One word? When seven would do…

After a really good day trip to the British Wildlife Centre last year we’ve been meaning to go back for ages. They have ‘school’ trips for the bargain price of £5 per person which looked like a good way to go back with friends.

I’d hoped I could reach the minimum number of 20 people just between friends but reluctantly had to open it out slightly to other local people too. I’m always cagey about doing this, particularly when it involves people I’ve not met before and sadly there was, as always, a couple of children who were not as impecably behaved as I would have liked given my name being on the booking form and us being ambassadors for Home Ed in the eyes of the woman running the place, but hey ho…

My Mum came with us – I’d really wanted my Dad to come as he is really into nature, specifically foxes and birds of prey, of which there were plenty of both, plus I thought it might be a good bit of pro HE marketing. Sadly he couldn’t make it but Mum decided to come along anyway. It all helps with my Good Daughter score board tally but she seemed very much to be along for the ride, didn’t pay me back for paying to get her in and did lots of monopolising Ady and very deliberately sat between me and my friends at lunch meaning I was rather out on a limb at the end of a picnic bench where I couldn’t hear anything being said. She did entertain the kids in the car both ways I guess 😆

Mum arrived a good 10 minutes later than I’d told her to, failed to bring sandwiches for Davies and Scarlett despite her agreeing she’d bring the sandwiches and we’d bring the cakes, but did bring more cake :rolls: which also happened to be a chocolate swiss roll – not very picnic with no cutlery friendly really! As it happened, predictably we were running late too but I’d factored in a massive buffer of about 45 minutes to allow for general lateness and traffic so we still arrived in plenty of time.

Mich, Kirsty and kids were already there so we all stood together in the carpark welcoming the new arrivals. It was all a bit ‘two worlds collide’ with local friends, scattered around the country blogging friends, local people I don’t actually know, HE acquaintances and family in the shape of my Mum and Ady who several people had not met before which all felt a bit strange. I was really proud of Davies in pulling off a similar oddness really well when he had both Toby and Marcus there and the 3 of them seemed to really hit it off and played together all day :).

The staff were very good at ‘crowd control’ and did lots of ‘here are the rules’ ‘put your hand up and don’t shout out’ and ‘let’s all sit down in a circle’ stuff but actually it all worked really well. We had someone assigned to us for the day and she took us round all the animals, told us about them, answered questions and generally gave us the guided tour. We saw the foxes, wildcats, red squirrels, deer (muntjac and fallow), otters and birds of prey.

We then had an unfortunate period of faffing where I later realised they expected the ‘teachers’ to have a cup of tea but it seemed silly when it was only half an hour til lunch and I was aware of not letting all the kids loose in the gift shop with was adjoining the tea area anyway.

We then watched a film which was probably the lowlight of the day – I’d selected the KS3 film on the basis I’d rather appeal to the highest rather than lowest common denominator and the subject was animals from ice age to present day in the UK – so starting when we were still adjoined to mainland Europe and bears and wolves were native to Britain. It took us through various ages including iron, bronze ages, roman times and industrial revolutions and the impact of the climate and man had on the wildlife and countryside. It could have been done very well but the narration was delivered in a flat monotone and the graphics were of a very poor powerpoint presentation style. One of those things you think no one has taken in although I suspect we all did learn something from it actually.

We broke for lunch then before going back in for the smaller animals. They have a mock barn which houses rats – both black and brown and a pair of barn owls. The male who is on display in the foyer at weekends and is very tame indeed was brought out for us all to stroke, much to the consternation of his mate who was going mental in her cage.

Next we saw the rabbits, various small rodents including mice of different varieties, polecats,weasels, a mole who thoughtfully tunneled up while we were watching, and a one eyed hedgehog who came snuffling round the circle the kids sat down and made while Michelle impressed us all with her vast knowledge of hedgehogs ;).

I was expecting to see the stoats, badgers, snakes and other few things we’d seen last year but the badgers have cubs (a likely story ;)) and it looked like a lot of redevelopment work was going on in various areas which made me wonder if there would be more to see another time.

We finished in the gift shop which while having fair amounts of tat was at least sensibly priced tat so there was purchasing happening while I collected monies from everyone and thanked the woman for a great day. I’d like to do another session there, either later this year or next year and maybe try really hard just to fill it with friends and see if we couldn’t fit more into it – I’d be happy to pay double for a longer day with more time including some free time just to wander round watching the animals ourselves.

It was really good though, a success :). Photos are on flickr but still being uploaded so I may come back later and add some in.

We headed for home with Mich and Kirsty in our wake. Ady and I debated things to do with everyone in the afternoon but aside from a field trip to Sainsburys for Kirsty, Michelle and I we stayed home in the end. Mum finally left and we all drank tea til it was wine o’clock. Ady did sterling work being a host and providing refreshments for us and kids and very effectively making beds and bedding appear.

There were some minor scuffles and settling in issues between the children but I was incredibly proud of both Davies and Scarlett and particularly Davies in his fantastic work in coordinating a dvd that everyone was prepared to watch at bedtime. He’s a top negotiator that lad :).

The kids were really good at bedtime; Chloe and Alex came back downstairs to sleep with Michelle and Kirsty but the other 3 went to sleep pretty much as soon as Ady went up to bed and there was very little in the way of noise disturbance or repeated appearances back downstairs from them. Of course we were being fairly rowdy ourselves which may have drowned them out / scared them off 😆

We had a very nice evening, loads of laughs, some amusement at the expense of Michelle which I won’t be sharing in any way, shape or form 😉 and a conference call with James reciting lines from Men Behaving Badly which always makes a party :). He and Marcus were missed!

Saturday I worked in the morning. It was pretty busy. I spent some time on the counter, some time on the desk and some time sending emails to try and drum up ticket sales for the Anne Perry event next month and putting up more posters to advertise it within the library.

I came home and we had lunch. I forget what they’d all spent the morning doing but everyone seemed busy and happy here at home too. Ah yes I remember, Ady had told Scarlett that he’d seen chick FurReal toys at Tescos. She’d really wanted a chick for Christmas but we’d not been able to get one anywhere. Ady had told her they were £6 so she’d emptied out her moneybox of all it’s copper and odd bits of silver to see how much she had. Her and I put them in piles of pennies, twos, fives and tens and worked out how many of each we needed to make piles of 10p and then how many piles per pound and then counted them all out. She had £7.32. She then suddenly got upset and said she wanted the Fur Real but didn’t want to spend all her money so we said maybe she could get the chick as an easter present rather than chocolate eggs. She seemed happy with this idea so put all the money away again 😆

We popped to the allotment to check on progress of things there. The potatoes had peeped through so Ady covered them over, I did a spot of weeding round the onions and garlic and our curiosity got the better of us so Davies and I dug up an autumn planted onion to have a look. It was still a very small bulb rather than an onion but I’m happy that it was a worthy sacrifice to make to satisfy our curiosity :). We spent some time planning and looking at other plots and then as none of us were really dressed for being up there we left.

We went to the tip where we got rid of several bags of rubbish. Ady doen’t read my blog (although he could, he just has better things to do with his time ;)) and I’d not said anything to him but he must have picked up on me being pissed off about all the rubbish round on the patio as he had cleared a load of it and we got rid of a fair bit. We then all went to Sainsburys and got various bits for dinner last night and today.

Back home Ady and Scarlett spent some time outside (he was gardening, she was with the chickens) while Davies and I read some books together. They had dinner and watched various stuff on TV ending up with the first in the new series of Primeval. Glad that’s back, it doesn’t quite fill Doctor Who’s space but it does a fair job. Ady got various torches set up and we turned all the lights (and the TV and computers actually) off for Earth Hour. The kids went to bed and were both asleep really early, we had torchlit baths and Ady even cooked by torchlight.

We had a starter of noodles and duck breasts that we’d had in the freezer for ages but hadn’t been enough for a main course followed by crispy duck in pancakes which had been on special offer at Sainsburys. It was all lovely :). In preparation of the hour going forward which always messes with my head for a week or so afterwards we went to bed early.

Sunday Up and about early and out to Swanbourne Lake at Arundel to meet up with Chris, Julie, Maisie, Jack and Lorna. They were, predictably, late which made me a little cross but once they arrived and we got walking it was lovely. The sun was shining, the kids all ran off ahead and did loads of clambering up the banks and gathering sticks, Chris and Ady enjoyed each others company as they’ve not seen each other for several weeks and Julie and I chatted. It was a very nice hour or so :).

I watched Lost, had a bath and in deference to that wayward hour floating about I’m off to bed!

Things that annoyed me today:

1. Unloading the washing machine to find Davies had put trousers in the wash without emptying his pockets and the machine and all the ‘clean’ clothes were now covered in tissues and bits of sticks. Couldn’t be arsed to re-wash so shook everything out very hard as I pegged it on the line and most of it flew into the wind but still. Grrr.

2. Ady’s Pile ‘O Crap which is in the corner of the patio and is now effectively preventing me from accessing about 1/3 of Scarlett’s washing line (we have four lines – one is Scarlett’s, one is Davies’, one is Ady and mine (we don’t get through as many clothes as they do for some reason, possibly lack of pjs wearage) and one for towels, teatowels, bedding and overspill from other lines). He also has potatoes in sacks doing something similar to the overpill line.

3. The cards being used to make Mothers Day cards for me and then not being put back in either the right place or indeed any place I could find them for the kids to make birthday cards for Richard and Rebecca. Eventually found something else suitable instead but futher grrrs.

4. Getting out of the house. We’re so crap at it. It irritates me.

5. Need for that cloning machine again. My Dad pulled up just as we were getting in the car and regretfully as we were running late anyway I had to turn him away. Sort of wished I could split us in two so one version could go to PLAY and the other could stay home and have lunch with him.

6. Overpriced soft play. That smells of feet.

7. Kids at overpriced soft play. With parents who are not paying any attention to their little gits.

8. Rainbow leader yelling at S rather than paying attention.

So this morning started with the tissue in the wash thing (it’s actually not such as issue now as it pissed with rain at least twice today so will have very effectively rinsed it all off as it’s all still out on the line). The kids made cards for R and R – Davies did Rebecca’s and once he’d stopped being annoying and trying to spell it ‘RBCA’ he did really well. He then helped Scarlett write the one to Richard by calling out the letters to her. I was amazed to hear her spell out her name to him too as although she can write it I’ve not heard her say the letters all in order, including getting distracted in the middle and going back to it, before :).

We finally got out and with diversions to talk to my dad who pulled up as we were getting in the car and to stop for petrol and cash on the way we finally arrived. Lucy and Tasha were already there along with Tasha’s sister who it was nice to meet (sisters are such an unknown to me I am always quite fascinated with them). Three other families arrived (C and C, don’t really know them although have met briefly once or twice before and had a chatette about knitting and crocheting), C, E, M and new baby D (altogether now, awwww) and Ali and Freya. The kids played really well altogether and in smaller groups – Davies and Scarlett really enjoyed playing with Toby and Freya which seemed like a nice little foursome – they called me to come and watch them doing flipovers :).

