One word? When seven would do…

so far!

We like Kaiser Chiefs – it’s a Nic, Davies and Scarlett singalong regular in the Nicmobile. This is out current fave by virtue of being on the current mix cd we’re listening too – Lily Allen did a good cover too. But Davies (no idea where he gets it from ;)) likes to add bits to songs, so whenever we listen to it (currently 3.42 times a day) he adds the ‘so far’ (a la Homer in The Simpsons Movie).

This morning we had to go into town first thing to pay the mortgage so I got up very early and was super organised about getting all sorts of stuff (ok it was laundry :oops:) sorted before we left the house. The bank our wages get paid into and I therefore have to withdraw cash from is the opposite end of town to the bank the mortgage gets paid into so I managed to park outside the first bank and run in to get money out and then drive round to the second bank and get a parking space outside that too. As we were so super efficient we had half an hour to kill so I got a parking ticket and we had a quick whizz round a few shops too. In both banks I was given the hard sell about transferring our mortgage across – I always feel like wearing a T shirt to the bank saying ‘I’ve got bad credit, you really don’t want me as a customer’ to try and prevent the barrage of selling techniques for mortgages, loans, credit cards, different bank accounts and everything else that I get every single month. They barely stop short of actually saying ‘you don’t even need to pay the money you borrow back!’ except of course you do – twice over!

We went to a cheap card shop to get some mothers day cards for my Mum and Granny and enjoyed looking at all the various names on the fronts – mother, mum, mummy, stepmother, aunt, gran, granny, nan, nanna, nanny and then all the ‘just like a mother to me’ type ones which surprisingly haven’t stretched yet to things like ‘foster carer’, ‘woman at the supermarket who looks kindly’ and ‘that bird wot used to be hooked up with me dad but isn’t any more’. Davies read ‘I love you Mum’ on the front of a giant teddy bear’s T shirt. We checked out the cheap shoe shop for pretendy crocs as I had a dream last night that the weather was so lovely the kids wanted to wear shorts but couldn’t cos they only have winter boots to wear and they’ve both said they want crocs for summer shoes again this year. No joy though, which is probably sensible given it is February :lol:.

Then we drove over to Brighton where we’d arranged to meet EOFFs at a soft play place called Funplex. This entertained me and the kids and we’d been googling the word ‘plex’ this morning to find out what it meant. We decided it must be short for ‘complex’ as in sports complex, leisure complex etc. and decided it meant a complex of fun, fun or all sorts, a plethora of fun. We re-christened it the ‘Plex of Fun’ – interesting how soft play places need to have quirky and wacky names. I’d scribbled down googlemap directions from their website this morning but got distracted by the fact that the road there was the same one I used to travel on every day when I worked at B&Q Brighton and haven’t infact been down since. Blimey that was 12 years ago! So I was telling D and S about it and the landmarks along the way, the pub on the corner where my heart used to sink every morning because it meant I was Very Close to Work and I bloody hated that job. Then I had to explain why I’d hated the job (I was the department manager of the kitchens and bathrooms department – just 22 and trying to manage a team of 7 staff all old enough to be my parents. Two were utterly crap and incompetant, two were very good and knew it and 3 were just jaded and had seen the likes of me with my youth and upstart attitude come and go many times over the years. The store is in the middle of two of the most notorious council estates in the country, very close to the park where two schoolgirls were kidnapped and murdered from in my childhood and every single order for a new kitchen or bathroom invaribly ended up with me taking irrate phonecalls from customers demanding to know where their ‘fucking worktops are?’. Nightmare job – I lasted six months). And then I realised we’d long gone past the turn off where we were supposed to head as I was far too busy pointing out landmarks to the children.

We drove up and turned round which gave us a fab view over Brighton so we paused a minute to look at that and speculate on the layout of the city. There were a few rows of houses that were built arena style in a semi circle, rising in height and we wondered what they had been built around initially. We did manage to get back on track and quickly found the Plex of Fun. And because all the EOFFers are Home Educatin’ folk they were all Very Late and we were the first there despite being late ourselves. Which meant I got to sit and drink tea and read my book while Davies and Scarlett explored, with the help of the very friendly staff member who came out from behind her desk to ‘show them round’ :).

Eira, Lucy and Mel eventually all arrived and we had a very nice few hours there. Scarlett managed to find £1.30 – a pound, a 10p and a 20p fallen down the side of some of the slides. She did get her arm stuck twice doing so though and had to be rescued by Eira the second time :lol:. She was very pleased with her finds though and even took them to Rainbows for show and tell tonight :lol:. Adults managed chatting and it was a good day.

We left to get home to meet Ady who’d gone off to work without keys so couldn’t get back into the house. We had tea and a brief play before heading back out again. We needed to pay our monthly visit to the butchers so Ady got to come too (funny moment when Mick the butcher asked how the steaks would be cooked (eg fry or grill) and I just pointed to Ady and said ‘by him!’ which amused the couple of people queuing behind us :lol:. Then we headed to Tesco to get Ady a new shirt to wear on telly this weekend :).

Home for a quick dash back out again for Tarly and I to Rainbows. We’d been gearing up for her to stay by herself this week as Ady was anticipating leaving for London earlier but she really had got quite worked up about it and he decided to arrive later and stay to be with Davies so I could stay with Tarly instead. I paid her subs tonight and for her Rainbow t shirt too and she is being enrolled next week. Davies and Ady can come along too and we’ve talked about her maybe staying alone the week after. We’ll see. In the same way as we gave her back her dummies after two weeks of torture a couple of years ago having realised that something making one of them so unhappy is simply not the right thing to be doing, nor in line with our parenting philosophies I think leaving her for the sake of leaving her rather than because I don’t have another option is not something I’d be comfortable with, much though I think we all know she *would* be fine.

They did colouring in cardboard dolls and cutting them out, then colouring in rainbows uniforms from other places in the world and cutting them out to go on, in the style of the dress up dolls you used to get in Twinkle comics :). One of the little girls clearly had made it her mission to befriend Scarlett tonight and she is seeming to fit in well there, growing in confidence and being more herself. I chatted to the leader for a while tonight too – she was telling me that she is in the middle of the application process to be a foster carer. She has no children of her own but has been a guide / rainbow / brownie leader for 12 years and clearly has a lot to give.

We got home and Ady headed off – he’s QVCing at 9am tomorrow morning, 1am Sunday morning and again at 8pm on Sunday night, so he’s away tonight, back tomorrow morning and then off again tomorrow evening and back late Sunday. The trade off is that he is off Monday and Tuesday. I’m working in the morning so Dad is coming over to look after Davies and Scarlett til Ady gets home, which means I won’t be able to watch him on air. He’s on again both days next weekend but currently we’re planning to go up with him.