One word? When seven would do…

Woke with my very late set alarm this morning and had to rouse sleepy children. We’re so rubbish at mornings :).

Caz had already sent me a text while we were still breakfasting, then Archie rang and I said we were about to leave but then we had a drama involving Davies’ phone and the garlic and onion sets. I am quite happy for the children to roam in the downs and woodland at the allotment, totally out of sight for large chunks of time if they have a phone so I can check in that they are okay and alert them to iminent leaving. Davies has a phone that we gave him when he went to camp last year. My children don’t have many responsibilities, mostly because I feel quite strongly that they are children and the time for responsibilities will be upon them soon enough but I do expect them to be in charge of things like knowing where their belongings are, maintainance such as keeping things charged up and letting me know if they need more credit etc are. Basically this extends to DSs and Badger uniform I think – they need to gague whether their Badger clothes need washing and if so put them in the washing basket, if not put them away tidily so they know where they are next time they need them, putting their DSs on charge each evening so they know where they are and they are fully charged for the next day. For Davies this also includes keeping the whereabouts of his phone in mind and ensuring it is charged. So he couldn’t find his phone, when we rang it it went to voicemail suggesting it was flat. I explained I wasn’t going to get cross even though I was a bit cross because the natural consequence of that was that I wasn’t happy with them going out of sight for very long. The phone got found, it was indeed flat and then I couldn’t find the garlic and onion set that I’d been planning to put in today.

We finally arrived at the allotment, Caz gave the kids her phone and off they went. Caz and I did weeding, seaweed spreading, digging, watering and HUGE amounts of chatting. I love Caz, she is so unlike most of my friends, amazingly easy company and I don’t think we’d ever run out of things to talk about :). At one point the children reappeared with sweets to check they could eat them. They’d come across a couple walking their dog, been asked why they weren’t in school and explained all about Home Ed and then been given sweets by them :). It perfectly illustrated something Caz and I had been talking about about trusting the children to listen to their own intuition, not be blanket wary or naive about people they come across and trusting their instincts :).

We suddenly realised it was 3pm and we all had places to be so we gathered up the children and parted. Davies, Scarlett and I dashed to Sainsburys for last minute supplies for dinner and camping. We hit a big traffic jam and were cutting it very fine for getting home and infact pulled up behind Frankie outside our house. She is chicken sitting for us while we’re away and had come to see how everything worked. I showed her and her son Harry round, Davies and Scarlett introduced them to all the chickens and gave them a load of eggs to take away. They got an impromptu chicken biology lesson too when I explained to Scarlett about a chicken’s crop :lol:. We waved them off and all had something to eat then Davies and Scarlett went off to play while I chopped up and sewed together some material and debated a patchwork cover for the sofas. Ady came home and we attempted an interesting conversation but were too interupted by Scarlett who sensed something being discussed so kept chiming in with nonsense.

We gathered everything together for the weekend, the kids had a bath and some tea and we littered the playroom floor with more stuff than looks feasible to fit in the car let alone for just a weekend.

Scarlett and I candled the eggs again and two are just too full to see anything but the air pocket is intact so that’s promising, the third is quite veiny but we clearly saw lots of movement so that was exciting :).

Pizza for dinner, last bath til Tuesday, children finally asleep and I still have a mornings work before I’m released for first camping trip of the season :).

Ady took Davies and Scarlett to work with him today. He is doing it fairly regularly and while I suspect the three of them spend most of their day in charity shops lunching at McDonalds and he often comes home rather exhausted by them I think this is in general A Good Thing. I do worry that Ady still maintains something of a Novelty Parent status which I don’t think is healthy or great for anyone really. Maybe I’m lazy and not really trying hard enough but I do feel that Parenting is something I do very little of and just spending time with Davies and Scarlett rarely feels like a chore or work or effort. I am aware I can be a bit controlling though and maintaining a hands off approach rather than meddling in other peoples relationships is something I struggle with, so the more time they all have in each others’ company without me around the better really ;).

So my day was fine. I did some reassuring and comforting a colleague who freaked out when Storytime got too big and rowdy for her to contemplate doing, enjoyed talking to an old American guy who came in and when I asked how I could help him tried to persuade me to to adopt him. Apparently my children and chickens were potential deal breakers although he thought he’d get on just fine with Ady. Then he told me about his property in France and I tried to persuade him to adopt me instead! 😆

I had part two of my PDR (personal development review) which was about setting objectives for the coming year. I reiterated once again that I am happy to take on as much responsibility as they can offer me whilst remaining very aware of the constraints of 11 hours a week. There is a long term opportunity possibly for the next grade up position but would required more hours per week and the hourly rate is not really sufficient for the amount of additional responsibility but I might give it more thought when it becomes a real possibility. I suspect at least one other of my colleagues is thinking the same however and I’m definitely not in the market for competitive stress for the brief hours I spend at work as it is by far the smallest and least important parts of my life. A combination of pushing myself forward with the Chatterbooks thing, volunteering my time and being ever helpful and up for taking things on and being a bit over familiar has definitely got me in the loop with the important people though and it’s nice to feel recognised and more than just an assistant.

Back at home I finished sewing my first patchwork project, rainbow squares from a swatch book. The resulting rectangle wasn’t really big enough to do much at all with so I have made a bag with it and used some denim scraps for handles. It’s very long and shallow so perfect for stuff sticking out the ends, like french bread or rolled up towels. I’ve used it to pack my clothes for camping this weekend so it’s already proved useful :). My next project is definitely trying to recover the sofas which will either prove way easier than I’m expecting or totally impossible – place your bets now! 😉

Scarlett rang to say they were all stuck in traffic so I had a chat with her and Davies (and Ady shouting in the background) and got their tea on ready for their arrival home. Ady and I looked out the camping stuff from the Cupboard of Doom (under the stairs) and I chucked out one bin liner full of stuff, a load of cardboard boxes into the recycling and three bags of clothes that are too good to be chopped up for scrap material but I’ll realistically never get round to ebaying either are now by the front door for the clothes bank / charity shop tomorrow.

Davies and Scarlett went to bed, Ady and I had dinner and I’m hopeful of decent weather tomorrow as we’ve an allotment visit planned.

We were up and out early again this morning. Thanks to various confusions we were off to Home Ed book club for one of the craft sessions as the group is doing the Summer Reading Challenge display for Bognor library. (As an aside I am very envious of not thinking of this idea first for Lancing ;)). There are four sessions planned with various Space related themes and ideas. But before we went there I had some books I was waiting for to collect from the library. So we dashed there first, handily used my key to go in before they opened (causing much confusion and consternation 😉 ) and came back out again. We needed petrol so stopped for that and were still at Caz’s by 930am as she needed to follow us to Mel’s house as I could take her there but not give any sort of coherant directions.

Arrived there for 10am and chatted with Clare and Mel who were running the sessions. Today Clare was doing Factual Planets and had cut out more or less to scale planets from the solar system along with the sun to be decorated. Scarlett chose the Sun and Davies chose Neptune. Clare had brought loads of newspaper to tear out small sections and cover the planets with words to tie in with ‘facts and figures’. Various words jumped out for various planets though so they particularly chose those to be obvious (eg ‘energy’, ‘star’ ‘hot’ and so on for Scarlett’s sun). I read to Davies from one of the many books there about Neptune and he chose 1846 (the year it was discovered) from sudoko numbers, the words ‘freeze’ and ‘sea’ and then found all the letters from ‘Neptune’ and stuck those on too. Next he used green and blue tissue paper to colour it while using lots of glue so the letters showed through. It looked ace 🙂
. Finally I read a section of the book out and Davies recalled the most interesting facts about Neptune and I helped him write them out for an information card to attach to the planet. He wrote ‘A Neptune year is 165 Earth years, Neptune has 8 moons, Neptune is 4.5 billion km away from the sun’.

Scarlett decorated her sun with red, orange and yelllow tissue paper and then was persuaded to write ‘the sun is a star, it is in the centre of the solar system’. Her sun also looked fab and will be the centrepiece of that particular display :).


I was really proud of her on several occassions this morning as she willingly gave things to other people that they wanted and although she found it really hard she was good about not being allowed to go outside. Mel has a dog, kittens, guinea pigs, ducks and chickens so her garden was something of a paradise to Scarlett but she’d asked if she could go out and Mel had said ‘not today, there are too many children and the animals need a space to escape to’ which was reasonable (and actually even if it wasn’t, it’s Mel’s house and she gets to make up the rules ;)) but not everyone paid heed so Scarlett was in the tough position of having asked and been directly told no but watching other people out there.

We headed for home as we were getting hungry and had decided to have the afternoon at home playing for D&S and sewing for me. I’d found a pattern for some reusable sandwich wraps to make with plastic backed fabric and had got some yesterday so was keen to have a go at making some. I’ve made four, one each for all of us and decorated them too – well I decorated Ady and my ones, Davies and Scarlett decorated their own. I think they all look great and will be so much nicer than using cling film for our next picnic aswell as wipe clean afterwards.

That done it was time for tea for Davies and Scarlett before we went to Badgers. Tonight we had a talk from the man who runs Badger and Cadet camp with his wife. He talked about setting up a campsite and where to put everything then handed out sheets of paper with ‘cadet and badger tents’ ‘adult tents’ ‘kitchen tent’ ‘food preparation area’ ‘toilets’ ‘bins’ ‘marquee’ and so on on them and split the Badgers into teams to set up campsites with them. The twins who can be tricky were tricky today so I had to do some squabbling refereeing which I struggle with a bit. Justine (another adult helper) and I then took them outside to play games on the lawn. We started with stuck in the mud by popular vote and then I set up 3 markers (using coats from my car) and split them into three teams to do relay races. I’d been encouraging them to be quite loud and Julie came out and told them off which I thought was a bit mean :(. She then gave the Badgers a bit of a lecture about behaviour and talked about some sort of sticker chart type reward scheme for them behaving well. I *really* struggle with that and was trying very hard not to pull faces and heckle her :lol:.

We got home and while the kids made themselves some toast I dismantled the swatch books I’d got yesterday to get the material out and chopped some of it up to make patchwork with. I now have a small rectangle of very lovely rainbow patchwork but not enough to do anything with really – will ponder further. But I am loving my sewing machine :).

Scarlett was keen to get to bed and listen to an audio book so Davies and I took the opportunity to read part two of Clockwork which Scarlett had found too scary. I then did more sewing til dinnertime before having a late bath and spending far too much time unsucessfully trying to sort out the old laptop which is virus ridden again :(.

