One word? When seven would do…

This morning I was a vision of efficiency (despite not getting up til nearly 9am :oops:) and got loads and loads of washing done and hung out. It pretty much all dried too except a few bits which I have hanging over radiators to air so that was good. And of course I know how you’ve all been pining for blogging of my laundry. 😆

My Granny arrived dead on time at 10am and having made her token sarcastic comment of the day (the children rushed to her and gave her hugs and kisses but she couldn’t help but say ‘well I’m surprised they remember me, it’s been so long!’. We last saw her on Davies’ birthday, 2 months ago 🙄 and yes I did put her straight!) settled on the sofa to look at photos of ‘what you’ve been up to since I last saw you’ including Davies’ birthday party ‘what these are all Davies’ friends and they all came to his party?!’ allowing me to say smugly ‘yes, sort of puts the worries of a poor home educated child with no socialisation or friends into perspective doesn’t it rather?’ ;-), various walks in the woods for the last month or so and of course Halloween camp. And actually you know when I look at those pictures myself, and when I think about the events and the effort that I put into them and the amazing amount the children got out of them that does indeed put all my personal doubts about whether I do enough into perspective too.

All of that allowed me to get on with more washing and then as I was actually lacking much in the way of food and had my Mum and Lucy, R & R coming ‘for lunch’ I decided I’d make a cake. Lucy had texted to ask what to bring and I’d mentioned a couple of things I didn’t have for her to bring along. I had four very ripe bananas so decided to make a banana loaf and got halfway into mixing the ingredients before realising I didn’t have any eggs. Ady was upstairs anyway and Davies was engrossed in looking at ohotos so I asked Tarly if she wanted to walk round the shop with me (knowing full well she would and that she would be far too much of a handful to leave with my Granny even with Ady upstairs when he was trying to work) so her and I put our shoes and coats on to walk round the shop. My Mum arrived just as we were leaving, laden down with all sorts of lunch type food (french bread, posh cheese and ham, chocolate eclairs and fancy crisps :)). Tarly and I had a lovely wander round the shop together, talking about all sorts of things on the way there and back including her asking me why she had to walk on the inside. I explained about how if a car came up on the pavement then it would be better if it hit me first rather than her (which was the same explanation my Dad gave me when I asked him why he always swapped sides if we crossed the road so I was on the inside – he still does it even now if we walk along a road together) and she thought, nodded and agreed ‘good idea, because if a car came up and was going to crash into you then I could save you Mummy’ which earned her a spontaneous hug :). We got back to find Granny, Mum and Davies all playing snakes and ladders very happily so Tarly came and helped me finish off the banana loaf. She is an ace assistant actually as she is more than happy to do all the stuff I’d really rather not like greasing cake tins, mashing bananas etc. She was just starting to get cross with me about something when I saw Lucy coming up the path so I sent her to answer the door and quickly shoved the banana cake in the oven.

Rebecca settled straight into the snakes and ladders game with my Mum and Davies, Lucy and I hid in the kitchen and the playroom and Granny left. Ady came down to join us for lunch and then headed off. We then had something of a board games fest with Kerplunk, Buckaroo during which I had a slight sense of humour failure about a scuffle to ‘tidy up’ from children who normally can’t be persuaded to do anything of the sort 😆 There was lots of swapping over between the various children and various adults available. We had chocolate eclairs which Tarly very ably cut in half and Davies counted how many plates we’d need for and one my usual streetlight ed interludes when the lamppost at the front of our house (so that’s not the one one recently knocked down at the side of the house lamppost story followers 😉 ) which has been on in the day and off at night had a lamppost maintenance van pull up alongside and a man come out to fix. We observed how it was on even though it was daytime and that was not right, we watched the man get out and open the panel with his screwdriver, I believe an exchange of smiles or waves took place between the man and his screwdriver and the four small noses pressed up against the window and the light went off. And then the man got back in his van and drove away again.

There was also aminor educational moment when Davies was pondering why his remote control Herbie car (as mentioned as the inspiration for Em’s current remote control reconditioning projects over on Title for Life just now) which is running low on batteries had the wheels spinning when he held it upside down but was labouring to turn the wheels at all when on the floor. I got him to run on the spot then lie on his back and move his legs to run in the air, to slap his hands into the air and to slap his hands into the wall and finally to stand with his palms pushed against the doorframes and against nothing and asked which was easier. We talked a tiny bit about resistance (as much as it is feasible to do with an excited six year old who has a little group of smaller children behind them also trying to push their palms against the doorframe :lol:) and why it is easier for Herbie’s wheels to spin in the air than it is to spin on the floor when they are both meeting resistance and also to spin would require moving along the floor too.

Finally we got out the marble runs. We have a plastic and a wooden set and my Mum and Davies were struggling with the wooden one (which is just really a series of wooden blocks) so I showed them a basic set up and explained about how you start at the base and work backwards in terms of the marbles route. I made one which predictably got knocked over by Scarlett dashing about and having listened to the theory begind it and with lots of testing along the way Davies actually constructed a better one than I’d made. I also showed him how to slant pieces and create greater drops to make the marble run faster, so he incorporated some of that too. He made a short film about it on the camera but I have not uploaded it yet and his current plan is to spend tomorrow making a short film with animation and plasticine which I feel might be a very ambitious project so I’ll save the marble run film for another time.

Mum left and Lucy and I did some princess puzzle making with Scarlett and Rebecca, some toy cars were got out and I got all my washing in before it started to rain but Scarlett had had enough of being a hostess (and actually now I think about it she had rather excelled herself earlier in the day fetching drinks for everyone and being very solicitous about ensuring they were drinking them, including getting a drink of milk for Richard who a) doesn’t really drink milk and b)used the very last of the defrosted milk which meant further offers of tea or coffee were made with hopes people would say no :lol:) and didn’t really want anyone else to play with / touch / even look at anything which belonged to her.

Lucy left and Davies and Scarlett fell straight into a really cheery game using the marble run and the toy cars playing really nicely together. Ady arrived home bearing a new dvd recorder to replace the one which died last night and he’d spent most of this morning negotiating with Asda to replace – it was out of guarantee but was only about 18 months old so clearly ‘not fit for it’s purpose’ which was what he’d spent about an hour saying to someone at Asda’s Head Office on the phone finally reaching someone who agreed at the store. So that was installed and cables sorted and the children celebrated by watching Were Rabbit while they ate their dinner.

I took Tarly to bed with her requisite three stories and excelled myself with a rather lovely pork and peanut stir fry including (gasp!) more vegetables as inspired by the wonderful Hugh last night.

Also meant to blog but was only reminded today of a converstion I had with the children about gravity, weight on different planets and things falling, whether size of planet made a difference to gravitational pull and the importance of an atmosphere. We talked about that on the way to Lucy’s from our walk on Wednesday. Partially a rehash of conversations we’ve had before, partially one of those conversations when a child tests out a theory they’ve been pondering by stating it as fact to see whether they are right or you correct them and partially a question and answer session. Love those sorts of chats.