Davies got really fed up when the staff there told them to stop running. I could see both sides really – OTOH there were littler kids there so the bigger ones running could present a health hazzard but OTOH it is a play area and running is sort of playing…He came round though and was soon off playing again.

We had lunch.For onceI had been sensible and remembered both how crap and how expensive the food there is so had taken sandwiches which I then supplemented with drinks and crisps from their cafe meaning we were within our rights to sit down and eat there.

We went back in and two small kids were making a real nusiance of themselves to all of our kids who were now playing together in a big group. Having ascertained that it was a genuine issue rather than our big group goading or encouraging them and checking that they’d already been spoken to by at least 2 of the adults in our party I spoke to them and told them our kids didn’t want to play with them and they were to leave them alone. Unfortunately this didn’t last and I had to go back over there again which resulted in them leaving. The kids all thought I was great for having sorted it out but I’m never proud of myself for resorting to shouting and being aggressive 🙁 I do have a very quick temper.

Lucy and the Rs went and everyone gradually showed signs of having had enough so we called it a day.It was pouring with rain when we left so I offered Ali and Freya a lift to the station which turned into coming back to ours for a cup o’ tea, some bicuits and a peanut butter sandwich or seven.

The drive home took nearly an hour due to all sorts of traffic holdups but we were entertained by singing along to the Carpenters with a fishy rewrite of the lyrics to ‘calling occupants’ when Scarlett was heard to be singing ‘calling octopus’ – even funnier given we’d spent the drive there talking about what ‘make contact’ meant and what ‘occupants’ were and thinking of all the things we were occupants of.

At home Davies forced Ali and Freya to listen to You’re A Bad Man Mr Gum and we finally persuaded them to go upstairs to play so we could chat in peace. It was very nice :).

Ady came home, I walked Tarly round to Rainbows and had just enough time to run Ali and Freya home and get back in time to collect Tarly again. She’d had a good time and they’d done some Easter activity. Back home they had pizza for tea and then headed upstairs for yet another sleepover – this time watching one of those Cult Kids TV dvds with things like Jamie and the magic torch on it. I had a very long bath and we had a very late dinner of pizza.

A really nice day with friends only slightly marred by my list of annoying things 😉

A whole day at work for me today. And I had a really good day too :).

Lots of laughs, lots of banter with colleagues and borrowers, I spent ages with a dyslexic man who wanted the whole series of Indian in the cupboard on audio book as he remembered his mum reading them to him and his sister and wanted to hear them read to him again (I assume his mother is no longer alive 🙁 ). We had the first but none of the subsequent 4 titles on audio book so I filled out some request forms for him, which was how I learnt he was dyslexic as he asked if I would do them for him. We had a really nice chat about books from childhood, he was really grateful for my help and another colleague complimented me on how well I’d dealt with him :).

Later in the day one of the reading group attendees came in and was after book recommendations. I didn’t really know her taste but she’d liked the last couple of books I’d recommended for reading group so I decided to go with some of the books I’d read recently and liked so she went away with some Celia Ahern, Jodi Piccoult, Lionel Shriver and one other that now escapes me. Hopefully she’ll like one or more of them. I was with her for ages and being observed by the head librarian. It is one of the aspects of my job I really enjoy building up some sort of rapport with regular borrowers and sharing books we’ve enjoyed with others :). She also told me her daughter is at Rainbows with Scarlett although I’d never noticed her at pick up time and she has a same age as Davies son too.

I stayed behind chatting to the head librarian about reading groups generally and ours specifically trying to come up with ideas for books to get debates going more rather than books we all quite liked and don’t have much more to say about. I think we’ve come up with some titles which should certainly spark conversations with the fairly diverse group of people that come along to reading group :).

At home, unfortunately there was the inevitable price to pay for having had a good day :(. Ady had been home with the kids all day and had initially said he’d be ‘off’ with them having worked from 7am til 10pm yesterday but he ended up with a massive amount of work from home to do and spent most of the day on his laptop. I rang at lunchtime and he was all moany about work and when I got in Davies asked me to go upstairs with him so he could have a moan about his day and Scarlett had run out to the garden to meet me so delighted was she that I was home. It’s hard for Ady as he has this sort of novelty dad status which means the kids expect rather more from him when he’s home than they perhaps would from me. Also I think I manage to be more upfront and honest about what they can expect from me whereas Ady sometimes overplays what a great time they are going to have together and then fails to deliver.

When Ady was still working at nearly 730pm I had a tantrum about it so it’s been a bit fraught here this evening. Scarlett is sleeping in Davies’ room for a ‘sleepover’ so they watched Chittty Chitty Bang Bang while Ady cooked dinner and Davies has just come down in tears over some imagined triviality so I cuddled him and he fell asleep in my arms which was slightly odd – funny how you can look at their sleeping faces and see both the baby they once were and the teenager they are slowly growing into all there at once. I had to wake him to walk upstairs though as there was no way I’d have managed to carry him up there and negotiate my way over Scarlett on a mattress on the floor to get him to bed.

Still tomorrow is Friday and we’re off to soft play hopefully seeing quite a few friends. It’s no museum of course but I think it will be a good day.

yep, to a museum ;).

This time it was Amberley Working Musuem. We’ve been before a few years ago when the kids were pretty small and I’d remember it as good but pricey with not that much to do. We’d also been years ago to some bike thing back in the days when we arrived on a bike but I suspect we didn’t pay full price to get in to that.

Anyway it’s changed and grown and improved and although I still don’t really think it justifies it’s usual entrance fee they have been running a deal for locals to get in adults at kid prices and kids free. I’ve bene trying to get there for weeks but my Mum decided she’d like to come too and then we arranged to go last Monday and I discovered it’s closed on Mondays so finally we went today. I discovered last night that there was a local HE meet up happening there today as well which was a complete coincidence.

Shortly after we arrived Jack and Maisie came running towards us having also just arrived – neither Julie or I had mentioned to each other yesterday that we were coming today so that was a nice surprise. Mum got to meet Lorna as she’d not seen her yet. There were various other HE folks that I knew and a few I’d not met before in person but knew of and our paths all crossed at various points during the day but aside from being on the train and the bus at the same time as a few of them we didn’t actively go round with anyone.

We started off looking at the kilns and chalk and lime working area then moved into the blacksmiths forge. Mum and I chatted to him for a while – he was only a young bloke but really passionate about his craft and showed us pictures of some of his work – lovely to see such a traditional skill being used to create some fab modern pieces of art aswell as serviceable creations. Mum took one of his cards as she is interested in getting some things for their fire made (dogs, maybe a companion set).

Next we went to the printing workshop. This was really interesting and we got chatting to two of the volunteers who set up and ran a line printer for us with an indepth showing of how it all worked:

Then we went to have a go at printing using the children’s own names. They already had a plate with ‘Scarlett’ on it so Tarly got to do hers straightaway

Davies’ name unsurprisingly wasn’t there so they had to make a new cast for him and we popped back later to do that after lunch.

From there we had a look round the section on wireless radios and phones. We spent some time working out what number the children would have to dial to phone their names (Davies – 328437 and Scarlett – 72275388) which led on from a conversation we’d been having in the car at the weekend and was nicely demonstrated with the old dial phones.

In the same exhibition was a morse code card so they had a go at tapping out their names in morse code too:

As we came out of that area the bus (an open topped tour bus) pulled into the stop infront of us so we decided to have a ride round on that. We stayed on for the whole circuit and the kids loved getting tickets and having them stamped although I think they were disappointed not to get messages spelt out on them like in Polar Express 😉

Next we walked round some of the resident craftspeople on site and stopped to talk to the woodturning who was stripping sticks to make brooms, two men who were completely uncommunicative but we watched for a while anyway – one of whom was melting aluminium and then pouring it into moulds, the other was making a mould to our metal in for small numberplates:

We also watched a woodturning on a machine while the craftsman chopped into it with tools and he made a spinning top from a lump of wood which the kids then both had a turn of spinning. I would probably have bought it as it was so impressive to see it turned from a lump of wood to something so beautifully made but a group of school children came in and sort of elbowed their way in and were spinning it after us so the moment was lost (and I remained £2 better off ;)).

We decided we were hungry at that point so headed to the restaurant. If we’d been alone I’d have taken a picnic but as I’d driven and paid for us to get in Mum bought lunch. Personally I thought it was overpriced and not very good but I don’t recall the last time I ate out anywhere and thought it was worth the money or delicious so maybe I’m just picky.

After lunch we popped back to the printing press where they’d made the Davies plate so Davies could print his off:

Then we got the train up to the top of the museum (and ended up on it with Julie, Jack, Maisie and Lorna and another local HE mother and daughter who I’ve spoken to by email but not met in person before). They all carried on the circuit back down again but we stayed at the top to do the areas up there. There was an electricity one where a couple of very friendly and helpful volunteers talked us all round the various exhibits including ones for static, chemical and magnetically generated electricity.

We also got treated to a demonstration of their 3 oversized examples which were increasingly more impressive with the last one being amazing creatiing massive lightning type bolts of electricity complete with exciting electrical crackling noises :).

We then spent ages in the connected section. We’d looked at some telephones earlier in the mock up rural telephone exchange where the kids spent ages ringing each other and I got all nostalgic over a cuddly Buzby

but this was a seriously impressive history of the phone type area with loads of phones dotted all around that you could ring each other from. Davies enjoyed doing this dashing about seeing how many he could make ring while Scarlett was utterly fascinated with a telephone exchange and sat there for about half an hour playing with it and transfering calls between lines 🙂

We had a quick look round the railway area and then jumped on the bus with Julie and co to say goodbye and collect our printing off them as they’d been to collect theirs, assumed we’d gone and forgotten ours so collected it for us. I was set to leave but the kids insisted they wanted to see the last little bit so we walked back up to the walking stick maker to chat to him while, the bus area where they both insisted I take their picture while they posed pretending to start the bus up with the crank handle

Finally to the fire station where we got a last couple of photos and watched a film taken from the dashboard of a fire engine with it’s blues and twos going that happened to be driving along the main road and past my parents house which was odd to watch 🙂

On the way out poor Scarlett managed to poke herself in the eye with a stick 🙁 but it seems okay now.

We were then going to struggle to get home in time for tea before Badgers so we called into drive in McDs for a happy meal each for the kids in the car, dropped my Mum off and got home in time for getting changed (them) and a quick cup of tea (me) before putting all the chickens away and going to Badgers.

I had a quick trip to Waitrose for ingredients for curry while they were in there and then spent the rest of the time sitting in the car playing picpic on Davies’ DS. I also took a phonecall from someone coming to the Wildlife Centre trip next week who I’ve not met before and really put my back up about why I’d not advertised it more widely and was I sure I didn’t want her to put it on some of the lists for me? Grr no.I explained I’d deliberately kept it smallish with people I was comfortable vouching for the behaviour of and it was predominantly a trip for friends that I’d opened out slightly for a few others. I know I’m not always as community minded as some HEors but I do hate this feeling of obligation that some people try to put on you as though you have some sort of responsibility for the masses. And the assumption that you might not know what you’re doing when she was telling me about what a thriving amount of families there are HEing in Brighton…

Back home I ran a bath, lit the fire and got the dinner on then read a couple of stories to the kids:
Stone Girl Bone Girl: The Story of Mary Anning of Lyme Regis and The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs before they went off to bed.

