One word? When seven would do…

Today was my ‘working all day’ day and Ady was taking Davies and Scarlett to work with him. This is a not-at-all sustainable solution that we have just four more months to try and muddle through. It’s not ideal, the kids spend a long day sat in the car, Ady gets stressed about trying to hide the fact they are with him when talking to his office on the phone and on days like today when the library is very quiet and I spent too much time standing around with not much work to do I resent the time away from the kids too 🙁 .

So Ady dashed off first thing to do a store visit while the kids and I got ready then he collected us all, dropped me off at work, dropped Davies off at Green Woodworking, did some store visits with Scarlett, collected Davies, came home with the kids for lunch, went back out to do some more store visits and the back home to cook the kids tea, leaving them home eating while he came to collect me from work.

My day was okay, it felt really long and it was very quiet with not a lot to do. I put up a Morpurgo display and enjoyed chatting to borrowers and colleagues but the the afternoon was slow and dragged by.

I rang Davies at lunchtime and he had just finished his woodworking. He’d finished his stool although as he banged the legs into the seat it had split so he’d ended up with a seat that someone else had started and then he said he and another child sat around for a quite a bit with nothing to do, then they asked if they could make something else and they made a rolling pin each. He’s really enjoyed it and seems to have got a lot out of it even if I am viewing it in the same way as Forest School as a rather expensive indulgence of spending time with someone who might have lots of talent but isn’t necessarily that good at sharing it and teaching others. Once again I need to leave my reservations to myself and focus on whether he has gotten something from it and he has.

Back at home I read some more of Elephant in the Garden while D&S finished their tea, took a break while they got into pjs and I started running a bath and then carried on for a bit longer. We’ve just got the last part to read which I reckon we’ll finish tomorrow.

We’d had post – a birthday present for a friend we’re seeing tomorrow and a gorgeous bracelet each for Scarlett and I from June. Scarlett’s is rainbow beads with a cat, a rainbow and a chicken charm, mine is purple and green beads with a wine goblet, a book, a tree, a chicken and a ‘recycle to save the earth’. Predictably we have both already thought of additional charms we’d both like so might get in touch with June to see if we can order a couple more and fix them on ourselves.

I cooked dinner and we watched River Cottage on Fish – I know one of the students who was on it tonight, she does relief work at the library in uni holidays and I was only talking to her last week about going WOOFing :).

Tasha, Toby and Vinnie came over today to see the campervan. I nipped to Sainsburys for fruit and veg supplies for Badgers before going to pick them up. They had the guided tour of the van including all of the ‘rules’ about taking shoes off, not playing in it etc. Then Tasha and I came inside to do knitting / crocheting and bitching :).

Poor Vinnie gets a bit of a rough deal when we meet up as Toby plays with Davies and Scarlett so he loses his big brother and isn’t really welcomed into their games. Scarlett particularly can be a bit vocal about not wanting to entertain the toddler and I struggle a bit with how to deal with it. On the one hand I know if we had friends where one of my two was repeatedly left out and made to feel unwelcome I simply wouldn’t take them there, but on the other I do understand that tolerating him for a while is a fair ask but changing games to accomodate him and giving in to his sometimes unfair demands (in their eyes) is a nusiance. I also think she struggles with not being the youngest sometimes. We are asking a lot of Scarlett at the moment in terms of growing up and maturing and dealing with stuff and the fall out happens every so often in ways she can still exhibit power and control when lots of areas of her life seem to be happening regardless of what she wants.

So we had to do some smoothing over and then she lost her temper because the boys were cheating at a lego creationary game by peeking at the cards so she yelled at them that she wouldn’t play with them if they couldn’t play properly and left the room. They did try to lure her back but she stood her ground and came and sat with us in the lounge for a while. She did some ‘potion making’ and sat on my lap and knitted a few of my stitches for me too.

We made some lunch for everyone followed by some of Tasha’s cupcakes and order was restored between the children who played really well together for the rest of the afternoon.

I dropped them off home and we got ready for Badgers. On the programme was making fruit and veg kebabs to talk about healthy options and how cold food could be appetising. I asked Davies how they’d done it when he did Hungry Badger last year and he said it had been all pre-prepared cubed fruit and veg that they had put onto skewers. So I packed a peeler and several knives with the intention of doing some peeling and chopping with the Badgers.

I had 8 children and 2 adult helpers today so we were good for knife safety ratios. First we got tables and chairs set up and I sent them all of to wash their hands. Next they all sat down and I laid out all of the fruit and veg I’d brought. I got their attention and told them to listen to me as I was talking and one of the lads asked why we had to listen to me and not him, so I got him up and told him to tell everyone what was happening instead :). I had to whisper to him what to say next but he led the group in identifying all of the fruit and veg and saying whether it was fruit or veg including the ‘trick’ ones such as peppers and tomatoes. He then sat back down and we talked about where the fruit and veg grows (on trees, plants, bushes, in the ground etc.)

We then set to work on peeling, chopping and dicing everything – I’d brought mushrooms, apples, tomatoes, peppers, grapes, strawberries, kiwi fruit, bananas and carrots. They all did an excellent job of that and then they put chairs away and we laid out the table canteen style for them to queue up with kebab sticks and get creating. I encouraged them all to try something new if there things they’d not had before and several of them liked stuff they’d previously thought they wouldn’t :). I also said they could make kebabs for sibligs or parents to take away and all of the fruit and veg went :).

We cleared up, I’d taken a compostable bag to bring all the waste home and we had a brief chat about compostable waste and landfill waste then it was time to rejoin the rest of the group for drinks and some games. I felt it went pretty well tonight and am much happier having gone with my own way of doing things. Next week we’re doing Diwali based stuff and the week after is supposed to be sandwich making so I’m taking in risen bread dough for them to shape bread rolls, ingredients to make flour tortilla wraps and cream in a jam jar to churn butter – I will do this my way! 🙂

Back home Ady had arrived and got dinner on for the kids – steak for Davies and the latest Sploosh egg for Scarlett. When cracked open it proved to be a triple yolker!
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She didn’t really like the taste of it just fried though, I think they are better in baking. I love the way all three yolks are different sizes :).

I read to them while they were eating which we were enjoying so much I ended up reading for nearly an hour with breaks to get into pjs / wash faces / clean teeth. We’ve over halfway through now and it’s quite a gripping story.

The kids went to bed (alas not to sleep, there was much reappearing with ‘a story I’ve drawn in 14 picture sections’) and we had dinner and watched Grand Designs.

Originally we were supposed to be having friends over today, they cancelled and so I thought I’d be super organised, go through the rest of the Badger meeting ‘lesson’ plans, write down a list of all the stuff I’d need to buy, get anything non-perishable now, write in my diary reminders for things to buy the day before for all the rest and schedule in a few rather more interesting things I’d thought of doing with the Badgers too.

I’d also stuck the chicken carcass from yesterday (dinner, not one of ours!) in the slow cooker to make stock and had half a plan of getting some rolls to go with and making soup for lunch. So I told Davies and Scarlett we’d be going into Lancing mid morning to get shopping once I’d created the list and to gather some audiobooks they had finished with and had waiting lists of people wanting next so we could take them back and collect some more that I’d had email notification of being ready to collect from the library.

Except I got bored doing the Badger lists – several of the girls are quite challenging and moan about the stuff we’re doing being boring. Partially they are being tricky on purpose and partially they are right, it is pretty boring and I could just imagine their disdain presenting them with some home made playdough to make ‘play food’ with. So I’ve started to think up some alternative ideas which I’ll slip in instead and I need to redraw up the schedule.

And then we had a hiatus when the case for an audiobook couldn’t be found and I had to get involved, Cue a rant from me about bedrooms, looking after stuff, how we’re leaving in four months and everything , EVERYTHING needs to be gone from bedrooms. Cue Tarly getting all wobbly lipped, Davies going into hyper-helpful mode (calming me, pacifying Scarlett) and all of us ending up with a full bin bag, several tidy boxes sorted into ‘keep forever and put into storage while we’re away’, ‘keep for now and probably give away before we leave’ and ‘yet to make a decision’ status and lots of things like shells, conkers, sticks and pebbles relegated to the garden.

Painful but productive…

The post arrived and with it insurance paperwork to complete and return and the hook up adapter. I went and plugged the van into the mains in the garage and we have power 🙂 Kettle, toaster and telly all now working. I’m not sure if the battery is charging and the fridge appears to not be entirely happy but it could be the angle of the drive.

We had lunch and I put off til tomorrow what I could have done today with the shopping.

I did manage to make a couple of phonecalls on some other paperwork kicking around though. Our debt management plan needed an annual review which I had attempted to email to the CCCS. I’d initially said our situation was unchanged but they said they still needed an income and expenditure form completed and emailed me one. I completed it and emailed it back but they couldn’t open it, I copy and pasted it into the body of an email and they emailed back with some queries at which point I decided I should probably just talk to them. One of the queries was a big leap in our gas payment per month which is clearing some arrears from an underpayment, so I took meter readings and had an online live help chat with our energy provider to check where we were with that before listening to the worst hold music ever (a sort of jazzed up, house version of ‘all the ducks are sitting in the water’) for about 20 minutes before finally talking to a person at CCCS. I was feeling really wobbly about the debt suddenly. It is our intention to not tell anyone that we are not working or change our official financial status at all but to carry on paying out of the revenue from renting the house out which will cover both the debt repayment and the mortgage.

I did feel better having talked to someone and got it all sorted out and OK’d for another year but it did have me feeling a bit crap, my bluster and bravado about the whole business and how well we’re doing all took a bit of a kicking really in the face of being questionned as to just how long I wouldn’t be working full time and would be Home Educating the kids. I felt very reminded of past mistakes 🙁

All of which contrived to make me decide to go swimming early. I felt the need to go and be good at something, to do something that has a good effect on others and swimming is something that I find quite relaxing, it’s almost meditative to go up and down the same 33 metres, brain totally disenaged other than chanting the number of lengths I have done to myself, challenging my brain with fractions and percentages of achievement against target and generally switching off.

