One word? When seven would do…

January We saw 2009 out and 2010 in with various friends at The Salmon’s.

I had my 36th birthday, celebrated seasonally with an indoor / outdoor snowball fight as we had a very heavy (for the south coast) snow fall.

We had a weekend in Manchester staying with Lynda & Stuart and meeting up with Miranda aswell as taking several walks down memory lane from our time up there. Then a trip to Centerparcs along with several friends for a four night stay, loads of swimming but not quite enough meeting up with friends.

Our homecomming was pretty crappy with Scarlett catching the bug that Davies had had at CP, my car not running and our boiler dying, so no heating or hot water. In January. With a vomiting child, piles of holiday washing and festering swimming costumes. Ady hooked the garden hose up to the electric shower and we managed to fill the bath using that a couple of times and I spent a few hours at the local launderette. Thankfully within about a week (it felt longer) we had a brand new boiler installed, the car was running again and despite a cold extending the period of illness in the house everyone was better by the time February rolled round.

Scarlett dabbled with Brownies but decided it wasn’t for her, after a lengthier trial at Sea Scouts Davies decided that wasn’t for him and we hosted a Home Ed Grown Ups Meeting.

Ady and I had an evening out with some of his friends while my parents looked after D&S and managed to set the chimney AND the table on fire :rolls:

I bitterly resented being an Assistant Leader at Badgers, particularly when I had to go to a pretty much irrelevant course early on a Sunday morning (when I was hungover). Particularly when followed the next day with a first aid course for work.

We spent lots of time at home and I’ve just been reminded reading back that Scarlett had some wobbly times in February.

I passed my interview and end of course exam and was offered a Waste Prevention Advisor role.

We had a lovely weekend at Marcus and Michelle’s, also taking in The Salmon’s but rather missing everyone else at the Au Revoir party. We did see some people and enjoy the chocolate fountain just the same 🙂

I launched the first six week sessions of Chatterbooks – a national initiative that I felt we should be offering locally and pushed through against all sorts of resistance. In the end the sessions were so well recieved and oversubscribed I ended up running a second, shorter set later in the year. I certainly got a lot out of the sessions, as did Davies and Scarlett who attended both lots and did lots of supporting me in the planning and execution.

Davies & Scarlett attended an educational session at the dentist, we visited Tasha at the Pop Up Playspace, we had a lovely dog walk up the downs with Rose (my not-swinger friend) and her dogs, LovelyEm and LovelyOs for a lovely overnight visit

We had a great visit to a recycled art exhibition at Hove museum and both kids did lots of animation stationing (Davies) and bath bomb making (Scarlett). We saw the month out with a 25th anniversary party for Ady’s work which all four of us went along to and can now proudly say we have been to a Hot Fork Buffet and a celebratory evening with Caz and Bid who had come home to the UK

March saw us kicking off the month with a visit to a meeting about Transition Town Worthing and a film screening, Ros and I went to see Mika in Brighton and despite feeling like a giddy teen queueing on Brighton seafront for hours to ensure a good standing space it was a fabulous night 🙂

We went to a Gala Night screening of the new Alice in Wonderland film and Davies and Scarlett attended in outfits they had designed / made / come up with themselves, Davies as the Mad Hatter and Tarly as Alice. Davies won the fancy dress competition and got a fantastic goody bag packed with stuff, was in the local paper etc. 🙂

We had a wildlifetastic day at wildlife Explorers followed by a visit to Tom’s parents where we saw lizards and a kingfisher. We entertained the Not Swingers with a curry night and visited a farm where there was lambing going on to get a real taste of what that entails

I attended a Meet the LA session with Ellie Evans of Badman Select Committee review and ever afterwards marked my card in the local HE circle as aggressive / passionate about staying unknown and being autonomous.

We had a weekend visit from The Barts and celebrated Mothers Day with some new DMs for me and a meal out with my parents in the evening.

We went to the Surrey Science Circus which was excellent, Davies decided he would teach Scarlett to read and made her a ‘Read at home with Day’ book

I did a home perm and channelled my inner Carol Decker but at no point did I ever even consider wearing jeggings! 😉

We had a choctastic day with Tasha and co making and decorating chocolates as we were boycotting Easter eggs as overpackaged

April began with a seed bomb making workshop

We had a fab Easter Egg hunt at Ros’ and then my parents round for dinner on Easter Sunday, followed by a tent purchase on Easter Monday.

We attended a couple of workshops at Making Space – one on medieval copper jewellry and one on Dragon puppets, both of which were enjoyed. I also took the kids along to the circus nearby .

We had a go at putting up the new tent, I went out for a leaving do with work colleagues and we all seem to have had another cold reading back on my blog.

We had a 48 hours of Many Walks, with one across the downs to Coombes Farm to see lambs and calves being born with Mike & Rose and Mike’s daughter Chloe and their dogs, getting up at 4am to go to an amazing Devils Sunrise walk at Devils Dyke and then a walk round Pulborough Brooks finishing off the following day with a sunset walk on Brighton seafront.


Davies and Scarlett attended a workshop at the local museum about Roald Dahl inspired storybooks and we all went along to a fossil hunting walk with an expert fossil hunter at Hastings , we went to the UK Aware show in London and I completed the Swimathon 2.5km in just over 1hr 37mins, raising a nice big chunk of cash for Marie Curie Cancer Care and spurring me on to swim something even more challenging next time.

My parents went to China for a month and had a really good holiday including a river cruise.

We did a rather disappointing bread and flour making session at the Weald & Downland museum, a fab weekend family seaweed gathering picnic at the beach getting sandy and sun kissed with friends

We made the very tough, but very right decision to have our beloved pet Candle put to sleep, after a very long and adventurous life coming to a sad shadow of her former self final few months. Still miss both her and Malice and one day I will have cats curled up on my lap again whenever I sit down on my sofa.

I my first go at lookering and we started working with the rest of the Home Ed Book Club on a display for a local library’s Summer Reading Challenge based on Space.

We began May in the company of friends with a Bank Holiday camping trip to Norfolk, also taking in Bewilderwood which is somewhere I’d been wanting to visit for ages. We all really enjoyed Bewilderwood 🙂

More lookering and a visit to new friends who were looking after a pair of orphaned lambs , we had our now traditional family weekend camping at the Sustainability Centre for the Green Fair, hooking up with a family we’d met the previous year and having a lovely time despite ropey weather on the Saturday and rather amusing but annoying camping neighbours

May was mostly about the ducklings for Scarlett. She’d spent April incubating six duck eggs, two of which hatched into very cute little ducklings which she named Sploosh and Lucky. They lived in her bedroom for the first month or so, she gave them swimming lessons first in a paint tray and then in the bath, introduced them to the outside world and they totally imprinted on her, believing she really was their mummy and following her everywhere, scrambling to get on her lap when she sat down and generally adoring her. It was quite reciprocated 🙂

The kids and I went to Safety Day in Basingstoke, they had talks by various emergency services, I mostly lazed around with Alison :), Ady turned 46 and the kids and I went to a fab May Day celebration at a local HE friends’ including may pole dancing and may flower crown making

We all had a great weekend of over indulgence and tractor driving at Tom’s parents, I developed a rash on my face which took weeks, various different prescriptions, antihistimines, a large course of steroids and heavy duty moisturiser to finally chase off – hope it never returns but still none the wiser as to what it was a reaction to and therefore what I should try and avoid.

We managed our sixth annual photoblog day – which can be seen over on Monster and Teeny and met up with new friends who live on a boat.

We saw May out and June in celebrating birthdays at Jan & Jonathan’s with loads of friends. As always the venue, hosts and other guests made for a fab weekend 🙂

We had a fabulous weekend away camping overnight near Lyme Regis and visiting River Cottage which was one of the highlights of our year and a real catalyst for our plans for next year. which we started to hone a little more after that.

I ran a second set of Chatterbooks sessions (just four this time), equally well received and with some great feedback. Davies, Scarlett and I went to one of the Science Museum full day events taking in character plays, IMAX theatre etc. We all went to the South of England Show along with my parents, the kids attended a couple of travelling storyteller sessions as part of the Adur Festival and we did a fab Open Farm Sunday event which included a canal boat ride trip there and back.

Davies and Scarlett had a go at streetdance and circus skills in their quest to learn back flips. We never made it back to either…

Ady and I celebrated 17 years together, slightly tainted but never overshadowed by my parents who have been together for over twice that having one of their spectacular fall outs. I’ve just re-read it and shed a tear but am not going to link to it, choosing instead to focus on my own fantastic relationship instead.

We went to the Sussex Countryman Show which was excellent on Fathers Day with my parents and started putting finishing touches to our grand plan for next year.

The kids and I started working our way through the first couple of chapters in the River Cottage Family Cookbook which had us making all sorts of bread, pasta, pizza dough, pastry and cakes, creating our own sourdough starter, making butter and tasting various types of milks. Scarlett and I collected elderflowers to make cordial and I had a go at home brewing some wine from a kit.

We did a solar powered boat trip in Chichester which ended with a guided walk and was really enjoyable and educational,.

We kicked off July with a visit to the PYO where we managed to be dreadful really, the kids got complained at and told off by other people. Too many children and most of the adults ignoring them I fear.