This morning I finally did my first lookering stint. I’ve been waiting since the beginning of December last year and this weekend when a plea went out for some last minute availability for lookering I stuck my name down for this morning. It was rather shortsighted and reckless really (so typical me!) as I’d been meaning to get on the ‘refresher session’ list first or visit for the first time with another experienced lookerer as quite apart from not entirely recalling just what I had to do when I was at the site I was also not at all sure just where the site was! There are about 6 sites they have been grazing sheep on and not being local to the Brighton area really I didn’t actually ‘know’ any of them but figured I’d find them and know it’s only about a 15 minute drive to that part of Brighton when it’s not rush hour.

So last night I was frantically googling press releases of the whole lookering scheme and peering at pdf maps with faded street names then google mapping the street names. We headed over there this morning with a loose idea of where the sheep might be and the knowledge that on every area with Brighton & Hove sheep grazing there would be signage explaining the grazing scheme and details of the shepherds contact details so I’d know when I’d found them. We drove up and down the same street three times, found one field with cow in it which I knew couldn’t also contain sheep (the whole point is there are there to graze to prevent mowing so cows wouldn’t also be there) and then Scarlett spotted sheep but we couldn’t work out how to get to the field. Finally we saw a sign on a narrow patch of ground between two houses which led up to where the sheep were, so we parked and trudged up the hill and sure enough there were the sheep and the grazing information sign I’d been looking for :).

The fence was not an electric one so there was no need to check the voltage which is one of the possible duties of lookering but we did walk the perimeter to ensure there was no damage anywhere on the fence. We checked the sheep had clean and full water supplies and got all of them to get up and walk before doing a head count of nine and then heading back down the hill again. I couldn’t remember whether we had to text to say if everything was ok or whether we only texted when things were not okay so thought I’d err on the side of caution. I also wasn’t entirely sure how many sheep should be grazing so went with a ‘nine sheep at Bevendean all fine’ message hoping I’d not get a reply of ‘What???!! there should be 22’ or similar but got one back to say ‘ok, thanks’ from the shepherd and we felt quite pleased with ourselves :).

We were only ten minutes late to Tasha’s too which was pretty impressive given we’re normally at least that late when we’re coming from home, let alone when we have been driving around for ages looking for sheep ;).

We loaded everyone into the car and drove over to Chichester. Tasha and I wanted to look at The Eternal Maker which I’d heard people talking about and raving about and planned to stop somewhere on the way home again for the kids to have a play / run around / stop for a picnic. We were in there for a while but didn’t find anything to tempt us although I got lots of ideas. Scarlett has suddenly got into the idea of making stuff too and the woman there talked to us about some ‘mother / daughter’ classes they are running in the summer which might be interesting. I said I thought I was on their mailing list as I’d emailed them yesterday so she checked and sure enough I was. She has emailed me this afternoon with details of all their classes, some of which sound really interesting so I’m glad we went even if we didn’t buy anything.

After some debate about who wanted to go where on the way home – we had votes for fields to run around in, proper play parks with equipment, woods to go adventuring in and so on, we ended up in Burpham which had both fields and playpark and while Tasha and I ate our food the children visited us to eat sometimes and played in the park and the fields too. Davies came and sat with us for a while and was most bemused by Tasha and I telling him our full repertoire of ‘what do you call a man…’ jokes (my faves are still the two with punchlines ‘Eileen’ and ‘Bob’ :lol:).

Eventually everyone had hit points where they were too hot, needed a wee or had simply had enough so we loaded ourselves back into the car again and headed for home. Back at Tasha’s the children played inside while Tasha and I sat on her back door step and drank tea and chatted. Then they had to leave for Circus Skills and we had to leave for swimming so we drove back towards town. We had a spare hour so parked up and visited the fabric store for the plastic coated fabric I wanted for my next sewing project. I got that, along with some offcuts and three old swatch books which will be fab for patchwork projects all for a bargain price, particularly when they chucked in the third swatch book for free :). My parents know the old owners of the store and it turned out to be their son who now runs it who served us. I am fairly sure we played together as youngsters but will need to check with my Mum when she gets home from China :).

Then back to the swimming pool. Having decided to have a go at training a bit to see if the 5km is within my reach for next year I really need to crack front crawl and getting my face wet. Step one of that was getting a pair of googles so I can put my face underwater. I wear contact lenses so keeping my eyes open is just not an option and I need to be able to see Davies and Scarlett so not wearing my lenses is also not an option. I’ve never had goggles before but was prepared to try. I also invested in a nose clip as the thing I recall most about swimming as a child when I did used to leap in the water was the dreadful sinus headache I’d get afterwards.

We were about 15 minutes early for lessons so Davies and Scarlett had a play while I tried some lengths. I did really well with face in the water and have conquered that issue already and the nose clip did help me not to suck up loads of water through my nose but I have quite a task to crack my breathing I think. I’ve been googling and need to do some proper research I think to get my head around what I should be doing when as I quickly realised today that the extra effort and speed that putting my face in the water allows me to get means I am exercising to a level that puts me out of breath which of course means I need to gasp and having my nose closed doesn’t help. I’m sure it’s achievable so that’s my next thing to work on.

I did about 40 lengths fairly easily but kept losing count as I was trying to do breaststroke and front crawl with my face underwater. There were lots of people in the lane swimming area lurking at one end or the other which really annoys me and makes it hard to push off from a wall when there is people stood all along it so when I started to get cross with them and bored of losing count I went into the main pool and found Scarlett to play with who was delighted to see me :). We did some touching the bottom, sitting down and floating stuff, all a big novelty for me who doesn’t usually get my face wet and that was all fine so I was pleased at my progress there :).

Back home Ady arrived not long after us and was feeling much better today, which is good as he’d been worried he had flu yesterday but an early night seems to have seen off whatever it was. The kids had tea and we read another couple of chapters of The Scarecrow and the servant while Ady watered the various plants in the garden, must get to the allotment tomorrow, if only for watering duties although we do have a day planned up there on Friday too.

Dinner, some children finally asleep, others not. Didn’t get round to sewing but there is always tomorrow.

Yesterday we had nothing going on this week aside from work for me on Thursday and our regular evening stuff. But we’ve quickly filled the week up again :).

Today though we had no particular plans other than getting to the street dance lessons I’d been emailing the teacher about way back in February when we couldn’t make them as they clashed with Chatterbooks. Scarlett had wanted to make smoothies today though and needed bananas and yoghurt for her planned recipe so after a lazy morning (they watched CBBC and played with some construction block style toys).

Then we gathered up all the needing to be returned library items and went into Lancing. We called at the library to take things back, pick things up and arrange for Frankie who is chicken sitting for us this coming weekend to call round and find out what happens when. We called into the various charity shops and picked up some cds / dvds in one (some of those given away free with newspaper ones) which the volunteer on duty who happened to be a regular library user let us have for the bargain price of a £1 for the whole big bundle. We also called into the CoOp for some food bits and bobs including the ingredients for Tarly’s smoothies.

Back at home I made pancakes for Tarly and I for lunch, Davies stuck with peanut butter sandwiches. Then Davies did some Xboxing while Tarly painted my toenails in rainbow colours and told me animal facts.

Street Dance was pretty good, it’s held in the hall Davies used to have Badgers in years ago and is a local dancer running twice weekly classes for local kids. It’s pay as you go which suits us perfectly and she runs a half hour group for 5-7 year olds followed by an hour class for 8-12 year olds. Scarlett had been allowed to join the older group but actually she struggled a bit. She loves music and loves dancing but for her it’s all about flinging herself about to music and flailing her arms and legs about. Which is joyful but not the controlled use of a body that dance classes call for. I did quite a bit of dancing when I was a kid from various dance classes (it was called disco dancing back then ;)) and school stuff – for most school productions I was in the chorus by virtue of being passable enough at singing and dancing to do both in a crowd. Davies loved it and looked pretty good, he picked up the moves fairly quickly and understood the moving to the beat of the music. At the end K the teacher said he had done well and had natural rhythm. He really enjoyed it and is very keen to go back next week. Come September if he continued to like it he could step up to twice weekly when Badgers finishes for him on a Wednesday.

Scarlett initially said it had been too hard and she didn’t want to do it again but her and I had a long chat about some stuff being worth putting effort in for and not giving up just because it doesn’t come easy. We talked about my sponsored swim and how I had struggled in the middle but kept on going, not because I had to, because I could have just stopped, but because I wanted to do it, I wanted the feeling of having conquered something challenging. I think Davies is more self motivated and able to do well despite not having huge external expectations on him, Scarlett tends towards the lazy ‘well if noone’s telling me to do it I just won’t bother doing it then..’ which could be potentially dangerous for our approach to life so every so often we have these chats which hopefully help her reevaluate what she wants and how she’s going to make that happen.

Then I remember she is seven 😆

Back home again for tea – S had scrambled eggs ( I had toad in the hole later, it’s been an eggtastic day). Ady arrived home feeling rough – another relapse in the Goddard Family Cold we’ve had circling between us for bloody weeks. The kids and I started reading The Scarecrows Servant. Ady went off to bed early and I’ve been half watching a film (Love Happens) which is nice and tidily just ending as I come to a close with todays blogpost :).

Woke up this morning, with some dismay to the sound of rain drumming on the windowpanes. Dismay not because I mind rain particularly, I can find as much joy from splashing in puddles and getting freckles of mud on my nose as I can from stretching out in sunshine and adding more real, can’t be washed off in the bath freckles to my nose, plus I know the plants need the rain and all that sort of rationalising us optimists do to make the world around us fit our rose tinted view of life ;). But we had a plan today that I was really looking forward to a meeting a load of Home Ed friends and potential new friends (as in a stranger is just a friend you haven’t met yet) on Worthing Beach for a ‘Seaweed Picnic’ as organised by Caz and Bid and another friend Emma who’s garden C&B are taking over to grow veg in due to lack of garden of their own. Apparently seaweed is just fab for putting around your veg patches – rich in nutrients, great for seeing off slugs and other pests with its salty, crusty, sliminess and almost like an instant compost. Or so says Caz, to whom I defer on all things grow-your-own-y.

The picnic planning had really taken off from a vague idea on facebook to an event with about 10 people planning to attend. I was looking forward to sitting around chatting with friends and to Ady getting to come along to something for once as I am ever conscious that mine and the kids lives are great with lots of doing whatever it is that makes us happy whereas Ady is rather more timetabled and restricted to the whole 9-5 (or rather 7-6) grind.