Ady had said he was on the last few minutes of the second hour of the Gardening show which I’d thought was 7-9pm so had planned on being infront of the TV for 830pm to be sure. He rang me just as I was getting in the bath to say he was finished and on his way home. The gardening show had been 6-8pm so we’d missed it, despite, rather annoyingly actually being home and able to watch. Grr. I’ve watched it online now (for anyone wanting to watch, the best one is the potatoes because there is a big picture of Scarlett on that too 🙂 not sure how long the link will be active for as they don’t stay up for long but it’s currently here (click on ‘watch video presentation).

I watched The Apprentice and Ady was home before it finished bearing gifts of a huge bunch of flowers, a ‘ladies’ fork and trowel set and four huge slabs of the most delicious looking chocolate, all courtesy of swaps for samples in the green room :).

We had our curry, watched Grand Designs and Ady has gone to bed worn out from the glamous and pressure of his celeb lifestyle ;). Tomorrow I’ll be trading one public building (museums) for another (library) while Ady has the day at home with the kids.

Because we’re all about the museums this week, us :).

We needed to return the geology loan box and so last week when trying desperately to coordinate diaries with Julie we decided to meet up at Littlehampton museum to do that, get together and all have a proper look round the museum too. I had pre-warned her we might be running late when she rang me just after 8pm last night as we walked in through the door.

Davies and Scarlett were still eating breakfast in pjs at the time we should have been leaving so we were nearly half an hour late getting there. Fortunately Julie had also been late and not long arrived and then gone into the museum to find out about parking discs and was coming back to her car with one for her and one for me when we arrived :). So free parking for the museum and also it works in the carpark we usually use when we visit the shops there too, so hurrah :).

We returned the loan box which Julie promptly enquired about borrowing and ended up taking away with her when we left. The receptionist was really friendly and remembered us from last time and directed us to an area with quiz sheets for the children. The museum is basically just a series of four small interconnecting rooms but has a nice friendly feel to it, plenty of interesting very local exhibits and we easily spent an hour there. We watched a short film about lobsters and then all the kids decided to do an Archaeology quiz sheet. Jack impressed us all with his very fluent reading although interestingly his writing is nowhere near caught up – Davies is completely the other way round. We all worked through the quiz together and Scarlett, Davies and Jack all wanted to do all the writing themselves, Maisie was less keen really.

I took a few pictures of the kids infront of things they wanted me to capture and only realised on the way out that there was a sign saying ‘No photography’ – oops!

The kids got their quiz sheets ‘marked’ by the curator and then they all got something small from the little selection of gifts – Scarlett chose a purple feather ‘quill’, Davies and Jack both chose pencil sharpeners in the shape of ballistas and Maisie got some replica coins. The receptionist was testing Davies on how much change he should get. We felt like real proper Home Educators visiting museums, doing quizzes for literacy and history and using the gift shop to get practical numeracy in to the day ;).

And Scarlett had proper shoes on too!

We’d intended heading for home but Julie picked up a leaflet for the Look and Sea centre and so we decided to join them there. We drove round and parked (disc didn’t work for that carpark 🙁 ) and went in via the restaurant which we deemed too pricey and too full of ladies who lunch for us to feel comfortable there. The Look and Sea place is really good. It’s not free but was only £1 each and is set out over 3 main floors – the first floor is a conference room so was out of bounds but the second floor is a very hands on activity bit with games, video clips and other stuff to do.

Davies and I played a game of a snakes and ladders style board game themed with fish and other sealife. Scarlett spent ages playing with a matching the birds to their habitat game which made the relevant birdsong noises when you got it right.

We then went up to the top level which has an outside viewing platform which was closed today and a further higher area accesible by spiral staircase with a telescope for a great 360 degree view of the sea and the downs.

We walked into town to get some sandwiches for lunch and then parted as we needed to get back for swimming. Really nice to spend a few hours together 🙂

We got home and I got some beef in the slow cooker in red wine for our dinner later while the kids got the geomags out and started playing a complicated game with them. Then it was back out again to swimming. I was really pissed off to get the forms to say they are both staying in the groups they are in :(. I think Davies is fine in his group although he clearly could go up a level. He got his 10m badge and had a really good lesson with some excellent swimming. Scarlett was so by far the best in her group and I sat there getting more and more cross about her not being put up for next term. She got her 5m badge and her ‘octopus 2’ badge (not even sure what that means – ah ok have just googled and am now even more cross!). The actual instructor is not the one who grades them for next term anyway and I didn’t want to talk to her while I was pissed off or encroach on the lessons of the next lot of kids so I’ve emailed asking if she can change classes as she has been put down for ‘non swimmers’ still and she clearly is no longer a non swimmer if she’s getting her 5m badge! Grr.

I hate the badges – I hate the whole extrinsic reward thing, I hate sewing them on, I hate the fact that a silly cloth badge is intended to mean more than the fact they can swim (which btw it doesn’t, certainly not for D and S and I’m guessing not for many kids really) but most of all I hate that they charge £60 a term for swimming lessons and then want another £2 on top for badges, which won’t be costing them any more than about 20p each either. I did buy them because I didn’t want to belittle their achievements having been so ranty about their lessons and also it does impress my parents who are the ones paying for the lessons but I ranted further at the receptionist who said she totally agreed with me that they should be awarded the badges free when they reach those levels. I added that rant to my email too though.

The kids asked for fish and chips for tea which they often do when we’ve been swimming so we walked to the chip shop for those and came home. They ate all their tea and then carried on with their geomag game for a further hour.

Ady came home, we read the WBD Mr Gum book as Tarly hadn’t heard it previously and then they went off to bed. Ady is being TVs Adrian Goddard tomorrow evening so he went off for an early night and I watched Maid of Honour which was fairly crap but mildly entertaining. And stewed some more about swimming lessons.

I checked the train times for London last night before I went to bed – 839am (the one we normally get when we’re doing the am RI sessions), 9.09am and 10.10am. There are more of course but these were the straight through, no change ones to Victoria. I kind of knew we wouldn’t really make the 839 one as that’s always a rush even when we do have to be there that early but I thought the 909 was a possibility and would mean we could do something else first before going to RI.

I was awake and I could hear both children awake long before the 8am alarm I’d set but I wasn’t in a rushing around mood so we left home at 930am, popped into the CoOp for some additional food supplies and got the 1010 instead. It was a really nice train journey – we got seats with a table, I got tea from the buffet cart and the kids DS’d quietly together while I read my book :).

We had a quick peek in the Lush shop at Victoria and then got the one stop on the tube to Green Park. As we walked in from one entrance Katy and the school of fish with one extra must have been entering from the other entrance as we sort of met in the middle.

The kids did plenty of playing with sticks and dashing about the daffodils, Katy nipped off with Kit to the loo and I had an old man come and sit beside me (I was poised to offer first aid but he didn’t seem in need), I valiantly shooed away a dog which came over interested in Katy’s bagels (well actually I was in more of a supporting role to Joshua who was also on the bench with me – it was a DOG!) and then Katy came back.

Alison arrived flanked by Gaffer and another HE family and then Mich arrived slightly behind Chloe and slightly infront of the child belonging to the other woman she was with whose name she stumbled over and whose child was hiding behind a tree. I did question whether Mich did indeed know this person at all and quite how she was a HEor when she didn’t have a child with her but I think it all became clear…

We had a nice rowdy picnic and then gathered up all the children to head off to the RI for the afternoon session for katy and I. We decided to call additional names across the park as well as our own children and including wacky and biblical selections although Gaffer won when he hailed ‘Jesus!’ across the park 😆

The talk at the RI was excellent, quite my favourite yet I think. A very theatrical mad professor type, a self confessed pyromanic who addressed the whole hall as ‘my dear children’ and put me in mind of Willy Wonka somehow (not the weirdy Johnny Depp one) with his genuine delight in chemistry and experiments and demands on us not to clap and waste time as he had so many things to show us. Really enjoyed it :).

Both kids wanted to ask a question – Scarlett to draw his attention to a paper plane from his earlier session which had ended up on a ledge and Davies to ask more about the Kipps apparatus which had fascinated him. I remember them being in the labs at school and along with the heat proof mats, splints, conical flasks and other asssorted ‘props’ had me thinking fondly back to science lessons of days gone by.

The session over-ran so with asking questions, general milling about in the foyer and another trip to the loo for Tarly despite her insisting she didn’t need to go it was about 330pm before we actually left RI. Our original plan of Monument was scuppered by the wind and rain that seemed fairly set in so we decided once we were at the tube station to head for South Ken and the museums. Davies and I had fallen out on the way when he stopped in the middle of the road to pick up a bit of broken car headlight. I gave out to him both for stopping in a road and picking up rubbish and made him drop it which upset him :(. I was at that point all set to go home really as I was aware we were holding other people up, unsure he’d be able to pull himself back together again in order to recover and enjoy himself and was slightly wrongfooted by the change of plans (not sure why really, I think I just have in my head that the museums are an all day thing rather than something you can go to for an hour or so. I was wrong and having already got tube tickets it’s not like it costs anything but I think I handle London best when I have a clear idea in my head of what’s happening where and when).

We did decide to carry on with the others, particularly as Tarly was having such a good time with Chloe :). We got to the Natural History Museum without further incident and decided to go to the basement for the hands on stuff. On the tube Katy had drawn my attention to Scarlett’s boot which having been on it’s last legs a couple of weeks ago had completely given up and the sole was flapping exposing her toes. Mich donated a hair band to hold it together and I cursed myself for having forgotten about it and not having glued it before.

The hands on bit was brilliant – loads of drawers of exhibits to pull out and look at, measure, weigh, draw, look at under microscopes and maginfying glasses, books to look up more details about them in and more information on the computer screens around the room about. It is manned by really friendly staff who are happy to help and chat too.

Scarlett and Chloe looked at loads of things together

Davies and I spent quite bit of time on a food pyramid game (we did ocean, woodland and ponds), drew a tortoise shell and looked at some starfish.

That area closed earlier than the main museum so we left there and looked at the fossil area (walking through the birds area on the way where Davies, Scarlett and I looked at dodos, the amazing wingspan of some eagles, a row of very big to very small eggs and a display of albino birds)

Then we moved on to the earth bit where we all got a bit scattered about but all ended up together. Not sure what Tarly took in, if anything as she was at the front with Clo but Davies and I looked at various things together as we went through. He really wanted to see the Creepy Crawley bit so we hastened there to finish.

We said goodbye at the tube – thankfully not for long as we’ll be seeing everyone again in the next 2 weeks and headed back the 2 stops to Victoria.

I felt really bad on the tube looking at Scarlett with her held together with an elastic band shoe, her hippy top with the long sleeves of her jumper sticking out that she’d been chewing so were soaking wet and a bit grubby with London dirt on them. She looked like some sort of uncared for homeless child :(.

