I was in bed at around midnight last night which is becoming early for me. I don’t want to be in bed much later but as I don’t seem to need any more than about 7 hours sleep I don’t want to be in bed much earlier either as I’d rather be around late at night than early in the morning given the choice.
Anyway, it meant I laid semi-awake for a good 15 minutes before checking the clock to realise it was still before 8am this morning, which was a pleasant surprise. So I got up and dressed and came downstairs to find the children were both already up too. So we had breakfasted (them), drunk tea (me), hung out laundry, let out and fed the chickens all before 830am. We then read a couple of books including Nicola Davies’ most excellent ‘Poo’ with Davies reading a fair few of the words.
Today’s mission was to get black shoes for Davies for Badgers. We had a Grand trying on session of their Badger clothes and Scarlett has gone into trousers rather than the skirt she wore last term as it means she doesn’t have to wear socks with her shoes. It also makes her look much older and taller somehow but I’m ignoring that ;). I removed badges from Davies’ too-small jumper (I assume it’s shrunk in the wash I’m so used to him not growing now!) and sewed one onto Scarlett’s jumper and then we headed out.
Davies got a £5 Woolworths voucher in a birthday card yesterday and I had a skirt I’d bought for Scarlett that is too big to return so Woolies was our first stop. We went to the Lancing branch but they had nothing Davies wanted, no black shoes and a big queue at the returns desk so we decided to go to Shoreham instead as there is a bigger branch there. While in Lancing we saw Anne and 3 of her children (local HE family who we used to see at groups, and I now see fairly regularly as they are very frequent library users) and Kate and her 2 children (another local HE family) to wave to. The children commented on the coincidence but we decided it was just that we were suddenly visible again now everyone else is back at school!
We drove around for nearly 20 minutes trying to find a parking space in Shoreham which was very frustrating. We pulled into a car park but then realised I had no change so couldn’t get a pay and display ticket then Davies discovered a pound in his door so we went to another carpark and paid to park. Woolworths came up trumps with a pair of shoes for a fiver, a Ben 10 figure that Davies wanted and with the returned skirt the shoes only cost me £1.50 :). Davies hates them btw, says they are comfortable but look ‘horrible, all schooly’ said with a shudder! 😆 He is happy to wear them for his one hour a week and even insisted I bought the cheaper pair in favour of the slightly nicer ones that he prefered the look of as ‘it’s not worth the money Mummy when I won’t like them anyway!’.
I rang Lucy as arranged to see if they were up for getting together and we called round there for lunch. It was not one of our better visits and we really should learn that once a week is enough to force the childrens’ company on each other 🙁 .We managed to leave on a high though and came home for early tea. We remembered our planned experiment which we recreated with a piece of paper and a plastic ball and managed to find the distance each had to be held above ground so that they hit the floor at the same time – I had to stand on the sofa with the plastic held above my head, Davies had to hold the paper at his knee level. Then we looked at two identical pieces of paper and screwed one up, folded one, tore one in half etc. Unfortunately I don’t know enough to be able to decide quite what we were proving with our experiments but both children were great at knowing which would be fastest. I think we’d all be pretty resistent to me trying to ‘teach’ them anything but I would like to find some ideas / experiments / resources that at the very least educated me about what’s happening so I can explain it better when it happens. I’ll see if there are any suitable books to borrow from work.
Then it was time for Badgers and I commented that they both looked smart in their uniforms (they did) and we had an interesting discussion about uniforms and what we thought of them. Neither of them are in favour of looking like everyone else or indeed being told how to look but agree that it is worth it for Badgers but would prefer to wear their own clothes to express themselves more. It’s the second such conversation we’ve had this week as it inevitably led to school uniforms and we’d talked about different people’s experience of school on Monday. I never know whether I have indoctrinated Davies and Scarlett with my ideas or whether in the environment of talking openly about ideas and different things they are just more open to coming to their own conclusions but I do feel proud when they talk about wanting to be indivdiuals and themselves rather than crowd followers.
Scarlett was wobbly about Badgers for most of the day although I wasn’t really sure what element of it she was not happy about so I’d said she had to come along with me to drop off Davies and she might as well wear her uniform incase she changed her mind and wanted to stay. When we pulled up and the leaders waved through the window at us they were both wobbly and given the change would have turned round and come home again. Davies was fine as soon as his friend Kallum arrived and when I explained to Julie that Scarlett was feeling a little unsure about whether she wanted to be a Badger this term Julie started telling Scarlett about all the things they have planned for the term and she quickly changed her mind. I would have happily brought her home with me again if she’d been genuinely sure she didn’t want to stay but as I suspected it was more that the 8 week break has been a long one and for a 5 year old is just too big to step straight back into without a bit of feeling nervous.
Ady pulled up as I walked out of the door so he and I went for a long walk around town which was nice – we get so little time just the two of us it is lovely to walk along holding hands, not being interupted and have the luxury of finishing every sentence. Unfortunately I have felt increasingly coldy throughout the day and was not so good at getting to the end of a sentence without forgetting what had been at the beginning of it anyway so wasn’t talking a lot of sense (and my sentences can be quite long and unwieldy anyway and don’t always make sense so poor Ady was onto a loser!).
When we went in to collect them they were both buzzing and Scarlett went home with Ady and Davies with me so I got some exclusive Davies-time which is always nice :). They both went to sleep fairly quickly and we watched The Bucket List which we both thought was excellent.
Galileo stood on the Tower of Piza not a sofa 😛
I remember A finding some good stuff on that, will see if I can find links. Really should reorganise my favourites lists can’t find anything in there these days!
And D has grown loads lately!!!!!
We saw the Bucket List a few weeks ago. We both thought it was excellent too. It’s the sort of film I like.
The point of the experiment is that things fall at the same speed regardless of their weight/mass. Which was a bit of a breakthrough, because it had been assumed that heavier things would fall quicker. Of course, a flat piece of paper will encounter air resistance and float about, but a screwed-up piece will fall as fast as a ball, or lump of lead, or whatever.
And Kallum with a K? Was it wrong of me to laugh?
So, how many liqueur chocolates have you eaten today? 😉
No I laughed too – I only realised when they came in the library last week that it was spelt with a K – still doesn’t beat Natlee though 😆
Ordered loads of books about physics and experiments today at work so will be able to tackle that properly over the next few weeks.
And Alison – none yet, on complete rations with cash as have £19 to last us til next Wednesday but love you for knowing what that meant X
A Marketing Manager I once worked with called her daughter Shevorn. And though I’ve been told it’s a perfectly acceptable spelling, I can’t quite feel happy with Neve.