But happily within an hour or so the rain had stopped, the skies were blue again and so picnic packed and seaweed collecting sacks at the ready we headed off. The meet up was basically outside C&B’s flat and another 3 families were arriving just as we were so we introduced ourselves and wandered across the road to the beach. Children headed off towards the sea, adults gathered seaweed and chatted and then we all decided we were hungry so broke for lunch. Davies, Scarlett, Archie, Eliot and another friend Hugo had wandered far away so I rang Davies (who for once had heeded my saying ‘if you take your phone with you then you can go much further away from me because I can ring you to check you’re okay’) and they came back.

The next couple of hours entailed all that I love best about life really, the sea, good friends, chatting, watching Davies and Scarlett having a ball, Ady nearby, meeting new people. Bid wandered back across the road to fill flasks with hot water to bring back and make cups of tea for us all, which almost instantly went cold as the wind was whipping them but we all clinked mismatched mugs and toasted life, home education and friends :). By then the tide had gone out and was starting to come back in again, all of the children had wet trousers and had founds crabs, created a whole world on the beach including Banana Island and defended it and won against imaginary intruders, we’d sat on the pebbles chatting and found all sorts of treasures of our own (I came home with pockets stuffed with sea glass, tiny beautiful shells and some little pebbles Scarlett had found and created biographies for – we had a giraffe stone, a snow leopard shell and pebbles we’d imagined once being rocks in faraway castles). We all decamped to Caz and Bid’s for yet more tea and the kids all disappeared upstairs to play while we continued to put the world to rights. At 6pm Olivia & Ben and Magdelen had to leave and we intended doing the same but Caz cooked eggs and toast for hungry children, marmite on toast for hungry adults and somehow it was nearly 8pm and we were still there :).

We came home and Davies and Scarlett ate more toast while I read to them, we’ve not read all week I don’t think. We started ‘Clockwork’ by Pulman which pulled us all in straightaway. Ady and I had a curry and having missed a call from my parents (they left a silly message on the answerphone though so I know all is well ;)) I did take a call from my Granny who had rung me to check I’d heard from them and they were okay.

Davies had YACs this morning so we all were out and over at Glynde where they were meeting for a hill fort visit. I’d told Tarly we’d visit Raystede Animal Shelter while Davies was YACing so when we were invited to stay and join the YACs she was reluctant. So I suggested Ady stay (he’s quite into the archaeology anyway) and I’d take Tarly. This was a win:win situation as far as I was concerned, Ady got to do something with Davies, Scarlett and I had some one to one time and nobody got dragged along to anything they weren’t interested in.

So while Ady and Davies and the rest of the YACs walked to the top of the hill, recreated some fort defending and marauding and ate flapjacks, oh and then marched them down again, Tarly and I drove through some very pretty countryside between the downs and looked at the llamas that graze on part of the downs before arriving at Raystede. Scarlett asked about the various orange and blue posters (no red ones :)) on display so I explained about them being for MPs in the upcoming election. I told her what the orange and blue meant and who I’d be voting for but explained that my vote wouldn’t be for any of the names on the posters as they were local to where we were rather than our constituency. She wanted to know what other colours there might be and we talked about the main parties and some of the alternatives.


I let Scarlett lead the way round Raystede so we collected some duck food, looked in on the cats and dogs, checked out the goats and tried to identify the ones sitting in the sunshine to their photos. We looked at the rabbits and talked about house rabbits and were surprised at how long rabbits can live. We then walked round the ducks, geese, chickens and other birds and Scarlett taught me the difference between coots and moorhens and some other animal facts. She really is quite knowledgable but has this habit of saying all sorts of things with utter confidence even if she is secretly not at all sure 😆 We had a look at the small animals, checked out the onsite charity shop, grabbed a drink from the cafe and had a quick look round the caged birds.

It was a lovely couple of hours in the sunshine :). We drove back to where Ady and Davies were and had about 10 minutes so took a brief walk along the river bank, looked at the (what I think were) reedwarblers and talked about cuckoos. We could see the YACs up the hill so decamped to the playpark nearby and went on the swings to compete for who could get the highest fastest :).

Ady and Davies joined us along with another father and son they had been walking and chatting with. Ady introduced me while the boys ran off to join Scarlett and we chatted a bit before they left. There was a blacksmiths forge open just across the road and Ady and I were interested in peeking in but Davies and Scarlett weren’t so we left them in the park while we walked along for a quick look. Blacksmithing is a job which fascinates me and I think must be really enjoyable.

Davies had requested a barbecue for lunch so we popped into Asda on the way home for supplies and got home to uncover the barbecue, get out the camping chairs and have a very nice afternoon in the garden. Davies did most of the cooking – bacon for him and Scarlett, sausages for Ady and I along with some onions. We all had ice creams and the kids played while Ady and I read / dozed in our chairs in the sunshine. I got bored with the inactivity first and had a quick visit to The Range but failed to buy anything other than a rather clever cafetiere mug for Ady while camping.

Back home again I did some toy plane making and decorating with the kids then Davies and I watched Doctor Who while Scarlett had a bath. The kids watched Britains Got Talent and then went to bed.

Am very excited about camping next weekend 🙂

Thursday we had been planning to attend a weekly HE get together in some localish woods for den building, bushcraft and stuff. We’ll only ever be able to make it fortnightly as it’s on Thursdays which I work every other of but it sounds like a really nice gathering with a good mix of people including interesting adults and similarly natured outdoorsy, adventurous kids.

But Davies had woken still feeling rough (strongly suspect he had too much sun and not enough to drink on Wednesday) so we’d cancelled that arrangement. After ponderings the previous evening and chatting to various people along with some soul searching I talked to Davies and Scarlett about Candle and with many tears we came to the decision it was right to ask a vet to assist with letting her rest in peace rather than exist in pain and indignity. We had initially agreed to give her one last weekend with us but as Scarlett and I watched Candle struggle to find the litter tray and then collapse in it and have to be helped back to standing Scarlett agreed the time was right and we rang the vets to make an appointment for that afternoon.

I spent some time getting my new sewing machine working and made a couple of bags. Am really pleased with it and have ordered a load of books from work to make some sewing projects. The mood at home was quite strange and all of us were watching the clock a lot.

I’d decided to just let Candle rest but one hour before we were due to leave for the vets she suddenly got up and made her way over towards the sofa we were all sitting on. I suspect she was seeking the patch of sunshine that comes in through the window. I took her onto my lap and she sat, being stroked by all three of us, purring and sitting on my lap in the sunshine for her final hour.

We took her in the car wrapped in a blanket, held by Scarlett and had to park in the road next to the vets and walk round. I was already crying by the time we arrived and the children were comforting me in the waiting room. The vet examined her and agreed she was both old and pretty ill and that euthanasia was the right decision in his opinion. He talked us through how it worked and brought a nurse in to assist. They did shave a patch on her leg but she was so skinny they couldn’t find a vein so in the end they injected into her kidney. The end was peaceful for Candle as she went from half sitting to lying down, to just falling asleep resting on my arm. It was less peaceful for the three of us with Davies holding up well but with tears streaming down his face, Scarlett openly sobbing and me doing much the same.

We had a few minutes alone with her once her heart had stopped beating and we all talked to her about how we had loved having her as our pet. It was just incredibly hard and I was torn in all directions between comforting the children, wanting to bury my face in her fur and feeling dreadful about being the one to make the final decision and sign the paperwork. Yesterday I was feeling sad about losing Candle, today I am feeling more positive about having enjoyed being her owner for 15 years and remembering good things about her long and good life rather than the last few weeks. I read somewhere that cats who get to be old, decrepid, blind and so on are to be celebrated because it goes to show what a long and healthy life they have led to have reached such an old age to be suffering from such ailments when so few cats get that far.

As we left the vets, cradling Candle’s body all wrapped up in the blanket with all three of us tear sodden and devastated we walked straight into the mass exodus from the local school, including several attendees of Chatterbooks. We all kept our heads down and although I recognised several children they either didn’t spot us in the post-school melee or read that this was not a good time.

We got home and put Candle to rest in the sunshine waiting for Ady to come home. Scarlett was a strange mix of devastated and fascinated and did a rather thorough examination of her body including inside her mouth. Davies confessed he didn’t like looking at her body but felt her soul had left taking all that was good about her life with it and leaving all that was bad, including blindness and pain of illness behind.

The rest of the day passed with plenty more crying and feeling sad. Ady arrived home and dug a grave for Candle next to Malice in a sunny spot in the garden. Davies and Scarlett had another sleepover. Everyone felt very emotionally drained and we were all in bed and asleep way earlier than normal.

Friday Work for me today. Caz was kindly having Davies and Scarlett over to play with Archie and Eliot in the morning so we drove to their house and dropped D&S off before driving back again to the library. Apparently they spent some time on the beach and had icecreams :). Ady collected them at lunchtime and they did a couple of store visits before coming home for tea.

My work day was fine, I did Baby Rhyme Time, at which we had no babies at all but 8 children of various ages between 2 and 5 – some good singing and instrument playing but hardly the intended target audience. I put up a dinosaur display and chatted to the Childrens Librarian about Chatterbooks and the Summer Reading Challenge (space theme this year). I was feeling quite glad to be at work but quite exhausted at the same time. I don’t do pathetic really, I promise this won’t last.

Back home Ady was sorting tea for the children. I had a quick catch up with them and then went and had a lovely long bath. They had a third sleepover (Scarlett back to her own bed tomorrow, they have exhausted the novelty now I think and are getting cross with each other now they are finally tired but are preventing each other from going to sleep).

I made pizzas for dinner and we have sort of watched 2012 although it’s not really holding my attention and Ady keeps dozing off. The special effects are excellent but so good as to be totally unrealistic and there is far too much screaming and shouting for my liking.

July 1997

March 2009

September 2000

Ady and I adopted Malice and Candle from the RSPCA way back in 1995 after we’d lost two kittens to the busy road we live on. We’d felt we wanted cats but wanted to ensure whatever cat we gave a home to would be given the chance of a better life by us. We had several visits to the RSPCA and had noticed a pair of black cats hissing and spitting over the course of four visits in over a month. Eventually we decided these were the cats for us. Unfriendly, not very pretty, semi-feral and with virtually no hope of anyone taking them on. They would not let them go to a home with children, other pets and a whole list of other rules.

We brought them home and they lived for the first month or so under bookcases and sofas, only coming out when we were asleep or out. I remember the first time we managed to stroke one of them, Malice. They had been in our house for over 8 weeks by then. Very, very gradually they ventured out, accepted affection and attention and became more like pets and less like trapped wild animals.