We debated what to do at Victoria as they were both hungry and both wanted another look (read, me to buy something) in the Lush shop but agreed we’d catch the next available train home rather than waste time. In the event there was a train about to leave and although I sincerely doubted we’d make it we ran for it anway and just jumped on as the guard blew the whistle! It was a long train with 12 carriages, packed full and we had to walk the whole length of it as only the first 4 carriages reach the short platform at Lancing. We stood for a fair bit of the way and finally got a seat so they could resume DSing and I could read some more book while eating the last of the food we’d brought.

We got back to Lancing, walked back to the library to collect our car and got home to a bath run for the kids and dinner in the oven for them from Ady who also offered to cook dinner for us and sent me off with a glass of wine.

I’m incredibly stiff and have been for the last week or so and today hasn’t helped, particuarly as I stupidly took my bag with loads of stuff I really didn’t need which weighed very heavily on my shoulder. I can’t decide if I’ve done something which has made my muscles ache or if I should be worried but I hope it goes away soon.

Now I’m home, bathed, fed, wined and have looked at the photos it was a really nice day – lovely to see friends and change my mind about nipping to the museums for just one or two galleries for the future.

in a too many cooks type way.

When you are married to someone like Ady who tends to cosset and run around after you rather a lot anyway it can actually be quite hard to make mothers day feel different to a normal day.I did request that the radio NOT be turned on in the kitchen when he got up as he has a habit of doing so then wandering off into another room and leaving it on and it drifts up the stairs and intrudes on my sleep when I have a lie in. Normally I appreciate just how spoilt-brat a request this is, last night I felt Mothers Day was enough of a reason to make the request for this morning ;). I said I would accept visitors after 9am 😆

Scarlett came up and patted me on the head around 9ish and asked if I wanted her to bring my card up. I agreed she could and got up to have a wee and put my contact lenses in so I could see what was happening. They were speedier than I was though and we ended up all squished in the little bathroom while I sat on the floor naked infront of the mirror trying to put lenses in while they tried to foist gifts and cards upon me. I persuaded them the bedroom would be better and we went and sat on the bed while I was presented with a lovely card from each of them – Davies’ has he and I digging on the allotment complete with me in my beloved wellies. Scarlett’s is interesting in that I’m not too sure at which point of my body she started it but she ran out of room for both my feet and the top of my head 😆 I had a new pillow for camping and a box of chocolates aswell as a cake very comprehensively decorated by Scarlett at Rainbows.

Ady had run me a bath, made me a cup of tea and was full of elaborate breakfast suggestions he could make me but I declined breakfast and enjoyed a bath with my tea. I dried my hair with the hairdryer which I almost never do but it is at a very annoying inbetween stage of growing out and can be even more unruly than usual so needed a bit of taming this morning.

I decorated the triple layer cake Tarly and I made yesterday with pink whipped cream and pink edible glitter then Davies and I settled down to about 2 hours of playing professor Layton together on his DS. Ady and Scarlett were in the garden among other things planting up a hanging basket to give my mum.

At 1pm we headed over to my parents for lunch. Granny was there too and Frazer even got up despite Mum saying she didn’t expect to see him as he’d not gotten home until the early hours and he was rather delicate ;). We had a really nice lunch with wine and the kids were really funny parodying some of the things my parents come out with regularly. Granny was on top annoying form and managed to really wind my mum up although I think she remained oblivious. She also came out with a racist rant about Germans which I intercepted when I realised how much attention Davies and Scarlett were paying by explaining over her loudly that ‘Great Granny is expressing an opinion. That is fine aslong as she precedes what she is saying with ‘I think’ and makes it clear it is her opinon and a personal viewpoint rather than presenting it as fact!’ Again I think she was largely oblivious but grrr just the same.

After dinner we retired to the lounge where Scarlett sat with Frazer and they played Harvest Moon on her DS together and Davies made the most of noone else monopolising me and sat with me playing Professor Layton on his DS. Dad and Ady watched the football which sort of left Granny and Mum at a loose end. I did feel a bit bad what with it being Mothers Day at all but was far happier having some one to one time with Davies than trying to think up ways to entertain them and decided they could work things out for themselves really.

Later on Frazer went out and Granny did play with Davies and Scarlett freeing me up to go and chat to my Mum where Dad also joined us in the kitchen so I did do my daughterly duty in the end.

We left at about 730pm as it was dark and the chickens needed putting away plus Davies was very tired and I was conscious of going to London tomorrow. Don’t know why I bother really as he was downstairs at 1030pm asking for a glass of water – you can take a Davies to bed but you can’t make him sleep :rolls: The kids had toast and we finishedthe last Mr Gum story.

Tonight I’ve been drinking pink fizz (partially to give an air of a celebratory day to the evening and partially cos it’s that or all the half bottles of alcohol like bacardi and mead and erm meths that we have kicking about as I’ve run out of real wine ;)) and Ady made me a lovely big bowl of pesto pasta with bacon and pine nuts. And now, given there will no doubt be plenty of chivvying to be done in the morning, I’m off to bed.

Feeling uninspired about a title.

Another early start this morning to be in Newhaven for Davies’ Young Archaeologists Club at 10am (hereby known as YAC). The programme said “Managing water – the old Tide Mills. We will be visiting the Bishopstone Tide Mills site whose history and archaeology stretches from the 1760s Tide Mill through to World War II. We still look at evidence that remains for World War I seaplane stations and how the Canadian army adapted the roads and the beach in order to load ships with army tanks and trucks to go over to France during the second World War. There are also the remains of the Chailey School for CHildren as well as the Tide Mill and Village.”

Davies was greeted by the leader as ‘ah yes, Davies, with the mop of hair!’ and Ady, Scarlett and I headed off for a walk along the beach. It turned out quite a few parents stayed this time and Davies as a bit put out that one of us hadn’t so as and when I am not working / there are other parents staying one of us might, probably Ady actually as he seems to be far more interested in archaeology than I am ;).

They worked their way through a spotter sheet and Davies was full of BobFacts about the place and enjoyed it loads so that was good. I keep thinking this must surely be a passing interest he showed once in a fossil that I have jumped on far too enthusiastically and he will confess to not being remotely interested in the whole YAC thing but as I keep telling the kids how boring it would be if we all liked the same things I should probably just believe he really does enjoy it ;).

The beach area was lovely – the cleanest UK beach I think I’ve ever been on with not one single scrap of rubbish. There was loads of dog poo on the approach to the beach which was a great shame but nothing on the beach itself other than pebbles, stones and shells. We learnt a bit about Tide Mills then I got to enjoy the relative peace of Scarlett choosing to walk along with Ady rather than me leaving me to walk right along the line where the waves were breaking (the tide was going out) listening to the soothing sound of the waves punctuated by my own footsteps crunching along the shingle. I have no idea what I was thinking about other than how lovely it was to have noone making any demands on me at all. Sometimes I really like the idea of the Anti-Cheers theme tune where nobody knows my name.

I was searching for sea-washed glass. I love blue or green glass fragments that have been stone and sand washed smooth and opaque. We found a couple of tiny bits but nothing very large. Scarlett was looking for shells and latterly for the biggest rocks she could find 😉

We walked back to the carpark for midday and the YACs came back, Davies carrying a carrier bag full of feathers, interesting stones, seaweed and other ‘treasures’. My kids are such wombles 😆

Home for a speedy lunch for Ady and Davies before they headed back out again to Tom’s for more logs. We’re not far away from not lighting fires in the evening but it’s good to build up our store of logs for next season and having them ready chopped and seasoned will be something our future selves thank us for come autumn. We’d all go but Ady puts all the back seats down in the car to fit a full load in and we thought Davies would enjoy some time with Ady. He did 🙂 He got to ride on the tractor, play with the dogs and see two of our hatched and reared here cockerels that now live there. He also spent some time playing hide and seek with the young daughter of one of Tom’s friends who was there and was commended on being so lovely with her. Tom and Ingrid adore Davies and Scarlett :). He did say he missed Scarlett when he came home though.

Scarlett and I had a lovely few hours together. We first of all set up the rock tumbler that we got at a car boot sale last year but have never set up. We read the instructions and graded some stones we collected at the beach as similar then put them in and set it going. It’s fairly noisy and has to be going for a couple of weeks so I don’t know if it will stay in the house all that time or if it will drive us mad and get moved into the garage. We also need to get some more grit for it if we want to do more than this first batch of rocks in it.

Then we did some baking – we’re getting a good supply of eggs from the bantams now and it’s nice to use them while they’re fresh so we baked as many cakes as we could with them and got enough for three layers of cake. We did one plain sponge (which is very yellow thanks to our eggs), one pink and one blue and will frost and construct some sort of triple layer mothers day cake for lunch tomorrow. We also made some snickerdoodles at Tarly’s request.

We hung some washing out and checked for eggs and then came back in and debated what to do next. We rummaged through some materials thinking about rag rugs, played some DS, did lots of tickling and cuddling and finally settled on having a bath with facepacks. While it was running we made a small needlefelted ladybird together.

Ady and Davies got home not long after we got in the bath and Davies did some needlefelting. Scarlett and I had a very happy hour in the bath washing each others backs, applying face packs and scrubs. It was lovely :). She then got out and I topped it up with hot water and settle back for another hour to read my book. I was very wrinkled when I finally got out!

The kids had been angling for a sleepover for the last few nights so they went up to Davies’ bedroom together armed with DSs and the Mr Gum audiobook. I cooked a lovely curry and have a warm fuzzy glow from my wine, which coupled with 3 early mornings in a row is encouraging me to go to bed.

I was on a first aid course at Bognor Library today. I’ve always grabbed whatever training is on offer in every job I’ve had. Much though I might take the piss out of the whole ‘bigger picture, outside the box’ tosh I am quite passionate about training and do believe that well delivered, relevant training does empower people. The training aspects of various jobs I’ve had over the years have always been the most enjoyable parts to me. I am also very aware of my CV and the more training and widely recognised training I can add to it the better, so if West Sussex County Council are up for funding it then I’m there :).

I’ve always avoided first aid in the past. I’ve done loads of Health and Safety including writing training manuals and putting together 2 new companies complete H&S policies but first aid has always slightly frightened me. It’s that idea that if I am supposed to know what to do in a situation then I have the obligation to do so and that is scary thing I suppose. I am not remotely squeamish and actually have a slightly morbid fascination with all things medical and a bit gross but having worked in large retail outlets where first aiders tended to just get stuck with the hassle of dealing with people who were feeling sick or tricky court case potential accidents it’s seemed as well to plead ignorance and not get involved.

Anyway, the chance for it came up and I decided to take it.

Ady managed to go in slightly later as Bognor is on the way to his office so he could drop me off and at my suggestion my Mum agreed to have Davies and Scarlett at their house. This meant I didn’t have to fret about her getting here on time for us to leave and they got to have a change of scenery.

So everyone was up and dressed and fed and out of the door before 830am which so seldom happens around here it feels like some sort of holiday occassion when it does ;).

