One word? When seven would do…

Am looking forward to tomorrow, for all sorts of reasons but chiefly that I get to go to work for 3 hours which I’m sure will lift everyone’s spirits! 😉

This morning with some gentle cajoling Ady stopped cleaning, making food and generally not being in the room with the rest of us and did some stuff with the kids. I have told him, many times, that he will regret being remembered fondly as the father who brought the children a drink before they even realised they wanted one rather than the father who spent real time with them and got to know them. I get really fed up with seeing him in his ‘professional uncle’ guise around other people’s children where he is able to switch on ‘fun and wacky and zany’ and be the most popular Pied Piper figure there is but switch is back off again when it’s just Davies and Scarlett. It’s great that he is able to put all that effort in but it would be nice to have some effortless bonding too rather than concerted effort producing this sort of manufactured parenting. I certainly don’t think I have all the answers in parenting but I am at least able to consider myself engaged, present and in very strong individual relationships with both Davies and Scarlett.

Oh doesn’t Christmas with all it’s prolonged intimate contact, time spent indoors, feeling sluggish from too much food, drink and TV and too little fresh air, exercise and decent reasons not to spend time with your family such as work through all our little quirks into sharp relief and do an excellent job of bringing out the worst in all of us! 😆

So, they three went outside and gathered stuff to view on the Eyeclops while I researched recipes for fancy confectionary gifts I wanted to make for a couple of upcoming birthdays. They looked at worms and various other garden safari creatures then released them back into the wild and Ady and Davies did some meccano building together. I went off to do sweet making and Scarlett joined me for a while and made some smoothies in her smoothie maker. One of my recipes proved tentatively successful but was put to chill / set whilst the other was obviously not a success and I managed to burn the tip of my finger by dipping it in to scoop out a little to try. D’oh!

I made lunch for everyone and then we went out to visit Ady’s work mate, Tom. It was one of those weird situations where Ady and Tom had been effusive with promising to get together between Christmas and New Year while they are off work, Tom and Ingrid bought us and the children very generous Christmas gifts and they adore Davies and Scarlett so I’d encouraged Ady to follow up on arranging it. I realised this morning though that we were visiting them at Tom’s little house in Portsmouth rather than his parents big countryside pile where we’ve been shooting and fishing and running with the dogs. Ady had also said something like ‘we’re over your way tomorrow…’ when arranging it so then had to manufacture some reason for us being in Portsmouth other than us just having driven over to see Tom.

Neither of the children really wanted to go and it suddenly felt like those Christmas visits to relatives as a child when the home didn’t have resident children and was therefore a cross between really boring for being filled with adults stuff and really fascinating for being filled with things that anyone with children simply wouldn’t own or would have moved to higher shelves when they had a baby. We arrived to find Ingrid had gone out and some tension of a recent row still in the air (they’re having a bad patch), so stayed for a cup of tea and a bit of a post Christmas, pre New Year chat before heading off again about an hour later.

Davies had been asking to go to Toys R Us as both children got £40 each Christmas money (and Scarlett still had £10 from a cash incentive we promised about 2 years ago to persuade her to give up her dummy that she’d cunningly recalled and cashed in when she actually gave them up 3 months ago!). I’d said they could spend £10 each and had to put the rest in their bank accounts given they both did so well at Christmas. Davies was torn between a Lego Indiana Jones set and a Hans Solo Star Wars figure. Scarlett walked round the whole shop lurching from one soft toy to the next, and making faux-vomit sounds all the way round the ‘girls’ toys of Barbies, Baby Annabel and Hannah Montanna 😆

Finally, after nearly an hour Scarlett made a very strong case for spending all £50 on a Playmobil animal set. She has played with her Noah’s ark pretty much every day, does love Playmobil and frankly what you get for £10 is bugger all compared to what you get for £50. There was a set with £20 off containing loads of animals and other little accessories (a tree house with jeep, motorbike, dinghy and more) so I relented. At which point I told Davies he could spend all his money too. He remained torn but what he really wanted was a big Lego set (Indiana Jones) which was also £50, so on the basis that such joy and delight is rarely bought for the bargain price of a tenner I said he could have it :). £100 later (only a tenner of it mine, mind you) we left with two glowing children just like in a TV advert.

Back home Tarly and I set up the Playmobil while Ady and Davies made a start on the Lego. This made for a very late tea and an even later night which we decided was training for tomorrow. Baths and dinner for Ady and I were equally late and I also did some further sweet making, finishing off the first successful batch and remaking the second to a far more satisfactory result.

And, as I said at the start of this post, I’m off to work tomorrow for a couple of hours so I really should go to bed.

Ady went out first thing to take Davies’ videocamera back as the volume still wasn’t working properly on playback. We decided it was a design fault on that model so have upgraded to a slightly more expensive one. This doesn’t have sound on playback at all but is far more robust with a better quality picture. We’ve talked about putting even more money to it and buying a really good one but Davies decided he was happy with this one for now and may upgrade to a better one at some future point.

Davies did some more of his weather station kit making a barometer with assorted help and nosiness from the rest of us. Ady and I spent some time online looking at knife sets. We have had our knife block and four (used to be five, never did find out where the lost one went to) knives since we bought this house nearly 16 years ago and probably only paid about a tenner back then so they owe us nothing but having used some decent knives at Truleigh Hill (Helen’s I think, certainly not hostel ones) I realised just how crappy ours were so have been hankering after replacing them with half decent ones. Having read lots of reviews and looked at what various retailers had on offer online we found a set at Argos – half price in the sale making them within our budget. I also reserved a load of rechargable batteries as we now have two chargers in the house and Argos had their value rechargable batteries on offer.

Davies and I went to Argos to collect everything, had to queue for ages as the knives had to be paid for at a manned desk rather than the paypoint to check I was over 18. It was pouring with rain, Davies was wearing strap on rollerskates on his shoes and I was carrying knives – I’m not at all sure we met any H&S regulations 😆

Back home I sorted out the cutlery drawer which is always a job well done. I removed all the utensils we have duplicates of which now included an array of knives, a sharpener, steak knives and other things like cake slices and tin openers. I shoved it all in a carrier bag together which a freecycler with a setting-up-home daughter is coming to collect tomorrow.

The kids played with Elefun for a while and then Scarlett and I made some mince pies and tried out her new smoothie maker. The others all played Lego Creationary and we watched Toy Story on dvd.

The kids had a bath and some tea and then we all watched Miss Potter which Ady and I have seen before. Scarlett worked out the love interest plotline very early in the film (I won’t say incase anyone hasn’t seen it and intends to), then they went to bed while I had a bath and cooked dinner (using the new knives). Ady and I watched part 2 of The Triffids.

one screaming harridan, one hiding husband, one tearful daughter, one subdued son and a whole load of recyling.

Tomorrow, tomorrow I will find my equilibrium again and be back to normal. Today must have been my last hurrah or something. Davies and Scarlett’s bedrooms were in turmoil so I sent them off to tidy them up after breakfast with the intention of removing the last few things from the lounge which hadn’t yet been found homes into their rooms. Ady went and ‘helped’ Scarlett which is always an error, partially because I think she then has no ownership or investment in the tidiness and partially because Ady doesn’t tidy anyway, he shoves. Shoves things under beds, into boxes and on top of wardrobes. There are no cupboards in Tarly’s room but if there were he would have shoved stuff in there too.

Davies constructs piles of stuff. This means floor space is clear but surrounded by towering piles of things. Davies collects junk anyway so there is always loads of empty cardboard boxes, drawings, bits of packaging and general ‘stuff’ his room. Along with at least two empty or half empty glasses, at least one odd sock which may or may not need to go in the wash, various art materials and a pile of books that has slipped off the bed into a random fan shaped pile on the floor.

So, while I decided to empty out the old pens and paper drawers in the playroom to make space for the new pens and other crafty and arty bits I thought they were all getting on with clearing out stuff from their rooms and generally tidying them up a bit. For a brief period I felt at ease and peaceful at the notion of order being restored to the dwelling.

But I was wrong. I was indeed tidying, creating more space to put things away in a proper, permanent, appropriate home and getting rid of stuff from the house that we no longer need (take that felt tips with no lid that are all dried up, be gone pencil that the lead is broken all the way down in so you tease us with a new point upon sharpening only to break again as soon as pressure is applied to paper with you, leave this house oh stub of crayola crayon that may once have been yellow but is now tainted with other scraps of wax from jostling against browns, reds and purples as children rummaged in the box over the years). Ady is shoving, Davies is piling and Scarlett is mostly wandering around the house still in her pyjamas deciding that whatever anyone else is tidying up is the most interesting thing to be doing and offering to ‘help’ with that instead.

