One word? When seven would do…

This morning we were off to Tasha’s. We’d already arranged to see if my car would start and if not walk. I was fairly convinced by the colour of the sky that we’d be walking in the rain for at least one of the to and from journeys and sure enough my car didn’t start 🙁

The walk is pretty boring, all along the main road to the seafront and then along the seafront road for a bit. It’s actually quite a bit further than I’d thought too, I checked when we got home and it is 2.4 miles, meaning we walked nearly 5miles altogether. I quite like walking but there has to be plenty to look at or good company. There was nothing really to look at and it’s a route I have walked along probably more than any other (I used to work just off the seafront when pregnant with Davies and we were down to one car for much of that time so I often used to walk to work). It’s a busy road, particularly with buses and lorries so quite fume-y too. But we kept up a fast pace and were there in a little over half an hour.

Tasha and I had a nice few hours chatting and Davies and Toby enjoyed playing with consoles together but Scarlett was at a bit of a loose end. She played with the cats (Tasha has seven!) for a while and did actually play with Vinnie quite a bit but I found out later she had done some rummaging about to find toys to play with the cats and not tidied up after herself 🙁

I wanted to get home well before dark, which we did although predictably the walk home always feels longer.

Chickens away, tea for children, fire lit, phonecall from Ady to say he was home but had decided to get my car started, spent ages jump starting it from his, borrowed some WD40 from David across the road (thank you neighbour) and finally got it going so was driving round and round the block until it was warmed up properly. Hurrah! He is definitely taking seriously his ‘this year’ plan to learn more about how cars work.

Finally he came in and we all caught up on each others days and did bad, good, learnt today. For us a big part of it is reconnecting the four of us and chatting about our day together, something important now when either Ady or I is away from the other three working and important for later in the year to get a daily habit of talking about how we are all feeling about what’s happening, the highs and lows, allowing each person time to air the bits they really love or hate with a proper audience and a dedicated four way conversation every single day.

Davies:
Bad – we had to walk to Tasha’s.
Good – that we went to Tasha’s
Learnt – pirates used to send death threats of a black dot.

Scarlett:
Bad – I can’t find my stylus!
Good – walked to Tasha’s
Learnt – pirates chop off their enemies ears and make them eat them

Ady:
Bad – Tidied up a cupboard and nobody bloody noticed!
Good – car started!
Learnt – a lump of gold the size of a matchbox can be flattened out to the size of a tennis court.

Nic:
Bad – My back is achey
Good – it didn’t rain while we were walking
Learnt – It is 2.4 miles to Tasha’s so we walked 4.8 miles today.

Ady read the kids a chapter or two of Narnia while I nipped back out to give my car a longer run and go to the supermarket for some veg for dinner. The kids went to bed, I had a very enjoyable half an hour in the kitchen singing along to music very loudly while getting dinner in the oven and then a bath while chatting to Julie on the phone. Queen of the multi-tasking ;).

We watched Hugh’s Big Fish Fight which provoked exactly the desired response in both of us 🙁 Hope it makes a difference.

I’ve not managed any begging today but will have a go at some tomorrow instead ;).

If I was superstitious I’d come up with something predicting good news and all round cheer for tomorrow, but suspect Mystic Meg has nothing to worry about in the way of competition from me and my fortune telling skills 😉

Scarlett’s sleep pattern seems retored to normal thankfully. Slightly less thankfully she is noisy in the morning so she woke me before 8am today to ask how to spell SPOT for a DS game. Then her and Davies were rowdy in his room despite several requests to be quiet.

I rang the letting agent to confirm a viewing later today and we had a fairly quiet morning watching TV and talking about house renting. I wouldn’t let the kids get much out so after lunch they did some drawing at the table while I tidied around them, lit the fire (I thought as it was both listed and photographed on the web marketing I should show it in action) and resisted the temptation to bake bread and brew coffee.

Sadly 15 minutes after they were supposed to arrive the letting agent knocked on the door to say it didn’t look like they were coming – I’d seen him pull up a good 10 minutes before the appointed time. He came in for a look round as he’d not been to the house before, it was his partner who has been previously. No idea why they didn’t turn up obviously and sadly it is the second false start – it would be quite nice for someone to actually come and look round the house at least, even if they don’t end up renting it! We still have a couple of weeks to get someone sorted to allow everything to happen as scheduled and I’m really confident we will have someone ready to move in for 1st March, but just not signed up in time for us to hand our notices in at work and be off by then. I’m torn between a que sera sera feeling and knots of anxiety that it’s not all going as planned.

I did some twittering and emailing companies to see if anyone wants to supply us waterproofs etc in return for reviews / mentions on the blog. Will carry on with a couple of those a day being at least something I do have control over (stamps foot in childish manner).

Davies and I did some knitting, him doing the knit rows and me the purl rows. We’ve finished the front (or back I guess) of the head. I suspect I will need to do lots of ‘encouraging reminding’ to get it done but I’m impressed with his picking up of the skill. Scarlett did plenty of looking at books and then they both played with the Playmobil for a while.

The kids had tea, I marvelled at how light it still was at 430 and the kids and I had a discussion about what we might have learnt today. This led to them asking some questions and us finding the answers out together online. I prefer the days when we learn something new just in the course of our day but sometimes making a conscious effort to think of a question we don’t know the answer to and then finding it out works too. Ady arrived home and we shared our bad, good and learnt today:

Scarlett: Bad: Daddy worked today & I’ve missed him, Good: watched lots of wildlife stuff on TV: Learnt: giraffes tongues are 45cm long and their hind legs are shorter than their forelegs.

Davies: Bad: I didn’t get to watch Pirates of the Carribean, Good: Completed first piece of knitting, Learnt: Tomato ketchup has loads of ingredients including vinegar and pepper and tomato puree is concentrated tomatoes.

Ady: Bad: Tenant viewing didn’t turn up. Good: Productive and positive day at work. Learnt: when you fold up a napkin or piece of cardboard to balance an uneven table leg you have made something called a ‘shim’

Nic: Bad: Ady stole my bad! Also car still not working, Good: Four chickens rehoming arranged. Learnt: that Davies is the sixth most common surname in the UK and that almost all animals exhibit homosexual behaviour, in particular giraffes!

Everyone had a lie in this morning til 10am. Don’t remember the last time Ady slept in that late ever!

Ady made up for his lazy start by being very productive tidying and cleaning in our bedroom and the upstairs bathroom ready for the viewing tomorrow. Our en suite shower tends to get used as a storage space in the winter when we don’t tend to use it as a shower, but we figured it would be better presented as a shower than a cupboard to prospective tenants.

We then had a go at trying to start my car, after running well at the beginning of the week it’s now not starting again. We have my Dad’s jump leads so were at least not running my battery down but it refused to start.

