I’m trying hard to do plenty of picking up on clues from the children and responding to requests. Last week was a pretty crappy one with a few episodes of me and the children falling out that I’d really rather not be repeating regularly. Plenty to explain / justify / excuse it so I’m not beating myself up over it but also it’s always good to take something positive from something crappy and so if it concentrates my efforts to be more accomodating for a while that’s no bad thing. Davies has been asking for a while for me to spend some time with him on his Viva Pinata game so armed with the walkthrough Sarah sent me the link to I promised him last night we’d do some of it this morning.
Tarly woke just after Ady left at 7am again and came into bed with me for a while. We had some chats and cuddles – topics as diverse as morning breath and running away (!) and then Davies came and joined us for a while before they both went downstairs together leaving me to have a extra half hour snoozing until the phone rang and it was Dad to say his van wouldn’t start again. He had a dentist appointment (they have the same dentist as us, just along the road from our house) and had called a cab to take him there but would walk along to us afterwards and could we take him home and jump start his van again?
My Dad’s van and it’s troubles starting seems to be a characteristic of my autumn and winter mornings every year. As a child my Mum had her own business from when I was 7 and so Dad was the one who would take us to school every morning. He has driven white escort vans, with occassional forays into the world of Renaults, Bedfords (when I was very small) and even a mini my whole life and in the days before people worried about child seats or even seat belts Frazer and I would squash together on the passenger seat to be dispatched at school. For a few years Dad employed a ‘mate’ and then there would be him with Frazer and I squashed on his lap on the passenger seat too. Latterly when we got too big for sharing the seat we would have weekly turns at one having the seat and one sitting on a pile of dustsheets tucked behind the passenger seat. Autumn and winter mornings would always pose problems for vans starting with cold, damp and frost doing them no favours at all and in leaner years the vans would be older, crappier and with less than efficient heaters. This could mean Dad holding one of his big, weathered hands against the windscreen to create a perfect handprint of defrosted glass which he would then lean forward and peer through. I knew how to bump start a car as soon as my legs were long enough to reach the pedals, probably not a great deal older than Davies, when I would sit in the drivers seat while Dad pushed the van along the road and banged on the roof as soon as it had enough speed to go and I had to take my foot off the depressed clutch and rev hard on the accelorator while Dad dashed round and leapt in as I scrambled across to the passenger seat. Craziness really! So as soon as I had my own car at 17 I was regularly towing or jumpstarting my Dad’s vans and in the early days of my own car ownership when I had a variety of old bangers myself he would just as regularly be doing the same for me.
Last year (and quite possibly the year before) we spent many mornings towing Dad to the garage he uses, or following him there once we’d got him started to ensure he got there okay. I *hate* towing, especially that route as it has no less than 2 perilous junctions, two roundabouts, two sets of traffic lights and a railway bridge hill to navigate. This year’s van related drama appears to be a battery issue so we jump started it yesterday and I followed him to the garage and this morning, waited for him while the bloke had another look at it and then he went off in one direction and we came home.
With Dad arriving at about 930am and then having coffee and chatting while the children breakfasted and got dressed it was getting on for 11 before we actually got home again. I hung some washing out as having said the season had passed yesterday it was perfect drying weather with lots of wind and sunshine again today. I also put on a batch of bread dough using the mixer and Kirsty’s tip of warming the mircowave by putting it on for a minute and then leaving the dough inside it to prove. It works really well and as our breadmaker is on it’s last legs, takes up loads of room and has to be on for 90 minutes I’m sure a brief whizz in the mixer and one minute of the microwave is less electricity too.
Then I finally sat down with Davies and his DS and the walkthrough. He was on level 7 and we very quickly got him to level 8. The problem is that however much he likes the idea of a walkthrough he quickly gets bored of following it to the letter and wants to just do his own thing again. He progressed to level 9 and got a few more tips from me but then went on to doing it himself again. Scarlett spent most of the time hanging over his shoulder watching – it’s such a common sight in our house, one blonde head leant over the other one’s shoulder watching the same DS :).
I made some bread rolls for lunch and got another load of dough made for pizza for their tea and we had a nice afternoon chatting, DSing and generally just loafing around the house. I did hanker after the allotment knowing the sun was shining and I have more raised beds to sort out up there but we have had almost solid torrential rain since Friday and it would just be a mud bath up there making moving soil around all but impossible.
I’ve been swimming myself the last couple of weeks when Davies and Scarlett have had their lessons but today I just didn’t feel like it. I mentioned this to the children and they were both fine about it and asked if they could bring their DSs to play while each others lessons were happening rather than begging me to go in with them so I decided we’d take the DSs and then I could watch their lessons too. Scarlett was first and did well, she is mastering back stroke and in a similar style to Davies her swimming is great all the time it is underwater. Davies had a good lesson too, he’s getting the hang of backstroke arms.
Home for bath followed by tea for the children – when they had lessons together it was easier to shower and hairwash them there, now I tend to get Scarlett dry and changed at poolside while Davies is swimming and then quickly get him changed after his lesson to get home. They both wanted to read a story at bedtime, so Davies read us ‘Hello Great Big Bullfrog’ and Scarlett had a go at a Hairy McLairy book. She often looks over D’s shoulder at a word he is struggling with and ‘reads’ it although I have no idea whether it is excellent coincidental guesses or actual reading 😆
Scarlett managed just a couple of minutes with her dummy just before she fell asleep but waiting until she ‘couldn’t bear it anymore’ to have it and we whipped it away as soon as she was asleep. Davies went to bed but we got him back up again to watch something with Rolf Harris about the war that we thought he’d like and he was awake anyway.
I’ve done some ragrugging today as I suddenly realised I have at least 3 I’d like to finish in the next 3 weeks and a further couple before Christmas. I’ve just got a tiny bit more to finish the one on the pegloom now and then I can start my next one which is a giraffe for a friend.
London tomorrow and as I’ve been telling D and S they needed to get to sleep as we have an early start I suppose I really should heed that advice myself.