Another cinema gala event, this time Shrek and the kids persuaded Ady and I to join in with the fancy dress too. So we went as Shrek, Fiona, Puss and Gingie. We won prizes, were photographed for the paper, the cinema website and generally made spectacles of ourselves in public 🙂

We helped celebrate Freya’s birthday at the outdoor swimming pool and my Mum’s birthday at the local Harvester
I managed to break my ankle (the x ray conclusion was I had cracked the bone), by falling down the steps at the swimming pool (further public spectacling!) with hours in A&E, prescription painkillers and a pair of crutches. The night before our holiday 🙁

Rather like childbirth the memory of the pain is dimmed and of course spending the next two full days sitting in a car crammed with a fortnights worth of camping stuff, travelling almost from one end of the country to the other including a night in a travelodge with no tea, no wine and no sense of humour, was probably not wise but whilst the agonies of putting a tent up in howling wind on crutches have faded, the memories of a wonderful holiday have not and never will do.

A truly amazing time at Rosemarkie, watching dolphins with our favourite holiday companions
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We saw dolphins from our tent, daily from Chanonry Point, took a boat ride on Loch Ness, met Charlie, ate haggis, visited a brewery and generally had a fab time. A definite highlight of the year.

And what’s better than anything else at the end of a holiday? Another one! We finished off with a long weekend at Wickstead and the Festival of History with yet more friends. Some of the rides were closed due to galeforce winds, the campsite was not great thanks to overcrowding and not all the facilities being open but six months on I am remembering lovely long evenings laughing with friends, screaming to go faster on fairground rides and ice creams in the sunshine at the Festival of History along with Chris Raine being the target for Peterkin the fool. Conveniently forgetting the leaking tent, the agony of my ankle, the downpour as we watched the jousting and the readiness for my own bed ;).

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I had an evening out with friends in Brighton watching an improv. double act and we finished the month with another cinema visit, this time just dressed as ourselves, to watch Toy Story 3.

August began with a party at Chris and Helen’s during which we all enjoyed being with friends, particularly those destined for French shores rather soon and Scarlett was particularly wild (with further wildness uncovered later on)
whole new blog for the purpose.

Davies and Scarlett did a Making Space session on pewter cast pendants in carved out cuttlefish which they enjoyed, all four of us went to a Night Time Wings and Other Things event at Pulborough Brooks which we had done last year and enjoyed enough to attend again

We celebrated Dad’s birthday
and showed ourselves to be rubbish quail owners, having hatched 3, lost all of them, found one again and finally got it to a new owner.

We went to see the Firework Makers Daughter at Weald and Downland museum which was excellent, but as I got told off for taking photos I can’t possibly show you any ;), we went to a steam dipping event and caught eels and various fish , we celebrated Caz’s 40th birthday with a party at their new home, I decided to do the Aspire Channel Swim and we went for a posh luncheon at one of my work mates homes.

In September we started the rather drawn out process of packing up our lives and saying goodbye. We told Badgers we would be leaving at the end of the term, gave notice on our allotment and had a final digging stuff up and collecting tools session up there. Bittersweet as we waited so long to get it and were sad to be giving it up, but it has been a real catalyst for us going Wandering and Wondering.

Davies’ birthday present was a Campcraft Sleepout experience at the Sustainability Centre, which I went with him on. We had a fab 24 hours making shelters, learning knots, cooking over the fire, learning different fire starting methods, carving wood and sleeping out under the stars in our own shelter. , Ady and Scarlett joined us the following day bringing luxuries such as tents, stoves and chairs :). We had a great week with friends as The Barts, The Babs, Julie & co and our new friend Ian The Medic joined us for various parts or all of the week 🙂

We celebrated our friends Tasha and Ryan’s wedding with a fab party in a field.
We had a Not Back to School Picnic, I had an evening out for a leaving do for a work colleague and Ady looked after Jax’s Big and Small for an evening, we had a lovely day at the beach, lighting a fire and cooking over it with Julie & co, Davies did 3 green woodworking sessions run for Home Ed kids and made a stool, a mallet and a rolling pin and Davies celebrated being ten several times – at camp with loads of friends and a cake cooked in a field and again on his “>actual birthday with family out for a meal and with two cakes in celebration of reaching double digits 🙂
We had a day with LovelyEm and Ali in London, I got a ticker to annoy Alison, oh and chart the progress of my Swimathon swim too ;), we celebrated Jack & Maisie’s birthdays at Soft Play, Sploosh the duck started laying eggs (a couple of triple yolkers and several doubles), we went to Apple Day. Oh yeah and WE GOT A CAMPERVAN!!! 🙂

In October we did more birthday celebrating; with a survival themed party for Archie and a Science themed party for Ben where Babs and I experimented with the effects of alcohol 😉

Scarlett’s ducks were rehomed to Tom’s Dads which was emotional and hard for her but the right thing to do. We had a lovely couple of hours checking partridge pens and riding in the back of the pick up getting very muddy.

We did a couple of educational visits, both of which really just reminded us why we don’t do many educational visits 🙂 One to Raystede and one to the Mohair Centre.

We managed a film education week screening and went along to Ali’s writing group, met up with schooled friends during half term and the kids had another pewter casting in carved cuttlefish session at Making Space.

In November we did yet more decluttering – more on ebay, an Open House Book Sale, donating clothes to a friend’s charity fundraising nearly new sale and freecycling. We went to a seafront firework display, Mike & Rose and K came for a veggie dinner party, the kids and I went to a Shakespeare 4 Kidz performance of a Midsummer Nights Dream, we took part in a very cold and wet Remembrance Day Parade, made Secret Santa gifts and had a family film night when How to Train Your Dragon came out on dvd. The kids and I had a blowing away the cobwebs walk in the rain up on the downs and much silliness trying to capture a Christmas card picture for this year , we went to see Harry Bloody Potter, my car had an impressive blown out tyre and I finished swimming the channel (yay me!). The kids had workshops on Flint Knapping and Harpoon Making.

We all spent lots of time stripping wallpaper and finished the month with a festive trip to the theatre to see A Christmas Carol performed before heading off to Christmas Camp. which is where we saw in December.

Scarlett had her eighth birthday and a trip to the zoo and meal out with family to celebrate.

We all finished Badgers – which included Davies being awarded his Super Badger award, badge and little china Badger.
Ady and I went to see 9 Lessons for Godless people which was fab
, we went to a Traditional Christmas craft event at Weald and Downland Museum, everyone was ill with some sort of post-camp lurgy, Scarlett the worst and she ended it with a nasty rash which meant I took a day off work. Illness also prevented friends from coming to stay which we’d been looking forward to.

Christmas shopping, baking, decorating and other preparations happened, I engaged a letting agent to start marketing the house, my car needed lots of moneys worth of work doing to it and ended up needing even more once it actually got to the garage, we finally got to the Burning of the clocks that we have meant to get to for the last 3 years.

Christmas has been celebrated with family, friends, walks, slumping on sofas, visiting the beach, eating lots, drinking lots, a modest selection of gifts and we’re hoping to see it out the way we saw it in; with hopes for an exciting, adventurous year ahead, surrounded with people we love.

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How to summarise 2010? It’s been a year of dreams. Of dreams coming true – of seeing dolphins, of sleeping under the stars, of talking about our dreams and finding ways to start making them a reality. It’s also been a year of nightmares – the harsh reality that is broken marriages, broken friendships, broken families, broken dreams, broken people. The reminder that every generation is mortal – we can lose parents, siblings, partners, children even, that our health, our grip on life is so very tenuous and can slither away from us in the blink of an eye. That time is marching on and on , that as I sit here tapping away at my keyboard and re-reading my own words accounting for each of the last 365 days of our lives they are times I will never get back, never get to live again and who knows if I’ll even have the luxury of doing this same exercise this time next year. And if I do, who knows what I will be recalling and re-reading. I often think that all we really do in life is make memories, I put a huge amount of effort into ensuring I am making the best possible ones for myself and those I love. I hope this year I have managed to do that, even for those who will also be taking away way more than their fair share of sad and bitter memories too.

We end the year looking towards the most uncertain year ahead I think we’ve ever faced. We are a mix of trepidation, fear, excitement, adventure and of course wonder ;). Once again we leave behind a year in which we have paid off debts, worked hard, played hard, learned, loved and lived.

Aside from nipping out to see if my car would start (it didn’t) I’ve not left the house today. I have put Christmas back in the box though 🙂

I love Christmas, I’m less keen on the limbo period between Christmas and New Year really, particularly as it stretches to 2 weeks round here with my birthhday tacked on the end next week and I’m always itching to get everything ‘back to normal’ again afterwards. The tree was dropping, we are expecting guests so needed the space and are ever conscious of potential tenant visits at short notice so decided to get Christmas packed up slightly earlier this year. I’ve done a good sort out in the lounge and hallway, Ady’s done the playroom and the kids have done their bedrooms. It still feels like we have work to do but really everything left will be boxed up and sent to my parents / shoved in the loft.

And that’s pretty much taken all day. Not really very interesting but I suspect this post will be tucked away unread under the mammoth end of 2010 post anyway ;).

Today we’d arranged to head over to Caz and Bid’s, both to see them and to give them various bits cleared from our garden / garage that they might find useful.

Caz was not there but the kids went off to play and Ady and I had a nice couple of hours with Bid and Harry, a guy who also lives there.

