last night, so didn’t finish my IM chat with Lucy (sorry Luce!) or write a blog post. I can only assume in the way I’ve been hoping all the outside stuff and fresh air would tire the children into early nights (it hasn’t :roll:) it has indeed done it for me as I seem to be tired lots at the moment.
We were heading over to Ali’s yesterday and Ady offered to take us and pick us up to save petrol, which as it also meant Ali and I could have a glass of wine in the afternoon which we missed out on at Hunstanton seemed silly to refuse. So he dropped us off earlier than we were due at Ali’s as he had to get to college for a mock exam. We went to Ali’s local corner shop to get crisps and wine. They had a special offer of 3 bottles for a tenner (or a fiver each) which was too good to refuse so I got three bottles of wine, some pringles and Davies spotted the latest copy of the W&G magazine on the shelf there. We bought the first few copies of it as it was before our Financial Crisis (TM) and he has had subsequent issues as and when we have had a spare £2.60 (:shock:) and always really made the most of them, with the middle pages poster displayed on his wall, the stories inside read to him over and over and the puzzles etc all completed. As I was managing to justify a tenner on wine for me it seemed a bit mean to refuse £2.60 to him and he was being nicely pleading rather than annoyingly so I caved. Which meant I needed to get something for Scarlett too. In the corner shop, which was quite a feat unless she wanted a Ghostbusters dvd, a tin of peaches in syrup or some frozen findus crispy pancakes. Retrospectively she would probably have been happy with one of the bottles of wine, but she chose a bag of fizzy cola bottles instead :lol:. Which she proceeded to share with Davies and I.
Then we headed off on a walk. We’ve done part of the walk with Ali and Freya before so lots of the ‘landmarks’ were already tagged with names including ‘Echo Tunnel’ and ‘Poo Lane’. The children were picking dandelion clocks for me and each other to blow while making wishes which then all magically came true (most of them were ‘I wish for a cuddle’ or ‘I wish for another one of Scarlett’s cola bottles’ but still, the magic of the dandelion clocks is truly a mystical and wonderful thing :lol:). We walked past the goats and alongside a stream (where I was remarkably calm given how close they kept getting to the edge and how discinclined I would have been to leap in after them to save them if they’d fallen, finally ending up at a plot of allotments. We walked around them admiring the well tended ones, identifying lots of the veg growing on them and for me at least, being all wistful at the chairs sitting on some of them thinking about the idea of sitting there on a sunny afternoon in relative peace and quiet. Some of them were very family-like with a couple of swings, a stick and canvas wigwam and a small pond on one. My friend Dayve keeps chickens on his allotment and I have been toying with the idea of one for a while even going as far as checking out details of local ones on the local council website a few weeks ago, so it was coincidental that we happened to end up there yesterday. I explained the idea of them to the children who really liked it and were very keen to assure me it would be something they’d like to do so I have since got our names down on the waiting list for our local plots (it first looked like there was no waiting list but I’ve been emailed back today to say there is one and my name is now on it:) ). We walked back retracing our steps and taking a different turning at the end to walk along the lane behind Ali’s house. As we were almost parallel with the back of her house she rang to say they were ready for us so we finished walking that lane, went down the Incredibly Steep Concrete Steps at the end and arrived at her house.
Ali has already blogged our visit most ably so I shan’t rewrite that except to add that it was lovely and faintly surreal in places, particularly the operatic parts when everyone only communicated in song to each other. Ali and I had a chat about fitness and health which consolidated some feelings I’ve been having anyway but probably deserve a seperate blogpost. Then Ady arrived to collect us.
We came home via the supermarket for supplies for dinner which we’d forgotten to take out and defrost and a load of half price muffins and crumpets which I’ve filled another freezer with. The kids had sandwiches for tea and then ended up in the garden with Ady when I was intending to pack them off to bed. They came in and had a bath instead so were late to bed, which meant we were late for dinner, and then I fell asleep.
And now, I am 15 minutes over the time I’d allowed myself for blogging so I need to get a move on or we’ll be late for today’s activities. Anyone care to guess what that might be? 😉