I see skies of blue, clouds of white..

Knew I would jinx it by blogging about Tarly’s sleeping getting better 🙂 A bad night last night but hopefully today’s excursion should have worn her out sufficiently today to get a better one tonight!

Today pox watch starts for Tarly so look out for regular updates for the next two and a half weeks 🙁

This morning started with Ady and Davies coming and bouncing on the bed to say they had made a picnic to take to Drusillas. Which would have been lovely except we were going to Paradise Park and had planned to have cooked lunch in the coffee shop 🙂 Luckily the weather is supposed to be lovely tomorrow so we will take the picnic somewhere tomorrow. There was a brief shouty moment when I was trying to load them into the car, Davies hid and I thought he had gone into the garden round the back so called for him to come back right now, Scarlett said ‘I’ll get Davies Mummy’ and went off round the back, I then found Davies hiding behind the car so yelled at him for not answering me when I called, and then yelled at Tarly for going off when I had told her not to. Once in the car I calmed down and before we set off I laid down some ground rules of them behaving themselves today or I would bring them straight home. They both said sorry and Davies made all sorts of rash and unfulfilable promises like staying next to me and holding my hand all day long, listening to everything I said and even being so good I would not have to tell them in the first place while Tarly sat beside him nodding solemnly 🙂 Of course it didn’t happen but the sentiment was nice! These shenanigans had us running about 15 minutes late so I sent a quick text to say so and off we set.

We arrived at the same time as a coach party so there was some faffing about before we got in there but once in Davies, Leo (made up name) and Scarlett ran off ahead quite happily. I love having somewhere that they go regularly enough to feel really at home and comfortable at. Lisa (also made up name) stayed with Mel and I sort of walked inbetween the groups keeping a distant eye on the children and taking photos. Once we got outside the boys got a bit rowdy and Scarlett suffered a bit really. She is so used to being Davies’ main playmate and being included with him when in a group of other children that it came a bit hard to her to be so obviously left behind – she can’t run as fast, she can’t get the hang of the games they played and so on. She is so convinced that she is just the same age as Davies that she thinks Jack and Maisie (who are actually 3 months older than her) are smaller than her and she thinks Lisa is a baby (she is one month younger than Tarly). So that was a bit odd to witness really. OTOH it is lovely to see Davies running about, full of condidence, leading the game and having the time of his life, on the other hand it is sad to see her getting left behind, a bit confused about why she’s left behind and clearly hurt to see that for that moment at least there is someone else Davies would rather be with. They are very close and it is one of the things about HE I love the most, so although a division in a group is inevitable (particularly given age and gender difference) it was still a bit of a meloncholy moment…

She finally realised she was not up to playing with the big boys when she got whacked on the head by running slightly behind them and getting the full force of some swinging gates for the train track crossing 🙁 (nice purple and green shading on her forehead now) and then she managed to run ahead with them but in a different direction and get lost. I knew where she was but the layout of the gardens meant that she could not see me for a couple of minutes until I could get to her. That was enough to keep her beside me after that. Which was actually nice as her and I got to walk along holding hands, pointing out stuff to each other and being girls together 🙂 She also got masses of pushes on the swings when we went to the playground bit. I love my Tarly 🙂

We had lunch which amazingly all the kids ate most of, then Mel bought us all an ice cream and I paid for us all to go on the train. Davies and Leo were very independant, going off together and sitting at the other end to the rest of us. They have a nice friendship actually, they seem to be equals in it with neither of them pushing the other around.

Then we played in the playground for ages – there are some amusements there with really old fashioned games and machines for 20 p tokens which have an odd sort of charm about them, and a bark chipped dinosaur themed swings and slides and climbing frames area too which was made full use of. Davies and Leo played some elaborate game involving Davies being Buzz and Leo being Woody and them running away from dragons. Somehow he was so engrossed in his game Davies managed to climb every rope ladder and high up steps and go down every steep slide without batting an eyelid – so that was also nice to witness.

The children were all finally lured out with the promise of sweeties for the way home and off we set. Davies and I managed to keep Tarly awake using Kirst’s patented child sleep prevention techinique of singing ‘Old McDonald had a dinosaur’ at top volume all the way home 🙂

Mum and Dad have just rung from Dubai – the final leg of their trip which they are loving. Mum was drunk (it was 11pm their time) and was trying to convince me we should all emigrate there (heard it before, she did the same thing when they went to Australia. And Kuala Lumpa!) and they have trips planned for all their remaining days before coming home on Monday. They said they have enjoyed it and it’s been an excellent experience but Bangkok and Hong Kong were big eye openers for them and not always in nice to deal with ways – the poverty and suffering of the poorer areas has been hard to witness, particularly when there are children of Scarlett’s age on the street begging. Makes you realise how lucky we are in many ways to be born where we were. All life is a game of chance and all that…

So an upbeat end to a very wobbly start of a week. Thanks for the support guys – very much appreciated xxx off to get drunk to prepare for a nice weekend!