We came home via Lancing as Davies wanted to get the Pirates of the Caribean on dvd from the library and we had a pile of stuff to take back. While there we also popped to the toy shop as they sell buckets of plasticine. I’d got Davies one for Christmas, which psp aside has been by far the most played with present and Scarlett has been wistfully looking at it. Both kids are fairly cash rich at the moment so she decided to spend some of her money on a tub of her own. It is funny how a toy both Ady and I recall getting for Christmas as kids still has such timeless appeal. We have had loads of fun with Davies’ already with Ady having several dough-offs where the kids get to shout out something for us to make and then judge our efforts – currently I have won safari jeep, statue of liberty and Christmas tree but Ady won on dragon 😆 no worries about us making our own family entertainment in the van next year 😆

Back at home we watched some TV, the kids played with said plasticine and did some drawing, Ady cooked their dinner, Ady and I did an inventory on the freezers as we are utterly broke this month thanks to the car and so food shopping as the only flexible expense will be on a very tight budget. It’s no bad thing to be running the freezer and cupboards down I guess anyway.

I had a very, very long bath with strict instructions that no one come in to have a poo, tell me about something they have made, seen on tv, thought about, want to sing to me. It was very enjoyable with a glass of wine and a book by one of my favourite chick-lit authors. 🙂

I got out as Ady was reading some of Mr Stink to the kids and made a couple of quiches – one for dinner tonight, one for the freezer. The kids went to bed, Ady and I ate and watched a TV programme about Rolf Harris (he’s so cool 🙂 ) and tomorrow we get to dismantle Christmas and put the house back together along with a good clean in preparation for that flood of prospective tenants we’re expecting from next week.

I’ve stayed in all day yesterday and today. Feels slightly like wasted days I have to confess but probably I should be savouring sitting in the warm and dry on a sofa with a TV as I’m not planning on doing much of that next year.

Yesterday we had half a plan to go and do some beating for Tom’s pheasant shoot but we didn’t get confirmation from Tom until too late to make it there in time. I suspect Scarlett would have not liked it much anyway so it was probably for the best. Instead we sat around, did craft kits, Davies psp’d, we watched loads of TV, ate and drank lots and generally enjoyed being tucked up infront of the fire for the day. We only have one sofa in the lounge at the moment and spent lots of time with all four of us slumped on it, across and on top of each other all tangled up together, which was just lovely. Nothing feels lovelier than being in physical contact with all three of my family at once :).

I’ve also been compiling my round up of 2010 blogpost which entails skim reading every post of the last year, quite lengthy 😉 I’m up to May…

Today we made plans to go out tomorrow, Ady and the kids did a run to the tip, I listed a whole boxful of stuff on ebay and we all did plenty more psping, drawing, blogpost compiling, eating, watching TV and so on.

My parents popped in for an hour or so and the kids took forever to go to sleep including Davies appearing just before 11pm with an oil painting he’d done in bed. This after coming down just before 930pm with a plasticine creative he’d done in bed. No, he’s not supposed to have plasticine or oil paints in bed… next year we’ll not let him have a bed, that’ll learn him!

I had a festive lie in this morning which was much needed. Ady had a festive early morning, he loves being off work at Christmas (after so many years in retail the novelty has yet to wear off of a full week plus off work at Christmas) so he made a cooked breakfast, chopped firewood and other such busyness.

Davies was psp-ing, Scarlett was exploring other gifts and then we all wrapped up warm and drove to the beach for some fresh air. It was pretty busy with people along the cycle / foot path with people testing out new rollerskates, bikes, scooters and skateboards but the actual beach was fairly quiet. Davies did some standing right out on the rocks risking splash hazards while Scarlett had brought along an Usborne spotters book on seashells she got for Christmas to try and identify as many shells as she could so she was beachcombing.

It was gorgeous down there, incredibly still and actually very mild with no wind and the sea perfectly calm. The sun was hanging low in the sky which was all streaked with pink and grey – just beautiful 🙂
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We came home via Sainsburys as we’d run out of lemonade and wanted to check out the reduced to clear meat – we got loads of bargains, a £20 free range turkey crown for under a fiver, a couple of really posh steaks for a quid each and a joint of lamb for £3. About £60 worth of meat for under a tenner, so that’s topped the freezer up nicely as this is set to be a skint month before it’s even started.

We settled in with the end of Over the Hedge and then Enchanted along with loads of nice food. Scarlett is officially addicted to twiglets, may need to see about rehab for her.

Scarlett and I did some of her crafty stuff, some fridge magnet plaster moulds and then Davies and I made a robot electronics kit he had, we watched Countryfile and all spent some time looking out of the window using Tarly’s night vision monocular, it’s very good. She’s really looking forward to being in the van next year and using it to spot stuff at night. Might try and do an after dark nature walk with her sometime this week to have a go.

The kids are back to their own beds again tonight, Scarlett was certainly asleep much quicker, although they were still late to bed.

We had our takeaway last night and it was delicious. We were just settling down to watch something on TV before bringing out the presents and maybe getting an early night in view of expected early morning to follow when the phone rang. We didn’t answer it but listened to a rather slurred message from my Mum saying ‘itsh yer muvver, we’re coming round’. So I went and got dressed again (I’d been in pjs) and sure enough they appeared having been out for a meal somewhere local. They were on good form but quite loud and so the kids who had been at least pretending to be asleep gave up on that and reappeared.

In the end I went up and read to them both, one of those books where you can have a childs’ name put in the story that we’d got for Scarlett years ago about helping Santa deliver presents and then ‘The night before Christmas’, which settled them both down and they were asleep not too long afterwards. I filled their stockings and then pretty much evicted my parents around midnight as I really wanted to at least have gotten to sleep before the kids woke up for the first time.

We put presents under the tree, dealt with the carrot, mince pie and brandy left on the hearth and went to bed. Infact I slept through the first waking at about 4am when they opened their stockings and played with stuff before going back to sleep. Davies came in at 7am to ask if it was 7am yet but I lied and said no it wasn’t 😆 I did give in ten minutes later though and they both brought their stockings in to us to show us what they’d got. The usual stuff like chocolate coins, new toothbrush, toothpaste, bubble bath, some new pens, couple of things like paper aeroplanes, wind up toys, jumping beans etc – Hawkins finest ;).

Then downstairs for present opening proper along with cinnamon rolls in the oven and much tea. They were both really happy with what they got, along with a few things like craft kits, warm socks, a new top each and a gorgeous journal each with some twig colouring pencils, a stylophone and the usual chocolates and art materials, Davies had a second hand psp and several games and films to go with it and a big tub of plasticine while Scarlett had a night vision monocle, cuddly ducks, a couple of memory sticks with more photos from this year for her digital photo frame and a bouncy ball making kit. All four of us had a new knife each for next year too. Ady and I had had a strict budget of £10 each on each other and had very spookily spent it on the same gifts for each other of chocolates, a hip flask and handwarmers although I got Ady the snap the metal disc then refresh in boiling water type while he got me a rather more swanky one where you put lit fuel sticks into a case.

We almost instantly lost Davies to his psp and indeed he has had to be prised away from it all day today. I was deeply reluctant to buy another games console but he does get lots of use from his DS and he put forward a good case for the psp for next year as another portable, small entertainment gadget, one he can watch films on and it does have several games he really wanted but are not available on DS. He was given the choice of a new one with just one or two games or a second hand one with several games and films and he went for the second hand option. Thankfully way back in August one of Ady’s workmates was selling his in really good condition so we bought it back then and have been keeping our eyes out for bargain games and films on ebay so had amassed a fair few for him.

Scarlett had proved really difficult to think of a gift for but given her love of wildlife and nature and the endless opportunities for night time spotting she’ll have next year the night vision will be ideal. We’re really impressed with it, her and Ady took it outside after dark for a while tonight but it was just so cold they came back in again after a few minutes. Scarlett also liked the couple of mixing up potion type kits she got – a bouncy ball making one from us and a crystal growing one from Chris & Julie. So her and I looked at those together and she made bouncy balls for everyone in the family and set her crystals off growing. The bouncy ball kit is excellent actually, I’m hoping the refill kit I’ve tracked down and ordered online will work with the moulds from Scarlett’s kit.

Chocolate eating, bucks fizz drinking and general present exploration continued before we gathered ourselves up and headed over to my parents for midday. I think it’s most we’ve ever contributed food wise this year as we bought the turkey and Christmas pudding, I made the mince pies and a Christmas cake and we took over several bottles of wine too, including a non-alcoholic bottle of pink fizz for Tarly 🙂

We arrived and had mulled wine and mince pies while Mum stressed about the cooking (I refused to get drawn in), Davies showed Ady stuff on the psp and Scarlett and I did a lizard puzzle, or rather failed to do a lizard puzzle.

