And still are even three and a half hours after usual bedtime. 🙄
Had a really nice day today, as indicated in my earlier post things are good for various Friday/payday related reasons anyway so that started the day on a cheery note.
The children played this morning while I parcelled up some ebay stuff and sent Ady off to the post office with it. He went off to work and I persuaded the children to get dressed and we went into Lancing. I had a couple of library books due back and wanted to renew a couple more. I also wanted to get a couple of ‘classics’ that I never seemed to have read at school like everyone else and wanted to see whether they deserved their ‘my favourite childhood book’ tag from so many people including a couple at my reading group. The local library didn’t have any of them so I ordered them in and the children chose a couple of books each. We dropped my watch off to get a new battery and called into the bakery to get some cakes to take to Ali’s.
We listened to Will Young in the car both ways, turned up really loud with the children doing a fine line in in-car seat car dancing and me beating time on the steering wheel :-). I found out that James Blunt is playing Leeds Castle in July on the same basis as me and Ady went to see Will Young last summer and had a lovely afternoon / evening at. It’s actually a very child friendly venue and drugs references aside the children love him too, so a couple of good months of CV work and I might well think about tickets for us.
Had a lovely time at Ali’s. I witnessed the opening of the brand new packet of pasta and watched all lunch preparations closely to ensure she wasn’t secreting chick peas in my pasta quills ;-). The children did lots of stuff as always proving any worries about educational development unfounded by barging in on a discussion in the kitchen about how physics would be taught to ask what some figurines were made of and whether they were china as Davies thought or metal as Scarlett believed. And why they might be so light if they were metal and happily accepting our explanation of paperclips being metal but also light. Also some discussion of size in relation to weight too.
There was chat about perspective, as mentioned already on Ali’s blog. In relation to the space hoppers at Ali’s which now we have our own, which are larger, appear smaller. I likened it to going back to infant school as a grown up and realising how small the playground really was after all, and when my Dad picks them up to his height and the world looks very different. It was them demonstrated by Davies who drew a picture of Wallace, Gromit and a car with them all inverted in size from their normal stature which he explained by the larger ones being close to us and the smaller ones further away. He then made me look out of the window to see chimneys on faraway houses to demonstrate further. I think he’s got that then! 🙂
Ali has blogged about the rest of the day there so I won’t repeat but it was lovely as always and there was lots of drawing, painting and writing went on. Also nice to see how Davies is so comfortable there that he speaks to Ali in the same way as members of our family with utter confidence and naturalness, he’s been the best of himself today. 🙂
We left later than planned so played Eye Spy on the way home to keep Tarly awake and when Ady phoned I passed Davies my ohone to answer and relay the conversation – lovely to have an older child at times like that! Davies announced today that he can count to 24 and then proceeded to count well into the 30s. He stumbled on 13 but after that was flying – he has previously not got anywhere near 20 🙂 I then listened to him in the back of the car teaching Scarlett to do it too.
After a tidy up session at home we went to Blockbusters which has changed considerably since the last time I went there (probably as a teen :oops:) and I rejoined. The children chose Madagascar as their film to watch and we browsed the shelves of 3 dvds for a fiver for a week for future reference (I normally pay £2.50 for one at the library every couple of weeks so this is a far better offer and a two minute walk from our regular soft play haunt so something we’ll probably do quite often I suspect). Then we came home via KFC where we collected a ‘Mum’s Night Off’ bargain bucket and came home to watch and eat. It went really well – Scarlett was possibly most excited about the pepsi (she adores fizzy drinks but they are a very rare treat) but Davies tried everything and loved the chicken. Then we all ate ice cream out of the tub with the supplied plastic spoons before the children got into their pjs and snuggled up on the sofa with me for the last bit of the film.
That ended two hours ago and despite it being 9pm and Scarlett being very tired we honoured our promise of sleepover in Davies’ room. Ady has been threatening to bring her back downstairs to her own room as they have each been down at least four times for toilet or drink breaks, there has been much giggling and stamping about – plenty of it in relation to move it, move it! – and lots of general horseplay. But I have insisted they be allowed to see it through and if they are tired tomorrow then so be it. If we don’t let it happen this time then it will be all the more fraught with nonsense next time. I am now sitting on the floor between them, Scarlett has gone to sleep in seconds and Davies looks to be not too far behind – not very surprising given it’s gone 11pm now – but at least we might be in for a lie in in the morning I guess! 🙄 So Family Film Night – the first one a success and about to be introduced as a first Friday of the month regular feature – and all for around £15!
