One word? When seven would do…

It was Pulborough Brooks day today. It always seems to come round much more frequently than monthly. It’s one of the few local ‘organised’ things that we almost always attend, mostly because there is no certainty who will turn up and I quite like that aspect to it.

We’d been planning to take Tasha and co but they were otherwise engaged so we headed off slightly late as I was drinking tea and Davies and Scarlett were engrossed in something else. We arrived at 1045am and as we walked into the visitor centre we came across Chris and Julie :). Chris has done something to his hand so has been off work for a few days and decided to come along too. He and I don’t always see eye to eye on everything but it was really nice to see him today (it’s been a while) and we had a good chat :). The four cousins went off almost as soon as we arrived and did the whole walk together, way out infront of us. Infact it was only Davies who popped back briefly to us who we saw for the whole walk.

Lorna did of course stay with us 😆

We walked part of the way with Katie who organises it and chatted a fair bit about last weeks Bubbles and the national events being planned. I got some nice positive feedback on my telly stuff and I talked to Chris and Julie about Davies’ Badger camp.

Back at the centre the children were already in the playpark so we said goodbye to Chris and Julie and I sat down while the kids ate and played. It was a very nice couple of hours :).

Scarlett had £5 (again!) from Davies buying something or other (oh I remember, he got a W&G dvd) so she looked, at length, in the shop to see if there was anything she wanted to buy. She decided there wasn’t.

Eventually at about 130pm we decided to head off. On the way I decided I’d neglected the allotment for long enough so we nipped home to grab a few bits and change shoes and went up there for an hour or so.

The children ran off to play in the woods up at the top of the field. They are enjoying a lot of freedom lately but I am trying to let them have as much as they feel comfortable having. Davies will need a mobile phone for camp so I am planning on putting a small amount of credit on a phone each for them and showing them how to make and recieve calls. I think being able to check in with them and vice versa will make me feel happier too. I suppose they were gone for about half an hour and then they came back down and came into the allotments with me for another half an hour or so. I’ll blog about allotment stuff in the relevant place rather than here.

We left as it started to rain and went to Tescos. I wanted some vegetables for dinner, a mini pedal bin for the food waste in the kitchen, a sugar shaker for icing sugar and to look at external harddrives as Ady had said they had some on special offer. While I went off to view these mostly unexciting things I left Davies and Scarlett in the toy aisle. When I went back they were both very excited as Davies had found a Ben 10 figure he really wanted and Scarlett had decided to use her £5 to buy it for him! I’m not sure who was most happy about this – Davies was delighted at getting his toy and Scarlett was thrilled to be doing something nice for him – they had a big cuddle in the middle of Tescos which nearly brought tears to my eyes :).

We came home via the tip where I dumped off 3 huge sacks of allotment weed waste which just isn’t compostable as it comes back again. I got filthy doing so and was all squirmy all the drive home again with muddy hands.

Ady had beaten us home and got the kids tea on. I spent time putting loads of photos and music onto the harddrive to make my laptop breathe a sigh of relief and start running a bit faster.

And that’s about it for today really…

As Ady dubbed it.

Not far from home, just one night, minimal packing, no planning at all!

On about Tuesday I realised we didn’t have anything at all planned for this weekend. This is incredibly unusual for us and actually had only come about because I’ve swapped Saturdays for a while so should have been working. We decided if the weather was nice we’d chuck the tent and sleeping stuff and a change of clothes in the car and head off. We decided Dorset would be good – Ady had in mind some fossil hunting, I had some dolphin spotting. We toyed with the idea of the Bristol Balloon festival which is something I’ve fancied doing for years but we only wanted to go for one night really and I was fretful all campsite in the area might well be booked up for that.

In the end on Saturday morning I slept in, as did the children and then at 10am my Dad turned up. We all sat about drinking tea / coffee and chatting for an hour or so and then decided actually yes we would go. So Dad agreed to pop back over in the evening and again in the morning to tend to cat and chickens and headed off while we literally chucked the small tent, sleeping bags and camping mats, a change of clothes each and ourselves in the car and were away within the hour.

We were on the road by 12. By 1pm we’d barely cleared Chichester (20 miles) thanks to dreadful traffic. We debated turning back but took some rat runs and eventually got ourselves to the Dorest borders by 2pm. Traffic was still bad so we went for ‘nearest campsites’ on the satnav which turned up several within half an hour all requiring a ferry trip. We assumed it was the chain link Swanage ferry we’ve used before so went for that and turned off the motorway onto the New Forest road, which we’ve never been to before despite living only an hour away.

We were immediately transfixed by all the horses and ponies just wandering around everywhere. I’d always assumed they’d be on the grassy bits but distant. Actually they are there meandering about on the roads, near the shops, inbetween people and their picnics. We passed a campsite which looked fab but had no facilities so you needed your own toilet, which we’d not brought (microcamping remember?) but will definitely think about for another time. We kept following the satnav right the way to Lymington where it became clear the ‘ferry’ was not the Swanage chainlink but a proper main ferry to the Isle of Wight. We debated it but it is pricey, there was a long queue and actually it was Cowes week so not the best time to be arriving late on Saturday afternoon looking for campsites without a booking.

We stopped for something to eat and debated a plan. Eventually after much circuitous driving round Poole area we decided to head for Weymouth with a worst case scenario of fish and chips on the beach for tea and driving home again and a best case scenario of finding a campsite on the way. We tried about five and found them all fully booked and then eventually at Wareham there were 3 all on one road within a mile of each other. The first was full (it was turning into a Microcamping out of season nativity) but the second had space. So finally by about 6pm we were pitched and installed at Birchwood Tourist Park. Very clean, excellent toilets and showers (not that we actually used the showers), a playpark and paddling pool, waterpoints at every corner and surrounded by woodland. Also very busy and a bit caravantastic! But perfect for what we wanted which was a cheapish pitch for the night (£23.50).

