One word? When seven would do…

Friday Work all day for me. Ady took Davies and Scarlett to work with him. I was still feeling a bit rough from my cold and there is an odd atmosphere at work at the moment. Yvonne, my direct boss has gone part time so she only works the first half of the week which means the second half (when I work) has a sort of rolling cover of various librarians which makes for an inconsistent feeling and a bit of a free for all on the rota. Not sure how it will all pan out really and there is another round of redundancies and job changes coming later in the year (it won’t directly affect my level but could mean a whole load of changes nonetheless). I’m very aware I wouldn’t get an 11 hours a week job anywhere else very easily, let alone one which pays so well or has such good perks so it would be a rather futile exercise to even think about looking for something else and it is my wages that pay off our debts but I am conscious of the feeling if itchy feet and having been in a job too long. I suspect I have done as much to grow my role as I can possibly can within the limits of my hours and whilst I am very highly thought of and get loads of good feedback I have struggled with the last two full day shifts I’ve done feeling all resentful about being there when I could be doing something more interesting with Davies and Scarlett instead. Hmm reading that back I can’t decide if I’ve just been in a whingey frame of mind where nothing pleases me or whether the time is right to move on really.

Anyway, whilst at work I did the banking, Baby Rhyme Time, phoned a load of people from Reading group to tell them to come in and collect books from the Orange Shortlist, tidied up the Chatterbooks folder and did a load of photocopying in preparation for the next sessions, checked all the books and dvds I’d ordered were in and put them in order for the sessions, wrote a couple of emails to other people about Chatterbooks and the Summer Reading Challenge display and did some dealing with borrowers and issuing books too :).

Ady and the kids dropped me off as they were leaving the house at the same time as me and going in roughly the same direction, so they came and picked me up too, arriving about half an hour before I finished and hanging out in the library til we closed. Scarlett took the ducklings outside for a swim in the paddling pool, Davies had a play of a new X box game he’d picked up in a charity shop and I did a bit of sewing, turning that famous long pink corduroy skirt that all the HE girls had into a bag. Scarlett had one, although I picked it up at a NCT nearly new sale and she never actually wore it. It’s made a nice bag though :).

Ady and I had a Very Late Dinner Indeed at about 11pm of curry and Davies and Scarlett had a sleepover.

Saturday We had to be up and out as Davies has YACs. They were doing a walk that ended in a different place to where it started so as Ady wanted to go along too Scarlett and I had to drop them off and then pick them up two hours later elsewhere.

Ady and Davies had a really enjoyable guided walk learning various things about the little village including some WW2 landmarks, details about how the whole village was wiped out the the Black Death and other little tidbits from the leader of YACs, a really nice bloke who’s day job is working at the Museum of London and is very passionate about archaeology and getting young people interested.

Scarlett and I went to Haywards Heath which was the nearest town and did a charity shop trawl (result, one pair of jeans for Scarlett) and stopped for tea and cake in a bakery cafe which was very nice. :). We allowed ourselves quite a buffer for finding the pick up point, for which we had a photocopy of a hand-drawn map from the YAC leader which was just as well as we drove up and down the same road about four times before working out just what the map meant. As usual the YACs ran over time though so it was nearly 20 past 12 by the time they appeared.

We called in at Emmaus on the way home which is my favourite chariy I think as it’s support is a direct solution to a problem rather than just funding. I bought some material, lace trimmings and ribbons. We called into Sainsburys for supplies and came home to fire the barbecue up for a late lunch.

Ady suggested I rang my Dad which I did and he rang back and came over to join us too. Scarlett brought the ducklings out to potter about in the garden with regular dips in the pond. We also brought five of the chickens round to ‘meet’ the ducklings and get some grass too (as they have long since trashed their own grass supplies in their area). Scarlett and I had a walk round to the corner shop for more bread rolls in bare feet (sorry Joyce) which we found both liberating and enjoyable but rather precarious at the same time, playing a sort of verbal top trumps with what would be worse to stand on in bare feet ‘metal in the sunshine’ ‘BLACK metal in the sunshine’ and so on. We ate sausages, laughed at the ducks learning to dive and the chickens seeing their whole world massively expand. My Mum came round after work too for an hour or so, Davies and Scarlett took the ducklings across the road to introduce them to Don and Maureen our neighbours. Then Mum and Dad left, Davies and Scarlett had a bath and some tea, I put pizza dough on for Ady and I for later and did some laundry.

Ady and I had dinner, late by most people’s standards but rapidly becomming our norm.

Sunday I woke with the birds troubled by itching all over my face. I did get back to sleep but I have a rash today rather similar to one which came up a month or so ago, lasted 24 hours and faded again. Not at all sure what could have caused it but it is very itchy and annoying :(. I was on the rota to do the sheep today so we headed over there to headcount, get running and check water and fencing. The limping sheep seemed lots better :). As we were over that way we tried a car boot sale in that direction but it was pretty rubbish and we came away having only bought a walkman for Davies for 50p so he can listen to story tapes while we’re camping / in the car.

Back home the other three spent some time in the garden – the ducks were out, the chickens had some time on the lawn and Ady did some hedge trimming while I sat indoors. The sunshine is lovely but the heat was far too much for me to be out in today. We waited until about 330 when it had cooled down a far bit and then headed up to the allotment. Thanks to time, weather, being away a fair bit and growing quite a lot at home we have neglected it rather up there this year so far. Things are doing well nonetheless and we took some more peas to plant in that I’d sown and some sweetcorn Cax has sown and was ready to go in. We also had some onion and garlic sets to go in too.

Davies and Scarlett went to build dens in the woodland while Ady and I watered, weeded, planted and sorted a bit. We had about 2 hours up there and it was already looking improved when we left. We’re planning to go up again tomorrow evening to do some more weeding. We rang Davies to get them to meet us back at the car and came home.

I got a roast dinner on, the kids had a bath and then we watched Doctor Who – we’re only a week behind now, might try and catch up on that tomorrow. Roast dinner was lovely :). We watched Halcyon River which had Scarlett in floods of tears when six moorhen chicks died (moorhens are her favourite bird), cue lots of talking about wildlife photographers and whether they should intervene in what they are filming. We watched some of Countryfile (we turned over at talk of badger culling as Tarly was far too delicate to cope with that, particularly while eating meat…) and then caught the last ten minutes of Britains Got Talent before it was bedtime for the kids.

Tomorrow we’re off to London, a plan which I am already starting to regret as we’re all tired and I suspect London in a heat wave will not be a nice place to be, so early start again…