One word? When seven would do…

Feels a bit like Noah’s ark at the moment on this blog – I’m only managing two days together at a time 😆 I did intend to blog last night but I fell asleep on the sofa, very early indeed, leaving a glass of wine half full and then staggered straight to bed when I did wake up again.

The toe is better, although still painful and very bruised, but I can walk, drive (putting weight on the foot is fine, if I was to stub it again or someone was to tread on it I might well go through the roof though) and although I didn’t sleep well on Saturday night as everytime I moved the pain woke me (which probably accounts for falling asleep so early last night) I slept fine last night. I’m thinking maybe it isn’t broken as it seems to have bent back into shape slightly now, but it is certainly injured and I’m still limping on it.

Davies had swimming lessons yesterday morning, Ady and Scarlett went for a walk along the beach while I sat and watched Davies. He is doing ok with them although he is clearly not destined to be any sort of great swimmer. I’ve always felt slightly bad that Davies isn’t more physically able, thinking that it is largely because we don’t do anything like that with him. Neither Ady or I are remotely sporty and where most boys aged about 2 seem to spend time kicking a ball around it’s not something we’ve ever done, not has he ever shown any interest in doing. The only physical thing he’s ever really enjoyed and wanted to do more of is circus skills type stuff, so I really must follow that up as I was talking to someone local the other day who was also interested in circus skills stuff for their children. Anyway, he’s trying hard with swimming although it clearly doesn’t come naturally and I can see that if Scarlett’s name comes up as soon as she is five they will probably end up in the same group. I think what he really needs is some more time in the pool to back up what he’s learnt, so hopefully we’ll get plenty of that at Kessingland and really try to move past where he is at the moment. The main thing is that he is enjoying it, which he is, and he is not scared of the water as I was at his age (and infact still am a bit).

We left there and headed off to a car boot sale. Our current wants are toy animals, Betty Spaghetty stuff and one of those china hens sitting on eggs to keep real eggs in, in very early preparation for any hens we might have starting to lay :). We bought a few bits and pieces, most noteably a shoebox full of Betty Spaghetty stuff for two quid :).

We left there and went to Lancing College Farm where I’d booked us on an Open Farm Sunday event. I’ve been up to the college before but didn’t know there was a farm there so it was nice to go and look around. It was a guided tour of the animals given by the farm manager who was very passionate and knowledgable, therefore very interesting to listen to. We saw alpacas, sheep, pigs, goats, chickens and rabbits. I listened to the talk, learning a fair bit about all the animals, particularly about their slaughter that I hadn’t known before, while the children just enjoyed roaming around among the animals. Scarlett paired up with a boy about her age and they had a whale of a time together herding the sheep about. It was all very interesting given that some of our conversations this last week or so about where we’re headed next as a family included talk of land and animals with discussion about what animals we’d most like to keep :). So yesterday and Friday at the SoE show mixing and mingling with all the livestock and farming folk has been very enlightening.

It was also the local Springwatch Festival yesterday, which was a real shame to have clashed as we’d had a really good day there last year. Probably against my better judgement given my toe I suggested we popped along there for the last hour when we’d finished at the farm, so we did just that. We had about an hour and a half there, which was long enough for the children to do a leaf search and get cloth bags as prizes and to have a quick glance round most of the stalls and enter a colouring competition, but not long enough to participate in any of the workshops which all looked fab. I started to fade fast after that so we came home. The children had their tea out in the garden, the chicks, who are spending all days out in the garden in their run now, came back in and the children were packed off for an early night. I cooked a roast dinner for Ady and I an then, as mentioned at the beginning of the post, fell asleep on the sofa.

Today was Magical Mondays. So after doing several loads of washing and putting the chicks out for the day we picked up Ali and Freya and got there shortly after 11, having had a discussion about songs without their title in the lyrics (could only think of Bohemian Rhapsody off hand) when Scarlett was all excited about hearing a song title in it’s lyrics and I explained that actually that isn’t really a novelty and does indeed normally happen with most songs. There have been some issues at MM lately which after a flurry of emails this last week were discussed at length by the adults present today. I think that some progress was made, I know I am feeling more inclined to invest and commit myself now as a result. We won’t be there for the next couple of weeks and after that it moves outside to parks for the summer, which realistically we probably won’t attend every week, particularly once Beavers finishes for the summer and we are free to do whatever the mood takes us when we get up in the morning. I let D & S play outside today which I don’t normally do, and they enjoyed.

Later Davies is off to Shoreham airport with Beavers, which Ady is going along to too and currently the children are playing with toy animals and Betty Spaghetty reinacting the Doctor Who they’re watching at the same time – one I don’t remember called The Five Doctors and I’m off to cook their tea.