Granny arrived eventually and after helping a bit with timings of food we cracked upon a bottle of wine and exchanged presents. We’d got Mum and Dad a cd she’d specifically asked for, a bottle of drink and a new coffee maker as their old one broke this year and a photo card for their digital frame with some pics of this year. They got Davies a digital photo frame keyring and a game of jenga and Scarlett a wildlife book and a soft toy pillow which was a huge hit as she’s been after one for ages but I’d proclaimed them over priced and not worth it so she was delighted :). I got a set of bath stuff and Ady got several pairs of decent socks and gloves and then they called us out into the kitchen and said they were wiping off the money we owe them from our boiler earlier this year. We had paid off nearly half but with various things the last couple of months we have not managed to pay anything and it was obviously going on hold while we are away. A very generous and welcome gift :). Frazer was then called out into the kitchen too and I know he owed Dad a fair bit so I’m assuming he was given the same. The kids also got their premium bonds from them as usual. They also got money off my brother and Granny so now have another injection of cash to add to the balance they both already have. I’m trying to persuade them to keep it as their personal fund for next year for anything they might want along the way.

That pretty much took us to dinnertime so I helped serve up and we all ate. As usual it was a lovely dinner, far too much washed down with fizz :). Afterwards I helped stack the dishwasher and then we all sat down and pulled crackers. Mum usually gets everyone a little present for the table but this year she’d bought decent M&S crackers instead but they were crap! Looked beautiful and were such thick paper they were a real bugger to actually pull but the ‘quality gifts’ inside were still tat! 😆 The paper hats were fancy gold ones though 😆

Ady and I had a game or two of jenga and then it was dessert time. Davies uttered the immortal line of replying to ‘which is your favourite bit of the trifle?’ with ‘the pastry!’ 😆 which had us laughing like drains 😆 We watched Gruffalo and Doctor Who, the Frazer went to fetch Kat (his girlfriend) so we briefly exchanged greetings with her before deciding we were ready to come home – I’d fallen asleep during Doctor Who!

Back home for just before 9pm, the kids watched the end of a Blackadder episode and thought it was hilarious – another landmark milestone reached them, I remember watching my first Blackadder :). They are having another sleepover although it took a while for any actual sleeping to happen. I hope they sleep in and catch up a bit in the morning.

We’ve watched some TV too, Ady’s heroically eating his way through festive nibbles and looking forward to tomorrow which has been declared No Real Food Day.

A very successful Christmas. Not too much spent, everything wanted / needed / delightedly received, excellent and generous gift from my parents, lovely food, no tears or stress. Couldn’t ask for anything more really. 🙂

like a normal blogpost but with added alcohol, no wait that is a normal blogpost. Like a normal blogpost but with added cheer and merriment and feelings of goodwill and happiness, no wait that is a normal blogpost. Like a normal blogpost but with music blaring from various rooms, kids in bed but nowhere near asleep, no wait that is a normal blogpost.

Okay, it’s a normal blogpost but could you picture it with a couple of holly sprigs festooning one corner please? Ta 🙂

Up early this morning, something of a pattern this week and I imagine one to be continued again tomorrow but hopefully broken on Sunday 😉 as we were off festive visiting and Ady was taking us on his way into work for the morning (festive early finishing at lunchtime).

First to Caz and Bid’s. Once again we have let far too long pass us by without seeing each other and sadly Bid was not there as he was visiting family (very sadly his Mum passed away earlier this week after a long illness 🙁 ) but Caz and I had a lovely catch up while the kids disappeared off to play coming back for a warm up (Scarlett) and food (the others a while later).

Ady came and joined us for a quick drink and then we headed off to meet Julie, her mum, Jack and Maisie for a walk round Swanbourne Lake in Arundel. We arrived first and fed the extremely hungry wildfowl that were congregating hopefully around anyone who appeared. Scarlett was obviously in her element 🙂
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The others arrived and Ady entertained everyone by putting bits of bread on his head so the birds dove at him. I know, he’s so Krazee

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The first half of the path around the lake was similar to how I’m imagining Jan and Jonathan’s lane is, thick with inches of compacted ice. The kids seemed fine on it, Ady, Julie and I managed by walking along the edge of it but Gerda (Julie’s mum) struggled, but she is in her 60s which is easy to forget. Very beautiful though.
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We got half way round and then climbed The Steepest Hill Ever to the folly.
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The plan was to walk down into the town and then back to the cars but a little way along the lane after we’d made them pose for Festive Photos the kids rebelled and disappeared into the woodland
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We walked on for a bit with Ady explaining to Julie and Gerda what bit of a turkey the ‘crown’ is. Julie and I entertained ourselves for ages trying to think of other birds you could crown going from wren to emu but then Julie trumped me with penguin which is still amusing me now. Roast crown of penguin! 😆 Festive roast crown of penguin 😆 😆

We then realised the kids had disappeared and when they didn’t respond to our hailings we decided we had better follow them. Trouble was they had gone down, quite literally vertically down. Ady went first and rang to say he had found them, the rest of us followed. It was incredibly steep, covered in ivy and frost and frankly crazy. Julie and I sort of canonned from tree to tree with knees fully bent. Poor Gerda fashioned some ski poles from large sticks and brought up the rear. The very last bit had been made into a mud slide by the four kids and to their encouragement I slid all the way down. Julie refused but having watched me had a go for the second half. Gerda took the ivy covered trail all the way.

It was very fun, very muddy and given I had stated at least four times I didn’t want to spend any time in A&E on Christmas Eve probably rather silly. But fun 😉

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The blurred rainbow thing is Julie brushing the mud off, which looked rather like festive ritual woodland spanking to the passers by who walked past as it went on, while Ady took pictures 😆

The finish of the walk was rather tame in comparison with no steep climbs or steep descents and no ice and no flocks of hungry diving birds but you know, it is all about peace on earth and that ;).

We exchanged bags of gifts for kids back at the car, along with festive greetings and then went our seperate ways.

Back at home we have done festive stuff. Festive daylight drinking, festive film watching (Narnia), festive twiglets, pringles and cheese ball eating, festive nicking candy canes off the tree, festive bathing. The kids are now having a festive sleepover, I’ve stuck some festive cinnamon roll dough in the breadmaker and rung for a festive takeaway, Ady and I have both done some festive last minute wrapping. All that remains is festive takeaway consumption, festive finishing the wine bottle, festive putting presents under the tree when festive children have finally fallen afestivesleep and maybe hooking up with some festive friends for midnight twiglet eating at midnight.

Work again this morning, a shorter shift though, and my last before Christmas.

Dad was over with Davies and Scarlett and we had a potential tenant viewing booked for 11am, so Dad and the kids were fully briefed on what they could and couldn’t do and say, I lit a fire and with strict instructions for no one to eat any candy canes I headed off to work.

Work was good, several of my favourite borrowers came in and exchanged festive banter. Earlier this week I was talking with friends about how public libraries simply aren’t financially viable, how they service a minority and are very vulnerable under the scrutiny of the cost cutting local government spotlight. Today I was reminded anew of just how very important we are to that minority though. They won’t be taking to the streets to march and protest, their vocal thanks comes in the way of boxes of biscuits and chocolates to the staff come Christmas or Easter but they should count, they should be included in the shouting hoardes…blimey, had a socialist moment there… 😉

During my tea break I checked my phone to find a message from the letting agents cancelling the appointment. I rang home to let Dad know but he’d also had a message. When I got home at lunchtime the agent had rung again to let us know why the appointment had been cancelled – because the tenant was looking for somewhere long term rather than the 1 year only term we are looking at. Disappointing but it was so quick I had already convinced myself nothing could possibly come of it anyway.

Back at home I made lunch for us all and while we were eating our friend Bruce turned up with Christmas cards and tin of chocolates for the kids. He stayed for about an hour and chatted to my Dad too, then they left within a few minutes of each other.

I marzipanned both Christmas cakes and iced and decorated one. I thought i had some royal icing sugar but I only had glace. I did one with that anyway and added hand drawn holly leaves and berries with writing icing. Ady picked me up some royal icing on the way home for the other one.

In previous years the kids have decorated a pillowcase each for stockings. This year I ran up an oversized stocking shape each for them to use up some of my fabric stash and they decorated them instead. While they were busy with that I made the second cuddly duck for Scarlett. I also re-did the beak on the first one. I am only semi-happy with them but she adores them and proclaimed them ‘bound to be my best present!’ which is all that matters.

We tidied up and I made them some tea then Ady arrived home. After some debate about our dinner Ady and Davies nipped out again to get pineapple and pepperoni for pizza while Tarly and I watched some Deadly 60. I did some more wrapping (just the tiniest bit left to do now, always feels right to have some still to do on Christmas Eve somehow). Ady and Davies came home, the kids went to bed and suddenly it’s ridiculously late again!

I had work this morning. Ady took Davies and Scarlett off with him and they drove north of the downs where there is actually some snow. Other than the heavy fall here while we were at camp, which we missed all of while having only a fairly small amount in Okehampton we have had no more than the odd dusting here. I know it’s caused chaos and I obviously don’t wish it to come along and disrupt travel arrangements and stuff for people but I’d quite like a more even distribution so we actually got an inch or two of the snow that others have had feet of! So the kids got to play in some snow :).

I had a busy morning at work wishing people Merry Christmas and doing the odd thing here or there relating to books ;).

Back home Ady and the kids were here eating lunch so Ady left as I got in and I had some lunch too. Then we nipped out to a localish store which sells fabric to get some for Scarlett’s other cuddly duck (or indeed dick) and feed my car with some petrol.

