One word? When seven would do…

As I’ve mentioned previously my Mum is currently on a Being A Good Mother To Nicola kick which makes me go on a Being A Good Daughter To My Mum kick so I rang her the other week to arrange a few days out with her. This is always slightly awkward as I don’t want to suggest places that are expensive as I can’t afford to pay and whilst she can she will quickly resent doing so and get arsey (which is fair enough, I want to see her for her company not her purse) but the sort of free stuff that the kids and I enjoy isn’t really her sort of thing either so it ends up feeling like she’s tagging along as a spare part.

We’d arranged to get together today to go to a local museum but I realised last week it’s not open on Mondays which left us with a day together planned and nothing particular to do with it. Luckily it was a beautiful day which lent itself to being outside so we went to collect her at 10ish as arranged and I had two suggestions for her – Arundel (very pretty local historic town with various free or chargable things to do) or Paradise Park which I’d recently decided we’d get an annual pass for having missed a year last year so given the place space to look forward to going again.

Davies and Scarlett both wanted to go to Paradise Park so naturally Mum decided she wanted to go to Arundel. She annoyed me by calling me ‘Mum’ to the children lots – firstly I hate that sort of thing anway and secondly the kids don’t actually call me ‘Mum’. Scarlett protested about not wanting to go to Arundel loudly which only really put my mum’s back up and made her all the more adamant to go there while Davies was quiet and when she asked him said ‘well I’d rather go to Paradise Park but I’m trying not to make too much fuss about it!’. That sealed it and to Paradise Park we went. Not with the good grace one should probably give into a six year old with and I suspect when I filled the car up with petrol my Mum probably made that clear to Scarlett as they were both a bit tense when I got back in the car but never mind.

Everyone was cheered up by the time we arrived and I sorted out the annual pass, the woman on the counter very kindly gave in to Tarly’s request for an entrance sticker for her toy parrot (called, you guessed it, Parrotty) and we were all very impressed with the new bits through the Planet Earth walk including a large area about water and sealife

Both the children correctly identified various fossils, rocks and minerals and then again in the dinsosaur bit between them they knew all of them. Davies did loads of incidental reading and then in the outdoors area when my Mum commented on the two ducks being ‘very odd how two totally different breeds stick together like that!’ Davies corrected her that actually they were both mallards – just a male and a female. He then went on to tell her that most birds have males with bright plumage and females with duller colourings as she needs to be camouflaged on the nest while he needs to attract a mate competing with other males. She genuinely didn’t seem to know any of that and was very impressed with him. If nothing else spending those couple of hours with her would have done her good in terms of seeing just how much general knowledge they both have :).

The outdoors has also had lots of work done and several new areas put in. It was beautiful there in the sunshine 🙂

We would normally either eat in the cafe or have taken a picnic and go to the amusements and play area – they have token operated amusements at really cheap prices which the children love and a small soft play area and crazy golf. Both the children really wanted to do that but Mum had had enough and wanted to go ‘somewhere nice’ for lunch and suggested Brighton Marina. It took some perusading (which I thought was understandable) but we did just that via the shop where I gave them a pound to buy some sweets and left them to it but she felt the need to stand in the queue with them and take over the transaction when they got to the till. It sounds like I’m just slagging her off and really it was a lovely day, and she is trying hard but she is just really rubbish at being unselfish or remotely child-focussed. But then when we were children we were never taken out to places designed for children or families, we always tagged along with whatever my Mum and Dad wanted to do. She doesn’t really have time or patience for their interuptions and questions and observations or seem to get the same pleasure out of just being with them at their pace and seeing things through their eyes as I do. Guess that’s why I do what I do and she did what she did really…

We headed to the Marina, parked up and walked to the restuarants quay and chose the one that the kids most wanted to go to – Frankie and Bennys. The food was okay although the service was very slow but they kids got activity books and origami sheets each so they were happily occupied and they both ate everything including pudding so that was good :). We had a wander round the shops afterwards, half looking for shoes for Tarly who’s boots are falling apart but it’s not worth buying more winter shoes for now. Didn’t find anything and she’s fairly adamant she wants pretendy crocs again so we’ll sort that out later this week – today would have been perfectly warm enough for crocs so we may as well have them now and stick to wellies for colder / wetter weather.

The day seemed to have gone pretty quickly and the drive home was edging towards rush hour and heavy traffic. We got in and Davies and Scarlett showed Mum some of Davies’ many drawings and illustrated stories while I sorted out some washing. She came downstairs impressed again with him and we had a cup of tea while the children disappeared off to play. Ady arrived home just as Davies was getting upset with himself at not being able to build an x wing fighter out of junk boxes and sellotape exactly the way he had it pictured in his mind. Mum and I went off to the pet shop for sawdust bedding and Sainsbursy for food where we parted company (they only live across the road from there so she was walking home afterwards) while Ady, Davies and Scarlett built a magificent machine with flashing lights and flaps and everything :).

Back home Davies put on a show for us (complete with microphone) about not putting all our cardboard in the recycling but asking him first if he could use in in his inventions and then we had several chapters of the fourth Mr Gum book – Mr Gum and the Power Crystals. Infact we had 12 chapters because at least 5 of them were repeated one page chapters 😆

I’m still suffering with sinus pain from my long cold / virus / infection / whatever the hell it was and have hormonal reasons to add to feeling slightly sorry for myself but it’s been a nice day, in the sunshine, with lunch out and a good feeling about having got the annual pass to make lots of use out of and a glowyness about pulling off Being A Good Daughter even if I have had to come here afterwards and snipe a bit ;).