We loaded Ady’s car with the remainder of the roof tiles. These have been in our garden for 10 years since we built up into the loft. They are the tiles off our roof and we have kept them all this time incase we ever extended and needed them. They have been moved from front to back garden and into several locations including infront of the garage and in the chickens area, I’ve rung round tile merchants to try and sell them, stuck them in the local free ad paper and put them on freecycle twice. No one wants them even when we’ve tried to give them away so we’ve admitted defeat and taken them to the tip. On the plus side the smashing them into things on the hardcore and rubble pile was quite theraputic :).

We came home via Sainsburys where I returned the wrongly purchased wine and got some proper stuff. Even the bloke on the customer service desk was appalled at the idea of low alcohol wine. Dirty bastards ;).

Back home again the kids spent some time in the garden while Ady and I pulled everything out of the cupboard under the stairs. Most of it went back in again but has been sorted into two piles – one of a few boxes that will go to my parents, the other of the camping stuff we want to keep, which we have decided to store in my car while we’re gone – my car is going into a locked garage so will be safe and dry.

We had a couple of bags to go a charity shop, a couple to be chucked out and another large box that needs listing on ebay, I’ll try and get that done this week. The kids came in and spent some time playing with air drying clay which I had found and given them to do whatever they wanted with providing they didn’t make loads of stuff we would then need to find homes for.

I got dinner on – roast beef, while Ady and Davies watched Pirates of the Carribean. Scarlett came and hung out with me in the kitchen and we spent ages looking at a book not sure if it is this exact one but one of this series, of which we have several and she’s just discovered them and is enjoying them lots.

Dinner was delicious, we watched Countryfile while eating and all got quite indignant about chickens and eggs. For dessert (not desert) Ady and I had chocolate mug cakes made in the microwave with added toblerone pieces and the kids had triple layered jellies I’d been making through the afternoon with Scarlett’s help. We made a couple in pint glasses with plenty of room for the couple more layers she wants to add in tomorrow.

The kids went to bed and I realised we’d forgotten bad, good, learnt today so I went visiting with my laptop and did that. Not quite the same as the telling the rest of the family but better than not doing it at all!

Ady: Bad: Nic’s car still won’t start! Good: 10am lay in! Learnt: The tip lifts it’s height restriction barrier on Sundays.

Scarlett: Bad: Having to go to bed! Good: Had a nice family day and lovely dinner, Learnt: how to make rainbow layered jellies.

Davies: Bad: sad about cattle with TB on Countryfile, Good: Had fun playing in the garden with Scarlett, Learnt: Mummy likes the sound of smashing tiles.

Nic: Bad: managed to set smoke alarms off by putting candle wax on the fire, Good: finally got rid of roof tiles, Learnt: the kipper tie was designed by Michael Fish (not the weatherman).

I had work this morning, which I really struggled to get up for. Once I was there it was fine though, 3.5 hours is a perfect shift length :).

Ady and the kids did the queuing at the post office thing with all the ebay parcels I didn’t manage to send yesterday thanks to my car not starting.

I had a message on my phone from the letting agents to say they have a family interested in renting the house who would like to come and view it on Monday. I’ve been getting quite twitchy about this so even if nothing comes of it I am really relieved to have someone coming to see the house as it means the letting agent is being effective at getting it out there. Our cut off date for everything falling neatly in to place is January 20th – which would give me time to give a months notice and leave on the date I want to, Ady his full months notice, leaving party could happen as planned and we can have a week away in the van before we actually start WOOFing at the first host. So fingers crossed for this last variable to fall in our favour.

Back home we had lunch and then Ady carried on taking stuff from the front garden to the tip. We have a list of last things that need dealing with and clearing the garden and garage is on Ady’s list. I wanted to move some logs around as we have been stacking them up as Ady’s brought them home and then filling the gap so we’ve ended up with the greener wood nearer the back door and the seasoned wood further away. So having cleared a big gap I moved a load of the older stuff down near to the door and then did a load of chopping it up into smaller fire sized logs. That should keep us going for a good few days :).

Davies and Scarlett played and then decided to go outside too so they spent some time playing in the garden and I nipped along to my Dad to borrow his jump leads so we can have a really good go at getting my car started tomorrow. I also popped into the supermarket and managed to buy low alcohol wine. Not at all sure what the point of that is, it’s like bloody cheezley or tofu! A product masquerading to be something it’s not! Arse UU

Back home again I was feeling a bit rubbish. I’ve had a bit of a sinus headache and been quite congested and not sure whether it is the tail end of something or the beginning of something new but I was really cold and shivery and just exhausted so I went and had a bath and finished reading my book while the others all watched Total Wipeout.

That restored me sufficiently to send children to bed (not to sleep of course although Scarlett did fall asleep quite happily tonight without me needing to spend any time with her, just one of my cardigans to snuggle up in). Ady and I had pizza and watched the Derren Brown fest that was on.

Scarlett: Bad: Not allowed Mumma’s jumper to take to bed and snuggle with (she got it in the end) Good: Enjoyed playing out in the garden Learnt: slugs drop their slime when a predator picks them up and their slime numbs tongues (not learnt through experience!)

Davies: Bad: Didn’t get to watch Pirates of the Carribean with Daddy Good: No Squibbling with Scarlett today, Learnt today: Why emergency vehicles use blue and red lights.

Ady: Bad: Campervan wouldn’t start (battery dead) Good: Cleared lots of crap from garden, Learnt: No foxes on the Isle of Man (although when trying to corroborate this story I found a conflicting report 😉 ) so he’s now gone for no badgers instead. Not really a shocker what with badgers not being real in the first place.

Nic: Bad: Bloody car still won’t start! Good: Letting agent rang to make a viewing appointment for Monday, even if it comes to nothing at least I can stop being twitchy about it until then 🙂 Learnt: That my Dad has a superstition! He is about the least likely person I can think of (other than myself) but he always turns his money over when he sees a new moon. Today I was with him when he saw it so he told me to do the same.

We all woke up super late this morning 😳 which is of course why Davies and Scarlett are so shocking at getting to sleep at night and then why we all wake late and then go to sleep late etc. I’d say it was a vicious circle but actually I think it is more a slightly disgruntled rectangle ;).

The chickens have been really comical today, I was in the kitchen and heard a tapping at the back door and opened it to see a whole gaggle of them looking expectantly at me. The main cockerel had tapped on the door with his beak and was looking really proud of himself. I rewarded them with some cereal that no one likes (why do we always have at least one box of cereal that noone likes? Even when I have fed it all to the chickens and thrown away the box a new one seems to get nominated) and some brie which one of them very entertainingly got stuck on her beak. A bit later I was in the kitchen again and could hear a crowing outside and one of the other cockerels came in and ate some bread off the doormat.

I’d semi arranged with my parents last night for them to come to the museum with us this afternoon but my Mum rang to say she wasn’t feeling too well so they wouldn’t be coming after all. I spent ages wrapping up a heap of stuff we’ve sold on ebay and after lunch we went out to the car with the intention of stopping at the post office on the way to the museum.

