I’m not a big fan of Bank Holidays really. Ady generally works them and everywhere is full of people. Urgh, people! The kids and I very often seem to end up at my parents for the day on Bank Holidays so today having rung to check they were in we did just that.
First I had to nip to a house a few roads away to collect a bagful of clothes for Scarlett that had been on freecycle. Most were very, very not Scarlett-y so have ended up back in the bag but she did get a couple of T shirts she liked and two skirts that she might wear when she grows into them (she’s not big on skirts really, Scarlett). I left the kids at home while I nipped out to do that, they were sitting at the table playing some game and were still in the same positions when I came back ten minutes later.
We decided to walk over to my parents which takes about 20 minutes or so. On the way we discussed funeral directors, campfire songs from Badger camp, road safety, whether Davies had grown since last time we walked that route, what Davies wants for his birthday, possible reasons they might use walkie talkies when out adventuring together and loads of other stuff I have now forgotten. I asked Davies what a sign outside the pub said (open all day) and he then decided to read a whole load of signs. He did well with ‘No Parking. This road is used for access at all times and must be kept clear’ and then stopped to read ‘Give Way to Oncomming Vehicles’ – he’d just read the ‘give way to..’ bit when a woman came out of the house we were standing infront of to put something in her wheelie bin so he had an additional audience for the two hardest words. He spelt them out with no help and the woman gave him a clap and said how pleased she was to hear a child spelling something out phonetically like in her day rather than with all this new fangled reading scheme ideas :). I resisted the urge to tell her about Home Education but agreed with her anyway :).
We had a nice few hours at my parents although there was some underlying tension between them so there was the usual point scoring against each other at various points but we largely ignored it or the kids shot me private eye rolling looks 😆
Ady finished work at 2pm so was with us shortly after 3pm and we stayed for another hour or so before coming home. The kids had tea, I read them four books and then cooked our dinner. Children are still on weekend time so getting up and going to bed late – hoping a full day tomorrow including swimming lessons starting again will wear them out a bit so they go to sleep earlier tomorrow.