One word? When seven would do…

slackness of blogging abounds, need to catch up.

Friday I was supposed to be at work all day and the kids were supposed to be on the road with Ady for the day, including heading to Costco for the turkey. Scarlett woke covered head to toe in a pretty impressive rash though. After discussion we decided I should take the day off work rather than Ady, mostly because he was planning to do something for us aswell as working but also because actually when either of the children is not well it is really me they want to be sitting on top of.

But first my car had to be got to the garage as it was having all that expensive work done on it highlighted when it was MOTd last week. So having briefed the kids to stay put Ady followed me down to the garage and then dropped me back home again (all of about 10 minutes). I rang in to work and found someone actually there to report my not coming in status to – felt very guilty but she was lovely about it. I don’t know if I will get paid sick pay for it as it’s not actually me who was sick or whether I will be asked to take a days leave for it. I don’t actually have a days leave to take so it will end up either unpaid now or claimed back from me when I leave if so but I content myself that if my kids were in school Scarlett would definitely have had to have the day off so I would have had to ring in sick.

I looked back on my blog and flickr at Rashes Of The Past and Davies, Scarlett and I were all quite entertained that todays rash almost mirrored a rash from 2004 on her face:
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She was slightly itchy but otherwise in pretty good spirits and actually the brightest she’s been in about 2 weeks. So I have her some piriton and she went off to play. We needed a few bits so I walked round to the shop to get them and got some stamps and posted Christmas cards too (a job I’d intended doing in my lunchbreak). Ady rang to say ‘put the kettle on, I’m, popping in for coffee’ but actually beat me back home so he put the kettle on while I chopped some wood and got a fire lit.

I texted our weekend guests to update them on our health bulletin which I’d been doing anyway and got a text back regarding their health. We agreed to give up on protecting each other from germs and have a germ fest type gathering but sadly as we were on the up they were on the down and I later had a phone call to say they wouldn’t be coming after all 🙁

Ady went to Costco, the other side of the tunnel on the A27 there was heaps of snow and the M23 was practically at a standstill so while he was sending me picture texts of crazy white out landscapes of Crawley, Davies was fretting Daddy would be stranded and Scarlett was enjoying a resurgence of energy.

The rest of the day gets a little lost. I know I had plans for being all efficient and doing baking but I didn’t. I know I did lots of eating as I was feeling starving for some reason. The kids were both also hungry and ate lots which was good as they have both been off food with whatever lurgy they have had.

In the evening I peaked rather early with my wine, enjoyed a lovely curry and toasted absent weekend guests and fed up friends from afar and then fell asleep on the sofa rather early infront of Armstrong and Miller on dvd.

Saturday I decided that if I didn’t have my friends to play with then I would do some festive stuff. All of our Christmas shopping has been spread out over the last few months or will be home made but the kids have been making noises about stockings and I have been feeling slightly like Christmas has already been and gone (the downside of such a lovely camp) so I decided to have a couple of hours in town getting bits and pieces. Ady and the kids dropped me off at 11ish with arrangements for me to ring when I was ready to be collected. Ady very sweetly told me not to rush, to maybe go for a cup of tea somewhere and just enjoy having a few hours to myself. Within about 2 minutes of them driving off I realised I had left my phone at home. Not a huge cause for concern but enough for me to feel slightly edgy as Tarly was still rash-y, my car was still awaiting collection from the garage and I was now uncontactable.

So I had a nice couple of hours in a surprisingly almost quiet town centre. I am torn between feeling glad people are not out needlessly buying and knowing that the reason for that is they are all not leaving the house for fear of missing an amazon.com delivery as they have all done their Christmas shopping online. I patronised Poundland and Hawkins for budget stocking fillers – all either edible, use-up-able before we go or small enough to come with us and be useful. I also picked up a new top for myself as I quite like having something ‘nice’ to wear on Christmas day, spent most of the time searching for pyjamas for Scarlett – the kids always get a Christmas Eve present of a new pair of pjs to wear to bed. We got Davies’ ages ago but have both been looking out for a pair for Scarlett. She doesn’t want pink, cupcakes, Disney princesses, tinkerbell, Hello Kitty, ‘cute’ captions about who she is going to bed with, Hannah Montanna, High School Musical. Argh. I finally found some which are pink but have monkeys on which is something she quite likes on her clothes, she has at least two tops with monkeys on. Very annoying too – the same difficulty exists in finding her clothes. I wanted to get her a new outfit for Christmas too, she doesn’t wear dresses or skirts and hates leggings so that pretty much restricts you to jeans and the only ones about at the moment are skinny fit which she doesn’t like. It’s really annoying as she is not fussy or senstive about what she wears but it’s just impossible to find comfortable, suitable clothing for an 8 year old girl. She is now the wrong shape to wear boys clothes which was my previous solution – tops are fine but trousers need to be the right fit.

I rang home from a call box, 60p for a minimum call 😯 and took the ribbing from the other three about leaving my phone behind. I notoriously don’t lose stuff or forget to pick it up while the rest of them always forget to charge their phones, lose their keys, can’t find their DSs etc and I always give them all sorts of grief so they had apparently very much enjoyed finding my phone on the sofa and doing their best impressions of what I would be saying if they had done that 😆 😆

Ady had brought along the poinsettias he’d got for my work colleagues and I’d meant to take in on Friday so we called into the library for me to drop them off and give a Scarlett update. I also nipped to the jewellers to get a new watch strap as mine had died – I go through about one a year, I’m not at all sure what I do to them that wears them out but it had had it so I now have a new and shiny but rather stiff ope. I also picked up a tub of plasticine from the toy shop as I’d looked everywhere in town for one but not found it.