By all accounts they had a lovely day with Frazer taking a half day off work, Dad coming home early and the focus of all three of them. They got taken to the park, to the supermarket to choose what they wanted for lunch, bought magazines and generally pampered :). Everyone seemed happy so we can consider it a success :).

I was first to arrive at the library and got chatting to the woman running the course who was having a stroppy moment about the crap access and two flights of stairs she had to drag all her equipment up. Gradually the other attendees arrived and we started the course. We covered loads of stuff in the morning including CPR and recovery position with loads of practical stuff on the resusci-anne dummies. She also brought along a defribrillator and asked if anyone wanted to try it. It’s the one bit of kit I’ve always thought looked very cool so I happily volunteered and got to put it on the dummy and press the button and do the ‘clear!’ thing. Amazing stuff :).

We broke for lunch so I had a literal walk down memory lane walking down Bognor High street where I worked, managing Clinton Cards for 18 months. I really don’t like Bognor, it’s a pit of a place IMO with all the crap bits of a touristy seaside town with none of the charm. I went down to the arcade where my old Assistant Manager worked hoping to find her there as I don’t have any other way of contacting her. I last saw here about 4 years ago when Tarly was still in a pushchair so I wasn’t overly hopeful and peered in the windows of the two shops opposite each other and saw she wasn’t in either. As I turned to walk away so she appeared walking towards me and grabbed me for a big hug! I don’t know that I’d have recognised her tbh but I’ve obviously not changed much :). We had a speedy catch up with each other and swapped addresses so we can now stay in touch and promised to catch up properly and for her to meet Davies and Scarlett who I reckon she’d adore. She was full of tales of crazy stuff we used to do and all of her workmates had clearly been bored with tales of when we worked together – it was one of the happiest jobs I ever had :). Really must try and get together soon.

Back for the afternoon session at the library where we learnt about pressure bandages, elevation slings, first aid for fits, seizures, burns and scalds, fractures, head injuries, epilepsy and diabetes, strokes, cardiac arrests and how to use an epipen. I actually really enjoyed the course and would now confidentally have a go at first aid, either at work or just generally. I’m really glad I went on it :).

Ady wasn’t quite finished at work so I hung around the library a bit and went on the computer for a while before going to sit in the sunshine and read the information board outside an ice house which is along the same road and have a look at it. Ady arrived, we collected Davies and Scarlett and popped in for a cup of tea with the 3 weary child-looker-afterers too ;).

We dropped Tarly off at Rainbows where she ran in quite happily and reported back that she was fine and had a great time so that’s finally the end of me having to stay with her – hurrah! Just in time for the clocks to go forward and me to have a full term of one hour on a Friday to go for a walk / bike ride / nip up the allotment :).

We came home and Davies and I finished reading Humanism What’s That?: A Book for Curious Kids – the third chapter was ‘can I be a Humanist’ and could almost have been written by me as it contained so much of the things I am always saying to Davies and Scarlett about being their best, doing what they love and following their dreams, being nice to each other and helping others etc. Weird to be reading it aloud from something I’ve not read before when so many of the phrases and what it’s saying are my own stock things to tell the kids.

I walked round to collect Tarly and took Rebecca with me too as Lucy had rung to say she was running late. As she predicted she caught us up before we actually reached our house.

The kids had tea and watched an Alan Titchmarsh thing about nature and wildlife in GB – Scarlett as always was very knowledgable about stuff before he said it and identified animals long before I did. A few chapters of Mr Gum and then bed for them, bath for me and standard Friday night dinner of pizza for Ady and I.

Another beautiful spring morning with the sun shining :).

We met Lucy and The Rs at Highdown Gardens at 11ish and had a brief wander round a small part of it before stopping for lunch. One of my favourite little sub-gardens is the Millennium garden there which has a sundial. I love sundials, they are something I would love to have one of or make and as the sun was shining we able to very accurately tell the time as 20 past 11 as the shadow was one third of the way between the 11 and the 12

We’d been there with Julie and co only last week so I was quite happy not to walk round again and instead to install ourselves on the benches while the children played. So Lucy and I had a lovely two hours sitting first on the bench and then on the grass while the children played. I barely saw Davies and Scarlett aside from occassional wanderings over to gather more food or drink. It was really nice 🙂

she likes butter!

I like to keep my hands busy ;).

Just before 2pm the foursome of children started to not play quite so well together and we sensed it was coming to an end. In celebration of the lovely weather, the fact it was Thursday and we don’t have any ‘after school’ activities on a Thursday and the happy fact that our diary is full for the next 2 weeks plus after which it is school holidays I put to Davies and Scarlett the option of another half an hour or so at Highdown or leaving then and there to go to Coombes Farm for the lambing. There was no contest and so we headed off leaving Lucy and The Rs there.

We’ve done Coombes the last 2 years (2008 flickr and blogpost, 2007 flickr and blogpost) – in 2007 we saw loads being born, in 2008 we saw a couple and had a tractor ride but were with the Beavers. Today we didn’t see any being born although there were a couple which were barely hours old. We arrived just as the tractor was about to leave though so for £2 each we decided to live dangerously and paid and jumped on :).

It was cold and windy on top of the downs but very beautiful with a 360 degree panoramic view of the downs and the sea which was really quite breathtaking and had the 3 of us all cooing over what a lovely place we live in.Scarlett said ‘I always knew the world was beautiful but not this beautiful!’ 🙂

We drove around a load of cows and their very new calves and saw rabbits and some birds of prey (which I failed to identify, I’m rubbish at birds) swooping and diving about.

Back at the farm we had the barns to ourselves really as there was just a handful of mothers and pre-schoolers there. Scarlett and Davies befriended the two girls manning the sheep barns and got to cuddle and stoke some very new lambs. They were bottle feeding some of them for various reasons (ewe had had 3 lambs and was struggling to produce enough milk, a sickly looking lamb that couldn’t stand up and so couldn’t reach it’s mother to feed) so Scarlett was asking loads of questions about that.

They also proved they are their fathers children with a spot of cow whispering 😉

and finally a spot of forbidden haybale leaping 😉

I finally dragged them away for a quick peek at the church which has some amazing murals, some of which are nearly 1000 years old!

Coombes is only a 10 minutes journey from home but every time we go there I am tempted to go camping there as it’s such a lovely setting. We went past Lancing College and I promised I’d take D and S there to see the chapel soon, possibly combined with a late season visit to the lambing if we are free before it ends as they usually have some pet lambs that you can get in the pen and cuddle properly.

We popped to Tesco for a few bits for dinner and as we left and they were running ahead to the car in the sunshine I was all overwhelmed with how fab our lives are and how much I adore them. I often seem to be telling them when they have made me cross so when I caught up with them and we were in the car I made a point of telling them that and we all agreed how lovely it is both to say and have such nice things said to you :).

Home for tea and while I got theirs in the oven and hung some washing out and checked the chickens Davies did some junk modelling with some of the various cast aside stuff he stores in his bedroom while Tarly was doing something experimental with lip gloss on her hand ;). They had tea, followed by chocolate eclairs for pudding (see I told you I was feeling all at one with the world and joyous ;)) and then a bath to wash off farm grime. Ady arrived home and we got stuck into the first 5 chapters of the last Mr Gum book – Mr Gum and the Dancing Bear.

Ady and I watched the first episode in a re-run of The Big Digbecause we’re all about the allotments at the moment here. I’ve spent some time tonight marking things in my diary including booking spaces for Open Farm Sunday at two local-ish farms that we went to last year and really enjoyed and finding out dates for the South of England Show and Brighton Kite Festival which are all things we have done before and enjoyed.

Tomorrow I’m on a first aid course over in Bognor library and am planning to see if I can track down an old friend during my lunch break who worked in a shop in Bognor the last time I saw her. My Mum is having Davies and Scarlett all day and we’re dropping them off at her house for a change of scenery for them all.

I worked this morning. Ady was home with D and S but under the pretext of being at the dentist so I think he was fielding phonecalls a lot :(.

Work was good, busy as we were down to just 3 of us when Frankie had to leave to collect her son from school following a phonecall from the school to say he was ill. She has 4 children, the youngest being 6yo twin boys and one of them is not enjoying school despite attending nursery and loving his reception year. He does a lot of ‘crying wolf’ about feeling ill to get out of going but today it seemed he’d been telling the truth rather than school avoiding. She doesn’t chat to me much about it, I suspect I’m not the right person really ;).

Davies had spent the morning colouring in his Mr Gum book cover pictures, really well actually, must take some photos of them tomorrow in daylight. Scarlett was doing painting.

I had some lunch and then we tidied up and headed to the park to meet Lucy and The Rs for an hour. The four kids had a great time playing together although it was pretty busy there with the pre-school groups of toddlers on their way to collect older siblings from school.

We left there and decided, rather rashly as it happened, that we had time to whizz to the shoe shop in Rustington that sells pretend crocs. We took a silly circuitous route back through Lancing and got caught at the level crossing and then hit loads of traffic on the way but found a parking space straight away and chose a pair each from the limited selection of last years colours. Davies had wanted orange and Tarly pink but they ended up with pale blue for Davies and yellow for Scarlett with a promise that I’d get them a second pair each in the chosen colour later in the summer. I’m fairly sure they are both on the cusp of a growth spurt – Davies suddenly looks longer of leg.

We came home a different route to avoid the traffic taking in the ‘short cut’ rat run I used to cycle home from college and managed to get home in time for them to have tea and get changed for Badgers. Unfortunately we hit more traffic getting there and were slightly late. Scarlett was upset about something I’d chucked out when clearing out my car the other day that Davies had drawn her attention to so was wobbly going in. She did come back out again but after a brief chat in the car she went back in again (no doubt causing eye rolling from the adults there who already think I take my children far too seriously ;)). I stayed in the car playing Davies’ ds.

Ady got home shortly after we did and we finished reading the fourth Mr Gum book. Only one to read now and Davies is wearing out the audio book of the first one listening it over every night so he can practically recite the whole thing now. So many books in that style for that age group are based around school it’s been fab to find a whole series that don’t mention school at all.

Bed for them, bath for me followed by cooking dinner, a bit of Phil and Kirstie and disappointment that Grand Designs was a revisited one rather than a new one.

I can’t remember what we did for the first couple of hours this morning – although I know I spent ages cleaning out under the keys on my laptop with a thin pointy thing – the dust!!!!

I quickly made some banana and choc chip muffins as we had no ‘nice’ food in the house for lunch and Tasha, Toby and Vinnie were coming over. They arrived at 11ish and Toby, Davies and Scarlett disappeared upstairs together. We only barely saw them when they came down to go outside and play and they all got on really well. Scarlett broke away from the boys for a while and came to chat to us. Vinnie really likes Scarlett (he’s 18 months old) and she tolerates his adoration for the odd five minutes here and there and even picked him up today. She also took him and Tasha outside to introduce them to all the chickens and Tasha came back in having been ‘Scarletted’ which is similar to having been Tangoed! but instead of refreshed by a fizzy orange drink making you feel like you’ve been slapped round the face you’ve been talked at very fast by a six year old 😆 Tasha showed impressive recall though and was able to tell me back all that she’d learnt about the chickens and their mating and laying habbits and so on :).