Back at home I sorted the kids tea and made myself a cup of tea laced with brandy and headed upstairs to begin wrapping. The kids were stars keeping the fire going and finding stuff to watch on TV while I got everything out of hiding places and checked size of respective piles against each other. I had a minor wobble about the smallness of the piles but got over that reminding myself that actually they both have several pretty expensive items, we are cutting back on consumerism and we are going away in 11 weeks etc. etc. Then I had a major wobble when I decided I would ensure the psp for Davies was fully charged and couldn’t find a charger 😯 I couldn’t get hold of Ady to check that we had one (we got it second hand from one of his workmates) and was frantically checking online about chargers, price and availability of chargers and so on. How crap a Christmas present would that have been? It turned out we do have the charger, just stashed in a different location.

Despite my misgivings about volume of gifts it still took me over 2 hours to wrap stuff, which meant even a very late home Ady was back. The kids went off to bed and Ady and I did a swift tidy round the house ready for our first potential tenants visit in the morning. Ady cooked and it was another late dinner.

Oh what an anarchist I am 🙂

We needed to pick up and pay for my car this morning. After some debate we decided to walk there (Dad had offered a lift). It’s not far but it’s a tedious and boring route alongside a busy road just walking past houses and then the last ten minutes through an industrial estate. But we’d not really been out much and despite it not being *fresh* air as such I decided it would do us all good.

So we walked, and chatted, and jumped in icy puddles and prepared a response to what we felt would be the inevitable question to the kids from the bloke at the garage ‘are you looking forward to Christmas?’ with ‘we’ve no money for Christmas, we have spent it all on the car’ 😆 which entertained us no end.

The card machine at the garage was playing up so after several attempts I said I’d go and get some cash if I could have the car to drive. The bloke was quite happy with that and very apologetic about the machine not working. This did mean I had to dash home, collect a card for a different bank account and withdraw from two places as the bill was more than the daily cash machine allowance from either one. Back to the garage to pay and then home to juggle money back about online, including a minor panic attack at the amount of money left to last until the end of January until I realised I don’t get paid til tomorrow so my wages were still to come.

We had lunch and the kids spent ages playing with the cardboard box Scarlett’s Playmobil came in, tying some string onto it to create a sleigh to tug some of her soft toys around in and then making furniture for it to turn it into a house. There are loads of festive films on so we watched some Spirited Away, Nightmare before Christmas and Alaska.

I finished Maisie’s bag (a Christmas present) and then made a soft toy duck for Scarlett – she wants a Sploosh and a Lucky so I started with Sploosh, the black one. It went really well aside from the bill / beak which I just couldn’t get right despite two attempts. Will have another go at that tomorrow but Tarly loved it regardless.

I took a phonecall from the letting agent, very excited because he had got a viewing lined up for Thursday. All sounds quite promising too :). I really don’t expect it all to fall in to place quite that easily but it’s nice to know there is interest straight away even if it comes to nothing.

The kids and I had a bit of tidy up, they had some food to tide them over til later and Ady arrived home. We’d decided to drive into Brighton for the Burning of the Clocks – as it turned out the right decision as it only cost us £2 to park and the train would have been about five times that for the four of us with a far longer trek home. We wrapped up warm, drove in and parked, had a quick walk round the big shopping mall and then walked towards where Mike & Rose were who we had semi-arranged to meet up with but we got caught up in the procession so walked along with that instead and waited at the pier for Mike and Rose. Amazingly, given how many thousands of people there we did find them although we didn’t manage to meet up with Ali which was a shame – my phone had patchy signal and it was so noisy it would have been all but impossible to make a call anyway.

We walked along with the procession which was amazing and wondrous but I understood the advice to get to the end location earlier when we actually arrived and despite being only two or three layers of people back we could see nothing at all other than the back of other people’s heads. The kids saw more thanks to Ady and I lifting them up – I had Davies on my shoulders which retrospectively is pretty crazy even with a smallish ten year old ;). Thankfully the people around us holding their cameras and phones up high gave us small screen views of the burning and then when the fireworks started it didn’t where you were as long as you could look up.

We really enjoyed it and would definitely go again but would go for the birds eye view of being higher up next time rather than at lower level with limited visibility. We said goodbye to Mike and Rose and walked back to the carpark which seemed far longer on the way back, particularly as we were all hungry and walking through Brighton is one great big lure towards eating with cafes, bistros, restuarants etc at every turn. I showed the kids where my car had once been towed away from and shared other such anecdotes of my youth.

The car park was way cheaper than expected so much cheered by that we headed for home. Ady cooked the kids something and packed them off to bed while I had a bath and then I cooked for us while he had a bath. Since Alison mentioned a fry up a while back I have been craving one and thinking it would be good for dinner rather than breakfast so that is what I did – sausage, egg, bacon and potatoes with onions and garlic and some beans for Ady. Yum 🙂 Did feel very decadent to be eating ‘breakfast’ washed down with a glass of wine instead of a strong mug of tea or a glass of orange juice though.

Friendfeed induced silliness kept me from blogging and bed but having outstayed the wusses I am now headed that way myself.

I rang the garage first thing this morning as my car was theoretically going to be ready on Friday, or Saturday at the latest and I’d not heard anything. We had a half arranged plan to see Caz and Bid today but weather and transport issues on both sides had us rearranging that for later in the week.

I got called back by the garage and was given a saga type story of when I dropped my car off on Friday to the current time. To begin with the bonnet catch had not worked so they’d spent two hours trying to get the bonnet open. They struggled to do the work agreed to as the strut for one of components was all rusty so really hard to get off, then on a final test drive round the block the car died and something else had blown. They got it back to the garage and left it for the day. On Saturday they had fixed that (which he said he’ll pay for) and then it was misfiring (which is what it does to me) so they fixed that and left it ticking over for ten minutes while they were looking for my phone number to update me.

Then the radiator blew up!

At which point they gave up on it again and went home.

So this morning when I rang he had sourced a replacement radiator which he was waiting for before fitting that and finishing with it. Clearly in light of all this the cost of £300 which we could barely afford and had agonised over had gone up. He said he’d do it cheap and split the cost with me bringing it in at £420. Eek.

Arranged that he’d ring me once it was sorted and sat wallowing for a while in financial angst.

I went and chopped some logs and then came in and decided I would NOT have a bad day. So I rang the letting agent I’d most liked last week, had a chat with him about various queries I had and agreed to put the house up for rent through him. The next stage was for him to come and take photos and get it up on the website so we agreed he would come and do that this afternoon. Felt better 🙂

I rang my Dad as I wanted him to come and meet the letting agent as they will be dealing with each other while we’re away and also get a lift to the garage when my car was ready. The kids and I had lunch and watched all of the dvd extras on Toy Story 3 then had a mad dash around the house doing a quick tidy up for the letting agent.

In the middle of all this I had a text reminding me I was supposed to be going to dinner at a work friends’ this evening. Hastily informed Ady of this fact, arranged a lift and confirmed I would be going.

The agent arrived first, we had a chat, went through the paperwork and then he went off round the house with his camera then Dad turned up so they had a brief chat before the agent left. Dad and I chatted and drank tea / coffee before I rang the garage for an update. The bloke said he hoped to have it finished today but it might go over to tomorrow.

Ady arrived home and Dad left. We’d got a couple of things to return to Tescos and wanted to do some festive food shopping – we’re at Mum’s for Christmas Day but home here for Boxing Day so wanted to get in a few nice bits and pieces. So we headed to Tesco and all went round together selecting our favourite things like crisps, nuts, cheeses etc.

We got home with enough time to put it away and for me to get changed before my lift arrived. The others apparently had a nice evening eating tea together, having baths and early nights for the children.

I had a very pleasant evening with two work colleagues, the food was nice, the company good and the conversation fun. I have made some good friends at the library who I will miss next year and hope to stay in touch with :). There was talk of my leaving do, at which I imagine I will cry lots :).

I got home at about 1130pm, Ady had just gone to bed so we had a quick chat before I came back downstairs for a bath and the kids were both fast asleep, allegedly since fairly early.

stuffed duck links… guess what I’ll be spending next couple of nights doing….
This one here and this one here

slackness of blogging abounds, need to catch up.

Friday I was supposed to be at work all day and the kids were supposed to be on the road with Ady for the day, including heading to Costco for the turkey. Scarlett woke covered head to toe in a pretty impressive rash though. After discussion we decided I should take the day off work rather than Ady, mostly because he was planning to do something for us aswell as working but also because actually when either of the children is not well it is really me they want to be sitting on top of.

But first my car had to be got to the garage as it was having all that expensive work done on it highlighted when it was MOTd last week. So having briefed the kids to stay put Ady followed me down to the garage and then dropped me back home again (all of about 10 minutes). I rang in to work and found someone actually there to report my not coming in status to – felt very guilty but she was lovely about it. I don’t know if I will get paid sick pay for it as it’s not actually me who was sick or whether I will be asked to take a days leave for it. I don’t actually have a days leave to take so it will end up either unpaid now or claimed back from me when I leave if so but I content myself that if my kids were in school Scarlett would definitely have had to have the day off so I would have had to ring in sick.

