Though your nose gets a chillin’

I was expecting a parcel this morning – in as much as it was posted first class yesterday so I assume it would be here this morning – but it didn’t arrive. We waited in for it though as I hate having to go and collect stuff from the post office, you can never park there and it’s really hassly dragging the children down there.

Davies and Scarlett played with the toy animals for hours really nicely while I tried to think of things to do with myself and failed to get motivated by any of them. Eventually the post arrived (minus parcel – grr) so we headed out to the local post office where I had a parcel of my own to post, a Christmas card to Ireland and needed to buy stamps for a load of UK Christmas cards. It was sunny and bright, if very cold, so we wrapped up warm and walked there. Davies gave us lessons in road safety, Scarlett did ‘very fast running’ and we looked at the various Christmas decorations people had put up along the way. The post office was pretty busy – we were fourth in the queue when we arrived and at least another six people were behind me by the time we left. The post office is one side of a newsagents shop which has a tall central shelving unit running through the middle to seperate the PO counters from the papers, sweets and magazine and the newsagents till. Davies and Scarlett wandered round looking at things and came to ask for sweets. I’d already said before we went that I had no money for sweets so I reiterated that, upon which Davies pulled a couple of pennies from his pocket and said he had enough to buy a penny sweet each for him and Tarly, eliciting ‘ahhhs’ from all the people in the queue. I said that would be ok and he needed to go and talk to the newsagents counter lady to find out where their penny sweets were so they went and queued up there and asked really nicely, to which she came out from behind the counter to show them. I’d found 8p in my pocket in coppers so I gave that to Davies and he split it between him and Scarlett and they spent ages selecting their sweets and then paying for them. Then the woman behind me spotted a penny on the floor and drew it to Scarlett’s attention so she went off to buy another sweet. She started talking to me then and saying how sweet and polite they both were and then asked if she might give them a few pennies each. It was all very Millie Molly Mandy 😆 – she gave Davies 5 pence and so he went off and bought a few more sweets by which time I had sent my parcel and bought my stamps and Scarlett was telling the woman all about her birthday and what she wants for Christmas. All very sweet :).

We walked home, talked a lot about cement mixers when we saw one in action and then tried to get our shadows to do things like hold hands, pat each other on the head and so on. Davies had requested cheese scones for lunch so I got them going while Davies and Scarlett went to visit the bantams. They called me in as the next door neighbour had leaned over the fence and asked for me and wanted to pass me some little Christmas gifts for them :). I hung various loads of washing out, brought some in off the line to air (I’m into the swing of my winter laundry routine you’ll all be pleased to hear ;)) and then we sat down with cheese scones and Christmas films – Polar Express followed by Rudolph and the Island of Misfit Toys then How the Grinch Stole Christmas. We’ve still got the Grinch on but they are playing with geomags while watching it and I am shivering and drinking lots of tea to try and get warm. Swimming lessons in a while and Ady won’t be home so Tarly will have to come out with me :(.