We got set up, Davies and Scarlett went off exploring together and once the tent was up and bedding sorted we headed off for something to eat. There was some debate but the popular vote was for KFC – I later learnt this was Davies and Scarlett being lovely to me as they know it is the only fast food I like. In this instance they were actually slightly misguided as I’d probably rather have had fish and chips but it was a lovely thought. So we shared one of the buckets of chicken in the Weymouth branch and then headed for the beach.

It was about 8pm and Weymouth is quite a party town with a pub on every corner (I know, I once spent a wild weekend there, although Em, who knows even better may well come along and correct me with tales of the peaceful side of the place ;)) so I was slightly conscious of it being Saturday night in a town centre and guided us away from the actual beach towards the harbour area. We parked up and had a nice walk all the way round having noted that the bridge was due to lift at 9pm which is always worth standing and watching.

We chatted to loads of people crabbing along the walls and admired their catches before heading back to the bridge to watch the road split in half and lift right up so a tall boat could go through.

It was 915 and dark by then so we made our way back to the car and headed for the campsite. After a wrong turn we got back about 10pm and having returned to the tent via the loos for teeth brushing etc Davies and Scarlett got into bed while Ady and I sat outside for an hour gazing at the stars and enjoying a glass of wine /bottle of beer. It was a beautifully clear, very warm night but we were both tired and were also in the tent long before midnight.

There was some level of noise from a party of youngish people nearby but they either shut up by midnight or we were tired enough to sleep through them as they certainly didn’t disturb me.

This morning I woke about 8am and Davies woke at the same time. We got up and went over to the toilet block together before coming back to get dressed. Ady got up too and went to see if the onsite shop sold hot drinks. They didn’t 🙁

We do have a little single burner stove which clicks onto a mini gas cannister but we didn’t have any gas. We definitely need to add that plus cups and hot drink ingredients to our microcamping list as a bedtime hot drink and a morning cup of tea are just essentials however light you’re travelling I’ve decided.

I sat and read for a while which was lovely. We’d pitched right next to the patch of woodland which was beautiful and also shady which meant we didnt wake sweltering too early in the morning in the tent. It did mean we still had dew as we remained in the shade past 10am but I think that needing to air the tent when we got home was a small price to pay.

Davies and Scarlett headed off to play while we took everything down and packed it up. Those of you who have camped with us will know who did most of the taking down and who did most of the packing up ;). We left about 1030am.

Some debate ensued about where to go and what to do so we headed for Bridport and got breakfast / lunch / brunch / two cups of tea at the Morrisons there. That Morrisons always reminds me of Jax after she had to yell across at me when we were there Hesfesing and I was wondering gormlessly along not expecting to know anyone and therefore ignoring the calls of ‘Nic!’ that I could hear.

Suitably refreshed we decided to go to West Bay beach where we’ve been various times before and always more or less had to ourselves. Not today!

It was heaving and it took us ages to find somewhere to park. We finally found somewhere and the person who’s space we took kindly gave us their ticket with 90 minutes left on it too :). We didn’t think that would be long enough but actually the beach was so packed and it was so very hot I instantly declared myself to not want to stay there very long. We do have a beach under a mile away from home and I was wearing a black top and jeans so not remotely dressed for sitting on a beach anyway. The other 3 all had a paddle and then 2 of them spent some time fully submerged in the sea 😆

Eventually we did walk along the cliffs for a while hoping to find ammonites like Helen’s but failed. We did find a dead mouse and a dead rabbit though which millions of years from now could well be fossilised…

We had half an hour left so declared it Ice cream o’clock and had quite the most delicious authentic West country ice creams ever. Ady and Scarlett had ‘chocoholic’ flavour with huge chocolate chunks, Davies had ‘toffee fudge fiasco’ which had big toffee chunks in it and I had honey and stem ginger with enough ginger flavour and chunks to make my tongue spikey with the heat – divine :).

We decided as it was now nearly 3pm we’d start heading for home and stop in the New Forest. So that was what we did – two stops in two places with a wander around in both. We saw loads of people who had set themselves up for the day with their barbecues and decided that’s definitely something we’re going to do.

We finally got home about 730pm. I bathed and fed the children while Ady unloaded the car – another advantage to microcamping -it only takes minutes to unload everything. We also had baths and food and now as I am very tired and the photos are taking ages I’ll publish this and add them in tomorrow.

A really lovely family weekend – we all loved it 🙂

It’s all go being a minor local HE celeb you know 😉

I’ve now had 2 people putting themselves forward for the role as my PA which made me laugh. Not the notion that I’d be needing a PA you understand – that is entirely plausible. I’ll be needing my phone answered, my emails replied to, my spelling checked when typing comments on the Argus website and my table kept clean and tidy to name but a few tasks.

Not even the idea that working for me would be some sort of prize job. For a start there would be very little in the way of renumeration – I’m hardly flush with the cash these days.

No, what really made me laugh was the idea that I’d have not one but two children home all day with me under the guise of being Home Educated when the genuine reason for them not being in school is so that I can keep them in domestic servitude. PA? Hardly, I’ve already got two of them! 😆

Scarlett managed to bump her head on the radiator while playing Horsey rides with Davies first thing this morning. PA Davies was deputised to kiss that better.

I made my own cup of tea, poured cereal into bowls for the children and let the chickens out and fed them all myself. I like to keep it real, stay in touch with my roots, that sort of thing.

I whizzed round the shop to get a copy of the paper and left the children to look after each other. That seemed to go swimmingly.

