Ady’s been off with Johnny today mostly lifting stuff I think. They seem to be firing each other up with testosterone filled manliness, working harder every day. They are both enjoying it, if they do seem to have collectively aged 10 years in the week we’ve been here!
Davies and Scarlett spent an hour or so first thing with Benji the goat, walking him in the wooded area so he could munch on some ivy and other such treats. He proved very difficult to persuade back in to his field though so I went to assist! They went off to play and I thought they had gone to Paddington but Davies apparently decided he didn’t want to go and play with the kids up there today so they came back after a wander around. They spent about half their time inside today and half out with Benji. Benji has been suffering with lice and losing weight so had been kept at the stables for a few weeks but he is looking better for being back out in the field again now he’s got used to the cold and the kids have been feeding him up on fruit and vegetables which was his main diet, with just a little goat museli up at Paddington whereas here they have been mainly feeding him the museli. He seems delighted to be getting the fruit and veg again, particularly when created into appealing shapes and designs 🙂
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Davies spent some of his own money on buying a film this evening. I’m conscious of not being great at parenting just now – too much on my mind with everything else going on, not enough down time just hanging out with the kids. I don’t remember the last time I read to them or showed them something or did something interesting with them. I know Davies wants me to help him with a book he wants to create about wild camping, I know he wants to make one of those choose what happens next stories, I know he wants me to read with him / to him / listen to him read his Little Howard book. I know he’d be really interested in learning about calligraphy. I found a fab website last night about Lego quest challenges that I know he’d love and I must show it to him and make sure he gets to take part in the next one.
I know Scarlett wants me to spend some time adoring Humphrey with her, she has done so well in taming him and he now very happily snuggles on her lap while she sits watching TV. She was so interested in learning more about hamsters from books or the internet and she needs me to help her with that. Scarlett wants to do a Come Dine With Me competition where we all take it in turns to cook for the rest of the family and she needs help planning that, going shopping, looking at recipes and making it happen.
They are squabbly from spending all day every day together with no dilution from us, probably still a little unsettled from being at Mum & Dad’s, likely missing their stuff after having access to it all for a month, tired from too many late nights, seeking attention by being annoying and then getting told off for being annoying without getting any of the attention. It’s all temporary and in knowing it needs dealing with I am over halfway to sorting it.
Today has been particularly frustrating as I had loads of online stuff to do for Jill and Denise the office manager was in so I stayed in our cottage all day using my laptop instead. I listed two more cottages on ebay – a romantic Valentines break and a half term family week. I tweeted and facebooked and flickr’d, I wrote press releases, chased up advertising, came up with new ideas for marketing. I compiled an inventory list for each cottage based on the tourist board minimum standard guidelines. I fed the animals and put them away. But I was in the cottage and therefore sort of around to be talked to and asked for things and I tried to strike the balance between ‘sorry, no, I’m working’ and ‘sure I can take five minutes to look at that with you’.
Tomorrow I’m planning to combine more of the same with getting the kids to make a film of ‘Middlewick through kids’ eyes’ to be uploaded on Jill’s new youtube channel, planning a veggie garden for Jill and then going seed shopping with them to get stuff potted up, getting some words from them for the WW blog about Rum and the crofting plans and doing the rather overdue What We Want From 2012 exercise for this blog. We might now know where we’ll be living but it doesn’t stop us coming up with idea of new things we want to learn, skills we’d like to acquire and experiences we want to have.