and all the people on the miniature train going round the park next to the sea, on the way back I waved at Lucy and The Rs who passed me in the car because obviously if you are going to go out walking in unsuitable footwear and clothing you need to draw attention to yourself and see people you know to fully acknowlegde your red faced wheezing pain suffering self along the way :lol:.

I had a bath when I got back -Davies ran it for me, lovely child 🙂 which Scarlett ambushed and shared with me before we all sat down to watch Doctor Who. Davies and I also watched Doctor Who Confidential afterarwards which was good. Tarly went to sleep fairly quickly but Davies kept coming back downstairs to join in with Ady and I while we listened to loud music in the kitchen while cooking dinner. We watched 10 items or less which I really enjoyed once I got passed Morgan Freeman not playing God (which actually he still sort of was :lol:).

Tomorrow, just for a change we have nothing planned. Bet it doesn’t work out that way ;).

You know no one ever sung a song about a woman called Nicola? And how come there are loads of songs with women’s names in but none with men’s? Eh?!

The title is of course from The Beautiful South song which we were listening to in the car earlier. I like The Beautiful South but some of their songs are tricky to explain to two children who want to know what every new song they hear is about… And just because I know you love my little anecdotes I will share with you that for a long time I thought the band were just called ‘South’ and that radio DJs were just very enthusiastic about them 😆 You can file that story with the one about Spiderman (does whatever a spider can) and the one about When A Child is Born (array of hope) 😆 And if you like those check out this website which always makes me smile :).

We went to a soft play place to meet some of the EOFFs, one of whom had rung me earlier to check we would be there so was the only one I was sure would be attending. We arrived first but E was only a few minutes behind us. Davies and Scarlett get on very well with her two children T and L and although I’ve always liked E I’ve never really sat and just chatted to her. We were on our own for a good hour before Ali and Freya and another friend and her daughter arrived in which time the four children raced round together and E and I had a really nice chat. I’m very aware that I have a habit of mentally categorising people the first few times I meet them and then being a bit unmoving about changing that initial impression of them and subsequently finding myself surprised by new things I learn about them. Anyway, it was a good chat :).

The others arrived and we had some lunch. Scarlett had a bit of a moment about me refusing to buy coke. Not huge, not particularly loud or attention grabbing and fairly swiftly recovered from but a bit of an indication that she was delicate. I only realised today that she started swimming, Badgers and Rainbows all at the same time in January and went from having no activities to 3 a week which I possibly haven’t appreciated the hugeness of for a small child. She does have a very busy life too and I guess sometimes it just all gets a bit much for her. I think the 2 weeks off from it all might be a bit of a welcome break for her to recuperate a bit.

The leaving of the soft play was slightly staggered with us leaving second as we needed to get back for the dentist.

Dentist was fine for all of us – Davies has two adult teeth at the back aswell as the two front bottom ones which have replaced his first lost milk teeth, and his two front top teeth are wobbly. Scarlett was talked to about her dummy usage potentially affecting her adult teeth again and is once again thinking about trying to give up the dummies. Otherwise all was well.

At home we spent some time with the chickens who we’re letting have some free range time each day while we’re home. The two hens are really friendly, the cockerel is still pretty fiesty even when not caged. Davies and Scarlett spend some time in the garden and then it was time for tea before Rainbows for Tarly. She had decided she was ready to stay alone this week so I was planning to go for a walk while she was there. She made a huge fuss about going to her bedroom to get her uniform, which Davies eventually fetched (he has moments of the most amazing compassion, tenderness and love for her, usually right at the point when all my patience, compassion and tenderness has run out :oops:) and then wiped her tears off her cheek and touched her arm -bless!

Her and I walked round there and she realised she’d left the cuddly jaguar she’d wanted to bring for circletime behind at home. I rang Ady and he ran round to bring it to us and then she got all upset because she didn’t have a coat to hide them in while they were playing. Eventually she said ‘I think I’m going to cry Mumma and I don’t want you to go now’ so I ended up staying. This was a shame as it wasn’t really about me going but she’d built herself up into a state about various other things which meant she had nothing left to deal with me leaving. Or of course that she was senstive to the other things because of the prospect of me leaving? Ah well. They made jam tarts as the activity and she was fine and enjoyed it all. We’ve agreed we’ll try again for me to leave when she goes back after the holidays.