That fucking “Mum’s Night Off” really bloody pisses me off! They could have called it “Cook’s Night Off” or something similarly non-fuckwitted couldn’t they???? I refuse to buy one on principle. And I buy at least two Tower Burgers a year, so my MNO bucket boycott will have loads of effect.
See if you still love to move it, move it when they’ve been singing it constantly all week …. we got it for Christmas, lol, it the ‘appeal’ (for them!) still hasn’t worn off 😀 Good film though 🙂
Took me about 20 minutes to convince Lulah that the trees do *not* move nearer when you look at them through binoculars!
And lastly – what were the books you were after?
Comment by Alison — 31 March 2006 @ 10:41 pm
I wanted to know that, too!
Comment by Sarah — 31 March 2006 @ 10:54 pm
Yeah, I refused to call it ‘Mum’s Night Off’ bucket and just pointed at it and said ‘I’ll have *that* bucket please’ and commented to Ady that it was just stupid to call it that. Bet they are shaking in their boots about your boycott though 😉 Might get Ady to write to their HO and complain that actually it is an Ady Night Off Bucket in our house 😉
Move it, move it – yep I can see that becomming grating verrry quickly.
The books were To Kill A Mockingbird although I am sure I know the story so have either seen a film or possibly listened to an audio verion at school, Catch 22 and Catcher in the Rye. Mentioned somewhere only in the last couple of days (and two of them by yourself 😉 ) but talked about at book group last time too when no one could believe I hadn’t already read them as they’d all been made to at school. Clearly my school was more into thrusting anti abortion poetry at us instead 🙄
Comment by Nic — 31 March 2006 @ 10:56 pm
well I was ashamed to be so ill-read so was hoping no one would ask out of common decency, but I’ve been rumbled so I’ll justify it by blaming my education! 😉
Comment by Nic — 31 March 2006 @ 10:58 pm
You weren’t really expecting common decency here, were you?!! 😉
Comment by Sarah — 31 March 2006 @ 11:11 pm
We had to read To Kill a Mockingbird at school, and I’ve never reread it. Which seems a bit sad and counterproductive.
I read Catcher in the Rye first when I was 9! So a lot of it went over my head a bit then lol, but I fell completely in love with Holden Caulfield there and then. It’s really easy to read, not a heavy-going thing at all, very easy to enjoy.
Catch 22 – well, you might love it, you might think it’s a pile of toss. K and I loved it for the humour when my dad read it to us, and I just think it’s brilliant. Yossarian is another of my literary love-objects 🙂
Comment by Alison — 31 March 2006 @ 11:54 pm
I’ve had one meal from KFC in my life.
Can’t remeber if I’ve read TKAM – seen the film enough times though. Didn’t like catch-22 haven’t read CITR – didn’t do any at school though.
Comment by ChrisF — 31 March 2006 @ 11:59 pm
That lot got a “love it” to TKAM (Max currently reading it and even breaking his one chapter a night rule!), “hated” Catch 22 and “liked” Catcher in the Rye. But i’ve read better this last 2 years, imho 😀
Comment by Merry — 01 April 2006 @ 12:07 am
I don’t think I’ve ever read any of those 3 either Nic! I do have Catcher in the Rye but only because I did the same as you and wanted to know what the fuss was about but never actually got further than the first page or so! We don’t have KFC anymore since my sisters friend lived opposite the back of the store and saw them keeping all the meat out in the yard in the height of summer covered in flies. We now go to the fake KFC instead which I’m sure is terribly more scrupulous 😉
Comment by SallyM — 01 April 2006 @ 8:41 am
Thanks for a lovely visit, it was good and yes I think we did attain a high conversation-finishing rate.
I suspect Rumble in the Jungle is going to stay ‘out’ now, as F is enjoying fiddling with it.
What happened to The World According to Garp? Or shouldn’t I be mentioning it?
Comment by Ali — 01 April 2006 @ 12:30 pm
Don’t think Garp has ever been a read-at-school-classic 😉
Comment by Alison — 01 April 2006 @ 12:50 pm
I love Mockingbird. Have reread it many times.
Can’t stand Catch 22, have never finished it.
Catcher in the Rye didn’t ever become one of my favourites. Love Garp though.
Comment by jax — 01 April 2006 @ 2:00 pm