Once *I* had a full bin liner and had fed the recycling box a fair bit of cardboard and paper AND had made the start of a pile for ebay / charity shop / whatever the local freecycle list is calling itself this week I went to check on the others’ progress.

Cue me yelling, Ady hiding, Scarlett crying and Davies looking like I’d maimed a puppy infront of him.

Ady continued to hide, Davies pulled himself together, added to the rubbish and recycling piles and whilst it’s not perfect (and we both agreed that 9 year olds are not supposed to have perfect bedrooms anyway) it is now under control again. I explained to Scarlett about a place for everything and everything in it’s place and how the bed isn’t supposed to be shored up by a pile of crap so high the legs are off the floor and she brought out various things and put them in proper places so we could lose some packaging and clear her room a bit too.

Order was restored once more, Ady came out of hiding and I made everyone lunch.

Ady had reserved some Christmas lights in the sale at Argos and we wanted to return Davies’ video camera as the volume control seemed to not be working on playback, so we went to Asda, queued for about half an hour and exchanged that, collected the lights from Argos and nipped into Morrisons for a few bits.

Back home I was feeling tired. I’ve not been sleeping at all well for the last week or so and my jaw is really achey which is either me grinding my teeth when I am asleep (I used to do this all the time but haven’t done it for years – back in stressed retail management days) or my bite being out as the dentist suspected it is. Or perhaps both. Or one being caused by the other. Or something. I suspect this has all had an impact on my frame of mind but that doesn’t excuse me being such hard work to be round for everyone else 🙁

I cooked a lovely roast beef dinner and whilst that was cooking I looked at Davies’ weather station with him (a Christmas present). It’s very good and has all sorts of experiments, all of which neatly fit inside the weather station itself which includes wind gauge and thermometers. We did the first few experiments and learnt about wind direction and how they are measured. We learnt about the Beaufort scale which I’d not remembered very well but fortunately the accompanying booklet was very good at explaining, we got out the compass and worked out wind direction, checked the temperature at various parts of the room (close to the fire was 5 degrees warmer than near the door). There was pH paper in the kit so we tested various things to find whether they were acid or alkaline, trying to recall some of the stuff we’d learnt at RI lectures. We tested tap water, tea, orange and lemon juice, milk, brandy, salted water, vinegar and my tongue and Davies wrote down all the results in the little notepad that came with it.

Meanwhile Ady and Scarlett were playing with the Eyeclops which is also excellent. We looked at hairs, skin, the carpet, a paper cut on Scarlett’s finger, a spider and a woodlice that Ady brought in, a pine needle from the tree and various other things.

It was all very science experiment-tastic here for an hour or so :).

Scarlett asked if we could watch Fox and Child so we put that on and then it was dinnertime. We enjoyed a good old bitch about my parents over dinner which I found very healing. I try not to colour the children’s view of my parents too much but they are pretty astute and see ever such a lot of what goes on. It was a lovely end to what had been a rather wobbly in places sort of day.

Too much sitting around eating and drinking too much and being inside was catching up with me today so I insisted we went out. I’d earmarked ‘a Sussex Christmas’ at the Weald and Downland Museum for Boxing Day but been convinced by Ady that it would be too muddy after heavy rain on Christmas Day evening and feeling fairly fragile yesterday anyway.

So we donned wellies and headed off there today. Ady’s car was still at my parents from Christmas Day so we drove over there in mine and swapped cars. My parents spotted us so I nipped in to say ‘hello’ and promised we’d call in on the way back. It was muddy indeed and pretty cold thanks to a clear sky and chilly wind but lovely to be out, lovely to be just the four of us and lovely location regardless. It was not as full on as I’d been expecting it to be but as the museum is almost entirely staffed by volunteers I imagine it can be hit and miss as to which volunteers are working which days and how enthusiastic they are. There was a Christmas Tree in the Victorian schoolhouse decorated with candles, oranges stuffed with cloves and little painted decorations. The big farmhouse was bedecked with holly and ivy and laid out with a feast for the servants of pottage and bread and for the masters of all sorts of fancy foodstuffs including a roasted boars head, pies cooked in coffers, biscuits decorated with natural food dyes including cochineal, spinach and saffron. We learnt that Croydon was once the chief place to get saffron which was very commonly available 500 years ago, while sugar was the expensive element to the feast. The volunteer in there was very knowledgable and enthusiastic. As was the volunteer in the kitchen. We learnt that kitchens were rarely in the house as the kitchen was prone to catching fire so best kept seperate with a pantry in the main dwelling for storage, reheating if necessary and titivating.

In the kitchen we learnt about curing ham and fish, drying herbs and spices and vegetables such as onions. We were shown how they cooked pies in a stiff pastry designed not to be eaten but to contain and cook the contents and about mincemeat made with meat.

Ady chatted to the men in charge of the heavy horses while Scarlett patted them and Davies and I looked at the chickens, cows and rare breed sheep. We tried some mulled cider (very delicious), some prunes stewed with wine and spices, some cinnamon sugar, gingered bread and cheesy bites. All very nice.

We went in the mill and bought some freshly milled flour for breadmaking and some duck food, then Davies spent ages feeding the ducks and videoing them with his new camera while Tarly spent ages feeding the ducks and trying to catch them. I sat nearby and listened to her chattering to them and assuring them they had nothing to be scared of.

We had hot drinks every so often (either tea from the shop or mulled cider or wine) to keep us going for about 3 hours but finally started to get cold as it started to get dark so headed for home.

Back to my parents to collect my car and call in for some tea and Christmas cake (I made smaller ones this year and gave them one). We had a nice hour or so with them and then came home. We’ve watched back to back films tonight, with a break for Outnumbered.

I have to confess to being rather glad all the actual Christmas stuff is over. Ady’s off work for another week and I’m looking forward to some nice quiet family time.

Davies and Scarlett took forever to go to sleep on Christmas Eve, I remember being much the same at their age. Finally they went to sleep about 1130pm so we brought all the presents down, put them under the tree, filled their stockings and replaced them at the ends of their beds and went to bed ourselves around midnight. Typically I then couldn’t sleep and it felt like I’d barely dropped off when Scarlett came thundering in, turned all the lights on and said ‘It’s Christmas Day! Father Christmas has been!’. She asked if she could start opening the presents in her stocking and we blearily agreed. Ady asked me what time it actually was and when I checked and it wasn’t yet 3am we told her it was still Christmas Eve night after all and she should go back to sleep. Rather pleasingly she did :).

Ady then snored, the cat came and slept on our bed and purred noisily and I laid awake for a bit longer before finally falling asleep and then being woken just after 7am by the children again. Ady went and put the kettle on and I watched (without the aid of contact lenses, so very blurrily) and listened as they opened all the bits in their stockings. A combination of very grateful children and parents who know them pretty well meant they had done well :).

We came downstairs at about 8am and present-opening proper began in earnest. Davies has the rip the paper off everything as quick as possible and look at it properly later approach, whereas Scarlett is quite methodical and savours the opening, the still having a pile to go and the looking at things in detail.

They both had a vast array of stuff thanks to charity shop hauls, Ady getting to go into Tesco and Sainsburys staff shops for heavily discounted end of lines, damaged packaging type bargains and us buying things throughout the year. Aswell as a big selection of art materials, craft kits, Star Wars and Doctor Who figures, books and more Davies got a W&G book
he’d been coveting, a similar to a flic camera but much cheaper little video camera and loads of other things. Scarlett got an Eyeclops, a cd player for her room, a new load of glass bottles, essential oils, base oils and other perfume making stuff, a couple of gorgeous animal books and loads more too. I got a new reclining camping chair and a laptop tray, Ady got a couple of jumpers, some aftershave and series 1, 2 and 3 on dvd of a series he used to love watching on TV. Everyone did very well :).

We drank bucks fizz, ate toast and chocolate and Davies played a new xbox game while Scarlett did some watercolour painting. Finally it was time to head over to my parents.

We didn’t necessarily have a Merry Christmas there but it was certainly inkeeping with traditional family Christmases of my childhood. I probably won’t say too much more about that really but we did have some laughs.