We packed a picnic and headed off to the p.a.r.k. Lucy and I had arranged to go there and sit for as long as we could before needing to aquiesce to children’s demands to go home and stop playing with each other. Our children are not known for getting on well with each other for any length of time. Usually. But today they proved us all wrong and we sat in the park for over 4 hours while they all got along swimmingly. Life is so much better since we arranged marriages and betrothed them all to each other – the pre-marriage guidance counselling we set up has ironed out all the problems between the four of them and they are on track for a long and happy life together.

There was much hilarity in the park when the park cat – she does seem to be genuinely the Park Cat and spent most of the day loving being with all the children – got cornered by 3 massive dogs and they staged a Hairy McLary-esque panto across the fields chasing each other. The children mostly got dirty and had fun together while we chatted.

Back home I made pizza dough (bored of pretending I use Davies and Scarlett as PAs now) and let the little chicks out within the big chickens area to see what would happen. It all seems like it’s going to be a straightforward introduction to each other. The children spent some time out there with them all and then came in to finish off the colouring and drawing they’d been doing before it was dinner time.

I ran them a bath to wash off the park grime, chatted to Ali on the phone and restrained myself from engaging any further with the loony man commenting on the Argus thread. Just as well really as he has this evening proved himself to be quite deranged!

Ady came home and he and Scarlett read together with her attempting the odd words here and there, while Davies made a start on his Mr Gum book. He did well but I suspect it is just too fast paced a read to appeal when he is still at spelling out stage. He’s certainly getting there though 🙂

I read them because I’d ordered in various award winning books for us and some of which Scarlett had been asking me to do as she looks at it in bed and then I finished off with a chapter of Mr Gum read aloud to them.

Ady and I played ‘name the tune first’ with his Mp3 player, both had baths, and I cooked dinner. Scarlett came back out of bed to sing along to some Michael Jackson and then we had dinner.

We’re planning on heading off with the tent for the weekend in the morning, so I probably won’t be around til Sunday evening.

Work day for me today and an all day-er with Nightmare Colleague (henceforth known as NC). I had morning teabreak with her and should have been on lunchbreak with her too but simply couldn’t face it so took my sandwiches and a book and went and sat in my car instead.

Other than that it was a nice day – everyone at work had seen me on TV and so had several regular borrowers who came in to say ‘saw you on telly!’. So much for protecting my anonymity and keeping my home and work life seperate and private them eh. I guess if there was something worth coming out of hiding and risking our not known status for it was the threat of losing such status anyway but it does all make me feel slightly edgy. Seeing my name on various national lists is also a bit unnerving. I think I might be An Official Home Educator now ;). I briefly thought I was going to be on the radio agian next week but am very pleased a replacement has been found. Quite apart from the hassle of getting there with children and going through the nerves beforehand I think I am a bit overexposed now and it’s in danger of morphing from ‘Home Educators are up in arms about the review’ to ‘Nic Goddard is a bit pissed off about the review’. We were playing the clip to my parents earlier and they all laughed at me for being able to recite the whole clip including all the bits that the reporter says too.

I got home and the children wanted pancakes (Davies) and french toast (Scarlett) for tea so I stood in the kitchen doing various things with batter and frying pans for ages. Mum had been here for the afternoon and claims to be teaching Davies to tell the time. I rather suspect he has just picked it up from the bits I’ve said to him and what he’s worked out himself but telling the time is one of the things my Dad is often to be heard going on about him not being able to do so aslong as Davies is happy with that I don’t really mind.

Dad arrived while the pancake cooking was happening and sat in the lounge with the children while I explained to Mum exactly what the whole bubble thing was about and why it is such a big deal and how there are no ‘these other people pretending to Home Educate who should be found out’. She finally got it, got indignant and agreed to write to our MP – well actually no, she said ‘if you write a letter and print it out for me, I’ll sign it’ actually and sign the petition.

Back in the lounge Dad wanted to see the tv clip again as they’d caught it on the hop last night and he claimed to not know what the fuss was about either. It took longer to convince him of the issues and he still maintains any government action will be done with the very best intentions but finally did concede that taking our freedom away is simply not okay and agreed to sign the petition too. He said he doubts very much we’ll get anywhere and realistically I’m sure he’s right but I refuse to be apathetic about this and will drag him along with me til it really is too late.

Ady came home and cooked dinner which was lovely. My Mum pissed me off by fluttering around him and muttering about how he shouldn’t have to come home after a days work and do the cooking.I did remind her that actually I’d also been at work all day and the extra work was caused by cooking for them too but she said ‘yes, but I can’t believe a man comes home and cooks’ which even Frazer picked her up on talking about TV chefs. Argh my family!

We had a mostly nice evening though, with my cookie and ice cream sandwich birthday cake laden with candles going down well if being rather melty and drippy.Tasted nice though.

Mum, Dad and Frazer left shortly after the kids went to bed (about 1130pm) and now I am really very extremely tired and am going to bed too.

We all slept in this morning thanks to a very late night last night. We rushed around getting dressed, breakfasted and kitchen cleared before nipping out to pick up Tasha and co to bring them back here. We’d not long been in when my food shopping arrived so Tasha (and Vinnie) very kindly assisted in bringing that in and putting it away.

Tasha and I had a couple of hours chatting, the children played, Scarlett appeared downstairs and spent some time organising all my knitted patches into a blanket shape – I’m nearly there so have set myself a target of Sustainability Camp to get it finished and sewn together.

We had lunch and then headed off to the local green where there was a National Play Day event. I have to confess to previously having had no idea what it was all about and only knowing about it and going along as we’d arranged to meet Caz and Bid there as they were supporting some friends who run circus skills workshops. It was way more than that and there were 100s of people there doing arts and crafts and making and stuff. Davies and Toby got busy with totally ignoring all of the free activities on the green and going off into the trees to play with Archie and some other new found friends. Scarlett did some massive mural type artworks which she brought over to me, using shaving foam, footprints, paint and more and then went off to join the boys.

