Because being a (crap) vegan and all there was no poultry harmed in the making of our pesto pasta at Ali’s (although I think there may have been egg based preservative in the pesto and I believe peccorino cheese was brutally slaughtered too. Oh and there was senseless killing of pine martens for their nuts 😉 ) but a lovely afternoon chatting and idling away the hours catching up was just what I needed to soothe the blahs. Thanks mate 🙂 x.
First thing I had a plan to get up early, read some books with the children and go to the library on the way to Ali’s so Davies and Scarlett could finish their Big Wild Read challenge with their last two books. I scuppered this somewhat by having both children in bed with me cuddling and chatting for nearly an hour having woken me too early and then reading my book in bed for another hour once they’d disappeared downstairs. I gave them clothes to get dressed and asked them to look for their BWR passport things and choose two books each but neither of them could find them. So I had a tantrum about the state of their bedrooms, yelled at them to sort them out OR ELSE and went online for an hour instead. Davies tidied his room and found his passport, Tarly couldn’t track hers down so I’ll help her find it on Thursday and we’ll pop to the library then sometime. We all made up again and then went over to Ali and Freya’s.
We were all excited about their current two-houses status and after lunch we headed five doors down to inspect their most recent accomodation acquisition. Pretty much the same as they one they’re in now, plus or minus furniture and lean-to bolt ons, oh and a mirror image being the other half of a semi to the one they are in now (although I don’t know if the children noticed that). Actually Davies and Scarlett were more enamoured with Delilah, the neighbourhood cat who accompanied us in, exclaiming ‘look at Delilah, she’s rubbing her head on my hand to be stroked’ and ‘listen to Delilah purring’ 🙄 anyone would think we didn’t have a head rubbing, purring cat of our own in residence at our house 😆
After various spats about Happy Street (Scarlett was playing nicely with it making the bride and groom marry each other – and kiss! 😆 but Davies wanted to play with it) and what to watch on TV (there were votes for Shaun the Sheep and Dot, Spot, Bot and Jot or something) Ali had the inspired idea of suggesting they build an obstacle course on the patio, which Davies very specifically went to town with. It kept them going for a good half hour or more before we were called out to inspect and admire it. Actually I was really impressed at his imagination and inventiveness, using various stuff around the garden to create a credible course to knock a ball round. Infact it made me realise how far his skills in planning and executing a workable design have come with obvious testing and experimenting along the way. I must get the marble run out for him later this week, I think he’d do something far superior to previous attempts with it where it was more about height rather than actual design.
Anyway, I had the chance to do some of what I was talking about having missed doing lately with Ali, chatting about ideas, running things past someone else’s ear and getting their take on stuff, putting ideas into words and thinking aloud as I went. It was good 🙂 And I got to catch up on Ali’s life too, which somehow the summer along with various other things happening in both our lives has seemed to put on hold rather.
We came home, singing all the way to High School Musical songs. Davies played xbox for a while and then they had tea and watched Doctor Who. They are both still wide awake, typically as we’ll be up early as I’m working in the morning so I bet I end up getting them out of bed tomorrow instead of them waking me. Tomorrow afternoon bake-fest party prep begins in earnest with most other things in hand and organised now. I’m at the stage of it being close enough to look forward to now with most of the stuff I had on a big long list as still to organise now either in hand or already done.
‘It kept them going for a good half hour or more before we were called out to inspect and admire it. Actually I was really impressed at his imagination and inventiveness, using various stuff around the garden to create a credible course to knock a ball round. Infact it made me realise how far his skills in planning and executing a workable design have come with obvious testing and experimenting along the way.’
You are starting to sound like teacher writing his school report 😉
Lovely afternoon, thank you very much, and for all your support during the recent ‘proof of income’ stress, you’re a star!
Freya told J about D’s obstacle course and drew a picture of it. I wish marble runs had the kind of inventive structural options he’d used in the course though, it was great use of found materials.