We were at the poolside for about 345pm, giving me 1hour 45 mins to swim as much as I could. I decided to aim for 80 lengths given I had done 75 in 1 hour 37 for the Swimathon but had been in better condition. And I managed it 🙂 Felt very wobbly of knee when I got out and actually my knees are still protesting now but as that is the most I have ever swum in one session I guess I should expect some noise from my body. No one has actually sponsored me yet and I was half thinking I would quietly not bother to do the channel thing but I feel inspired anew to carry on again now.

Back home I stuck some tea on for the kids, Ady arrived home and we messed about with the van and the electrics for a while. I read the kids some of the latest Morpurgo – An Elephant in the garden and they went to bed, very tired as they had also had over 90 minutes in the swimming pool each :).

Today was the RSPB walk meet up that we’ve not managed to get to for ages. I had full intentions of going but on checking the facebook event saw I was the only one planning to attend. We do love it there and can have a nice time when it just the three of us but none of us were that fussed so we decided not to go today.

Scarlett collected another Sploosh egg (one a day at the moment 🙂 ) and wanted to bake some cupcakes with it and I had a sudden flash of organisation and remembered the kids Badger uniforms were in the wash and both of them had said their shoes didn’t fit. So I dug out the uniforms and got them in the wash and then we headed off shoe shopping. Scarlett also needed winter shoes which can be quite epic as she is quite specific about what she wants. She doesn’t like black shoes or boots (I agree, why wear boring black shoes when you don’t need to), she doesn’t want high heels, she favours boots and knee high ones rather than ankle boots, she doesn’t like pink and doesn’t want flowers, hearts, dangly beads or fluffy or furry things on them. She likes a zip, hates the Ug style furry lined ones and I won’t spend more than about 20 quid on them as I know she often gets through two pairs over a winter and she doesn’t need special width fitting or anything like that. Davies and Scarlett are so infrequently in shoes all day long I have long since stopped worrying about Clarkes shoes being properly fitted.

In previous years we have done well in Littlehampton as they have a cheapish shoe shop and a Peacocks which often has boots she likes. We drove over there first. Sure enough Peacocks came up trumps for some cheap black shoes for Davies for Badgers (fiver 🙂 ) and I got both of them some more pants as they keep running out now washing isn’t get dried as quick on the line. The other shop didn’t have their boots in yet.

On the way I drove down my favourite ‘turning of the seasons’ road. It is a dual carriageway that is tree lined on both sides of the road and on the central reservation with desiduous trees which look stunning as they turn all shades of autumn before shedding their leaves this time of year. The same stretch of road has daffodils and crocuses in the Spring giving an equally colourful and stunning display as winter comes to a close. I used to drive along that road on the way to sixth form college, again on the way to work when I worked in Bognor and then again fairly regularly when we first moved home and used to visit Julie every week. I drew Davies and Scarlett’s attention to it – wonder if they will one day drive down it themselves at this time of year and remember today?

The next town (working our way back towards home now) had two likely shops but neither had anything Scarlett (or I infact) liked, we tried Brantano which had various black ones and a few brown furry and fluffy ones, which she did deign to try on but hated. I got some petrol while we were at that retail park and we headed into Worthing town centre. We found a parking space (sooo expensive, 20pence per 10 minutes :shock:), dashed round all likely places in town, found nothing and were heading back to the car when I diverted past where I thought there was a shoe shop. Indeed there was, with a pair of brown boots that ticked all boxes, fitted and she wore out quite happily – yay! :). We celebrated by popping into Greggs the bakers for something each on the way back to the car.

Back home again I hung out washing and did some camp organising and planning and cleared my inbox of a few things while the kids played lego. Scarlett and I then made her duck egg cupcakes. I don’t know when I stopped calling them fairycakes but D&S have always called them cupcakes. I blame the Cat in the Hat movie 😆 I told her the ingredients and she weighed them out and did all the rest. Consequently they have much home made charm 🙂 but she is better at keeping her eye on things in the oven than I am.

Scarlett did some painting and Davies did some DSing while I did some more online stuff and we all watched a documentary about evolution on aswell. I really like the channels that have a constant stream of good documentaries on and it’s often our default choice.

I went and sat in the van for a little while, theoretically because I wanted some more pictures but once I was in there I just enjoyed hanging out for a while :). The kids did some running around the garden.

Then I got dinner on while Scarlett made some icing and decorated her cupcakes. Ady arrived home and he read to Davies for a while and then it was dinner time. We watched Australian Masterchef while we ate and it was a lovely dinner, finished off beautifully one of Scarlett’s cakes each.

I’d intended to sleep in this morning but Scarlett and Ady were awake early as usual and Scarlett’s excitement at going to the duck house and finding a third egg was rowdy enough to wake me. She brought it up to show me and snuggled up with me for a while by which time I was thoroughly awake so stayed in bed and read for a while as it just felt too early to be up on a Sunday morning.

We’d been planning to go to the local Apple Day as we’d had such a good day there last year and had mentioned it to my parents who’d said they’d join us so my Mum rang to ask what the arrangements were. I’d not really thought of any so suggested they come over to us for 11 and we’d head over there, it was pretty chilly and not really sitting around picnicking weather so I suggested we not take food but just grab some tea and cake over there to sustain us.

Mum and Dad arrived and we had a quick 10 minute sit in the van as their previous look at the inside had been on the drive of the sellers last weekend so I wanted to show everything off a bit. 🙂 Then we drove over to Stanmer Park for Apple Day. They had marshalls at the entrance directing you to the carparking area and pre-warning that they were asking for a £2 per car donation as the event is free. I thought this was a very fair ask as the money goes towards Brighton Permaculture Trust and other worthy local organisations who operate on a similar basis but all of the cars infront of us were either refusing to donate or kicking up a fuss. The poor girl with the collection bucket looked so relieved when we just chucked our money in and said she wished everyone could just be like us.

It was actually quite disappointing this year compared to last year when there seemed to have been far more happening and the weather was pretty ropey, cold and cloudy rather than the gorgeous sunshine I am sure I recall last year. We walked all around the stalls set up but most were selling stuff, with fairly tenuous links to apples in most cases, the kids had a go at the all in one peeler, corer, slicer apple gadget which is one of those impressive at demo but unlikely to ever be used things that requires two pairs of hands but is fun to make apple spirals with. We avoided the kids activity tent but it looked like colouring in apple pictures and some trying to bite apples on a string, Davies and Scarlett did some apple rolling and then we walked round to the well. We stood under a conker tree for a while trying to catch them as they fell from the tree when the wind blew and the kids both collected a pocket full of conkers.

We walked back to the cafe and got teas and coffees and a couple of portions of apple crumble which we shared between us before joining an orchard tour. It was the same tour we’d done last year but interesting enough to listen to again :)We then popped in to the rural museum which is on site and has all sorts of old curios from the past, many of which myDad looked at fondly with memories including freestanding mangles, blacksmiths bellows and more. Dad grew up in a remote North Wales village at the end of the war (the Hiroshima bomb fell on his seventh birthday) in a little one up, one down cottage with an outdoor loo, no electricity where the fire was kept burning year round and used for all cooking, heating, drying clothes, warming the Friday night bath water etc. I can see why he thinks we’re bloody mental wanting to go off in our van for a year :lol:. There was also a really cool gypsy caravan for pulling by a horse that had a little cage on the outside with some straw hens in it which of course had us all speculating about something similar to bring the birds with us :).

We walked back through the park, avoiding some people we saw a bit of last year (the woman who looked after the kids a few times and mislaid Scarlett) but I’d let the friendship lapse. Fortunately Davies and Scarlett merely smiled and said hello to the boys and we all carried on walking so I didn’t even see which parent, if either, was with the boys, avoiding a potentially embarrassing reunion.

We called into Asda on the way home as we needed to get something for our Sunday Roast. Mum suggested some french bread for a late lunch so I picked that up too and quickly realised if we were not eating lunch until nearly 4pm we certainly wouldn’t be having a roast dinner so that has been shelved until tomorrow. We all had very late lunch and my parents stayed for a couple of hours chatting.

We went on amazon and ordered Davies’ birthday present – he wanted a Harry Potter lego set which Mum, Dad and Frazer were getting him. He had hoped he had enough for a second, smaller set he also wanted but he has £20 and the set was £40. Scarlett sat very quietly and then suddenly announced ‘I can help you Davies’ and went to her room and brought out her own £20. Even Davies said ‘Scarlett you don’t have to do that’ but she was fiercely insistent that it is her money and if she wants to spend it on that then she can and that making Davies happy makes her happy so it’s money well spent. The last time she saved up a stash of cash she spent it on something for Davies. It was very touching :). So touching infact that I said she could pay £10 and I’d match it so she could keep £10 of her money. Mum was then so touched that she gave Davies back £5 of his money and gave Scarlett her £10 back too saying she had not given Scarlett a present on Davies; birthday as she usually does so she would give Scarlett £10 which means the lego is still partly from Tarly but she is not out of pocket. One of those lovely, proud of everyone moments usually seen only on American sitcoms ;).

Ady took off the side gate which we had put up to stop the children running all around the house when they were small (our garden goes all the way round our house but we closed it off so we could keep the kids in the back) but we now need open as our previous path for moving wheelie bins out has been through the garage which is now blocked by the van in the drive. The kids had duck egg pankcakes for tea and we all watched Countryfile, which threw up some more questions about the whole WOOFing thing from my Dad who still thinks the whole idea is crazy bonkers ;).

Mum and Dad left, the kids and I watched X Factor and then they went to bed. Ady and I had dinner and pondered over what a long weekend it seems to have been.