It was lovely to see Caz and Bid as always and they were most interested in yesterday’s antics and indeed text me later to say they’d caught the tv stuff as it was repeated on various other local news programs around Sussex throughout today.

We finally left about 330pm after an ice cream stop and dropped Tasha and co home on the way back. Davies took a call on my mobile from the local paper and arranged for them to ring me back, which they did and I did yet more waxing lyrical on what we do and why we do it while hanging the washing out.

I made 3 giant chocolate chip cookies to sandwich together with ice cream for my Dad’s birthday cake tomorrow as cookies and ice cream is his favourite dessert and got dinner ready for Davies and Scarlett who were very busy playing a Michael Jackson game with the geomags. Don’t ask me how MJ has now become a game my kids play but they are experts on the life and times of him complete with discography of all his songs and names of all his siblings. They don’t seem to know all the ins and outs of the child abuse allegations mind you and I think I may leave filling them in on that whole episide for now really.

Ady came home, the kids had a bath, I brushed Tarly’s hair and we read the last few chapters of the Mr Gum book we were re-reading before it was bedtime for them.

During all of this my parents rang to say they’d just seen us on TV. A slightly odd conversation where my Mum said to me ‘well you love all that don’t you?’ about me being on TV and radio as though I am some sort of Jordan / Posh Spice type media whore. Which I so am not! I’d never actively seek out that sort of scrutiny and whilst I’m happy I did a fair job of representing myself and the message we were trying to convey yesterday I’d have been far more happy to go along and anonymously blow bubbles really… She followed that up with ‘there has been a lot of fuss about all these people pretending to home educate and not really doing it hasn’t there?’ and then my Dad came on to mutter something dark about how ‘they should all be at school’. So not much in the way of ‘well done’ ‘you came across well’ ‘we’re proud of you’ or any of the stuff it would have been quite nice to hear from them really. Gahhhhh. All of which meant I had a minor wobble and spent ages with both children seperately listing all the things I love about them and am so proud of them for and think they are amazing and awesome at. NEVER EVER will my children feel anything but love, warmth and admiration from me, particularly when they are brave and strong about something they are passionate and believe in and stick their heads way out of their comfort zone to support.

Fortunately in our house it’s a two way street and my kids are equally as intuative and in touch with me so Davies called me upstairs at 11pm to tell me he loved me and asked if I could stay with him while he fell asleep so he could play with my hair (which is how he fell asleep for years and years but hasn’t done for a very long time). I realised today he is barely a month away from being 9 which means he is halfway to being an official adult. OMG!

Anyway…. a bath, dinner and a pep talk from Ady and all’s well again. Tomorrow I will play the dutiful daughter role with my home baked birthday cake offering and Dad’s favourite dinner cooked by Ady. I did get a very lovely text from my brother saying all the right things though so it’s nice to know both of us feel what the other needs even when our parents don’t quite provide it.

Or even about 15 given how verbose I can be at the best of times ;). And today I had it brought home to me just how quickly I speak, which probably goes some way to explaining my one word, when seven would do approach to blogging ;).

I had a really bad night’s sleep last night and finally fell back asleep at about 6am. Hence I fell back asleep again after turning my alarm off. I woke with a start and we had to dash about like mad folk eating breakfast, packing picnics, sorting out chickens and getting dressed. I have to say if I’d known what was ahead I may have dressed and done make up more carefully but never mind.

We left home on time and were at the station with minutes to spare for our train and met Tasha, Toby and Vinnie as planned on the platform. Toby was keen to go to Brighton Museum and I was keen to visit the Bead Shop and the Infinity Shop (I wanted a couple of Tisserand products and didn’t want to pay P&P for them) so we walked to the museum via the Laines. I got the bits I wanted and I think everyone got a few bits in the bead shop – I got beads to make two new necklaces – a metal cow pendant which I’ve strung with some black and white beads and on impulse a very cool metal person figure which I’ve strung with rainbow beads. Tasha said it looked like the figure was scaling the crevice between my cleavage which I quite liked 😆 The kids both chose some beads and some string and have made themselves pendants too. Davies chose a ying and yang thing which he asked me to remind him the name of again later saying ‘That’s right, ying and yang. I always want to call it Dick and Dom’ 😆 😆

Then to the museum. Predictably the 3 of them didn’t actually get much out of it for pressing buttons and chasing around but both Davies and Scarlett hung back with me at least twice each to ask a question about something or tolerate me trying to educate them ;). I maintain museums are places best visited without friends really.

We decided everyone was in need of food and open space to run around in so went to the adjacent Pavillion Gardens to start eating lunch / chasing pigeons. We’d not long been sat down when Ali and Freya arrived, Ali bearing her phone and a plea to take over the radio interview she’d set up while she did TV stuff instead. I’d never volunteer to be on the radio and certainly wouldn’t ever phone in to a show. Mostly because when impassioned I know I can get carried away and am all too often to be found shouting abuse at the TV and radio when I don’t agree with something – I don’t really trust myself not to carry on with abuse and swearing if I find myself actually with a real voice.

So while Tasha watched over the children and Ali headed off to be filmed for TV I spoke to Danny Pike. All nerves disappeared when I realised he was only asking me questions I’ve answered probably 100 times before in different places and on listening back I can hear myself in full on ‘like me, I’m great, believe everything I tell you and I’ll be your mate’ mode including trademark laughing heartily at things I don’t find at all amusing. I also smiled when I heard back the bit where he tries to interupt and I carry on recalling how I’d mentally slapped his wrist with an ‘I’m not finished yet!’ feeling. It’s fine, I feel I conducted myself okay and aside from changing Ed Balls job title I think it’s not a bad reflection on me and HE at all. 🙂

By the time I returned to my sandwich it was lost to the pigeons though so I never did eat my lunch.