Except the car wouldn’t start 🙁 It has rained all night, all day and all the next night (and actually quite a lot of today) and the pavements were still soaking wet as the sun hadn’t got down as far as my car by then so I was not terribly surprised. It did mean no museum and actually as the bag was so very heavy I was not up for carting it all the way into Lancing it also meant no post office.

We were about to head back indoors but the kids asked to go for a walk. After some debate about which direction to go in we decided to do a penny walk, tossing a coin to determine left or right. The first flip at the end of our road determined towards the downs or towards the beach and on tails we headed north. The penny led us on a pretty straight route although right near the top of where the houses run out and it becomes the downs we did rather a lot of up a road (steep hill) along, down the next road (steep hill), along, up a road (steep hill) although we never actually did a circuit on ourselves. We got tantalisingly close to a field for about 10 minutes but kept turning away from it until finally the penny let us go that way. We then ran out of decisions to make so clambered to the top of the hill, admired the lovely view back down across houses to the sea, admired the downs and then caught sight of the rather gloomy black clouds heading our way so decided to head back for home. We decided to walk a different route as far as possible rather than retrace our steps so put the penny away and tramped across a field until we met the road.

At least it was downhill all the way, although the threatened rain did arrive about 10 minutes before we got home. I then cursed not having chopped wood before we went out so got totally soaked wielding the axe. A slice of Christmas cake and large cup of tea along with a change of clothes restored me though :).

Tea for the kids, fire lit, I’ve enterered a competition to win loads of outdoor clothes for our adventure (am sticking to one attempt to get sponsorship / writing deal / stuff a day. It would be nice but it really not what the year is about so I really don’t want it to take over and become that), Ady came home and we did bad, good, learnt today:

Davies: Bad: didn’t go to museum, Good: got PSP back, learnt: about a white dwarf, 1 tsp weighs a ton (from a documentary about space we watched this morning)

Scarlett: Bad: fell over and got mud on my toy, Good: nice walk with lots of animals, learnt: about penny walks (she really liked the idea)

Ady: Bad: Drove a long way for a meeting and the person was off work, Good: It’s the weekend! Learn: Europe is the only continent that has no desserts (we have observed that his bad and good is very dictated by his day at work, glad we are restoring that balance soon)

Nic: Bad: car wouldn’t start, Good: enjoyed where we live today, our penny walk would either have taken us towards beach or downs and both are lovely, Learnt: when you would use fish or fishes (in response to a question from Davies about sheep, deer, fish type words).

I read a chapter of Narnia, the kids were in bed, both happily as they said they were tired, by 7pm. Neither asleep still at 11pm mind you… Watched Penn & Teller, had dinner, Ady said lovely slushly things about him and I (awww ♥ ) and I’ve had another evening of sobriety by my standards as the cellar is looking pretty depleted and we have no cash to restock this month!

The lyrics of the Ballard Of Lucy Jordan seem very wrong as I hit the Age of 37. I wonder is it like the Age of Not Believing but for grown ups?

I shall not be cleaning the house for hours or rearranging the flowers, the kids shall not be off to school and in a matter off weeks the husband will not be off to work. Funnily enough I’d totally forgotten that song until I sat down to write a blog post and then suddenly had ‘at the age of 37…’ running through my head so went to find the song.

Maybe it’s written for a reason though, maybe it’s some sort of pre mid life crisis 😉

Anyway. My age of 37 commenced with home made cards from my babies – Scarlett’s adorned with many kisses and love hearts and a picture of a horse, Davies’ illustrated with his made up character ‘Day’ carrying a huge birthday cake with help from (made up character) friends. My gifts were a huge selection of chocolates – liqueurs, white toblerone, Thorntons etc., some fancy bubble bath, a Thornton’s birthday cake and a book. My main gift is my amber which is yet to come but I quite like the idea of a gift still travelling towards me to look forward to. Both children stuffed cash from their Christmas money into their cards and both were thanked very much but had the cash returned to them.

We breakfasted on cinnamon rolls which I am considering a birthday gift from LovelyEm as she gave me the recipe and they were so delicious I feel the need to bestow gift status upon them. Both children made me cups of tea throughout the day and at this stage of the evening I am prepared to overlook the level of sibling squabbling (should that be called squibbling? I think so. Will henceforth call it thus) and remember everything fondly with rose tinted birthday glow about it.

The kids played with geomags, I made paracord bracelets for everyone using some stuff that had arrived from ebay and included some very cool clasps with survival whistles built in.

I was born at 10:10am and at least one parent always rings me at that time on my birthday (I was clearly very sociable, my children were born at 4:35am – Davies and 1:51am – Scarlett which is far less acceptable a time to be calling them when they are adults. Maybe I should encourage them to move to a different time zone…) so the kids and I were placing bets on which parent it would be and when the phone rang at 10:09 I picked it up without checking caller ID. It turned out to be Julie 😆 She was aware it was my birthday so wished me Happy Birthday and then proceeded to chat for 25 minutes while my poor Mum was frantically trying to get hold of me, in the end ringing my mobile and speaking to Davies intead 😆

The rest of the day passed fairly quietly. I had a few more phonecalls, lots of texts and well wishes which all made me feel very loved and special 🙂 We ate more cinnamon rolls for lunch as we loved them so much.

Ady arrived home and we did our good, bad, learnt today stuff:

Davies – Bad: no PSP, Good: Going out for dinner, Learnt: about static electricity

Scarlett – Bad: DVD on that I didn’t want to watch, Good: loved the cinnamon buns, Learnt: that horses can bite their own tongues

Ady – Bad: getting work colleague into trouble inadvertantly, Good: upheaval a work, another colleague leaving, Learnt: How to change font size on PC

Nic – Bad: the PSP incident, Good: lots of birthday wishes from friends, home made cards from kids and thoughtful presents made me feel loved, Learnt: how to make paracord bracelets from kit.

The PSP incident is Davies being caught at 130am this morning as I went to bed, still playing on his PSP, that he isn’t allowed to play on it bed in the first place. I took it off him, gave him a right roasting and went to bed in a right strop 🙁 . We have discussed it at length and I will probably let him have it back tomorrow. I hate rewards and punishments and would never remove it for an unrelated ‘crime’ and actually just knowing how angry and diasppointed I am is sufficient ‘punishment’ for Davies who is very much a ‘pleaser’, particularly of me but I suspect it’s done no harm on this occassion.

We all got ready to go out and then met my parents and Frazer at a nearby steakhouse. We’ve only been there once before the food is excellent and we had a lovely meal there. While chatting we were reminiscing about a restaurant we used to eat in in Manchester and we mentioned we are going up to stay with Lynda & Stuart next weekend. The suggestion was made than my parents come up with us and book into a nearby hotel so we rang them, got a recommendation for one close by and arranged for that to happen which wil be lovely :).