I had a bit of a hangover this morning having drunk a bottle of fizz last night rather later than planned due to the whole Scarlett Firesteelgate investigation 😆 I could have done without an alarm going off for me to go to work really.

But I had a really good morning at work once I’d drunk tea and eaten breakfast so all was well :). Scarlett went to check the duck house for eggs (they lay at night / early morning so can be collected first thing unlike the chickens who lay throughout the day). Sure enough another egg, this time a proper sized elongated egg.

It was Wendy’s last day today. She is a Senior Library Supervisor and I have always gotten on really well with her. After 22 years in the library service she is off to work in a doctors surgery and I think she will be really good at it and enjoy the new challenge and getting away from all the cuts and doom and gloom talk of working for the local council at the moment.

She was due to Lancing at 1230 so we spent time in the morning decorating the Enquiry Desk with a banner I had printed off yesterday saying ‘Bye Bye Wendy’ and loads of ribbons and sparkly things one of the girls had brought in from home. Another colleague shot off to the pound shop and picked up some bits to turn the chair into a throne for Wendy to sit on for the afternoon. We then realised that everyone sitting at the desk in the morning (mostly me actually) would have people thinking they were Wendy so we all made a name badge saying ‘Not Wendy’ to wear, except for James who made one saying ‘Certainly not Wendy’ which pleased and amused several borrowers during the course of the morning :).

I also made a sign to go on Wendy’s throne about how we would miss her and wish her well and a badge for her to wear saying ‘I am actually Wendy’. I finished sticking letters onto a piece of card for my Michael Morpurgo display so now have that ready to go up. And then Wendy arrived :).

She was most touched by all the decorations and I suspect would have been quite emotional by the end of the afternoon but I parted with a big hug and a promise to stay in touch and left them all to it.

Ady had promised to take Chris, Julie and the kids to Portsmouth docks as they are off to the Isle of Wight for a two week holiday and were going car-less so he shot off to collect them and was gone for most of the afternoon. He’d left me some cheese toasties and a cup of tea already made for my lunch so I took them with me to have my first meal in the van :). The kids came with me and we spent a very happy couple of hours just hanging out in there. They brought a pillow each and some toys to shove in the cubby holes in their bunk, I got frustrated with the wireless broadband not quite reaching out there and then busied myself taking photos and reading the big pile of paperwork that came with the van.

There is the original paperwork from when it was bought new in 1981 and all the warantees for things, instruction manuals for the loo, the fire, the fridge, the tv aerial, the cooker, the hook up /mains / running off the car battery / running off the back up battery power and various bits of service history documentation. I love it very much :). The kids hung out on their bunk playing DSs and telling me how much they love the van :).

I finally decided I needed more tea so came inside and was followed by the children. Scarlett busied herself painting pictures of ducks eggs on mountains and in other such picturesque landscapes while Davies did some animationstation stuff creating a very good little sketch with a plasticine face. I compliled a post which I’ve not published yet on Wonderingwanderers about a reading list, partially so I can stick amazon associate linkage in and partially because there are lots of excellent books that have helped shape our ideas of what we think we want to do and set us on our journey towards doing it.

Ady arrived home and we did some more moving the van about to get it better positioned on the driveway. Ady amused me by giving me all sorts of advice about starting it and using choke etc and then had to concede that actually I did seem to know what I was doing and infact have rather more of a knack than him for it. He then had a bash at reversing and getting it in straighter and I ended up taking over that too. I actually think he is rather more scared of handling it than I am but then he is the one who drove a motorbike only until he was 30 and has then had mostly nice new cars while I am the one who has driven all manner of old bangers for nearly 20 years and spent many winters towing my Dad’s van and bump starting decrepid vehicles every time you hit the brakes (oh that double feet skill of braking so you don’t crash into the car infront while still revving to keep from stalling on a cold damp winters morning!). I’m actually itching to get driving her again and having looked into insurance again I think we might just get her insured as for £20 a month it might well be worth it – must see about getting six months worth and then paying upfront for a year in March.

We then sat and worked methodically through all of the manuals and had a go at lighting the cooker, grill and hob, the heater and the fridge and tried to understand how all the power works. It has gas bottles already hooked up which run the cooker and fire just fine, the fridge doesn’t seem to be working on the gas but it was hard to tell. We think the secondary battery is probably flat although everything seems to switch across okay when the engine is running so we’ve bought a hook up adaptor so we can plug into the mains in the garage to test stuff (and be able to use hosts electric when we’re WOOFing too if we’re close enough to a power supply, and they have electricity of course ;)). We were amazed anew at how tidy it is inside and how well equipt it is :).

We came in and I cooked pancakes for the kids tea with Sploosh’s egg from today which looked about normal size but very elongated and turned out to be a double yolker 🙂
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and made good pancakes 🙂

We watched a very good evolution animation the kids had made together with two cells evolving into creatures, parting as one became a bird and one a mammal, the bird did great things while the mammal evolved into a human and then hunted the bird and ate it. Very deep :). Must work out a way of getting them onto a computer and uploading them.

We all watched X Factor, kids went to bed and Ady cooked steak for our dinner. Tomorrow we’re hoping for good weather as it is Apple Day at Stanmer Park and we want to go along with my parents.

Ady and the kids dropped me off at work this morning and went off to do some store visits for the day.

I did the banking, sang songs with quite a large audience of parents and babies (10 adults, 14 children, 24 pairs of eyes all looking at me to see what else Old McDonald had on his farm and just who else was riding on that rotating wheeled bus), had lunch, made letters out of old envelopes, ripped up newspaper and string to form the words ‘Green Reads’ for my next adult display and cut out letters to form the words ‘Michael’ and ‘Morpurgo’ in the font used on his books to be part of the next junior display. I spent time on the desk, joked with colleagues, teased a very nice man who came in to join the library and generally had a pretty good day.

Ady, Davies and Scarlett came to collect me and Davies and Scarlett were bursting with something they wanted to tell me about at home. They managed to resist until we actually got home and Scarlett presented me with the first duck egg. It’s pretty small for a duck egg (as first eggs often are) and is a lovely greenish colour. Hurrah for Sploosh :). Ady and Scarlett have both seen the ducks mating so we knew they were mature enough to be at that stage and were expecting eggs but I had thought it might not happen til spring. yay for duck eggs :).

I got changed, gathered up all the cash and Ady and I went off to collect the campervan. The kids elected to stay home and wait. We paid, filled out the log book, had a quick show round which key is for what (two sets of keys, both with seven keys for all the various locks, doors and ignition) and then Ady went off as I had insisted he did and I settled into the driving seat. It started first time but juddered to a halt and needed some choke (how many years is it since I had a car with a manual choke!?). We then struggled to work out where the lights were and finally I was off. She stalled again at the end of the road but started straight up and from then I made my rather hesitant way home. It was fine, if weird to drive. The height and width didn’t really bother me and I was largely oblivious to the length, I don’t think it’s much bigger than my Sharan really but the steering will take a bit of getting used to having had the luxury of power steering for several years and the automatic-ness of it will also need adjusting to. I more or less got it in position to reverse into the drive but Ady was slightly flappy and kept wanting to do it so in the end I let him. It does need re-doing actually as it is too much over to one side making it a bit of a squeeze to get in the drive but we’ll sort that tomorrow.

David from across the road appeared and came and had a look inside before finally leaving us to it. The kids scrambled about up in their bunk and then Ady and I worked out how to get the sofa / chairs to convert to a bed. Ady then took the kids in to sort some dinner out for them and I had a quiet ten minutes or so in there by myself. I put the bed all away and opened every cupboard and drawer, folded out the kitchen-y area and stood in the shower. The previous owners have left things like a kettle, toaster, mini tv, hook up cable etc all in there along with a heap of paperwork including instructions for all the appliances, a service history and other interesting looking things which we’ll look properly over the next few days.

Finally I turned the lights off and came out locking it up behind me. Ady said I looked so happy in there :). It reminded me of getting my first car, a clapped out old mini, bright yellow with furry brown seats when I was 17. I got it the week before I passed my test and it cost me £450. I remember sitting in it and just feeling like I’d never had such freedom, I could go anywhere I liked it in, sleep in it if I wanted to, keep whatever stuff I wanted in it. I’d never owned my own little bit of space before to do whatever I wanted with and it was one of the most exciting moments. I felt a bit like that sitting in the campervan tonight :).

I nipped up to Sainsburys for some food supplies – felt very strange driving Ady’s new this year company car after the van :). Back home we had a minor drama as I dealt with Scarlett and the firesteel incident 🙁 before settling into toasting the van with a glass of fizz, a very late bath and an even later dinner.

And now I am exhausted!

Today has been my least favourite sort of day, too much driving and not enough tea.

Davies had the second of his Green Woodworking session so it was up with the alarm. The kids had breakfast and then did a birthday card each for Jack and Maisie (well they did one each and J&M got one each, Scarlett did Maisie’s and Davies did Jack’s) while I wrapped their presents. At their request we’d got them a fire steel each. Maisie had wanted a little one like Scarlett’s but in red and Jack just wanted a fire steel so I got him a bigger one (in my opinion the tinyness of the little ones compromises how well they work rather) in army green. I’ve never bought them the same present before as Julie really plays down their twin-ness and they are less siblingy and alike than Davies and Scarlett are so never before have same presents been remotely appropriate so I wanted to choose a fire steel specifically for each of them this time too.

The kids put the telly on while they were eating and it was Chuckle Brothers which I just loathe. They must be about 80 now as they were around when I was a kid and I didn’t like them then. I had to do far too much reminding them to eat and get dressed and get on with card making and as I loathe and detest nagging this put me in a grumpy frame of mind really.

