One word? When seven would do…

I had a bit of a hangover this morning having drunk a bottle of fizz last night rather later than planned due to the whole Scarlett Firesteelgate investigation 😆 I could have done without an alarm going off for me to go to work really.

But I had a really good morning at work once I’d drunk tea and eaten breakfast so all was well :). Scarlett went to check the duck house for eggs (they lay at night / early morning so can be collected first thing unlike the chickens who lay throughout the day). Sure enough another egg, this time a proper sized elongated egg.

It was Wendy’s last day today. She is a Senior Library Supervisor and I have always gotten on really well with her. After 22 years in the library service she is off to work in a doctors surgery and I think she will be really good at it and enjoy the new challenge and getting away from all the cuts and doom and gloom talk of working for the local council at the moment.

She was due to Lancing at 1230 so we spent time in the morning decorating the Enquiry Desk with a banner I had printed off yesterday saying ‘Bye Bye Wendy’ and loads of ribbons and sparkly things one of the girls had brought in from home. Another colleague shot off to the pound shop and picked up some bits to turn the chair into a throne for Wendy to sit on for the afternoon. We then realised that everyone sitting at the desk in the morning (mostly me actually) would have people thinking they were Wendy so we all made a name badge saying ‘Not Wendy’ to wear, except for James who made one saying ‘Certainly not Wendy’ which pleased and amused several borrowers during the course of the morning :).

I also made a sign to go on Wendy’s throne about how we would miss her and wish her well and a badge for her to wear saying ‘I am actually Wendy’. I finished sticking letters onto a piece of card for my Michael Morpurgo display so now have that ready to go up. And then Wendy arrived :).

She was most touched by all the decorations and I suspect would have been quite emotional by the end of the afternoon but I parted with a big hug and a promise to stay in touch and left them all to it.

Ady had promised to take Chris, Julie and the kids to Portsmouth docks as they are off to the Isle of Wight for a two week holiday and were going car-less so he shot off to collect them and was gone for most of the afternoon. He’d left me some cheese toasties and a cup of tea already made for my lunch so I took them with me to have my first meal in the van :). The kids came with me and we spent a very happy couple of hours just hanging out in there. They brought a pillow each and some toys to shove in the cubby holes in their bunk, I got frustrated with the wireless broadband not quite reaching out there and then busied myself taking photos and reading the big pile of paperwork that came with the van.

There is the original paperwork from when it was bought new in 1981 and all the warantees for things, instruction manuals for the loo, the fire, the fridge, the tv aerial, the cooker, the hook up /mains / running off the car battery / running off the back up battery power and various bits of service history documentation. I love it very much :). The kids hung out on their bunk playing DSs and telling me how much they love the van :).

I finally decided I needed more tea so came inside and was followed by the children. Scarlett busied herself painting pictures of ducks eggs on mountains and in other such picturesque landscapes while Davies did some animationstation stuff creating a very good little sketch with a plasticine face. I compliled a post which I’ve not published yet on Wonderingwanderers about a reading list, partially so I can stick amazon associate linkage in and partially because there are lots of excellent books that have helped shape our ideas of what we think we want to do and set us on our journey towards doing it.

Ady arrived home and we did some more moving the van about to get it better positioned on the driveway. Ady amused me by giving me all sorts of advice about starting it and using choke etc and then had to concede that actually I did seem to know what I was doing and infact have rather more of a knack than him for it. He then had a bash at reversing and getting it in straighter and I ended up taking over that too. I actually think he is rather more scared of handling it than I am but then he is the one who drove a motorbike only until he was 30 and has then had mostly nice new cars while I am the one who has driven all manner of old bangers for nearly 20 years and spent many winters towing my Dad’s van and bump starting decrepid vehicles every time you hit the brakes (oh that double feet skill of braking so you don’t crash into the car infront while still revving to keep from stalling on a cold damp winters morning!). I’m actually itching to get driving her again and having looked into insurance again I think we might just get her insured as for £20 a month it might well be worth it – must see about getting six months worth and then paying upfront for a year in March.

We then sat and worked methodically through all of the manuals and had a go at lighting the cooker, grill and hob, the heater and the fridge and tried to understand how all the power works. It has gas bottles already hooked up which run the cooker and fire just fine, the fridge doesn’t seem to be working on the gas but it was hard to tell. We think the secondary battery is probably flat although everything seems to switch across okay when the engine is running so we’ve bought a hook up adaptor so we can plug into the mains in the garage to test stuff (and be able to use hosts electric when we’re WOOFing too if we’re close enough to a power supply, and they have electricity of course ;)). We were amazed anew at how tidy it is inside and how well equipt it is :).

We came in and I cooked pancakes for the kids tea with Sploosh’s egg from today which looked about normal size but very elongated and turned out to be a double yolker 🙂
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and made good pancakes 🙂

We watched a very good evolution animation the kids had made together with two cells evolving into creatures, parting as one became a bird and one a mammal, the bird did great things while the mammal evolved into a human and then hunted the bird and ate it. Very deep :). Must work out a way of getting them onto a computer and uploading them.

We all watched X Factor, kids went to bed and Ady cooked steak for our dinner. Tomorrow we’re hoping for good weather as it is Apple Day at Stanmer Park and we want to go along with my parents.