Then Malice took against Candle and Candle moved into our bathroom. Malice would just attack her every time she tried to venture out. She was fed in the bathroom, had a litter tray in there and her whole world was that small room, with company every evening when we had a bath, or when someone went to the toilet! But just as they had changed from when they first arrived Malice mellowed, Candle got bolder and eventually she came back out and they would often be found snuggled up together.

Bringing Davies home was a big trauma for them both, but they got used to him. We moved up to Manchester which was a fairly big deal with the two cats in carriers for the six hour drive. Scarlett being born was something I think they were resigned to!

Malice was my cat and Candle was Ady’s in the beginning but when Scarlett got older she became the chief owner of all the pets. After Malice died Candle was still a sprightly cat with lots of life and enjoyed being outdoors. She also became more of a lapcat which had previously been Malice’s domain.

In the last year she has steadily declined and lost her sight. Up until a month ago she was still negotiating the stairs and would come and wake me up every morning and scratch at me to stroke her. The last month has seen an almost daily lessening in her quality of life. She had all but lost the use of her back legs, her balance was off and she would regularly stumble about, one of her eyes had become infected and required daily bathing and in the last week she had become all but incontinent. Still we struggled with the decision but having confessed that I was semi-hopeful of finding her passed away in her sleep I realised I could actually make that decision now.

So this morning I talked at length to the children, we all cried, we all discussed it and I rang the vets to make an appointment. Candle spent her last hour curled up on my lap in the sunshine while we all stroked her. She’s been with Ady and I since way, way before we were parents, back when we’d only been together a short time. I’m happy to think we really did offer her a full and happy life taking her from that small cage at the RSPCA all those years ago. She’s now buried in the garden next to Malice, in one of the sunniest spots and we’ll remember her as the cat who was fiesty, friendly, alive and was a lovely pet to have shared our home for 16 years.

Oh I’m so well rounded…literally 😉

Work this morning for me, Ady took Davies and Scarlett off to Julie’s nice and early so I spent some time trying to get my new sewing machine working. I also spent some time tending to Candle. She is now at the point of dying and I am agonising over whether to let nature take it’s course or step in and intervene.

Hmm, no idea what happened there, it was a fairly long post and all there when I pressed save. Bum.

Will post about Candle later but what I had written had been the pre-decision I think :(.

So, I went off to work where I had a nice morning including a visit from Lucy which I felt I’d somehow conjured up by having been talking about her to both Ali on Monday and Julie on Tuesday and saying I’d not seen her for ages, so that was nice :).

I met Julie and all the children up at the stables. They’d been to Julie’s allotment in the morning and then to the stables for a picnic lunch which was where I joined them. The kids played and Scarlett rode Honey bareback back down to her field which she really enjoyed. Far more the sort of circus-style pony riding I think she’d been dreaming of :).

Back home the kids had a bath as they were filthy, while I put together an email for Bid about Forest School as he is leading some sessions at Etudeo for the next few weeks. He’s done some bushcraft courses himself but this gave him some ideas of what I thought had been good and bad about the sessions D&S did last year. On reading through I realised how very repeptitve some of my blogposts are 😳

We all got changed (although I got changed back again, I decided my Badger top really is too small and have handed it back to get a larger size ordered. I *think* I’m flattered that Julie must see me as smaller than I really am…) and headed to Badgers. We’re doing Adventure Badger this term as chosen by Davies. It’s his last term and he gets his Superbadger award at the end of term before starting Cadets in September.

Last night we made bicarb and vinegar volcanoes (not really sure why it fitted into adventure but it was timely at least). We did them out on the lawn and came back in. Julie didn’t intend talking through why the bicarb and vinegar reacted like that but I made them 😉 we talked about chemical reactions and also what makes a real volcano erupt. Then we did some filling out the Badgers recordss (called Badger passports) and I had an interesting chat with Daragh about how Home Ed works. He said if he was HE’d how he’d like it to happen which Davies and Scarlett told him is pretty similar to how it works for us with lots of finding things out from the internet, books, TV and even computer games. He wanted to know if we followed a timetable like at school and Scarlett explained that ‘we ask Mummy questions and she helps us find out the answers’ which is pretty much our style summed up I think. Davies mentioned lots of playing and visits to places too.

We arrived home, closely followed by Ady and Frazer who was coming over for dinner. The kids requested a sleepover so they went off to watch films in bed in Davies’ room while we chatted and had a lovely curry. I think Frazer had a bit of an epiphany moment about Home Ed when we candled the ducks eggs we have in the incubator. We’ve got 3 out of the 6 with definite movement inside, so have discarded the no good ones and were all in awe of the ones with little soon-to-be ducklings wobbling around inside. Will try and get some photos tonight, they were much clearer than any of the chicken or bantam eggs have been when we’ve candled those. Frazer and I agreed that it would have been incredibly cool to have hatched ducklings when we were seven.

I think Davies had had too much sun as he was burning up and shivering at about midnight and wandered downstairs for a cuddle and chat and was still awake when I went up to bed.

Really enjoyed having nowhere to be until this afternoon today. I’d been awake in the night with an upset tummy and was feeling slightly delicate. Nothing more came of it although it’s been a bit rumbly all day, I suspect it was eating a big bowl of pasta at 11pm last night when I got in.

I pottered about processing laundry, talking to chickens and doing some online stuff while Davies and Scarlett spent most of the morning exploring the loft space in Davies’ room. They have set up a sort of toy hospital for painting back on worn off bits of toys and had dug out Buzz and Woody (quite excited about the upcoming Toy Story 3 here, it’s what Davies’ 4 cinema tickets prize is being saved for apparently) and done some repair work to them. I called upstairs to them every so often but they were quite happy.

I’ve been debating a small sewing machine for a while for various small sewing tasks and we had a small excess of cash this month so after researching online and reading reviews I reserved one at Argos and nipped along to collect it. I’ve not had time to look at it properly but will try and have a play with it tomorrow afternoon. I’m quite excited at the idea of playing with it :).

We had lunch and then gathered together swimming stuff and headed out to Highdown Gardens to meet Julie, Jack, Maisie and Lorna for a couple of hours. We had a really nice time in the sunshine – Julie and I moving from bench to bench and sitting chatting while the four older children – and Lorna too when the others were nearby played in the trees and pathways. I was lovely 🙂

We went straight to the swimming pool from there. Due to my dodgy tummy I’d decided not to swim, also I’d not watched the kids lessons for quite a while so I thought I’d watch this first one back and then maybe watch one at half term to see what sort of improvement they’ve had. The instructor who had been running Swimathon came over to chat, ask how I’d felt recovering on Sunday, tell me I’d done really well and said she’d hold me to my intention to try the 5k next year :). She was so complimentary she actually made me blush 😳 :).

Scarlett had asked for some goggles at the end of last term so we chose a pair for her and she seemed to like them. She also wore my green swimathon cap so for once she was really easy to spot in the pool. As she has been going in the big pool albeit with me doing lanes for months I said she could go in the shallow end of the big pool after her lesson and I kept a close eye on her. I know she shouldn’t really be in there til she’s 8 but I really can’t see the difference between me concentrating on swimming lengths but in the pool and me watching her from the side, she’s actually better supervised by me sitting in the spectators area than me swimming.

Scarlett’s lesson went well, she is continuing to progress. She put her feet down a lot and I’m not really sure why as when she didn’t she was easily the fastest swimmer in the group, there is a marked difference between her and Davies though and I suspect a large part of it is her reduced ability to pay attention to Carolyn, the instructor and do precisely as she’s asked without getting distracted.

Davies was looking really good, I think he’ll go into the next group fairly soon. He has a really nice style and I was impressed to see him doing front crawl, back stroke and breast stroke today all really well. He needs to use his arms more for backstroke and sort out his breathing for front crawl but he is definitely a better swimmer than me for doing proper strokes. I felt quite inspired to try putting my face in the water and getting my head round front crawl too.

We beat Ady home by about five minutes so he chatted to me in the kitchen while I made the kids’ tea – Scarlett was assisting with the egg glut by having french toast :). I had a quick cup of tea and made some pastry to chill in the fridge before going back out again to the library for Book Group.

We’ve been reading Geraldine Brooks’ March this month, which is the story of Mr March, the girls father in Little Women and what happens to him while he’s away being a chaplain at war. I’d really enjoyed it, despite not having read Little Women or being a big fan of historical novels. The group was pretty split with nearly half not finishing it and only about half of those who had enjoying it but it made for interesting discussions. The group was over 20 tonight which Brenda and I agreed is really too large a size. Brenda’s job is being looked at in the next phase of restructuring and she is worried she may be made redundant so checked with me once again that I’d be happy to run Book group on my own if needs be. I would but I am wondering if I have made a rod for my own back with the level of ‘in my own time’ stuff I seem to do for the library. Ah well. I get enough back to justify it I guess.

Back home again I made the custard to go in my pastry for quiche and that cooked while I was in the bath to go with the jacket potatoes Ady had already got in the oven. We watched Heston Blumenthal who I am never sure qualifies as genius or insane but is entertaining nonetheless.

A couple of events for HEors were posted up on the local facebook group recently at the Weald and Downland Museum. Every event we’ve been to there before has been excellent with passionate, enthusiastic and knowledgable volunteers staffing the museum who are only too happy to chat to interested children and adults. I didn’t know the woman (another HEor) who was organising the events and I did think her methods of planning an event were a little haphazard but put Davies and Scarlett’s names down for todays flour and breadmaking and a later one in May for Medieval Gardening. As we are members so don’t pay admission I though the price of £3 each was pretty good.

There was some messing about with splitting the groups as initially they were to be over 10 and under 10. She then seemed to be struggling to fill the older group and asked if any ‘nearly 10s’ would be prepared to go into the older group. I replied that Davies is 9.5 and would be happy to go into the older group as long as it was okay to have me not present at one or other child’s session. She then split the ages again and listed them as foundation / KS1 and KS2/KS3 at which point I contacted her to say Scarlett is KS2 so she could also move up to the older group. She checked her date of birth with me and put her in the younger group calling it foundation / KS1 / under 8s. I was slight concerned at the time as I don’t really like splitting D&S when I know they are about the same level for most things which would mean either D would be over his head or S would be bored. I was even more worried when I met up with some HEors a few weeks ago with much younger children who were all in Scarlett’s group. So I emailed her again asking if there was any way Scarlett could go into the older group as I felt I wanted her to get the most value out of the workshop and felt she would be a bit fed up if she was with a load of 5 year olds. I got a fairly terse reply to say the numbers had been submitted, she’d be fine as there were 4 six year olds in her group and actually my older child was one of the youngest in the older group anyway. At which point I considered myself told to shut up ;).

