Feed animals in the zoo, and then later a movie too…

I can’t manage this blogging infrequently business, I forget all the tiny trivial bits that make up my normal posts! The days seem to merge together (oh yeah, two of them did :lol:) and I forget all the details.

Friday I wanted to do some baking so I made a few batches of banana cakes and to make them more party-tastic I added chocolate frosting and sprinkles. I also made some rice crispie cakes which I’ve not actually ever made before. They tasted lovely but utterly failed to set so were tricky to eat but worth the effort (I thought so anyway!). At that point I decided it was far too hot to be in the kitchen with the oven on any longer so left the breadmaker to do it’s thing with the pizza dough and my Mum arrived with some nice food for lunch (stuff like posh ham and cheese from the deli, french bread, expensive crisps and chocolate eclairs – all well beyond my reach nowadays!). She’d wanted to take it out as a picnic with the children to the park but I was really not in the mood and had other stuff to be getting on with at home. She semi-offered to take them on her own but I don’t think the children were that fussed about going really, they were playing quite happily with the lego and it really was pretty hot out.

As people who don’t go swimming very often we are distinctly lacking in pool stuff like arm bands, rubber rings etc so we did pop out to the Wizard store to get them a £1 rubber ring each to take to Freya’s party on Saturday. I put these purchases carefully with their goggles – all of which I forgot to actually take on the day! 😳 We also went to the post office to send a couple of ebay parcels and I nipped into the local library as I’ve heard so many people talking about the various things laid on local to them through the summer holidays and it occured to me that D & S are now both probably old enough for all these various things, so I wanted to note a few events down in my diary which look interesting and have available as options. Picked up loads of leaflets and the free local parenting magazine with a full ‘what’s on’ listing so I will sit and go through them all later and list all the things we might try and get along – loads of free and very cheap stuff too :-).

We came home and I sent Mum and the children out into the garden with ice lollies while I sat and got on with the stuffed Puss in Boots from Shrek 2 which was Freya’s birthday present. (Typically I forgot to take a photo of it, if you get a good one Ali can you email it to me – if not I’ll bring the camera along next time we come to you!). Ady arrived home (hurrah!) and Mum eventually left. We blew up readybeds, tidied up, cleared floor space for blow up beds and I made pizzas ready for Chris, Alison and co to arrive. The children had just gone to sleep when they got to us which was good as I think the arrival of four more children would have been enough to persuade them to stay up for hours more. Maybe even all night, but that would be a crazy thing to do! 😉

A very pleasant evening indeed. 🙂

Saturday Off to Freya’s pool party to celebrate her fifth birthday. Ali had got exclusive use of the fab Pells pool for an hour between 10.30 and 11.30am which was probably about the most perfect place to be on a hot and sunny Saturday morning. It was just lovely 🙂 Davies borrowed Lulah’s armbands and did a pretty good job of getting around the pool mostly under his own steam. He loves the water and it spurred me on again to sort out some swimming lessons for him. It would be lovely for him to be more self-sufficient in the water and add to his enjoyment not to mention being one of those lifesaving skills all children should have. Scarlett enjoyed paddling around in the shallow pool and being pushed round on a mat by Ady.

After the hour was up we decamped to the park next door for a picnic. We’d brought along our gazebo to offer some shade so we got that erected, Ady went off with J to get some drinks, Davies amused himself with bubbles and Tarly had probably one of her most impressive ever public tantrums. She even needed to be held as she was trying to do a runner out of the park. 🙁 She eventually sorted herself out and was very apologetic and loving again. Ady came back, the gazebo was sorted and we relaxed into a lovely couple of hours. There was plenty of playing, ball games, exploring the edges of the park, eating vegan party food and so on. Most of which I ignored and sat chatting 😆 I tried to go to sleep at one point with my head in Ady’s lap – he just took unflattering photos of me until I sat up again! 😆 Ali’s bubble thing was a huge hit until the massive amounts of bubble mixture ran dry.