We were home again for 8pm, the kids were chased into bed, although they didn’t sleep for ages, infact I was asleep before them as I was utterly drained and took myself off a little after 11pm, which for me is a very early night.

Today we’ve stayed home all day. Watched many films, Herbie, Bridge to Terabithia, Flushed Away and more, done various craft kits including animal puppets, Ben 10 shaker maker, Star Wars make your own comic, watercolour painting, plasticine and more. And eaten. And drunk. Lots and lots of festive food and drink.

Work for me again this morning. It was an odd morning with a really busy first three hours followed by a completely dead last half hour. A flurry of Merry Christmas!’s and an air of general silliness. I did almost lose my rag with Nightmare Colleague and snapped at her twice. It was probably for the best she left early to catch her train as I’d long since lost sight of the end of my tether let alone being near the end of it.

I rang my parents in my tea break to check how my Mum was and see if there was anything they’d not got for tomorrow and wanted me to pick up. My Mum was suitably dramatic and said how dreadful it was going to be for the following reasons:

She couldn’t get fresh turkey so had to buy frozen. Assuming she intends cooking it and not actually leaving it frozen I don’t really see how this is a problem.

No fresh cream so she had to get Elmlea instead. I assured her baby Jesus probably wouldn’t mind.

She couldn’t get parsnips or sweet potatoes. I know, I know, it won’t really feel like Christmas without them. She is hoping my Granny who she had ‘on the case’ was going to be able to source some (possibly she has black market contacts from the days of rationing and is able to get root vegetables even when the supermarkets have sold out, I dread to think what sort of price she’d have to pay though). I assured her if Granny failed we could ring Bob Geldof and he would probably pen a single and raise funds for us.

It will of course forever be the year we had Elmlea and therefore Christmas was ruined though.

I came off the phone and relayed all this to my colleagues who said they felt our pain and their Christmasses were probably also runined. We did wonder if one day we might look back on this and laugh, infact as Sarah pointed out I already was laughing. Shock does effect different people in different ways of course.

Davies and Scarlett had watched Santa Clause 2 and 3 with Ady (they’d watched Santa Clause yesterday) and decorated pillowcases with glitterglue and fabric pens.

We had lunch and then headed over to Chris and Julie’s for our traditional Christmas Eve afternoon with them. The four older cousins were at fever pitch and spent most of the time playing hide and seek together in a rowdy fashion :). We sat and drank tea and ate mince pies.

Back home again, kids had tea, opened their Christmas Eve pjs gift, put out mince pies, brandy etc on the hearth, we all watched Shrek 2 on tv, Ady and I opened beer and fizzy wine. Davies and Scarlett went off to bed -sleepover in Davies’ room so that we all wake up upstairs in the morning.

Ady and I had a very nice Chinese takeaway and have watched various Christmas specials on telly. Predictably the children are still awake so we’re now waiting on them going to asleep before we can bring out the gifts and go to bed ourselves.

Am considering going to bed anyway and setting the alarm for 330am and getting back up then to put presents under the tree!

In brief.

Worked this morning. We had no childcare so Ady manufactured some wild story about laying a festive wreath at his father’s grave annually the weekend before Christmas being snowed off so postponed til today and then dropped Davies and Scarlett off at the library at 1130 for the last hour and a half with me.

They were utter superstars – been very proud of both them, their behaviour and their reputation today :). Lovely home ed kids :).

We went to the newly opened pound shop in Lancing where I must have bought 20 things as I spent £20. Hurrah for £ shops, I love ’em.

Home again where by popular request we watched a Festive Film (capitals provided by Davies, who is in many ways his mothers son.) with popcorn purchased from the £shop. After much deliberation (Davies wanted Nightmare Before Christmas, Scarlett vetoed on grounds it was too scary, Davies wanted Polar Express, it was disqualified for not being in the case why was it not in the case???, Scarlett wanted Rudolph, Davies vetoed on the basis we’ve seen it so many times we can all recite the script along with the movie) finally they settled on How The Grinch Stole Christmas.

I caved in and rang my Dad as it had all been a bit ‘we’ll see’ as to whether he could come over and mind the kids while I went to the dentist and confirmed that he could, so I left before the end of the film to drive along the road to the dentist. I had a 15 minute wait before being seen. I was told the piece of tooth had broken off for unexplainable but slightly concerning, possibly bite related reasons (does this mean I may be a secret and undiagnosed vampire?) and given a filling. I was told it would fall into NHS band 2 of treatment and therefore cost £46.50 which did seem very extreme for 10 minutes in the chair and a teeny bit of filling but I guess I’d rather be hurt in the pocket than the mouth. Ouch all the same though, 2 days before Christmas.

I nipped to collect a couple of balls of wool from a freecycler who had left a big carrier bag out with a note to say she’d found some more knitting related stuff I was welcome to take too. Stacks of needles, crochet hooks and wool, along with various very retro patterns. Have already made a couple of flowers on a plastic loom that came with instructions to make 357 flowers and then crochet them together to make a blanket. As learning to crochet is something I have scheduled for 2010 it seemed like a good place to start.

Back home again Dad had taken delivery of presents for Davies and Scarlett from Peggy-next-door. She had sent her meals on wheels lady round with them along with a message to say she was going away and had lost our phone number incase of emergencies and could we pop it round again. As Dad was here I nipped round there and then and was invited in. I’ve not been in the bungalow before and was given a guided tour and sat chatting to her for nearly an hour. I actually really enjoyed learning more about her – she is one of 9, although only 3 of them are still alive, her husband (who we knew too, he passed away 5 years ago now) and her were married for 54 years and she still missed him every day. She thinks Davies and Scarlett are wonderful, loves the chickens and tells me she is amazed that she never hears me shout at the children when I have them home with me all day. I assured her I do indeed shout but that we probably spend as much time laughing too and that I attribute the childrens’ closeness, loveliness and our generally happy state to them being Home Educated. I think another 2010 vow is to spend more time next door with Peggy.

Back home again I put the chickens away, sorted out tea for Davies and Scarlett, enjoyed a comedy 10 minutes trying to get the wheelie bins through the garage into the back garden and sat down with a mug of tea. The children and I were in rowdy, silly moods so there was much messing about until Ady got home. I started reading which is really rather good (By Pippi Longstocking author) and then Davies and Scarlett pretended to go to bed.

We’ve watched festive Hugh and River Cottage, roasted chestnuts on an open fire, drunk the first drams from the festive spirits and listened to hailstones drumming the windows which is the closest I suspect we’ll get to a white Christmas down here.

I’m working again tomorrow morning so bed would be a pretty good idea.

And all is festive :).

I should always function on about 5 hours sleep and barely digested dinner from the day before, it makes for a very efficient morning. I tackled the mountain of clean laundry in the playroom and tasked the kids with putting their own clean washing away (doubt it’s been done properly but as one of my most hated jobs I’m only too happy to delegate and can live with lower standards), hung some out, put another load on, baked 48 mince pies, put pizza dough on for Davies’ dinner later, spoke to Ady on the phone about the last few bits he was buying, spoke to my parents on the phone – correctly diagnosing my Mum with cystitis (since confirmed by a visit to the GP), supervised the children writing the family Christmas cards, read a book to Scarlett.

And then we had lunch ;).

We called in to the library to drop off some poinsettias for work colleagues that had been looking sad at home so I wanted to get rid of today rather than tomorrow, I picked up a couple of books and took a couple back that I knew had waiting lists (Jo Brand’s autobiography and the latest Marian Keyes that I’d finished). Then over to Elizabeth’s for a couple of hours. The kids had a slightly odd dynamic going on and spent some time playing with the next-door-but-one neighbours and their visiting cousin but snowballs were involved and a fair bit of ganging up on each other seemed to be happening. Elizabeth was dealing with some landscape gardeners chopping down some trees at the bottom of their garden and then popping out to collect their cleaner from the station so I spent quite a bit of time sitting alone in the kitchen. We left just before 5pm when Ady rang to say he was home but didn’t have his keys so was sitting outside in his car looking longingly at the house!

The children had tea and then we braced ourselves and headed to Sainsburys for our festive food shopping. We’re going to my parents for Christmas dinner so only really needed nice nibbles and picky foods, aswell as festive drinks. That all went smoothly and we were home again by about 830pm. Davies and Scarlett went off to bed, Ady and I put the shopping away and then while he cooked dinner and had a bath I did the rest of the wrapping.