We set off, Scarlett with a bag containing Maisie’s card as she wanted to do some more to it, her DS and some coloured pencils and me with a pile of books and magazines. We got to the Youth Club where Woodworking is held dead on time and went in with Davies. He is by far the smallest (although not necessarily the youngest) and just sort of hung around on the periphery. There are too many tools etc around for Scarlett to be there without being in the way and I think doing these things without us around is good for Davies so we dropped him off and went to stay in the car. It’s just slightly too far to be worth coming home and there is nowhere else nearby I’d want to go for an hour anyway. Plus is was looking very grey and I was dubious about my car in the wet so didn’t want to risk being away from there.

Scarlett and I spent the first hour very harmoniously in the car listening to PopMaster (both contestants got full 39 points, I’ve never known the like!) with me looking through some green magazines and getting ideas of places it might be worth contacting to see if they’d like us to try their products next year in exchange for a blog review 😉 and then reading my book while Scarlett finished the card for Maisie with a spot the difference quiz, a little maze and more all pony themed :). Then Scarlett got bored so came and sat in the front with me and rummaged through the glove box for a while before having a licking contest with me and generally distracting me from my book. She did spend a while drawing glasses and beards on all the people in one of my magazines though which she found most entertaining :).

We went in to collect Davies who was making a stool. One of the other mothers was heloing him and it all felt slightly odd. It is the building we used to go to Magical Mondays in and the group is made up of some kids I sort of vaguely know but not really well enough to talk to. Davies clearly isn’t talking to anyone but is really enjoying the woodworking and it just felt like quite a strange atmosphere in there. Eventually the other mother asked if I could take over holding the thing Davies was doing which I gladly did. He has enjoyed it lots but I think we are at that akward stage of him needing a bit of help at these things but not necessarily from me and certainly not when I have a smaller sibling tagging alongside me. Anyway, next week is the last one and I will be at work so it will be Ady taking him.

The stool looks good though. Davies had done some sawing the seat part off a larger piece of wood, smoothed down the edges with a knife and was using a sort of giant corkscrew to drill three holes through for the legs to go in. He needs to bring it back next time to finish. I personally feel he needs a bit more one to one tuition as he was looking very cack handed with the knife and tools again and I think that is where he needs some help as once he has got his head round the construction of wooden pieces and how to use tools properly I think he’ll be great at it as he certainly has the imagination and creativity to make some cool stuff.

We left and headed in the increasingly heavy rain over to Ford to the Flying Fortress Soft Play – over an hours drive with both children feeling hungry and me feeling in need of tea (should have brought a flask and sandwiches, oh how one lives and learns). The party was booked from 1-3pm and I assumed like all kids parties there would be a spread of junk food. I didn’t factor in the Julie element though!

The kids got lost straight into playing with mates although there was a potential disaster when Scarlett brought out the socks I’d managed to think about her needing to grab. They turned out to be lacey, white knee high socks which probably fitted her fine when she was about 3 which would have been the last time I bought her socks what with her not ever wearing them. So they took some shoehorning on. I suspect in the style of binding babies feet two hours in those mean she is now at least 2 shoe sizes smaller!

I sat and chatted to Caz, Katy (of quail owning fame) and Elaine, only realising too late that Julie was not with us and that maybe I should have been helping her with whatever she was doing. I did enjoy the chatting though, even though it was punctuated with both children appearing at least once each to whisper that they were hungry and a distinct lack of tea.

We were then called in to the party area where Julie had chopped up great platters of raw veg and fruit with hummus. I could hardly blame Davies for not eating much when I didn’t either ;). I did then help Julie with decorating the birthday cakes – Maisie had a sponge which I put white chocolate mice and raspberries while Julie did Jacks chocolate sponge with crumbled chocolate flake. We sang Happy birthday to them and they blew out the candles before all the kids escaped for another 10 minutes or so playing before we were called out. I am filled with admiration for Julie really as she managed to go down the soft play birthday party route but brought her own fruit, veg and organic squash food, took all her rubbish home with her to either recycle or compost at home, flatly refused the party bags for all the kids full of sweets and plastic tat despite them probably being included in the price and remained true to all her principles and ethics while still giving Jack and Maisie the birthday party they’d asked for. Davies commented on how you get more gifts if you have a party to which I commented you don’t in our house as a party is part of your gift from us so less presents from Mummy and Daddy in exchange for a party which probably nets less good gifts from other people ;). Scarlett wants ‘some sort of animal experience and a pen knife with more gadgets’ for her birthday so that will be tidily sorted without any additional stuff coming into the house :).
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We said goodbye to everyone and drove home. Both the kids were very hungry by now as was I and Davies had a bit of a whinge which earned him a lecture from me about how I had had even less food as I’d not eaten breakfast or had a slice of birthday cake, was about 3 cups of tea down and so far all I’d done was drive for 2 hours and sit in the car for 2 hours and sit in a soft play centre for 2 hours so really I thought he’d got the better deal. He agreed and at bedtime gave me an extra cuddle and thanked me for the day. I rarely pull the martyr card, mostly because I am not one so can’t justifyably do so but I really didn’t feel up to sympathising with a bit of hunger in the face of being chaffeured round to things he wanted to do today.

We called in on my Dad to collect the money for the van tomorrow and I stopped at a cash point to withdraw the funds already available. I have no real idea what daily limit I have on my bank card but it had occured to me I could well be scuppered in my intention to take out nearly £1000 through the hole in the wall tomorrow so we have 3/4 of the cash here now ready for me to draw out the rest tomorrow lunchtime before going to hand it over tomorrow evening.

Back at home I had several rounds of toast and jam and tea and got the kids tea on quick. We watched some Deadly 60 and I read them Dancing Bear and finally Ady came home in time to say goodnight before they went to bed. Ady is working lots of hours at the moment which is tough as it is usually the quieter time. I am trying – and quite possibly failing – to strike a balance between supportive and not letting them take the piss out of him particularly given he’ll be handing his notice in in a couple of months anyway.

I’m guessing it was a lack of caffeine and just too much time sat in the car or a horrid, oppressive soft play centre that made me just feel irritated by everyone and longing for bedtime tonight – I have a suspicion we’ve not had enough time outside this week, must remedy that for next week.

Ady went to Glee today, not the TV show, the gardening industry trade show at Birmingham NEC. He was there for work but did a spot of networking for potential jobs he could freelance at including some future QVC work. I like the idea of him having something lined up for while we’re away and for when we get back, not least because it will appease my Dad a bit and also be a comfort for Ady to think he has a bit of security.

I got up and dressed and found Dad and Scarlett sitting in the lounge chatting. Dad had arrived before the rest of us were up, tapped on Scarlett’s bedroom window to wake her and got her to let him in. I left them all breakfasted and went off to work for the morning.

Work was hectic as Wednesday mornings tend to be but with plenty of laughing with colleagues too.

Back at home Dad and the kids were out in the garden having found a hawk moth caterpillar and were trying to find some leaves to put in a box with it to watch it do it’s metamorphasis thing. We all had lunch and then Dad left. I looked over the stuff for Badgers today and Ady arrived home.

Scarlett and I walked across to the dentist. She has dodgey enamel on her back baby teeth and whilst it’s not decay she does have a small hole in each. Last time we went she had some fluoride enamel put on one, today she had the other done. The dentist is happy with the way her front teeth are coming through although she does have a bit of overcrowding which might need dealing with at some future point. I’d been feeling really guilty about the fact Scarlett had needed treatment but having talked to the dentist further today she explained it was not about diet or oral hygiene (although good practise will minimise problems obviously) but one of those unexplained, no one knows why things which made me feel better in terms of mother-guilt at least. Scarlett just enjoyed the banana flavoured enamel paste so she was happy :).

Back home again I made a couple of phonecalls to try and get rid of the roof tiles we have had since we built up into the loft. They have been moved around the garden several times and are now on the driveway where they really need to be moved from as we want to put the campervan there. I didn’t get any interest so they are now on freecycle where fingers crossed someone will want them.

Then off to Badgers. Scarlett was hard work so has been given a firm talking to. I’ve no idea where that environment brings out the clingy in her when she really isn’t a clingy child at all but I don’t have much patience for it at all. I had six in my group this evening and sent them off with one of the other parents who is helping this term to learn about handwashing – she is a nurse so perfectly placed to teach them the right way. I sat and chatted to them about food groups, special diets and then we did some looking at following recipes and gathering ingredients. I really struggle with how dumbed down everything is and have a plan to introduce more interesting stuff in stealth mode :).

At the end we played a running around game and Scarlett collided with someone bashing her mouth and taking a huge chunk out of her inside lower lip which bleed and made her cry 🙁 She soon recovered although I think she’ll have a bruise on the outside too.

Back home Ady had tea ready for the kids and I read to them while they ate. Catie had recommended a Morpurgo book to me as one her favourites so I’d ordered it from the library and we started reading that. Unfortunately we ended on Giant’s necklace which is a sad one. I’d realised before the end what the likely outcome was to be and was right and predictably it was not a great one to end on at bedtime so I read the first couple of chapters of an Andy Stanton read and hear pack (large print book and unabridged audiobook to listen along with) I’d brought home for Davies to cheer us all up again.

And that was Wednesday :).

but it’d only annoy Alison and like I said I can’t be arsed.

Today we had no alarm to wake us, instead I was semi roused and lay there, eyes still closed, sort of dozing and listened to the house waking up. Ady is Busy In The Mornings. Well frankly unless Ady is sleeping he is pretty much always busy really. And even when he’s sleeping he dreams of hoovering and polishing and things like getting rust spots off antique mirrors that have been obstinate for generations but have now been removed thanks to his industriousness. Or something. So I had an ear cocked to his bustling about before he went to work. Next to wake is Tarly. Sometimes she takes blankets into the lounge and watches nature programmes on telly from under a blanket, sometimes she comes and plays with the make up in my bathroom, sometimes she gets into bed with me and puts her cold feet right in the small of my back. Other times she goes and hangs out near Davies, who remains her most favourite person in the world even when asleep. That’s what she did this morning. I do recall Frazer coming to wake me up and sometimes getting into bed with me when we were little, much smaller than D&S are now and I also recall getting up to mischief in the mornings before our parents woke up and making them tea and coffee and taking it into their bedroom. Davies woke next and I could hear the low murmur of them chatting and playing before I decided the day had started and got up myself.

