One word? When seven would do…

A perfect day for washing thankfully so I was able to clear all the smokey smelling camping washing. I rang Julie first thing as she’d left a message on the answer phone over the weekend asking if we were going to Pulborough Brooks. I was half tempted not to bother and to have a quiet day at home but decided it was too nice a day to waste indoors so persuaded Julie who was having similar doubts to come and arranged to meet there in a couple of hours.

We headed off with a small picnic and waited in the play park for Julie and co to arrive. Katy, who organises the monthly walks was there with her Mum and 3 children including her brand new 10 day old baby boy. She wasn’t doing the walk but wanted to come along and say hello to anyone who was so we got to coo over baby O 🙂 (not the same O as Em’s baby O). Also there were Kent and his two children all the way from Lewes. We’ve met a few times at various places but the children have never really registered each other and didn’t seem particularly interested in doing so. His daughter is 7 or 8 and his son is much smaller – 3 or 4 I guess. I felt quite sorry for them really as they usually go to Magical Mondays but had come over for the Pulborough Brooks walk and there wasn’t anyone they’d obviously been hoping to see.

Julie and co arrived and we chatted with Katy a while longer before she headed off for home and the rest of us headed off for the walk round. Davies checked us in while Tarly and I nipped to the loo. I love the small flashes of independence and indeed the fact that Davies and Scarlett know so many of the staff there and feel so at home. We paused awhile in the shop as there was a puzzle of all the counties in the UK which was very tricky and we all gathered around to complete

it was amusing that of the group of us doing it the best were the two adults who aren’t from UK (Denmark and Germany) and the children who couldn’t read yet – the kids were looking at shapes rather than words and clearly geography is better covered abroad than here at home 😆 My own geography tends to extend to places I’ve visited but was much improved a few years ago by spending time playing County Countup.

The walk round was fairly uneventful -we saw some deer but not a lot else but the children were running ahead anyway so would have probably chased off anything like adders that we might have seen. Julie and I caught up on each others news and we had an hour or so in the playpark afterwards. Scarlett took a real interest in Lorna which she’s not really done before and had a cuddle and spent some time walking with her (she’s at the holding your fingers and toddling along stage) and sat on the grass with her for a while. She is a very smiley baby and very used to be carted around by Maisie so tolerated all this with excellent humour.

We left and headed into town as Davies wanted to get some material to make a cave man costume for the weekend. The whole stone age thing is tying in really nicely with Davies and Scarlett’s own current interest in all things caveman and stone age and oddly enough with my own ploughing my way through the Jean Auel series of books (I’m on number four) about clans and mammoth hunters. We found some fleece with animal print and bought half a metre of that. It is so nice and snuggly the plan is to just tack it together for an outfit and then unpick it afterwards for Davies to have as a blanket for camping. Scarlett has now decided she might have an outfit after all so we’re off there again tomorrow to get some more.

We had a quick look in some charity shops while in town and Scarlett found a TY soft toy tiger in immaculate condition for just 50p so she was happy :). I had a quick look in a couple of clothes shops and Scarlett and Davies trailed behind me. At one point Scarlett called out to me ‘does this shop have little black numbers?’ which made me turn round in shock as to where she’d heard such an expression (I am so not someone who has any little black numbers in my wardrobe :lol:) only to discover she meant quite a different little black number:

😆 She does now know the expression ‘little black number’ aswell as I had to explain just why I was laughing so much!

Davies reminded me they both are due for eye tests so we called into the optician and made appointments for Wednesday morning.

Back home I did more laundry rotation and stuck some cookies in to bake from some dough I’d made last week and put in the fridge. They came out better than when it’s freshly made so must make in advance and chill in future I think. I then decided to clean out the chickens houses which was a long overdue job. All five of the brown hen had gone broody and we stuck eggs under them with blue marker pen dots on them about 4 weeks ago (maybe slightly less I realise now). I decided they were all long overdue hatching and must be no good so took the first five out from under the hens in the big house and turfed them out to run round while I scooped out all the old bedding and poo ready to take to the allotment (excellent composting material) and put new clean stuff in. Scarlett came out while I was doing it and asked to break open the eggs to see what was inside. She’s not remotely squeamish and is genuinely interested so I said she could do it over to one side but to stand back and do it gently as if they were bad they would smell dreadful.

The first egg was really interesting – it had clearly been fertilized but not got past the first week or so of development. Picture is blurry but you can make it out:

The next one was fairly fresh still but yolk and white, the third was yucky and a mass of yellow and blood but the fourth starting cheeping as Scarlett broke it open and was an all but formed chick! 🙁 We debated whether to open the fifth and she decided she wanted to although we instantly regretted it as it was another almost formed chick. We had a quick discussion about what to do and decided to put them back under the hen and see if they were far enough developed to survive. We couldn’t bring them in as the incubator takes a full 24 hours to heat up.

When we checked ten minutes later the hen had rejected them so we tried with a second hen. I’d not cleared out the other house and left the couple of eggs still being sat on in there incase there is something odd going on with dates or hatching times or something. Sadly the first one died pretty much straight away and the other one followed not long afterwards. Having looked at them closer they were not formed enough to survive and I wonder whether they’d have made it to hatching anyway. Scarlett felt very bad but we talked about it and she seemed okay later. Life lessons eh.

Davies and Scarlett had tea, Ady came home and we read loads of Charlie Small before bed. I’m sure I’ve missed loads but I need to finish so I can get onto today before it’s yesterday again, or something!