It took *ages* but finally I was done just before 11pm. I had a bath and we were eating dinner by about 11.15pm – dinner at about 9pm tomorrow will seem like afternoon tea! 😆 I wrapped the last few bits after dinner watching Songs of Praise and feeling all festive and misty eyed at carols I didn’t even remember I knew from school choir carol concerts of my childhood.

So, all ready for Christmas, and now all ready for bed – I’m working the next two mornings and suspect Friday might just be an early start too ;).

Oh how very ‘street’ I’ve become ;).

A very long overdue visit to Tasha and co today. The children all seemed fairly oblivious to the fact we’ve not seen each other for *ages* and fell straight into playing with each other. We didn’t see Davies and Toby for the whole time we were there, Scarlett reappeared briefly and spent some time with Vinnie and the kittens, but then disappeared upstairs with the boys again.

Tasha and I had a good old catch up – I knitted a hat and she crocheted one – how rock n’ roll are we?

Ady rang me about 5 times and said (among other things) he was going to Croydon. Both Tasha and I advised against it but he went anyway. I should probably concede now that it wasn’t advised against for weather conditions before anyone starts to think perhaps Tasha and I are witches performing Winter Solstice Magic and the like.

We came home and Davies and Scarlett disappeared upstairs to play. I had intentions of making some mince pies but took the pastry out of the fridge to return to room temperature and have ended up not rolling it out. I’m home all morning so will do some festive baking then instead. Ady rang at 4pm to say he’d been stuck on the Purley Way for half an hour not moving due to snow.

I did the kids some tea – everyone was having various leftovers tonight so Tarly had pasta and Davies had pheasant and roast potatoes. Ady still had only moved about 2 miles in 2 hours so I concluded tonight’s planned food shopping wasn’t going to happen. I had foolishly promised copies of the photos of Grumpy Old Man at work being Santa and was also anxious about the remaining Christmas presents for Jack, Maisie and Lorna so the children and I nipped to Tescos. We managed to get the photos, the presents for cousins, a couple of jumpers for Ady and a new top for me to wear on Christmas Day and arrived home at about the same time as Ady.

The children needed a top up of food before bed, then Ady and I got out all of their Christmas presents to compare pile sizes. We don’t tend to worry too much about money spent figuring that will even out over the years but do look for a similar volume of wrapped gifts. As ever we have already got way more than we realised. We have decided on one last thing for Scarlett which Ady will get tomorrow and we wrapped all of Davies’. I’ll wrap Tarly’s tomorrow and I have a bag of stuff for other people which I can wrap during the day tomorrow. I’m still waiting for various parcels to arrive but they all show as in transit so hopefully we’ll have them all by the end of tomorrow.

Thankfully it was leftovers for dinner for us too as we finished wrapping Davies’ presents at 1130pm, I went for a bath and Ady shoved dinner in the oven to reheat and we finally ate around 1230am. Once again -how rock n’ roll are we?! 😆

Today was delivering all the local-ish Christmas cards day, which we always do on the last weekend before Christmas. It often seems to be the only time we actually see certain friends, despite promising each other every year we will get in touch and make the effort to get together more often. Christmas cards generally have been very thin on the ground this year – not sure if that is people being ill, a move towards eco-friendly not sending them, credit crunch meaning people are being tighter with their spending or merely us dropping off people’s Christmas card lists ;).

So we planned a route to take in Argos at Chichester for yet another reserved online item and calling into Bognor which has a The Works where I wanted to get a few bits. First Christmas card delivered and Ady went to do it while the kids and I stayed in the car. He was gone ages and really we should have gone in and had a cup of tea with them for a proper catch up. Ady’s promised we’ll have a night out with them soon (it’s his oldest friend and his long term partner) although quite how we’re going to arrange overnight childcare I don’t know! Hard to explain to someone when they regularly have her grandchildren to stay over.

Argos to collect and then into Bognor to drop off more cards.This was to the parents and sister of the previous friend’s wife who sadly died of an asthma attack when she was in her early 20s. The parents now live in an annexe of the house of the sister and her husband and their three children (still with me?), which by coincidence is the house that Ady was living in when I first met him and I often stayed at with my then boyfriend who also lived there. Two sets of other owners had the house inbetween those days and our friends buying it. Told the children the story and explained how you can die of asthma and all the people we know who have asthma and then gave a lift into town to the middle daughter who is off to uni next year. Those children were younger than Davies and Scarlett when I first met them and now all of them are embarking on uni and grown up stuff!

Both sets of friends said to Ady ‘we saw Nic on the telly a few months ago!’ 😆

I’d been planning to nip to the shops I wanted to visit but Ady and the kids decided to come into town too so we parked up and split up. I got the various bits I wanted and then we met back up again. Home via a Garden Centre (where Ady used to work and was working when Davies was born. On his first Christmas Ady was on the management rota to go and feed the pets on Christmas Day so we have photos of Davies in his little santa suit there when everything was closed :)) for a book I’d spotted for Scarlett ages ago but not managed to go back and buy since.

Four more cards to drop off on the way including two to old ladies Ady used to do gardening work for, one of whom was home and he says still hasn’t aged at all. Scarlett had been wondering about what happens at the beach when it snows and I’d told her the salt means it doesn’t really settle so as we were driving alongside the coast we pulled over to park and have a quick look.

It’s been really interesting driving around today seeing how in Chichester and Bognor all the snow has disappeared but here in Worthing and Lancing it is still very much in evidence with all of the side streets and all of the pavements still totally iced up and very dangerous for driving and walking. I was really surprised to still see big clumps of now very icy snow still very close to the sea on the beach so we ran around (by necessity, it was bitterly cold down there) for ten minutes or so before finally coming home.

and I managed to slip over 😆

Once home the children disappeared off to play and I got roast dinner on and did some baking. I made some pastry but it’s in the fridge to use tomorrow as I ran out of time and some mincemeat muffins. I also marzipanned and iced one of the two Christmas cakes. Again I’ll do the other one tomorrow.

Dinner was lovely, we ate watching the James May Lego house thing on TV and then we all watched River Cottage Christmas before the children had another late night. Tomorrow will be wrapping up and checking we have everything at which point all the stressy stuff stops and we can just get on with eating too much, drinking too much and watching lots of Christmas specials on telly!

Davies and I slept in late this morning while Ady and Scarlett who are the early risers in the house anyway, did some craft kits. They made bath bombs from the kit Ali and Freya gave Tarly for her birthday (and has turned out very impressive results) and a beaded windchime kit from Chris and Julie.

Once we were all up, dressed and fed we headed off to Burgess Hill, which is a small town about 15miles away. The main purpose was to collect something from Argos which had been the nearest available Argos when Ady checked online but we decided to have a couple of hours there and do some shopping. It’s been a tricky year this year as Ady has been buying stuff for the children all year but I never get any time to go and do any shopping on my own. I’ve got some bits for Ady online, but otherwise done nothing. It was very slippy in Burgess Hill and infact most places seem to have been very inadequately gritted on paths and roads locally. I got a few bits in a very nice gift shop, we picked up the stuff from Argos, got another couple of things in a charity shop and then went to a bakery for some cakes / savouries for a very late lunch before heading for home.

I was feeling grumpy for no real explained reason other than being bored with listening to Ady’s cough and feeling rather like I could do with half a day or so to myself away from the whole of the rest of the world. Don’t know why, it’s not like it’s something I usually get so I shouldn’t be missing it particularly. We also called into Boots and Sainsburys with Ady and Scarlett going to Sainsburys while Davies and I went to Boots where I got various bits for Scarlett and my brother’s present.

Home again for more craft kits (Tarly), playing a new-to-him X box game (Davies), getting a fire going and starting dinner (Ady) and bath and deciding to order some photo gifts online for my Granny and parents (me). This proved more stressful than it should have done I’m sure and I hope the results are worth the money but Ive ordered a photo book for my parents with pictures of Davies and Scarlett and a photo diary with more of the same for my Granny. Having decided no matter what I buy my parents it will never be recieved with grateful thanks or gushing joy I’d rather spend money on something *I* think any normal grandparent would like to have. I’ll supplement it with some little gifts (I did home made last year and that didn’t work) and be confident I have put thought and love into their gift.

Am now feeling better about having sorted the rather joyless Christmas giving out and just need to work out what we’ve got for Davies and Scarlett and if there are any obvious discrepancies in volume. Tomorrow we have local Christmas card delivering to do (was very magical and festive walking in the snow to hand deliver to neighbours today :)), some festive baking – mince pies, decorating the Christmas cakes etc and maybe the wrapping up to do tomorrow evening. Hopefully all that will have me feeling far more festive and a lot less humbug.

