England 2 Columbia 0

Today we were mostly listening to Kirsty MacColl in the car. The children were aware of her work from Fairtytale of New York and more recently In These Shoes? but today we had some Days, some There’s a guy works down the chip shop swears he’s Elvis, a bit of Perfect Day and our personal fave England 2, Columbia 0. They were sad to learn she is dead, and very shocked at the man lying about his wife and children in the last song!

This morning we headed over to meet Julie, Jack and Maisie at the farm where they keep their pony, Honey. Julie was looking really well, she’s got 3 weeks til her due date but I could see the baby coming before that, she has that just before the event glow and calmness about her already, she looked really relaxed and happy and excited :). Nice to catch up too, it’s been a while since it was just us together although we have had several long phone calls over the last few weeks. The children were all delighted to see each other too.

Davies had first ride on Honey, then Scarlett went second, Jack had a ride and then Davies had another go as Maisie didn’t want to ride. She then changed her mind and did want a ride which meant Scarlett didn’t get the second go she’d been hoping for. Julie then offered her the promise of a bareback ride from the stables back down to the paddock which more than made up for it :). Davies is doing well, he really likes it and asks Julie lots of technical questions, both about riding and horses generally, all of which she is able to answer. Scarlett is something of a natural though, utterly loves it and wants to push herself farther each time. She is fearless and does look really at home up on Honey’s back. Her bareback ride was fab, Julie led Honey while Tarly clung on with her legs and held on to Honey’s mane, she loved it 🙂

Julie and her are already planning jumping, trotting and cantering as soon as the baby is born :).

We spent some time looking at a swollen and starting to decompose dead sheep which died while lambing – very disgusting but somehow fascinating too. We also talked at length about animal gaits further to something we’d seen on Bamzooki about horses legs. Julie showed us the patterns for trot, canter and gallop and we all did that down the road for a bit 😆 a faintly odd sight for anyone watching – a heavily pregnant woman leading a child on a pony with another woman and 3 children following behind bobbing up and down repeating one, two, three, one, two, three :lol:.

It’s been really windy here today and having done energetic stuff this morning we decided to have a lazy snuggling afternoon and made big bowls of popcorn and watched Enchanted on dvd. I really enjoyed it, Davies did too and it’s funny to see him getting slightly more sophisticated humour that still whooshes over Scarlett’s head. Sarcasm and irony are no longer totally lost on him. We cuddled up on the sofa in various combinations during the film and then Ady rang to say he was arriving at the station in about 10 minutes (he’d been to a meeting in London) so we went to collect him. I caught my trousers on a cupboard knob in the bathroom and shouted ‘bloody cupboard!’ which made the children giggle so we sang songs all the way to station using the word ‘bloody’ as many times as we could – cursing and musical talent nurturing, a rich and varied education for sure :lol:.

Scarlett fell down the stairs this afternoon, I heard a grand thudding and suddenly she appeared at the bottom in a crumpled heap face first :(. As always I let her pick herself up and run to me (foolproof way to check if they are seriously injured if they get to me, I hope I don’t see the day when they try and fail or simply don’t even try for being too hurt to manage it). She was incredibly lucky and has just scraped her face a bit. I think it is more carpet burn grazes to her nose, forehead and just under her eye and they are not too bad tonight, not even worthy of photographing ;). She was shaken though poor thing :(.

The children had tea and then it was off to Badgers. They had ‘share a hobby’ as part of this weeks activities so Scarlett took in her chocolate cupcakes for her baking hobby and Davies took in his box of art materials, his watercolour book and a photo of him standing infront of his library display. There was a fine array of things taken in by other badgers with several musical instruments (Davies was very taken with a small violin someone had, half size perhaps), a set of golf clubs, a football jersey (supporter not player), and a real cat in a carrier. Scarlett was very popular for her cakes :). While they were being Creative Badgers Ady I had a nice long walk and talked a bit about holidays and long term plans. It looks like QVC will continue through the summer with a break for just a few weeks now so a lot of our plans will have to go on hold or run the risk of missing a possible opportunity for lucrative part time work for Ady moving forward.

We’re onto Famous Five book 5 now and I’m certainly ready for a change when this one ends although I suspect we may come back to them – they are off holidaying in horse drawn caravans and having run-ins with circus folk in this one – they seem to be growing up rapidly though with Julian old enough to be responsible for all the others which makes me want to read number 21 just to see how she spun out their school ‘hols’ for quite so many terms 😆 So, stories, bed and then Apprentice. Off to work tomorrow.