It’s all happening on a Tuesday

Off to Forest School this morning. I had thought I’d stay if one or both children asked me to but when we pulled up at the carpark they both leapt out and headed off to see the rangers, the dog and the other children. I stayed in the background tidying up the inside of my car which was a right state with jute bags, waterproofs, fleeces and spare clothes strewn all over the back seat, the very back seats and the passenger seat footwell. It’s all nicely organised now :). They waved me off happily when it was time for them to walk up the hill so I drove to Asda and had a happy hour wandering about in there getting a few bits for dinner, a new swimsuit for Tarly (age 7-8 gulp!) and generally enjoying being unencumbered :).

I got back to the park and sat in the car and read my book for nearly an hour before heading up the killer hill to where they all were.

This week they’d played a few games and the main activity had been using pre-sawn discs of wood to make things. They had made glue on the fire and used the mini handdrills to make holes and added bits they had gathered from the woods to create creatures and figures from the wood.

Scarlett had made a flower and a couple of slugs. Davies had made a snail and a couple of other things. I have to confess I am not overly impressed with Forest School really. There is way too much hanging about doing very little, way too much time to just play about in the woods, many of the activities are not relevant to being in the forest and I don’t feel there is enough of the sort of learning I was expecting there to be about wildlife, trees and flowers and well, you know, foresty stuff I guess. If it was a pay as you go, £15 a week thing we’d definitely have stopped going by about week 2. That said Davies and Scarlett really enjoy it and every so often something will come up that they learnt at Forest School so whilst we won’t be repeating it in a hurry and I’d possibly research something like this a bit more in future before committing to so much money if I were to ask them they’d say it has been worth it.

We walked back down the hill and came home. A parcel had arrived from Kirsty (thanks Kirsty, I love it. Can’t actually find my teapot at the moment to take a photo but it definitely looks like it will fit. As an aside, where the hell can my teapot have gone anyway?!) which contained a picture for Davies from Marcus and a bracelet for Scarlett from Alex so they set to making stuff and doing drawings to send off in return. I was checking my emails and eating a coconut direct from the shell using a knife to break bits out and the table was strewn with 6 cereal packets as Ady had got them all out, hotel breakfast stylee for the kids to choose and while they’d taken their dirty bowls out I’d not yet taken all the boxes back to the kitchen. So that was the perfect time for my Mum to ring on the doorbell!

I quickly cleared up and she spent some time chatting to Davies in the playroom while Scarlett insisted she couldn’t write anything in the lounge and I finished eating my coconut.

My Mum’s car was being MOTd so she’d walked to us and was feeling blue that it had failed and is going to be expensive. They’ve definitely spent more on their car in the last 12 months than it would be worth. We were heading back out again to swimming lessons so dropped her home on the way.

Davies and Scarlett tell me they had a good lesson but I was busy with my lengths and managed to up them to 24 today :). I ran out of time rather than energy too which is a good thing. I’ve no idea whether I’ll be able to much improve on that as I suspect I am now swimming about as fast as I’ll get, it’s just that I could swim for longer, which is time I don’t have. We got dressed and dried and nipped to the chip shop for fish and chips for the kids tea.

As we drove past our next door neighbour’s house Scarlett looked at the house and noticed our elderly neighbour was sitting on the floor holding her head with her wheelie bin knocked over on the floor next to her. She told me and I left the children in the car in the drive while I ran round to see what had happened. Sure enough she was sitting in her drive, looking very shaken having fallen over while trying to do something with the bins. She had a massive lump on her head and a clearly broken wrist :(. An across the road from her neighbour had just pulled into his drive and asked if we needed help and sent over his neighbours who are her friends. The woman called an ambulance while I sat on the ground with her rubbing her back and chatting to her. She was very shaken and started to mumble and shiver so I asked the neighbour to get her a coat or a blanket. She seemed really flustered but with no sense of urgency so I was getting a bit frustrated with her. Meanwhile Davies and Scarlett appeared over the hedge with the car keys having scrambled over from the back seats (can’t open back doors thanks to childlocks which I really must take off). They came round and then I told them to go on in the house and have their tea. They were so good and just went off to do that.

I managed to galvanise the neighbour into getting a blanket and a coat for Peggy although she (the neighbour) seemed far more concerned with where Peggy’s purse was. Maybe that’s just an old person’s first concern but it seemed rather non-urgent in the scheme of things. The ambulance finally arrived and I helped them get Peggy on board before checking the neighbours were okay to lock up Peggy’s house etc and then came home.

Davies and Scarlett had been absolute stars, locking my car, working out which was the front door key and getting in the house. Climbing up to the cupboards to get salt, vinegar, ketchup and glasses for drinks and splitting the large piece of fish between them. I was so very proud of them for being calm, unflappable and allowing me to help Peggy when she needed it. A bit of a test for them and they really rose to the challenge 🙂 :).

Ady came home and while I read some Charlie Small he turned out the first of the potatoes in sacks from the patio. A really good haul of potatoes from all three so that was very good news :). The chickens were also thrilled to be getting all the green of the plants to peck away at. 🙂

I nipped up the allotment (I drove, swimming is enough exercise for one day at the moment and I’m conscious of my knees not being up to too much at once. This is one of those horrid catch 22 situations that they are weak because of the extra strain on them by my being overweight but in doing exercise to lose some of that weight I could do permanent damage and prevent myself from being able to exercise!) to gather a a few more broad beans, some sweet peas and check on everything as I’ve not been up there since Friday and although it’s not needed watering thanks to lots of rain I just wanted to check everything was in order.

I got home and the children were supposed to be in bed but as usual they were both in and out of their bedrooms while I was in the bath until they started watching Springwatch which kept them glued to the TV until it finished, begging to be allowed to watch it again tomorrow :).I think we could manage that :).

I cooked dinner and we watched Come Dine with Me, which we always enjoy.

We didn’t manage what we learnt today amidst all the other excitement so we’ll try and catch up tomorrow.