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I went to bed around midnight last night and Davies was already in my bed. He almost always sleeps with me when Ady is away and in many ways I don’t mind it but I never sleep quite so well with a child in the bed as I do when they’re not. He didn’t get to sleep until at least 11pm maybe later so predictably when the alarm went off at 7am I had to wake him and prod him at least 3 times to get up before he actually did.

We needed to get to Liza’s house and drop Davies and Scarlett off and then for me to get back to the library. I calculated at least an hour, possibly more and managed to chivvy us out of the house with about 70 minutes before I needed to be at work. They both ate in the car, I took a camping mug with a lid with my tea and I dressed Scarlett while she was still drinking milk – it all felt a bit like I was one of Wallace and Gromit’s morning routine contraptions :lol:. The roads were surprisingly quiet but that will be down to the school holidays rather than my forgetting what rush hour is like. Drop off was successful and I was in the library car park at 824am and didn’t need to be there for another 20 minutes. I drank my tea, spilling a huge splash down my pale cream top which I managed to mostly hide with my name badge but I was aware of all morning.

Work was steady and went quite quickly without event. Then back to Liza’s for a quick cup of tea and mini catch up with her before taking two reluctant children away. Thanks again Liza, they really came away full of having had a great time and how much they’d enjoyed playing with Andrew :). I’d realised on the drive to collect them just how near to Booth Museum we were so we called in there for half an hour as we passed and there was a parking space right outside. I’ve promised a longer visit next time as it really was a quick glance round and there is so much to stop and linger over there. We talked a bit about the skeletons and the differences between humans and gorilla skeletons and they played for a while on a ‘make your own scene for a stuffed animal’ area before it was time to go.

By the time we got home I had completely slumped. Hormone and tiredness related :(. I managed to persuade D & S to play something quietly without the need for my interaction and made myself a sandwich. I ate it too quick, gave myself chronic indigestion to add to my list of woes and sat with my laptop and just entered every competition I could find, finding the monotony of filling out boxes with my name and address quite lulling. Davies watched a Horrible Histories and Scarlett went out to play with the chickens. She came in covered in a huge stream of poo from Scruffy the poorly one and said she thought he might be dead, having been alive when she went out there and then going limp in her arms. I suspected she might be right and she may well be covered in the final bowel release consequence but the energy required to wash her clothes out and shower her quite made me forget to go and check :oops:.

Davies had tea, Scarlett didn’t want any having been eating french bread all afternoon. Ady rang me about 27 times with updates on his journey home and his car – the latest is he will either collect a courtesy car or his own, very speedily repaired car tomorrow. When we realised he was going to be cutting it fine to arrive at the blood donation appointment I arranged to meet him there if he could make it and wait for him there to bring him home.

Davies and Scarlett wanted to come into the initial blood test bit with me which the guy was initially nervous about and made them put their fingers in their ears while he asked me if I had been pregnant in the last year or could be pregnant now. As soon as they’d taken their fingers out of their ears they asked me what he’d said and I told them 😆 I can understand the need for caution, particularly as some of the questions are things like ‘have you ever accepted money as payment for sex?’ which I possibly would be less keen to explain to them but that question was fine. Scarlett wanted to know about the two different coloured test tubes of liquid for dropping blood into for testing so the man haltingly at first, and with more explanation as he realised they were both listening and understanding what he was telling them told them about that.

My record of giving blood is not great – before tonight I’d been four times and only managed to donate twice. My first time they had had trouble with my veins and had to abort trying having injected in both arms and cocked it up. The second time was fine, the third time my iron levels were too low and the fourth time was fine. Tonight I increased my previous 50% success rate to 60% :).

Davies and Scarlett had loads more questions at the actual donating bit including; why is the blood bag kept in a rocking container (it has anti coagulation stuff added to it and that mixes it in), how the pufffy thing works that is used to tighten the band around your arm (they both got to have a go at the puffy thing), how much blood you give, how much blood you’ve got, how your body replenishes what’s been taken, how long people have been giving blood for and more.

I learnt that blood donation has only been happening for about 55 years and it is as a result of blood transfusions and odd success rate patterns that the existance of blood groups was discovered (hence explaining why some people had died). The two people taking the blood donation learnt all about Home Education as they asked when the kids were going back to school and I was hesitant to lie incase it led to further questions. The man was very impressed especially as they were so full of questions and curiosity and were so clearly taking in what was being said to them and what they were seeing. :).

Ady arrived mid-donation and as usual almost caught me up as his blood flows very quick while mine is very slow. We had tea and coffee (and water with straws for the children) and snaffled plenty of the biscuits and chocolate on offer.

Next came a quick walk round the supermarket for various bits on the way home. Home and bed for Davies and Scarlett, the discovery that Scruffy was indeed dead (Scarlett was pleased that when he did go it had been while she was holding him and we’d been anticipating it for literally weeks so it was no great shock, although sad 🙁 ), a very hot bath which sapped the very last of my energy and yet another very late dinner.

And now to bed.