Electrical fish in t’sea

The word efficiency always reminds me of that advert from years ago.

Up with the alarm this morning as Lance the mechanic was coming to collect the van for a service. I couldn’t remember if he’d said 10 or 1030 so at 1010 I decided it must have been 1030. At 1130 I decided he was just late!

I had quite a list of things I wanted to get done today but was stuck in waiting for Lance really. I did hang some washing out and go and coo over the new chick though – 3 days old and now out foraging and learning from it’s mother(s) about eating, drinking and so on. I love watching mother hens with chicks, they are so clever and fascinating they way they teach and communicate.

Davies and Scarlett played with the geomags, including making coloured shadows with the sun through the panels and blending colours to make stained glass window effects. Lance rang at about 1145 to say he was running late but would be round after lunch to collect the van.

We had lunch and then he arrived with a mate. They took a couple of attempts but did get the van started, chatted with me for a while about our plans for next year and then drove her off. We are just having a service but specifically want to get her running reliably , hopefully she’ll be back tomorrow and we can actually take her for our much longed for overnight somewhere soon.

I’d collected together 4 rings, a pair of earrings and a necklace that held no sentimental value (not much stuff does hold sentimental value to me to be honest, as slushy as I can be) to carry on raising funds for next year, I had the insurance documents to post and a book to drop off to someone at reading group so we dashed off to get all that done. I tried both jewellers in Lancing and the first doesn’t buy gold and the second one offered me £50 for it which was exactly the price I’d had in mind as what I’d be pleased with. I suspect I could have gotten more and wonder if handing over one ring at a time might have gotten me more but I was keen to turn it into cash and that along with the few bits that we sold on ebay has raised the £120 for servicing the van which we’d have struggled with this month so I took the money!

We came home and I decided to take advantage of the dry weather, the empty drive and Ady not being around to keep squirrelling stuff back away in the garage so did a very ruthless carload of stuff to the tip. I also grabbed all the half pots of paint and we took them round to my Dad and stayed for a cup of tea with him. The garage already looks like someone has been in there with a mind to clearing it, I reckon three or four more runs and I’d have it all but empty.

Back home I sorted the kids some dinner out and then Ady arrived home. Tom rang to talk to Scarlett to tell her the ducks are doing well and his Dad has been out on the boat and can’t get near them as they are scared of him. I had huge reservations that they would survive the first night so am hugely heartened by this news :). I think we’re going to visit them next weekend.

We read a chunk of Running Wild before bedtime and I have started reading Wild Food which I think will be an interesting and hopefully inspiring read.