Dad came over this morning, ostensibly to drop off some post that we’d already redirected to his address, but he then stayed until about 3pm :). I’d had another ‘you need to come and collect something from the post office’ card (I’m a regular in there this week) so Dad ran me round there and parked outside to save me having to park. It was a notification from the insurance company to say they need my no claims discount proof or they will cancel the policy (I changed to a different supplier for my car on a monthly basis ready to cancel when we go). Sigh. Never straightforward. Two phonecalls and several emails later today I am still not sure it’s sorted, particularly when speaking to call centre to someone who promised to email me and wished me a nice day and was about to hang up when I asked if they actually had my email address. No, they didn’t. Trying to spell that out to someone who’s first language is not English was far from straightforward particularly when I couldn’t for the life of me remember it was N for November and S for Sierra and went for S for Siesta which of course sounds just like F for Fiesta…
Scarlett did some painting and then spent ages with sellotape, lots and lots of sellotape and paper making a rocket. It wasn’t hugely successful but she enjoyed the test runs and we talked about what made a rocket work (cue Dad, it’s not rocket science, erm well okay maybe it is :lol:) and how we could replicate it. Scarlett came up with the idea of balloon power (blown up then let go so air rushes out) and rang Ady to ask him to pick some balloons up on his way home later.
Davies was joining in with the conversation every so often while doing something on his PSP which turned out to be making a level on Little Big Planet about rockets.
We had lunch which Tarly and I nipped out to get stuff for and watched some of the Attenborough Darwin dvd which was really interesting and sparked all sorts of conversations including everyone getting tenners out to see Darwin’s picture, then Davies asking if all current money would be worthless when the queen dies, then Dad talked about decimalisation and then a conversation which quickly degenerated into nonsense about being in line to the throne when Davies asked if something happened to the queen and all her close family who would be next monarch. We speculated on which of the neighbours would be first in line having decided pretty much everyone would be something in line to the throne.
Dad left and the kids went off to get their bedroom sleepover-ready while I aimed to achieve the two things I’d aimed to get done today – listing the tent on ebay and contacting a magazine about writing for them. Inbetween washing up lunch, putting on a couple of batches of pizza dough for dinner, answering various emails, processing some laundry, chopping some more logs (we had a day or two supply left so my planned 3 weeks only actually lasted 2 and I wanted to split some sticks too) I managed to do both.
Ady arrived home and I fed the kids, we did Bad, Good, Learnt today:
Scarlett:
Bad: banged my head on the table
Good: chicken laid another egg
Learnt: that you can suffocate from swallowing a balloon
Davies:
Bad: Scarlett hit my leg
Good: Grandad came round for the morning
Learnt: First milk is called colostrum
Ady:
Bad: Drove through a beautiful spot near Hastings today that was ruined by the amount of litter that had blown and collected against a fence. Made me feel sad about how humans trash beautiful places.
Good: Looking forward to seeing friends this weekend.
Learnt: Cow anatomy – each teat comes from a seperate chamber in the udder.
Nic:
Bad: Bloody insurance, inept previous insurers taking too long to send through proof of no claims discount and new insurers threatening to cancel
Good: Lovely email from WWOOF host
Learnt: Charles Darwin was the grandson of Josiah Wedgewood (of pottery fame).
The kids took ages to get to sleep knowing that Kirsty & co are on their way but finally did fall asleep.