There is a certain irony in me working all day when it snows and most of the local schools are closed and other parents are ringing into work to say they can’t come in.

Ady has a COUGH at the moment. This has me consulting divorce lawyers, obviously, particularly at 3am when he’s woken me up by spluttering. He gave up on sleep and went off to work early finally leaving me in peace to get some sleep, which meant I was reluctant to get up when my alarm went off. Scarlett came to tell me ‘Grandad is outside, doing things to your car!’ while I was getting dressed. Which indeed he was – scraping snow off of windows etc bless him. I made tea and coffee for him and I, let the chickens out, some of whom were getting their first ever sighting of snow, started my car running (first time, hurrah for my car!) and dug wellies out for the kids before heading off to work.

Work was predictably very quiet. We had an ecclectic mix of staff as the policy is that you go to your nearest library to work when it’s snowed and as so many people don’t work at their local library we ended up with a fairly random selection of 3 regular staff, a senior and a librarian from Crawley. It was the last Baby Rhyme Time before Christmas and I’d planned a Christmas themed version singing only Christmas songs and some nursery rhymes with rewritten Christmas lyrics. Sadly only one person turned up :(. It’s a Very Young Single Mother (quite possibly barely 16) and her 10 month old baby boy. She is lovely, has totally thrown herself into motherhood and is doing a fab job with a very cute, happy, smiley, healthy little boy. She’d brought in Christmas cards for me and the other regular attendees and it was such a shame we didn’t have more people come in. So we dubbed it ‘Callum’s Christmas Rhyme Time’ and drafted in Sian to sing with us, Wendy grabbed a couple of passing little girls and their mother and by happy coincidence Sian’s daughter Imogen had been to the doctors next door with Sian’s parents so we dragged them in to sing too.

The afternoon went fairly quickly. We heard that various other branches were shutting at 4pm and even 3pm although we’d only been given the okay to close at 5pm (still 2 hours earlier than usual, but annoyingly my normal finishing time). I moaned about this and was told I could leave at 430pm then on official ‘snow leave’ 😆 It was actually about twenty to five by the time I left but I enjoyed my 20 minutes 😆

Ady had got home at about 3pm and relieved my Dad, Davies and Scarlett had enjoyed the snow and build snowmen and played in the garden. Ady had bathed them, fed them and got our dinner sorted and I walked in to a cup of tea and a warm and cosy house which was rather nice.

We read and the kids went to bed, really quite worn out from a late night listening to Iron Woman last night and crazy snow excitement today.

I am very ready for bed but keen to watch Eddie Izzard and Hugh Grant on Jonathan Ross so will probably manage to hang out for that before retiring.

I had a very ranty start to my morning with a phonecall from Ady regarding company cars. I went from shouting and swearing to tearful and back again, not helped by Ady handing his phone to someone else during the call so I had to pull myself together to chat to him aswell. Alls as well as it’s going to end well by the end of the working day on that front and who ever knows whether my knee jerk reactions and tendancy to go and yell at people has a better or worse potential pay off than Ady’s cheerful acceptance of things.

We went over to Ali’s today where after some initial not being too happy about PSPing Scarlett was placated with some watercolour pencils which meant Davies and Freya did get to play Little Big Planet together which they enjoy lots. We then went off to Monkee Bizniz Sohft Plae the ‘wackily spelt’ local soft play place (I may have added to the wackiness of the spelling a bit, but they started it). Ali very kindly paid for everyone to go in (everyone as in the five of us, not everyone as in all of Lewes) and I got in the refreshments.

This was a big success I think – certainly Ali and I got to sit on a sofa and chat and the kids went off and played :). My watch was wrong which meant we actually left about 20 minutes later than I’d planned to and Ady rang me about 37 times which was slightly distracting and I think Ali and I had about 6 conversations on the boil which we kept interchanging between without ever really finishing any of them. But lovely to spend time with them as always :).

We got hom about 420pm and no snow had started to fall at that point. I put the chickens away, turned the heating up, put on socks and an extra jumper and did the kids some tea. I took and made a couple of phonecalls pertaining to Davies’ coat which he’d managed to leave in the cloakroom at Badgers last night when he left early with Ady. I then directed Ady (who I was holding jointly responsible with Davies for leaving it there) to go and collect it from another Badger leader’s house so we at least have that back. Which is good, what with it being snowy and December and everything.

We ended up starting a story really late and with me only intending on reading one chapter, while Davies had to be persuaded to even stay and listen to that as he’d wanted me to read something else instead. We have had The Iron Woman this at home for several weeks having really enjoyed Iron Man earlier this year. I read the first chapter and they were both hooked and begged for another. At the end of that they begged for more and we checked how many chapters there were – six. They both remembered Iron Man only had five so begged for chapter 3 so we left at the halfway point. Of course once we’d got that far we ploughed on and read the whole thing. The snow had started falling, Ady was cooking dinner, the fire was roaring and it was lovely to be indulgent and sit reading a whole book for over an hour so we did. 🙂

After some peeking at the snow and lamenting that I’m working all day tomorrow so won’t be around to play with them in it they both went off to bed. Ady finished cooking dinner, I had a bath and we watched Gavin and Stacey.

Way too early start this morning. Qotd from Tarly being “when you said I’d have to be up early this morning I didn’t realise you meant I had to get up in the dark!’ 😆 It was 7:30am.

Ady and the kids headed off for Ady to drop them at Julie’s for the morning. I got dressed, dealt with chickens, hung some washing up to dry and went off to work.

A fairly non-eventful morning really – we were stamping books to be returned on my birthday which made me realise just how close to Christmas we are :). I still have three shifts at work before then though so no wind-down for me just yet.

I popped home quickly to get changed into my jeans as it was very cold and not at all skirt weather and then drove over to Chris and Julie’s. I did pop into Littlehampton quickly as I’d spotted some nice snuggly pjs for the kids in Peacocks last week but not been able to buy them without them noticing so parked, whizzed in and bought them and whizzed back out again in under ten minutes.

At C&J’s all was well and they’d all had a nice morning including a frosty walk round the fields near their house. The four older cousins had got on well and were all in the garden when I arrived. There was friction however over a poorly crow. Maisie had spotted out while they were out walking and when she got close enough to nearly touch it and realised it must be injured got scared. Julie (foolishly she admitted!) mentioned it to Scarlett who insisted on going back for it, picking it up and bringing it back with her tucked into her coat. Much debate had ensued about the crow with Scarlett being adamant she should bring it home /to the vets, Julie wishing she’d never seen it at all and Chris fetching his air rifle with the intention of putting it out of it’s misery, what with it being ‘bloody vermin!’ and all. I arrived in the middle of all this and smoothed things over between C&J and intending on taking it away with us to take to the wild bird sanctuary nearby. I then realised it was 10 miles in the wrong direction and would make us late for Badgers so went to have a look at the sorry specimen for myself.

The crow looked pretty old, had a gammy eye, couldn’t fly and couldn’t really walk. I admit to being in agreement with Chris in many ways although shooting would be a bit excessive when a blow to the head would do the job. I persuaded Scarlett it would be better left in their garden as a vet would just put it down straight away whereas at least in the garden it stood an outside chance of survival.

Ady, who apparently had a pet jackdaw when he was younger tells me I should have brought it home after all and is now planning to collect it if it’s still around tomorrow but I don’t have any great desire to run an animal sanctuary really. I’ll leave all that to Ady and Scarlett but very much doubt it will still be around tomorrow really.

I had a cup of tea and chat with Chris and Julie and then we left and headed for home. The kids and I both had bowls of pasta (I’d not eaten any breakfast or lunch) and then went off to Badgers.

It was supposed to be a film night but first the laptop wouldn’t talk to the projector and then the volume wouldn’t work loud enough for anyone to hear so in the end that was abandoned and one of the other parents led them in a sort of Badgers Got Talent type extravaganza. Davies started to look peaky, was fed up about the film and clearly not that happy about me starting to be in some sort of Leader capacity (children were already trying to hold my hand and compete for my attention) so Ady took him home while I had brief planning meeting with Julie the leader and another woman who is being a helper next term as part of her OU course (she also has children at Badgers and will probably end up staying on as a leader eventually). I will be helping with Communication Badger while Davies and Scarlett are in another group doing Entertainment Badger, which I think they will enjoy and will mean contact is limited. I am still not thrilled at the idea as I enjoy the time with Ady and the other parents but have been rather backed into a corner. I’ll give it a term and see how it pans out.

