Bank Holiday afternoon

I only worked until 130 today as I had hours owed to me for the library being closed on Monday for the bank holiday. They do this little sum where they work out your average hours per day (mine is 2.45) and then whenever the library is closed for bank holidays you get the equivalent of your average day off. Which is great for me as I don’t work Mondays so I end up with time off – less good for those of my colleagues who normally work a Monday and therefore end up owing the library hours and having to work extra.

This morning was one of those fab times when you get a real kick out of having workmates and colleagues. The children are lovely and we are out and about seeing people most days but the luxury of getting to work and standing in a gaggle rehashing what you watched on telly last night without anyone tugging at your sleeve or asking for a peanut butter sandwich (which normally characterises my chatting with people during the day when the children are around) was lovely. I remember watching Who Wants to be a Millionaire when it first came out and talking about it at work the next day, having sweepstakes at the beginning of Big Brother as to who would win and looking forward to getting to work on a Monday to talk about Pop Idol from the Saturday before. So it was great to walk into work and straight into a conversation about The Apprentice this morning. 🙂

It was busy-ish at work so the morning went pretty quick and I came home with Monster House on dvd and a cool 3d book complete with glasses on Dr Who so I was very popular arriving home. Lego had been being played with when I left for work and was still being played with when I got home. Davies and Scarlett had both been up since 530am when Ady left for work (he was delivering plants in a white van round London city centre today, poor lamb is slightly traumatised and went to bed at 10pm still trembling and muttering about one way streets!) so apologies to Lucy if they’d been as fragile all morning for you as they were all afternoon for me. They played a bastardised Dr Who game with lego Doctor, daleks, K9 (their favourite character despite never having seen him but seeing him in a book about vintage Dr Who characters :lol:) and various baddies including ‘block head’ who was a normal lego man from the neck down but a large red lego brick instead of a head. They squabbled madly and ended up in tears within about ten minutes of me arriving home (I’d got changed, made a cup of tea and some crumpets for lunch and hung a load of washing out which promptly got rained on) so Scarlett came for a cuddle, I told them not to play together if they couldn’t get on which made them both cry even more insisting they wanted to play together and didn’t want me to stop them :roll:. They eventually got some fuzzy felt out and seemed to make up after that. They looked at the Dr Who book together and then tidied everything up and put Monster House on. Scarlett was a bit scared so I got out the hama beads and sat and did that with her, which Davies eventually gravitated towards. I made a dalek and a tardis for them and whilst I expect experienced Hama-ers have been doing it this way forever found it loads easier using a cocktail stick to spear beads and then tip them onto the board instead of fiddling around with my fingers. Davies and Scarlett just do not have the patience for hama beads, they get bored way too quickly, Davies started doing an elephant board with the excellent idea of making squares of colours to make an Elmer but gave up and then started to make letters to go on his bedroom door but stopped at ‘D’. Scarlett asked for more and more unlikely creations from me such as My Little Pony and Barbie :lol:. Might do some more of it tomorrow though, I like the idea of making toys in various materials and the children seem to almost enjoy playing more with things they have to use a bit of imagination for (and of course we can’t afford the real proper plastic versions 😉 ).

Ady arrived home and cooked the children’s dinner, Scarlett had a total meltdown about not being allowed icecream despite claiming to be full up as the reason for not eating all her dinner, then another one about tidying up some beads she’d just tipped out but she finally did pick them up and was very cuddly before falling asleep very early. I popped out to get some food shopping, picking up ingredients for a birthday cake for Ady and a couple of little gifts – his present from me is £20 to go and spend in the Pompey shop rather than me wasting a fiver on p&p when he works near to it normally and I have also won a Pompey top on ebay but I’m not sure it’ll be here on time, his birthday is on Sunday. Ady is leaving ridiculously early again tomorrow but has said if Davies is up again he’ll take him with him, as long as I’m not listening to ‘Exterminate!!!’ at top volume on the stairs again before 6am I don’t mind!