I woke at 9am, poor Ady had left for work a good two hours before that. I woke the kids and had them downstairs breakfasting by 930am, tomorrow we’ll try an earlier start as they were both still awake at midnight again tonight despite being in bed by 9pm. The craziness of Christmas, New Year, guests and Ady being off work always takes a good week or so to realign though so I’m not too worried. Coupled with which we don’t have much of a pattern to be getting back to anyway, me and the kids.
We watched ROAR while they ate, which is part filmed at Port Lyphme or as Scarlett calls it ‘my birthday zoo’ and all got irritated by the very silly female presenter who kept making stupid comments and giggling.
Scarlett got out pens, pencils and paper and was doing some drawing while I was making a start on a blog about plans for the year (post below). We talked about that for a while and then Davies got his pens and paper out to draw a picture of the character he wants to knit. We talked a bit about how to do it and I got out my bag of zips, buttons etc to see if I had anything suitable for it. I didn’t and offered various shop options to go and buy the stuff. As we are broke, it is barely a week since we gave them Christmas gifts and the kids each have nearly £100 Christmas money from various sources I said he would have to fund it himself. The money they each have is their spending funds for the year as we have said we are unlikely to be able to pay for anything over and above basic provision of food and clothes etc so any additional stuff they might want over the year will need to come from their own funds. This is a great strategy for getting them to *really* think about how much they want / need something, particularly as I have always been opposed to pocket money so they have not had the chance to learn money management from that. Davies very sweetly agreed he should pay for the stuff and that ‘you are giving me plenty Mummy by teaching me the skills to make it and spending the time with me on it, that is far more valuable than money’ Oh he can talk a good sweet talk that boy ;).
We nipped into Lancing, the car started second go and was fine running, hurrah :), got the wool from a shop with a small knitting and sewing department, then drove around a bit at the other end of Lancing to find a parking space to go into a large charity shop there that has a very good haberdashery section as well as a cafe and other well laid out areas. Sure enough we got a second hand zip (they cut them out of otherwise no good clothes) and little packet of buttons (ditto) for 20p which I paid for as I also put 20p towards Scarlett’s heap of books she’d chosen. She got 10 books for £2.20 as they had buy one get one free and she got a selection of wildlife and nature books and spotter guides on birds, British wildlife etc and a copy of all of the Enchanted Wood stories in one book which she was thrilled with as she’s been listening to the audio book. She said she’s going to have to learn to read as she intends filling all her alloted space in the van with books so she needs to get maximum value from them. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of an illiterate bookworm before but I certainly seem to have one in her.
Back at home we had lunch – proper food with side helpings of fruit and raw veg to start making up for Christmas crap food and then Scarlett worked through one of the spotter guides for zoo animals while I showed Davies how to knit and purl. He is cack-handed at the best of times, amazing given how many skills he has in drawing, plasticine modelling etc. but caught on to both stitches really quickly and is going to practise some alternate rows of both as the toy he wants to make is stocking stitch. Once he’s mastered the stitches we’ll work out a pattern together and he can do it. He did a bit of that and then spent some time pencilling in detail on a rather lovely sunset mountain and rive scene he did in watercolours last week.
I made some phonecalls – checking we will get authority from our mortgage company to rent the house out, cancelling my car insurance renewal, trying to cancel Sky tv, checking with my Dad where he plans to keep my car while we’re away and whether my Mum knows about them storing our stuff, reducing my mobile phone tariff etc and some time online – checking bank balance, cancelling direct debits, changing BT billing dates and getting quotes for monthly car insurance, landlord insurance and making copious lists of things we can do now, things we can do once we’ve found a tennant and things we need to be thinking about.
The woman came to do the EPC (energy performance certificate) which all houses need if they are sold or let so we chatted to her for a while and the kids were impressed with her digital tape measure.
I chopped wood, lit a fire, out chickens away, dealt with a couple of loads of washing, made the kids some tea (sausage and mash and their choice of veg) and had a slice of Christmas cake with a cup of tea to celebrate being so productive and industrious :).
Ady arrived home and so we all caught up with each others days. Normally when he goes back to work I am secretly a bit glad to get the day back to it’s usual rhythm but we really missed him today. Hopefully this bodes well for later in the year ;). Scarlett showed Ady all her books, Davies showed him his plans for his knitting and we read him what we’d written for our plans for the year and he added his to the list. We decided to start good, bad and something new straightaway.
Davies – bad: spent some of my money on knitting stuff, good: completed a level on Simpsons, new thing learnt: how to knit
Scarlett – bad:dropped breakfast on floor, good: bought loads of great books at bargain price, learnt: that there is a bird like a cormorant called a shag and there are two types of pelicans
Nic – bad: realised a BT bill is due that I had not budgeted for in an already tight month, good -very productive day, learnt – that string theory is probably not ever likely to be something I understand 😉
Ady bad– had to go to work, good: Tuesday already not Monday, learnt: why the sky is blue – Ady was struggling to think of something he’d learnt and Davies asked if he knew why the sky is blue. He didn’t so I googled it for a more comprehensive answer than the one I was blundering through, which led to us all learning more about rainbows into the bargain.
We all watched the Stargazing Live thing although I snuck off a bit before the end to have a bath. Leftovers for dinner for Ady and I (curry from the weekend for me, chilli from the freezer for Ady) and I feel properly caught up on this blog now, ready to catch up on the WW one tomorrow.