Scarlett and I came home, I nipped back out again to get some bits for dinner and then read some stories to Davies and Scarlett. I’m looking forward to seeing friends tomorrow, but very tired so heading off to bed at Early o’clock. I must be nearly 36 or something with all this new found sensibleness!

Off to Katy’s house today where we’ve not been before, for 6+ reading group. Before we left home and indeed on the way I did some lecturing and Davies and Scarlett did some acknowledging that life needs to get more harmonious, cooperative and self-directed around here. Probably need to make all sorts of post-illness, pre-Christmas type allowances but am looking forward to new year, new challenges, new ideas type stuff and thinking some re-evaluating would be good.

Katy lives in the same town as Chris and Julie but although I’ve been there loads I don’t know it at all well other than Chris and Julie’s house and the smallholders store where we get the chicken food from. Katy lives in a very cute, fairytale type cottage in the middle of a terrace. It’s adorable, very pretty but also very small and quite cold and due to intolerant neighbours they are about to move out. It’s a very dinky 3 rooms downstairs and 3 upstairs with a small front room, little middle room, one side of which is a kitchen and then a sort of sun lounge room on the back. The 12+ book group had the front room and the 6+ had the back room, with any lurking adults hanging out in the kitchen in the middle. I vaguely know one of them and the others I’d briefly met last time. I sat and chatted to a couple of them but then a rather ‘larger than life’ type woman burst in late and did a bit of ‘commanding the room’ with anecdotes in which she was the heroine with pauses left for people to tell her how great she was. I found this very tedious so quietly got on with some knitting while internally mocking her and entertaining myself with my own cruel thoughts ;). I was then joined by the woman I vaguely know – Clare and had a really nice chat with her about Home Ed generally, wobbles over approaches and what to do with 9 year old boys. She has 3 children – 13 and 15 year old daughters and a 9 year old son -the girls did go to school but her son never has. He is a reluctant attendee of the 6+ book group mostly because his older sister is the 12+ so he’d have to be there anyway but he kept coming out to try and drag Clare in with him. It turned out he has quite a lot in common with Davies – they did meet many years ago when they were about 4 and hit it off then although neither of them would remember. We agreed that maybe we should get them together and planned to arrange something, but actually within the hour when all the kids had gone outside for a run around Davies and Jack found each other anyway :).

The kids did some cave painting – aka a roll of lining paper hung up around the sun room and the kids let loose with paint (well watered down food colouring, much cheaper than paint and with more satisfying colours) to create cave paintings, then they did some collage self portrait stuff and chatted about Littlenose. Katy said to me afterwards that Davies and Scarlett had been very much leaders in the discussion and chatted with her loads which was good as last time they’d been a bit shy of saying much in the group. We were on the cusp of leaving when Katy offered me another cup of tea so a few of us stayed to chat awhile longer and Katy took delivery of a parcel containing some frozen food being kept cool with a couple of bags of dry ice. A handy group of Home Educated children proved too much of a temptation to let the educational value of such a coincidence go by so we called them in, emptied the dry ice into a saucepan and everyone cooed and oohed and ahhed over it. We also added some food colouring, tried to freeze a blade of grass and saw what happened if you huffed warm air over it. Very cool 🙂

We left with promises to meet up soon and headed for home.

I was planning on finishing my reading group book which was Travels with My Aunt but I was on page 58 and it was failing to grab me at all so I decided not to bother and made some mince pies instead. Scarlett made another foodchain cycle picture thing and then spent some time on one of her animal hospital type DS games learning more about animals (she took my chat very seriously about self directed learning ;)). Davies spent some time snuggled up with me, played his DS, watched some TV and made a real effort not to wind Scarlett up.

Ady came home and I headed off to Book Group at the library. We were having a festive time tonight complete with mulled wine and various nibbles people had brought – I was the only one with home made offerings mind you ;). We talked about the book – everyone but me had enjoyed it so I conceded my literary bimbo-ness :lol:, we had a quiz of book titles we have read before at group, which myself and Liz won (we split into pairs) and I impressed even myself by remembering all of the authors of too – got a box of liquers for that triumph. Next we had pass the parcel with a chocolate coin and a ‘how many lords leaping / maids milking / geese laying are in the song?’ challenge in each layer with a box of chocolates as the main prize. Liz won that too although I was the only one who knew all the lyrics to 12 days of Christmas. We had a final prize for the person who could come up with the sum total of gifts given over the whole 12 day period.

Home for dinner and a little light reading in the shape of the Select Commitee report.

It was the monthly Home Ed meet up at PB today and we’d have liked to have gone but with the MOT already run out on my car I decided not to risk driving it. Instead we had a morning at home. Scarlett has really gotten into drawing and making little paper things involving lots of cutting out and colouring in and sticking together. This rather puts Davies at a loose end and he sometimes combats this by baiting and annoying Scarlett. He and I had a chat about not wasting his freedom of childhood and lack of anyone dictating how he should spend his time. I said that all the time I could see autonomy working for him with him being occupied, self driven and interested then it was great but if I could see he was getting bored, restless or unstimulated then I was quite happy to take the decision making power back again and decide for him how he should spent his time.I suspect this is a conversation we will return to but hopefully more in a gentle shove in the right direction than full on timetables ;). He did go off and come back later having made a robot from various bits of recycled junk and tried to read my very stylised writing on some Christmas cards.

Scarlett did a drawing with mountains in the background and a cat chasing a bird, chasing a spider, chasing a flea, chasing a dog which she then glued edge to edge to create a 3d round of perpetual chasing. Liked that lots 🙂 and all her own ideas and work.

We had lunch and then headed off to to drop my car off for it’s MOT. Every year I anticipate being the one that the car finally starts costing us loads of money – an MOT due the week before Christmas is always a bad idea anyway. We dropped it off, were told to come back an hour later and he’d ring me if there were any problems and so we walked into Lancing.

We looked in the bookshop (where I covertly bought them each something they’d been cooing over when they weren’t looking), various charity shops and the post office where I posted all the foreign Christmas cards and bought stamps for all the UK ones. We walked back to the garage and were delighted to learn the car had passed :). He recommended new tyres for the front wheels which I’ll get sorted after Christmas.

While we were out we’d discussed gymnastics as it was the last one tonight but they have missed the previous three sessions. I have been really careful not to impose my view that it is very expensive, highly unlikely to reap the actual goal of backflips any time soon and really not what they are used to in terms of the strict discipline and the way the children are spoken to, whilst still allowing plenty of scope for both children to confide they are not sure about it anymore. Today neither of them wanted to go and when I pressed them as to whether they wanted to go again after Christmas Scarlett straight away said no. Davies was prepared to go again but when I said I’d been looking into acrobatics and tumbling and circus skills instead he agreed that was far more what he was wanting to learn rather than competition level gymnastics. We agreed I would contact the Gymnastics owner and say they wouldn’t be coming back. I am pleased. Pleased we gave them the chance to do something they wanted to do, pleased they gave it a genuine crack and pleased they knew when to call an end to it having decided it wasn’t going to provide what they wanted after all.

Back home again they wanted to play in the bath as Scarlett had bought them both some toys in one of the charity shops so they ran their own bath and got in while I made a start on my roundup of 2009 post. I made their tea and made a couple of phonecalls / sent some emails I’d been meaning to do. Davies and I had another chat and he showed me some video clips on his phone taken while at camp and earlier in the summer with Chloe.

I think they are both on the cusp of another spurt of changing and development which is always a bit unsettling for everyone for a week or more until life gets back on an even keel again. We started talking about things we want to do next year though and both of them were very enthused by that idea so I am hopeful that willl give us some guidance to fall back on.

Ady came home and I read the last couple of chapters of the Littlenose book we’re on. Bedtime was rather protracted and we had an amusing interlude when I was in the bath, Ady was in the kitchen and the children were in their respective bedrooms (Davies upstairs, Scarlett downstairs) and I think Scarlett started singing ‘deck the halls’ until we all joined in from various rooms :).

but not at a hotel in Amsterdam. Just here in Sompting.