Gradually more and more HE folk started arriving and it was ace to see some faces we’ve not seen for ages and catch up with people. We moved across to infront of the museum where Ali did a fab job of directing people including air hostess arm movements. The TV reporter came over and asked if I’d be happy to be followed and interviewed and when asking to be introduced to my children said ‘Oh this is Davies. I’ve heard all about him from Freya!’ 😆 She said she’d follow us and the group we were in on our path to New Road which was where the bubble blowers were to converge so I chatted with her along the way about what we do, why and how we do it and stuff.

We walked a little way in the other direction and then at 145 all turned back towards New Road and walked back blowing bubbles and handing out leaflets as we went. By 2pm the whole group of about 60 had all re-met in a haze of bubbles and kids in Liza’s fab tshirts and adults handing out leaflets. We carried on in much the same way for about half an hour I guess, chatting, laughing and being very clearly a community. It was peaceful, happy, very visible and tear-jerkingly what we’re all about really. There were kids there from heyc which is another fab HE thing I feel very proud to be even tenuously linked to (by virtue of knowing a couple of the kids, being a Home Educator and hoping that my children will be following in similar footsteps) and just a whole load of people who are so proud and confident in what we do we are prepared to take to the streets to sing about it.

I did the on camera bit that was used on the local evening news – you’ll also notice my lovely offspring on the still and camera panning round 🙂 and was also talked to and comprehensively photographed with Davies and Scarlett by the local paper too who are planning a big spread and will be following up with a phone interview at some point soon. Blanket media coverage all fantastically arranged by Ali, who also came up with the idea of the flashmob and organised the whole thing. Yay Ali 🙂

There was a great moment when the reporter said to me ‘We thought it was only supposed to be going on for five minutes’ and I replied with ‘Well that’s how Home Ed works really – you start something and if everyone is having fun, enjoying it and learning you just carry on with it’ 😆

We went back into the gardens afterwards for more sitting and chatting while the children ran around playing together which is what forms the backdrop of the to camera piece the reporter does. Davies and Freya were interviewed but it wasn’t used. Once all the high drama was over it all seemed to settle into just another day sat around with friends really while education happened all around us.

At one point Davies was talking quite animatedly to a woman over the other side of the gardens so I wandered over to check all was well. It turned out she was one of the people who keep the gardens in order and they were chatting about litter. Clearly he had initiated the conversation and he was so very much on her level chatting about our litter walk, recycling, how often the bins get emptied there and so on. She thanked him for the chat and said goodbye when he went off to start handing out more of the leaflets we had left 🙂

One of the HE lads had done such a good job of handing out leaflets he’d brought over a possible recruit to talk to us and she was delighted to find a whole crowd of HEors sitting there waving and smiling when she admitted one of her worries was whether she’d find other people doing it :).

I think we could have happily stayed there all day but I was conscious of the rest of our plans for the day so at about 3pm we headed off for home. The walk to the station was good – Davies, Scarlett and Toby still had a handful of flyers each left so they tasked themselves with getting rid of them all except for one to keep each. They chose to approach children and ask if they went to school and give them one if they didn’t.

They wanted to call in the library ‘to say hello’ as we were parked in the carpark there so did precisely that (and I collected a couple of books that had arrived for me) and then we came home. I did a hasty pasta dinner for them and we listeded to me on the radio before Ady came home and it was time to head off again.

This time it was to a long standing booking for Pulborough Brooks ‘Nighttime wing and other things’ event. I’d been really chuffed to book this at the time as one of the things D and S asked to do last year was see bats and we didn’t make it happen so I was hopeful tonight would remedy that.

It was the most perfect weather night to do it – it was still really warm, dry, clear and bright. There were loads of flying ants and midges about which are perfect for attracting bats and it had been a warm day to ensure plenty of wildlife was still out and about.

We started with looking at about 30 different types of moths that they’d caught last night in their moth trap. They’d been put into plastic boxes, chilled to put them into a semi-sleeping and therefore stress free condition during the day and then identified and brought out to show us. We all handed them round in their little magnified boxes and oohed and ahhed over how beautiful so many of them are. Then we all got to let some go 🙂


Then we walked out onto the reserve. First we paused to look at the deer and learnt a bit about them. They are fallow deer and have their origins in a group which escaped from the ground of nearby stately home, Parham House in the 1987 storms. Many stately homes which have their own bred group of deer keep a particular colour prevalant and Parham had gone for very dark deer. This has been all but bred out of them now as they breed with other wild deer in the area.

We also saw loads of rabbits, various birds and either a fox or a badger. The children were all insistent it was a badger and they do (claim to) have a badget sett on the reserve so the leader though that was a possibility.

We looked at various animal poo including deer, rabbit, green woodpecker and other tracking signs of wildlife aswell as the tiger moth caterpillars which live on the ragwort and are very distinctive with their fuzzy black and yellow colouring.

Next we lifted a couple of corrugated metal panels which had been laid out in the sun with the intention of attracting reptiles. Sure enough whilst there were only ants under the first one the second one was harbouring a grass snake and a slowworm :).

Further trekking across the reserve led us to bats. We looked at the bat boxes and had a long chat about bats and all we knew about them. They had fancy bat detectors and sure enough in the area they’d said we’d see bats we did :). About 5 in all, soprano pipistrelle bats all whizzing about in their trademark erratic way. The bat detectors were excellent in picking up the echolocation noises and their feeding noises too when they caught something. We learnt that each bat can catch up to 3000 insects per night and often when 2 are flying together it is a mother and child with the mother at the front doing the echolocation and then suddenly dropping down just before reaching the prey so the child behind her can make the catch.

Both children had been starting to flag (unsurprisingly after their very busy day and it being 9pm and all) but this perked them both up and they were thrilled to be seeing the bats swooping about right over us and they got a long chat with one of the volunteers about his bat detector machine.

