One word? When seven would do…

Yesterday felt like hard work while I was there but with the perspective of a day it all remembers just fine. We went to Lucy’s for the day where Tarly got to do plenty of kitten-worshipping, Davies got to do plenty of playing really well with and then falling out dramatically with Rebecca and I got to chat lots to Lucy. Although predictably I don’t think we ever quite finished any of our conversations :lol:.

The children and I had some interesting conversations about thinking things through, cause and effect and consequences of actions – which sounds quite heavy but it wasn’t really. I had a bit of a rant about how little they have to be responsible for / think about as children in comparison to how much adults have to think about (eg dinner, getting home, driving the car, telling them off all at the same time!) and then did one of my dramatic speeches about how being a grown up and particularly a stay at home HE mother was bloody hard work, demanding to know whether either of them would have wanted to be me for the day (eh?! Eh?! EHHHHHH?!!!!!!) and then telling them I just wanted five minutes when noone called me Mummy. Davies predictably asked how he was supposed to get my attention then and whether Granny would be a more acceptable way of addressing me? Which hit home on way more levels than he realised 😆 :lol:.

I read lots of Famous Five to them, mostly because we were at a real page turner bit and I wanted to know what happened too 😆 We should finish it tonight – second book in the series and it’s been exactly what I hoped it would be, engaging enough to draw them both in to listening and painting their own mental pictures instead of relying on illustrations, ideal to read over several sittings and have them recall the various bits of the story and spawning various conversations about things, in particular the ‘girls are a bit crap’. I’m very aware that I am quite opinionated and often my views are a bit ‘out there’ on things. While I try really hard to portray my ideas as just that – my ideas rather than fact and to be big on the idea that tolerance and respect of others views is really important I do know I am often so passionate about what I’m saying that I do put it across as fact so it’s nice to discover that Davies and Scarlett are developing questionning and challenging natures and wanting to get more information about things that jar with them as not quite right. And it’s good that my own little girl is enough of her own person to recognise the flaws and not need to identify with either the stupidly girlie and rather hopeless Anne or the denying she’s a girl and showing no signs of emotion George. FF books are great, I love the picture of childhood they paint with freedom, adventure and righting wrongs all in a school holiday’s work and the idea of rowing boats, climbing cliffs, camping out and so on all of which are totally outside of today’s normal 12year olds reach but equally the innocence and romance of the nearly-teens who would probably be obsessed with rather different pursuits nowadays!

Scarlett was awake lots in the night with a bad cough which came from nowhere. She woke one morning at the hotel in London the other week coughing and was croaky-voiced all day – which she loved, she kept talking for the sake of it just because she liked the way her voice sounded 😆 and I put it down to the aircon in the room drying her throat. She’s been cough-y again today at times and not for the first time I’ve wondered whether she might be asthmatic. Many a time I have stood over her in her sleep listening to a barking croup-y cough and watching her struggle for breath, it’s clearly a weakness for her :(.

Today Julie had organised her annual ‘it’s much too early for bluebells so I don’t know why we’re calling it a bluebell walk bluebell walk’ although of course that’s my name for it, Julie just calls it a Bluebell Walk ;). This year I had managed my own expectations and knew there was not a cat in hell’s chance of actually seeing a bluebell and plan to go on a Bluebell Walk in two weeks time when there will be bluebells aplenty, seas of blue, carpets of purple and you’ll not be able to take a single step without crushing hundreds of bluebells underfoot. We were predictably running late although that was my fault as I was burning a new cd to listen to in the car (LSOH Soundtrack). We arrived, as ever taking wrong turns as we went but being positive and cheery natured folk we labelled them as scenic diversions whilst singing along loudly to our music and seeing who could spot the most pheasants (giddy creatures!). We had to stop just before we got there as there was tree cutting going on which all looked very interesting.

D and S got wellied up and we headed off to catch the others up. We soon found them lurking at some really cool trees for climbing on and about to head off. Julie was there with Jack and Maisie, three of her regular friends, E, K and P who she sees several times a week for various HE get togethers and a new family of an American woman and her two smalls – boy aged about 2 and baby girl aged 6 months. I know K and E and their respective 5 children from various events over the years fairly well but it was the first time I’d met P and her 3 children. Between all of us we had 14 children from 0 through to 8 so it was a nice mix of children who mostly know each other so that was good. 🙂 I spoke to J the new woman for a while and then walked most of the way with Julie.