I put some bread dough on as we’d arranged to go to Tasha’s and as she’d made the soup I said I’d make and bring the rolls. In the end I put too much mix in and had to finish kneading and shaping it all by hand as the breadmaker protested. Davies and Scarlett had been directed to to room tidying by Ady so I spent the time catching up on the Wondering Wanderers blog and then baked the rolls, gathered together swimming stuff and knitting stuff and we headed out to Tasha’s.

The kids disappeared into Tasha’s house where they tell me they did DSing, putting on music shows for each other (I think one of the games they play with Toby is being in a band), running round with wands being Harry Potter characters and more, stopping to eat and then heading off to do more of the same. Tasha and I ate rolls and soup, chatted and did knotting yarn with needles type stuff.

Then on to swimming. Having not been since before I cracked my ankle I was rather out of condition – good exercise for my ankle infact although it is now protesting. I’d organised a half price admission for the duration of the Channel Swim I am doing. It’s 1073 lengths of the pool and I have until the week before we go to camp to get it done which will actually be quite a challenge and require at least one additional trip per week to the pool. We arrived about 15 minutes early but thanks to swimming a few lengths with each child and stopping to chat to another woman doing the same challenge (she had a swimming cap on with it on, I wasn’t wearing mine) plus it being tough not having swum for so long I just about managed the 50 lengths before the pool closed.

Back home I cooked the kids tea, Ady came home, the kids went to bed – I’ve been avoiding starting a new book as Ady had said he’d read with Davies but he’s not started yet so I will probably pick back up with a new story from tomorrow again, I do like reading to them at the end of the day for a nice reconnection half an hour of snuggling up together.

Whilst in the bath I pondered over which continents the north and south pole are in, vaguely knowing Antartica for the south pole, so when I got out of the bath I looked it up. I had not realised that only land is categorised as within continents. It is coming up with questions like that and not knowing the answer that makes me realise how stunting my education was – I went to decent state schools and achieved above average qualifcations by reliably learning all I was taught. I would consider myself fairly bright and certainly not a failure of the education system but whilst I recall asking fairly challenging questions of my parents in my early years I don’t remember even thinking about stuff to myself once I’d been in school awhile. I suspect having been told I was being delivered an education and that I needed to work I simply switched off that part of myself that asked questions and had a thirst for knowing the answers to things. I guess I had enough to keep me going keeping up with school and there was nothing left over for more. Jonathan’s post tonight about the tangents Home Ed days go off on captures perfectly for me that dealing with it as it crops up, realising you don’t know the answer and being bothered and motivated to go and find the answer, along with the next three answers to all the tumble-down questions that follow. Yes, google is an amazing thing and the internet makes it far easier to get this information within moments of the thought occurring to us but I know pre Home Educating my own children I would never even have wondered which continent a pole fell into, let alone been bothered to actually find out when I got out of the bath.

All of which might go some way to explaining how we got to talking about food groups, special diets and healthy eating last week at Badgers when we were supposed to be talking about kitchen safety and why I still haven’t even looked at what is on the programme for tomorrow yet and would rather wing it based on what the Badgers want to talk about under the vague banner of Hungry Badger tomorrow evening…

Six years ago (almost to the day) Davies, Scarlett and I met up with some previously ‘imaginary’ friends at the Diana Playground in London. In many ways it was the start of our Home Ed journey. It was the first time we met Jan & Jonathan, Alison, Layla, Jax, Sarah and Barbara – people who I now number among my best friends.

That was one of the first trips I took to London with the kids and an epic journey home. Today we were off to meet more friends at the same venue. Turned out six years on we still haven’t quite cracked doing it smoothly ;).

Everyone was up, fed and ready to leave by 845am, we drove to the library, parked the car and bought train tickets (having already had a mini drama when I realised my family and friends railcard was out of date and despite me being convinced I had renewed it I couldn’t find a current one so we had to leave without. So £5 more on rail tickets than planned – grr 🙁 . I’d left without a cup of tea as the Asda right next to the station had a vending machine last time we went to London so I could pop in and pick one up to bring on the train rather than bolting one made with cold water before we left. Turned out they don’t have the machine any more 🙁 So in serious need of tea we bought some pastries there and then I ducked into a little cafe and got a takeaway tea before we went to the platform. 909am saw us on seated on our train, complete with pastries all round and tea for me, my book for Book group tomorrow (large print copy, argh for being heavy carting round London but I needed to get it read) and the kids DSs. Davies struggled a bit to settle and spent some time trying to get Tarly and I to chat / play games but eventually we were all doing our thing.

We got to Victoria, crossed to the tube and jumped on the circle and district line getting off at Kensington High Street. Despite having been to the Diana playground three times before we’d not done train and tube from home before – the first time we black cabbed it, the second we went from Reading with Layla and Alison and the third we went with Em from within London. For some reason I had in my head it was left from the tube so we set off left. 20 minutes later I was forced to concede it might not be left after all. So we retraced our steps a little and asked someone who said it was right from the tube. So 15 minutes back to the tube, another 10 to Kensington Gardens and then a further 10 minutes through the park – London parks are HUGE. I had a child holding each hand, both Davies and Scarlett still default to holding my hand if we’re walking somewhere. I know it will end and I know we’re probably way past the age most kids hold a parents hand but they do most of the time. Which is lovely and special, but given both of them tend to prance rather than walk it gives me an odd gait when I have that going on at the end of both arms 😆 Add to that my very heavy bag slung over a shoulder containing food, drink, that large print book and my still slightly dodgey ankle. Within ten minutes my previously super comfortable shoes had given my a HUGE blister on the sole of my foot so I now had the appearance of a marionette operated by a three year old with both arms and legs marching along to different tunes pulled by children and hobbling with bad ankles and blisters and a bag throwing the whole balance out of kilter.

We paused a while to watch some people abseiling down a building in a crazy fashion and then continued on our epic journey to the park finally arriving nearly an hour after we left the tube 🙁

Fortunately the company of LovelyEm and later Ali made it all totally worth it 🙂 I barely saw Davies and Scarlett who had a whale of a time and just appeared every so often for food, drink or to be fawned over by me :).

LovelyEm and co left to get back for Cubs and we galvanised ourselves to be off not long after. Ali suggested the bus to Victoria which given the bus stop was a much closer option than the tube sounded like a good plan to us, our travelcards are valid on train, tube and bus anyway so we went for that. We got straight onto our train at Victoria which was already packed full and standing room only really. It was one that split further down the line with Ali and Freya needing the rear half and us the front half but we decided to stay on the rear half with them and just move forward when it split, theoretically so we could chat. Infact the packed train and demands of children meant that didn’t actually happen anyway with Ali and I managing just the smallest bit of verbal banter and resorting to texting each other. I did chat to a very nice Australian bloke who was standing next to me for a bit though and Scarlett rang Ady while Davies sent me texts saying ‘poop’. Oh it was a laugh! 😉

We moved forward, sat on the floor for a bit and finally walked down the train and found seats for the final bit of the journey. Scarlett had brought a little bird spotting book with her so sat charming the other passengers by finding all the birds she’d seen in London and knowing all their names – for a child who can’t read she is surprisingly adept at finding birds in a book 🙂

As we went past the library we called in to collect books for tomorrow’s book group only to find the big boss is off sick. They had been ringing me to find out whether I was happy to host it and having not actually finished the book yet I was quite happy to make the call to cancel it so brought home the list of contact numbers for everyone and rang round to say we wouldn’t be meeting tomorrow after all.

Back at home the kids had a bath and dinner and I retired to the bath with a glass of wine.

Ady came home, the kids went to bed and we had dinner and finally watched some of the Crazy Gap Year programme having been told about it by about 6 different people.

is what Ady, Davies, Scarlett and I have spent the latter part of the day dancing round shrieking at each other 🙂 🙂 🙂

This morning we spent some time pretending not to be thinking about the van, feeling touched by a very lovely text message offer (you know who you are 😉 love you x) and sorting out videos, dvds and cds ready for selling. We’ve slightly slowed up on the crap clearing, mostly because a lot of crap is indeed now cleared and so we can have the luxury of doing the rest slightly more slowly. We now have various piles – ones to keep and be boxed up (very small pile), ones to try and sell (big pile) and ones to just chuck (non existant pile as it has already gone in the bin which is collected tomorrow). We’ll give the piles on shot on ebay as job lots, collection only listings and then freecycle / give to friends. The same will apply to the books we’re not keeping. We need to go through clothes, now the weather has changed a bit summer clothes can be sorted at which point we can start to dismantle furniture too.

We did all get quite distracted by looking at a pile of photo albums. Scarlett had wanted to look at pictures of Malice and Candle so we dug out the albums. When Davies was born the cats were horrified (although they had both regularly sat on my bump while I was pregnant) and spent ages sniffing him in his car seat when we brought him home from hospital. They came round to the idea and when Scarlett was born the cats spent the duration of her birth sat curled up next to me with a full view of the whole procedings :), so for Scarlett there is a cat in the very first photograph ever taken moments after her birth.

The photo albums were great to look through, particularly the pics with friends in – some lovely pics of our first Melrose of Davies and Ben forming their friendship, a great one of Tarly’s fourth birthday party with a princess theme – Alex, Freya, Eve and Rei, Lulah and Claudia and Scarlett all looking so teeny and cute, a pic of Davies, Ben and Marcus at our first Kessingland which is great to view alongside pics from last week of the three of them now and one of us, Chris & Alison, Chris & Helen and all the kids on Brighton beach the day after our Halloween party. It made us think we should all bring some photos along to Okehampton to look at all nostalgically – who’s up for that?

