Madness abounds

I’m watching Willie’s Wonky Chocolate Factory at the moment. My current book on the go is Scenes from a Smallholding and I’ve just finished It’s Not Easy Being Green. And I’m finding all these pioneering crazy folk very inspirational and almost envying them their hard times stories let alone their ‘and it all turned out okay in the end’ bits. Which if nothing else was telling me the time is right to go and do something a bit mad is doing so very effectively 😆

Today has been a good day, which was slightly surprising as I was sort of anticipating it being tricky really. I was woken with cuddles and snuggles and then presented with handmade cards (Davies’ is utterly fab, it has a picture of him and I holding hands on the front and he’s swiped some of the snipped off hair we used for the puppets to make it a ‘feely card’. Scarlett’s is typically her, she does this sort of reverse Tony Hart thing where she starts off with something really impressive art-wise and then just as you think she is finished and are in awe of her talent she scribbles all over it, 2 year old stylee rather spoiling the conventional loveliness :lol:. They’d also chosen me some gorgeous champagne flutes (we had none and drinking fizz out of half pint wine glasses rather spoils that sophisticated effect ;)), some fizz to go with them and Davies had made me a little box at Beavers with a single ferraro roche inside which the three of us shared.

We talked about watching a film but decided not to and they played with the lego until we needed to pop out to fill my car up with petrol. Granny arrived here first, fairly closely followed by Mum and Dad. Frazer had cried off due to hangover (unsurprising) which meant we all fitted in my car (it should seat seven but one chair is out of action currently). So Dad sat in the very back, Mum sat in the middle with D and S and Granny sat next to me in the front while we drove to Brighton. I chose the road which takes us on a cut through the downs with rather glorious panoramic views of the sea, south downs, Lewes and Shoreham which Granny insisted she’d never been on before and enthused about the beauty of. Davies and Scarlett are currently both on a bit of an environment kick and so were lecturing everyone about not destroying the countryside. I’m proud of their morals on this issue as although information about it has come from me the passion and indignation is all their own.

We arrived at the restaurant slightly late but still had to wait for a table. Experiences differered rather; Davies and Scarlett ate all their food, enjoyed it, loved the freebie colouring in stuff / activity book and behaved like dreams. My food was fine, it was a free lunch and I sat next to Scarlett and opposite Dad so away from the twin potential annoyances of Mum and Granny. Granny seemed to enjoy her meal too but Mum and Dad chose something that they’d run out of and then both said their main meal with crap. To be honest I don’t recall the last time I ate out anywhere and it wasn’t crap really. I think eating in restaurant chains is always going to provide you with food that is basically McDonalds by any other name, it’s hardly about individual chefs producing signature dishes! Dad was brow beaten into driving home so I could have a couple of glasses of wine which meant I sat inbetween Davies and Scarlett on the way home.

Mum and I hung back when everyone else had gone in and sat in the car saying all the worst insults we could come up with about Granny who’d been annoying all the way home. Then laughed lots before going in the house after them. We had a fairly pleasant couple of hours doing some DSing, observing the chickens and finishing off the activities in the kids’ books from the restaurant. Everyone left at about 7pm which was great as I’d had visions of them all kicking around til Ady got home.

After they’d all gone we started ‘Relax Max’ the last in the series of Max books (first is Dear Max which is about story writing, next is Bravo Max about play writing and finally is Relax Max about poetry – and all of this tied in with a very clever storyline and clever idea too). I had a bath and we all watched Ady on telly together. Davies sits with me, watching intently and listening to Ady’s every word, commenting on things like camera angles and whether they’ve applied enough powder to Ady’s head in make up to bring the shine down ;). Scarlett briefly looks up from whatever she’s doing, sort of smiles indulgently at Daddy and then carries on with her drawing or playing 😆 – so blase! Ady did really well again last night, the show was outside (which meant the short sleeved shirt I’d told him he should wear to look spring-like, it being March and Mothers Day and all, was totally unsuitable. And his coat has a big B&Q logo on it so he couldn’t wear that either. He quickly changed into the shirt he’d worn on last night’s show. He was offered the chance of selling someone else’s product but refused as he was exhausted and currently hasn’t cleared with his work to do so, infact two out of the three products he’s sold this weekend are nothing to do with his company anyway, they are sub-contracting him out and charging out his expenses (yes, this does mean everyone seems to be gaining out of the arrangement but him, but it’s all good in terms of our Masterplan of him getting as much exposure and experience at the presenting until he wants to do it freelance and can then negotiate seperately with each company to sell their stuff.).

Davies and Scarlett went to bed and I waited up for Ady who arrived home around 11pm with chinese takeaway – courtesy of the last of his weekend’s expenses.