The car alarm still rings. David is looking somewhat crazed with hair sticking out in all directions, bags under his eyes you could pack clothes for a week away for a family of four in and a demented look in his eyes. The policeman neighbour is sporting ear plugs and muttering about ‘having contacts to sort it out’. We don’t much care actually because a) all our bedrooms are on the other side of our house and actually you really can’t hear it – well you can’t after sufficient wine anyway and b) we’re going away tomorrow and by the time we come back again either Carolyn and Owen will have returned and with one simple click of a button on the car key have disabled the alarm, or the neighbours will have finally been pushed over the brink, formed a bounty hunter style gang complete with bandanas and torn vests and either smashed the car in with bricks, picked it up (it’s only a wee sports car don’t forget) and carried it off to another location or snipped the cable underneath with cable cutters or the battery will have run out on the bloody thing.
This morning I mostly pottered including reading a couple of stories to Tarly and looking at the illustrations in some of our lovelier story books, Davies played with the animation software Ali got for his birthday then we walked into town to return some library books where we bumped into Lucy. We had a browse in the charity shops. Tarly got a free cuddly toy from a charity shop desperate to unload some of their excess of cuddly toys 🙄 because we’re desperate for more of those in our house. Ady got a Blue Peter jigsaw from the 70s for 50p which he used to have as a boy and do with his Dad and then we went to the sweet shop which still sells penny sweets you put into a tub individually (probably containing 47 traces of human urine, bird flu and child’s snot) – which was the same sweet shop me and Frazer used to spend our 20pence pocket money in, probably using the same tubs actually, some 25 years ago. So nostalgia all round this morning :-).
We walked home laughing at Tarly and her odd ways and at one point Ady and I ended up infront of the children. We get to walk holding hands now after 6 years of pushing pushchairs, carrying children or holding hands with them and it’s rather lovely – hey next summer maybe they’ll even be eating whole ice creams ;-). Anyway, we were walking along infront of them and stopped to turn and look at them – our lovely crazy boy, shouting and finding something to draw everyone’s attention to every three paces, our lovely messy girl with her scruffy hair, short skirt and great big sparkly boots, insisting she’s not doing everything we can clearly see she is doing right there. Both of them happy, inquisitive, loving life and as wild, free and individual as all children really should be. Was a lovely moment. 🙂 And it happened just as we arrived back at our house, having been speculating that it would have been pretty much right about this time of year in 1993 that we first came and saw this house. There’s something about walking up the path to the front door when the trees and bushes are in the same state of turning autumnal colours as they were back then and the grass is all green and squishy underfoot and the sun is dappling shadows on the same places on the walls as it was that time of year that makes me feel that this really is the house we were supposed to be living in. It’s not huge, it’s not grand, but we knew when we walked in the front door for the very first time it was ours and it was where we were supposed to be. Who knows if we’ll be here this time next year, but it was nice to feel how much we’d moved on at the same time as keeping still somehow.
This afternoon I’ve been to Tescos while Ady and the children ate popcorn and watched films – cos they truly aren’t filmed out even this week 😯 then I did loads of baking (chocolate brownies, chocolate gingerbread, banana loaf) while Ady cleaned out both cars, mowed the lawns and dug out a bin liner full of Halloween-y stuff from last years party ready to pack. The children made birthday cards for the friends they will be spending birthdays with next week.
Tonight I’ve packed everything in a super organised manner with a bag to take into Babs’ tomorrow containing just overnight stuff rather than hulking our whole weeks worth of stuff in, done route finders and generally prepared for a week away.
Looking forward to seeing those of you we will be with or visiting along the way – I’ll be back next weekend.
I adore that feeling, it catches me sometimes when I’m doing something about the house or garden. We first viewed this house in December and it still makes me stop at points around the house as I’m putting up decorations. Your home is your home whatever or wherever it is and you should love it.
Comment by Roslyn — 22 October 2006 @ 12:43 am