We could then pretend we weren’t thinking about the campervan no longer so I drove over to my parents to talk to them about it. I was incredibly nervous about this – they think the whole idea is crazy-bonkers, I was after borrowing money and expecting them to buy into a 29 year old campervan for us to take their grandchildren away from them for a year in. But I guess I underestimated them once again as just as they have surprised me recently with how great they were having Davies and Scarlett while we did the car boot sales they listened, sounded enthusiastic and agreed to come with me for a second look this afternoon.

We’d already decided to ring them and ask if they would take £2000 (it was advertised for £2500) which is the utter, utter bottom of the budget we were expecting to find. Come pay day on Friday we will have £1000 with the money we have saved, the funds raised from ebay and car boot sales, so half the money. My request of my Dad was a sub of the other £1000 until I can sell my car. I also wanted him to come and be the voice of reason, to pick holes and be cynical. He agreed and so I came home for lunch having arranged to ring him to come over if the seller agreed to an offer.

Ady rang – he is far better at such things – and after some chit-chat got them to agree to £2000 🙂 I admit to being very surprised at how easily they went for it but they had taken a shine to us, really fallen for the kids and wanted us to have it. We arranged to go over a bit later and my parents came over. Ady stayed home with the kids and I took Mum and Dad over.

Mum chatted to the wife, who really had fallen for Davies and Scarlett to the point of installing a pink and a blue sleeping bag on the over cab bunk and put a bag of toys on the seat for them 🙂 She got the back story about how the campervan is called Willow because the previous owner had to have a willow tree chopped down to make room to keep the van on their drive. Apparently she loves the idea of of going off in the van for a year and although is sad to see it go is really chuffed it is going to us :). The husband showed Dad and I round looking at more practical things such as where you fill and empty the water, where the hookup plugs in, where the spare wheel etc is and then started her up so we could hear her running.

I didn’t bother with a test drive as I know I will take a fair bit of getting used to it – it is huge, automatic (aside from two courtesy hire cars I’ve only ever driven manual) and I’m hardly going to change my mind based on how it drives…

So it turned out my voice of reason were by turn charmed by the female seller and the van being called Willow and the van itself and after a hushed conversation with my Dad I gave them £100 deposit and arranged to come back on Friday with the rest of the cash to take the van away 🙂 🙂

I was given a receipt for the deposit and a photograph they had of the van from it’s previous owners of it parked on the drive that the willow had been chopped down from.

Back at home everyone was very excited 🙂 Mum and Dad came in for a coffee and we all sat slightly in shock that we now have a campervan :).

Mum and Dad left, we finished sorting things ready for listing on ebay and Ady cooked a very speedy dinner as the kids wanted roast dinner but we’d gotten sidetracked so he managed some pheasant with roast and mashed potatoes and veg. We watched X Factor and the kids went off to bed, Ady sat researching anything he could find online about Bedford campervans and I’m still rather in shock!

I worked this morning. Davies had YACs and it was being held at the Wood Fair at Bentley. Last year we all went and had a really good day out as although it’s not cheap to get in to once you are inside most stuff is free and it is very much the sort of bushcrafty, survival type stuff we are in to. Ady wasn’t fussed about being there without me and we are being penny pinching atm so he and Scarlett dropped Davies off and went on to Raystede animal shelter for a couple of hours instead.

Davies tells me he had a really good morning, enjoyed going round the various stands and looking at stuff (but missed me), Scarlett tells me she had a great morning looking at all the animals at Raystede, wants to see if she can arrange some sort of keeper experience there for her birthday and wants Sploosh and Lucky (her ducks) to go and live there when we leave. (Oh and she missed me too).

I had an easy morning at work and arrived home about half an hour before the others so made myself some lunch and hung some washing out. After lunch we decided we would not do a car boot sale tomorrow after all but would do some getting stuff ready for ebay and general junk clearing. We debated getting on with some of that this afternoon but the desire to be out and about won over so we decided to go and look at some campervans. We know we will be looking for very old, rather run down vehicles given our limited budget but aside from my friend Helen’s campervan we’ve never really looked round one so we thought we should go and have a really good look at some and get our heads round what we’ll be calling home for a year.

There is the Sussex Caravan Centre fairly near to us so we drove out there and had a look round but they are very fancy, predominantly caravans rather than campervans and not at all within our price range or suitable. We had a copy of this weeks Friday Ad so we found a classified ad for a localish campervan and caravan centre the other side of Brighton and drove over there. They had about 50 vans out on display, all unlocked so you could have a proper look inside and with no salespeople lurking to pounce on you. I guess we were there nearly two hours looking in all of them and discussing the pros and cons. The kids got a really clear idea of just how little space they will have and how few belongings they will be able to bring along while Ady and I sat in drivers seats and wobbled about actually driving them. We decided the smaller the better given how unwieldly they seem, we like the kids bed over the driving seat idea, we both liked the idea of a rear windscreen so you can actually use a rear view mirror, all feel a toilet is essential and are keen to have as much storage as possible.

All of the vehicles we were looking at were about 90% more than our budget but it was really useful for clarifying layout and size ideas, answering some questions and throwing up new ones. We were able to prioritise our needs a little better when faced with lots of options.

On the way home I rang about a campervan for sale here in Lancing. It’s on the market for £2500 which is bang on the budget we had been looking at (although we don;t actually have that money yet and it’s a good 2 months earlier than we’d planned to be looking). We pulled round to look at it and have rather fallen for it. It is a bit rusty and decrepid, petrol rather than diesel and not very ecomonical. It’s nearly as old as me and the shower heater doesn’t work. But the kids fell in love with it and urged on by the woman selling it clambered up the ladder and lay on what would be their bed, Ady and I sat in the drivers and passenger seat, stood at the cooker and sink and on the sofa and got a good feeling about it.

We have £1000 on Friday which is payday and I could borrow £1000 from my Dad on the condition we pay him back when I sell my car (I think) so are debating offering £2000. It’s too soon really and throws all of our planned calendar of events out of kilter and I guess really we shouldn’t have gone to look at it but it sort of all fell into place. If the guy doesn’t accept the offer or my Dad says no he can’t sub us til I sell my car then it’s not meant to be and we return to Plan A with all it’s meticulous timescales and planned order… watch this space!

Back at home the kids had tea, we watched X Factor, my lovely children assured me I should be on it 😆 😆 😆 and then they had a very long, drawn out bedtime. Ady and I had a curry and rejoiced at not needing to be up at 5am tomorrow :).

We’d arranged to visit Caz and Bid today and had initially planned to go over there for lunch but just as we were slowly galvanising ourselves into being ready to leave the house there was a knock at the door and my Dad was here. I text Caz to say we’d be arriving after lunch rather than before and got the kettle on :).

Both my parents have now accepted that we really are going away next year and are dealing with it in their own ways. My Mum’s is to see as little of us as usual but gush about how she doesn’t know what she’ll do without us whereas my Dad has the rather more measured reaction of just turning up slightly more often and hanging out. He tends to have a new question each time, just the one which he then goes away and processes once I’ve answered. The thing with my Dad is he spends about 80% of his life alone, his days are spent in a fairly solitary fashion, he only has one close friend and he and my Mum don’t seem to even come close to discussing things in a rational fashion so almost by accident he has become a thinker, a ponderer. As such when Dad does say something you know it has been thought through, considered, turned over in his mind before it ever reaches you.

We talked about next year, about living in the south east, about where we would like to live and about the prospect of all living together. I would love that. For all my parents drive me mad I could see massive benefits to having them close. I would love Davies and Scarlett to have them on hand as additional adults who love them, I would love to have their perspective on day to day stuff, I would love to know that as the balance of power subtly shifts and their need and dependance on me grows I am there to take that on board. I have always viewed my Dad as a future incarnation of myself and enjoy having that around to bounce off of. It would not be perfect and I am very cautious of the implications of being close to living with them again and all their fighting and other crap but I think the positives would outweigh the negatives. All a long way off just yet but nice to think Dad is thinking ahead and has a similar vision to me of a possible coexistance one day sometime.

Dad stayed for lunch and then we all left together. We went to the post office to finally post a couple of parcels – they were late in paying (a full week after the auction ended in one case, a full fortnight and a dispute case started in the other) and then I was really late in sending them so fully expecting some sort of negative feedback on those ones 🙁 but at least they have been sent now. Then over to Caz and Bid’s.

I was very brave about the fact one of the dogs appeared at my car as soon as we pulled up – I think trying to get over my dog phobia will be one of my bigger challenges next year, it’s certainly a personal hurdle I am well aware of needing to tackle. Davies and Scarlett were instantly lost to Archie and Eliot and we didn’t see them for hours as they were off playing. Bid commented that A & E tend to get involved in their most imaginative play in the company of D&S and also view the whole living where they are the most positively after spending time with D&S who are incredibly enthusiastic about the place. I often get told what amazing imaginations D&S have and how creatively they play and do wonder if this is a direct result of their lifestyle with still no structured learning or dictating how they spend their time. Certainly I don’t fret that their DSing and Xboxing is stunting them in any way. Davies at ten could still happily spend hours entertaining himself making up stories for characters represented by his own fingers to act out and I view this as a huge positive as I think storytelling and exploring imagination is one of the most precious skills there is. Leaving aside all else, literacy included surely the power to entertain and enthrall is a treasured one?

I spent time chatting with Caz and Bid about all sorts of things and then we began clearing some nettles growing within a disused polytunnel. I quickly got distracted by the possibility of wildlife – prime snake territory I thought although it may have been a little damp and then the wealth of nettles. I have been wanting to have a go at nettle cordage for ages so we all gave up on nettle clearing, grabbed a Ray Mears book and had a bash at nettle cordage instead :).