We walked back to the carpark, stopping to look at a toad someone’s torch picked out and the moth trap with tonight’s haul starting to flock to it

and finally to shine the torches in the pond and see the newts

It was, as usual there, an excellent event. Really glad we went 🙂

We had to call into Sainburys on the way home which meant it was long gone 10pm by the time we actually made it home.The kids had toast and we watched ourselves on the news thanks to J’s youtube clip, then they went to bed. We had baths and finally sat down to dinner at ten to midnight. Honestly it’s all go being a minor local celebrity 😉

So I’ll not bother.

Morningtime stuff included dealing with chickens – definitely 2 cockerels and 5 hens in the chicks -woohoo. They’re doing well outside and a mini-integration with me setting one free for a while under supervision proved okay. Our plan is to keep one cockerel and four of the hens and to sell the other cock and one hen as a pair. I did a fair bit of laundry – washing, drying, dealing with my maverick washing lines which keep falling down on me, and giving piles of clean, dry clothes to children to put away in the revelant place / screw up and shove at the back of their wardrobes.

I decided to care about the Summer Reading Game too. I have very mixed feelings about the whole thing really. One the one hand I dislike the whole creating an aura of ‘work’ around reading and the whole rewards thing with the stickers and membership cards. Quite aside from the money and tree felling that goes into producing all that paper I don’t actually want in my house I’d far rather children read books because they love the book that because some carrot is dangled at the end of a stick for them.

But… I know from the other side of the fence that we often see children at work who never otherwise get to share their passion for reading with anyone. I know I personally take responsibility for following up any glimmers with any children I talk to about the Summer Reading Challenge by finding out what they loved about the book they read, talking to them about that genre, that author, other books they have written and how they can order them for free etc. So I know it can be a hook for children into reading too. I guess it’s like star charts – personally I find them abhorent and wouldn’t use them with my own children but I can see a place for them out there.

So, I probably woudn’t even have bothered signing D and S up for it this year but we were in town a few weeks ago and bumped into Sian who I work with and she suggested we do it and the children were up for it. They chose books and I’m conscious that as starters with cards in the box at work I’d rather they now were finishers also. Davies is clearly progressing with his reading, mostly by way of writing really, and he’d chosen a couple of books to read himself. Scarlett is still adamant she can’t read at all so she chose books she’d like read to her.

So this morning we gathered them all up. I re-read Scarlett’s two choices to them both – the wonderful which is just gorgeous in every way and which I suspect she had as one of her choices last year too but is one of her favourites and she loves the low text, high illustration impact of it.

Davies had or a version thereof, not sure which copy as there are just so many. And which he sat and read fairly fluently to me. He’s definitely at the stage where he can read but needs to still think about most words before he reads them, although he does then go back and read each sentence with feeling which is nice :).

Books at the ready we walked into Lancing. We took our litter walk alleyway route and Davies and Scarlett decided to count the litter items they saw. Clearly starting with zero six weeks ago when we did our litter collecting, they reached 116 before we got to the library. They were a bit disheartened but if anything I suspect it’s spurred them on to want to do it again rather than having them wonder what the point of their effort was. I’m very proud of them :).

At the library they sat and chatted to the volunteer teens about their books and then chose their next two books each and a couple of dvds. We had a look in the charity shops and Davies got a chemistry set that I’ve been eyeing for a couple of weeks but decided against incase he wasn’t really interested. Turns out he was and we brought it home today. It was bulky and heavy and I sort of wished I’d bought it before when I had the car really 😆

Back home I made popcorn and we sat and watched which was utterly charming. It is based on a book which we have read (among other of his books actually) and was just lovely. We also watched the making of bit afterwards.

Davies and Scarlett wanted to play outside so they did so while I did nothing in particular – might well have been mostly playing bejeweled blitz actually 😉 Oh, and an online food shop order. And more washing.

Dinnertime for the children, Ady came home having bought a food smoker at a cut down bargain price. Davies and Scarlett watched Invasion of the Body Scratchers which we’d recorded for them last night. I read a couple of chapters of Mr Gum – we’re now on the second reading of the last book and it was bedtime for them.

Several hours later it was curry time for us – we have a lot of averaging back out again from getting dinner on the table for Joyce and Bob at 8pm! 😉

instead of being vegetarians with dinner party grandeur instead! Would wife-swapping sex be better or worse than having to eat lentils last time and broad beans this time? Would I feel any less dirty, ashamed and sullied? 😆

I worked yesterday morning. I’ve swapped Saturdays for the indefinite future as there is a staff shortage issue of people able to be second in command and cover the desk in the supervisors lunch break. It’s no big deal to me (although Tarly is less happy about three mornings off to work in a week ‘You can’t be going again, that’s twice in a row!!!’ she told me yesterday morning as I put on work clothes) and means I get to only work one day a week every other week. I like to have stored up goodwill in the bank too to bring out and trade against if I ever have to ask favours in return.

It was a nice enough morning, I worked with one of the supervisors I rarely see but get on well with so it was nice to have chats with her and catch up a bit. It was fairly busy and I was utterly charmed by identical twin boys who came in to do the summer reading challenge on their second visit. They were gorgeous, all blonde haired and big brown eyed, finishing each others sentences, teasing each other and answering questions at the same time but with different answers. It’s not often I melt at other people’s children but these two were lovely. 11 years old and about to start the HUGE secondary school here in September though which had me quivering on their behalf (they’re just babies!).

I got home at 1pm and Dad’s van was outside which was a nice surprise. I really don’t see enough of him these days. He’d been here since about 10am and been hoping to see me so had hung on when he learnt I was at work but home at 1pm. I’m sure Ady’s hospitality of breakfast, lunch and copious freshly brewed coffees inbetween helped convince him :).

