My I don’t have to run day

I had one of those ‘oh shit’ last waking thoughts last night as I snuggled down in my sleeping bag that the faulty kindle was being collected today and I hadn’t sellotaped the return label to the box. So I set a reminder on my phone which was what woke me this morning.

Ady was being very efficient and had already done stuff outside before I got up but once I was awake I helped sow some new grass seed on the lawn that had been lawn BC (Before Chickens) and we listened to Popmaster on the radio outside.

Today the sun has shone, we’ve been outside in t shirts, getting stuff done and feeling so positive. This time last year we were at Steward Wood (our first WWOOF host) and loving it. We all commented today that it feels like that again, exciting times ahead and the best of the year all opening infront of us with the lovely weather and longer days. Isn’t spring brilliant? 🙂

We started sorting the garage, Scarlett was indoors painting her dolphin, Davies was in the garden – I cut his hair this morning and it’s so lovely to actually see his face again rather than the Dougal style son I have been looking at. Davies spent some time emptying an old fire extinguisher which Ady had, I think he’s planning to get it refilled but it had been set off a little so was no good to just keep.

The garage is now fully sectioned and swept out. We have a heap of stuff for Caz and Bid, a few things to sell, a couple of smaller things that will stay here in the garage and a large pile of things to come with us. It’s hard to picture just what can fit in the horse box really but we have a sort of reserve list of stuff that can come if we have space and be left behind if we don’t. Renting the house out again means we have a bit of grace on making final arrangements for absolutely everything. While we were doing that I knocked Ady’s radio off a table and it broke 🙁 He’s had it for years and it came all around WWOOFing with us so he was quite upset.

We came in for lunch, I had a bit of a tantrum about the volume of stuff everyone seems to have acquired in just a week here and gathered everyone’s things up into one big pile each, put an empty box beside each pile and said they all had to get their stuff into just that one box and keep it in there too. It seems to have happened …

We had planned to walk into Lancing to pay the carpet fitter but we had a car full of stuff for the tip and realised we needed a few bits of food shopping so decided to go in the car instead. First to the tip to drop off yet more stuff. The tip has been turned into a Super Recycling Place and they really are very good there, it’s clean, the staff are friendly and helpful (and there are loads of them) and everything is very clearly marked and easy to work out where to put stuff. Almost everything does get recycled and they sell compost from green waste there. The landfill heap is tiny now, whereas it used to be the big stinking mass in the middle. I know reduce and reuse are better but at least we are contributing as little as possible to the problem these days.

Then to Lancing to pay the carpet guy and then having come up with a list of things we needed we decided supermarkets were probably the best solution so we did Tescos (and walked out with nothing), Sainsburys (and walked out with nothing on todays list but did get half price cordless drill and cordless screwdriver which is now crossed off our list at considerably less than we’d been anticipating) and finally Asda where we got everything else – two pairs of trousers for Scarlett. She must have tried on 10 pairs in the last few weeks, in charity shops everywhere. These are boys, roll up cropped leg if wanted (she doesn’t), neutral shades (not pink), cut to fit rather than be low rise or fitted around a shape she doesn’t have and are not tight or loose in places she gets cross about trousers being. So eek to nearly £20 on trousers that she’ll likely go through the knee of in the second or third wearing but hurrah for more than two pairs of trousers for her. Davies got some more socks (where do they go?), they both got new swimwear (again not straightforward, turns out that while supermarkets think most 9 year old girls want two piece or pink or flowery or with attitudey slogans or fancy backs my 9yo actually wants not pink, not frilly and not proclaiming she’s a princess or mermaid! You know, something to actually swim in, not pose in! We found mostly black with one small heart motif that was deemed acceptable if not desirable), we got flour, eggs, syrup and chocolate chips so we can do some baking for snacks for lunches, particularly to take with us to London on Wednesday, Ady got a replacement radio (after much debate I persuaded him a DAB was the best bet, he can’t take his large DAB as it is mains powered which isn’t workable for Rum and given how many hours a day he listens to it I think he justifies a nice one, it was still under £20 and he is really pleased with it) and Ady got some more jeans having also failed to find any in charity shops and being only in possession of two pairs of very tatty ‘work’ jeans.

Far too much money (and no crocs – Scarlett really needs cooler shoes now the weather is heating up, her feet stink in her winter boots) later we came home. The kids went off to play with their scooters in the street (oh the excitement of playing ‘out’) while we did some more garage rearranging. After getting really wound up by the disappearance of Scarlett’s wellies I nipped over to my parents to see if they were there and they were :). I had a chat with Dad and then Mum who arrived home just after I got there and it was a nice talk where they appeared to actually believe some of what I was saying about future plans and stuff. 🙂

Back at home the others had come inside as it was getting dark. Baths, dinner and bed all round. I ordered some crocs for the kids online and the cable for the horsebox completed what has been a very expensive day but has ticked off lots of our list of purchases required.