When we got home she got into the bath that Davies was already in and I dashed back out to get a few bits for dinner and also get some T shirts for Tarly. I realised today she had grown out of all her Tshirts and whilst snow forecast for this weekend means tshirts are perhaps not an emergency purchase I thought she should have some ready. It did occur to me that rather than putting away all her long sleeved tops which will also be outgrown by next winter I could cut the sleeves off some of the nicer ones and hem them to make t shirts so I might look at that tomorrow.

Ady is QVCing in the morning (9-10am show, he has 3 product lines) and my hours have been changed several time and I am now working in the morning and Dad is coming over to be with Davies and Scarlett.

I started today not really in the mood for work and it sort of carried on really. Maybe I should try and work out why I struggle to maintain interest in jobs after 18 months, I’m not like it in any other area -relationships and parenting haven’t gone stale although I guess they change rather than stagnate over time. I sometimes think being considered good at a job doesn’t help. I know that sounds odd but I’m always at my most restless when people are telling me I am doing well and insinuating that my ‘talents’ are wasted. I guess it’s an overhang from retail days when you were always looking at year on year figures and once you’d cracked doing something well you were looking forward to the next promotion or career hike. Ah well, at least I have plans…

It was a good day really, I feel like quite a fixture at the library, recognising regular borrowerers, knowing lots of the answers to questions, enjoying banter with workmates. I rang Shoreham library to arrange for them to send Davies’ artwork over on the delivery van and spoke to the guy over there who had put the display up just yesterday and was brimming over with huge enthusiasm for Davies’ work. He wanted to know more about his idea for the display, what materials he’d used and so on and was staggered that not only had the idea been all his own but the artwork was too. His former career pre library work was in art supplies so he’s got a bit of knowledge and was just so fired up about Davies’ talent :). He recommended we send the artwork to a children’s book publisher so tonight I’ve talked to Davies about a bit more text to go with his illustrations. I don’t know if we will, or indeed if that is the direction Davies wants to go in but I was very proud listening to the exclamations of delight over the phone :).

Ady was off this morning and they spent most of the time outside planting things and letting the chickens have some totally free range time round the garden which they seemed to enjoy. Scarlett had dug up four caterpillars to live in the insectlore butterfly garden from a couple of years ago although they look pretty deceased to me. She is keen to do the whole caterpillar to butterfly thing again though so we must try and collect some caterpillars soon.

In the Afternoon Dad was here and they seem to have had fun. Dad took the details of next term’s swimming lessons to pay for 🙂 Which is just as well as I’ve realised Badgers, Rainbows and Beavers will all be due to be paid in 2 weeks which is about £70 total :shock.

I arrived home and made pancakes for tea by request and read several chapters of Famous Five to them. We’re all enjoying them although they are throwing up various questions (most indignantly by Scarlett about just why George wouldn’t want to be a girl :lol:) which means they are not sit still and listen type books.

For some reason neither of them went to sleep before about 10pm tonight which was quite wearing. Scarlett was playing with her Betty Spaghettys in bed and Davies was constructing a ‘person’ on the landing using his clothes, a teddy bear for the head and a variety of accessories 🙄

On the way home from London on Sunday Tarly was talking about Drusillas and when we’d next go there. We’ve got just over 3 months left on our annual passes so it does make sense to get a few visits in before they run out so I said we’d try and get there this week. When Mum called in on Monday I mentioned it to her and as she was off today she came with us. We had a couple of ‘granny goes free’ vouchers so it didn’t cost anything for her to get in either :).

She was over half an hour late arriving which pissed me off a bit although she was armed with a list of ‘reasons’ for her tardiness :roll:. Ady had popped home too as he was off to QVC and David Thankyou was out too so we had quite a send off when we finally got on our way. I always find my Mum quite tiring company if I’m honest and at the moment she is in a fairly needy phase. To be fair to her life is a bit crap at the moment for her but I’m very keen to be supportive whilst not getting involved. She also has the ability to be utterly selfish and insensitive without realising it at all, something over which I shed the last of my tears and accepted as just who she is a long time ago but still makes for a draining day with her. Today she was full of the six theatre trips she has lined up over the next couple of months, all up to London and all with meals out either side of the show planned too. I don’t begrudge a single moment of her pleasure or a single penny she might spend but the irony of her bragging about this to me after I confessed we’d shared a KFC bargain bucket in our hotel room on Saturday night so that we could afford to go to the caves on the Sunday on the way home struck me even if it didn’t occur to her :lol:.