Back home again for cake and fizz. We lit the candles about 5 times so various people could have a go at blowing them out 🙂

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and then I was invited up to Davies’ room where D&S put on a Birthday Show for me. We finished up creating 3 and 7 in honour of my new age 🙂

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I suspect I have long since blown any hope of being remembered as sane, sensible or otherwise normal as a parent 😉

Scarlett had a bit of a wobble as she sometimes does at the end of a period of very disturbed and late nights so I sat with her and talked it out. Everyone else said goodnight and left or went to bed.

I had a lovely day, I have now seen both ends of it and quite aside from the meaningless flurry of emails I got from places I must have given my date of birth to over the years I have felt very touched by the texts, emails, facebook and friendfeed messsages, my gifts from family are perfect, my day with kisses and cuddles on tap from my babies has been wonderful and whilst none of my plans for the age of 37 involve driving in open topped cars through Paris I am utterly confident that this year of my life will have plenty of adventure, thrills, spills (year of the spillage), laughs and love woven through every day.

I caught up on the WW blog this morning, helped Davies with a couple of rows of knitting. He’s mastered knitting pretty quick although is finding purl tricky. He needs to do stocking stitch for what he wants to make but I am thinking maybe I could do the alternate every other row of purl for him which would speed it up for him and make it less of a challenge.

Scarlett gathered her new selection of books and sat looking at them, asking the odd question and for some bits to be read to her. I wanted to take a couple of things back to the library and collect a couple more that I’d had email notification had arrived for me so we decided to walk there. I want to get more active, rely less on the car and try and spend time outside in the coming weeks. I know we have the ‘last visit’ rounds to start sometime soon but suspect finances and lack of actual stuff to really do out and about will mean we spend lots of time at home so walking from home to places when possible would be a good way of acheiving this.

We decided to have lunch first so ate and watched some science type programme and then wrapped up warm. It had gotten really dark and was bitterly cold when I went to chop some logs so I really thought it might snow but actually when we stepped outside it was drizzling with rain. A quick vote and we decided to walk anyway.

I like the conversations we have driving or walking, always really interesting and often utterly apropos of nothing. We talked about our litter walk, Davies put forward some radical ideas for getting people to clear up after their dogs, we talked about why we put a certain name first when talking about two people – eg Davies & Scarlett, Nic & Ady and tried to come up with patterns and reasons – oldest first, male first, person we knew first etc. We couldn’t spot one other than in all the couples with a Chris we knew we tended to put the Chris first (which only later on this evening I pledged to amend on my phone address book as it’s a right pain scrolling through them all to ring Julie). Oh and just what would happen if you stood on a pavement crack – apparently my Mum said to them while out walking you mustn’t stand on the cracks or it will break your mother’s back. I’d always said as a child that if you stood on the cracks the ‘bears would get you’. I backed this up a bit further on when we saw a huge lump of dog poo and I speculated it was actually probably from a bear instead 😆

At the library I thought my heavy bag carrying was at an end when I handed over a load of books we’d returned but I’d forgotten Scarlett and her book grabbing ways so I ended up carrying even more home again. The kids admired my Cavemen Stories display (and selected a book from it) and Scarlett sorted a book that was mis-shelved that had her most indignant!

We got home and about five minutes later the drizzle turned to really heavy rain so our timing was pretty good. The house was cold as I have turned the heating down, both because I don’t want a huge end bill from the gas company and because I do think we have the house on the hot side, so I debated lighting the fire (trying not to do that til it gets dark, want to eke the logs out until we leave), putting the heating back on or getting some socks. In the end Tarly declared it cold and she lit the fire 😆 I did get some socks out and put them on the radiator to warm up (once the heating had also been put on) but they are still hanging on the radiator now.

I made the kids some tea, managed to set the smoke alarms off by catching the sausages while trying to wash up at the same time and then the phone rang. It was the woman from yesterday calling to see if I could find the paperwork from our loft conversion as the council had told her they had no record of it. Argh! Fortunately I know it was 100% approved by the planning dept. and signed off by the building regs dept. but our copy of the paperwork is tucked upstairs in the loft in a box pushed right to the back. I’m not at all sure it would be worth the couple of hours it would take to get to it. I tried to ring the council myself but got no reply so I’ll have another go tomorrow. She did sound quite doubtful and then said she had found online where planning permission had been turned down in 2005 (when we applied for a further extension and it was refused). Sigh. A minor hassle but I imagine that will be several phonecalls and chasing around I could just do without.

That prompted me to sort out our paperwork folder though which was on my list of things to deal with, on the offchance it was in there rather than in that box in the loft. It wasn’t but I have now pared it all down to a small folder that we’ll leave with my parents incase of emergencies. Am now getting all anxious waiting for the phone to ring – need to hand my notice in by 20th January and Ady by 28th January which doesn’t give us much time to have a tennant lined up really.

Ady arrived home and we did our good, bad, learnt today lists:

Davies Bad – plasticine character got broken, Good – done well with knitting, Learnt – about why you can’t smell your own farts (from one of those Science museum books, why eating bogeys are good for you etc.)

Scarlett – Bad: that I put the fire out (she put too much paper on it once it was going), Good: paracord bracelet whistle catches arrived in the post, Learnt: reticulated pythons are the largest snakes in the world at up to 10 metres long.

Ady – Bad: been told I have an appraisal at work next week, Good: Bought birthday presents for Nic within budget, Learnt: about consumer rights on goods fit for purpose.

Nic – Bad: lost paperwork for house build, Good: jump, jump, jump it’s my birthday tomorrow, learnt- how free range chicken farmers keep up their egg production through the winter.

I talked to my friend Rose who has just come back from celebrating New Year in New York and then my Mum to arrange to go out for dinner with them tomorrow.

I wanted to see my birthday in but not be too late to bed. I think I’ve more or less managed that :).

I woke at 9am, poor Ady had left for work a good two hours before that. I woke the kids and had them downstairs breakfasting by 930am, tomorrow we’ll try an earlier start as they were both still awake at midnight again tonight despite being in bed by 9pm. The craziness of Christmas, New Year, guests and Ady being off work always takes a good week or so to realign though so I’m not too worried. Coupled with which we don’t have much of a pattern to be getting back to anyway, me and the kids.

We watched ROAR while they ate, which is part filmed at Port Lyphme or as Scarlett calls it ‘my birthday zoo’ and all got irritated by the very silly female presenter who kept making stupid comments and giggling.

