It’s all there :)

This morning was lovely. We snuggled on the sofa together and watched various things including whatever was channel 5 (perky Australian people singing songs with lyrics designed for far older audiences than those in the studio dancing along with them – no not The Wiggles!) and then a film of Tarly’s choosing. She chose Barbie Swan Lake, which fluffy pinkness and true love conquers all aside (don’t know where she gets those tendancies 😉 ) has nice music 😉 Tarly can recognise and identify Swan Lake and Nutcracker as a result of the dreadful Barbie videos which I guess is no bad thing, actually I must dig out the classical music cds we used to listen to in the car for the next time we have a longish journey as we used to enjoy them (majors for minors, that sort of thing). Davies played with the marble run which Tarly gradually started to play with too and we all snuggled back up again for the very last bit of the film. Lots of intricate and complicated marble run building going on with plenty of experiments and testing happening to create satisfactory results. I’ve put the geomags away for a while, partially in response to the arguments and squabbling that always happens when one of them wants to use a certain colour rod that the other one has got all of (we have silver, blue, white, green and red, not in equal amounts) and partially to encourage useage of other toys. I suggested the stickle bricks or the marble run today and it was a good idea.

Davies then wanted half an hour or so on the xbox so he got dressed and then played with that while I started what I was anticipating tricky negotiation procedures to get Tarly dressed. Not so this morning! 🙂 She came upstairs with me while I got dressed and played with my jewelry and tried on all my old watches, rings and necklaces from my ‘precious but never worn’ box. She loves listening to the stories attached to the bits and pieces, and getting me to try on all the very dangling, large and outrageous earrings that live in the box. 😆 We talked about what we were doing today, what sort of clothes she should wear, what sort of clothes I was wearing and she picked out her pants and vest (vests have created rows before so this was good), I chose some old jeans and gave her the choice of three jumpers which meant she would need a fleece or a coat. She decided she’d rather not wear a coat or fleece but volunteered to wear a top under her jumper instead (because I had 3 layers on – she counted my bra as one! she was quite happy to have the same).. She got cross with the jumper she was wearing after a few minutes so we just swapped it over for a different one, which she happily put on and was fine in all day. We also had a possible run in averted over her hair, which was hideously tangled and needed either brushing or tying back – she chose tying back and was happy aslong as she got to choose the hair band to do it with. She then came and spread the chocolate spread in her own sandwiches to take with us. Understood why she couldn’t pout the kettle to make my chai latte to take in a flask as I let her put her hand on the outside of the jug I was making it in which was hand hot but not burning and enough to demonstrate why she could get hurt by it.

So we were away, without even a wobble on time with her happily getting into her seat with only a murmur about not liking it and looking forward to getting a new one soon. 🙂 On the way to meet Julie, Jack and Maisie the children decided it was ‘opposites day’ and so I became ‘Daddy’ while ‘Mummy’ was at work, they became each other and we were driving backwards to come home rather than forwards to go out. I got bored of that before they did so turned the music up a bit and we all sang along to ‘every time we say goodbye’ which is a song I’ve sung both of them to sleep with many a time.

We arrived only shortly after Julie and set straight off on our walk. We were at the woods which is a NT area in Slindon and somewhere we go to a lot. The children all set off really happily, exploring all sorts of things, clambering around on trees, ducking through gaps in the hedges, collecting leaves, acorns, chestnuts etc and generally enjoying being out and about. It was lovely. 🙂 We worked our way up to the duckpond where the worlds most aloof ducks live. They cast a disdainful eye over all offerings and don’t even bother to come close to check out whatever you toss in the water to them, the best you can hope for is a bit of a quack, but even that seems done in a sarcastic way :lol:. Julie wanted to visit the Top House which is a famous place selling pumpkins and other similar vegetables so we worked our way along there. We stopped to look at a WW1 memorial for the men from Slindon who’d died in that war and to investigate a sun dial, which was not working as it was cloudy, but I explained the workings of to an ever increasingly disinterested party of children 🙄 and then we went into the church yard. Julie and I spent ages reading out the grave stones at the childrens’ request, Tarly swung on a lamppost and mentioned how much she missed the one from outside our house (see, it’s not just me who gets sentimental about inanimate objects and buildings!)
and I stopped to take a picture of a gravestone of a woman called ‘Nellie Pink’ insisting to Julie that I’d sung a song about Nellie the pink when I was at school. I’ve since googled and realised it was actually a song about Lily the Pink and been singing it ever since. I also had a flashback to being at junior school (so I’d have been 7 or maybe 8) and making up a verse about a girl called Sarah Moss in our class (Sarah Moss, thinks she’s the boss, and she bosses us around, so we gave her medicinal compound and now she never makes a sound!) – so I guess I’ve been doing that for longer than I remembered!

