Knew I’d find my way back here eventually!

Just took a little longer than I expected 😉

So a two day round-up then which will no doubt leave out loads of what I had planned to say but never mind.

Yesterday we went into town for various things – Scarlett needed new shoes and I wanted to get something in the sales before it was only hooker boots left 😉 Managed to get some lovely peach suede ones with embroidered flowers on – can’t find an online link so you’ll have to be eagle eyed in future flickr snaps of her to spot them. I think they are nice and appropriate though, and they’ll go with her clothes which several of the other pairs didn’t. There was a lovely pair of bright purple DM style ones which we also liked but they were just too clumpy to look right with skirts, which she wears rather a lot of of, so these seemed the better choice. There were also plenty of black shoes, which I refuse to buy either child on principle as they are ‘school shoes’ so until they beg for black shoes themselves I shan’t be buying them, and several pairs of patent shoes which I just personally dislike and have done since my own childhood – aside from anything else little terrors like Tarly are never going to retain the patent-ness of them so they’ll end up looking scuffed and scruffy far quicker than even peach suede will do.

Davies had a book token which he’s had since his birthday and we kept forgetting to take out with us so we went between the 3 bookshops in town with me trying to persuade him to actually spend it on a book and him adamant he wanted a Wallace and Gromit Activity book with press out characters. I did struggle with it but let him have what he wanted in the end 😉 and I guess we’re not short of books round here, and he has played with it endlessly ever since… grumble, grumble, give in with bad grace, mutter, grumble… Also got some laminator pouches as we ran out ages ago and have a pile of things that Davies is desperate to laminate.

We parked out of town (frugal and good exercise) and walked in along the seafront. The tide was really, really high when we arrived so we went down to the sea to look for washed up ‘treasure’ although there was little there aside from fish heads (minus the eyes and bodies – good for explaining food chain and precisely why the seagulls hover round the sea) and seaweed. There was also seaweed further up on the actual promenade so there had been even higher tides earlier this week.

I love living near the sea, I really missed it when we lived in Manchester and hadn’t really realised what a backdrop to my childhood it provided. I have always lived within sniffing distance of the famous summer stench of the seaweed (one of the less pleasant aspects of it I admit!) and it is literally at the end of our road here (you could walk it in 10 minutes or so at grown up pace, drive it in about 3 minutes). Pre children we often used to go down to the beach if the weather was extreme as it is very exciting to be so close to the sea when it’s tossing about and blowing a gale. I used to drive along the coast to work for a couple of years and watch the seasons and the time of day tell reflected over the ocean – funny how you can somehow tell if it’s spring or autumn just by looking at the sea. The children are endlessly fascinated by it whether it is what colour it is today, if it is low or high tide, what you can see out at sea (boats, swimmers etc) and of course combing the beach for exciting stuff. I think proximity to the coast would factor highly on location for moving if we do – doesn’t really matter which strip of coast and in many ways I’d rather avoid the resort type stretches really but it’s scenery I’d be keen not to lose again.

We came home via my parents on a bit of a whim really and ended up staying ages. I nipped up to the supermarket to get some cakes and my Mum happened to be driving past their house (she was out shopping) and let me out of their road then followed me to the supermarket to see what I was doing, so she came round shopping with me and then came home instead of carrying on shopping. I have to commend her actually on trying really hard with the children – we’ve been there again today and after her fairly bad behaviour with them over Christmas and a bit of a drunken lecture I gave my parents the night before my birthday about missing out on their grandchildren she made real efforts with both of them. She spent time playing with Scarlett and they really seem to have patched things up. If I was being critical I could say she went slightly OTT with the all singing, all dancing, sweetie providing Granny act, but I’ll assume that was a charm offensive to get them back on side before returning to some sort of normal Granny behaviour.

Anyway we got home from there yesterday and I’ve already described the evening I had planned and the evening I actually had so we’ll not go over that again.

Today was a bit of a shadowy start really. Scarlett woke about 4am and came into our bed but she refused to go back to sleep so when she got no entertainment value out of either Ady or I she went and woke Davies up instead to play with her. This was about 5.30am. 🙁 Superhero Ady (oh, how I’ll miss him next week) got up with them and gave them milk then came back to bed and we left them to it. I got up around 9am and they had gotten themselves bread and youghurts (actually we knew about the yoghurts as Tarly had brought them up to our bedroom to check she was allowed them!) and were happily watching Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and commenting to each other that the Daddy in that was also Bert from Mary Poppins! 🙂

Sat and had some cuddles with them both before Ady got back up again and then we headed over to Mum and Dad’s for lunch. Dad and Ady went out to get some logs so I won’t freeze next week and my Granny came up aswell. Frazer was there but when we left at 4pm he had still not surfaced after a heavy night’s partying – oh to have such freedoms! 😉

Since home Ady had packed up everything he needs for what has turned out to be a full working week away – he leaves tomorrow morning and won’t be back until Friday – I had previously thought he was going tonight and would be back on Wednesday 🙁 I have got a roast dinner cooking (which is smelling fairly ready actually, must get off the computer and go and sort it out) and I’m about to have that long overdue bubble bath and a glass of wine. Tomorrow we have Raine Drops arriving much to the utter delight and excitement of D & S, who will no doubt be fighting over young Ben as soon as he arrives, although I am hoping that Tarly and Beth might just find something in common to bond over and leave the boys to do their thing! Or maybe Rachael is toddler-y enough for Tarly to be persuaded she is not actually a ‘baby’ any more and play with her instead. Whatever I fully anticipate late nights chatting with Barbara and much noise and chaos from 5 children in the house (more if Ros and Ali come too!), so that will keep me occcupied while I pine for Paul 🙂