We left around 3pm ish I guess and as we felt the need for more water we headed off to our local beach. I was persuaded to go in the sea – it didn’t take much persuading given how much I’d sat there two weeks ago wishing I’d brought a costume and could go in with D & S when we were were with Julie. So I headed back to the car to get it. I had this cunning plan that rather than try and negotiate my way out of jeans, a complicated and potentially revealing at the best of times top and underwear and into a still wet swimsuit on a beach infront of random stranger and Chris with his everready camera just waiting to ‘capture moments’ I’d get changed in the car in the carpark instead. So I pushed D’s car seat out of the way and shuffled down low in the back seat. A car came and parked right next to me at a rather crucial nude moment but didn’t happen to glance across into our car so I was safe there. I’d just got the swimsuit half on, my bra off and my top all tangled up round my head and shoulders when I sat on Ady’s car keys and locked the car. Fine I thought, at least I’ve done it when I’m in the car this time but clearly my far from graceful writhing about either set off some motion sensor once the car was alarmed by being locked or it has some sort of offence alert cos suddenly the very loud car alarm went off complete with flashing lights! So everyone nearby looked over, including the people parked next to me who were just getting out of their car! They obviously all deduced that your average car thief is usually fully dressed and getting in the drivers door rather than the back seat so thankfully noone tried to approach and conduct a citizens arest! 😆

Once decent (ish) again I headed back to the sea and Davies and I joined Alison and children in the sea. It was lovely :-). I really enjoyed it. Davies loved it too, despite being freezing – need to keep an eye out for a cheap wetsuit for him so he can survive for longer in there really – because he was just holding onto me he quickly got cold and his teeth were chattering despite insisting he was fine! I can easily see why people go swimming in the sea every day now – it’s years and years since I’ve been in the water other than waist height paddling – the display at Kessingland where Ady dragged me out was way further than I’d normally go. Far nicer than a swimming pool too. But doesn’t seaweed get in all sorts of places! 😉

Eventually we’d all had enough and were in need of baths / showers, food and drink so we headed for home. A quieter evening with a curry which turned out rather hotter than I’d planned and we waved goodbye around 9.30pm. I think I was asleep within the hour! 🙂

Sunday We’d planned to see Chris and Julie this afternoon but they rang to cancel so we headed out to a car boot sale this morning. Davies got a Shaun the sheep bumbag for 10p, Tarly got some hideous fluffy poodle soft toy also for 10p and I picked up a fish tank with pump / light etc the same as the one I got from freecycle for Davies ready for Scarlett’s birthday. Davies got his (original) fish for his 4th birthday and that is what she wants too so now we have the tank ready – for the bargain price of a quid :-).

We then went into the PYO farm which is in the adjoining fields to the car boot sale. We started to pick strawberries but there were lots of nettles in the field, it was hot and the pickings were a bit sparse so we quickly lost interest in that. We did pick onions, carrots and beetroot though for tonights dinner. I’ve not really picked root vegetables with the children (or indeed myself :lol:) before so that was educational for all three of us with Ady showing us what to do!

We came home for some lunch and then Ady and the children went in the garden – Ady to do some gardening, the children to catch grasshoppers which they kept insisting on bringing in to show me; That’s lovely darling, yes isn’t he green, doesn’t he have long legs, yes he is so much bigger than you’d expect a grasshopper to be in real life. I think you should take it outside now. NO I DON’T WANT TO HOLD IT – take it out quick before he jumps!!!! and I had an ill fated attempt to have an hour or so peace and quiet 😆

Tarly is long since asleep, Davies is nearly there and Ady is single handedly cooking a very lovely smelling roast chicken that he spent ages creating a home made stuffing with herbs from the garden for earlier AND fixing my washing machine which died this afternoon. We had a look at new ones in the Comet leaflet that came with the freebie local paper, we looked at second hand ones in the Friday ad and I looked at call out prices for engineers and despite barely knowing one end of a spanner from the other Ady pulled the thing out, took a look at it and having already correctly diagnosed that it was working aside from not spinning round, but was able to spin round if done by hand then the driving belt thingy must be broken he was correct and found it had come off. He’s forced it back on, dealt with the wooden flooring that was put down after the washing machine was installed so prevented it from coming out easily 🙄 and it is now spinning away happily again. We’ve noted the part number printed on it and are ready and waiting (spanner in hand) for it to stop working again so we can buy the part for mere pence and call ourselves Goddard Washing Machine Repairs & Son. Or something! 😆 I love it when he is all capable in around the house bloke type tasks 😆

Tomorrow we have Babs, Chris, Beth, Ben and Rachael arriving for a couple of days so I really need to try and have an early restorative night to prepare me for further hardcore socialising!