Davies ran ahead from the beginning but he’s done that walk about 5 times now so knows it well so that was fine. Tarly was holding my hand and chatting to Julie and I while collecting an impressive array of flint stones and one which is almost certainly an animal tooth or claw – quite impressive, Ady reckons we should take it to a museum to get it identified. At one point Tarly had stopped to admire the ‘twinkling grass’ (dew) and I walked slightly ahead with Julie. Suddenly I had Tarly wailing out of my sight behind me about me coming back to look at something she’d seen and Davies calling (albeit in a lighthearted fashion) for ‘help’up infront. Julie headed off to check on Davies and I went back to Scarlett.

By the time I got to Davies he had gathered an impressive audience of awe struck children and adults mostly waiting to see what my reaction would be. It was to laugh, tell him I would help him but needed to take a photo first and then get everyone else to look amazed at him for the photo 😆

The children all looked very respectful of both Davies (cool adventuror) and I (tolerant and indulgent cool mother) while their mothers looked horrified at us both (wild, out of control child and crazy mother!) and all whispered threats to their children about what would happen to them if they did such a foolish thing. As the only children not whispered to it fell to Davies and Scarlett to stand welly deep in the next pond we came across while small girls gasped about ‘what will Davies do next ?’to each other and ‘oh look his sister is equally crazy, wonder where they get it from’ about Scarlett. I laughed again, helped them out and told them if they did it again I would not laugh, I would leave them there while I walked slowly back to the car to fetch a rope to throw them to pull themselves out :).They didn’t do it again :lol:.

We saw loads of birds including a pair of herons and a swallow so even if we saw no bluebells and my children were lunatics it was a really nice walk. And Davies’ wet wellies made very amusing sound effects walking round which entertained him and I lots (probably compounding the other’s views of us as rather weird!). As we nearly finished the walk which is a big circle, ending with a section along the road before arriving back at the car park we came across the tree cutters just winching one of the men up into a tree.I asked if we’d be safe to stand and watch as it was quite interesting and Maisie stood to watch with Davies, Scarlett and I as he harnessed himself up and then pulled himself up the tree. One of the other men confessed he wasn’t going up there to cut branches, he’d just forgotten to undo the knot in the rope before he’d come down earlier so had to go back up to do it :lol:. They chatted to us a bit and then we caught up to the others who’d settled down to picnic.

Julie had said she’d arranged the walk for earlier than usual so we didn’t need to bring lunch but she’d meant on the actual walk so everyone else had lunch with them. Fortunately I’d brought a packet of rice cakes so D and S demolished them and everyone talked about HomeEd communities and expressed great surprise that we don’t ‘belong’ to any organisation. K’s car was parked on the verge just infront of us and at one point all the children were in it (Volvo estate) with someone sat in the passenger front seat with an upside down map and several of the children having taken branches of pine trees inside. It amused us greatly that the children seemed to have set up their own council inside with someone seeming to get evicted every so often so we entertained ourselves doing Big Brother style commentary about it for a while 😆


I’d had half a plan to pop over to the animal shelter place over that way and see if the kittens there were out and about yet but Davies’s trousers and socks were too wet to wear for much longer and I’ve not replaced the spare clothes in my car since I last cleared them out as they were too small so we came home. Davies and Scarlett had a bath and we had a quiet half and hour or so for me to drink tea.

We needed to go to the butchers so they got dressed again and we popped along there. Half a cow was resting on the butchers block ready to be cut into joints so that was very interesting and there was much talk about jointing, tieing and so on, D and S had both taken Mick the butcher a couple of their everlasting Quality Street easter tins from Great Granny which were gratefully recieved and he answered questions about topics as diverse as his mincing machine which was made in 1967 and whether he watches Doctor Who (for anyone interested in the viewing habits of our local butcher he’s not watching the current series although he used to watch it back in the 70s /80s and no, he doesn’t watch Primeval either! :lol:). He taught them how to use the bag sealer machine and they were tasked with doing that for all our purchases today :).

Once home we decided to watch Curious George so all cuddled up infront of that, the children had dinner and then I finished the Famous Five book just as Ady arrived home.