We were supposed to be going to a local-ish big park today with Lucy, Richard and Rebecca. But it rained. And it rained. So via text Lucy and I decided it would be A Bad Idea to drive all the way there in the rain and then walk round in the rain and then drive home in the rain. So instead they just came round here for the day.
And it was very nice actually. The children all played really nicely and Lucy and I talked non stop about the widest variety of things I couldn’t even begin to recall now, but it was lovely. 🙂
After lunch when the rowdiness levels got a little two high and the rain had stopped and given way to sunshine again we walked to the local park for a while. Davies rode his bike there and back and around the park a bit in the middle too, doing really well up and down hills, using brakes and being very sensible about the road and appearing to have complete control of the bike using steering and the brakes in a very coordinated manner – which is a big deal considering how inept he was just a couple of weeks ago! Tarly wanted to take her bike but I was not confident enough in their abilities to try and watch them both so she got a piggy back instead!
Once at the park I relented from my usual ‘No Pushing Children On Swings’ rule and Tarly had a small swing before deciding daredevil antics on the climbing frame would be preferable. Davies came running over and I told him I’d keep pushing him for as many pushes as however high he could count. And with really rather minimal assistance he counted to 100!! For the first time ever! 🙂 He needed prompting rather than help with the tens but for the first time grasped the patterns – we talked about what the numbers looked like written down and he grasped that after 29 comes 3 – 0 and then after 39 comes 4 – 0 and so on. So that was rather good 🙂 This week we seem to have managed reading, writing and counting along the way!
We came back from the park and sat in the garden for a while with ice lollies chatting and then Lucy went off home and we came in for the childrens’ tea. I had 3 CVs which had a deadline of tonight and I’d ignored all week so as soon as Ady got home I took myself off upstairs for an hour or so and did those while Ady had bathed the children and put them to bed. I finished them off while Ady did some gardening and we finally sat down around 10pm with dinner and the first of our Tesco DVD rental dvds – War of the Worlds. I admit openly to being a total film-know-nothing. My favoruite films include When Harry Met Sally and Four Weddings and a Funeral (which is where Tarly’s name really comes from, rather than the grander beginnings of Gone With the Wind!), I used to watch lots of horror films in my teens but now can’t bear them, I don’t like violence and I don’t like war films – which sort of limits my viewing choices really! 😆 I’d heard enough about WOTW to know it was based on the story of the cds me and the children listen to in the car and was expecting it to be that story exactly. Infact I’d actually got it with the intention of vetting it first and then letting the children see a visual interpretation of the music they love.
Well, it wasn’t quite that, and I won’t be letting the children see it, but I really enjoyed it. It had me with my hands over my mouth and on my cheeks (Home Alone style) for massive chunks of the film and the obligatory ‘happy ending’ and that’s good enough for me. 🙂 So that was a nice evening.
Tomorrow we’re off to Ali’s and Malice has a post-op check up at the vets. She apppears to be brighter again today and is jumping on and off the sofas very competantly so I am fairly reassured by that. And now, once again it has gotten very late and I really must go to bed.