I looked back on my blog and flickr at Rashes Of The Past and Davies, Scarlett and I were all quite entertained that todays rash almost mirrored a rash from 2004 on her face:
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She was slightly itchy but otherwise in pretty good spirits and actually the brightest she’s been in about 2 weeks. So I have her some piriton and she went off to play. We needed a few bits so I walked round to the shop to get them and got some stamps and posted Christmas cards too (a job I’d intended doing in my lunchbreak). Ady rang to say ‘put the kettle on, I’m, popping in for coffee’ but actually beat me back home so he put the kettle on while I chopped some wood and got a fire lit.

I texted our weekend guests to update them on our health bulletin which I’d been doing anyway and got a text back regarding their health. We agreed to give up on protecting each other from germs and have a germ fest type gathering but sadly as we were on the up they were on the down and I later had a phone call to say they wouldn’t be coming after all 🙁

Ady went to Costco, the other side of the tunnel on the A27 there was heaps of snow and the M23 was practically at a standstill so while he was sending me picture texts of crazy white out landscapes of Crawley, Davies was fretting Daddy would be stranded and Scarlett was enjoying a resurgence of energy.

The rest of the day gets a little lost. I know I had plans for being all efficient and doing baking but I didn’t. I know I did lots of eating as I was feeling starving for some reason. The kids were both also hungry and ate lots which was good as they have both been off food with whatever lurgy they have had.

In the evening I peaked rather early with my wine, enjoyed a lovely curry and toasted absent weekend guests and fed up friends from afar and then fell asleep on the sofa rather early infront of Armstrong and Miller on dvd.

Saturday I decided that if I didn’t have my friends to play with then I would do some festive stuff. All of our Christmas shopping has been spread out over the last few months or will be home made but the kids have been making noises about stockings and I have been feeling slightly like Christmas has already been and gone (the downside of such a lovely camp) so I decided to have a couple of hours in town getting bits and pieces. Ady and the kids dropped me off at 11ish with arrangements for me to ring when I was ready to be collected. Ady very sweetly told me not to rush, to maybe go for a cup of tea somewhere and just enjoy having a few hours to myself. Within about 2 minutes of them driving off I realised I had left my phone at home. Not a huge cause for concern but enough for me to feel slightly edgy as Tarly was still rash-y, my car was still awaiting collection from the garage and I was now uncontactable.

So I had a nice couple of hours in a surprisingly almost quiet town centre. I am torn between feeling glad people are not out needlessly buying and knowing that the reason for that is they are all not leaving the house for fear of missing an amazon.com delivery as they have all done their Christmas shopping online. I patronised Poundland and Hawkins for budget stocking fillers – all either edible, use-up-able before we go or small enough to come with us and be useful. I also picked up a new top for myself as I quite like having something ‘nice’ to wear on Christmas day, spent most of the time searching for pyjamas for Scarlett – the kids always get a Christmas Eve present of a new pair of pjs to wear to bed. We got Davies’ ages ago but have both been looking out for a pair for Scarlett. She doesn’t want pink, cupcakes, Disney princesses, tinkerbell, Hello Kitty, ‘cute’ captions about who she is going to bed with, Hannah Montanna, High School Musical. Argh. I finally found some which are pink but have monkeys on which is something she quite likes on her clothes, she has at least two tops with monkeys on. Very annoying too – the same difficulty exists in finding her clothes. I wanted to get her a new outfit for Christmas too, she doesn’t wear dresses or skirts and hates leggings so that pretty much restricts you to jeans and the only ones about at the moment are skinny fit which she doesn’t like. It’s really annoying as she is not fussy or senstive about what she wears but it’s just impossible to find comfortable, suitable clothing for an 8 year old girl. She is now the wrong shape to wear boys clothes which was my previous solution – tops are fine but trousers need to be the right fit.

I rang home from a call box, 60p for a minimum call 😯 and took the ribbing from the other three about leaving my phone behind. I notoriously don’t lose stuff or forget to pick it up while the rest of them always forget to charge their phones, lose their keys, can’t find their DSs etc and I always give them all sorts of grief so they had apparently very much enjoyed finding my phone on the sofa and doing their best impressions of what I would be saying if they had done that 😆 😆

Ady had brought along the poinsettias he’d got for my work colleagues and I’d meant to take in on Friday so we called into the library for me to drop them off and give a Scarlett update. I also nipped to the jewellers to get a new watch strap as mine had died – I go through about one a year, I’m not at all sure what I do to them that wears them out but it had had it so I now have a new and shiny but rather stiff ope. I also picked up a tub of plasticine from the toy shop as I’d looked everywhere in town for one but not found it.

Then home :). Everyone else had had lunch but I was conscious of the time so decided to get dinner on before eating. We’d gone with cooking the stew we’d intended for weekend guests with the intention of freezing the excess so I got peeling and chopping. Ady brought in his selection of Christmas music so I was singing along to carols and got all festive and decided to do the mince pie baking too. I completely forgot about eating and Ady distracted me with mulled wine too and then suggested we invite my parents over to stew as we’d not seen them since creeping out of the house last Sunday evening after they’d babysat for us.

Clearly the mulled wine on an empty stomach and carols had gone to my head because I agreed and carried on baking. I made 96 mince pies, several got eaten and the rest will last the week with another stash already in the freezer from my last bake off. The remainder of my mincemeat is reserved for mincemeat muffins as I love them.

Ady and Scarlett did some clearing of the path and putting salt down so it doesn’t freeze over again straight away. Davies used his Lego Harry Potter figures to create an animation which we all went up to see when he’d finished – very impressive :).

My parents arrived, Mum was on good form but Dad was combative and belligerant and spoiling for a fight. So we had one 🙁 He accused me of being a lazy, selfish parent, giving Davies and Scarlett a poor education and narrowing their choices in life and failing to provide them with basic skills. He had a go about our plans for next year saying we were taking stupid risks and again being selfish in dragging the kids along with us on our whim. I took most of it on the chin, accepting as I always do that our way is rather unconventional, does challenge all that my parents did for me, goes against all they hold dear and accepting that it is him speaking with love and concern for me and his grandchildren but I could not accept the lazy, selfish and neglectful parent jibe so I got upset and told him in no uncertain terms how out of order he was for that one.

I talked about the amount of effort I do put into parenting, that my choices with regard to the childrens’ education is as result of informed, researched, educated, conscious, philosophical decisions rather than some can’t be arsed attitude towards it. I said that I was prepared to take informed criticism or discussion but not cheap, ignorant accusations and asked him to explain just what opportunities I had taken away from my children with my choices, which I hastened to add were actually now their choices too.

He did back down and an even keel was restored to the evening but it was an unpleasant half hour or so. Made slightly worse from my perspective for being witnessed by Davies who was listening intently. Or was that bad? Because at bedtime Davies politely asked ‘Grandad, can I show you my survival kit I’m looking forward to taking WWOOFing with me?’ and proceeded to bring down his rucksack and kit including his tent, cookset, stool and mallet he made himself at his green woodworking course and unloaded the whole rucksack talking my Dad through all the contents: first aid kit – he explained the use of every bit and how he’d learnt to use them in Badgers, tent which he said he can put up by himself or knows how to create a shelter built from things in the woods, explained the different ways he knows how to light a fire and brought out his firesteel and tinder box to demonstrate using cotton wool soaked in vaseline then talked about how he would have gathered his fire materials first, his shovel useful for digging a hole to use as a toilet or covering a fire to ensure he left no tracks, his foil blanket used for shelter or warmth, his wristband which can be unravelled to be cordage, his cutlery set, his canteen, his chocolate which he explained is the perfect fuel as it raises your blood sugar level and is good for energy. He talked about what he could eat in the wild and refered to Forest School, Green Woodworking and Campcraft Sleepout courses explaining ‘all of which Mummy arranged for me to go on because she knew I would love it and learn lots from experts, because that is how she makes our Home Education work.’ He finished up by talking about the stone age courses in flint knapping and harpoon making, bringing out examples of his work, describing in great detail the process, talking knowledgably about cavemen, their lifestyle, hunting and toolmaking.

The whole ‘talk’ lasted about half an hour and had all of us spellbound. He was articulate, passionate, clearly very knowledgable and determined to prove himself. It was like watching a really good job interview or verbal CV being delivered. I was so very proud of him.

I suspect most of it went over my Dad’s head and even if it didn’t he would still dismiss it as ‘well he could do that and have literacy and numeracy skills and it’s not like he needs to survive in a forest anyway’ but my Mum had tears in her eyes at the end of it and so did I.

My Dad had finished his earlier rant with ‘time will tell who is right and I hope I am proved wrong and the children do well’. For me Davies did a bloody good job of proving him wrong. Love that boy.

For light relief we opened a box of Christmas crackers, all wore the hats, laughed at the jokes and had a race with the two different sized plastic frogs along the table (Me: look Dad, we’re doing physics!). The kids went to bed and we stayed up a while longer talking about renting the house out.

Stupidly late to bed.

Sunday a much needed lay in for me. We’ve had bugger all in the way of snow despite much of the rest of the country being in chaos. This morning we had a very brief flurry but the world outside our window is far from white and still in glorious technicolour.

Today we’d decided to deliver local Christmas cards so we headed off to do that including Ady knocking on the doors of a couple of old ladies he used to do gardening work for way back about 15 years ago. They are both customers of my Dad’s and one of them today told Ady she is 89 and has known David since she was 53 – wow, that’s when I was born!

