The kids sleepover needed some sort of disclaimer really as there wasn’t a great deal of sleeping happening really 😆
I went to bed at 1230 and they were still awake, although quiet then. I had a really bad nights sleep as the cockerel decided to crow about 4 or 5 times at 430am – why? It was still pitch black outside and then it started raining really hard.
So it was a slow start all round to this morning. We’ve not spent much time with my parents lately so as we had nothing much planned and the weather dictated we stayed indoors I rang them to see what they were doing and we went over there for lunch.
Mum had some very good news – a year after losing her job she has been offered a proper, full time job as a retail manager of a charity for the homeless. Charity shops are a new fundraising venture for this charity which is church run despite the charity being nearly 20 years old so it is quite an exciting venture for her to be involved from the very outset of the project. She is really buzzed up about the whole thing, particularly as she was starting to feel that at 62 her working life might be over despite her not feeling it should be. Ideally she’d prefer to not work a full week so may try to negotiate that down to 4 days rather than 5 at some stage once it’s all up and running, but they have a policy of retiring staff at 70 rather than 65 so her age is not an issue. Dad was really proud of her and very vocally so which was lovely. I lived in the shadow of how they were relating to each other for so many years that being around them when they are happy and being nice to each other still has a massive effect on me (much the same as being around them when they are being negative about each other and taking swipes and putting each other down) which made for a very nice few hours round there. Frazer was briefly around so the kids got an Uncle-fix too.
We had lunch and then Ady and the kids retired to the lounge to ogle the big HD tv they have while I sat and chatted to my parents in the kitchen. Scarlett joined us after a while (Davies and Scarlett were rather overloaded with each others company and not that great at getting on well with each other today) and talked them through the flickrstream of Longleat photos.
We came home again before dark to put the chickens away and get a roast dinner on early enough for us to all eat together. The kids had a long bath and we watched Countryfile while eating dinner before the rest of the household remembered Total Wipeout was on the other side so I went off to fold laundry instead (I really HATE that show), then the children went to bed, Ady went for a bath and I watched X Factor (he really HATES that show ;)).