and ooh didn’t we have a fab year 🙂
Bit of a non day today, mostly packing up and trying to tidy a bit as I’m conscious we may end up with limited time to actually pack all our stuff up and get it moved in the end. I got everyone up before 9am as we’ve all gotten (well me and the kids) far too slack about late to bed, late to rise. The kids grumbled but were still chatting at midnight tonight so I fear it will take more than simply a few early starts and some fresh air. Curse them and their bad routines! 😉
Dad’s van was being MOTd so I followed him along to the garage and brought him back which along with a trip to Sainsburys later and a walk with Ady this evening was the sum total of my leaving the house. I cleared out the car which had become a shite magnet including a load of stuff I distinctly recall giving Ady grief about carting around in his company car! I counted six first aid kits!!!! I reduced the tat to only things I could envisage some ironic need arising for in the next 24 hours as a result of having cleared them out. This did include a petrol can however and as we’ve just filled the car up with fuel I can only forsee extreme ironic situations happening for that to be needed so even I was not as callous as I could have been. We do only now have 2 first aid kits though!
The kids packed up a box each with toys to bring. I know we’ll only be in Glastonbury for a couple of weeks but it will be the first time in months they have had any sort of space of their own and the first time in nearly a year since they could spread out at all. We’re taking all of their clothes and most of ours on the basis we don’t really know what work we’ll be doing anyway and none of us have many clothes any more anyway. And the swimming costumes (hurrah!) and all the herbs and spices from the kitchen cupboard that were ours from Osborne Drive and I am SO looking forward to using to cook and bake with in the next couple of weeks :).
We loaded the car up so it is ready to go in the morning aside from last minute bits and bobs. Ady did some letting agent harassing as none of the rent had gone in yet – as a result the first lot went in at lunchtime and Ady was able to go and collect my birthday present reserved online – a new camera. I didn’t want something as big as Tarly’s, knowing full well I’d not use all the twiddly bits and be crap at looking after it properly, I want something I can shove in my coat pocket but get half decent photos from. I’m really pleased with it and looking forward to playing with it properly outside later in the week :).
I’ve caught up on some emailing various people I needed to do, patched up my knitted blanket which was looking very sad and holey and had a nice afternoon chatting to Dad in a fairly low key way. It’s been actually quite nice here the last couple of evenings, they are both obviously trying very hard with us and are very aware that they didn’t do all they could to welcome us and I think it is dawning on them that not only are we really going away very soon now but that we really didn’t need to come back here because we had nowhere else to go but that we were telling the truth about coming to stay with them because we missed them and wanted to have some nice time with them before we went away. And that yes it probably did cost them money to have us here for a few weeks but they can afford to feed us and should probably even have been accepting of us using the washing machine! 😉 I think leaving for that week was a good thing to do and proved the point. Mum particularly is clearly trying very hard, both with me and Scarlett especially. This is a far better way to leave things that as they were this time last week.
And so back on the road tomorrow. With hamster in tow. And I’ve emailed Rum to ask about timescales for the next bit so should hear *sometime* back even if it’s just to say ‘nothing to report yet’.