Up and out bright and early this morning in a super organised fashion. First port of call was PC world where I had a helpful but ultimately unsatisfactory chat with a member of staff there about my laptop where he said that as I am out of my 1 year warranty they couldn’d do anything but it might be worth contacting Philips as the manufacturer. He did give me proof of purchase thought which I’d not been able to find anywhere at home. I was able to track back on my blog the exact date of getting it and quote that at him so he printed me off a copy receipt. Hurrah for the blog! 🙂 D&S were on their absolute best behaviour. Not sure if it was the begging and pleading beforehand, the fear of knowing how crazy I go regarding anything to do with my computer or just that they were in a behaving mood today but they stood almost silently beside me and then asked if they could go and play on the xbox 360 nearby. We then sat in the car in the carpark ringing round Philips, PC world customer services at head office and a local laptop repair service. We then drove to the local laptop repair place, spent ages trying to find somewhere to park, went through an estate agents to the basement where two lads who looked barely out of school age were surrounded in semi darkness by thousands of insides of computers and a French lad looked at my laptop. I was rather too busy being fascinated by his accent and gesticulations (very many gaelic shrugs in response to my requests for a prognosis) and his very amusing little beardy thing to pay much attention to what he was saying other than it would cost around £200 plus VAT to fix. So we left there. Rather rapidly. We drove a very long way round (no idea why I did that actually) to get to MM home ed group listening to Rotten Romans and Terrible Tudors on cd as we went with lots of asking what certain words meant along the way. All very educational.
We got to MM, Davies and Scarlett got stuck straight into painting and produced about 4 paintings each. Davies did a really good one of a load of fruit in a fruit bowl and another one that he wrote ‘DAD’ on for Ady, Scarlett did her usual trick of painting something really rather good and then adding just that little too much of a finishing touch to it so the good stuff underneath got rather disguised. But some nice colour mixing with Davies barely having to ask now ‘what makes green?’ before saying ‘oh yeah, blue and yellow’ before I even got to answer. I’d brought ingredients to make some bread rolls and some cream with containers and marbles for agitating to make some butter. Made the bread dough, pummelling all my PCWorld and laptop related rage out and then we shook the cream between about five of us to make a nice big load of butter. I love doing that, it never fails to astound even the most jaded adult to see it change before your eyes and although I’ve done it at least four times it still fascinates me as much as it did when I did it in infant school using the top of everyones little third of a pint bottles of milk. Not only do they not get the milk in school any more I imagine it would contravene all sorts of health and hygiene regulations as well as not being listed on the national curriculum so hurrah for Mrs Hart when I was Davies’ age being allowed to do cool stuff like that with her class 27 years ago! 🙂 See how far reaching the effects of that have been.
Davies and Scarlett had a great time there today, the not playing outside for them this time of year rule which took quite some getting used to finally seems to have sunk in and Scarlett plays really nicely with I, a little girl of a similar, perhaps slightly older age than her. Davies seems to exist fairly happily on the periphery of the boys there, dipping in when he wants to join in and then coming back out again for gentler pursuits and to catch up with Tarly again as he sees fit. I had about six cups of tea, enjoyed actually doing something propped up in the kitchen and really felt like part of the group – it was great. 🙂 And all my rolls got eaten. 🙂
We came home, talking loads more in the car as we went. We’ve had some really interesting conversations today although naturally I can’t recall a single one now :roll:. Davies really amused me by saying to me earlier ‘you know you said your laptop is dead Mummy? Well don’t worry, it had a really good life’ with a comforting pat to my arm. 😆 Once home D got straight on the xbox while S got out a princess jigsaw to do and I got on the phone to PCWorld again. This time I got somewhere and with a couple more phonecalls and another trip out the laptop is now in the hands of someone who will do me a report to say it is a fault rather than misuse which has led to it’s demise which should then get me a replacement from PC world. Will not get too excited about this yet though as I can’t possibly anticipate it being quite that easy. It is being returned along with the report tomorrow afternoon.
Back home again, with yet more interesting chats in the car, in time for tea before Beavers. Ady arrived home in time to stay with Tarly, I walked Davies round there and then came home again where it seemed to take most of the hour Davies was gone to talk Tarly into her pjs. 🙄 I went back to get him and was presented with a load of letters including one to say he will be invested next week 🙂 Also a pile of ones about various outings, camps and activity days, so that is all good. 🙂 As we started to walk away Davies was hailed by another Beaver yelling across the road in the dark to him ‘Bye Davies, see you next time!’ which made me feel all glowy 🙂 Davies says he doesn’t know anyone’s name yet but he has two good friends there already that he always plays with so that sounds pretty promising. I told him to ask them their names next week 😆 It’s amazing the difference same age and older children’s company has on him and his behaviour – today he has been so lovely having had peers to play with rather than an adoring audience of far younger children, whereas after a few days with Scarlett, Jack & Maisie, Richard & Rebecca he is tricky and difficult. I have observed this before and hopefully our regular Mondays at MM and Beavers, followed by Wednesdays at Badgers is enough to give him what he needs. I think there are definite positives to him spending time with younger children too but it needs to be balanced rather than as exclusive as it’s been of late. I think Scarlett alone is pretty good company for him, she is on the mature and imaginative side with her play anyway and easily brings herself up to his level but being the eldest (by far) of six children seems to do him no favours and tends to have him dropping to their collective level instead. I’ll try and identify his mates at Beaver’s parents next week when we go to watch him being invested and see if I can sort out an after school play meet up one evening as well maybe. If I feel I fail Davies at all then it is in allowing him to be a six year old boy, he does miss out on that hour a day in the playground he’d be getting at school and while the positives far outweigh that singular negative and I don’t think the answer is to sign him for some sort of extra curricular activity every evening it doesn’t hurt to be aware of it and try to do my best to compensate for it. I feel like we’re making progress with that one.
We said goodbye to his little friend and started to walk home with Davies saying ‘what shall we talk about now then Mummy? I know, volcanoes!’ so we did. And then I pulled a book off the shelf (I love how all those Book People sets I invested in when he was about 3 are suddenly coming into use – we probably have at least two reference books in the house on any given topic – we’re better equipt that the children’s reference in my library!) which answered some more of his questions, then Ady took him off upstairs to show him where Russia is on the globe in reference to something about weather so we ended the day on a high educational note too. Bedtime stories for them both by Ady tonight.
I’m now working my way through realising what I will have lost with the demise of the laptop – all the decent photos are on flickr, all my email addresses (I think) are on this old laptop I’m using now so if I get a new one rather than a repair I can copy them across, everything else I’ll have to live without and maybe finally learn a lesson about backing things up onto disc. 😉