Wood on the beach

ain’t no big surprise.

I weakened today to the siren song of January sale shopping. Yes I know January is almost over (but I’ve not have any money for most of it) but often you get the best bargains right at the end of the sales anyway. I did several loads of washing, sorted out the chickens, talked to Ady several times on the phone, put away the laundry mountain that was threatening to topple over in our bedroom, did a freezer inventory and spent a bit of time online on various things.

Davies and Scarlett played xbox together (Shrek superparty, Scarlett’s getting good :)) having tidied up their rooms together – first Scarlett’s and then Davies’. I love it when they cooperate so well like that, Wonderpets and the teamwork song has a lot to take credit for :lol:.

We drove to Littlehampton where I managed to rein myself in to just making one small purchase of a new top for £3. Retail therapy had, finances remained intact, all well and the world still turning. I can control it, I just need to test myself sometimes to make it a real decision not to buy something rather than simply denying myself the option if that makes sense? On the way we talked about architecture which is a recurring interest of Davies’. We drove past the Body Shop HQ which is a big building on a roundabout with placards showing the posters of whatever their current campaign is, two lifesize figures and oriental style buildings. Davies pointed them out and said ‘that building looks like it’s from Spirited Away’ so we talked about building styles depending on the countries they were in, the materials available and the climate they are in, whether they need to be waterproof, windproof, keep inside warmer or cooler than outside, provide shelter from animals and so on. We discussed different materials used and things like double glazing etc. Then we talked about buildings built for different purposes (houses, shops, churches, schools) and the period they were built in. Just sitting in the carpark we could see a church built single storey with very pointy roof, arched windows and chimneys with many pots and a flint wall; a row of terraced houses with chimneys with one pot each, very small square windows, flatter, squatter roofs and rendered walls and some modern purpose built shops with flats above with no chimneys, double glazed larger windows and chalet style dormers in the very wide roofs. Davies and Scarlett pointed out all the differences and we talked about reasons why and dated which would have been built first, second and latest. There is a very tall multi storey car park in the middle of Worthing which I must take them to the top of so we can look down and see the massive variety of properties built in the town centre and try and date some of them sometime soon.

We left there and drove back through Worthing stopping briefly along the coast road to leap out and get another view of all the wood on the beach. There were loads of people down there with cameras and a lone windsurfer defying all the advice about not surfing off the beach here. We could see the machines trying to make some dent in the enormous piles of wood washed up. It will surely take weeks to clear the beaches there is just sooo much wood washed up. We’d have stayed longer but it was really windy, cold and rainy so it was rather less than pleasant stood right on the beach and we weren’t really dressed for it. Home via the post office to send a couple of Amazon marketplace sold books off – I will clear the bookshelves here enough to actually fit all the books we want to keep on them!

We’ve been talking about Cat in the Hat (the film) this weekend as for some reason Davies and I started saying ‘you’re firrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeD!’ like Mr Humberfloob in the film but about half an hour in they got fed up of that and got the gears!gears!gears! out instead. They worked together on building something while I spent ages searching for suitable Spring NicCamps venues and emailing places for quotes. When the levels of cooperation started to wane slightly I just wordlessly stuck on a Horrible Histories dvd (I’ve got the complete set of 26 episodes from work and have had for weeks now) and they both crept over to watch the first 3 – Stone Age, Egyptians and Greeks. I watched some of it with them actually, they are really good, just the right mix of interesting information delivered in a humorous and fun way without being patronising or education-lite. They had sausages for tea and then Ady arrived home in time for me to drop Davies off at Beavers and nip to Tescos for a few food essentials and a new swimsuit for Scarlett, while he played Snakes and Ladders with Scarlett in our absense. I was back in time to drop the car and shopping home then walk back round to collect Davies. On the way home we discussed silly ideas for badges you could earn and had a surreal moment where he spotted the first star and said it ‘is definitely a star, not a helicopter or plane’ which for some reason I misheard as ‘not a helicopter or an egg’ and made us laugh with the lunacy of such a mad idea! 😆

Ady read them a couple more chapters from ‘My Naughty Little Sister’ which is the current book and then they went to bed. At the weekend Ady cut his finger and Davies got him a plaster and said he liked doing first aid and wished he had a proper first aid kit so Ady brought him one home from work with all the proper contents. This coupled with reading about the doctor calling on my naughty little sister in last nights chapter has set him thinking about careers apparently and he reappeared when I was in the bath with a namebadge proclaiming ‘Davies the doctor. First Aid. Here is my number …’ with our telephone number and a green and white cross sign. He wanted us to print them and ‘put them around town’ so people can phone him when they need a doctor to call. This prompted a chat about why you can’t just do that, what sort of training doctors have, how many different sorts of doctors there are and the various people we actually know who are doctors and what they specialise in. He decided he’d like to be a GP or family doctor but then said he wanted to do the first aid side of it so we talked about paramedics which led to his real ambition which is to make the medicines. We talked about various training to do that and the idea of being a chemist or pharmacist. This interest is rather a departure from all previous possible ideas and I am not at all sure where to go to follow it up really but I told him about the safety day we’re planning to attend in April with fire, police and ambulance services, that he should talk to them at Badgers more about SJA role in medicine and first aid and we’ll talk more about what aspect it is of the whole thing which appeals to him.

Tomorrow we’ve got an estate agent coming round to value the house for the first part in the Grand Plan so we can start to look properly at our options, Liza and Andrew are coming round for chatting, playing, tea drinking and then it’s swimming lessons. I’m off out to an author talk at Southwick library in the evening too. Busy, busy, busy!