Amazingly the church was open so we all went inside, put the lights on and had a good old explore. I was amazed at how much Davies and even Scarlett remembered from the last time we went in a church back in the summer, talking about prayer cushions, the altar, the pews etc quite confidently and cooing over the stained glass windows. We turned the lights back off, signed the visitor book and went back on our way.

We then arrived at the Pumpkin House and it was amazing. Basically just someone’s garden but with the most fantastic displays of all sorts of pumpkins and other vegetables. There was a big area of carved pumpkins, some of which were so beautifully done and a couple of giant pumpkins and marrows which Davies was thrilled with as there are ‘prize pumpkins’ and ‘prize marrows’ in W&G Were Rabbit film and xbox game.

We worked our way back to the carpark and sat and had our lunch. On the way, inspired by Gill, I’d collected armfuls of firewood to put in my car and after lunch Julie and I gathered a load more filling my car while Davies put on a ‘Funny Show’ for Scarlett, Maisie and Jack which mostly seemed to involve standing on a log and doing lots of slapstick clown type routines but kept them all enthralled and in hysterics.

Then we headed back into the woods for some more walking and exploring. We’d found a sort of ‘camp’ built in a dug out crater, which I think was probably the area where an uprooted tree had once been made with loads of long twigs to create a wig-wam style structure last time we were there and couldn’t quite recall where it was. So the children led the way, Julie and I followed along behind having a very deep chat about religion, and we found it again.
So we lingered there awhile and the children added a bit to the structure and played in it before it finally started to drizzle and get darker and we decided it was time to head back (collecting more firewood as we went).

On a whim we called in to see my Dad on the way home and Frazer happened to be off today so he was there too. The children disappeared into his room and found his full size TV which is hooked up to an Xbox with all sorts of mad car chase games so that kept them entertained for a while. They also played on the piano and generally badgered Frazer. Dad and Frazer popped out for half an hour while we were there to collect Dad’s van so we watched Charlie and Lola while they were gone and then left shortly after that.

I told them on the way home that we are going to start trying to be more varied in their menu choices. My plan is for them to eat similar food to us, either earlier than us if feasible or the leftover version the following day. Whilst we are years away from eating at the same time as the children – and actually as we don’t have a dining room or indeed a table to eat at together anyway we are still a way away from a round the dinner table type situation from both a frugal and healthier food point of view, not to mention the hassle of cooking two entirely different meals I am keen to widen their scope a little. The deal is they try everything I put on their plates – if they hate it then fine, they don’t need to eat it and we’ll make a sandwich or some fruit for their dinner instead that night but I do at least expect them to try. Tonight we were having toad in the hole which is hardly exotic or untried anyway so I did them sausages, mash and sweetcorn. Tarly liked it all and ate loads of mash, Davies hated the sweetcorn, thought the mash was ‘ok’ but scoffed all the sausages. They have both had all those foods before but it was a good start and an encouraging beginning that they didn’t both just hate everything. Tomorrow we’ve got shepherds pie (okay then cottage pie 😉 ) so I’ll make a little one for them to try when I’m putting ours together. I was describing it to Davies earlier and he can’t quite get his head round a pie without pastry though – I didn’t attempt to get into any heavy conversations about how pies can exist without pastry this time – I’ve learnt my lesson there ;-).

Bath and hairbrush for Tarly all actioned by Ady while I got dinner on and they were both very peacefully asleep having done loads of everything today and had a really good day.

I have also noticed and was saying to Julie that despite the increased episodes with Tarly this week – today being a lovely and very welcome exception – I have noticed that the general times are lovelier – she is super affectionate at the moment and spent lots of the walk today either holding my hand or running off to play with the others and then popping back to bring me something she’d found, show me something or just have a quick cuddle and tell me she loved me. I am feeling far less like we are carrying all the rows over and just waiting for the next clash and far more like they episodes are complete and seperate episodes which we deal with and put behind us having either conceded or defeated or compromised and got over. This is good. 🙂 Today has been good. 🙂