The day started with the usual – letting out the chickens, hanging out some washing and putting another load on, encouraging children to get dressed, that sort of thing.
We left home at about 10ish and did a huge anticlockwise circle – first to someone’s house to collect a bag of girl’s clothes they’d advertised on freecycle. There are a couple of pairs of trouses, some tops, a dress and a pj top all suitable for Scarlett. Curiously there was a nametape sewn into one of the trousers with the name Scarlett so that pleased her even if the surname is different. Later at Tasha’s Toby gave Davies a couple of tops he doesn’t want to wear because they’ve got long sleeves (he hates long sleeves and long legs and wears shorts and tshirts all the time) so they both got ‘new’ clothes today :).
Next we went to my parents to collect my car key and the MOT certificate. Dad had collected my car (and paid) on Friday while we were at Drusillas. He’d also left a cheque to pay for the kids swimming lessons for next term along with the £2 each for the badges and certificates they’d been awarded this term. That is something that really annoys me – Dad pays about £300 a year for their swimming lessons and it seems really petty and tight to be charging for badges that you have allegedly ‘earned’ they should be free – or at the very least tack the two quid onto the price of the lessons so you don’t realise you’re paying for it! Having worked at Scout Shops selling the scout proficiency badges direct to Badge Secretarys I also know exactly how little these badges cost so charging two quid for them is further insult really.
Mum was home, she is quite poorly at the moment with some sort of bronchal thing and sounds dreadful. She insists she’s not as ill as she sounds but I’m not convinced :(.
From there we went to the Co Op for a few bits to make up dinners for the week from what is already in the fridge / freezers. We were accosted at the tills by one of the staff who chatted to us and then insisted on bringing my eggs out to the car for me. I’d forgotten to take a cloth bag in so rather than take a carrier I have the kids a couple of things each to carry and I brought the rest – it would have been fine but he grabbed the eggs and wasn’t going to let them go. I *think* he was just offering good customer service but the kids looked very bemused by him and his rather overfriendly manner 😆
Next to the swimming pool to pay for lessons and badges with Dad’s cheque before finally going along the seafront to Tasha’s new house. Her partner (and father of her younger son)’s parents have sold their house and bought a slightly run down but pretty large house along the seafront. It has four bedrooms and is lovely and big with amazing views. There is a fully fitted out basement downstairs where they are living and Tasha and co have the house upstairs. It is rather different to the small flat they have been renting and despite having been in for nearly two weeks Tasha is still in slight shock that this is her house now :).
We had lunch, the kids played, we chatted and I knitted and we had a really nice few hours round there. Toby is a nice lad but has quite dramatic mood swings. Davies and Scarlett tend to leave him to get on with it and just carry on playing among themselves; they have never fallen out with him but I think he sometimes struggles with the two of them together and often tries to angle things so Scarlett is left out. Davies is pretty good at ensuring she remains included and Scarlett is fairly capable of dealing with such things herself anyway but I think Toby sometimes finds them a bit of an impenetrable duo to play with. They always part friends and are always keen to see each other again – today Toby wanted us to arrange a sleepover :).
We came home before it got too dark so I could get the chickens put away – we are realising we need to have some arrangement for them to put themselves away more securely if we are not home before dark – so far we’ve been lucky and risked it a couple of times but I think foxes are regular visitors to the garden and we need to find a way to keep them safer.
I sorted out the childrens’ tea which they ate while watching WALL-E and playing with Davies’ ‘WALL-E playset’ which is a collection of junk he has fashioned into WALL-E and other characters and scenery from the film. With them quiet I had a bit of a bake-fest and made 3 quiches (one for tea, two for the freezer), several batches of mince pies and some jam tarts. Davies appeared in the kitchen at one point and said he’d like a bath so I told him he could run one and he did. I checked on it to ensure it was okay and it was. So they had a bath while I finished up in the kitchen and then Ady arrived home.
We had a ‘track down all the items from the library’ half hour which has left just one book (which we *know* is in Davies’ room, just not exactly where in there) and 3 dvds (two of which are definitely in Ady’s car according to the kids) unaccounted for. I want to take some stuff back as we currently have about 60 items out.
Both of them took forever to get to sleep – Davies is desperate for a decent nights sleep and is looking very pale and is quite fragile and teary – hopefully he’ll eventually reach a point where he simply can’t stay awake late.