Scarlett got out pens, pencils and paper and was doing some drawing while I was making a start on a blog about plans for the year (post below). We talked about that for a while and then Davies got his pens and paper out to draw a picture of the character he wants to knit. We talked a bit about how to do it and I got out my bag of zips, buttons etc to see if I had anything suitable for it. I didn’t and offered various shop options to go and buy the stuff. As we are broke, it is barely a week since we gave them Christmas gifts and the kids each have nearly £100 Christmas money from various sources I said he would have to fund it himself. The money they each have is their spending funds for the year as we have said we are unlikely to be able to pay for anything over and above basic provision of food and clothes etc so any additional stuff they might want over the year will need to come from their own funds. This is a great strategy for getting them to *really* think about how much they want / need something, particularly as I have always been opposed to pocket money so they have not had the chance to learn money management from that. Davies very sweetly agreed he should pay for the stuff and that ‘you are giving me plenty Mummy by teaching me the skills to make it and spending the time with me on it, that is far more valuable than money’ Oh he can talk a good sweet talk that boy ;).

We nipped into Lancing, the car started second go and was fine running, hurrah :), got the wool from a shop with a small knitting and sewing department, then drove around a bit at the other end of Lancing to find a parking space to go into a large charity shop there that has a very good haberdashery section as well as a cafe and other well laid out areas. Sure enough we got a second hand zip (they cut them out of otherwise no good clothes) and little packet of buttons (ditto) for 20p which I paid for as I also put 20p towards Scarlett’s heap of books she’d chosen. She got 10 books for £2.20 as they had buy one get one free and she got a selection of wildlife and nature books and spotter guides on birds, British wildlife etc and a copy of all of the Enchanted Wood stories in one book which she was thrilled with as she’s been listening to the audio book. She said she’s going to have to learn to read as she intends filling all her alloted space in the van with books so she needs to get maximum value from them. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of an illiterate bookworm before but I certainly seem to have one in her.

Back at home we had lunch – proper food with side helpings of fruit and raw veg to start making up for Christmas crap food and then Scarlett worked through one of the spotter guides for zoo animals while I showed Davies how to knit and purl. He is cack-handed at the best of times, amazing given how many skills he has in drawing, plasticine modelling etc. but caught on to both stitches really quickly and is going to practise some alternate rows of both as the toy he wants to make is stocking stitch. Once he’s mastered the stitches we’ll work out a pattern together and he can do it. He did a bit of that and then spent some time pencilling in detail on a rather lovely sunset mountain and rive scene he did in watercolours last week.

I made some phonecalls – checking we will get authority from our mortgage company to rent the house out, cancelling my car insurance renewal, trying to cancel Sky tv, checking with my Dad where he plans to keep my car while we’re away and whether my Mum knows about them storing our stuff, reducing my mobile phone tariff etc and some time online – checking bank balance, cancelling direct debits, changing BT billing dates and getting quotes for monthly car insurance, landlord insurance and making copious lists of things we can do now, things we can do once we’ve found a tennant and things we need to be thinking about.

The woman came to do the EPC (energy performance certificate) which all houses need if they are sold or let so we chatted to her for a while and the kids were impressed with her digital tape measure.

I chopped wood, lit a fire, out chickens away, dealt with a couple of loads of washing, made the kids some tea (sausage and mash and their choice of veg) and had a slice of Christmas cake with a cup of tea to celebrate being so productive and industrious :).

Ady arrived home and so we all caught up with each others days. Normally when he goes back to work I am secretly a bit glad to get the day back to it’s usual rhythm but we really missed him today. Hopefully this bodes well for later in the year ;). Scarlett showed Ady all her books, Davies showed him his plans for his knitting and we read him what we’d written for our plans for the year and he added his to the list. We decided to start good, bad and something new straightaway.

Davies – bad: spent some of my money on knitting stuff, good: completed a level on Simpsons, new thing learnt: how to knit

Scarlett – bad:dropped breakfast on floor, good: bought loads of great books at bargain price, learnt: that there is a bird like a cormorant called a shag and there are two types of pelicans

Nic – bad: realised a BT bill is due that I had not budgeted for in an already tight month, good -very productive day, learnt – that string theory is probably not ever likely to be something I understand 😉

Ady bad– had to go to work, good: Tuesday already not Monday, learnt: why the sky is blue – Ady was struggling to think of something he’d learnt and Davies asked if he knew why the sky is blue. He didn’t so I googled it for a more comprehensive answer than the one I was blundering through, which led to us all learning more about rainbows into the bargain.

We all watched the Stargazing Live thing although I snuck off a bit before the end to have a bath. Leftovers for dinner for Ady and I (curry from the weekend for me, chilli from the freezer for Ady) and I feel properly caught up on this blog now, ready to catch up on the WW one tomorrow.

Every year we sit down and talk about things we want to do / see / experience / achieve / learn in the coming year. Everyone gets as short or long list as they like but they need to take the bulk of the responsibility for achieving it themselves.

This year has been a slightly different experience as it is something we sort of did back in June / July when we first started talking about the WW adventure and of course has very much shaped that being planned. But I wanted to do it, both to ensure we all have some personal needs being catered for during next year, to help give some direction to what we do in our downtime and because it is the kind of conversation I love having with the rest of the family, a really interesting thing to read back at a future point and because it allows everyone to have their own private goals alongside the rather crazy experience I suspect we are lined up for this coming year.

So, here is what we came up with:
Davies
ride a bike This was on last years and possibly even the year before. Not at all sure how it might happen but I guess we have 2 months before we go and are likely to come across bikes we can borrow along the way.
Master reading and writing This was also on last years list. Davies has definitely improved, which is what I think he had on last years, this year he wants to ‘master’ it.
Keep a journal & maybe publish it I love this idea. It comes from reading the kids my Wondering Wanderers blog and sharing with them the idea that maybe one day it could be a book. He chose a rather gorgeous couple of blank books and has so far written ‘Davies’ WWOOFing adventure’ in one and ‘Davies” WWOOFing adventure 2’ in the other ready to keep an account of how he sees the experience.
Fishing – the whole thing, catching, gutting & cooking a fish He has the fishing rod, Ady knows enough about fishing to help him do all of this and it is high on the list of things he, Ady and Scarlett are looking forward to doing together. We’re going to look out for a book on it pitched for beginner children too.
Visit Stone Henge A definite very early history thing stiring with Davies, what with all his YACs, pre-historic flint knapping, Stig of the Dump stuff and so on. We’ll aim to do this before we head off.
Learn some sewing and knitting & make a sack boy toy Sack Boy is a PSP game character he loves. He has previously sewn a toy for himself and now wants to master knitting. He’s already bought the wool and picked up knit and purl really quickly. I suspect the actual making of a toy will take longer but he did get stuck straight in. He said knitting will be a really valuable skill not just for wool but for cordage and natural materials too.
Do some wild camping (in woods in little tent) Davies is desperate to use his little tent and do some camping off the beaten track. We’ll definitely ensure we make this happen this year.
Learn about sheepdog training I find this fascinating too, we learnt a bit about how sheepdog are trained at the Countryman show last year but Davies would like to learn more, hopefully we will stay with someone who has sheepdog and can answer his questions fully.
Understand the farming year, different challenges in different seasons Otherwise entitled getting back to nature I guess. One of the things Davies is really looking forward to is understanding what happens when and how it all comes together with farming, agriculture and animal husbandry.
Resurect the ‘what I learnt today’ & introduce ‘one good thing, one bad thing’ Davies remembered the ‘what we learnt today’ exercise that the four of us did for a while last year and asked to start doing that again. I mentioned a ‘one good thing, one bad thing’ idea I’d read about a family doing in a book recently and we decided it would be great to do both and record them all, particularly as we expect this to be a year of real highs, lows and learning.

