which is as close to a title as I can think of.

We spent the morning at home. I did some laundry and various online stuff. Davies and Scarlett played with the animation station having been inspired anew by the W&G thing yesterday. Ady picked up an adaptor for it today too so I forsee it getting even more use now it’s not eating batteries. We need to install the software onto a computer too so they can explore that further and see what editing options are available. I really recommend the animation station though (not at £50 obviously),it’s giving them really good results very easily.

They then went off and connected on DSs for a bit.

At midday we headed off to friends via the post office to collect a parcel that had been undelivered yesterday. It’s a pair of green DMs the same as mine for Davies. I bid and ended up winning two pairs on ebay so we’re all DM’d up round here. He’s really pleased with them :).

We also called into Asda for some bits for dinner tonight and some fruit to take to E’s house as we’d been invited round for 1pm which is an odd time as I never know if that means ‘come for lunch’ or ‘come after lunch’. If we turn up hungry and find they’ve already eaten it’s akward and if we eat before we go and arrive to find a slap up lunch we have no room for then it’s rude. We went for eating a small snack in the car and taking loads of fruit to share therefore expecting nothing but having room for it if it came. And then, because I’m a bit rubbish at not telling everyone everything I explained this to E within moments of arriving which made her laugh and say ‘well we’d feed you regardless’ before offering various snacks, cooking muffins and making tea for all the kids later and offering me dinner too.

So we were there at 130ish having treked round Asda. We talked more about supermarkets and whether Asda was any better ethically than Tesco and what the better option for shopping would be. I gave D and S a huge lecture in the car afterwards as very unusually for them they had asked for about 8 different things as we walked round from toys to comics to sweets. Not at all sure where that came from and put them very straight and had contrite apologies from both. Coupled that with a rant at them about being annoying on the train home yesterday and all felt better.

The kids played pretty much solidly from when we arrived to when we finally left at 730pm (meant to leave at about 5pm but stayed for tea, meant to leave again by 630pm but got chatting further) including with the lads from next door but one when they came home from school until they had to go in to bed because it was getting dark and they had school tomorrow :(. Scarlett managed to crack T who is a bit of a handful and they ended up playing really well together and enjoying each others company. Davies and M always get on well except when M tries to be controlling and make Davies do things by making up conditions and house rules, which always has Davies saying ‘Oh okay, we’ll go home then’ or ‘well I’ll just sit and wait until that game is finished’ rather than bowing to the rules or overreacting.

E and I chatted non-stop including stories of how we met our husbands, early careers, how we never dreamt we’d be Home Educating stay at home mothers and loads more. I really enjoy her company and we all feel really at home there. She also offered today to be another back up childcare option which is great. We’ve been invited to a Halloween party which means Ady gets to meet them all too and thanks to all four children not wanting to be parted when we left Davies and Scarlett have an open invite for a sleepover too. 🙂

Finally got home at 8ish and thanks to the kids being filthy from playing in the garden they had the bath Ady had run for me. They both crept back downstairs while I was cooking dinner and ‘helped’ with some stirring and chopping before being chased away again. We’ve watched Marley and Me which had me feeling sentimental about Candle as obviously I failed to relate to a dog! 😆