It wasn’t totally successful and it is very time consuming but I like the idea and will get the Ray Mears dvd out again so I can study it further and have another bash.

Friday has been declared Fire Night round there so they were cooking sausages and potato parcels on the fire along with beers. Ady came and joined us which was lovely but did mean as we were both there in cars we were not able to partake in beers but did manage a sausage or two ;).

We finally left around 7pm with a real feeling of having dragged ourselves away but needing to get back for putting chickens and ducks away before dark. I do love spending time with Caz and Bid, it just all feels so very natural and right.

Back home the kids both had showers as they were filthy, Scarlett hit upon the idea of wearng a swimming cap to prevent her hair from getting wet which I thought was quite genuis 🙂 They went to bed and Ady and I caught up on chatting about all sorts of things.

There is a local Home Ed group that I have been aware of for a while called SHE -Sussex Home Educators. They seem to be a bit freemasonesque in that nobody seems to know quite what they do or how to join them but they posted to the local list recently about a couple of sessions they had spaces on for HE kids over 10, one of which was a green woodworking course. Four 2 hour sessions, held with a professional green woodworker. Davies is very interested in such stuff, so when the email came through, starting just at his tenth birthday and just after the Campcraft sleepout which also involved green woodworking I asked him about it and he was interested.

I emailed the contact to see if missing the first session would be an issue as it fell while we were away last week and she said no, but we’d still have to pay which seemed fair. The price was £7.50 per session, so £30 in total and I thought £10 was a fair price per session still for three sessions so we signed him up.

The sessions started today and are for the next three Thursdays, two of which I am working. Now our childcare is and always has been so very seat of our pants I decided to just book it and work the logistics out afterwards. Which meant I assumed Ady would find a way to work round it if I’m honest. Except Ady had the dentist first thing this morning. This would have been fine normally as he was back home just before 10am which would have just meant Davies and Scarlett either went with him and waited at the dentist, came with me to work for the first half an hour and he collected them from the library, or they just stayed home until he got back. But we knew he wouldn’t be home in time to get Davies there for 10am so I finally arranged to take some of the lots and lots of time owing the library owes me for various things and arranged to start at 11am today meaning I could take Davies myself.

So Ady went off to the dentist, Scarlett and I took Davies over to Woodingdean for the course and on the way I watched him getting more and more nervous in the rear view mirror. We talked about what he was nervous of and what all the worst possible case scenarios were and how he’d deal with them. I promised to stay until he was happy for me to leave, he had his phone to contact me if needed and Ady would be there within an hour of me leaving (I’d already clarified that it was a drop off and pick up again later arrangement which I’d assumed it would be for the older age group).

Luckily the building is one Davies knows as we used to go to Magical Mondays there for several years and when we arrived the green woodwork professional turned out to be Peter, one of the rangers from Forest School. He’s pretty flakey, introducing a piece of wood and going off on one about how amazing trees are, all a bit soppy and spiritual for me but he certainly knows his stuff and it did give the whole session an air of peace and love, which is never a bad thing when you have a load of kids working with knives I guess ;).

Davies was quickly engrossed so I bid him goodbye and headed off home with Tarly. Ady was already back from the dentist so he and Scarlett dropped me off at work and headed back to Davies where they watched the session from afar. Davies made a mallet – they had the choice of mallet or rolling pin – and explained to me in technical detail how he’d done it and all the tools and methods used. I think they idea is they make something each week in the two hour session, next week I’ll go along and the week after Ady will be around again. He really enjoyed it and I’m really pleased to have found something to reinforce the Campcraft stuff, with a tutor he already knows and likes. A wise investment :).

I had a good day at work, finishing off and putting up a display, catching up with what had been going on while I’d been off and ordering in a load of Morpurgo books for a display for next month. There are so many changes at work just now and so much stress at the levels above me that it has really changed from the relaxed, happy atmosphere it used to be. I am already feeling quite detached from it all and glad to have an exit route planned really. I have made some great friends at work who I intend staying in touch with and it has been an excellent working environment where I have learnt loads, been offered lots of opportunities and really made the best of my 11 hours a week but regardless of what we’re planning next year I can feel the time is right to be thinking of moving on.

Ady picked me up and we did an inventory of the freezers as we’ve another month of scrimping and saving and trying not to dip into saved funds set aside for the campervan. Birthdays, Badger subs and holiday always make September a costly month but I think we’ll scrape by. Weather permitting we’re considering one more car boot sale on Sunday.

We finished reading King of the Cloud Forests at bedtime, Ady and I watched Gareth and he is now determined to start reading to the kids 🙂 .

One of those days which remind you just why you have made the choices you have :).

Thanks to at least ten late nights in a row and a real inability to get to sleep early anyway Davies, Scarlett and I were all in need of a late morning. I can’t deny I am to be heard telling Davies and Scarlett to ‘just go to sleeeeeeep!’ at times, but the truth is this is more to do with my desire to be Nic or maybe part of Nic & Ady rather than Mumma for a couple of hours in the evening. Ideologically and philosophically I know that I have a natural sleep pattern which has me awake til the early hours of the morning then sleeping til the later hours of the morning, Davies seems to have something similar going on. He is at his best sitting in bed after he should have gone to sleep, churning out the best drawings, doing the best reading, coming up with the most interesting ideas and questions. In short, he has the brilliant professor about him in the hours when the rest of his age group are fast asleep.

And how great is it that our lifestyle means actually he doesn’t have to go to sleep because he doesn’t have to get up for school in the morning :).

We had arranged to meet up with Julie, Jack, Maisie and Lorna today so I talked to Julie on the phone and we arranged to meet at the beach for some firelighting. Jack is a bit obsessed after helping light the campfire last week and has been wanting to do it again ever since :). We arranged to meet in a couple of hours as Davies and Scarlett were busily DSing and still in pjs despite it being after 10am, Scarlett had brought her DS up to Davies’ bedroom when she woke up and they were happily involved in some communal DSing while I sorted some washing and checked on the birds. Eventually everyone got dressed and had breakfast, we watched some Horrible Histories and some Deadly 60, chucked some food in a bag, gathered the fire steels and drove to the beach.

We found the others who had already constructed a stone circle to be the fire pit on the sand and were searching the beach for bits of wood. We all joined in and gathered quite a pile of sticks, twigs and a couple of bits of driftwood before laying a fire. Scarlett and Maisie found some crabs which we all had a good look at too. Then we set about making some sparks and getting the fire going. Julie had bought some bread dough to make bannock bread so we toasted that on sticks which was very delicious :).

It was very lovely just sitting on the beach looking out at the sea with family, laughing, chatting and playing, renewing the smell of campfire about us and learning about starting fires, cooking bread and finding wildlife. Love that that is our life 🙂

We hung out there for about 3 hours before Julie needed to get Lorna to swimming lessons and Davies, Scarlett and I needed to get to Badgers. We arrived home with enough time for me to swap some laundry on the line, clean up the kitchen, make some tea for the kids and a huge cup of tea for me while perusing the Badger programme and checking what I was doing tonight. The schedule showed handwashing, kitchen safety and some games based on germs and handwashing. I was supposed to have some disposable gloves and paint for the handwashing exercise but assumed it being SJA they would have disposable gloves on site so didn’t bother.

It turned out they didn’t have gloves either so Tarly and I did a dash to the local garage hoping to nick some of the diesel gloves but they had run out. When we arrived back all of the Badgers had arrived including two local girls who are HEd and were at the picnic on Monday. Scarlett particularly gets on with Indigo so she was pleased. I think the reason she likes Indigo most is because ‘both of us have names that are colours’ 😆

I had seven kids including Tarly in my group today so we all sat on the floor and I got those who were there last week to talk about what they’d done then, then we chatted about Hungry Badger generally and talked about food allergies, dietary choices such as vegetarian and veganism and handwashing. I explained (once again) that I don’t need them to put their hands up to say something, just to respect when someone else is talking – I hate hands up!

We moved into the kitchen and did kitchen safety, looking for danger in the kitchen and then I demonstrated how easily germs could be spread around the kitchen by all the things I touched. Back in the main room again we played a couple of games of germ / handwash inspired tag before sitting down again and talking about food groups briefly which don’t seem to be mentioned at all on the sheet, touching also on healthy eating and why it’s important. I’ll be better organised next week and ensure we have plenty to cover as we almost ran out of things to talk about tonight, but the kids were really enthusiastic when the other half of the group returned to us and were full of ‘we learned about X’ which was nice :).

Back home again I put the birds away while the kids got in pjs and then we snuggled up and read loads of King of the Cloud Forest as we’ve not had any stories for ages. We left the final chapter to finish tomorrow as it was getting late and both kids went off to listen to some HP audio books in bed. Davies also did some excellent HP pictures using oil pastels in bed. Which sort of brings me full circle really I guess.

A good day 🙂

As predicted this morning was an early one. Scarlett woke us before 7am to tell us it was Davies’ birthday 🙂 When Ady said to her ‘yes, go and wake him up then.’ she replied ‘he’s already downstairs, he woke me up!’ 😆

So we all came downstairs and Davies opened his gifts from us – he’d already had the Campcraft Sleepout as a main present, along with a few bits we’d got him to take on the weekend but he had two (second hand) x box games and Lego Harry Potter for the DS. Ady hasn’t found a reliable site to get games for the kids rumblepacks for months so Davies has been desperate for that one since it came out. He also had a box of chocolates from Tarly, a set of really decent walkie talkies (which have been a huge hit, have a 5 mile possible coverage and will be great for taking with us next year and keeping in touch with each other. They don’t know but we actually bought two sets at the time so we will have one walkie talkie each but we’ve put those away for another time) and a little fishing rod and accompanying bits. Davies has said for a while he’d like to go fishing and it’s something Ady used to do and enjoy so hopefully that will get some use aswell as being handy next year when we’re off trapping, hunting and fishing for our dinner ;).