We’d had half a plan to go to a camping shop for various things we might want to buy and for Davies to peruse for birthday present ideas too. He wants his own tent, better penknife, own firesteel and various other survival-y things this year (he’s so nine!). But it was 230pm by the time Dad left and pouring with rain which would have rather scuppered looking round the outside displays of errected tents so we looked at porches on ebay and bought one instead to satisfy that desire 😆

Scarlett spent some time playing a zoo game on cbbc and Davies disappeared to his room for a while to play. The rain did ease for a while so Ady and Scarlett went outside to cut hedges including Peggy’s (next door neighbour who had a fall and only came home this week, bless her). I nipped out to Tescos all alone (I offered to take either or both children but they both declined) and picked up wine to take with us in the evening. Then Ady and I both had baths, fed the children and got ready to go out.

Mum and Dad arrived to baby sit and I think they all had a nice evening together. Scarlett slept up in Davies’ bedroom and they watched dvds but I don’t think they went to bed til quite late and shared Mum and Dad’s fish and chips as a second dinner. They were certainly both tired and crotchety today.

Dad ran us to Mike and Rose’s as the rain was still raining most insistently and we were greeted with capari cocktails for their Italian themed dinner party extravaganza! They’d invited Kristiana, a German girl from our reading group and her partner but in the interim her and her partner have split up and yesterday was the day she actually moved out to a new flat. It’s all fairly amicable but obviously she came to Mike and Rose’s alone and was quite full on company due to the fairly emotional day she was having. She ended up staying there the night and Rose sent me a text today to say they’d been up talking for another 3 hours after we left!

It was a very nice evening, with lots of laughs and plenty of interesting discussion though. I do enjoy their company and Ady feels pretty much at ease there now, although I think he still suspects they may do some car key chucking in the middle at any given moment of course.

But the food.

Oh the food.

Ady tells me it is delicious. And the bits of it I do like, I do really like. It is beautifully cooked and presented. But it is not the hearty, flavourful fayre that we tend to eat – large portions, late at night, with plenty of herbs and spices. This is more your delicately, subtley flavoured, eaten at a respectable hour, cooked according to cook book instructions and served in appropriate dishes. And of course it’s vegetarian. Which means, let’s face it, it will either be vegetables or pulses really doesn’t it.

And this was a multi-coursed, ongoing saga of a meal I have to tell you. We kicked off with these cocktails which were very nice indeed. Bitter and shockingly red but very nice. I do like a good cocktail or three. And we had three! 😆 Served with olives and pistachios as nibbles. Then we took to the table for wine (white, dry, expensive) and anti-pasto. Marinated peppers (thankyou but no), courgettes (not for me really thanks) and mushrooms (the only thing I have never brought myself to eat, even out of a sense of shamed politeness). They were marinated with enough oil, red onion and garlic, and topped with sufficient toasted pinenuts and shaved parmesan for me to tolerate the peppers and the courgettes. Just. I thought that would surely be the worst I’d have to face.

But no it was broad beans with cream and egg. I’m not a huge fan of scrambled eggs really. I can tolerate them, as invalid food, cooked with melted cheese and served on lightly buttered toast. Maybe. But with broad beans? Broad fucking beans!!!! No

But I had to of course, didn’t I? Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Just me, an empty plate, fancy cutlery and a great big pot of beans and egg heading towards me to serve myself with while everyone looks at me. I took as few as I could possibly do without feeling incredibly rude. It was seven. And even then they looked pitifully small in comparison to how many everyone else piled on their plates. I can’t even claim to have a small appetite can I? I’m big and fat, there for dinner and have only eaten a tiny amount of peppers and courgettes. Ady gushed enthusiastically about how delicious they were while I ate them as quickly as possibly, slugging wine down with every mouthful to take away the taste and occassionally when noone was looking, holding my nose at the same time.

I was offered seconds. I said no and claimed to be saving myself for subsequent courses. Well aware that this could be erroneous as I’d still never be able to claim full-up-ed-ness as an excuse for later, even more awful offerings. At this stage I was considering suggesting swinging to them even if they weren’t previously of that nature simply to distract everyone from the beans and egg.

Next came the main course. I knew this was pasta as we’d seen it drying on a fancy pasta drying rack in the kitchen, while quaffing cocktails and exchanging home made pasta anecdotes. I love pasta, but that’s not to say it can’t be tainted of course…

Actually this wasn’t too bad at all. It was pasta (very nice) served with a tomatoey, oniony, garlicky, olive-y sauce. The tomtoes were far too big and lumpy and still looked like tomatoes which is not an incarnation I am keen on them in and it’s only since I was 34 I have liked olives but there was more shaved parmesan to conceal the tomatoeness of the tomatoes and this was a course I made friends with.

More wine may well have aided this benevelont attitude towards the pasta too.

It all got better from there on in really. I didn’t resort to suggesting we all adjourn to the bedroom together and bring the mushrooms and bean and eggs to smear on each other rather than eating them and given we will be hosting next and my parents only ever babysit about twice a year so we’re safe until the other side of Christmas the worst was now over.

The next course was pears, stilon and pinenuts. Not only did I like all of the things on the plate I could have kissed them for not being anything evil. I suspect my swinging tendancies had crossed to foodstuff at this point. I was certainly making love to my wine glass, the wonderful grape offering comfort in my hour of need. I think eating is a bit like companion planting which I’m learning about for the allotment. Swigging wine with beans makes them not nearly so bad, numbs the pain, blurs the shame.

Dessert was zabalione, which was divine. No vegetables at all, or if there were he had blended them so smoothly I couldn’t tell they were there. It was all Madeira wine soaked and gorgeous and I even had seconds.