Scarlett
Improve reading and writing I can’t quite believe she said this after all her insistance that she will *never* want to learn to read and write but she suddenly wants to. I am hoping that as with most things the instant she actually wants to do it, she will do it quickly and easily. We’ll see 🙂
Keep a journal you may spot a pattern here as I asked Scarlett after Davies had told me his ;). But Scarlett also has a lovely blank book and is up for keeping an account in her own words of the adventure.
Improve knife skills, carving & sculpturing wood Both children got new knives for Christmas and Scarlett is particularly keen to actually *do* something with hers. She’s less keen on the idea of using it to gut fish but does like the idea of using the skills she learnt last year carving chalk – she spent hours and hours over the summer with a penknife and a lump of chalk – and do some stuff with wood.
Learn how to catch a fish (and probably let it go again!) 😆 her words!
See a badger & fox in the wild Obviously she is very keen to see all sorts of animals but these two she has seen on TV captured with night vision cameras and is most looking forward to observing with her night vision kit. Of course she does know badgers don’t really exist ;).
See golden eagles and wildcats flushed with the success of finally seeing dolphins Scarlett has scoured her UK wildlife books and added these to her list for 2011 as we’ll be spending time in Scotland in the autumn.

Ady
Animal slaughter and butchering this is very much Ady’s big yearning to learn about next year. He really likes the idea of a future career in this area and is keen to gain as much knowledge as possible.
Understand mechanics of the car Ady has been really frustrated by his lack of mechanical car knowledge. Actually we both have been irritated by how little we know about cars and engines and how little ability we have to put things right. If we had more time and money before we went we had debated both going on a basic course to learn more. I imagine sheer necessity will mean we come out of the year with an increased knowledge of what is under the bonnet of the van but we both intend extending our know-how in this area.
See Northern Lights This has been my big thing for years and is very much shaping our route. I know the chances are actually quite unlikely but we’re hoping by adding it to both of our lists we might double our odds somehow 😆
See Golden Eagle or sea eagle I think Scarlett’s wildlife spotting thirst has rather infected us all and Ady was hoping to catch a sight of an eagle in Scotland last year but didn’t, so he’s hoping to have another go this year.

Nic
See Northern Lights as above, I’ve wanted to see the Northern Lights for years and only fairly recently learnt you can see them from the top of Scotland if you are really lucky. Fingers very firmly crossed as I believe they can be even more elusive than dolphins 😉
Kill, cook and eat something – I really want to learn how to hunt or shoot or fish or slaughter, not because I particularly want to kill but because I think it is really important as a meat eater.
Milk a cow or a goat actually. I’ve wanted to do this for ages, it’s high on my list of WWOOFing ambitions.
Witness a live animal birth – I’ve seen various eggs hatching and watched a couple of lambs and a calf being born at Coombe farm but really want to experience it in not such a zoo-like environment.
Get over my dog phobia I suspect I will always be cautious and I have made what I consider great strides already given my previously quite paralysing fear of dogs. When I was younger I would cross a road to avoid walking past one even on a lead and I always checked before going to someone’s house whether they had a dog. I am still very nervous but have faced it a fair bit recently and will simply have to deal with it while WWOOFing (clues in the name ;)) as loads of the hosts will have dogs so I will be staying in the dogs house and not really able to do anything but live with them.

I’ve read back over previous years posts and have always talked about groups, clubs, lessons, trips and events we are planning to go. Swimming, Badgers, Wildlife Explorers, YACs etc have all finished for us for now and budget constraints mean we are unlikely to be doing much in the way of trips before we head off. While we do have some meet ups pencilled in (hoping J&J do a May event, BabsCamp etc.) most meet ups will be if people are able to come and track us down, which we very much hope lots of people will. We do intend taking time out along the way but I suspect it will be to drink in the free views and atmosphere rather than expensive entrance fee incuring attractions, and to have a rest!

So in terms of where we are planning to go; well coast to coast really, England, Scotland and Wales. What we hope to see; as much as our eyes can drink in – wildlife, nature, new experiences and new directions. What we want to learn; self sufficiency in practise, what it entails, how to live a lower impact life, how to survive with less of everything, how other people live. What we hope to gain? Time together, a story to tell, a new chapter in a changing world and a changing family. I hope we are fitter, healthier, closer, more skilled, more in touch with what we want from life at the end of the experience.

Friday – New Years Eve. I worked all day, but I’d had over a week off and indeed have over a week until my next shift so not too much of a hardship really. It was a mix of busy and quite cheery with everyone wishing each other Happy New Year, and quite tedious when it got very quiet in the afternoon and dragged. I’d worn a jumper, albeit a short sleeved one and was roasting plus had failed to make any lunch to take with me so rang Ady to collect me for lunch so I could come home and eat and get changed into something cooler for the afternoon. He ran me a bath so I had a quick dip, washed my hair, got changed into something far less seasonal, ate and went back to work again.

We’d arranged, fairly last minute when we realised we were free on NYE and they were driving almost past the door on their way home from Christmas with family, to have Marcus and Michelle here for the evening to see 2011 in with. This was fab, we’ve all missed them (and Chloe of course) and had been really disappointed not to have a planned visit from them before Christmas due to illness. They had already arrived before Ady came to collect me from work and completely misheard me saying I was ‘going to get my Nicola clothes off’ 😆

A lovely evening followed, with us making efforts not to peak too early despite cracking open the fizz well before 7pm. Davies and Scarlett had a sleepover and spent their time between us downstairs and a film in Davies’ bedroom. They saw midnight in with us, watching the fireworks in London on TV and then they headed off to bed while we watched Hootenany from March ;). We learnt that Michelle has a rather shady past time for which she has convictions, after which Ady gave her the first kiss at midnight 😉 I’m happy to retain my amateur status 😉 . Both Marcus and Ady were quite taken with Kylie on TV though, I guess she is more their age 😆

We enjoyed friendfeed giving us snippets of other people’s celebrations, had a phonecall from my mum at midnight (I don’t think either of us heard anything, she was in a pub with people shouting all around, I was in the lounge with the TV up so loud one of the speakers fell off) and texts from people throughout the evening.

We went to bed about 3am I think, having waited so long for 2011 to arrive it would have been rude to abandon it too soon once it got here ;).

