One word? When seven would do…

Cinnamon rolls for breakfast, dough on for rolls for lunch, various laundry processed, chickens dealt with and job list written for the day and systematically ticked off.

So this morning I did car insurance for the Sharan sorting (I’ve moved to a PAYG policy and needed to check the end date), cancelling breakdown cover for the Sharan and then spent time with Scarlett in her room boxing everything up to take away while Davies finished his room. We had some tears, she had chosen her favourite 20 soft toys to stay in her bed and today we needed to reduce that to about 10 to bring with us – still excessive but this is not an endurance test and it is not for me to dictate what is important to her. She did well, worked out what she could cope with and what she couldn’t and then it was lunchtime.

We had home made soup and home made rolls which were delicious and very filling – to the point that we all had to sit down for a while to let our lunch go down before embarking on Davies’ room. He’d also done a fab job but his boxes were rather too heavy so while I spread them across a couple more boxes sufficiently to mean I could carry them down the stairs Davies and Scarlett worked on packing up the stuff he is bringing.

My car comfortably takes 8 boxes so we loaded it up and went to Dad’s via the post office where I needed to send an ebay parcel on it’s way and collect forms for getting a car tax refund and doing a SORN declaration for the Sharan. Mum has apparently seen the boxes in the spare room and refrained from comment so Dad was relieved he doesn’t seem to be in too much trouble 😉 . Back home for a second load which was much harder as it was 8 boxes from Davies’ room. So, down the stairs, through the hallway, down the fairly steep front door steps, past the narrow bit between the pillar of the driveway and Willow (which involves turning boxes the narrow way round), into the car, then from car along drive way, into house (up steps) and into the spare room at Mum & Dad’s. I was pretty wheezy by about a quarter of the way in.

We laughed at the idea of drum roll through the village road where speed humps meant a five minute rumbling from the box containing Davies’ drum kit. We laughed less when on driving round a corner the box rolled forward and the kids had to catch a drum!

Second load dispatched the rain started to fall so any vague thoughts of a third run ended there. There was a moment when I was running through with Dad what was left to do when I could see him suddenly struggling so had to stop talking. We have talked often about living together one day and I still hold out hope it could happen. For all our many differences and clashes on things I will miss him terribly and I know we will leave a gaping hole in his life. Argh for changes and the tricky side of the adventure.

Back home again I made a cup of tea and washed up lunch stuff and was dealing with more laundry when Ady arrived home. We all gathered the books we have been stashing on one bookshelf in the main bookcase and created a small library. All non-fiction and hopefully all relevant to the year including the ladybird series of ‘what to look for in Spring / Winter / Summer / Autumn’, our collection of Collins Little Gem books, various wildlife, tree, bird, seashore, plant, insect, flower spotter books, food for free, some night sky and weather books, whittling, survival skills, fishing and so on. Not at all sure what we’ll do for fiction yet and it will be mostly me who struggles with that, along with the kids at bedtime I guess but hopefully we can pick up second hand books at charity shops and drop them off when picking up the next one along the way. Am trying really hard not to think about the Jean Auel, Jodi Picoult, Dorothy Koomson, Jill Mansell books due out in the next few months I was at the top of the library reservation list for… let alone the next Andy Stanton, Michael Morpurgo etc.

Ady had bought the kids liver to try for their tea so he cooked that. They both ate it but agreed they are not desperate to have it again. I’m really not keen on liver or kidney so totally understand although I am keen to try other, rarer parts of animals. We didn’t manage bad, good, learnt but all agreed we can do a double one tomorrow spanning two days.

We watched One Man and his Campervan and then I shot off to Book Group. I was cutting it fine but sort of expected to walk in and find it already set up, so was quite surprised when everyone was outside waiting and I had to let them all in! Brenda was running late so while the group all gathered chairs I set up drinks etc and then Brenda arrived too. We were both presented with flowers and cards (she is taking voluntary redundancy so it was her last time too) and there followed much chat about how the group will arrange themselves to carry on – was much heartened that they will and hope to make it along to maybe their December meeting :).

I had many cuddles, wishes for good luck and happy adventuring and my flowers some willow in them, Rose (not swinger) did the organising and specifically asked :). Lots of people took the blog details and it was all very lovely :).

Back home the kids were in bed but got up when I came home, Scarlett was painting a picture from a photo of ducks (yes, painting in bed!) and Davies had questions about whether you can be an illustrator *and* an author.

Ady has been reading the WW blog – having given all his workmates the link for it he felt maybe he should have a look and as a result is suddenly realising what a big deal it is I think! 🙂 I am contenting myself that this time next week we will be going to sleep in a totally empty house and this last gutty bit of hulking boxes about will be done with.

I watched the Morpurgo lecture which made me cry, guess it’s not just his books and stories then, it’s the man himself. One day I hope to shake his hand.

I am dilemma-ing about a couple of ebuzzing things I’ve been offered on the WW blog and will need to decide about tomorrow but for now I really should stop using up my mifi megabites!