Efficiency R us at our house this morning and we were out by about 930am. We needed petrol and Sainsburys petrol station was closed due to ‘technical issues’ which meant we played petrol chicken to the next nearest garage. We then went to the feed store which is near the stables for layers pellets (big heavy sack – I was most pleased when someone brought it out and put it in the car for me, I struggled the other end lifting it out of the car and all round the house to the feed bin at home) and then to the stables. We arrived bang on time for our planned 1030am meet with Julie.
In fairness neither of us are great at timekeeping but she did reach new heights this morning at nearly half an hour late. When she first had Jack and Maisie I was slightly in awe of her routineyness and how organised she was with set times for not just meals but snacks and drinks too. So it was with a concealed snigger they pulled up half an hour late with the kids troughing bags of crisps in the back of the car ;). We went for a walk this time along some footpaths, through some woods and back up the road. Jack rode first, then Davies, then Maisie and finally Scarlett. Davies did great as his was mostly downhill and he did some good steering and stopping. He’s told Julie he wants to have a go off lead and try trotting – I think he is aware that Scarlett is progressing quicker than him. Tarly did a bit of trotting and loads of balancing in the saddle. Julie said that she’s been thinking about Scarlett and knows Honey (the pony) will fairly quickly be left behind by Scarlett and what she will be capable of doing. Not quite sure where that leaves us as we can’t afford lessons and it is something Tarly is loving. I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it really. We do have another friend with stables of his own so maybe we can sort something out with him as and when needs be. I’d quite like Julie to carry on teaching though as she is a very good tutor.
It was getting on for 130pm by the time we finally left the stables and the children were really hungry so we called into Arundel and got a portion of chip shop chips each to eat in the car. They were not delicious, very much the end of the lunchtime shift chips but Davies and Scarlett thought it was a huge treat anyway :). We met up with Lucy and The Rs at a park on the way home for an hour where the kids played mostly well together and Lucy and I sat and chatted and froze.
We came home and they played with fun blox for ages and ages building all sorts of things while I drank two cups of tea and tried to warm up. I’m sure two trips round the chickens and the prospect of going out again to Badgers wasn’t helping though. The kids had tea and got changed and then we drove to Badgers. There was some debate about coats – they reckoned it was not worth wearing them as neither of them like to wear coats in the car (fair enough, they don’t need them for warmth and plenty of adults take coats off for comfort in the car, it’s uncomforable wearing a bulky winter coat in a car seat with seatbelt on) so they put them on to walk from the house to the car, take them off in the car and then put them on again to walk from the car to Badgers (a few paces) then have to go upstairs to the cloakroom to hang them up, collect them again at the end to repeat the charade of wearing them to the car only to take them off again. I see their point, they argued it well so I agreed.
Sure enough the first comment from the Badger leader was ‘don’t you have coats?!’ to which I explained the whole situation and said that they did indeed have coats and were not neglected children and I had their coats still in the car and could bring them if she liked as evidence 😆 she said she didn’t doubt they had coats (infact she’s seen them when they did Remembrance parade) and added ‘very independant thinkers your two children aren’t they?’ to which I could only smile and reply ‘oh yes, and that’t the way I like them!’
Ady arrived shortly after they went in so we walked to the CoOp which has had a big new extension on their cheap Ethel Austin clothing concession. I thought Ady had picked his bank card up and he hadn’t though so although there were several things in there we’d have bought we had to just browse instead. We walked the long way back and then sat in his car listening to Christmas songs for the last 15 minutes. Davies came home with me and Scarlett went with Ady and we realised we have a duplicate Christmas song cd in my car so we listened to the same as them and came in all singing Winter Wonderland :).
I read stories then had a bath before cooking lasagne and garlic bread for dinner – always a late dinner on a Wednesday. Davies went to sleep listening to a Christmas song cd too. I think it may have officially started here in the Goddard household :).