So today we arrived and joined the group of HE folk gathered outside. I was told she’d miscalculated on the prices and actually it would be £3 per child per session (morning and afternoon) so it was a further £3 each. I’d already paid for the Medieval Gardening so she said she’d just take the money out of that. At this point I started to feel a bit pissed off at just how messed about the whole thing had been. Davies and I had fallen out over him not putting his DS on charge last night so it would be ready for this morning and him then being sulky about it being flat so he was not happy about going off into his session without me and I was getting quite horrified at the idea that all the ‘peers’ Scarlett knows from Book Club and was playing with were all being shipped off to the bigger group while she was staying with what looked like a preschool group. 3 OF THE KIDS IN HER GROUP WERE IN PUSHCHAIRS!!!

So Davies went off, looking like a boy on his way to the gallows, Davies and Scarlett were both looking wistfully at each other and Tarly and I joined the little kids for a session on sowing, growing and harvesting grain for flour. Most of the kids were far too little to be listening with any level of concentration and it was soooo dumbed down ‘can anybody tell me what the white powder we use to cook with is called?’ Scarlett did really well but was a full head taller than the next oldest child, kept getting overlooked when she put her hand up to answer questions with an obvious ‘let the little children have a turn’ mentality and just looked HUGE. The group was taken to look at the barn where the threshing would happen so I said I’d meet her at the mill and went to peek at Davies. He was doing fine in his breadmaking session so I went to catch up with Scarlett.

I didn’t need to ‘help her with the stairs’ up into the mill so instead I stood outside and seethed. Then it was lunchtime. Davies’ group didn’t get back to us til nearly 20 past 12 despite the next sesssion starting at 1pm but the kids went off to watch the ducks and play with friends. I had a bit of a chat with some of the mums but was feeling that odd ‘what the hell am I doing here?’ thing I sometimes get with local HEors.

Then it was time for the afternoon session so Davies went off to do the flailing and threshing and winnowing, in much better spirits now he’d bonded with some of the kids in his group, while Tarly and I joined the pushchairs for breadmaking. First they were shown some grain and got to turn some millstones to crush it. I got really fed up with the way the woman was talking to the children in one voice and a totally different tone for the adults when she addressed us and in listening to one of the mothers with 2 small children saying things like ‘excellent turn taking’ ‘great grinding’ and ‘fabulous breathing’ to her children. Scarlett was thirsty so I went back to get her a drink from the rucksack which I’d left in the classroom and by the time I got back they’d moved into the tudor kitchen to make bread and cook it on the fire. The two children with the overpraising mother were squabbling at one end of the table, various other children were paying no attention at all and the woman leading the session had grown even more patronising and squeaky while I was gone so I passed Tarly the water and went and sat outside in the sunshine. I sat with Elaine, who was equally indignant on my behalf about Scarlett being in the younger group.

When the session ended and Tarly emerged with her bread I spoke to the women who’d organised the sessions about the age split for the gardening and said I wanted to move Scarlett into the older group. She was quite arsey and said that both groups had covered the exact same thing and I agreed they may well have done but it would have been pitched differently depending on the age of the group. (Davies later confirmed that his group had been spoken to in a normal voice, while Scarlett said the woman had talked to her group like they were all stupid). I said it was totally inappropriate that my 7 year old had been in a group with children so young they were in pushchairs, I felt she had not got the full experience she could have had from the sessions and that I wanted her moved to the older group. She said she would look and I said that if there was not space for Scarlett in the older group then I wanted to take both children out of the gardening which really seemed to surprise her.

I later learnt she was a teacher and thinks her brand of Home Ed (for her 2 and 4 year olds!) is some sort of model version. I would never presume to be telling someone with Home Ed teens how they should be doing stuff so I was really pissed off at her ignoring me twice previously about which group Tarly should be in. I did raise my voice and I was pretty cross so I imagine my name in that particular circle will be even more damned than before but I was really fed up with the whole thing and came away once again feeling that these sorts of things are a waste of time, which is a shame because we have had some great group trips -admittedly mostly one’s I’ve organised myself ;). The kids did enjoy the day but I doubt either of them learnt anything really new and I’m not sure it justified the petrol to drive over and the stress I felt. Am very tempted to contact W&D about workshops available and organise some myself though.

Elaine had invited us back for a cup of tea / play in the garden / meet their new kittens so although it had been our plan to go to a street dance group this afternoon that Davies and Scarlett are thinking of going to each week we decided to meet the kittens instead. The kids and I had a really interesting conversation about parenting styles, why some adults treat children like they’re stupid and why that is wrong, how Davies and Scarlett think they might parent if they have children and other such fascinating stuff. Love those sorts of chats with them :).

Elaine lives in the same road as Chris and Julie and Davies and Scarlett had been to their house before once when Julie was looking after them and had been dog sitting for Elaine. Another HEor came along too with her two girls so we did some kitten admiring and then the kids went out to play on the trampoline. Their garden has one border of trees beyond which is a drainage ditch, then an area of wasteland before some greenhouses. Davies and Scarlett led Elaine’s girls in a game of creating a bridge across the ditch to get to the wasteland. Elaine thought this was fab and of course Davies and Scarlett were in their element 🙂 I had to prise them away after nearly 2 hours as I didn’t want to hit all the rush hour traffic.

In the end we arrived home within minutes of Ady and I quick phonecall to Ali meant I headed off over to collect her so we could get some bits from her Mum’s. Nice to see her Mum for myself and see how well she is doing 🙂 Also very lovely to have a good couple of hours uninterupted chat and catch up with Ali :).

Back home again Davies and Scarlett were still awake so I had some cuddles with them before they went to sleep – Scarlett had managed to fall off the arm of the sofa and had a really nasty cut on her back 🙁 I cooked myself some pasta, had a brief overlap with Ady before he went to bed.

I had a really long lie in this morning. I think I was catching up on all sorts of early starts (including last Monday’s pre-dawn morning) aswell as resting my body from yesterdays swim. I was surprised not to be at all achey today though. I could not have managed twice the swim in the time allowed of 3 hours regardless of whether I was up for the same again (which I certainly didn’t feel I was) but the fairly quick recovery time suggests to me it could be something to aim for – not sure whether I want to or whether I can tick off ‘swimming for charity and doing pretty well’ as done and therefore not needed to be repeated. Might try and increase my pace over coming weeks and see what I think, will be interesting to be back in the water again on Tuesday while kids have their lessons and see how I do in my hour…(just checked my speed of 75 lengths in 97.5 minutes and it’s 1.3 and to do 150 lengths in 180 minutes I’d need to be at 1.2 so not actually that far off given I’d done no real training. Clearly a speed and stamina issue but my 50 lengths in an hour is all I’d need to maintain across 3 hours…hmmmm).

Ady, Davies and Scarlett were in the garage doing clearing it out ready for summer type stuff. The camping things that live in the garage will be in an out fairly regularly over the next few months so they needed to be near the front. I knew they were doing it as Scarlett kept coming upstairs to me bringing various things from the garage such as a MANAGER badge from Clinton Cards, a very old passport of Ady’s and a tin containing stuff that has meant something to me at various points.

I got up, had a cup of tea and went out to join them. In the tin were various odd things including a valentines day card (the only one I ever got anonymously, all others were from actual partners on valentines day), a pressed flower from a bouquet from my first boyfriend, various photobooth pictures of me at different ages, two sets of false eyelashes complete with glue, a diary from 1989 and a little box of firecrackers I’d bought in Italy. I’d bought several boxes thinking they were all ones you chuck hard at the ground to explode them but this box actually had tiny fuses which needed lighting. They delighted Davies and Scarlett who went through most of a box of matches and most of the box of fireworks making very loud bangs and attaching them to daisies to see how they singed them as they exploded. We bagged up a load of baby clothes for the charity shop, a load of cassette tapes for the same destination, several boxes of old paperwork for the recycling and a car load of stuff for the tip.

We have a Range store opened just along from us (this weekend I think) on the way to the tip which I’d been keen to go and look at so we all went. I’ve been wanting a camp kitchen for ages (I think Ady spreads our kitchen area out way too much and it looks scruffy) and they had a really nice one with a large top for the cooker and food prep, a side shelf, an underneath shelf, then another large surface with a two shelf zip up larder underneath, all very compact to fold down but really spacious when up. It was just £39.99 which is loads less than I’ve seen far less nice ones for so we bought it. They had a £10 off if you spent £50 opening offer too so it made sense to find something for a tenner to effectively get it free. We do have a single burner ring which attaches direct to small gas bottles but it’s very wobbly so we found a flat single ring stove and bought that and some bottles to make up the money. The idea is to bring that along for short camping overnights when we only want to boil a kettle / one pan for pasta or something rather than full on cooking. They also had a cafetiere in a mug which I think will be brilliant for Ady when camping as he seems to break a glass one every year but we forgot to pick that up so he’ll go back and get one of those for making real coffee in fields.

Back home again we both needed petrol in our cars so I went off to Sainsburys first to get fuel and some veg for dinner, then Ady went off to get fuel and take another load of rubbish to the tip. A conversation at the tip earlier about how you can’t just throw things ‘away’ when there is not really an ‘away’ and just what landfill means had hopefully sunk in rather more with Ady who was lectured by Scarlett about putting cardboard into the landfill pile. I love the kids passion about these things, they infect me and give me a conscience and fingers crossed they will be the voices that nag generations above and practise what they preach aswell.

I got dinner going – roast pork, while the kids watched some Simpsons videos and Ady mowed the lawn. Then I did some more sowing seeds and planting on of things (mentioned in more detail over self-suffish-ient blog for anyone interested). We ate dinner while watching Britains Got Talent and agreeing that a lot of the time we don’t have much talent at all 😆

My parents had rung earlier and left a message and they rang again and I spoke to them both. They are having a really good time, have met some nice people on the same tour and made friends. Mum was in very high spirits – it was midnight there and they had just come back from the bar to go to bed. The earthquakes there are really quite far away and they had heard about the volcanic ash cloud disruption and have been warned it may affect their getting home in 2 weeks time but seem fairly unworried about it for now. I messaged Frazer who had contacted me yesterday a bit worried about them as we’d not heard anything. Last time they were away they were in Thailand when earthquakes created a worry of a second tsunami and we’d tracked their hotel down and rung them, waking them in the night and told them to turn on the news. Frazer is quite a worrier and won’t be dealing well with being alone in their big house for 3 weeks for all his bravado. He’s coming over here for dinner on Wednesday so that will be good. 🙂

Ady washed up while I finished reading ‘I was a rat’ which we all enjoyed. Davies and Scarlett went to bed, we had baths. The coming week doesn’t have as many early starts or quite such physical exertions as the week just gone but it’s looking pretty busy just the same.