Then home :). Everyone else had had lunch but I was conscious of the time so decided to get dinner on before eating. We’d gone with cooking the stew we’d intended for weekend guests with the intention of freezing the excess so I got peeling and chopping. Ady brought in his selection of Christmas music so I was singing along to carols and got all festive and decided to do the mince pie baking too. I completely forgot about eating and Ady distracted me with mulled wine too and then suggested we invite my parents over to stew as we’d not seen them since creeping out of the house last Sunday evening after they’d babysat for us.

Clearly the mulled wine on an empty stomach and carols had gone to my head because I agreed and carried on baking. I made 96 mince pies, several got eaten and the rest will last the week with another stash already in the freezer from my last bake off. The remainder of my mincemeat is reserved for mincemeat muffins as I love them.

Ady and Scarlett did some clearing of the path and putting salt down so it doesn’t freeze over again straight away. Davies used his Lego Harry Potter figures to create an animation which we all went up to see when he’d finished – very impressive :).

My parents arrived, Mum was on good form but Dad was combative and belligerant and spoiling for a fight. So we had one 🙁 He accused me of being a lazy, selfish parent, giving Davies and Scarlett a poor education and narrowing their choices in life and failing to provide them with basic skills. He had a go about our plans for next year saying we were taking stupid risks and again being selfish in dragging the kids along with us on our whim. I took most of it on the chin, accepting as I always do that our way is rather unconventional, does challenge all that my parents did for me, goes against all they hold dear and accepting that it is him speaking with love and concern for me and his grandchildren but I could not accept the lazy, selfish and neglectful parent jibe so I got upset and told him in no uncertain terms how out of order he was for that one.

I talked about the amount of effort I do put into parenting, that my choices with regard to the childrens’ education is as result of informed, researched, educated, conscious, philosophical decisions rather than some can’t be arsed attitude towards it. I said that I was prepared to take informed criticism or discussion but not cheap, ignorant accusations and asked him to explain just what opportunities I had taken away from my children with my choices, which I hastened to add were actually now their choices too.

He did back down and an even keel was restored to the evening but it was an unpleasant half hour or so. Made slightly worse from my perspective for being witnessed by Davies who was listening intently. Or was that bad? Because at bedtime Davies politely asked ‘Grandad, can I show you my survival kit I’m looking forward to taking WWOOFing with me?’ and proceeded to bring down his rucksack and kit including his tent, cookset, stool and mallet he made himself at his green woodworking course and unloaded the whole rucksack talking my Dad through all the contents: first aid kit – he explained the use of every bit and how he’d learnt to use them in Badgers, tent which he said he can put up by himself or knows how to create a shelter built from things in the woods, explained the different ways he knows how to light a fire and brought out his firesteel and tinder box to demonstrate using cotton wool soaked in vaseline then talked about how he would have gathered his fire materials first, his shovel useful for digging a hole to use as a toilet or covering a fire to ensure he left no tracks, his foil blanket used for shelter or warmth, his wristband which can be unravelled to be cordage, his cutlery set, his canteen, his chocolate which he explained is the perfect fuel as it raises your blood sugar level and is good for energy. He talked about what he could eat in the wild and refered to Forest School, Green Woodworking and Campcraft Sleepout courses explaining ‘all of which Mummy arranged for me to go on because she knew I would love it and learn lots from experts, because that is how she makes our Home Education work.’ He finished up by talking about the stone age courses in flint knapping and harpoon making, bringing out examples of his work, describing in great detail the process, talking knowledgably about cavemen, their lifestyle, hunting and toolmaking.

The whole ‘talk’ lasted about half an hour and had all of us spellbound. He was articulate, passionate, clearly very knowledgable and determined to prove himself. It was like watching a really good job interview or verbal CV being delivered. I was so very proud of him.

I suspect most of it went over my Dad’s head and even if it didn’t he would still dismiss it as ‘well he could do that and have literacy and numeracy skills and it’s not like he needs to survive in a forest anyway’ but my Mum had tears in her eyes at the end of it and so did I.

My Dad had finished his earlier rant with ‘time will tell who is right and I hope I am proved wrong and the children do well’. For me Davies did a bloody good job of proving him wrong. Love that boy.

For light relief we opened a box of Christmas crackers, all wore the hats, laughed at the jokes and had a race with the two different sized plastic frogs along the table (Me: look Dad, we’re doing physics!). The kids went to bed and we stayed up a while longer talking about renting the house out.

Stupidly late to bed.

Sunday a much needed lay in for me. We’ve had bugger all in the way of snow despite much of the rest of the country being in chaos. This morning we had a very brief flurry but the world outside our window is far from white and still in glorious technicolour.

Today we’d decided to deliver local Christmas cards so we headed off to do that including Ady knocking on the doors of a couple of old ladies he used to do gardening work for way back about 15 years ago. They are both customers of my Dad’s and one of them today told Ady she is 89 and has known David since she was 53 – wow, that’s when I was born!

We ended up quite near to Tesco with our last card so we popped in for some bits before coming home for Ady to get roast dinner on. The kids and I cuddled up and watched a couple of Christmassy dvds infront of the fire. They have been really squabbly today, a sign of Scarlett getting better but pretty unusual for them and very wearing. I threatened them with a competition to see which of them should be sold on ebay and they got on better after that ;).

Dinner was lovely, afterwards we all watched 100 Greatest Toys, which went on for hours so Ady and I both nipped off for baths. Scarlett took herself off to bed and Davies took ages to go to sleep as he was creating a storyboard for Toy Story 4 complete with colour illustrations – love his creativity and imagination, hate how it only works after dark!

Apprentice final for us and I did the huge amount of washing up created by a roast dinner. I should probably have done some wrapping up but Davies was still around at about 1130 so didn’t really have the opportunity. Scarlett’s rash has all but completely gone and hopefully a good nights sleep or two will have her back to normal.