Home for stories and whilst I had all good intentions I’ve not sewn the five badges they came home with between them onto their uniforms yet but I will try and do it before they are back at Badgers next term :lol:. This week has rather run away with me and tomorrow is my working all day day.

Ady took today off. His lieu days for all the evening and weekend work have been backing up rather and with travelling time he worked something like 70 hours last week so although it was nice to go up to London with him and make it feel less like work he was in need of some time off. He didn’t really get it to be fair, as he took at least 4 work phone calls during the day but he has so many various things he seems to be responsible for there it is easier for him to take the call and deal with it rather than turn his phone off and deal with it -and the repurcussions of letting someone else try and deal with it tomorrow. Having had jobs like that myself I know how frustrating it is and I do really feel for him at the moment. He is trying to take short term crap for long term potential which will either pay off or he’ll simply have to stop at the end of this ‘season’ (July). Either way there is an end in sight although the irony of him putting in loads of hours, taking extra responsibility and not really enjoying large chunks of his job in order that we might be able to live a totally different lifestyle is not lost on us.

So having stayed slightly later yesterday in order to take all of today off we had browsed the RSPB and NT handbooks and decided to go to Dungeness today.Of course what we had failed to do was work out how long it would take to get there so when we set off after 10am needing to be back for swimming by 5pm and then realised when we put the details into the Satnav that it was a 2 hour drive we had to swiftly amend that plan! 😆 It does look good though and we will get there another time. We turned left (right would take us into the sea!) and decided to go north. Before long we hit signs for Woods Mill. Now I’ve never been to Woods Mill which is odd given how close it is to us. There used to be a school trip there every year but it always clashed with the trip to France (sort of consolation prize for those not going across the channel I guess) and I always went to France. And I was always under the impression there was an admission charge, which I think is because I’ve only ever seen events there advertised which do carry an admission charge. But we were there, the sun had started shining and it was free so in we went!

We had a lovely few hours there walking round. We spent ages at the reed beds and lakes, wandered through the woodland area, sat in the hide bird watching for a while, got very muddy tramping over marshland, followed the stream, played pooh sticks on every bridge and talked about all sorts of birds, animals and plants including some tracker stuff like footprint and poo spotting. Scarlett spotted carp in the lake so we spent ages trying to catch one – and failing 😆

Most of the bridges had poetic woodland names like ‘Kingfisher Bridge’ except for a flat wooden one, which looked fairly new and had the beautifully carved wooden sign on it to say it was called ‘Steve’s Bridge’which amused me greatly. We found a net abandoned nearby and the children and I spent a very happy 20 minutes or so floating things and then catching them again while Ady played with the camera 🙂

How one of us (me) didn’t fall in I don’t know :lol:.

We came home via a quick trip to Sainsburys for various forgotten items from the online shop and a new laundry basket as my old ones are both broken and fairly lethal with sharp plastic bits. Home for pancakes for Davies and Scarlett before heading out again to swimming lessons.

They’ve missed the last 2 swimming lessons (Legoland and then London trips) and this was the last one before the end of term. They did jumping in, which they both love and then some messing around type things with the floats and noodles. Davies has really come along and Scarlett seems to be making progress.

Then it was off to the local parish hall to give blood for Ady and I. It was the fourth time we’ve been and only the second time I’ve actually managed to give blood although Ady has done it all four times. The first time we went they did something wrong putting the needle in my vein and had to give up and last time my whatever they test first levels were too low to donate. This time they used a ‘side vein’ in my arm which bloody ached and the man said I was his personal record for slowest time to fill the blood bag at 12 minutes something. The bloke next to me took 4 minutes and Ady was even faster than that. My arm is still sore but it doesn’t look like I’ll have a bruise which is unusual. Davies and Scarlett were well looked after and taken off to do colouring activity books all on the blood donor theme and plied with juice, crisps and biscuits. If it hadn’t hurt it would have been a win: win situation really, lying down in peace for 15 minutes with a guaranteed tea and biscuit at the end while feeling smug about doing something good 🙂 :lol:.

Home again for a couple of chapters of Famous Five and then a very late dinner for Ady and I. Tomorrow he’s off QVCing again (3-4pm show TVAG fans ;)) while the children and I hit Drusillas with my Mum.