Vinnie slept for the first hour or so and then did a great line in charming, not quite verbal toddler wandering around the lounge exclaiming at everything, sitting next to me watching me knitting and prodding at the cat every so often. Tasha and I chatted, plotted our craft fair offerings and generally caught up. HE seems to be going really well for them now they’re settling into it and whilst we agreed once a week is enough to get together we both said how glad we are we met and how well the kids get on :).

I finished knitting the doll I’m making and made it up and sewed on facial features and hair. It’s for Scarlett and is made in her image but will be a showcase one to take to the craft fair. I’ll take some photos and explain more about it tomorrow.

We all left together at 3pm as Davies and Scarlett had swimming lessons. I got really fed up as they dragged their heels getting ready to leave, both chose to wear wellies despite me telling them to wear easier to put on and off shoes and then we all had to cram into a tiny changing room and they both struggled to get their wellies off. I had a rant at them about how I hate going there – it’s always a hassle to get there on time, I hate nagging them to get ready and leave in time, they never listen to me advising them to wear clothing / footwear that is easy to take on and off, I hate sitting in the ridiculously overheated viewing area listening to all the school mums bitching about school and competing with each other over their kids and then I hate hanging around while they get changed back again afterwards. They were both very contrite and assured me they do want to do swimming lessons and would pay heed to the sensible footwear and clothing suggestions and not need nagging in future. We’ll see. I hate cajoling and chivvying anyway particularly when it’s something they want to do themselves and I’d much rather think ‘oh sod it!’and stay home drinking tea and watching The Weakest Link! 😆

They both had good lessons – Tarly is easily swimming the 5 metres on her front and back and is easily the best in her group. They were watched today by the head instructor who will determine what groups they go into next term. If Scarlett isn’t put up I will get in touch with her and insist as she is so ready to go up and be pushed a bit more. Davies did well and was probably best in his group too but I’m not sure how indicative that is of the required standard. He can do 10 metres easily back and front so hopefully he’ll go up too. I think they would then be in lessons at the same time albeit in different pools which would be great so fingers crossed for next week’s letters.

Back home Ady had already arrived so he took over making tea for them and I headed off to Reading Group. Brenda, the librarian who runs it is on holiday so I was in charge tonight. The book was What Was Lost which was one I’d recommended having read it and really enjoyed it last year. Not enough copies had come in for me to have one to re-read so I was winging it a bit and had printed off a bit from the internet. We had 2 new members, several newish members who have come over the last couple of months and all came back and a full house of every other member. I’d only been saying to the new women that if everyone turned up we’d have about 15 but that *never* happened and we ended up with 17! We had to keep moving our circle out to fit more chairs in.

Everyone enjoyed the book which was good, always nice to have your recommendation appreciated. It wasn’t a very long meeting as when noone has anything controverial to say about a book it doens’t make for a very conversational session and I was too far away from having read it to start too much discussion. I sold some tickets for the upcomming Anne Perry (the murdering author) event next month and chatted to a few stragglers about various things including one of the new members who hung back and was very chatty. She seemed really nice and reminded me of Lynda (used to look after D and S when we were in Manchester) so I’ll look forward to chatting to her again next time.

It took ages to put all the chairs back, clear up all the empty cups and deal with all the returned books and there was a bloke sitting on the bench outside who I assumed was the cleaner waiting for me to leave so I rang Ady to be on the phone as I left. I did stick my head outside and asked if he was the cleaner as it seemed pointless to turn all the lights off and set the alarm if he was just going to undo it all moments after I left but he completely ignored me. 🙁 So I closed everything down, still with Ady on the phone and walked out past him to my car and locked the doors. I hate being last to leave 🙁

Home and Scarlett showed me she’d gone through some knitting books putting post its on the all pages she wants me to make for her and Davies spent hours doing pictures of all the covers of the Mr Gum books (very well). He’s getting really good at imitating artists styles. Tomorrow he’s going to colour them in.

We had dinner of cod which I didn;t like but it’s good to try these things to be sure – just as well I bought a load of reduced to clear pastries for breakfast though as I suspect I will wake hungry in the morning.

As I’ve mentioned previously my Mum is currently on a Being A Good Mother To Nicola kick which makes me go on a Being A Good Daughter To My Mum kick so I rang her the other week to arrange a few days out with her. This is always slightly awkward as I don’t want to suggest places that are expensive as I can’t afford to pay and whilst she can she will quickly resent doing so and get arsey (which is fair enough, I want to see her for her company not her purse) but the sort of free stuff that the kids and I enjoy isn’t really her sort of thing either so it ends up feeling like she’s tagging along as a spare part.

We’d arranged to get together today to go to a local museum but I realised last week it’s not open on Mondays which left us with a day together planned and nothing particular to do with it. Luckily it was a beautiful day which lent itself to being outside so we went to collect her at 10ish as arranged and I had two suggestions for her – Arundel (very pretty local historic town with various free or chargable things to do) or Paradise Park which I’d recently decided we’d get an annual pass for having missed a year last year so given the place space to look forward to going again.

Davies and Scarlett both wanted to go to Paradise Park so naturally Mum decided she wanted to go to Arundel. She annoyed me by calling me ‘Mum’ to the children lots – firstly I hate that sort of thing anway and secondly the kids don’t actually call me ‘Mum’. Scarlett protested about not wanting to go to Arundel loudly which only really put my mum’s back up and made her all the more adamant to go there while Davies was quiet and when she asked him said ‘well I’d rather go to Paradise Park but I’m trying not to make too much fuss about it!’. That sealed it and to Paradise Park we went. Not with the good grace one should probably give into a six year old with and I suspect when I filled the car up with petrol my Mum probably made that clear to Scarlett as they were both a bit tense when I got back in the car but never mind.

Everyone was cheered up by the time we arrived and I sorted out the annual pass, the woman on the counter very kindly gave in to Tarly’s request for an entrance sticker for her toy parrot (called, you guessed it, Parrotty) and we were all very impressed with the new bits through the Planet Earth walk including a large area about water and sealife

Both the children correctly identified various fossils, rocks and minerals and then again in the dinsosaur bit between them they knew all of them. Davies did loads of incidental reading and then in the outdoors area when my Mum commented on the two ducks being ‘very odd how two totally different breeds stick together like that!’ Davies corrected her that actually they were both mallards – just a male and a female. He then went on to tell her that most birds have males with bright plumage and females with duller colourings as she needs to be camouflaged on the nest while he needs to attract a mate competing with other males. She genuinely didn’t seem to know any of that and was very impressed with him. If nothing else spending those couple of hours with her would have done her good in terms of seeing just how much general knowledge they both have :).

The outdoors has also had lots of work done and several new areas put in. It was beautiful there in the sunshine 🙂

We would normally either eat in the cafe or have taken a picnic and go to the amusements and play area – they have token operated amusements at really cheap prices which the children love and a small soft play area and crazy golf. Both the children really wanted to do that but Mum had had enough and wanted to go ‘somewhere nice’ for lunch and suggested Brighton Marina. It took some perusading (which I thought was understandable) but we did just that via the shop where I gave them a pound to buy some sweets and left them to it but she felt the need to stand in the queue with them and take over the transaction when they got to the till. It sounds like I’m just slagging her off and really it was a lovely day, and she is trying hard but she is just really rubbish at being unselfish or remotely child-focussed. But then when we were children we were never taken out to places designed for children or families, we always tagged along with whatever my Mum and Dad wanted to do. She doesn’t really have time or patience for their interuptions and questions and observations or seem to get the same pleasure out of just being with them at their pace and seeing things through their eyes as I do. Guess that’s why I do what I do and she did what she did really…

We headed to the Marina, parked up and walked to the restuarants quay and chose the one that the kids most wanted to go to – Frankie and Bennys. The food was okay although the service was very slow but they kids got activity books and origami sheets each so they were happily occupied and they both ate everything including pudding so that was good :). We had a wander round the shops afterwards, half looking for shoes for Tarly who’s boots are falling apart but it’s not worth buying more winter shoes for now. Didn’t find anything and she’s fairly adamant she wants pretendy crocs again so we’ll sort that out later this week – today would have been perfectly warm enough for crocs so we may as well have them now and stick to wellies for colder / wetter weather.

The day seemed to have gone pretty quickly and the drive home was edging towards rush hour and heavy traffic. We got in and Davies and Scarlett showed Mum some of Davies’ many drawings and illustrated stories while I sorted out some washing. She came downstairs impressed again with him and we had a cup of tea while the children disappeared off to play. Ady arrived home just as Davies was getting upset with himself at not being able to build an x wing fighter out of junk boxes and sellotape exactly the way he had it pictured in his mind. Mum and I went off to the pet shop for sawdust bedding and Sainsbursy for food where we parted company (they only live across the road from there so she was walking home afterwards) while Ady, Davies and Scarlett built a magificent machine with flashing lights and flaps and everything :).

Back home Davies put on a show for us (complete with microphone) about not putting all our cardboard in the recycling but asking him first if he could use in in his inventions and then we had several chapters of the fourth Mr Gum book – Mr Gum and the Power Crystals. Infact we had 12 chapters because at least 5 of them were repeated one page chapters 😆

I’m still suffering with sinus pain from my long cold / virus / infection / whatever the hell it was and have hormonal reasons to add to feeling slightly sorry for myself but it’s been a nice day, in the sunshine, with lunch out and a good feeling about having got the annual pass to make lots of use out of and a glowyness about pulling off Being A Good Daughter even if I have had to come here afterwards and snipe a bit ;).

Just wanted to post up some pictures of the display Davies and Scarlett did for the library as part of their RSPB Wildlife Action Awards. I took the display down on Saturday as it’s been up for the 2 weeks we had the space booked for. I’ve had loads of direct compliments and nice comments made from other people passed on to me for the children so it’s been very well recieved.

It ties in really nicely as 3 of the other activities to do are pick up litter, write to your MP and get in the local paper so we’re going to carry on with the same theme and contact the council to see if we can borrow litter collecting stuff and then do the same walk and pick up all the litter we see. We’ll write a press release and see if we can get some coverage from the local paper and also write to our local MP about what we’re doing / have done too. I like the idea that we can tie it all together into a mini campaign and that it is something they are genuinely passionate about and have wanted to do anyway regardless of the WAA.

Here is the writing from the display:

Then they had a selection of photos that they’d taken, some drawings they’d done and some mixtures of the two (photos with drawings stuck on and drawings with photos stuck on) – a selection:

And Davies has compiled his favourites (ie mostly his own) in a display in his bedroom 🙂

I stayed up way too late on Friday night crying and laughing at Comic Relief and then had to get up for work yesterday morning so felt rather spaced out for most of the morning.

Infact most of the morning passed in a bit of a blur. I like my two morning shifts – Wednesday and Saturday the best. Not just because they are half days although obviously that helps but because they are the two busier days out of the week and although I’ve adjusted to the pace of the library now and it doesn’t often seem agonisingly slow any more like it did when I first started I’d still rather be busy and have plenty to do than be kicking my heels.