Saturday I worked in the morning. I spent most it doing this display:

It’s a large cardboard box (that our green johanna composter came in) that Tarly and I had cut a hole in and painted brown on Friday. I made the fire and grate from coloured paper at work, dragged one of the library armchairs over and found a coffee cup and cushion in the staff room. Another colleague suggested stringing the Christmas cards up and someone else has suggested I make some flying ducks to go on the wall 😆 I think it looks good but would like to have a fireside rug there too to complete it.

While I’m posting photos of library displays here is my 12 Days of Christmas display currently in the junior library. Scarlett helped with this one too – the excessively glittered partridge is hers and she coloured in lots of the dancing ladies and drumming drummers 🙂

I spent some time researching Chatterbooks which I have pushed for and volunteered to run in my own time and finally had approved and signed off. I now need to put together a proper plan of how it will work and set some dates. I’m also hoping to put together some minor training for colleagues on it so that I have support in recruiting members and people talking about it to others and getting some copy ready to go on the West Sussex website. Unfortunately this will also have to be done in my own time really as I can’t see me fitting that into my 11 hours a week ;). Looks like 2010 will be the ‘Year I volunteer!’

Home for lunch and Davies and I made some more baubles from old Christmas cards. He did really well at that as it is pretty fiddly and tasks like that have always been ones he struggles with. He suddenly went really pale and quiet during lunch and said he wasn’t hungry and he was really cold. Scarlett had been the same on Monday when she started going down with whatever it is she has. He ended up taking himself off to bed with his DS.

I wanted to go to the allotment as it’s been totally neglected for the last month or so. To be fair there was very little we could have been doing anyway with such wet weather and we have very little growing at the moment but I should have got up there before just to cast an eye over everything, particularly with the high winds we’ve been having. Our composter which I hadn’t really installed very well had blown over which meant all the half rotted food was just sitting there. Fortunately the weather has meant it was just rotting more rather than stinking. The door seems to have gone altogether though so we need to sort out a replacement for that before we can add any more material to it. Scarlett came with me and we pulled about half the parsnips which have grown quite well and checked the carrots which haven’t. We removed various debris from our wildlife pond and then as we were already pretty muddy just from doing that decided that would do for now and we’d come back up again soon. Our plot looked pretty much like everyone elses and there is very little you can be doing on the allotment at this time of year anyway but I really want to make sure we build on what went well this year.

Then we called into Lancing as we needed some bits for the evening. We were off to the Not Swingers for dinner and it was Mexican night. I’d wanted to get some chili chocolate (but couldn’t find any in Lancing), some Sol beer and lime and either some Mexican wine or some tequilla. Tequilla is very expensive so I changed my mind about that but did get some Mexican beer, limes and some nice chocolates to take. We also called into the library as Scarlett wanted to see the display up and predictably she chose a book to borrow too.

Back home again I had a bath and got ready to go out. Davies had continued to go downhill but said he was fine about us going out. We did say that if it had been Scarlett who was ill we wouldn’t have gone as she wouldn’t have got the level of cosseting and care from my Mum but Davies would be more fussed over by her than if I’d stayed home with him.

Scarlett made us all laugh as the bath was already run that Ady had had waiting for me and as she was muddy from the allotment (and her feet smell from her shoes) he said to her ‘go and jump in the bath quickly before Mummy has it’ so she did

fully dressed! Nutter! 😆

Mum and Dad arrived and we headed off to Mike and Rose’s. Rose’s sister and husband were also joining us and Rose has been very keen for her sister and I to meet. She says we are very alike but her sister is a dog-loving, children-intolerant, social worker whereas I am pretty much the opposite 😆

Mike, as always, had gone all out with his culinary theme of Mexico and we started with Tequilla Sunrise cocktails and chili-infused nibbles. The food was actually all really nice and Mike always does a serve-yourself style with so many dishes and options if I don’t like something I can easily avoid it. This time there was nothing I had to eat at all that I wouldn’t have chosen to :).

We started with home made dips and tortilla chips – guacomole, salsa, some chickpea based (clearly I didn’t eat that) and sour cream. This was followed by a taco stuffed with lettuce, salsa and quorn mince cooked with chili. I was quite impressed with the quorn mince. The main course was enchiladas with cheese and tomatoes, a pepper and tomatoes salad and refried beans for those who wanted them. Dessert was a chocolate and almond pudding. Chili chocolates to finish along with tea, coffee and cointreau (departed from the Mexican theme at that point, but we had had Mexican wine with dinner).

It was all very nice but the vast combination of mixed drinks – cocktails, white wine, pink fizz (Rose’s sister was driving so opened a bottle and had one small glass but then noone else seemed to like it so I drank most of that) and finally Cointreau meant we were all pretty inebriated by the end of the evening. We had rousing conversations about education but it all stayed very amicable, if animated ;). Davies had rung me twice during the evening and actually I’d told him at about 930 that we’d only be another hour or so. That hadn’t quite happened as time had done that black hole thing when we moved away from the dining table. We finally got home somewhere after midnight. My memory is a bit patchy but Davies came and slept with me as he was still semi-awake and not feeling well.

Sunday I woke up feeling dreadful – clearly all self inflicted and expecting no sympathy ;). A text conversation with Rose revealed they were feeling equally as rough. A lovely evening but always sure it could have been just as lovely without the alcohol abuse and write off of the following day really… maybe next year I really will make a concerted effort to reduce my drinking.

Davies had woken feeling much better, it clearly is just a cold with one day of feeling rough while going down with it. The kids were supposed to be going to the Badgers Christmas party and Ady and I had some Christmas shopping planned but Davies didn’t feel up to it and Scarlett didn’t want to go alone so I was spared that ordeal with my hangover ;). A quiet morning and then Scarlett and I walked up the hill to Mike and Rose’s to collect Ady’s car. It’s only about a 15 minute walk but very steeply uphill – we sang The Grand Old Duke of York, increasingly breathlessly, to keep us going 😆 Diversion home to my Dad’s to collect a cheque for the kids swimming lessons for next term and then to the swimming pool to pay it in. Tuesdays are going to be crazy next term with sea scouts and brownies afterwards at slightly staggered times.

Back home again I felt able to face some food and then we all got changed and headed out again to Brighton to see Them With Frozen Tails (- neither of the photographed actors were in the one we saw). I’d seen it on the Brighton Theatres website about 6 weeks ago and thought it looked good. We don’t tend to go to pantos as they are just so pricey and never really seem worth the money. None of us watch soaps so never know any of the minor celebrities that star in them so this seemed like a good festive treat alternative. It was excellent, really funny and with loads of audience participation. Lots of fresh, topical humour and the third story (it was three animal stories narrated and acted out with virtually no props) was all improvised with suggestions from the audience on characters and plot. We had a good brave knight, called Sir Bread, who acted like a hamster and saved the world by turning people into kittens, working against an evil crazy yeti called Bob who lived in a microphone and wanted to take over the world by throwing snowballs at people. It was hilarious 😆

We were home by 630pm and Ady cooked the kids some tea while I had a bath, then I cooked our dinner. Loads of the TV chefs seemed to be having Christmas specials on tv yesterday so we watched some nice soothing Nigella making cooking turkey and Rachel Allen baking and decorating a gingerbread house. Then, way earlier than usual, it was bedtime.

I finally got round to digging out my car MOT certificate which I knew was about to run out any day and discovered today was indeed that day. Booked it in for Monday lunchtime and won’t need to drive it before then so that’s fine, now just need to keep fingers firmly crossed it gets through with minimal expense.

I drafted a resignation letter for one of Ady’s colleagues (I seem to be in charge of all the CVs, application forms and covering letters, interview advice etc for most of his colleagues. I guess if I’m helping with resignation letters now too it means there is success happening with the other bits :)) and emailed that across. It reminded me of the careful wording on several of my resignation letters. With B&Q there was none required for my transfers and promotions but my actual leaving the company altogether after 6 years came as a blow and I was offered all sorts of incentives to stay. My recruitment consultant letter had to be handed in to the MD of the whole company who happened to be covering our branch at the time. She was shocked as she’d had no idea how dreadful the job role had become for myself and my colleague (who left at the same time). I didn’t use the opportunity to enlighten her either, maybe I should have done. Leaving Clintons was a blow to my boss but not a shock – he knew that unless he was to leave there was no career path for me as his was the only job above mine and he wasn’t going anywhere. Leaving the next job was by mutual agreement so no resignation letter required – probably my behaviour could be considered an elaborate form of resignation ;). Leaving Bhs was a relief -the manager actually told me I’d made the right decision in leaving – the bitch! Leaving my Sales Office Manager job was no problem – I was moving 250 miles away. I think I almost always had a tone in the ‘it is with some regret…’ line though 😆

Davies and Scarlett were playing upstairs and I was sorting out laundry when Lucy and The Rs arrived. The Rs went up to join D and S and all seemed fairly harmonious allowing Lucy and I the chance to chat and catch up. The children went outside to play for a while and came in when they got hungry at lunchtime. Unfortunately they never quite recovered their equilibrium after lunch. A dvd was put on but Scarlett decided they were not all behaving well enough to watch it (in fairness Ms R hadn’t wanted to, I suspect she was just making her feelings known), then Scarlett got all precious about not letting anyone play with her Noah’s Ark – understandable, it’s only a few days old and she doesn’t even let Davies play with it and then started sobbing about Davies and Rebecca playing Connect 4 as she claimed that had been a birthday present to her too. I put a stop to that as it was getting ridiculous. She had come in from outside all blue lipped and shivery and I think she was feeling rough and a bit delicate, but that’s no excuse for being quite so unreasonable.