I worked this morning. It went fairly slowly and I had swimming on my mind really. Meanwhile back at home Ady and the kids spent the morning in the garden. They moved all the containers round from the patio – where the chickens have been enjoying rather more free ranging than normal meaning nothing plant based is safe – to the veranda bit infront of the house. We now have a large array of compost filled containers ready for seedlings and seeds to grow various things here at home.

I came home and we all had some lunch. Having ignored training advice in a big way with no swimming for the last 3 weeks and a week filled with all sorts of early mornings, late nights and other such distractions I did deign to do pretty much nothing for most of this afternoon in a nod to preparing myself for my swim. Ady and the kids spent most of the afternoon outside in the garden too. Davies and Scarlett set up a ‘farm’ complete with signage, toy animals where real ones were not available and typical money making scam to boot. There were sheep (one suckling lamb picture stuck to one sheep), pigs (a load of pig ornaments), lizard lounge (a pile of sticks under which I was led to believe lizards were sleeping) and chicken corner where I could pet chickens and buy small pots of grain for 10p each :). Hugely impressed as ever with both their creativity and their entrepreneurialism :). Ady painted the bench, which was bright pink and is now metallic purple. There is a campaign led by Davies and Scarlett and supported by me to paint the house in lurid rainbow colours. Ady is relenting with an idea to do something crazy and beach hut inspired in the bathroom and may well be up for a bit of ManorBorn style wheelie bin decoration.

The time slipped away and I got changed into my swimsuit, packed my towel and clean pants and we all headed down to the swimming pool. I confess to being pretty nervous which shocked Ady who said ‘but you’re never nervous about *anything*!’ in surprise but this was something that is so very not me. I don’t do physical challenges, certainly not half naked with very little makeup! My panic increased as I lined up alongside proper serious athlete types, checked in, chose a swimming hat (green) and went off to get changed.

Ady and the kids were amazing, I could not have done it without them as every time I flagged and thought it was too tough I heard Davies and Scarlett cheering me on, telling me I was doing great and they knew I could do it. My own words about ‘if you try hard enough you can do anything’ rang in my ears and the thought of friends having put faith and cold hard cash in me to do this carried me through. I struggled around the 40 length mark when I was over half way but close to where I’d usually finish and I remember shouting to Ady at 55 lengths ‘this is more than I’ve swam at once in my life!’. The lane I was in had six of us to start – 4 doing the 5km swim, me doing the 2.5km and one doing the 1.5km. The 1.5km pretty much kept pace with me the whole way but of course got out after 45 lengths when I was still less than 2/3 of the way through. It was a fab atmosphere, supportive, friendly and encouraging and we were all cheered on at end of our final lengths.

I think I was about fourth out of the pool at just over the halfway mark (I did my 2.5km in one hour, 37 minutes and 30 seconds which I’m pretty proud of given 50 lengths in one hour is pushing myself and I did 1.5 times that in only just over 1.5 the time. I waited at the end of lengths when the faster person behind me was close enough to overtake too as per the rules which meant I stopped, albeit only briefly, more often than I usually would too.) but I think most people there were doing the 5km challenge. Given the full time of 3 hours for 5km and me not quite doing half of it in half that time I suspect it is beyond my reach and indeed wonder if it’s something I’d want to do but it at least gives me a further challenge to aim for should I require one…

I staggered out of the pool to the cheers and claps of the organiser, Ady and the kids along with all the other spectators and just about managed to do the bending and stretching required to get dressed. There was tea and biscuits (and medals) upstairs so we sat and ate and drank while I recovered myself before heading for home.

The kids had tea, I had a bath, Ady cooked dinner and opened a bottle of fizz 🙂 We’ve watched Doctor Who and I am now, quite justifiably very tired indeed and am going off to bed. Assuming I can get up the stairs of course ;).

I booked tickets for UK Aware ages ago as it looked like a show the kids and I would enjoy. They’ve been to several big shows, accompanying Ady and I to some of the big NEC trade shows way back when they were still pushchair age along with Eco Build and the Car Show more recently. I did set my alarm and woke but only to turn it off rather than press snooze so I woke again with a start just before 8am and we had a mad rushing around half an hour getting dressed, making and packing a picnic and grabbing breakfast to go for the kids. We managed it though and were on Lancing station platform with tickets bought by 830am which I thought was pretty impressive. The casualty was my first cup of tea of the day though and sadly there was no buffet cart on the train :(.

We missed our connecting train (I suspected we might, we only had something like a minute and it was at Clapham Junction on platform 3 when we pulled in to platform 13 or something similar so virtually no chance). It was cold on the platform waiting and I debated going to get a cup of tea from the kiosk as we had about a 20 minute wait but Scarlett wanted to do some guerilla gardening and had brought several of her seed bombs as the woman who ran the workshop told us she’d thrown them off train windows onto wasteland. Scarlett wasn’t sure about throwing things off trains but she did find homes for a couple of her seedbombs today on miserable bits of train stations. It’ll be good to revisit them next year and see if a carpet of wildflowers have sprung up :).

We got our next train and were at Olympia by about 11am. My overall impressions of UK Aware were that it was far smaller, less well patronised by both exhibitors and visitors than I’d been expecting. There is still rather too much of a commercialist slant to it given it’s eco credentials and that far from the usual feeling at these events of not having seen half of what was there we managed to wander round about 4 times and do everything on offer. It was a good day out though and both Davies and Scarlett said they really enjoyed it, we all learnt something new and had a nice ‘just the three of us’ time so I’m glad we went. 🙂

We talked to people on various stands – I particularly liked Eco Creative Art (website still under construction) who had chairs, benches, a standard lamp and more made from old newspapers, a pair of shoes made from old maps and some toys made from water bottles. I liked inspiredtimemagazine and talked to Ecomodo
, 10:10 (where I bought a tag) and various others.

We spent lots of time at the Global Action Plan stand where we did quizzed about what appliances use most energy, Davies raced two cars round a track, one loaded up with luggage to see which was quicker and used less fuel, Scarlett balanced cows, lambs, pigs and chickens to see which animals have the most and least environmental impact to farm for food. We all had a go at cycling to run things by pedal power and later on we returned there to make newspaper origami plant pots and tetrapak wallets.

We watched Professor Kayoss and the Save the World club show and then decamped to sit outside the cafe upstairs with our picnic having nipped in to buy a takeaway cup of tea for me. At last :). We looked down at all the things happening below to plot what else we wanted to do and returned to do the arts and crafts. I got distracted by the Onya stand as I’ve been coveting one of the rucksacks for a while and they were half price at the show. One of the Global Action staff came around and asked Davies and Scarlett to go off with her to do some crafts so I said I’d catch them up and also chatted to a woman about eczema cream too on my way to them.

I wanted to check out the recycled clothes area as it had been really quiet earlier – there was a clothes swap (which was still really quiet), an upcycle area where you could customise things you’d swapped and the Morsbag stall which lured me in with sewing machines and funky fabric. The kids wanted to go off so having extracted a promise they’d stay together, not leave the building and come back to me I said they could go and set about making my bag. I chose a fab dark red material, cut out the pieces, ironed them and then waited for my go on the sewing machine, where under guidance I sewed it altogether :). Really pleased with it :).

Davies and Scarlett had gone off to the second showing of the Professor Kayoss show and I got there just as a poor adult was cycling to pedal power it – I had been the one to have to do it earlier in the day so it was nice to see what it did from the front view. I felt we’d comprehensively done all on offer at the show by then, so it being nearly 4pm and later than I’d expected to be leaving we headed off for the station.

The journey home was fine, about an hour altogether waiting on platforms but we were home by just after 630pm. Ady was dealing with a family crisis (his mother and brother had fallen out and Chris needed some big brotherly advice and support. Sometimes I wonder if Ady is harsh on his mother not seeing her at all and then I hear about the way she has treated Chris and realise she is a nutter and we really really don’t need her in our lives). I ran the kids a bath while they had a speedy dinner and we were just about to start reading stories when Ady arrived home.

I read about 10 minutes worth of ‘I was a rat’ and then the kids went off to bed, I had a very long soak in the bath to wash London and trains off and cooked dinner. Am very pleased indeed to have reached my target goal for my swim sponsorship tomorrow – thank you so much to all of you who have sponsored me xxx.

I worked all day today and Davies and Scarlett spent the day out at work with Ady. It’s easier during school holidays for them to spend a work day with him as they are less visible and prone to being asked the whole ‘no school today then?’ questions. I do like the fact that they get time with both of us at work every so often – I think seeing Ady and I in different environments is important, knowing just what it means when they picture us at work and having an appreciation of what we do is good. Frazer and I both spent large chunks of time in school holidays with our parents in their respective work – for my Mum this meant being at her restaurant, watching her manage staff, greet and serve customers, run a business and deal with planning, food preparation, delegating tasks and so on. For Dad, a painter / decorator this generally only happened when he was decorating an empty property although from time to time we’d come along when people were also there and meet all sorts of customers. This gave us a sneaky peek into how other people lived, what their homes were like, visiting builder merchants for materials, watching Dad actually do wallpapering, painting, repair work and seeing how the pace of his workday compared and contrasted to my Mum’s. From a really early age we had a really good appreciation of just what ‘at work’ meant for both my parents and I am pleased Davies and Scarlett are getting the same about Ady and I.

So while they were off doing price surveys and garden centre visits I was librarying. I had a lot of time on the Enquiry Desk today which I always enjoy as it’s nice and varied. I did some shelving and then it was lunchtime. More Enquiry Desk time and then my PDR (Personal development review). I don’t normally do a lot of preparation for these but this time I had taken time to jot down all the various things I have achieved at work over the last 12 months including various displays, training I’ve attended, events I have suggested and run, new skills I have learned and of course the whole Chatterbooks project. I have met all my targets and had plenty to add as additional things I have done so it was a positive session. I was told ‘we can’t praise you highly enough really, well done’ which was nice to hear. I also got a letter in the internal mail today from the head of the library service thanking me for Chatterbooks and noting what an important contribution I had made, particularly given it was voluntary. I guess for all the times of frustration I can consider the whole Chatterbooks exercise a success, in terms of meeting my own criteria of personal development, improving the library service offering for that age group and in actively making something happen that I wanted to see for Davies and Scarlett. I also have gotten recognition from high up people at work and made a name for myself with high up people. I think it was worth it overall :).