I came home and everyone else was out in the garden. My Dad had been here for most of the morning and there had been gardening, bug hunting and general outside-y stuff happening. Our plan had been to spend the afternoon at the allotment but when they finally came in they hadn’t yet had lunch so it was already about 230pm by the time we were thinking about heading up there. Davies wasn’t keen (I think he’d had his fill of outsideyness by then) so we decided to put it off til today instead.

We’ve been meaning to get along to our local Emmaus for ages as I’d told Ady about it and he wanted to have a look, I thought there might be stuff useful for my knitting / rag rugging etc and then during the houseclearing that’s going on across the road at Dragon-Lady’s house one of their vans pulled up during the week to take out some of her furniture which reminded me so we decided to go there.

Davies and I had had a long chat about giving to charity on Friday night when we made an online donation to Comic Relief so I gave them both a pound each to spend in the shop. Ady and I didn’t find anything there this time – I suspect it is one of those places where on a good day you find loads of stuff you want and other times there is nothing. Scarlett found 3 soft toys she wanted but headed to the tombola stand (which was raising money for Comic Relief) and handed her pound over she thought to pay for her toys but they thought to buy 5 tickets for the tombola. I went over and realised the misundertanding on both parts just as she was pulling her second winning ticket out – she got a packet of pens and a little salt and pepper shaker set which she was delighted with. When I explained to her what had happened she imediately said ‘well I need another pound to pay for my toys then!’ even thought she’d already put them in her bag so she went off to do that. That meant I had to give Davies another pound (he’d found a Feathers McGraw rucksack to buy) but he didn’t win on the tombola anyway.

We had a walk round the ground of the place which used to be a nunnery and is very pretty with lovely gardens. We left and Ady and Davies went into Sainsburys on the way home where they were ages. Scarlett and I waited in the car; her playing her DS until I realised Davies had left his too so I played that.They were ages though.

Home for tea for the kids followed by a bath. The book I fought to get the library to order – Maybe Yes, Maybe No: A Guide for Young Skeptics had finally come in and I’d read it earlier in the afternoon and then read it to Davies and Scarlett. Scarlett is being tricky at the moment in a very non-confrontational way which means she isn’t directly challenging anyone but is not acting in a very desireable manner so her and I have been having lots of serious chats. I’m trying very hard to talk everything through with her and be loving and supportive rather than alienating and punishing. It’s fairly exhausting for both of us though and slightly hard on Davies who is being a star but I’m trying to make sure doesn’t get sidelined or left out with her taking up so much of my time. The book actually touched on a couple of things we’ve been talking about which was good though.

We then had the first couple of chapters of the third Mr Gum book – Mr. Gum and the Goblins

I made a carrier bag ragrug (that brings my count of ones made ready to sell to a whopping 2 but at least it’s a start). Ady dug out the mincer attachment for the kenwood chef and re-minced some mince I’d bought that was really thickly minced which I hate, which much improved it and he made a lovely pasta bolognaise and we watched some old Ed Burn standup on a sky channel which was very funny.

Today I had a lie in without really having a lie in if that makes sense. It was only 9am which isn’t very late anyway but the radio had been on in both the lounge and the kitchen which drifts up the stairs and into my sleep since about 7am so I didn’t feel like I’d had a proper lie in. Also no one was dressed or breakfasted when I came downstairs so I was grumpy about that and we didn’t end up getting out til nearly 11am :rolls:

We went over to my parents first to collect some frogspawn from their pond. We take it every year as the fish simply eat the whole lot otherwise. One year we did get to about five froglets but they all died while we were at Kessingland :(. Another year all of the frogspawn died overnight before even turning into tadpoles which led me to suspect the bucket they’d been in hadn’t been washed out properly from whatever stuff was in it before and last year there were none at all. This year had a healthy amount and we took it all to the allotment for our wildlife pond along with a handful of watersnails which Dad had in abundance in his pond. We all stood chatting round the pond and could happily have stayed longer but wanted to get up to the allotment really. I’ll blog about all of that properly over in the relevant place to save repeating myself.

I wasn’t really in the right mood for it today though and we’d not thought to take more than bottles of water so started to get hungry. I also need to take some handwash and hand cream as although I have gotten over getting my hands dirty in the first place once the dirt starts to dry and cake on my hands I need to wash them. I must make a list of all the things that would be useful to have up there and make sure I gather them altogether to take next time we go.

We came home and the kids wanted to stay outside so they played in the garden while I got the dinner on (ham in coke with roast potatoes, mash potatoes, parsnips, peas, yorkshire puddings and gravy. Well gravy for some of us, others had ketchup ;)) and downloaded photos.

Scarlett had a bath while Davies and I went to the shop together, then played with the magnetic letters (he wrote ‘I love mummy and daddy’ I wrote’ Davies is 8, great, a bit late and my mate’ for him to read and then we cooperatively wrote ‘the truth is a lemon meringue’ which we’ve left up on the radiator :))and then did a Where’s Wally puzzle. Davies then went out in the garden with Ady while Scarlett continued having her very long bath indeed. Sometimes, just sometimes, she’s a bit like me that girl ;).

They came in, she came out. Ady brushed her hair and Davies had a shower while I served up dinner. Over dinner we talked at Davies request about ‘things we like but other people don’t’ and had to go round the table naming something each that we liked but at least one other person round the table didn’t. Inventive, if rather random 😆 We finished the Mr Gum book and then I went for a bath. I was supposed to be peaceful and relaxing and I wanted to finish the last few pages of my book. It was sort of relaxing and I did finish my book but both kids followed me in there and begged to wash my feet (I had some foot scrub stuff and a face pack I wanted to do) so I had both legs stuck out of the bath in different directions while they scrubbed and then Tarly peeled off my face pack which sort of got in the way of reading my book. They finally went to bed – Davies to listen to You’re a Bad Man, Mr Gum (BBC Childrens Audio) “>Mr Gum audio book which he is listening to on average 3 times a night since I brought it home on Thursday :).

Tomorrow we’re spending the day with my Mum although we’ve yet to decide exactly what we’re doing. Don’t want to jinx it but it would be nice to finally have a Monday morning where noone is feeling too ill to go somewhere…

Scarlett did indeed continue to have a rough nights sleep and ended up in bed with me while Ady decamped to her bed. Not at all sure what that was about and she’s been slightly wobbly today too.

I was up earlier than normal as I registered in my half asleep mind that it was later than it should be to still hear Ady around in the house so got up to check why he was still here and stayed up. Which meant I was early up enough to have a fit of efficiency in housekeeping and Home Ed and did some washing, packed a picnic and was on my second cup of tea by 9am suggesting we have a real proper look at the geology loan box.

There’s about 15 fossils and rocks and minerals in there all in little labelled bags with a print out describing each one, a time line about periods and how long ago they were (cretaceous, jurassic, triassic and so on), a page all about things like lustre, cleavage and streaks (in relation to rocks, not just generally ;)). We went through every single one, opening it, passing it around, smelling it (one of the rocks was iron pyrite (or fools gold) which has a smell about it and the sheet said to smell it) and generally exploring it. I have to confess to getting bored about half way through. I did chivy them along a bit but tried not to let my own lack of interest show too much as they were both very enthused, particularly Davies. As I said later to Davies, it’s the first time one of them has had a real interest that I just don’t share at all.

I had time for another cup of tea and they did some DSing before it was time to leave to go to Highdown Gardens to meet up with Julie, Jack, Maisie and Lorna. The weather looked a bit iffy but it didn’t rain and we had a really nice couple of of hours wandering round chatting and playing and generally catching up with each other. I did feel a bit uneasy at one point as the gardens are ornamental and seem to have ever more signs up every time we visit about all the things you aren’t allowed to do. The latest include ‘Do not let your children go to the toilet in the gardens, there are toilets at the entrance’, ‘Do not pick the flowers’ and ‘No ball games’. I’m not sure if they are because there are huge amounts of people coming and abusing the gardens or whether they’ve got a new laminator and gone sign crazy but it did feel a bit oppressive and I was conscious of the children running and playing and kept feeling the urge to shush them and get them to walk in an orderly fashion whenever we walked past anyone else.

Julie hadn’t brought a picnic and they needed to get back as they had friends coming round after school so we headed for home. We debated going somewhere else but none of us could come up with anything so we came home. The kids both did some drawing / painting and I threaded up and wove a rag rug ready for selling in shades of pink. It’s more large doormat size than the bigger sizes I’ve done before but it only took a couple of hours and I reckon I’m better having a few different sizes to offer with a view to taking commissions if people are after something more specific and bespoke.

Davies did a fab picture of rocks and fossils with charcoal and pencils – will get a photo of it in daylight. He then decided to label it so using a mixture of looking at the print out from the loan box, some help from me and his own spelling he did that too.

Ady came home and the kids both spent some time in the cupboard under the stairs trying to find our laminator. They did but the cupboard then needed a major tidying up from Ady to put it all back together again :rolls:

Scarlett and I went round to Rainbows. She decided she needed me to stay again after all despite being fine last week. She then got upset because another girl came to join the game she was trying to play with me (tossing hoops over cones) so she went off to get more cones and then the leaders said everthing needed tidying up. They did some planting of bulbs (mothers day gifts, assume they are making decorative pots next week for them) and then some skipping but Scarlett’s heart wasn’t in it and she ended up sat next to me wanting to cuddle. I suggested we might as well go home really than sit in a hall cuddling and she agreed so we left! It was only about 15 minutes early and I wasn’t really expecting her to agree but it seemed a bit pointless sitting there.

Back home to drop Tarly off and I nipped back out to get some mushrooms for Ady’s pizza then came back to help tidy up, make pizza, have a bath and watch Comic Relief. Scarlett went to bed / sleep pretty early, Davies stayed up until the viewing got too inappropriate (just before 11ish I think), we donated online and now despite feeling tempted to stay up and watch the last hour or so I really need to go to bed as I’m working in the morning.

Work all day for me. It went fairly quickly; I spent some time on the enquiry desk but didn’t really have many enquiries as it was quiet while I was on there. I spent some time chasing up reservations that have been outstanding for over a month (we get a print out) and some time printing off reading group questions and discussion ideas for next weeks reading group which I’m running. It’s a book I suggested but we struggled to get hold of copies so I’ve not actually read it since I read it back at the beginning of last year so I wanted to refresh my memory. It was one I really enjoyed but for several personal reasons so I’m hoping it was still a good read for people who haven’t worked either in retail management or in a large shopping mall – What Was Lost

Sian and I were deeply entertained by reading passages of a delightful book called ‘Peter and Pamela Grow Up’. It’s writen by ‘HW Tame, the Headmaster of a large mixed primary school and a marriage guidance counsellor’ who has ‘for the last few years given a series of lessons on the facts of life to his school leavers aged between 10 and 11 years’ because ‘he feels that if a child is not given some form of sex instruction before he leaves his primary school there is great danger when he comes into contact with much older children at his secondary modern or grammar school, that he will learn about sex in a way whihc can easily lead to his adopting a wrong attitude towards it’. It is an hilarious read and if I get time I may well type out some it’s wisdom so I can share it all with you 😆

I enjoyed most of my lunchbreak alone in the staff room with a cup of tea and a magazine but then the tutor who runs computer classes came up and shattered my peace with his inane chatter :(.

