One word? When seven would do…

We met Julie, Jack, Maisie and Lorna at the stables this morning. We hit serious traffic on the way so an optimistic 20 minute / realistic 30 minute drive took nearly 50 minutes. That gave us plenty of time to listen to our current in-car cd and for me to explain ‘revolution’ (Sandi Thom, punk rocker with flowers in my hair) and ‘play boy bunny with bleach-blonde hair (Nickelback, Wanna be a rock star – slightly harder ;)).

We arrived 25 minutes late and Julie pulled up mere moments after us, also 25 minutes late. Clearly some sort of amazing ESP or mutually compatible crapness going on there! The children disappeared off to run round the farm while Julie tacked Honey up and we caught up. They organised their own riding rota and off we went with Maisie riding first. Scarlett and Jack have always been the least likely pairing of the four cousins but the last few times we’ve met up they have been very close and today they were inseperable. They were ‘Bug Hunting’ and spotting all sorts of interesting creatures. Jack is very into nature and always has been and is pretty knowledgable about plants, flowers, bugs and so on so they were having a great time together spotting and identifying things :).

Davies had a nice long ride on Honey and actually ended up having a second ride. He seemed slightly distanced from the other 3 today but he has been doing a lot of hanging around me the last week or so and trying to join in my conversations with other adults rather than playing with ‘the children’. He’s reminding me a lot of the daughter of a friend who would always rather be with the grown ups than the children at gatherings, particularly with his efforts to join in the adults conversations. I’m trying to find the middle ground between completely censoring what I talk about and not being at all responsible with what I say infront of him.

He talked to Julie a lot while he was riding about various horse related things.

Scarlett was so into her ‘finding interesting things with Jack’ that she had to be persuaded to ride Honey at all which was something of a surprise as she normally adores it. She did have a ride but was as keen to get down again and carry on exploring really. I did get a nice picture of her turning round to talk to me though which is another of those ‘future echo’ type shots where she could almost be any age;

And I just love this picture, not because it has any great photographic value, just because it has lots of people I love in it and sums up for me the best part of our normal weekday activities; relaxed, in good company, doing things that are active and happy, chatting and enjoying being together:

We got back to the stables and the children went off to climb on ‘the mountains’ which are the straw and muck heap and an equally towering pile of lopped tree branches. We ate lunch in our cars parked side by side and then the four big cousins went off to play again while Julie, Lorna and I hung out and chatted (and gurgled and gave the odd 5 week old smile :))

We left there and Davies had gotten upset about losing a croc button so I’d said we’d call into Littlehampton on the way home to the shop where we get their pretendy crocs from to see if we could get a replacement. The shop only had two different designs but said their Rustington branch had loads so as that was also on the way home we called in there and got them a pair each of new ones. We also got them a pair each of new shoes – Tarly, more pretendy crocs with glitter and heart shaped cut outs for a quid and Davies some camouflage print sandals for £2 – bargain! I got a £7 pair of jeans too :).

We got home and as they’d been eating jam doughnuts in the car neither of them were particularly hungry for tea. Scarlett finally decided to have a bowl of cocopops after seeing an advert for them. Ady and I love the cocopops ad campaign which seems to be mostly about coming up with more and more times of the day when cocopops are ‘ideal’ for – after school, with warm milk (being their suggestions as well as breakfast), when your wife has announced she’s leaving you, when you get in from the pub too lashed up to cook a fry up (being some of our tamer ideas).

Ady arrived home and Scarlett and I headed off to Rainbows. Next week is the last one of term but she will miss it as we’ll be at Kelmarsh so she was in a bit of a party mood about the whole thing. She took her new shoes (well she wore them actually) and a couple of toy horses and talked about how she went pony riding today. One of the other little girls came up to talk to me about Scarlett’s ring, why I stay at Rainbows and the fact that she thinks I look like Scarlett. While she talked she fiddled with my bracelet which as a habit both my own children have I found very endearing. I think she has clicked onto the fact that Scarlett isn’t at school but doesn’t quite know how to come right out and ask and that was where some of her questions about Scarlett’s ring were leading (she has a little gold buckle ring that was mine as a child which I gave her a while ago and she always wears) as I assume it would be something she’d be asked to remove at school, certainly for PE – I know I always had to hand over loads of bits to the tupperware box at PE when I was at school :).

They did some sort of jigsaw puzzle activity, played a few games, ate biscuits and then had show and tell. I chatted to the leader for a long while about her foster daughter who has been helping out for the last month and how she is finding it. The girl has all sorts of problems including learning difficulties and a long history of all sorts of horrible abuse. I had found her rude and sullen but am now utterly humbled at both what a girl that young has lived through in her short life and the amazing role that foster carers play in helping children survive and live. It’s not something I think I could ever do and perhaps surprisingly (given he was fostered many times himself) Ady reckons he couldn’t do it either. Rainbows has been great for Tarly and we’re both happy for me not to stay from next term :).

Home for yet more of the pile of Barefoot Books – just 4 tonight as several of them were long ones, then bed for D and S and curry for Ady and I. I’m working in the morning and then we’re off to help celebrate Freya’s birthday :).