I did have plans for all the things we were going to achieve for this week and thus far we seem to have achieved none, but we’ve done lots of lazing and just being together which is very probably far more important than working through the house room by room decluttering really! 🙂
Had a lovely evening last night. Scarlett went to sleep and was therefore blissfully unaware that we’d gone anywhere. Davies sadly was less thrilled at our departure and tried all his full repertoire of tricks to get us to stay from imagined tummy ache to full on begging and grabbing at my ankle :-(. He was fine by the time we actually left and thankfully it was my Dad who arrived to babysit and is far calmer in the face of a wobbly child than my mother who regresses to toddler mentality herself in such situations!
The pub we met Miranda and Harman in was less than half an hours drive away and a real traditional village-y style pub, infact just the sort of establishment I have often imagined myself stood behind the bar at serving regulars in cleavage revealing tops, but that’s a whole other blog post! So we sat and thawed infront of a real fire with a drink and waited for them to arrive. Food was lovely, I had venison, Ady had duck -all washed down with a very nice bottle of wine, excellent company and plenty of laughter. I do like being grown up for short periods of time ;-).
Predictably we talked ‘shop’ with Miranda as usual offering me exciting career opportunities I have no chance of taking all the time I am A Home Educator (and no, as exciting as the latest offer was I was not in the slightest bit tempted to consider it!), although this latest one is the most exciting in a while so I may well ponder further how practical elements of it would be to do around the children.
As the wine bottle rapidly emptied and some very elaborate desserts were brought out (mine was a profiterole with alcohol flavoured filling piled on a plate with icing sugar dustings, raspberry sauce drizzles, a massive cloud of spun sugar and a jug of hot chocolate sauce…) frivolity ruled and conversation turned to all sorts of weird and wonderful topics such as Miranda inviting me on a girls weekend away on a Mills & Boon novel writing course weekend with some of her posh friends and inevitably Home Education. What I adore about Miranda and Harman is that she is so very posh but slightly embarrassed by it which makes for huge piss taking opportunities and he is so very blunt and dry despite English being his second language (he is Dutch) that he and I can be on a completely different level of taking the piss out of her that she is still blissfully unaware! 🙂 Lovely, lovely people and so often misunderstood and pussy footed around that they find us refreshing company in that we utterly refuse to be sycophantic to them even when she was paying our wages. A very mutually satisfying relationship! Miranda also staggered me by presenting me with a beautifully wrapped birthday present way before I’ve given any thought to hers (her birthday is 4 days after mine and normally I am super organised and she is not – this year I got my birthday gift in about August!) and then despite the fact we had squirrelled away enough cash to pay for the whole meal over the last month Harman snuck away before we finished desserts and settled the bill – so a real treat too! 🙂
Today I had a yen to get out and about as the children who are very used to being out most days are starting to get boisterous and in need of physical exertion – it was not to be in the end though as Dad arrived mid morning to go logging with Ady as we have burned all our stocks (now nicely restocked again for a couple more weeks though) and ended up staying for lunch. When the post came it brought the first of the straggling Christmas cards from our friend Jean – ex of Bruce who visited last week and as I was hanging the card up with the rest my mobile rang and it was her! She arranged to come over this afternoon.
While Dad was here I took two phonecalls from various creditors, which is the first time either Dad or Ady has witnessed such calls. Ady and I had chatted a bit on the way to the pub last night about options and plans from here on in and so Dad was brought up to date with a few ‘if this happens then we’ll do this, if this happens then we’ll do that’ type discussions. I’ve always been of the opinion and belief that opportunities show themselves to you and it is up to you to take them – I think we are on the cusp of another such occassion just now although quite what it is is yet to be revealed.
Did some further lazing around, the children played with playdoh lots and Ady did some tidying. 🙂 We made some of the jigsaw puzzles the children had been bought for Christmas – the children did a Disney Princess one of Scarlett’s and then I sat and did a UK map one with all sorts of attractions and natural wonders type things highlighted. When I had nearly finished the children became interested and helped me finish it off and then we sat and looked at all the places and talked about all the ones we had visited and all the ones we’d like to visit. We plotted the locations of some of our friends dotted around the place and where certain things were in relation to other things. So plenty of geography covered there!
We also tried to make a start on Thank You cards but as the children both started asking who had brought certain favourite gifts and then answer was ‘Mummy and Daddy’ for most of them they ended up starting on cards for us first! But they did do some drawing, writing, painting and colouring. There was also a fair amount of playing with Davies’ collesseum and Tarly’s doll house and we had a game or three of Buckaroo and Kerplunk too.
Jean arrived, predictably late and laden down with pressies for the children (more games, Doctor Drill for Davies which is a sort of Operation style game with teeth to be removed with tweezers requiring a steady hand or you’ll set off a buzzer) and some sort of bashing with mallets game for Tarly which I’ve yet to look at but the children enjoyed fairly noisily! Lovely to see Jean actually, although Ady and Bruce have been friends for about 25 years Bruce and Jean got together about a year before me and Ady did so by the time I was introduced to Bruce they were already a couple. They are both 52 and have children my age and grandchildren older than D & S but Jean and I have always gotten on very well sharing a love of gettting drunk and being silly as we do! We were really sad when they split earlier this year and although Ady of course is supportive of Bruce I felt very sad at the prospect of not seeing Jean any more so I was thrilled when she made contact a couple of months ago and we’ve had a couple of phone chats.
Jean headed off just as the children were having tea, they both went to sleep fairly easily, we’ve enjoyed our first ‘proper home cooked’ dinner of the week and our first alcoholic drink we actually really wanted to drink rather than felt we should because it was Christmas (!) and watched Lost which I realised I am going to feel quite bereft without when it ends soon.
Tomorrow the plan is to head over to Drusillas – snow and ice making driving a foolish idea allowing. So wrapping up warm and heading out for some fresh air and perfectly acceptable running around yelling because it’s outside rather than off the walls of our rather small abode is on the agenda.
Right, this was supposed to be the brief ten minute blog after Lost, before going to bed and it’s become fairly epic, so I’ll bid you all good night while it still is night and not morning.