Saturday – New Years Day. Clearly having seen it in properly there was not so much of a rush to get up ;). We debated going to see some local morris dancers but no one was really in the mood, Scarlett and I nipped out to Lancing as I’d forgotten to pick up an anniversary card for my parents (married on New Years Day 39 years ago), but we didn’t find one in Lancing and ended up getting one at the shop around the corner.

Marcus and Michelle had the Grand Tour of the campervan. Much chatting, laughing, eating and drinking continued until our next guests arrived – The Barts 🙂 We had a lovely few hours crossover of everyone here, with my parents arriving to collect their anniversary card / exchange New Year & anniversary wishes adding to the mix before Marcus and Michelle headed off for home. We did tell them not to go…. 😉

My parents left not too long afterwards and with everyone fed and the kids directed towards upstairs if not sleep we had a very enjoyable evening chatting, laughing and playing a game that James’ secret santa at camp had given him which was most entertaining and kept us going til nearly 3am again.

Being the Year of the Spillage the Ady machine came out at least once, and there was almost a PMSL spillage when James recreated Ride on Time by sitting on his watch and dashing about the room 😆

Which meant another late start to Sunday. Everyone was looking rather peaky and so a walk to the beach was decided as ideal therapy, once Kirsty & James had had the Grand Tour of the campervan. On the off chance I tried to start my car which had been standing since before Christmas and I’ve had several attempts at starting and failed each time. It started first time so I decided I would drive it to the beach to give it a run. The kids wanted to come in my car too which meant taking Ady’s would be pointless so we went in mine. It took a bit of warming up though and died just before we were about to turn into the beach carpark. It did start again, get across the road and was fine all the way home so presumably just needed a bit of a run to get going properly.

The beach walk was just gorgeous. It was late thanks to faffing at home and then further faffing with the car so we were approaching sunset at 330pm but the light was amazing, the sky filled with stunning colours and of course the sea reflecting them all.

There are about a million pictures on flickr 😉 but my faves are:
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and the obligatory self timer shot of course ” alt=”self timer” />

Back for hot chocolate, tea, coffee etc for those who wanted it, dinner for the kids and then off upstairs for them while we had a lovely curry and another evening of admiring the kindle, chatting and a couple of rounds of Spot the Intro. I’m practically a gamer now 😉

It might have been getting on for 3am again….

Today Slightly quieter from the kids – Davies and Marcus did some gaming, Scarlett and Alex carried on playing with the toy animals. The Barts packed up and headed for home, with sandwiches foisted upon them by Superhost Ady ;). We tidied up, chopped wood, hoovered, did some washing and then collapsed.

Ady and I attempted to compile a list of things we need to do as really final throes of planning should begin in earnest. So I now have a long job list, Ady is back to work ;). Scarlett had a long bath and I brushed her hair which had gotten very wild and tangled. The kids had tea, Davies had a bath and then I read them the first 4 chapters of Chronicles of Narnia – The Magician’s Nephew. They have seen a couple of the films and Scarlett has been listening to some of the audio books so they are familiar enough with it to sit through the slightly wordy text of the original stories now. Reading it aloud not only brought back the memory of reading it myself as a child, it also brought back the memory of Frazer and I creating a little area in my parents loft just like Polly’s complete with sweets, torch and some toys which I had quite forgotten until reading it.

Despite an 8pm bedtime Scarlett didn’t fall asleep until 1130pm when I went and sat on her bedroom floor as she was struggling with being alone in a room in a proper bed after Davies’ floor with a roomful for the last 3 nights. I assume Davies is now asleep but he wasn’t at that point. Grr. But I guess having seen 3am myself for the last 3 nights and sitting here still now at long gone midnight I possibly can’t really talk…

So, a lovely start to the new year, filled with friends, laughter and sharing exciting dreams. Our adventure is really feeling like a close realit

January We saw 2009 out and 2010 in with various friends at The Salmon’s.

I had my 36th birthday, celebrated seasonally with an indoor / outdoor snowball fight as we had a very heavy (for the south coast) snow fall.

We had a weekend in Manchester staying with Lynda & Stuart and meeting up with Miranda aswell as taking several walks down memory lane from our time up there. Then a trip to Centerparcs along with several friends for a four night stay, loads of swimming but not quite enough meeting up with friends.

Our homecomming was pretty crappy with Scarlett catching the bug that Davies had had at CP, my car not running and our boiler dying, so no heating or hot water. In January. With a vomiting child, piles of holiday washing and festering swimming costumes. Ady hooked the garden hose up to the electric shower and we managed to fill the bath using that a couple of times and I spent a few hours at the local launderette. Thankfully within about a week (it felt longer) we had a brand new boiler installed, the car was running again and despite a cold extending the period of illness in the house everyone was better by the time February rolled round.

Scarlett dabbled with Brownies but decided it wasn’t for her, after a lengthier trial at Sea Scouts Davies decided that wasn’t for him and we hosted a Home Ed Grown Ups Meeting.

Ady and I had an evening out with some of his friends while my parents looked after D&S and managed to set the chimney AND the table on fire :rolls:

I bitterly resented being an Assistant Leader at Badgers, particularly when I had to go to a pretty much irrelevant course early on a Sunday morning (when I was hungover). Particularly when followed the next day with a first aid course for work.

We spent lots of time at home and I’ve just been reminded reading back that Scarlett had some wobbly times in February.

I passed my interview and end of course exam and was offered a Waste Prevention Advisor role.

We had a lovely weekend at Marcus and Michelle’s, also taking in The Salmon’s but rather missing everyone else at the Au Revoir party. We did see some people and enjoy the chocolate fountain just the same 🙂

I launched the first six week sessions of Chatterbooks – a national initiative that I felt we should be offering locally and pushed through against all sorts of resistance. In the end the sessions were so well recieved and oversubscribed I ended up running a second, shorter set later in the year. I certainly got a lot out of the sessions, as did Davies and Scarlett who attended both lots and did lots of supporting me in the planning and execution.

Davies & Scarlett attended an educational session at the dentist, we visited Tasha at the Pop Up Playspace, we had a lovely dog walk up the downs with Rose (my not-swinger friend) and her dogs, LovelyEm and LovelyOs for a lovely overnight visit

We had a great visit to a recycled art exhibition at Hove museum and both kids did lots of animation stationing (Davies) and bath bomb making (Scarlett). We saw the month out with a 25th anniversary party for Ady’s work which all four of us went along to and can now proudly say we have been to a Hot Fork Buffet and a celebratory evening with Caz and Bid who had come home to the UK

March saw us kicking off the month with a visit to a meeting about Transition Town Worthing and a film screening, Ros and I went to see Mika in Brighton and despite feeling like a giddy teen queueing on Brighton seafront for hours to ensure a good standing space it was a fabulous night 🙂

We went to a Gala Night screening of the new Alice in Wonderland film and Davies and Scarlett attended in outfits they had designed / made / come up with themselves, Davies as the Mad Hatter and Tarly as Alice. Davies won the fancy dress competition and got a fantastic goody bag packed with stuff, was in the local paper etc. 🙂

We had a wildlifetastic day at wildlife Explorers followed by a visit to Tom’s parents where we saw lizards and a kingfisher. We entertained the Not Swingers with a curry night and visited a farm where there was lambing going on to get a real taste of what that entails

I attended a Meet the LA session with Ellie Evans of Badman Select Committee review and ever afterwards marked my card in the local HE circle as aggressive / passionate about staying unknown and being autonomous.

