Long weekend

We weren’t camping (much though we’d have loved to have been but I was working Saturday and Ady was working today so it wouldn’t have been much of a trip anywhere really for one night!) but we have had a busy weekend and been out both evenings so blogging sort of took a back seat.

Saturday: work for me in the morning, it feels like such a long time ago now! I finished my display on gardening books which was much complimented, must take camera to work this week and get a photo. I had tea break with the 2 Saturday assistants where we talked about names as a spin off from my possibly rather irrational dislike of Scarlett Johansson (getting all famous around the same time as I gave my daughter what had previously been a fairly unusual name) and chatted to various colleagues about Davies going to camp.

Ady took Davies and Scarlett to Pulborough Brooks for Wildlife Explorers which was about birdsong. He had a nice early morning walk around the reserve and they spent the rest of the morning in the garden until I came home at lunchtime.

We had planned to visit the allotment but it had gotten a bit chilly and windy and everyone was a bit slumped so instead we made a vat of popcorn and put on The Boy in the striped pyjamas instead. I’ve not read the book although funnily enough someone had recommended it to me before the film was made and a couple of people who have seen the film after reading the book had said it was disappointing but I thought it was excellent. Scarlett had loads of questions throughout the film and got really upset at the end having worked out what was going to happen (won’t say as it will spoil the film) so she didn’t actually stay in the room for the last few minutes although she did check she had been right in her assumptions. Ady went out of the room with her but Davies and I watched it all and then the making of dvd extra too.

I thought it was a very good film to watch with children (perhaps not every child as young as mine would be okay with it and indeed it is a 12 certificate), very thought provoking and challenging.

Ady and Scarlett planted up some seeds that she’d got in the post with her RSPB magazine last week and after their tea we went back out again to Pulborough Brooks for their Nightingale Festival. First Davies and Scarlett both bought a small blackbird that makes a blackbird birdsong noise when you press it that they’d wanted earlier from the shop and realised at home (after Tarly had spent ages counting all her coppers out again) that they still had enough money left from the £10 Lynda and Stuart gave them to buy them so they were very happy. We joined loads of other people in the classroom for a quick talk about nightingales, pictures of them and a recording of their song taped there last year. The children and I had already been reading about them on wikipedia so felt very knowledgable :).

It wasn’t a huge success in terms of seeing nightingales (we didn’t) or hearing them (we heard one briefly before it was drowned out by a very vocal blackbird) although I suspect if we’d stayed a bit later as it was getting dark and other birds stopped singing we’d have heard more. However we had a really lovely couple of hours anyway so were all really glad we went. The reserve is a lovely place, it was beautiful to be there as the sun set, we saw loads of rabbits including lots of babies, several newts, cows, deer, a whole hill turned purple from bluebells and various frogs and other pondlife. Scarlett and Davies were greeted by name by several of the volunteers around the reserve (known from wildlife explorers which lots of them seem to help out with) and we stood for ages with a group of people just enjoying the views and atmopshere while a lovely old man spent ages with the children showing them things through his telescope including geese, a duck and her 10 ducklings, coots and moorhens and the six hot air balloons that rose and floated across the sky in the distance.


We came home via Sainsburys and the children had a late night, we had a very late dinner (nearly 11pm) and felt like we’d squeezed every last drop out of Saturday :).

Sunday: We did get to the allotment. We took loads of food and drink and had nearly four hours up there. We finally met our next door neighbours who we have never managed to be there at the same time as before. We’d thought that our plot was inherited from an older man who passed away but it turns out our plot used to be their’s and their current plot was the man who passed away. When he died they decided to take over his plot and their’s became free which is when we took it over. He was reserved but friendly but she was very effusive, delighted with Davies and Scarlett and gave them a fork and trowel to share and told me how wonderful they were and how she’s admired the pond and their little plots and been looking forward to meeting them :).

I’ll blog in the relevant place about what we did up there but it was a very nice few hours and we ended up staying later than we’d planned.

A quick visit home for baths (Ady and I) and showers (Davies and Scarlett), hairbrushing (Scarlett), wrapping up a present for Adam (Davies) and getting changed and ready to go back out again (all of us) to Adam and Tony’s joint birthday party at Ros and Tony’s.

Despite only having been there once before, in the dark at Christmas they made themselves right at home in the garden and that was pretty much the last we saw of Davies apart from occassional glimpses of him running round with a gang of boys all brandishing swords 😆 I’d like to say it was because Scarlett needed him but I suspect it was more that he wanted to but Ady and Scarlett spent ages together on the trampoline 😆 As usual at Ros’ there was copious amounts of food, drink, fire and music and between the four of us we enjoyed all of them :). I had a fantastic time listening to various musicians playing on various instruments and even had my requests (Moondance, Fever, My Baby just cares for me, anything by Billy Joel) met and was very kindly indulged by Mr Magic Fingers the pianist in my whim to sing along and was carried by the piano and even complimented by someone for my singing. It’s the one talent I’d simply love to have being able to play the piano like that and I suspect has very little if anything at all to do with practise or reading music so I’m always awestuck to be with people so gifted especially when they even let me join in a bit :).




I was finally dragged away at about 10ish although actually the musicians had already packed up and gone home. Poor Ady had work today though and the children were fading fast. We got home just after 11pm, the children had toast (they’d not been quick enough to get the bread on offer at the party and won’t eat chilli or curry so were hungry) and went to bed.

Today: A fairly slow start after two late nights. I let the chickens out, put some washing away, put another load on, brought one in, phone my mum and arranged to go over for lunch and having looked at rucksacks in various places online the children and I decided to go to the market that happens on the beachfront every Bank Holiday Monday and see if we could find any there. Davies wanted loads of pockets including at least one on the front and one on the side, Tarly was less specific about what she wanted but decided she’d know it when she saw it :).

We parked just on the seafront and walked in and were strict with ourselves about only looking at rucksacks. There were about 6 stalls selling bags but we found what they wanted at the same stall and came away with perfect rucksacks for them both for £6 each which I thought was okay. Scarlett’s is pink, has a couple of pockets and it’s own drinks bottle. Davies’s is black and has about 22 different compartments, mini pockets and mesh pouches so he is chuffed with that.

They both filled them with various ‘essential’ stuff and we headed over to Mum and Dad’s. Mum and I nipped up to the supermarket for various bits and Frazer joined us for lunch and then sat played DS with Davies while Tarly played with a load of duplo and playmobil stuff. Mum, Dad and I looked at hotels and guest houses in Wales and they have decided to come up for the first weekend we are at Shell Island and stay nearby before going on to somewhere else to visit family.

It was a nice harmonious afternoon and Ady joined us when he finished work. He took the children home to start cooking dinner and I followed a while later having been mid converation with my parents so stopping to finish chatting. The children had dinner and then we read the first chapter of which looks likely to be another good one, very similar to George’s secret key in the whole edutainment stakes I reckon. We also read which is quite lovely and based on a true story.

We had roast dinner defered from yesterday and watched Lost which was handily being repeated from yesterday so it all feels very Sundayish now which means Tuesday tomorrow is going to catch me by surprise!