First thing Davies and Scarlett did some brio-ing. They don’t actually play with the track once it’s set up much but they do spend ages building elaborate and complicated tracks. It’s interesting to watch. I leafed through some allotment books and offered to read them a story but they declined.
My food shop arrived about 1030am so I was busy with that for over an hour. It was cheerfully delivered by a ‘cheeky young man’ who made me feel ancient and housewifely merely by making me think of him as both ‘cheeky’ and ‘young’ but a marked difference from the grumpy Sainsburys driver. It was all delivered fine with nice long BBE dates and the couple of substitutions they’d made were all supplied with the next brand up at the price of what I’d ordered so that was a result – they say on their website that they are proud to be the only supermarket who do that. Sainsburys have pissed me off more than once by substituting wine on half price offers with wine at the same full price and then taking a week to re-credit me when I have sent them back.
A month’s worth of food shopping takes a lot of putting away though so continued exercise this week of the bending, stretching and lifting variety. I was inspired by the arrival of some oats to make some flapjacks and had just got them ready to go in the oven when my Mum arrived. We had a cup of tea and then Scarlett came and begged to do some baking too so my Mum took Davies off with her for half an hour to do a few things while Tarly and I made some snickerdoodles, then they came back and we all had lunch.
Mum did leave her job in the end and is currently job hunting and has an interview tomorrow for which she needed photocopies of her passport and nat ins card so we popped to the library to do that on the way to swimming lessons.
Davies went in the big pool alone while Tarly had her lesson and practised his jumping in. His instructor noticed him and went over to talk to him. She caught up with me later and said ‘well he’s not eight is he?’ to which I replied ‘yes he is. Only just and he is small but he is eight!’. I think she felt quite embarrassed but she’d only been saying to him to be sensible about not going out of his depth, which I have no issues with. Although technically I could I wouldn’t dream of dropping him off to swim without me spectating and I still go with him to the changing rooms etc.
Tarly had a good lesson, she is almost at swimming point now. I would say it is more her inability to listen to what she is supposed to be doing and then do it that is holding her back more than technical ability :rolls:.
Dad joined us for Davies’ lesson which went well too. Dad is terrified of the water and can’t swim at all and he pays for their lessons. I like him to come along and watch at least once a term and see Davies practising leaping in for fun and Tarly cheerfully sticking her face in the water so he can see he’s getting his moneys worth!
We then followed Dad back to my parents house to drop off his van and he got in my car to come up to the allotment with us. I had some bits to drop off there anyway and we wanted to show them it. they were both really impressed and we walked round the whole allotments for a while oohing and ahhing at some of the very established and well tended plots. My Mum is always very enthusiastic about ventures like that but claims to have always wanted to do similar whatever it is (she apparently always wanted to keep chickens / work at the library / stay at home with her children etc.) even though most of it would have been within her reach anyway. Dad is generally more disparaging and rubbishes most of my ideas but they were both nicely positive about it 🙂 .
We came home again and the kids had bath and tea then Ady arrived home. I got Mum and Dad helping to make our tea. I read a couple of chapters of George to the children then they went to bed. We had dinner, Mum helped me string the peg loom ready for my next ragrug and after a pleasant evening of chatter they left.
That is good that Asda don’t charge you extra for things they’ve substituted. I always say no substitutions these days, having had some truly random ones in the past (can’t remember if any one supermarket is worse than the others – have used Tesco, Iceland, Asda, Sainsburys and Ocado/Waitrose!).
The last few weeks I’ve taken to sending Ernest down to the pool on his own for his lesson at 5, and then we wander down slightly more leisurely, making sure we’re in the water by 5.30. (If we were all there at 5, it would mean Violet had 2 hours in the water, which is a bit tiring really, and Buttercup still gets worn out if it goes much over an hour.) Which is not really allowed. Only a couple more weeks though … !
I love being able to let the girls go on their own now- can’t until Buzz can join them. You all know how much I hate swimming and as we’ve cancelled the gym membership I may never swim again LOL! I hate watching swimming lessons, I find it painfully boring. I suppose after doing it every Thursday since Pea was 3 I’m allowed to feel this way!
I hate having my shopping delivered, it’s never what I would pick. I’m supposed to do the months shop today as we have nothing in but I can’t face it and as you say the putting away is horrible. I might just leave it this month and do it weekly when I get the veg as we move in two weeks!
Glad you’re enjoying the allotment- can’t wait to dig my own over the coming weeks and shall be raiding the library for advice. I was offered two goats last week but Tony said no. I suppose I should get the chickens sorted first seeing as they would be of more use.