In my opinionation the sun is gonna surely shine…

taken from the theme tune of which show of your youth?

Seem to have forgotten to blog yesterday. I am suffering a bit of blog apathy at the moment, not that I don’t have anything to say or record, not that it’s all good or all bad, simply that I just can’t be arsed to sit and type loads. I know 😯

So, yesterday was Valentines Day wasn’t it? Not something we do a great deal for here really. Infact with the exception of my husband I have only ever had two Valentines Day gifts – both on the same day – the VD I was 17 and was with my first boyfriend, Will, who took me out for dinner and bought me a ‘To My Girlfriend’ card, thus spoiling the mystery a little and some red carnations (I *hate* carnations!). The other was from the boy I sat next to in A level Economics (it will surprise no one that I dropped A level Economics after the first year 😉 ) – David. Was just about to retell that story and went and searched to find I’ve blogged it before here which saves Chris the job of going to find it and me the job of typing it again! 😉 There you go, I’ve actually already told you everything about me once already, if not twice – I need to reinvent myself and get some new anecdotes! 😆 Our first Valentines Day together was two weeks after we moved in here – we have it on home video somewhere. A was working late, I made him a meal and dressed up including high heel shoes which was even more comedic as we only had bare floorboards at the time with big gaps which my heels kept getting stuck in. Our entire furniture at the time comprised our bed, my Granny’s old dining room table which lived in the kitchen as our only work surface and her 4 chairs which were our lounge seating along with a boxing glove shaped beanbag from my bedroom when I was 10. We sat eating at one small chipboard occassional table and ate spaghetti bolognaise and a lemon meringue pie which I’d tried to make from a packet mix in a heart shaped tin I’d bought specially but was too big for the mixture so was all very thin layers. I didn’t whisk the meringue enough and coloured it with pink food dye which made it all the more runny so it just set like a biscuit on the top 😆 It snowed that night so the end of the video it cuts to the outside of our house with snow falling. Ah the romance!

So yesterday A sent me a very romantic text message complete with a picture, I sent him one back and he presented me with a box of chocolates in the evening. He also bought home a big pile of films including a couple of romcoms so we watched one of those together. And that did us for hearts and flowers really. 🙂

I worked in the morning, fairly busy which makes the time fly by and Lucy and the children walked to meet me. D & S chose some books each so I got those out for them along with a pile of films and cds I’d already chosen then we all went back to Lucy’s for a couple of hours. Scarlett and Rebecca are playing nicely together at the moment – it is very clear that they are both making huge efforts with each other rather than a genuine connection at this stage, but hopefully the fact they are prepared to make the effort will forge a bond for the future. They are very much hampered by the dynamics of having their brothers around – they both enjoy playing with each other’s brother but then get jealous of that happening. And Davies is cunning enough to capitalise on this when it happens to stir things up a bit too. For all her bravado Scarlett is a very compassionate child who thinks a lot of others and regularly talks about her friends and things that remind them of her. She is aware of their favourite things to do, colours, games they like to play and so on and will refer to that a lot, so she has spotted what Rebecca likes and is very capable of drawing it into a conversation to find common ground and Rebecca is much the same, knowing which of her toys Scarlett might like and showing her them and letting her play with them. Its nice. 🙂

We came home and I cooked the kids’ tea which they had to eat quick to get Davies changed and ready for Badgers. Ady got home just in time for us to leave Scarlett with him and I sat in the car with my book and a bag of sweets while Davies went in and learnt magic tricks! On the way he noticed how it was much lighter than it had been last Wednesday when we’d driven to Badgers and I explained about longest day and shortest day, daylight hours, and sunrise / sunset etc. I did that way of explaining things where you act like some sort of thesaurus simply stating the same thing using different words rather than actually explaining it more fully, but he demonstrated he’d grasped it by telling me it was like steps going up a hill, getting steeper and steeper (lighter and lighter) until they reached the top (longest day) and then going back down again (getting darker and darker) until they reached the bottom (shortest day) before starting again. I told him that the gap between his two hills was called a valley, which he liked and later in the bath showed me a valley of an upside down humped bridge between two islands on Tarly’s Dora bath toy. He also explained it all to Ady too, pretty much word perfect. 🙂 We’re planning to note how light or dark it is each week on the drive to Badgers. 🙂

Today we were up and off and out to meet Julie, Jack and Maisie at Highdown for a walk. I noted with some delight that the daffodils are very nearly out and as soon as they are I will be classifying our walks as Spring Walks – just to delight Chris ;). I spent my last fiver on petrol which barely took the gague off the red – it’s been a lean month 🙁 and we listened to our Hooked On Classics talking about how so much of the music has been used in adverts and films. We listened to the Swan Lake and Nutcracker music and I explained how the music was used for ballets and how the Barbie films are based on those ballets. Tarly said she’d like to go to the ballet so I promised to keep an eye out for Swan Lake near us – I assume it will not be a frequent occurance!

Our walk was lovely, the sun was shining, it was mild and still and signs of spring were all around. For the first time ever the sundial in the millennium garden there was readable and showing the right time. 🙂 D was delighted, I was cross that I’d not brought my camera! (just sticking this link in for future reference, might be a cool thing to make.) The four of them ran around having a great time for an hour or so, Julie and I caught up with each other and arranged to meet again at the weekend with men, for another walk.

Our plan had been for us to come home for lunch and then drop Tarly off to Lucy’s for a chance to play with Rebecca while Davies and I spent some time together. Davies painted a flat piece of wood last week with the intention of making Shrek’s swamp and wanted to make a house for it and some characters. I’d said we’d make them from fimo when Tarly wasn’t around so that was our planned activity. Unfortunately despite being really up for it earlier in the morning Scarlett suddenly got cold feet about not being with Davies (a little bit about me too, but less so), and started to get quite upset when pushed on it. As the idea was for it to be a treat all round I called that arrangement off and Tarly stayed with us and we all fimo’d together. We google image searched and I made Shrek and Fiona while Davies made Donkey, Gingey (gingerbread man) and Lord Faarquad (which yes, he does pronounce in an innocently amusing way :lol:). I actually thought there was very little to choose between them (more a testament to his skill than my crapness obviously!) and Tarly made a little me while being very eagle eyed managed to ensure she didn’t waste a scrap! That got baked while they got out Barbies and Rita and Roddy from Flushed Away (one of the films Ady brought home, already watched 3 times!). I took a load of black and white pictures of the children, trying to capture them playing and as they are with their many expressions. I didn’t manage it but will have another try at that soon.

The fimo was ready so that came out and was introduced into the Barbie meets Flushed Away game adding an even more surreal twist. Lucy arrived with R & R who played more alongside D&S than with them as they were pretty engrossed in their game already.

And that’s about it really, it’s been a good day today. Davies has been far happier for some exercise and out and about ness in the morning, followed by some good sit down focussed time with me and some nice playing with Tarly. I’ve been pondering about various things to do with him of late and will no doubt blog about them at some point but I am feeling like we’ve come out of a small and tricky phase having learnt and readjusted once again. I also talked to Julie about my job and childcare and she reiterated her offer to help all of which reassures me that it is possible to carry on without having to resort to proper paid childcare with all the crap and hassle that could bring.

Working all day tomorrow – Ady is home in the morning and Dad is here in the afternoon and then, after that, woo and also hoo, it’s the weekend! 🙂