We ended up quite near to Tesco with our last card so we popped in for some bits before coming home for Ady to get roast dinner on. The kids and I cuddled up and watched a couple of Christmassy dvds infront of the fire. They have been really squabbly today, a sign of Scarlett getting better but pretty unusual for them and very wearing. I threatened them with a competition to see which of them should be sold on ebay and they got on better after that ;).

Dinner was lovely, afterwards we all watched 100 Greatest Toys, which went on for hours so Ady and I both nipped off for baths. Scarlett took herself off to bed and Davies took ages to go to sleep as he was creating a storyboard for Toy Story 4 complete with colour illustrations – love his creativity and imagination, hate how it only works after dark!

Apprentice final for us and I did the huge amount of washing up created by a roast dinner. I should probably have done some wrapping up but Davies was still around at about 1130 so didn’t really have the opportunity. Scarlett’s rash has all but completely gone and hopefully a good nights sleep or two will have her back to normal.

Crap nights sleep – again. S in bed coughing in my face and sharing my pillow from the early hours. We then totally overslept and I misunderstood Ady asking what time we’d be ready for him to pick us up with what time I wanted him to wake me up so he woke me with about 15 minutes to spare before us being out of the house.

But we did it 🙂 Complete with warm clothes, most of a picnic and a cup of tea to drink on the way 🙂 We even ended up arriving early.

We were at a Traditional Victorian Christmas workshop at Weald & Downland museum. I probably should have learnt really from the breadmaking…

I think the W&D museum is an amazing, unique place. I think they bring history alive, are a fabulous venue for events and are staffed with a wealth of informed, passionate volunteer staff who want to share their knowledge and enthusiasm. Unfortunately I think it all goes rather to pot on their educational workshops. By virtue of being ‘class sized’ Home Ed groups can book them but I think they struggle to accomodate the mixed age and ability if the group and fail to take the oppportunity to create something really special. I have been at educational trips and workshops where it really works – Butser, the flint knapping one recently and others where they rise so well to the challenge of dealing with an out of the ordinary group. The W&D don’t pull this off in my opinion.

So we were split into two groups – by virtue of pissing off the organiser woman I was in the opposite group to her and sadly two of the families I’d have quite liked to be with 🙁 The kids were fine as was I as we did know most of the families in our group anyway, would just have been nice to be with specific mates.

There were two workshops so we did one each and then after lunch swapped over and did the other one. We started with Christmas card making. After a very nervous introduction speech (Scarlett afterwards: she spoke to us like babies at the beginning!) about how the Victorians introduced Christmas cards, decorations, presents, trees etc. and how the phrase ‘Merry Christmas’ originated directly from Dicken’s A Christmas Carol when Scrooge says it at the end , some rather poor photocopies, of insufficient number were passed around to show the elaborate colour Christmas cards. Then they got to make their own using a large amount of coloured card, paper, glue etc. I felt a trick was missed here as having talked about how fancy, papercraft and fiddly keepsakes those early examples were they left us to it. Some examples of 3d, pop up or moving parts would have been good, as would some actual guidance during the session where the two girls leading it just stood back smiling rather vacantly as everyone just got on with it.

Scarlett wasn’t really into it and did do some slapping glue on stuff and made a half hearted attempt to create a cut out snowflake before deciding she’d rather drink Lucozade but Davies made two fab cards – one each for Ady and I complete with pop up bits, humour and stacks of Davies-ness. MUSt do that post about where the kids are at.

Then it was lunchtime. I wandered over to get a cup of tea and the kids came with me. I sat and chatted to Lucy and Scarlett begged 50p for duck food from the shop, returning to people’s amusement carrying a bloody great big Aylesbury duck in her arms. She’s like a Duck Whisperer.
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An hour was far too long for lunch really given the weather was horrid so no one was up for wandering around outside. I got Scarlett a hot chocolate to warm her up from duck whispering and then we started our second workshop – Christmas decorations. This was the one I was most looking forward to thinking we’d learn something and get to bring something home too. It turned out we were making a collaborative thing to leave there though. The woodsman had built a tree shaped frame and gathered some ivy, we walked up to the woods where he had already cut down some holly and brought it back down then threaded it in to the frame to create a Christmas tree from holly and ivy. D&S both joined in and both said they enjoyed it butreally it was quite an expensive workshop for very little in the way of learning, experience or something new and different.

But we all got something from it – Davies made some fab cards, Scarlett cuddled a duck, I got to catch up with a couple of friends and we were all reminded that actually the reason we rarely do these workshops which I eye up on local lists and facebook groups and wonder if we are massively missing out on stuff by not attending is that they generally have little to offer us. Smugness for under £20 😉

Ady collected us and dropped us home. I chopped wood, made pancakes for tea, refereed a dispute about what to watch on TV – Scarlett was allowed the documentary on a man who played surrogate parent to an orphaned polar bear in exchange for an episode of Simpsons later for Davies, followed by several chapters of Mr Stink read by me before bed.

Scarlett shocked us by being asleep pre- 9 pm, Davies was still awake creating caricatures of Ady and I in his sketch book.

Ady and I watched Good Life Christmas special and I had a rant about What Christmas Is Really About (special non religious version not sponsored by Tescos either!).

Work for me this morning. I had coughed lots last night so was suffering a sore throat and coughed more at work which developed into a headache but a couple of painkillers saw it off in the afternoon.

Work was fine, all of the people I care about there have secured new job roles in the restructuring and infact I think most of them have actually been promoted so I am pleased and relieved for them. The knock on changes at branch level clearly won’t affect me as I’ll be gone anyway but actually I think the changes are all positive ones.

Back at home Ady and the kids had been out and done some store visits then spent some time tidying up ready for the letting agent visits. When I got in Ady headed off, I had some lunch and inbetween and around letting agent visits I snuggled on the sofa with the kids. I’ve blogged about the letting agents in the relevant place but they were promising and heartening visits so hopefully the last hurdle will be a not too big and scary one.

I made some dried orange slices to finish decorating the tree, fed the kids and spent some time planning a design and cutting out material for a bag for Maisie for Christmas and making about half of it. Ady arrived home and I read the kids a couple of chapters of Mr Stink by David Walliams before bed.

Ady did dinner, I had a nice long bath and we watched The Apprentice and then I got engrossed in Falling Down which I think Ady and I saw at the cinema years and years ago. All of which means I am far later to bed than I planned.

which is handy really, self marinading and quite possibly why it’s getting fat, it’s all bloated with too much chardonnay.

Missed blogging last night so here’s a special bonus two day catch up edition 🙂

Monday we all had a bit of a lay in and then headed over to Tasha’s. The twin obstacles of the car and illness had meant we’d cancelled seeing them twice last week. We had a lovely few hours round there laughing, chatting, playing and bitching – none of us did all of those things, I’ll let you work out who did which ;).

I wanted to get home before dark to put the chickens away and chop some firewood but Ady was already home and had the fire lit. Davies and Scarlett put the chickens away and I made them some tea. Ady was feeling rough – I’m hoping that is all four of us having now had the same bug rather than different ones circling between us.

I nipped out to get some bits for our dinner and came back to usher childrent to bed. They have had so many late nights in the last few weeks I have had them in bed by about 7 for the last two nights. They are not necessarily asleep much before about 10 but it’s better than bed at 9 and still awake at midnight.

All of this meant I had dinner on the table by about 8pm and therefore peaked rather early with my wine. Ady and I watched River Cottage and then he went off to bed, leaving me free to be silly on the internet before going to bed fairly early myself.

Tuesday Should have been last swimming lesson for the kids but we ascertained fairly early in the day that neither was really up for it. I decided to bite the bullet with a few things and had a productive morning; I made pizza dough as that was Davies’ request for dinner, dealt with several loads of laundry, chopped enough firewood for today and tomorrow, made a huge batch of mincemeat – I’m now trying to use up stuff in cupboards. I chatted to the kids about getting rid of the chickens and made some enquiries about that in various places – it’s our plan for 3 hens to go permanently to LovelyEm’s and the rest to be rehomed somewhere that we can potentially get them back from if we come home. I have been wondering about seeing if our tennant would like to keep them on as they are pretty low maintenance but that will need looking into nearer the time and I’d like to have a plan b in place already.

So then I made a couple of phonecalls to letting agents and have two different ones coming round tomorrow afternoon. This is the last big hurdle of the whole plan for next year and the one we have least control over. It is time sensitive as Ady can’t really hand his notice in until we have a tenant lined up and he needs to hand his notice in at the end of January if he wants to leave at the end of February so we can go at the beginning of March. Eek, it’s all very close now.

We watched various TV including lots of Deadly 60 stuff. Davies played with geomags and Scarlett did some of the crafty things she was given for her birthday at camp. I decided they both needed a bath so Scarlett had one before dinner and Davies had one after dinner. To persuade Scarlett I ran her a really bubbly bath and lit some candles in there – not at all sure I should be encouraging such diva-like tastes in my eight year old but she won’t be getting the chance for many such experiences next year so she may as well enjoy it now.

Ady arrived home, still feeling and looking pretty rough 🙁 I brushed Tarly’s hair, the kids ate and then Davies had a bath while Tarly and I looked at Playmobil online then the kids went off to bed early again.