Scarlett got our traditional small gift on siblings birthday of a little toy tiger and some art bits. She really struggled today as she was tired anyway. I distinctly recall hating Frazer’s birthday when we were kids so I always have a lot of empathy for the resenting a siblings birthday feelings. Not to be indulged certainly but to be acknowledged and helped through.

It was made worse when the post arrived mid morning containing a parcel for Davies and a pink envelope addressed to Scarlett. I rather foolishly didn’t compute it could have been an error and assumed someone had thoughtfully sent her a notelet or letter knowing Davies would be getting stuff. It turned out to be a birthday card for her containing a fiver from one of Ady’s friends who had clearly got confused about who’s birthday it was 🙁 She did hand the fiver straight over but was quite teary about the whole business.

I felt so wiped out that once present opening had done and Davies was keen to just sit in a corner with his DS and start playing his new game I went back to bed for an hour or so. Ady had planned to go into work later anyway so he hung around for breakfast and made me a cup of tea when he left and I got up.

Davies wanted to spend a quiet morning at home enjoying his new games, his favourite food of home made pizza for lunch, a trip to the Lego store to spend birthday money as he is desperate for some Lego Harry Potter stuff followed by dinner out at The Harvester with my parents and brother. So that is what we did :).

I sat with both kids snuggled up next to me at various points playing DS, chatting, looking at old baby pictures of Davies and then I stuck the pizza dough on and Scarlett came and helped me make the choux pastry for Davies’ requested birthday cake of a repeat of last years giant chocolate eclair, only this time in the shape of a 1 and a zero to mark his journey into double figures :). Tarly and I also walked (well she scootered) round the shop to get some whipping cream and chocolate.

Pizza constructed and in the oven I set the cream to whip in the kenwood while I washed up but I was distracted by other thoughts and took my eye off the cream leaving me with just about enough whipped cream to stuff the eclairs and a great big lump of seperated butter and buttermilk in the bottom of the bowl. I squeezed out the butter and wrapped it in paper and bunged it in the fridge. I had whipped the cream with a couple of spoonfuls of sugar so it will only be any good for sweet useage but I’m sure we’ll find something to do with it ;).

Just as I had melted chocolate and poured it on my Mum arrived so we had pizza for lunch and Davies showed Mum all his presents including the very excellent one that arrived from Kirsty & James and co of a little compass and a very cool camouflage print wrist band made of cordage that you could use in a survival situation. So very, very Davies 🙂 Another winning gift from The Barts, thanks guys xxxx

Lunch eaten we headed off to Brighton to the Lego store there. We’d just assumed there would be an array of HP stuff to choose from but it turns out they are launching a 2010 range, presumably to coincide with the next film on October 1st and there is NOTHING on the shelves with HP on it until then 🙁 We tried a couple of other toy shops but found nothing also checking a Toys R Us and a local toyshop on the way home and I am wondering if there is a deliberate move to remove all existing HP lego when a new range is about to be launched as I can’t believe there is no unsold boxes anywhere. What happens to out of fashion lego? Does it get split up and melted down, painted over, put into Lego museums? Is there some vintage outlet? Do the wasps at Legoland carry it off somewhere?

Poor Davies was pretty disappointed as it had been something he’d agonised over choosing knowing he needed to get presents that can either be used up, consumed, are really small to come with us or can be stored for a year and still relevant and wanted when we come back. We’d decided lego was perfect to be played with for six months before we go and stored away ready for when we come home again so he’d gone with that. He spent time in the Lego store trying to decide if he wanted some other Lego instead but decided to wait for the HP stuff launch in October. He had a really good attitude of ‘I already had loads of cool stuff for my birthday, I do *really* want the HP lego today but I can’t get it so I can look forward to getting it in a few weeks instead’. I was proud of him 🙂 I was irritated with my Mum who kept ‘aww, it’s such a shame’ ing at him almost goading him to be upset and asking ‘are you *really* disappointed?’ and saying to me ‘isn’t he being good?’ to which I replied he is 10 and I’d be really disappointed if he wasn’t being fairly sensible about it given he’d already had loads of presents and actually birthday’s aren’t just about acquiring as many new possessions as possible anyway!

Once home Davies and I spent some time online and found a set he really likes available from amazon for pre-order so my parents and brother will sort that out for him and he’ll get it when it comes out in a few weeks.:)

We had a couple of hours at home of Davies exploring new x box and DS games, Scarlett did some arty stuff and as Davies had said he’d have liked birthday cards from us (we just don’t exchange cards between the four of us anymore) Scarlett and I made him one each – her’s has an excellent drawing of Harry Potter, I drew a Lego version of Davies 🙂 .

Ady arrived home, we all got changed ready to go out and then Mum, Dad and Frazer arrived over as planned so we could do blowing out candles on Davies’ cake. We all had a small piece (not long before we were going out for dinner), Davies showed everyone his presents and talked to Frazer about the Campcraft Sleepout and then we headed to the Harvester.

Davies and Scarlett were pretty tired (they really haven’t caught up from the holiday yet, we had the wedding reception on Saturday, my parents over for dinner on Sunday and Jax and co here til nearly midnight on Monday) but both ate *really* well and the food was actually pretty good.

My parents invited themselves back for coffee (I was sort of hoping they wouldn’t) but thankfully Frazer ensured they left by about 1030pm. I had ten minutes chatting with Davies and said I’d had the best ten years of my life being his mummy, he replied he’d had the best ten years of his life too 😆 😆 Love that boy 🙂 Will do my usual emotional birthday page for the side bar in the next day or so.

Davies had a fab birthday, surrounded by people who love him, showered with gifts, best wishes from near and far and enters his second decade really excited about his double figure status 🙂

Back with a bump today – poor Ady went off to work, struggling to get up and learning he has yet another new boss lined up.

We were off to the local Not Back to School Picnic. I’d stuck a time and date to suit us personally out on local lists but made it clear that other than doing that and turning up I wouldn’t be doing stuff like contacting press or inviting our MP. As it happens I have maintained contact with him over the year and suspect he would have come along but quite apart from the propsect of it scaring off other attendees I wasn’t feeling up to the scrutiny. For me it was a celebration of another year of Home Ed, a victory that a year on we are still free to educate our children as we see fit without state intervention. A celebration of being free both to HE at all and to be sat in a park when everyone else is back at school.

We pottered about in the morning, I did some online catching up with things including a first bash at sorting out camp balance prices which proved very tricky. I think this has been the touhghest yet to organise with numbers jumping about all over the place with people not sure if they are coming, how many of them there might be and so on. I think I’ve reached the easiest decision at setting a price assuming all confirmed people will come and taking any latecommers money off the food kitty. I feel like I need a Worzel Gummidge ‘Organizin’ head’ to put on for all this, I’ve even been creating spreadsheets for the WWOOFing planning.

I dealt with some washing and made a picnic, took a phonecall from Jax around the time I was half expecting her to arrive and then we headed to Brooklands where the picnic was being held. I felt obliged to be there by midday nominally being ‘the organiser’ but predictably I was the only one there. Davies and Scarlett ran off to play leaving me alone in the middle of the green sitting on my picnic rug and looking like a nutter! 😆 I was soon joined by a woman I loosely know who always insists on calling me ‘+Nicky’ with whom I once had a big debate about smacking children with and then a new and shiny HEor with a 12yo girl just taken out of school. Her and her daughter were lovely and I loved the way they confided they didn’t think they could be doing it right because it all seemed like too much fun and as though life was one long weekend 😆

Other people arrived and we ended up with 10 families which I thougt was a very respectable number 🙂 I chatted to most of them about various things and enjoyed the lack of needing me demonstrated so ably by my children :). Scarlett took some bread off and when I started to miss her and went to check on her she was sat beside the lack with a huge crowd of ducks, coots and moorhens crowded around her while she talked to them all 🙂

Most people drifted off around the same time of 3pm – I was in need of tea so it suited me. Back home I had literally just made my tea when Jax arrived so I made her one too and we had a catch up chat while the older children disappeared upstairs and Soa was cute and smiley :).

Jax and Soa departed and I was very briefly in charge (fortunately no one but me realised 😉 ) before Ady arrived home and we had a proper grown up around again. Phew! Ady was a superhero with the four kids all night, feeding them, smoothing any issues and ensuring everyone was kept entertained and happy. Big and Davies seemed to really hit it off, either having ignored or not particularly gotten on when we’ve previously been together so Ady largely left them to it and concentrated on keeping Small and Scarlett out of their way without them realising it. Our kids have only ever met up in crowds and although there are only a few months between the older two and the younger two they just don’t really move in the same circles. I think they all enjoyed each others company this time and hopefully now consider each other friends :).

I, on the other hand escaped for the evening :). It was a leaving party for L at work who is off to uni next week. She has been a Saturday assistant at the library for just over two years and is off to do teacher training. The other Saturday assistant, J is going to Sussex uni and so will be staying on for the duration of his course. There were 8 of us there and we had a really nice evening with lots of laughs. The food was crap as it always is (Harvester) but it was really good to catch up with A, who works for the neighbouring library service now and has all sorts of crazy life changes going on and then a very interesting discussion with J about nuclear families, state intervention and why the standard mother, father, child model isn’t always the best IMO and is in his.

I got home not long after Jax had arrived to a very noisy house, which was only marginally quieter after Jax and co had left ;). We just about had Davies and Scarlett in bed before midnight and I told Davies his birthday didn’t start until 435am when he was born anyway and no, he wasn’t allowed to stay up til then 😆

Presenting wrapping for me followed by a late night with a certain early morning to follow….