The final straw was Scarlett trying to get involved in some sort of sibling spat between Richard and Rebecca and getting walloped, so as we’d spent the final half an hour or so lurching from one wailing interuption to the next Lucy made the executive decision that the visit was over and they headed off. On this occassion I think the boys did fine and both of the girls were being difficult in their own ways. Bless ’em…

Everything calmed down after that and Davies and Scarlett sat very happily side by side with their DSs connecting and assisting each other with various levels.

I got out a large cardboard box I wanted to make into a fireplace for a display at work and cut out a section and then mixed up some brown paint to paint the rest. Scarlett decided to help me so we did that together.

We put CBBC on and watched that, the kids had a late dinner as Ady had picked up some of the things I needed to actually make it and didn’t get home til gone 6pm. We read a couple of chapters of the current Littlenose book we’re on and the kids went off to bed.

I’ve started knitting a hat for myself and I spent some time cutting old Christmas cards from last year into little circles to make baubles for the Christmas Tree which is starting to look pretty. Will do some more of them tomorrow and ice the biscuits I made too.

I was back to work yesterday and after nearly 2 whole weeks off was quite looking forward to it really. The day seemed to whizz by and it was nice to be back catching up with everyone and chatting about our week away. I had an interesting chat with F who tells me she has 61 people to buy for on her Christmas list and spends about £900 just on presents at Christmas. This horrified me but in asking around doesn’t seem terribly unusual. I know we are not overwhelmed with family to have to buy for and maybe we’re mean in not adding loads of friends to Christmas lists. All that said I bet I’ll be feeling smug when we have nothing carried over still to pay for next year ;).

I am now thinking my flat refusal to spend £30 each on lightsabers is a bit cruel though and plotting to get my parents and Frazer to buy them instead so that I won’t resent a whole days wages being spent on plastic tat but the kids still get something they want.

The rest of the day passed very quickly and I arrived home shortly before Ady (Ady had been home with Davies and Scarlett in the morning, Dad had been here in the afternoon). I had an hours catching up with the children before getting ready to go out and then they dropped me off at the pub before going to McDonalds with Ady for their dinner.

I was first to arrive at the pub where 9 of us from work were having a Christmas meal. It’s years since I walked into a pub on my own and I remember my Dad always being horrified that I was up for doing it at all when I was younger as ‘in his day’ women simply didn’t go into pubs unaccompanied. I used to drink in a bar where I knew all the barstaff and various other regulars so often used to just head down there of an evening and either sit at the bar chatting or see who else came in – it was a bit like Cheers. That used to bewilder my Dad and actually going into that pub last night I could see why, I felt very odd walking in alone, ordering a drink and then sitting down by myself. I only had about ten minutes before two others arrived and I was quite happy but had already got a reply ready incase one of the couple of blokes who were giving me curious looks decided to try the ‘what’s a nice girl like you…?’ line 😆

The meal was predictably fairly low quality and tasteless but the company and large amounts of wine more than made up for that. We had a really nice few hours and lots of laughs. One woman was driving so dropped 3 of us home and another two had their own cars as they lived further away. One other woman’s husband came to collect the others. I was home before 11pm so Ady and I watched Gavin and Stacey that he’d recorded earlier.

Off for a Winter Walk this morning with Julie, Jack, Maisie and Lorna. We met at the woods in Slindon. Last time we met there Jack and Maisie were really keen to head to the nearby park so we cut the walking in the woods part short. I said to Davies and Scarlett that actually driving for half an hour to sit on a bench while they played on some fairly crappy swings was not something I was prepared to do too often and if we were going to head to parks I thought it was fair we met halfway between them and us rather than us doing all the driving. They both took this on board and Davies, who is wonderful and gets all his very best bits from Ady made sure we had a proper woodland walk today with not a hint of playpark about it :).

We set off and the four older children ran ahead while Julie and I walked at Lorna pace. It’s actually a very small area of woodland that all four of the children know well and have been walking in since they were toddlers so Julie and I had no worries about them running off ahead. At one point we reached a fork in the path that didn’t have an obvious direction they may have gone in so we made an educated guess and when we came across a man walking his dog a few minutes later as we exchanged ‘good morning’ s with him I casually asked if he’d passed four children to ensure we were going in the right direction. He looked horrified and wanted to exchange mobile phone numbers with me incase we saw them and everything. I tried to reassure him we were not worried but just wanted to check we were treading in their footsteps but I’m sure he thought we were dreadfully neglectful. Within moments we heard Maisie calling and they all reappeared and told us we were being rubbish at tracking them as they’d left us marks of arrows on trees. So it turned out it was Julie, Lorna and I who were lost, if anybody was.

We headed back towards the cars and poor Tarly managed to have a real wipeout fall scraping her knee (through her ripped jeans) in several places. She is at least a fairly stoic child so sort of spat on her hand and wiped the blood off, then kept going 😆 Julie and I were talking about the differences apparent in Home Ed kids and she remarked on how very bold and confident Davies and Scarlett are. I guess she’s right but I spend so much time around other Home Ed kids to me they just seem ‘normal’.

Really nice couple of hours tramping around in wellies and putting the world to rights :).

We came home and the breadmaker had just finished baking a loaf I’d stuck in before we left so we had nice fresh bread for lunch. The kids played with Scarlett’s Noah’s Ark for a while, Davies messed around on the Bamzookis website and they watched some CBBC. I read my book and drank lots of tea.

Yesterday at a charity shop we’d picked up a craft set called ‘Party Penguins’ which mostly involved threading beads onto wire in a certain way to create little peguin ornaments which you then decorate with felt and more beads. We did one each of those before Davies and Scarlett got distracted by The Chuckle Brothers! 😆

Tea for them and then off to Badgers. I had to take various ridiculous amounts of ID with me which I must get out of Ady’s car actually as if that envelope gets lost I probably have nothing else left in the world to confirm I am me and really exist! 😆

I caught up with a couple of the other parents, had a glass of mulled wine (Ady arrived after me and came in with ‘blimey it smells like camp in here!’ :lol:), filled out what is now my fourth CRB check form – I almost worry that I will flag something up somewhere for having been checked so many times now! and then rejoined the rest of the room for Presentation Night.

They have been doing Healthy Badger this term and it’s been very craft based activities so they paraded baseball caps they’d decorated for ‘staying safe in the sun’, frisbees they’d decorated for ‘staying fit and active’ and various other crafty bits and pieces. They all got their Healthy Badger badge and certificate and then Scarlett got a Silver Paw (for completing 6 badges – they get one every third badge) and Davies was made a Follow Me Badger :). Finally I was asked to stand up so they could tell everyone that I’ll be becomming Assistant Badger Leader from next term. As Ady said to me later – who would have thought when I first started taking a very shy and tiny Davies aged 5 that this would be the result 4 years on.

I am particularly proud of Davies as Julie is very firm about not just giving Follow Me Badger to every Badger who turns nine – they have to really earn it and she is quite happy to not have any if there are no deserving candidates :).

I brought the children home and we read a pile of books as we’ve not had stories for ages. I can’t be bothered to find links now but it was nice to snuggle up and read to them 🙂

Ady and I had a late night, I cooked tagliatelle using some bacon from Tom (Ady’s work mate and our meat dealer) who’s parents had their own pigs this year. It was simply the best bacon I’ve ever tasted and had Ady and I all enthused anew for self sufficiency again.