It’s been over 4 years since we did this
and hand on heart I don’t think I’ve really felt the need to have had one for ’emergency use’ until this week. Cars and boilers all breaking down, in January, a month after Christmas and mere days after a holiday would have been tough at any time but those bits of plastic could have made it all better a bit quicker. Of course they’d still have to be paid back, which was the bit I never quite got my head round – and indeed paid back with interest. But still, I’ve felt utterly powerless to do anything this week, which given I’ve ‘only got myself to blame’ made me feel all the more crappy about it all really. 🙁
Scarlett slept with me again last night, not sure what time she crept in but Ady got out shortly afterwards, he’s not sleeping well thanks to work related angst fretting about money and boilers and having a small child digging her knees and elbows into his back. Then Candle decided to join Scarlett and I in bed too and did lots of prowling about the pillows in the irritating way that only a blind cat can do in the early hours of the morning while you’d like to be asleep!
But I’m setting my alarm for 830am and getting everyone up and breakfasted and dressed by 9am in a bid to a)not get into a rut and b)ensure we break with ‘holiday time’ sleep habits. Frankly in the kids’ case any sort of sleep would be a good habit really… so bleary eyed we all came downstairs and the kids got the lego out to play with.
Dad arrived about 1030am and we had a coffee before realising that his plan to follow me to the garage in his van was all well and good but didn’t really factor in Davies and Scarlett. They begged to be allowed to stay home so with strict instructions to not answer the door or the phone (unless my number flashed up) and with a practise phonecall to me to check they could do it if needed Dad and I headed off leaving them happily engrossed in a lego game. There was some debate over precisely which two tyres the MOT had recommended be replaced as the garage guy reckoned three of them were on the cusp of illegal so as they are second hand tyres at cheapo prices anyway I got him to replace them all. He also replaced the leads which he reckoned was the most likely culprit of the whole not liking the damp issue with the car so fingers crossed it will now be fine. And for the bargain price of £110, which in Centerparcs currency would barely buy you a coffee and sandwich 😆 or maybe half a session of rollerskating.
Home again within about 15 minutes to find the children just where we left them and we rang Mark the plumber. After some debate about whether to go for a cheap boiler or a decent boiler (price range from £900 to £1400 so a fairly big decision),taking advice from Mark himself and of course mindful that in the short term Dad is financing this as we’ll only be able to pay back about £50 a month or so we decided to plump for the decent one. Fingers crossed it is in stock and Mark finishes the job he is on at the moment we are pencilled in for Thursday. Which could mean in just 48 hours I’ll be blogging with warmth in my toes and wrinkled fingers from the hour long bath with fresh hot water top ups every few minutes I am dreaming of. Oh how I will frolick in the bubbles and luxuriate in wandering round the house naked once more.
And you know, it’s only the price of a meal for two at Centerparcs really… 😆
Maybe we could create a glossy brochure of us enjoying the hot water and central heating to justify the cost? 😆
We had lunch, Dad and I nipped out again to Lancing – him to go to the bank, me to buy some tinned tomatoes as Ady got 14 packs of 700g mince yesterday reduced from £4.99 a pack to just 60p a pack so I’ve been batch cooking a-go-go with that. Which is just as well as we were planning gruel for February and March.
Then the car was ready so we went to collect that and I came home to start cooking. We’d already decided to miss swimming today as all three of us are full of cold, runny noses (the kids are really sore) and coughs all round. Fortunately I’m really tolerant of coughs, as you could imagine how badly I’d be dealing with two coughing children on top of feeling cold, ill, poor and sleep deprived myself if they were something that irritated me….and so thought coming out in the dark at 530pm with wet hair home to a cold house was a bad idea. The kids had eggs on toast for tea – we’re all about creative ways with eggs round here this week and both confessed that actually they weren’t that fussed about going to either Brownies or Sea Scouts. Feel a bit bad about that as they missed last week too obviously and Scarlett still hasn’t actually been to a Brownies at all but I didn’t really feel like going out in the cold and the dark either so I didn’t take too much convincing. I’ll ring the leaders of each tomorrow and explain we’ve not left, just not been available for the last two weeks.
While watching Animal Park recently someone was on who worked with the ‘original lion man’ and the film ‘Born Free’ which I realised I’d never seen and Scarlett would probably enjoy. It had come in at the library yesterday so we sat and watched that and really enjoyed it.
Ady arrived home, we read the first couple of chapters of which we quite enjoyed and then Davies and Scarlett went to bed. Not to sleep you understand, more as a sort of temporary holding bay from which they could call out to us and make requests for glasses of water and ‘one more cuddle’.
I made dinner – the whole economy gastronomy continues to go well and tonight was chicken stir fry with leftover chicken from Sunday’s roast. We’ve never had so many tupperware containers in use! We are leftover-tastic round here lately.