The afternoon went quickly as I was weeding out old dvds and cds which always whiles away the time quickly.

Back at home Ady had been here in the morning and among other things had been showing Davies how to use word as he wanted to type up some of his Star Wars stories. In the afternoon my mum was here and I think they mostly did lego.

I got home and was pissed off about Ady and even my Mum messing about with the laundry (Ady had washed pretty much all the dirty washing in the house, and possibly even some clean stuff too, there’s so much of it) but without actually giving much thought to getting it all dry. Then Mum had taken a load out of the machine and left that in the basket (would have been better left in the machine until I could deal with it) so there was wet washing everywhere and all of the dry stuff was still waiting to be put away, curse, mutter, gripe). I made the kids’ tea and sat down thinking there is no bloody way I could have this as my all-the-time life only seeing the kids for an hour to feed them, coming home after work to deal with housework and cooking etc.

Davies was doing lots of tic like noises while he was eating and I quickly realised there was something upsetting him. He didn’t seem to know what it was himself but we unravelled it in the end. He worries that Mum favours him over Scarlett and is really hard on Tarly. He hates it and feels uncomfortable with the favouritism, guilty about Scarlett being treated unfairly and doesn’t really want to be fawned over by my Mum anyway. Also he’d overheard me telling Scarlett yesterday that the crossest my Dad had ever been with me when I was a child was when I let Frazer take the blame for something I’d done and just stood by and let him get into trouble when I was the one who’d done the ‘crime’. This was designed to make Tarly feel sorry for something she’d done yesterday but actually made Davies feel bad today when he used a bit of lego Scarlett wanted so she made a fuss and then got shouted at by Mum as he felt he’d got her into trouble by something he’d done.

Scarlett, predictably didn’t even seem to have registered any of this but it had made Davies feel guilty and therefore stressed and tic-prone. I can never decide whether I am too in tune with him and pick up on things that he’d just learn to deal with or whether if I didn’t step in and help him all of his little things like this would get worse and out of hand. Ah well, it’s academic anyway really isn’t it.

All of that thrashed out Ady arrived home and we finished the Mr Gum book we’re on and Davies took the first one on audiobook up to bed with him to listen to (about 4 times I think as A turned it off when he went up to bed at 11ish) as read by the author which is always my favourite way to listen to a story as you get to hear just how they wrote it.

Scarlett is very restless and keeps calling out and crying in her sleep but not waking up. It’s days like these when Ady doesn’t get home til gone 7pm because he’s been home in the morning and I only get a couple of hours with the kids during which time I spent in the kitchen or dealing with the fallout of not having been here myself that I question whether work is worth it 🙁 which is a shame as I had a good day and was only being asked by my boss when I thought in the future I might be able to increase my hours… Surely there’s enough call just between us lot for development of a clone machine to be justified? 😆

Watched Comic Relief does The Apprentice and am looking forward to the real Apprentice starting again soon :). And now I think I’m ready for bed too, I had a night of very vivid dreams which had me waking up feeling I’d not rested at all but actually ben incredibly busy all night!

I had a plan to take Davies and Scarlett out for the day somewhere today. In celebration of everyone finally feeling better (see how I’ll jinx that for tomorrow now ;)) I decided last night in the bath to go somewhere with them. I rang my Mum who is currently on a Being A Better Mother To Nic drive which pushes me into a Being A Better Daughter To Mum drive to ask if she wanted to come too.

My two possible ideas were a local working museum which I know is very good but is also very expensive so we never go to but has an offer running currently for cheap entry for local people or Paradise Park the dinosaur place where we’ve not been for ages and is a good day out and also has a fair bit on fossils and minerals which fits in with stuff we’re talking about at the moment.

Mum couldn’t do today but said she really wants to go to Amberley so we rearranged that for a different day next week. Ady reckons he can get discount on an annual pass to Paradise Park as he sells to them and is going there on Friday so told me to hold off and he’d see what he could set up. Which successfully scuppered both my plans really. So I went to bed deciding to see what the weather was doing this morning and make a decision then.

The weather was nice but I slept in and so was still pottering about dealing with breakfast and clothes and chickens at 10ish when Lucy sent me a text and we arranged to meet at the park. We were predictably late as I foolishly only allowed the 5 minutes it should have taken to put shoes and coats on, get into the car and drive the 2 minutes it takes to get to the park and it somehow took closer to 15 minutes :rolls:

The four kids all played really well, Lucy and I got to chat and when they started to get hungry an hour or so later they were all keen for everyone to come back to our house for lunch. Scarlett’s been a bit of a minx today, behaving trickily and then saying an airy ‘oh sorry’ and expecting that to put things right which has made me cross with her. I also totally overreacted to walking into the lounge and finding Davies touching a blanket which had been put over the telly, which is stupid enough on it’s own let alone the fact the box of museum fossils had also been put on top of the TV and fallen down the back 😯 I sent both my kids to their rooms and went to get the full story. Scarlett said she’d put the blanket on the tv as Davies had turned it on and she didn’t want to watch it. I stomped upstairs to find Davies sobbing because he had just been trying to put right the fact that the blanket was on the TV and the fossils had fallen down the back (Lucy had moved the fossils which were on a chair and didn’t realise what they were or consider putting them on top of the tv might be a bad idea :rolls:).He was really upset about getting the blame for something he hadn’t done and was trying to actually put right. 🙁 I managed to calm him down, apologise and get him to concede that while I’d been wrong to do so jumping to that conclusion was easily done and that he should have come and told me what was going on rather than trying to deal with it himself.

Peace was restored. I made some cookies because we didn’t have anything ‘nice’ to offer everyone after their sandwiches but I don’t actually think any of the children had any in the end. They mostly played in the garden and aside from Tarly doing a couple more unthinking acts and Richard struggling to keep up with the older ones a bit it all seemed to go okay. Which was nice, I’ve missed sitting and chatting to Lucy.

They left, and the kids and I went into the kitchen to wash up and cook their tea. While I was chatting to them Scarlett suddenly said ‘oh look, there’s a pheasant on the garage roof’ in a fairly casual way. I was halfway through saying ‘well obviously there won’t be a pheasant on the garage roof’ when I too looked out of the window to see a pheasant on the garage roof! It them got spooked and flew down onto the patio.

We raced upstairs with the camera to see if from Davies’ bedroom window and then went downstairs to look at it. It seemed fine, was a cock bird (the pretty coloured ones, hens are just brown) and wasn’t quite as giddily scared of us as pheasants normally are. Scarlett had a theory that maybe one of the ones Ady’d brought home hadn’t been properly dead which made us laugh! It then went through the hedge into the chickens area causing mayhem in there and flew off from the front. No idea where it came from or indeed where it went but the children are hoping it returns with a hen to live in our garden! 🙂

The kids had tea and got ready for Badgers. We had to put the chickens away as it was still daylight but would be properly dark by the time we got home so that was a comical few minutes as they kept jumping back out again as we put them in so in the end I stood holding the door shut and Davies and Scarlett grabbed them one at a time so we could shove them in.

They both seemed to enjoy Badgers – not sure what Scarlett did but Davies learnt about the Chinese years and what animal they all were (he’s a dragon) then they had to pick up sweets using chopsticks. He has managed to befriend the two boys who were causing him some strife (proper word, strife ;)) and was full of happy chatter about it.

Ady met me there and we went for our usual walk about taking in the Co Op (where I bought some socks for Davies who never seems to have any and a few sewing / knitting bits which were reduced to pence each including a mini sewing kit each for the kids as Davies has been asking for one since he made his ewok) and then Waitrose where we got loads of reduced to clear bread rolls from the bakery and some almond croissants for breakfast in the morning.

Scarlett went home with Ady and Davies came with me (hence I know what he did but not what she did) and we enjoyed a surreal moment when he told me I should over take Ady so we could beat them home while we drove down a 30mph road with a speed camera. I asked if he thought that was safe or sensible and he replied ‘of course not, but probably worth it for the fun!’. He then reminded me that we’d been overtaken by someone on that road coming home from Badgers once and said it was really bad and we should report him. I asked quite how he thought we should do that and his reply was ‘well just, you know, tell everyone’ so I wound down the car window and yelled it out into the night which had Davies giggling hysterically and wondering whether it would make the news! 🙂 I love my boy:)

Home for a few chapters of Mr Gum & the Biscuit Billionaire then bed for them (Davies took sewing to bed, not sure H&S Ady would be happy about that if he’d realised. Needles? In bed?!), bath for me and then I made toad in the hole and we watched Location, Location and Grand Designs. I love Wednesday night tv :).

During the week I mean. We seem to manage fine during weekends but I’ve been hankering after our weekday lifestyle for, ooh, days ;).

So we breakfasted and dressed and headed over to Littlehampton museum where I’d arranged by email to collect a loan box on some geology exhibits. We found the museum really easily but had to drive round for a while to find a parking space. I wasn’t sure how big the box was but figured a box full of rocks wasn’t likely to be something I’d want to carry very far.

The receptionist at the museum said the curator had just gone into a meeting so we arranged to pop back in an hour and went off to have a look round the town. We were just killing time really but managed to go to a bookshop selling the WBD books and got a Mr Gum one for Davies and a Julia Donaldson one for Scarlett. We had a peruse round some charity shops but didn’t find anything to buy so headed back to the museum as the car was in a space for one hour only.

Fortunately the curator had just come out of her meeting so was around to hand over the box (fairly small) and for me to fill out the form which I’d suddenly been worrying about the level of information required on and whether it might be something passed to LA departments – hate the level of paranoia the recent stuff is creating in me. It was very brief and just asked for name and phone number though so I needn’t have worried and spent all that time creating false identities and dates of birth for the children ;).

We had a very brief look around the museum as I was worried about the car but it looks excellent so we’ll ensure we have time for a proper look around when we return the loan box.

On the way home we called into Broadwater to get some french bread for lunch and pay a quick visit to our favourite old fashioned sweet shop for a quarter of something each :).

Home for lunch and a read of the Mr Gum book Davies got which was very good.

Scarlett has been pretty much back to normal today but was adamant she didn’t want to go swimming today so I agreed. I’d rather miss swimming and have her properly definitely better tomorrow than push the issue and maybe set her back. We left home slightly early to pay a flying visit to the allotment to check on recent plantings. Planning a few hours up there at the weekend to get some more plantings in.

Davies had a good lesson, Scarlett sat and DS’d and as I’d predicted wobbled about not having had her lesson after all. Home for their tea and a bath and hairbrush for Tarly which took ages. Ady came home, we started exploring the geology box but put it aside to look at properly tomorrow and we had some more stories – Scarlett’s WBD one, a Barefoot book called Faery’s gift and the first couple of chapters of the next Mr Gum book we’ve got (biscuit billionaire – no idea if there is an order to them, I suspect not).

Ady cooked a lovely roast chicken dinner and we watched Bridget Jones, Edge of Reason which happened to be on.