I had a brief stint on the counter at the end of my shift and then it was hometime. Ady and the children pulled up just after I did and the pile of Simpsons videos I’d found in a charity shop was very enthusiastically recieved and began playing while the kids had tea. I nipped out to get picnic lunch supplies for tomorrow and then came home to read some more of ‘I was a rat’ before their bedtime.

I’m feeling a bit better today although I still have a pretty sore throat. The knowledge that I am within £40 of reaching my sponsorship target is keeping me going for Saturday though and then I am fully intending to crash and feel perfectly justified in doing nothing at all on Sunday :).

This morning Davies and Scarlett had another episode in their rather workshop-tastic few weeks with a Roald Dahl Storybook workshop at Worthing Museum. I knew Toby was going along too and it turned out another home educated friend, Alex was also there.

I hadn’t decided whether to stay or not and when I asked the woman running the workshop what her preference for parents to do was she said she didn’t mind either way. I ended up staying for the first half of the session and then leaving for the second half as I needed a new battery for my watch so walked down into the town to get that and have a quick peep in some charity shops.

The workshop was good although Davies and Scarlett both said they felt there was too much to do in too little time. They were all given a 10 section storyboard and a 10 page book and the task was to create a storybook in the style of / inspired by / using characters or plotlines from Roald Dahl’s stories. There were various examples of his books, plotlines from some of them, illustrations (Quentin Blake ones mostly) and other prompts. Laura (the woman running the event) also showed the children how Blake does his watercolours using pencil, gone over with pen, watercolour then blotted off and she used an overhead projector as a lightbox which I thought was a nifty idea. She also had the fab idea of a clothes rail with plastic sheeting taped to it vertically so someone could stand behind it and you could draw their outline and details with a marker pen.

Davies very quickly came up with an idea for a mouse in a wood (he wanted something a bit like in The Gruffalo he said) who got scared by what he thought was a monster but was actually a machine chopping down trees. The man operating the machine would then save the mouse from harm. Davies said he wanted a story that seemed simple to us but would be a real adventure from the mouse’s perspective. I liked the way he thought it out :).

Scarlett struggled a bit but wanted to have a story about Candle our cat going to a museum. She was resistant to following the formula that Laura had which Dahl apparently used of 1. characters 2. location 3. event 4. ending when writing his stories and instead wanted less of a plotline and more a succession of pictures showing Candle going round a museum. We talked about different museums we have been to; little local ones, big London ones, museums for transport, animals, science, costumes, architecture, archeaology, local areas, industries etc. She chose the Natural History museum. I mooted the idea of Candle visiting all the stuffed animals around the museum and then at the end coming across another real animal visiting the museum but she went with just a cat visiting a museum :).

At that point they were both industriously working away so I nipped off for half an hour or so.

When I came back they were just finishing and had done really well. I love Davies’ front cover:

And my favourite of Scarlett’s is Candle seeing the blue whale at NatHist museum:

They had a quick go at the plastic sheet drawing too each

Both the children said they really enjoyed the workshop and indeed have been inspired to work together to make another book when we got home later. I did speak briefly to Laura at the end about a Home ed workshop during term time and she seemed quite up for the idea. Nice to find something so close to home for once :).

Which brings us to the afternoon. We’d booked to go on a dinosaur walk in Hastings last week but it was cancelled due to poor weather and we couldn’t make the alternate date. For some reason I had in my head we couldn’t make the second proposed date of this afternoon either but when a call went out yesterday for anyone else wanting to take places I realised we could get there if we went straight from the Dahl workshop so I grabbed 3 places and that was where we went. Hastings is about 50 miles away, a good hour plus drive but obviously a very historic part of England. It is also somewhere with strong family connections on my Dad’s side as his mother lived there and even had a shop there and it was somewhere I believe Dad lived for a while with an aunt when he first came down to Sussex from North Wales where he’d grown up. It’s not somewhere I’ve spent much time however and whilst I know I have been there before it didn’t seem at all familiar driving through it. Infact I suspected we’d driven too far and was worrying about being late when suddenly I spotted the road we were looking for and signs for the museum we were meeting at. We found a parking space and walked across, spotting Dani, Pearl and Leo already there. Nice to see them :). It was a fairly small group of people, I think the previous session had had more people. We had a quick look round the little museum first, it is mainly shipwreck finds and information, there are loads of little museums dotted all along the south coast for various things, very charming and pretty ad hoc. Ken, the archaeologist who was leading us first showed us some fossils he’d found along with some casts of dinosaur footprints, talked about what we can learn from finding fossils – environmental information, plant and animal life, which creatures lived when and so on. He showed us some pictures of what Hastings might have been like in dinosaur times and then we went out fossil hunting! 🙂

We clambered down the rocks onto the beach and Ken led us along pointing out interesting things, giving us little geological facts and hints and tips and identifying all the finds everyone had.

He split open various rocks we brought him and I think most people found something of interest. Dani had the very best find when Ken split a rock she’d brought him and it uncovered a whole layer of fossils, like opening an uninterestingly wrapped gift and finding a fab present inside 🙂

Scarlett found an interesting rock which when split had a bivalve inside

which Ken made smaller so she could bring home with us. Davies found several things including a stone which Ken said might be jasper and a rock with chalk and mineral fossils on it.

It was a really good couple of hours, great to spend time with someone so passionate and knowledgable and happy to share his time and passion with us. And cheap too – we only paid a fiver each for the children :).

The drive home felt longer although the traffic wasn’t too bad. I’d started to slump rather 🙁 My cough and blocked nose is persisting and I now have a mild earache / sore throat which I can’t decide is a possible infection or simply from coughing. My worry is that if it’s an infection it won’t be getting better by itself and I still have a very busy week ending with swimming 75 lengths which could well be really hard if I’m still unwell. I’m working tomorrow so will have to make a grown up decision on Friday about whether to continue with another busy day as planned to whether to be sensible and rest instead. I suspect unless I am feeling dreadful I won’t make any sort of grown up decision mind you ;).

Davies and Scarlett went off to make books while I got them some tea and then did some baking to use up some eggs. I made two batches of brownies; one with nuts (for Ady and I) and one with out (for Davies and Scarlett) and a double batch of snickerdoodles too. Then I ran out of caster sugar so that put paid to further sweet baking and a lack of cheese had already prevented anything savoury.

I tidied up the kitchen, Ady came home – and went back out again to get cheese for dinner tonight (pizza), I ran a bath, hoovered and lit a fire while the kids tidied up then we read some ‘I was a rat’ until my throat got too sore and they went to bed.

Ady and I watched Coast while we had our dinner and learnt about the Great Western Railway which runs right along the shoreline in Devon and Cornwall. We liked the idea of that lots and thought we might try and visit for a ride sometime this summer.

Am now taking my cough to join Ady’s cough in bed.

We had a much needed later start this morning, breakfasted, got dressed, packed some food and headed up to the allotment to meet up with Caz, Bid, Archie and Eliot.

There is a large field behind the allotments, bordered by the allotments on the south side and woodland on the other three sides. Through the woodland at the top is the South Downs Way. The kids were very keen to head off exploring and Davies, Scarlett and Archie went off. We told them to stay within calling distance and Caz and I got on with digging over two beds we put some asparagus crowns in last year but have seen no evidence of this year. We found one dead one but the rest are sprouting new growth so we weeded the beds and left them to carry on growing.

Eliot had been rather left behind by not realising that the others were heading off so he was in charge of cooking some sausages on a small barbecue fire Caz and Bid had brought up with them, while Bid dug over an area for planting potatoes. We ate sausages, paused for a cup of tea and then Caz and Eliot headed off to find the others (who clearly hadn’t stayed in calling distance) while Bid and I did more digging and planting and chatting. Everyone arrived back together (though from different directions) and all four children went off again, this time armed with a mobile phone.

We spent the next 2.5 hours very happily digging, planting, weeding, chatting, stopping to just enjoy the sunshine, drink tea and eat food and then carry on working on the plot. The time went really quickly. We spoke to the kids a couple of times on the phone to check all was well and they were off having a ball. So lovely for them to have that freedom and trust to go off and adventure, while we have the peace of mind of being able to ring and appease our concerns every so often.

Suddenly it was gone 330pm and we’d done everything we wanted to do at the plot and all had other places to be this evening so we rang the kids to come back. They took ages, well over half an hour, due to having wandered off so far from us and returned grubby, scratched and scraped by brambles with pockets full of ‘found treasures’ (interesting shaped stones, precious sticks) and stories of the adventures they had had. So wonderful 🙂

We said goodbye and all headed off for home. Davies and Scarlett had a quick clean up and some tea, I had a very welcome freshly brewed and properly hot rather than tepid from a flask cup of tea and sat down at the computer for the first time today. I learnt the very sad news that Freddie had passed away, told the children and shed some tears. Ady returned home so I told him and shed some more tears 🙁 .

Then we all left to go to Brighton for a sunset walk. It was called ‘starling sunset walk’ but there were no starlings to see (it’s warmer so they’ve mostly gone home) but it was still very lovely. There was a fairly large group and after an introductory chat we split into two groups. One walked along the path learning about Brighton’s history and architecture, the other group walked along the beach learning about the chalk, stones and sea aswell as buidlings in the sea – ie the piers. We joined the beach group and learnt about how old chalk and the pebbles are (95 million years), what chalk is made of, what the difference is between the brown stones and the grey stones on the beach, how grey stones were collected to make ceramic glaze, the purpose of the pebbles on the beach and loads more from our guide who is a geologist.

The walk lasted about an hour and we walked along from Palace Pier to just past West Pier to the bandstand.

It was a really enjoyable event and lovely to have watched the sun set having watched it rise yesterday morning. I’d not realised there is another sunrise walk in the morning and it would have been nice to have watched it set tonight and then done the sunrise walk tomorrow as it came back up again, but it was a late night tonight so I doubt an early morning would have been great to follow that tomorrow.

We walked back along the seafront to where we’d parked, stopping to take in the fab photos all displayed along the path as part of the Wild Planet store which has just opened. We watched the lights come on on Palace Pier and were able to see along the coast to Worthing Pier too. The kids were getting peckish so we bought them some chips each from the stall at the front of the pier and finally got home about 930pm.

