33rpm

I’ve been sleeping badly lately, which is really annoying as there is no reason for it. I was thinking the other day about times in my life when I have had reasons to keep me awake – not many to be fair, either due to a charmed life or a lack of letting stuff worry me, aside from non-sleeping through the night children of course. But the last week or so I have been stirring for no real reason and then struggling to get back to sleep. Last night was the same and so having gone to bed luxuriating in not having anything particular to be up for this morning I actually hear the cockerels crowing and the birds singing at dawn having been restless for quite some time before that and then falling properly asleep again for a couple of hours.

We had a nice pottering morning at home – Davies spent some time on the Xbox, Scarlett watched some animal programmes and DS’d a bit. I typed up the last two RSPC Wildlife Action Awards they have completed which just need printing off and then they can apply for their silver award. We have already done most of the first three activities out of the six required for their gold so that should all be done in the next few weeks.

I’d stumbled across Crest Science Awards when looking at Science Festivals around the UK at the weekend after the Surrey Science Circus and have been emailing with the local coordinator. There are no real provisions for individuals but I could look at running one for some local HE folk or simply pay through the nose for just Davies and Scarlett. It looks interesting enough to have value, educational enough to tick boxes and of course comes with nice certificates and recognition so would satisfy externally if the need arose, look good on Davies and Scarlett’s ‘CVs’ of education at some future point but above all else be an interesting and enjoyable exercise, much the same motivations as the WAA really.

Scarlett and I then did some baking – we made a double batch of snickerdoodles and some chocolate orange cupcakes. Scarlett did all the oven work moving things between shelves, checking they were cooked and taking them off baking sheets onto cooling racks. We ran out of time to ice the cakes but will do them tomorrow when I get in from work. The snickerdoodles were obviously delicious as the whole double batch had been consumed by children and their grandfather during the course of the afternoon! :).

We had lunch and then Dad arrived as he was staying here with Davies and Scarlett while I went off for a couple of hours training. I left them with instructions to eat plenty of food during the afternoon as their tea was going to be late and left them lots of fruit and carrots along with the snickerdoodles.

I picked up Sian from her house locally and we drove over to Chichester to the West Sussex records office. I have been before, about 2 years ago but I always say yes to any training offered, partially as it’s interesting, partially as it looks good that I am willing and partially because I get paid for my time in doing so :). It is an interesting place and one of the Archivists is Sue, Ady’s best friend Kev’s partner so it was nice to see her :).

Family History is the ‘bread and butter’ of their business which is something that has never appealed to me in the slightest to spend any of my time investigating. On my Mum’s side we’d struggle to back past my grandparents as there is all sorts of secrecy about real dates of birth and whether people were actually married at all. On my Dad’s side the Davies’ were from Wales where every second person is called Davies and they all had about 14 children and married their cousins and pretended illegitimate children of older daughters were younger children of grandparents and so on. Far too complicated to try and unravel using birth, death and marriage certificates let alone censuses. I do find all the old maps fascinating though and enjoyed looking at them. We are only the second owner from building of our house and my parents house is of a similar modern era with them being only the second owners too but I could see the interest in tracing the history of an older property.

Sian was staying in Chi so I dashed home on my own with just about enough time to collect Davies and Scarlett and thank Dad for being here before going back out again to Badgers. I was drafted downstairs tonight to help the kids finish off their photoframes and practise their puppet shows for presentation night next week. I wasn’t really in the mood for it and was very honest when Julie asked if I’d be interested in being a Badger Leader one day. My uniform has arrived (I *hate* wearing uniforms) and the wrong fleece had come with ‘Badger Leader’ on it instead of ‘Assistant Badger Leader’. I tend to have good weeks and bad weeks really – tonight I was glad next week is the last week of term and then we have two weeks off. Next term, Davies’ last, we’re all in one group doing Adventure Badger which looks quite interesting and allows for a fair bit of flexibility and working with the kids in smaller groups which is what I prefer and sometimes even enjoy ;).

Ady had arrived home and got the kids dinner ready for when we got home. They watched the end of Howard the Duck – a video Ady had brought home for them which they’d started watching yesterday. I didn’t watch it but it all seemed very surreal from the odd bits I caught.

And now I am very ready for bed.