I cooked dinner which Ady just about ate before heading off to bed himself. I’ve watched a documentary following an American couple and their children in Las Vegas for four years which was very sad and quite compelling watching. It sort of ended happily but suspect they are the sort of people there simply are no happy ever after endings for. Made me feel very priviledged to be born where and when I was and have the choices I do available to me.

And I’ve failed to mention the stuff I wanted to about the kids but that will have to wait for another day.

Scarlett woke much brighter yesterday morning and had pancakes for breakfast which was promising as she’d only eaten a carrot on Saturday and then coughed until she vomited that back up anyway 🙁

I had a bit of a tantrum about the house being a tip – this week coming we *really* need to get the house on the rental market one way or another and it just feels like the walls are closing in in every room with clutter reappearing on every surface that’s been cleared. I think Christmas decorations make rooms seems smaller anyway and despite having gone for a very minimalist look this year of just the tree and some lights around the house advent calendars and general ‘stuff’ was really pissing me off. So having been ranted at about it the other three scattered into different corners and did some getting rid of stuff and putting it in proper places, the cheapo advent calendars we bought the kids at camp got opened and chucked out, the bookcase shelves got cleared and it all feels more like people live here rather than just come in to strew stuff about the place.

Ady cooked a small roast lunch which we all ate at about 2pm, meals seem to have been all over the place last week with lots of late nights, illness and birthdays so it was nice to be sitting down together chatting and eating, even if most people were coughing and sniffling 😉

Ady and Davies played a game of chess, I spent some time working on Zone 3 hosts ready to send a speculative email to them after Christmas. We all got sucked into watching some Kirstie’s Home Made Christmas – I love shows like that, makes me feel all inspired to make stuff although it usually ends in just buying stuff and then putting it on a shelf 😆

My parents were having Davies and Scarlett at their house for the evening. Ady does this thing with them where he always suggests they go there rather than them coming here when they (rarely) babysit and my Mum always looks horrified as though this might be the chance we’ve been waiting for ten years for to ring from an airport and say ‘we’re off to Rio, back in 2 weeks or so!’. This time she called his bluff, although she had an ulterior motive of wanting us to come and see their new wood burner which doesn’t seem to be working properly.

So we headed over there, kids with a huge bag of stuff each to keep them busy and admired the wood burner while agreeing that no, it doesn’t seem to be working. Dad has an air rifle they are loaning us for next year so Ady looked at that and the kids were all in awe of it. We’d gone over early and decided to leave early so we stood a better chance of finding a parking space or giving ourselves time to park in a slightly further away carpark that is hugely cheaper.

We arrived in Brighton a full hour before the show started and after one drive around the block found a parking space a couple of roads away from the theatre with just 90 minutes before you didn’t have to pay anymore it was just £3.00 for a ticket til Monday morning. A result 🙂 the NCP 24 hour carpark directly opposite cost £20 for over 4 hours! 😯

We had a cup of tea and coffee in the theatre bar – that was fairly priced although actually the alcohol wasn’t too pricey but I’d got a water bottle filled with wine from home, I get really arsey about paying more for a glass than I do for a bottle! We took our seats and amused ourselves by choosing random people far enough away to not see clearly and waving madly at them to see if they would wave back. No one did but several people looked really uncomfortable about not doing so just in case they were the person we were waving at and hadn’t recognised us 😆 We don’t get out much 😉

The show was really good. Robin Ince was excellent, Richard Herring was slightly disappointing as the first act – I normally love him and have seen him live twice before and found him excellent but he did a bit of a routine I have heard before and then finished with ‘now I have to rush off to London’. He’s done so much TV work this year I fear he is heading more in that direction and his live act suffered as a result (get me with the comic crit ;)). Simon Singh was very good although I was laughing at bits no one else seemed to be. He finished by cutting off his own powerpoint slightly early – Ady and I were entertained by both turning to each other and whispering ‘God did that’ at the same time 😆

There were several singer songwriters which is a type of comedy I really enjoy if done well – think Victoria Wood 😉 including Gavin Osborne, Frisky & Mannish (really liked them, would love to see their whole show), various stand ups and several science-types who did their educatin’ in an entertaining manner. Particularly loved the rapper – Baba Brinkman, could actually feel a crush developing on him as he did his act, particularly when he started talking with a very sexy accent 😳

The show closed with Dara O’Briain who is excellent, would love to see him do a whole live show too and over-ran hugely, from ten minutes behind at the interval to over half an hour behind by the end. Really enjoyed it though, loved the ecclectic mix of acts.

We drove back to my parents marvelling at the moon which was hanging very low and orange in the sky, Scarlett had fallen asleep on their sofa and took a bit of rousing but we were back home again with them in bed just after 11pm. They said this morning they had had a good evening there.

Ady and I had cheese toasties and then I stayed up far too late catching up online and skim-watching X Factor on itvplayer.

I have that early parenting feeling of broken nights and too much time sat on a sofa under a child.

After a crap night the night before last Scarlett appeared in our room not long after I’d gone to bed and spent the night with me while Ady disappeared downstairs with his pilllow. I feel he got the better deal – I had a talkative delirious child who was using my pillow. At around 5am she roused with a plaintive ‘Mumma? MUMMA?’ which jolted me awak again, only to ask ‘can you marry your mummy?’ presumably following on from a conversation on Wednesday about inbreeding and why people shouldn’t mate with close blood relatives. My responses was a very definite NO, particularly if said Mummy had been woken at 5am having had pretty much no sleep, as marriage proposals go it was a fairly poor one, pretty much doomed to failure…

She woke again at what I thought was 7am – Ady’s on-the-hour phone alarm had gone off. I stood with her as she sobbed over coughing up more flem and Ady appeared saying ‘come downstairs with me now Scarlett…’ which had me thinking ‘ah, an hour of sleep before my alarm goes off at 8am’ and then my alarm went off because it was infact 8am. Crap 🙁

So off to work for me woolly headed and foggy. Ady dropped me off at work and then went to collect my car later. It is now roadworthy and MOT’d (and we are £120 the poorer) and is booked back in for the end of next week when we’ve been paid to have the rest of the work done on it.

Scarlett has spent the day under a blanket on the sofa, dozing lots, eating virtually nothing but drinking plenty of water. Davies is better and Ady is somewhere in the throes of it with a cough which will probably last til 2011.

Work was fine – I was in a bit of a daze anyway. A very funny moment when James crept up behind me and tickled me and then realised what he’d done and blushed and was utterly horrified apologising over and over again about inappropriate behaviour. It was so funny. I tried to get Ady to go back into the library later and ask him ‘you then one that tickled my wife?’ but he said he wouldn’t have been able to do it straight-faced.

Ady and the kids picked me up and dropped me off outside the garage to bring my car home. We had a quiet afternoon with me mostly under a sleeping Scarlett on the sofa – we may not be betrothed but we’re still close ;). We watched Monsters Vs Aliens as Ady has never seen it, I checked my emails and we’ve already had our first yes from my second round of emails for Zone 2 WWOOF hosts :).

Davies and I went along to Tesco for some food supplies and then came back and the kids went to bed. S is very restless and I’ve been in to her several times – suspect we’re in for another broken night – just as well sleep is for wusses 😉

Don’t phone, it’s just for fun.

After a late and boozy night last night I had a really crappy nights sleep but had to be up earlyish to get my car to it’s MOT for 9am. Ady had stayed home to follow me there and bring me home again – it’s about a half hour walk from here. The kids were barely up and out of bed so we left them here and went to drop my car off. We also called into the council office which is on the same industrial estate to hand back our alllotment key and get our £10 deposit back.

Back at home I rang my parents hoping to get my Dad and ask him to take me back to collect my car later but got my Mum instead who was day off from work today. She offered to drop me at the garage and arranged to come over an hour later. In the meantime the garage rang to say the car had failed it’s MOT and needed new brake pads to get through that at just over £100 (including test charge) but rather urgently needs various other work totally over £400. Mum arrived in the middle of this.

Muy opinion is that we don’t really have £400 right now to spend on a car which is about to be declared SORN, have it’s insurance cancelled and be stored off road for a year but Sensible People have overruled me with talk of retaining vehicular security and other such stuff and they are very likely right so we’ve authorised the go ahead on the MOT necessary work and will book it in for the rest after pay day.

So the car is there til tomorrow and Mum ended up staying for lunch, which she went to the shop to get bread for and Ady appeared home to join us for. We discussed Christmas plans and had a very nice few hours with the children coughing and blowing their noses by way of punctuation marks throughout.

The kids played with Playmobile and after Mum had gone Davies did some Xboxing. We had lots of cuddling on the sofa and having kept the fire burning all day it was cosy and Scarlett did several rounds of cooking chestnuts and sharing them out :). I ♥ winter 🙂

Ady was lateish home having joined work colleagues for their seasonal festive drinks so it was nearly 8pm when he got back. Kids went to bed , I made dinner and ate around playing with friendfeed.

Really must blog about cavity wall insulation tomorrow but I have to be up in the morning for work. I know, wuss 😉

may well come and flesh it out later but today involved work, meal out with work colleages, long talks about whether life is all over by the time you are 40 (with someone who wasn’t even born when I bought the scarf I was wearing this evening). Kids and Ady went to panto. Both children have very sore noses and patches on a cheek where they wipe snot, everyone including me has very annoying coughs. I need to go to bed as my car is being MOTd at 9am. Remember when all my blogopsts looked like this?