One word? When seven would do…

We finished the workday week on a high note!

Last night was excellent – me, Ady and Frazer went over to Brighton, had dinner in an Italian restuarant and then went to see Richard Herring do his yoghurt routine.

Really nice all round really. Lovely to be out without children, lovely to be spending time with my brother – I hope my two choose to spend time together still when they are adults – and I am currently having something of a love affair with Brighton having been there three times in the last couple of weeks after not having been there at all since we moved home.

Brighton has really changed since I was a child. When I was very small it was very exciting but just another seaside town really. Back then Sussex was still very populated by old and retired folk, parts of Brighton were pretty downmarket and there was probably a bit of a tackiness about the place. In 30 years it has changed to being a fairly cosmopolitan city. House prices have rocketed, it is a capital for all sorts of alternative lifestyles and the whole London By The Sea tag it enjoys seems actually quite justfied. There is a large student element which always makes me feel in turn slightly uneasy and slightly wistful. Having lived in Manchester for a couple of years I really appreciate the difference living in a city makes and as Brighton is our nearest I am hankering after that sort of life a little.

The restaurant had huge comedy value. We were basically ignored for the first ten minutes we stood there and then approached by a pretty much non english speaking waitress who asked ‘you book?’ er no. ‘How many?’ er, quick head count, me, Ady, Frazer that’ll be three – oh and our invisible companion but he won’t be needing a chair – he’s brought his own! and then ‘you wait’. So we did. For a further ten minutes. We were then seated in the smallest squashed up corner of the room, issued with menus and then ignored for a further 10 minutes. We eventually placed our order and then it was with us within about 10 minutes – very curious! Lovely food and very cheap although we had planned to make a statement by not leaving a tip and then realised after we’d left that they add the service charge 10% anyway so we’d already done so!

Anyway Richard Herring was very very funny. Well I thought he was! We sat in the front row, right infront of the mic as sort of think thats the point of stand up – to feel like you are part of the act and that the comedian is bouncing off of the audiences energy. I think I have said before that doing stand up would have been another life, another time sort of dream of mine. Sitting right at the stage (and the theatre doesn’t actually have a stage, the act literally stands, with a mic on a stand, on the floor infront of you, they are not even elevated above you) with the mic in touching distance and the lights beaming down on us made Ady feel really nervous like he could never stand there and do a routine and me feel really excited at the prospect of having 200 people all in the palm of your hand, listening to you and laughing at your words. Ah well…

The routine was, as expected, very boundary pushing. Catholics would have been offended, the magpie routine was done (which I’d read on Warming Up), he did a lengthy bit about wasting sperm and how they should be the size of a trout, which involved totally harassing a poor girl three seats down from me, the yoghurt stuff and his unsucessful application to be the next Pope. Frazer said ‘well it was a night out!’ and Ady said ‘it wasn’t what I expected… but then I don’t actually know what I was expecting!’. They both preferred Harry Hill but I really enjoyed it.

Anyway, today has been equally good. Managed to get out the house to be at Vickie’s for 10.30 ish where she was reassured that the whole Jenny leaving Home Ed group was nothing to do with her (for some reason she had thought it might have been!!). Davies sat and built a train track in the front room which Vic and I chatted while Tarly and her son Andrew played , then having constructed quite an impressive track Davies got bored and headed off to play with them too. We had lunch and then the children headed off to the garden while we continued to chat.

Somewhere during the afternoon the children shed all their clothes (except wellies!) and had a sort of naked, mud smearing, tile smashing garden fest (obviously suited Davies down to the ground with his form!). They came in covered head to foot in very smelly mud so we chucked them all in the bath together and then I brought mine home. Totally what childhood is all about, playing, without inhibitions, climbing trees, hiding in secret places in the garden, taking off clothes in order to get as grubby as you can and generally doing stuff with sticks!

Davies had told me on the way over there that he’s going to be a singer when he grows up. We listened to some James Blunt, You Had a Bad Day several times and then I played them Labi Siffre which they liked. At lunchtime Davies had picked out a Hovis biscuit and asked what it said. I got him to tell me what all the letters were, he worked out by himself that ‘vis’ made a viss noise as it is sort of at the end of his name, then he said that H was a huh noise and O was an orgh – which is correct in some instances. I told him it was a Oh sound in this word and he pretty much got the word from that 🙂 Hurrah!

Did lots of Home Ed chatting with Vic. Explained autonomy to her and gave her some examples of how it works. She has this notion that she wants to be structured but as she has six month old twin boys as well as Andrew who is Davies’ ‘school’ age she is feeling guilty that she is not achieving any structure. Told her about my ‘plan’ for HE and explained that a large part of the reason for it is so that I don’t feel guilt for not sticking to a schedule! 😉 She is always full of praise and admiration for my children, which I always bask in, so I hope I have reassured her that any progress has not been brought to us in association with any workbooks, just normal day to day life!

Left there loads later than intended and got home to find Ady already here. Bless him, he sent me upstairs to get some peace and do some CVs and took over the whole tea and bedtime routine. He let Davies stay up til 8.30pm, he had a bath with him and they played together without Tarly for over an hour which they both really enjoyed 🙂 Lovely.

I got 3 out of the 9 CVs done, an email from CV lady to say the ones sent so far are great and that there are more on the way 🙂 (Ros my plan may come together yet!)

Tomorrow is a mad day. I’m doing a basket weaving day course with Julie and then we are all (including children, Mum and Dad and poss Frazer) going to a housewarming party of some friends who live round the corner now. Ady has called a pj day on Sunday, allowing me to complete the remainder of the CVs and him to have some more ‘quality’ time with the children. Hurrah!