Dad came round first thing (I say first thing, it was probably getting on for 9am :oops:) and he and Ady went off to get some logs. There has been a sharp rise in the wood burning round these parts and logs are suddenly neither as cheap nor readily available as they have previously been. Fortunately Dad has a contact who is in the tree felling business and as yet hasn’t seen the need for a secondary business of selling the wood he lops down as logs.
They came back and Dad stayed awhile to chat (and have coffee and croissants) and saw the pictures from Scarlett’s keeper day. He’d noticed Davies doing his latest tic (he shakes his head, he says he likes the feel of his hair on the back of his neck) the other day and mentioned it to me. It wasn’t one I’d particularly noticed until Dad said about it although I’ve been aware of a chest beating one he’s had for a while when he is excited. I told Dad I’d read up a fair bit about them and know the triggers for them now. I also said that I think they would be lots more pronounced if he was in school or other situations he might find stressful and we had quite an interesting conversation about tics, twitches and OCD type stuff. I also expressed my thoughts that not everyone watches their children quite so closely or has quite such the amount of hours in their company as I do – Dad agreed although he has always been very sharp eyed about differences in Davies and Scarlett, much as he was with Frazer and I. I think he is mellowing about HE in many ways and on the days when he doesn’t have an agenda he is an interesting person to chat to about stuff like this.
Dad left and Ady started to get the lounge ready to bring the Christmas tree in. This meant getting the playroom ready to take the kids tables and chairs first. I had already melted some chocolate into moulds from a kit to make tree decorations so I got Davies and Scarlett to come and help me in the kitchen and keep them out of his way. They decorated white and milk chocolate decorations, painted some cookies with egg yolk and food colouring to make Christmas tree cookies and then got bored and wandered off while I was still making gingerbread cookies. They did wander back later for those and helped decorate them in the end though.
Ady got a real tree this year as he had to buy one for work in some price and quality comparison thing and then they gave him the tree. We’ve never had a real tree before and I do love the smell and the look of them although cost wise (and eco-friendly wise) it wouldn’t be something we could justify every year. We decided to go a bit less mad with the decorations this year so we have only edible things on the tree (aside from lights) – candy canes, chocolates and shortbread and gingerbread cookies. Scarlett has her pink tree and some tinsel in her room and Davies has gathered up all the additional decorations including the second tree (he already has a small one of his own) and created a magical Santa’s grotto up in his room which we were all invited up to earlier and given presents :).
Decs up Scarlett and I got out the aquabeads / bindeez / whatever they’re called kit that Lucy and The Rs had given her for her birthday and she did some of that. Seem unnecessarily fiddly to me and having drenched them in water I’m not sure they really stand up to being handled either but I didn’t have terribly high hopes for them from the advert. They happened to be something she had said she’d like though and she is happy with them :). Davies decided he wanted to do something with beads so we got the hamabeads out. I made a snowflake, he made a random square which he claims is a mini photoframe :lol:. Hama beads are not, never have been and likely never will be something he gets anything out of. He likes instant gratification and more scope for messy creativity than they offer. I would happily sit and make stuff with them although I suspect I’d get bored and wander off after a while too.
Ady cooked a lovely dinner and we all watched Nims Island. Another supposedly early night for them but they were both reappearing in the lounge hours after bedtime. Tomorrow seems to have a job list already writing itself of minor things to get sorted and it’s another busy week ahead.