A weekend from long ago…

Is what it has felt like. Yesterday morning I went off to have my hair cut. I’ve been rubbish at getting out again this week for another walk so I ducked the rain and walked into town and back for that. Which was good exercise but did very little for keeping my professionally cut and blow dried hair looking it’s best. It was a new hairdresser as my usual one has left hairdressing altogether which was a bit of a shame as I used to love hearing her life stories and the on again, off again saga with her and her boyfriend. And she always did a really good job of cutting my hair for less than twenty quid. So I had made an appointment with another of the juniors there. She was nice enough but we didn’t really talk much so I’d drifted away thinking and wasn’t paying attention to what she was doing with my hair and realised about halfway in that she wasn’t cutting off nearly as much as I’d wanted, it was a very cautious trim with millimetres off the ends and no sorting out of layers or anything. It was too late to say anything by then and I guess not enough cut off is better than too much cut off and she did do a lovely job of drying and straightening it – which sadly no one but me saw by the time I’d walked home in the wind and rain. Next time I will be more specific about what I want, infact I quite fancy a change of some sort so will start keeping an eye out for the sort of style I’d like.

Can’t really remember what we did in the afternoon, I know Davies and I made some models with DAS clay but we both got bored with that pretty quickly. I’m really struggling with ideas for goody bags for the party and quite inclined to not bother at all except I know all children expect them really – including my own. But I refuse to spend a load of money on plastic tat which will get broken or left at our house by everyone anyway and there is simply no W&G type stuff around. I have a couple of ideas though and one of them was to make a little W&G model for each bag but I think that might be more time consuming than I’d hoped, particularly as Davies isn’t inclined to help as much as I thought he might with that one. Ah well, I’m sure inspiration will strike – or everyone will get a funsize lump of Wensleydale 😆
The children have been watching Nanny McPhee lots, we got it from Tesco dvd rental so that was on and they were off playing with a dolls house for quite a while too. The weather has been crap here all weekend so the kids have actually not left the house which never does them any favours, they get that cabin fever ‘wet play’ feeling I remember from school when we didn’t get to go into the playground at breaktime or lunchtime because it was tipping down with rain. We watched Fantasia and the children were working out what instruments were playing. Tarly recognised The Nutrcracker thanks to the Barbie film so I guess all the pinkness is drumming a bit of culture in with it. She also had no idea what a harp was so I dug out an ex library book about instruments and they looked at that with Ady for a while. Ady had a bath in the afternoon, followed by me and Tarly sidled into the bathroom, strippe naked and jumped in my bath with me. She washed my back for ages, had to be dragged out by Ady to have her tea and made me promise to stay in the bath until she had finished and could get in with me again. No argument from me there, so I topped it back up with hot water and read my book while I waited. Then Davies had a bath and Tarly came upstairs with me to supervise me putting on my makeup to go out.

She very often sits with me in the morning while I put make up on and knows what everything is and quite often does thinks like powder, blusher, lipstick and eyeshadow for me quite well. She can’t do mascara though, several wand in eye moments have put me off letting her try again for a while. 😆 But she’d never sat with me doing evening make up before and was amazed at all the various glittery powders and lotions I’ve amassed over the years for party make up. Not that I wore any of it last night but I showed her it and she oohed and ahhed over it.

My parents arrived to babysit and Dad took us to Matt and Clare’s so we could both drink. Ady and I worked with Matt at B&Q 16 years ago and Matt and Ady shared a house together with another couple of lads for a year or so too. He and Clare got married in America four months before we did and their son Aydan is 6 months younger than Davies. Despite getting on really well and living fairly close we never seem to see as much of each other as we’d like as Clare is doing a weekend qualification in chiropractise so is away or studying whenever Matt is home. We seem to manage three times a year at the most – the last time probably being when Matt brought Aydan to our Halloween party last year. The party was to celebrate Clare’s 30th birthday and a belated housewarming as they moved into their new house – 3 doors down from their old house – at the end of last year and have just got straight enough to have lots of guests round.

The rain didn’t prevent a barbecue going ahead thanks to the back garden being gazebo’d up so there was loads of lovely food and drink and one of these rather amazing birthday cakes. Arriving shortly after us came another face from B&Q past and my sixth form college days – he was at the time one of the heartthrobs of the day so it was quite shocking to see him balder than Ady and not much thinner! 😆 And a reminder than similar thoughts would have been running through his head on seeing me 😉 He was there with his lovely wife, having just moved back to Sussex again after a couple of years away and with two young children. So there was plenty in common to catch up on there and lots of chatting about ‘whatever happened to X?’

We were well into the evening – and the alcohol when someone asked if our oldest would be going back to school next week so with a deep breath I explained why he wouldn’t and that opened drunken debate on Home Education for an hour or so – very interesting and amicable but I bet at least two of the people present went home muttering about what weirdos we must be 😆 As responsible parents with babysitters at home most of the party started to drift away not long after 11pm so I rang my Dad to come along and join us for a while and the last few of us sat chatting and laughing with Dad there too until we left around 12.30.

Home for hot chocolate and bed sometime way after 2am.

Which meant Tarly waking before 6am this morning with it being my turn to get up did not see me leaping out of bed with enthusiasm, vim and vigour, eager to start the day 😳 Instead I sat very quietly with her drinking tea very slowly and watching TV. Once Davies was up too and they were both engrossed in playing with lego I headed back off to bed for a couple of hours.

Today we’ve done industrious stuff like digging out all the winter coats and woolly jumpers as although a last minute revival of the summer is possible I reckon it’s fairly unlikely. I made a pin the bow tie on Wallace game for the party, we watched a load of old home videos including when I was pregnant with Tarly and when she was a tiny baby, some of Davies at about six months old crawling about the place and various holidays and weekends away. Then I sat and photographed and listed two massive black sacks full of outrgown clothes on ebay. A couple of last week’s items have ended now but earlier I had 46 items for sale 🙂 – various coats from both children which should hopefully go for more than their 99p starting bids, so that should prove worth the hours it took to do it. I have almost the same amount again with a bagful I’ve already cleared from Tarly’s wardrobe along with what I’m sure lurks in Davies’ room too which I aim to clear this week.

And now, after a hot bath, a single glass of wine to top up the excesses of yesterday with our roast gammon followed by an early night.