One word? When seven would do…

This month money is very tight. The sort of tight that Simply Red would sing about being too tight to mention. The sort of tight that people used to try and get their jeans by sitting in hot baths wearing them. The sort of tight that sad divorcees in their fourties wear who suddenly get their hair bleached and head off to nightclubs in leopard print garments having spent 20 years married to Nigel and being the dutiful wife until Nigel ran off with his secretary (who is always called something like Nikki or Jenni or Sandi) and dance to the latest tunes with an ‘I’ve still got it and what’s more I remember this song the first time round’ air about them.

Anyway today was (hopefully) the apex of all the tightness. I’d transferred money from paypal into our bank account to cover direct debits, I had a bill which needed paying at the post office in cash with a deadline of today and my car was on the red for petrol. In my purse I had three pound coins and I knew we had nearly six pounds worth of change we’ve been chucking in an old coffee tin. But it was all in five pence, two pence and one pence pieces. Not something I could feasibly pay for petrol with.

So my Dad had agreed to give me *some* money. Today. If I went over there.

I also had plans to go visit a local-ish woods with a Home Ed group. This meant being at Ali’s house at 10am.

So my plan was: head out to nearest cash point closely followed by nearest petrol station. Now this is tricky because nearest cash point is in the opposite direction to nearest petrol station. So I was doing all sorts of mathematical calculations to work out the optimum route for getting cash and petrol before my car died. And we can’t afford breakdown cover any more so that would be a nightmare situation, probably involving me and two children walking miles (one of them barefoot and coatless) to the petrol station where we’d fill up as many recepticles as we’d found along the way being in no position to purchase a petrol can with fuel before walking back to the car to fill it with £3.27 worth of petrol paid for in coppers.

So I had my route planned. I was ready. I had children dressed in appropriate clothes for walking in the woods with a spare change of going to collect petrol clothes stashed in the back of the car. This was all done without tantrums. It was still 8 something am. All that was left to do was copy down instructions for how to get to said wood via Ali’s house and pack a picnic. Then later after we’d been to the woods I was going to dash to my Dad’s for the money to pay the bill and then go to the post office, taking the payment slip I was pretty sure was in my car somewhere and pay the bills.

Then the phone rang.

Once I used to view the ringing phone as an opportunity waiting to reach fruition, a friends calling to say ‘hi’. Then I used to view it as the enemy, the creditors waiting to say ‘are you able to make a payment today?’ and then it went all silent. But suddenly it was ringing. Echoing through the house just like on those horror films where the babysitter gets spooky calls and when she calls to report it and they are traced it is found to have come from within the house….

It was my Dad. His van wouldn’t start. Could I go over and give him a tow? Now Dad lives with Mum. Ok she wasn’t there but he has rung me before while she has even been there sat next to him for a tow. Also my brother, my 30 year old grown man of a brother with his own car was there today. But no, he rings me. And you know what? I take this as a compliment. I take it as a compliment because on various seperate occassions he has expressed his utter lack of faith in their ability to help him with anything. So the fact he rings me (and my Dad, like me, hates asking for help) and is prepared to drag his grandchildren out at the same time makes me feel that for once Dad recognises that I am the best person for the job. And that makes me feel good. 🙂

So I abandon the making lunch for me idea, chuck together some sandwiches for the children and load everyone into the car. And then remember the petrol plan. So I come back in the house, find the pin number for my cash card and revise my plan to get cash followed by petrol this time going in the opposite direction to Ali’s and to my Dad’s instead (yep, final destination had had a bearing on the calculation to that point). So I decided on the cash machine at the shop round the corner and the petrol station slightly out of my way but probably the best. I needed to get it on the way as towing uses more petrol than normal driving and if ever I didn’t want to prove my Dad’s confidence in me wrong it was when I was towing him and I was after borrowing money off him!

But the shop round the corner had a big sign to say they are closed for revamping until next week!

We managed to get to Sainsburys, get cash out and go and purchase petrol – all without a single trauma.

And then we arrived at Dad’s. Where I pushed his van out of the drive and into position strategically placed behind mine, attatched the tow ropes and got ready for the off. I’d expected to tow him all the way to the garage but it bump started after just a few yards. We are on call for it tomorrow and Monday morning with a following him to the garage on Sunday morning and bringing him home. I followed Dad to the garage, checked he was OK to stay there and bid him goodbye. As we went to leave he thrust the money in my hand. 🙂

Which meant I could now go to the post office and pay the bill before I went to collect Ali. Which would mean I wouldn’t need to worry about getting back from the woods early. So we popped home for me to collect the paying in slip which I hoped was in the tin where all the loose change was. It wasn’t. So I dug through all the paperwork until I found another payment slip. Then we dashed to the post office and paid that. Then we dashed home again to pick up my camera. Then we went round the block before dashing home again to drop off the post which included things like passwords for the ‘government gateway’ website so I didn’t want to leave in my car.

And that was all before 9.30am.

We drove over to Ali’s listening to Alanis Morrisette very loudly. I love her rage :), collected Ali and Freya and headed over to Wilderness Woods. We were not only slightly early for the meeting time we were also meeting a group of Home Educators so obviously we had a good half an hour to kill ;-). There was a nice wooden playpark which had a zip wire so we played there. Davies went on his first zip wire last year at Centerparcs and loved it but was very cautious – this time although he hadn’t mastered the leaping onto it as it went and needed helping on he loved it. 🙂 I did do a video clip but stupidly turned the camera on it’s side so the whole vid clip is on it’s side and sort of looses something :roll:.

We then assembled ourselves infront of the woman giving us the guided walk. She reminded me a lot of one of the teachers I had at school, very proper, very knowledgable about her topic but also very brisk and efficient and not taken to dallying and veering off topics. We looked at mole hills and other evidence of woodland creatures, evergreen and disiduous trees, the fruit, seeds and leaves of various trees and plants including sweet chestnuts, holly, pine, learnt about coppicing and I learnt that there is no difference between a toadstool and a mushroom, they are just different names for the same things, but there are loads of varieties of them. The kids had a great time although we were rather hurried along and I think we probably missed out on lots of opportunities to let them roam and ask their own questions instead of following an agenda. Very different to our walk in the woods earlier this week… I really liked it there though and they have a fab schedule of events including some survival days for children which I’d love to take Davies along to maybe in the spring. We talked about going again in the Spring to note changes. Also I think I’d take the children back into the woods for more walking and exploring again after the guided bit as we paid for admittance and didn’t really get to make full use of that. After lunch we headed back into the playpark and Davies had loads more goes on the zip wire. Tarly couldn’t be persuaded as she thought it was ‘too scary’. Scarlett? 😯 I did clamber up to check just how scary it looked from the top and was persuaded by Davies to have a go myself. Despite my fears of breaking the zipwire it was fine – not up to Eden standards of zipwire but pretty good fun :-).

We dropped Ali and Freya off in Lewes (mad, mad Lewes!) and came home for the usual – geomags and xbox play. If we had ‘normals’ in our house, those would be them ;). Ady was home early-ish, the kids had tea, we lit a fire and they stayed up slightly later than normal while we all chatted and laughed. Can’t remember what she was doing but I know Tarly had us in stitches for ages. Bedtimes are definitely getting more fluid here, partially I happily confess due to my realisation that if they go to bed later eventually their body clocks will kick in and they’ll start to wake later in the morning – not worked yet, but I life in hope!

We had dinner, I drank ever such a lot and spent ages chatting with some online friends before finally staggering to bed very late indeed.