We had plans this weekend, only plans between the four of us but plans nonetheless. But the weather put paid to them.
Saturday morning I worked. Ady was planning to take Davies and Scarlett to the alllotment. We’ll be giving it up pretty soon so we wanted to dig up the potatoes, harvest the onions and garlic and carefully dig up the apple tree to bring home and replant in the garden here. It also happens to be a perfect location to watch the Shoreham Air Show with a panoramic view over the airfield and the skies surrounding it. I was going to walk up and meet them at lunchtime and help finish getting the allotment ready to hand back.
Ady dropped me into work but the skies were cloudy and grey and although it only drizzled with rain it was far too misty for planes to be flying – both from a seeing them from the ground point of view and a visibility for the pilots perspective. I heard no planes all morning at work (which is even closer to the airfield than home) and people coming in were all commenting on it being so quiet. We’d heard the jets fly in on Friday afternoon, I suspect we’ll hear them leave again on Monday.
I started preparing a display and chatted to the two Saturday assistants who both got excellent A level results on Friday and will be heading off to their respective first choice of universities. One wants to be a teacher, the other Prime Minister. It’s exciting listening to them with all their future plans laid out about to spread their wings and go off into making their own way in the world – both of them are full of questions about our planned adventure too, similar in many ways.
I wasn’t surprised to see Ady pull up outside just before my shift finished having not gone to the air show or the allotment thanks to the rain. Back at home we had lunch and I spent a couple of hours listing bits on ebay while Ady looked at campervans and the kids spent the dry intervals in the garden and the wet ones playing indoors.
Eventually we decided to tackle the loft space. We have a narrow strip of loft void running alongside our and Davies’ bedrooms with access doors in both rooms. There are pipes running along too so we have never stashed too much stuff in there but we knew there were things in there to come out, not least because we’re planning on using the space to store some bits while we’re away – things like Christmas decorations, cuddly toys that can’t be parted with yet, a papier mache dalek, that sort of thing ;). There is also a second space in each bedroom accessed from another door which are both covered by heavy furniture and may be stuffed with all sorts of forgotten stuff or may be empty, they also need checking.
We started with the space in Davies’ bedroom end and had to clear stuff infront of the door first. As before things were piled into ‘keeping’, ‘selling’ and ‘binning / recycling’ with the keeping stuff put away neatly into the now-looking-quite-tidy bedrooms, the selling stuff finding it’s way into the playroom which is now chock-full again of stuff ready for another carboot sale next weekend and the binning/ recycling stuff going into Ady’s car to be taken to the tip.
We cleared loads, had one last read of things like ‘congratulations on the birth of your baby girl’ cards and smiled at the deflated helium balloons people had brought to hospital when I had Davies and then binned them.
Ady cooked tea for the kids while I sorted the playroom out and pulled anything worth ebaying out of the piles.
Then the kids and I watched X Factor before they went to bed.
Sunday was another cloudy, wet day so still no planes (although yesterdays rain would have prohibited digging potatoes up at the alllotment, it will be a mud bath up there).
Ady spent some time outside titivating with the ducks and chickens area to put their food undercover and spread some sawdust in the muddiest areas – we need some more chipped bark to see us through the winter round there. I spent ages going back through the 30plus hosts we’d written down in what we’re calling Zone One – Dorset, Devon, Cornwall regions where we are planning on starting and being March, April and May. We needed a maximum of 15 to make first enquires to so I’ve been looking at their websites (most seem to have one), reading their listings and trying to get a good balance of farming, smallholding, eco-friendly, communities etc. The next stage is contacting them so I have been drafting an email which they others will need to read and approve before I personalise it for each of the 15 hosts. Then the same process for Zone Two begins. Hopefully it will be this level of planning which gives us the best possible experience and takes in the biggest variety of environments and hosts. Hopefully… 🙂
Ady and Davies played some chess and then we all went to the tip, calling in at the supermarket on the way home. I cooked roast beef while the others messed about watching bits of various films including Jaws and Chicken Run.
We watched some Attenborough while eating, then some Simpsons and then Ady and I watched Countryfile. Davies and Scarlett were upstairs playing with lego. They asked for a sleepover and we relented as it’s not been a very interesting weekend but unfortunately they blew it by being asked several times over a couple of hours to quieten down and eventually I got Scarlett to come back down to her own bed at 1100 when the noise still wasn’t abating. They were both asleep within about 5 minutes of me doing that, just a shame I had to get cross 🙁
We’ve had a weather warning for huge rainfall in this area and for once it appears to be very accurate. It’s been pouring for a couple of hours now and the road is quite flooded outside. I’m enjoying it while being grateful we’re not camping this weekend :).