Coffee for those who drank it – I’ve never yet felt obliged to say yes to coffee either and they brought out a dinky little teapot for one for me to have tea. We had chocolate mints, which we’d brought with us as last time we were there we all made little foil animals with the wrappers which was fun and got quite competitive. Rose said she kept them for about six months and actually felt quite sad when she finally chucked them out! 😆 We were not so good this time but did create a pterodactly, an elephant, a stoat (I think it was supposed to be something else but looked more like a stoat), a swallow, a crocodile and a butterfly which looked more like a stingray. Rose then tried to make a globe with all the countries on it using their circular slate table mats as a base and I covered all her countries with the relevant wildlife from our collection. It was practically the same as one of those Leappad globes, except it was a slate mat covered in deformed looking screwed up chocolate mint wrappers with five raucous drunken people who’d been eating beans and egg sitting around it.

Rose did suggest the mats would be ideal for writing on and that maybe she’d get some chalk in next time so we could all write messages to each other. I didn’t say anything in the hopes she forgets but that would be just my luck. Chalk, pulses, vegetables and their two dogs who get locked away while we’re there but I can feel the presence of in the house, waiting to spring out at me when everyone else is busy swinging with each other in the spare room!

We ended with liquers – limoncello and an amaretto type liquer which just smelt diving, like liquid alcoholic bakewell tarts and marizpan. Mmmm.

More chat, more wine drinking and plenty of laughing later we decided we’d better head for home. By then it had stopped raining and it’s downhill all the way so Ady and I walked home, getting in at about 1230am. We chatted to Mum and Dad awhile about plans for Dad’s birthday later this week. We also sat and watched the screensaver on my old laptop acting as a big digital photoframe with old pictures of us all from the last 10 years or so. We really have been to lots of cool places and lots of nice parties and holidays :). Mum and Dad left and exhausted from it all, we went to bed.

Today I slept in til about 1030am. Ady had been clearing the patio of stuff growing in pots which means I’ve got all my washing line space back again :). I packed up some lunch and we headed to the allotment for a few hours. That was nice and successful and we cleared lots of space and came home with more produce, plenty of which we used for tonight’s dinner of roast beef – potatoes, peas and sweetcorn were all our own :).

The afternoon sort of meandered away really. We all had dinner together, everyone had baths and I read a chaper of a book to the children before bed.

Work all day for me today and every minute dragged today 🙁

There is a new roof being put on the library which has already run over it’s schedule by about 4 weeks (and counting) and has been blighted by very heavy rain which has leaked through in places where it wasn’t waterproofed, ruined 100s of £s worth of books, soaked flooring and shelving and generally made it a rather chaotic place to be working for the last month or so. Coupled with one colleague leaving and another being incredibly hard work to be around it’s not proving the calming, me-time opportunity is usually is. Scarlett is also having a particularly clingy phase (I’m guessing to do with Davies’ Badger camp on some level) so about half the time I head off to work in the morning it’s leaving a crying daughter behind me. Hard and heartwrenching, even if I am leaving her with her own Daddy… 🙁

Today started in the back office cashing up tills and doing the banking and the office stank of tar from the roof. I actually quite like the chemically smell but I started to feel quite queasy and was then feeling like I may have a temperature too. I went to the bank and came back and sat quietly in the staff room for a few minutes to recover and seriously considered asking to go home. A cup of tea at breaktime restored me somewhat and aside from sneezing a lot and a mild sore throat (which could be hot environment / fumes) and feeling very tired I seem to be okay now.

I did Baby Rhyme time which I have to confess to being very bored with now and trying to find ways to entertain and amuse myself during it. Last week I took requests from the small children and we sang Jingle Bells. Today one of the little boys brought me a book about a magical pet shop so I used it as a prop to sing Old McDonald with the animals within it – we had a monkey, snake, mouse, crocodile and a couple of other random and very non-farmyardy animals, much to the amusement of my colleagues who quite like to join in from the counter on the other side of the wall :).

I had my usual wander round the charity shops in my lunch break but refrained from purchasing today. Then the afternoon just seemed to drag and drag. I did manage to get a free copy of Mika’s album and a copy of as ex stock which I was very pleased with – Willy Nilly has long been a favourite story to tell here so it’s nice to have our own copy :).

I came home to find Tarly and my Mum in the garden while Davies was hamabeading. All seemed well but after Mum had gone they moaned that she hadn’t played with them and when they’d gone out (walked to the park) she’d been trying to tell them they didn”t need suncream but they’d insisted 😯 Wish she wouldn’t be so crap about things like that and am very glad the children are consciencious even in the face of argument from the so called responsible adult! 🙁

I did the kids some tea and then got on with the last assignment of an online course I took on and have been ignorning but the deadline for was midnight tonight. I’d already pled swine flu as a reason for an extension ;). I managed to get it all done and submitted so assuming if it needs resubmitting that will still be allowed to be done out of time I think I scraped through that one.

I took a break to read the children a couple of chapters of Mr Gum. I’ve been trying to find dates for seeing Andy Stanton, either at a book signing or at one of the various festivals around the country. He’d doing Edinburgh and also a very interesting looking Kids Litfest in Bath in September but his date for that clashes with Davies’ YAC meeting which he’s really looking forward to which is a shame as I had half a plan to have a weekend away with just Davies which would have been lovely. I was also cross to see Andy Stanton had been in Portsmouth earlier this month and we could have seen him there. Grr.

I also stopped working for a bath, which Davies and Scarlett both joined me in the bathroom for and did comedy dancing to Ady’s music from the kitchen, which seemed to be mostly Barry Manilow tonight, while he cooked dinner. It was amusing and charming, not really restful and relaxing though ;). Ady cooked a lovely dinner and we watched Seven Pounds, well Ady watched most of it then went to bed and I kept half an eye on most of it and then avidly watched the end, crying as I went. Don’t know that I’d recommend it as such but I do think Will Smith is a fine actor.