One word? When seven would do…

I got engaged. Which was better than being vacant I suppose!

After the last post I buggered off to lie on the bed with a book for an hour or so having taken some painkillers. Ady came in and made me a cup of tea at which point I decided I felt better and we went out.

I’ve not mentioned our mice for a while partially because I don’t like talking about them, partially because I sort of forget we have them and partially because round the blogring mice are a bit like noses, everyone has them. But we do have some of our own, in the understairs cupboard. And Ady has been dealing with them with some traps borrowed from work which he baits with hula hoops as they seemed to be their favoured snack when they feasted on food we kept in the understairs cupboard. Normally he disposes of any captured specimens in a rather instant way (and no, we don’t eat them!) but today the children were aware of the captured one so we decided to liberate it in a more humane fashion just this once. So we drove to a local-ish park. Not too local as we don’t want him coming back, so we blindfolded him, did a couple of fake left turns and span his box round four times before opening it to allow him to run (albeit in a dizzy fashion) free. His horizons widened, his opportunities increased and his world made so much bigger, hopefully he will have a better life. I imagine right now he is living it up with his new found mouse friends, trading his hula hoop diet for a Saturday night feast of kebab, walking on the wild side with chili sauce and hearing stories of life on the outside. I doubt for a moment he is missing his usual Saturday night routine with the rest of his mousey family listening to Dr Who through the wall, having their own mini vote on who should play Joseph in TVs Any Dream Will Do while opening a celebratory pack of salt and vinegar hula hoops. Nope, he’ll be loving the freedom, the wind in his fur, the throb of excitement that is life in the wild. Unless of course he has found a toy car and is finding his way back here in the style of Stuart Little, enlisting help from creatures of the night as he goes. Or he may just have been eaten by a cat already! 😆

We then had to go to a Garden Centre. Now I have to admit that I hold people who choose to visit Garden Centre’s at the weekend with a high level of disdain. Having worked in similar establishments over the years and spent many a working hour compiling comprehensive lists of better places to be than there were I not being paid by the hour I am always rather astonished at the lure of such places. For a start they sell plants and things to go with plants, which would involve gardening which has always been way beyond me. Also they have overpriced ornaments and ‘gifts’ and any product which proclaims itself a gift always makes me suspicious. There is a certain type of person, from my observations, who frequents Garden Centres at the weekend and they come with no intention to buy, they may not even have a garden, they come to meander, to partake of coffee and cake served by a sulky teen in the coffee shop and then to go away and compare their experience with Other Garden Centre’s I Have Visited with other people who visit Garden Centre’s at weekends. These people either have nothing better to do (a dreadful crime IMO) or they are Grown Ups. Since when did visiting such retail establishments become a hobby, a past time? But it has, there do exist people who list visiting garden centres on their CV as a Leisure Pursuit. Shocking! But today we joined their ranks, because Ady had to visit this one this week and staying home yesterday morning prevented him from doing it then so we all went and did it this morning. They have a pet section so we went and purused that while Ady did his thing.

Then we drove around for a while trying to find something to do that was free. We stopped at the gliders club and watched some gliders landing for a while and then went to look at a nature reserve but it was very overpriced just to go in and walk round so we headed towards Arundel. On the way we realised we were at the other end of the road where the ill fated bluebell walk had been a couple of weeks ago so we decided to go there. And this time there were bluebells 🙂

We had a lovely couple of hours walking round the mill pond and enjoying the bluebells, we looked at various wildlife and evidence of wildlife and it was just really nice :). We played pooh sticks and took some photos. We did our usual self timer which ended in chaos when I crouched down behind Davies and Scarlett leapt on my back. I clutched at Davies as she threw me off balance and the three of us teetered precariously for ages before finally collapsing in a heap. Because we laughed so much Scarlett thought she was onto a winner so this continued for a while. We got some nice pictures and laughed a lot but we did leave quite a flat patch in the bluebells! 😆

On the least leg of the walk we reached the area where we’d spotted lizards last time and sure enough Ady very quickly saw one and managed to catch it. He opened his hand to show the children and it darted off, as he went to catch it again it shed it’s tail and then stayed very still on his leg, using all it’s defense techniques at once. We felt a bit bad that we’s scared it that much but it was amazing to see how it’s tail kept wriggling for ages and ages afterwards. The children held it and were fascinated by how much it continued to move. We talked about headless chickens and other things moving after death / disconnection from the brain (Davies amazed me by describing in pretty much the same words as I’d use about how movement is controlled by the brain and the brain is in the head). When we got home I looked up some info on the lizard we’d seen and about them losing their tails.
.

We came home and the children had tea, Ady sat in the garden and I drank lots of tea. We’d talked about Dr Who earlier today and I’d suggested that the children might like to watch it. When it first came back we decided they were too young and would be too scared by it and actually we have given them the chance to watch it on various occassions since and they have both always refused, but they seem to know so much about it from their friends and be very aware of lots of the plotlines that I thought perhaps they would like to give it a go. Scarlett is still too little and too prone to getting scared really, but I hear Davies reference Daeleks, the Tardis and even Cybermen so often that I almost felt cruel for not offering him the chance to see it, although he’s never asked and if he had done I would have let him. It wasn’t the greatest one to start with as I’d assured him before we started watching that they all had a happy ending (his question, not my suggestion) and of course this one was a two parter so it finished on a cliffhanger but it was the right decision as he’s been upstairs playing Dr Who tonight and seemed to really enjoy putting together all the bits he already knew. Tarly was less keen, but adamant she would watch if Davies did so I let her watch some Max and Ruby before bed to end with nicer mental images and I got into bed with her and read her the whole of the Barbie Swan Lake novelisation book too, so hopefully no pig monster nightmares :lol:.

Tomorrow D has his very first swimming lesson and we’re having the grand errection of the new tent aswell. I imagine there will be pictures to follow :).