Tomorrow is looking equally as busy so I need to go and get some sleep to prepare me for it…

Details of The Brighton and Hove Childrens Festival were put up on one of the local lists a few weeks ago and I went through the programme with great excitement as loads of the events looked like things Davies and Scarlett would be really interested in. Sadly about 4 of the best looking ones are for this Thursday when I’m working, which I guess saved us from the dilemma of which to choose. But I did earmark The Devils Sunrise and The Starlings Sunset walks as worth attending. I booked places on the Devils Sunrise (and we’re intending doing the sunset walk tomorrow evening to give a nice contrast) and have promptly been dreading it ever since given the crazy time in the morning it meant getting up. I debated for a while whether it was worth going to bed but in the end I went to bed at 1130pm, was asleep by about 1230 and the alarm went off at 4am. I woke fairly easily and everyone else got up and busied themselves with getting dressed, eating / drinking whatever they could face at such a middle-of-the-night time hour and we set of at 430am. I made an error in not predicting just how cold it would be on the the top of the downs pre-dawn and none of us really had sufficient layers on to keep us insulated but many other parents had made the same error and there were a lot of shivering children.

I had a fairly good idea of where Hove Station was which was where we were meeting the bus so drove in that general direction, fortunately found it and a car park next to it (which I had to pay the full day rate of nearly £5 for despite only being there from 5-8am grr) and we hoped aboard the bus. Davies and Scarlett counted cars from our house to there and it was barely 30. I think we left home at that sort of time when we went to France a couple of years ago but it’s a long time since I’ve been out on such early morning roads – noticing the lack of milk floats is probably an indication of just how long…

There was paper and pens handed out for drawing whilst on the bus and it was only about a ten minute drive to Devils Dyke. We got off the bus, the kids donned high vis vests, we had a H&S briefing and then were handed over to the storyteller:

Follow a storyteller around Devil’s Dyke as you watch night turn into day – the ultimate transformation! Hop on the bus which collects dawn adventurers at 5am and drops you back at 8am.

He began while it was still pretty much pitch dark and we stood on the edge of the hill looking into the blackness which would be a view come daylight with the Weald spread out below us. The storyteller told us he was going to tell us the tale of the horned, hoofed devil, Pan and how he created Devil’s Dyke many hundreds and thousands of years ago.

We then followed him through torch and lantern lit woodland and sat on logs while he told us of how Pan loved to party and drink and rabble rouse. Down in the Weald Christians had come and were disappoving of Pan and his wild ways and would torment his hungover followers early in the morning with the ringing of their church bells. So Pan, inspired by the white horses which were the waves crashing on the shore down in Brighton decided to create a channel from the sea to the Weald to flood it and drown all the Christians. This was done from halfway up a tree with much pantomime 🙂


Then as dawn was breaking we followed him down one side of the Dyke and up the other,

where we were given croissants and hot chocolate and sat in a circle as the storyteller stood on a stone and completed his tale.


Davies was particularly struggling with the cold and said his tummy hurt and he felt sick so he refused the hot chocolate (which I’m sure would have warmed him from within and had him feeling better) and was a bit wobbly but listened to the story just the same.

The story of how the dyke came to be finished we walked along the top of one side, down and back up again and then back along the top of the other side. Everyone soon warmed up and the group were soon chattering away and watching birds wake up and swoop about the dyke.

We were rewarded midway through the very toughest part of the uphill walk when the sun finally peeked over the horizon through some trees and went very quickly from a tiny bump to a glowing ball in the sky. There is something very magical about sunrise. I’ve not paused to just drink it in like that many times (probably less than five in my life) but it’s always an intensely moving experience somehow, the promise of a whole new day ahead full of promise and only just beginning.

Back at the bus we were given glasses of water and feedback forms about the event, which we all filled out very enthusiastically with glowing reports. A short bus journey back to Hove Station, a drive home with a fair few more cars than on the way there and we were home by about 8am.

As suspected we were all far too awake by then to go back to bed so I surprised my parents by ringing them to arrange to go over there later (Dad asked why I was up so early and I enjoyed smugly saying actually I’d been up for about 4 hours already 😉 ). We had some toast, I had more tea and then chucked an ecclectic selection of food in a bag and we went over to Pulborough Brooks.

We were early so chatted to the volunteers for a while, did some of the puzzles in the Visitor Centre and waited for others to arrive. And they did, in droves :). It was a really good turn out today and we walked round in a decent sized group – Caz and Bid, Julie and her Mum, Emma, Katy, Rossi and I and assorted children. We saw very little in the way of wildlife but did have a lovely walk chatting and enjoying the sunshine, before spending a further couple of hours in the garden / play area with picnics.

It was just lovely, the children played some of the time in smaller groups but ended up all gravitated together playing in one large group, in complete harmony, it was just fab :). The adults did much the same with three tables full of us eating and chatting and moving about between each other. One of those perfect local Home Ed community days :).

We left there at about 230pm, got home for a quick cup of tea / sandwich (our poor bodies were most confused about what time it actually was and whether to be hungry or not) before heading over to my parents. They are off to China for 3 weeks tomorrow – 2 weeks touring with a couple on internal flights and a 7 night river cruise for the third week. Ady joined us there for half an hour and then he brought the kids home for tea, I detoured to the supermarket for a few bits and came home to run a bath and cook dinner.

Davies and Scarlett were in bed for about 745pm but both had only just gone to sleep by 9pm. Not really sure there is anything more to do to wear them out really, I guess they just don’t need much sleep! Ady and I watched the Joanna Lumley Nile programme which was really good, I love Joanna Lumley :). And now, a mere 20 hours after I got up I am also off to bed as I am dozing off as I type.

instead of a whole load of letters on a blog post, but a quick one and then I’ll be off (alarm being set for 4am 😯 )

Today we had a long standing, weather permitting arrangement with Mike and Rose (the not swingers) to walk across the downs to Coombes Farm, the localish farm that does lambing during March and April. We’ve been the last 3 or 4 years and I am always slightly torn between awe at new life starting and a slight feeling of finding the animals being watched by such large, noisy crowds at such a time of heightened anxiety a bit offensive. Today it was so busy there we didn’t even see anyone to pay money for entrance to though so we did leave nearly a tenner up on that basis ;).

Ady had had a bad night with coughing and was feeling quite rough this morning and not up to the walk so he stayed home. He did drive up (it’s about 4 miles to drive by road, only about 15 minutes along twisty, turning roads) to meet us there and bring picnic lunch for us though, before driving home again with a view to taking along anyone who wasn’t up to the walk back.

So Davies, Scarlett and I drove up to Mike and Rose’s, left my car there and we headed off with Mike, Rose, Mike’s daughter Chloe (who is 13 and mostly lives with her Mum but has been staying with M&R for the last week) and their two dogs, Buffy and Bozzle. The walk there was 90 minutes, partially along some of the South Downs Way, up very steep hills and down equally steep ones but it was stunning scenery with rolling hills and panoramic sea views and it was gorgeously warm and sunny.

Scarlett was in her element, being allowed to lead one or other dog the whole way and I suspect she did about 1 and a half times the walk the rest of us did thanks to the running ahead and then back to us again. She’d brought her rucksack and spotter books and was doing lots of spotter birds, bugs and butterflies along the way and regaling us with animal facts. Chloe is a really lovely girl and she spent quite a bit of time walking the dogs with Scarlett and chatting. Davies and I walked together with Mike and Rose and had some interesting conversations about what traits he and Scarlett get from Ady or I aswell as talking to Mike about films, DS games and Star Wars.

We arrived at the farm at 1230 and Ady pulled into the car park very shortly after we got there, bringing a very welcome bottle of chilled cider each for Mike, Rose and I, along with hot water, tea bags and milk to freshly brew mugs of tea each too, which was a treat we’d not have got it we’d had to carry it all the way in the rucksack. We all picnicked and chatted then Ady stayed with the dogs while the rest of us went into the farm.

We saw a calf born and a lamb born, the kids got to cuddle and play with some of the orphaned lambs. I’d not seen a cow given birth before so that was lovely :). It was really busy there and they had two tractors running doing tractor rides, which I guess accounted for there being no one taking admission money. It’s gotten even more commercial than last year though and I dislike the way there is no farmer around at all keeping an eye on the animals birthing and ensuring they are doing okay or indeed talking to the visitors about the animals. A very different experience, and I guess a different sort of business enterprise to the farm we visited a few weeks ago where I did my lookerer training where the shepherd aimed to be present, not intervening unless necessary for every single birth and was there with anecdotes about each animal from previous years aswell as being happy to answer questions and talk to us about what was going on.

We rejoined Ady at the car, Davies toyed with the idea of going home with him but then decided he wanted to walk back with us so back we went, in a shorter route that was harder on account of having far more steep up and down hill bits. One particular hill was a two rest stop challenge :). I reckon it was between 5 and 6 miles of fairly hard going walking so am proud of everyone for doing it so well. Scarlett was still bouncing with energy at the end – as long as she is not too hot or cold, and particularly when she has dogs to distract her she could walk for miles. Davies is less keen but aslong as he is distracted with interesting conversation he can also walk a good long way.

We arrived back at Mike and Rose’s and while Chloe disappeared to get a laptop fix, Mike went to watch the pre match fanfare (his team Spurs played Ady’s team Pompey in the semi final cup match this afternoon), Rose, Davies, Scarlett and I sat in their lovely garden next to the pond drinking tea and eating jaffa cakes to restore energy levels :). We then drove back home to find Ady had got dinner on and was tending to it in various breaks in the match (half time, full time, half time of extra time, full time proper – it’s not just a game of two halves…). Davies and Scarlett went off to play in Davies’ bedroom, I sat with Ady and kept half an eye on the match so I knew which sort of noises to make (celebratory, sympathetic, ref is a wanker, that sort of thing).

Dinner was lovely, we had gammon in coke followed by Mars bar ice creams and talked about something really interesting which now totally escapes me (which is annoying, the children had both said how they enjoy it when we talk over dinner so we did and it was a really good fourway conversation, I just don’t recall what about). Then I read some more ‘I was a rat’ while a bath was running, the children went to bed (but not to sleep – argh!) and Ady and I had baths and watched the final of Masterchef Australia. We have LOVED this show and I spent much of the last show in tears as it’s been a really sentimental show with the final 20 contestants in the competition for 3 months – sort of Apprentice meets Big Brother meets Masterchef UK. My favourite contestant from day one won the show which was a total surprise as I never thought they had a real chance and their winning acceptance speech and being reunited with their family was just so touching. Loved it :).

Tomorrow we’re off on another two walks – I may be taking two weeks off of swimming prior to my sponsored challenge but I’m certainly not shirking exercise generally…. the first starts at 5am tomorrow!