Before I dash off to work and start today :).
Yesterday was quail handover day. A friend had originally wanted all three, then wanted the remaining two and when we briefly lost all of them and then only regained one I didn’t tell her about the reduced numbers just in case one came back or we lost the last one again. We’d arranged to visit them yesterday and I just forsaw a stream of quail number updates with different numbers each time and a range of excuses so thought once we’d got however many quails were left in the house for the night on Monday I’d send one last update confirming. Despite a brief dash for freedom on Monday afternoon when it escaped from the cage again but just loafed around outside with an ‘isn’t anyone going to stop me then? expression until Tarly caught him and put him back in again, we still had The Last Quail on Monday night so I emailed Katy and confessed and arranged to bring him over the following day.
We’ve known Katy & co for years, they are good friends of Julie and we have lots of other mutual friends but despite George being about Davies’ age and Poppy being almost exactly Scarlett’s age the kids have never hooked up enough to meet up specifically. We have tried a few times this year but always had too-full diaries to manage a date. Katy is lovely, really interesting to talk to so I was looking forward to some time chatting with her.
I called into Sainbsburys (pay day!!!) to get some lunch supplies to bring and we arrived with the quail. He will be specifically George’s pet and much loved so we are very happy to have rehomed him (and very curious to see how long they manage to hang on to him!). We had a lovely couple of hours there – the kids played in various configurations (they also have a five year old brother Herbie too and the five kids all spent some time putting on shows for each other, then various numbers played with instruments or out in the garden with their hens or on the swing, some of them went across the road to a green to ride scooters and then they all settled down to watch Star Wars and took it in turns to hold the quail). and Katy and I did indeed chat – about Home Ed, WWOOFing, intentional communities and communes, autonomy and all sorts of other interesting stuff.
Nope, not going to manage this before I go to work – will return later to it…
Back 🙂
We came home via another supermarket, this time to get pants for Tarly (she is now totally knickered up) and bits for dinner. We rather ambitiously only took a hand basket and then trailed around with stuff under our arms and balanced precariously. Back home again I made dinner for the kids and got that tidied up, put a curry on and did some processing of laundry.
Ady came home, Davies and Scarlett went upstairs to prepare Davies’ room for evening guests and we waited for said guests to arrive. Helen-who-lives-on-a-boat along with her husband Kelvin and Alex and Abbie (all of whom also live on a boat, obviously). I think Helen is now officially my most popular friend’s name although I do know a whole host of Katy/ Katie / Catie / Cate /Kates I am disqualifying them as they are all spelt differently :).
They arrived, children disappeared upstairs with Maltesers and we sat chatting. I served up the curry which was much enjoyed and thanks to chocolate for children and alcohol for grown ups the noise and silliness levels were raised all over the house 😆 Helen didn’t have any excuse as she was driving but seemed to keep up with the nonsense well for a sober person ;).
Scarlett was really tired and ended up falling asleep in her clothes at about 1130pm but the others carried on with Abbie and Davies making a very impressive Slinky Dog from Toy Story using a Slinky and various stuff found in Davies’ bedroom. We tried to compete with a torn up Malteser box but despite best efforts their attempt was far better :lol:.
They left about midnight after a really enjoyable evening – hoping to repeat again soon :). We pretty much went straight to bed, it felt *really* late even though it was still earlier than I usually go to bed.