We had a weekend visit from The Barts and celebrated Mothers Day with some new DMs for me and a meal out with my parents in the evening.

We went to the Surrey Science Circus which was excellent, Davies decided he would teach Scarlett to read and made her a ‘Read at home with Day’ book

I did a home perm and channelled my inner Carol Decker but at no point did I ever even consider wearing jeggings! 😉

We had a choctastic day with Tasha and co making and decorating chocolates as we were boycotting Easter eggs as overpackaged

April began with a seed bomb making workshop

We had a fab Easter Egg hunt at Ros’ and then my parents round for dinner on Easter Sunday, followed by a tent purchase on Easter Monday.

We attended a couple of workshops at Making Space – one on medieval copper jewellry and one on Dragon puppets, both of which were enjoyed. I also took the kids along to the circus nearby .

We had a go at putting up the new tent, I went out for a leaving do with work colleagues and we all seem to have had another cold reading back on my blog.

We had a 48 hours of Many Walks, with one across the downs to Coombes Farm to see lambs and calves being born with Mike & Rose and Mike’s daughter Chloe and their dogs, getting up at 4am to go to an amazing Devils Sunrise walk at Devils Dyke and then a walk round Pulborough Brooks finishing off the following day with a sunset walk on Brighton seafront.


Davies and Scarlett attended a workshop at the local museum about Roald Dahl inspired storybooks and we all went along to a fossil hunting walk with an expert fossil hunter at Hastings , we went to the UK Aware show in London and I completed the Swimathon 2.5km in just over 1hr 37mins, raising a nice big chunk of cash for Marie Curie Cancer Care and spurring me on to swim something even more challenging next time.

My parents went to China for a month and had a really good holiday including a river cruise.

We did a rather disappointing bread and flour making session at the Weald & Downland museum, a fab weekend family seaweed gathering picnic at the beach getting sandy and sun kissed with friends

We made the very tough, but very right decision to have our beloved pet Candle put to sleep, after a very long and adventurous life coming to a sad shadow of her former self final few months. Still miss both her and Malice and one day I will have cats curled up on my lap again whenever I sit down on my sofa.

I my first go at lookering and we started working with the rest of the Home Ed Book Club on a display for a local library’s Summer Reading Challenge based on Space.

We began May in the company of friends with a Bank Holiday camping trip to Norfolk, also taking in Bewilderwood which is somewhere I’d been wanting to visit for ages. We all really enjoyed Bewilderwood 🙂

More lookering and a visit to new friends who were looking after a pair of orphaned lambs , we had our now traditional family weekend camping at the Sustainability Centre for the Green Fair, hooking up with a family we’d met the previous year and having a lovely time despite ropey weather on the Saturday and rather amusing but annoying camping neighbours

May was mostly about the ducklings for Scarlett. She’d spent April incubating six duck eggs, two of which hatched into very cute little ducklings which she named Sploosh and Lucky. They lived in her bedroom for the first month or so, she gave them swimming lessons first in a paint tray and then in the bath, introduced them to the outside world and they totally imprinted on her, believing she really was their mummy and following her everywhere, scrambling to get on her lap when she sat down and generally adoring her. It was quite reciprocated 🙂

The kids and I went to Safety Day in Basingstoke, they had talks by various emergency services, I mostly lazed around with Alison :), Ady turned 46 and the kids and I went to a fab May Day celebration at a local HE friends’ including may pole dancing and may flower crown making

We all had a great weekend of over indulgence and tractor driving at Tom’s parents, I developed a rash on my face which took weeks, various different prescriptions, antihistimines, a large course of steroids and heavy duty moisturiser to finally chase off – hope it never returns but still none the wiser as to what it was a reaction to and therefore what I should try and avoid.

We managed our sixth annual photoblog day – which can be seen over on Monster and Teeny and met up with new friends who live on a boat.

We saw May out and June in celebrating birthdays at Jan & Jonathan’s with loads of friends. As always the venue, hosts and other guests made for a fab weekend 🙂

We had a fabulous weekend away camping overnight near Lyme Regis and visiting River Cottage which was one of the highlights of our year and a real catalyst for our plans for next year. which we started to hone a little more after that.

I ran a second set of Chatterbooks sessions (just four this time), equally well received and with some great feedback. Davies, Scarlett and I went to one of the Science Museum full day events taking in character plays, IMAX theatre etc. We all went to the South of England Show along with my parents, the kids attended a couple of travelling storyteller sessions as part of the Adur Festival and we did a fab Open Farm Sunday event which included a canal boat ride trip there and back.

Davies and Scarlett had a go at streetdance and circus skills in their quest to learn back flips. We never made it back to either…

Ady and I celebrated 17 years together, slightly tainted but never overshadowed by my parents who have been together for over twice that having one of their spectacular fall outs. I’ve just re-read it and shed a tear but am not going to link to it, choosing instead to focus on my own fantastic relationship instead.

We went to the Sussex Countryman Show which was excellent on Fathers Day with my parents and started putting finishing touches to our grand plan for next year.

The kids and I started working our way through the first couple of chapters in the River Cottage Family Cookbook which had us making all sorts of bread, pasta, pizza dough, pastry and cakes, creating our own sourdough starter, making butter and tasting various types of milks. Scarlett and I collected elderflowers to make cordial and I had a go at home brewing some wine from a kit.

We did a solar powered boat trip in Chichester which ended with a guided walk and was really enjoyable and educational,.

We kicked off July with a visit to the PYO where we managed to be dreadful really, the kids got complained at and told off by other people. Too many children and most of the adults ignoring them I fear.

Another cinema gala event, this time Shrek and the kids persuaded Ady and I to join in with the fancy dress too. So we went as Shrek, Fiona, Puss and Gingie. We won prizes, were photographed for the paper, the cinema website and generally made spectacles of ourselves in public 🙂

We helped celebrate Freya’s birthday at the outdoor swimming pool and my Mum’s birthday at the local Harvester
I managed to break my ankle (the x ray conclusion was I had cracked the bone), by falling down the steps at the swimming pool (further public spectacling!) with hours in A&E, prescription painkillers and a pair of crutches. The night before our holiday 🙁

Rather like childbirth the memory of the pain is dimmed and of course spending the next two full days sitting in a car crammed with a fortnights worth of camping stuff, travelling almost from one end of the country to the other including a night in a travelodge with no tea, no wine and no sense of humour, was probably not wise but whilst the agonies of putting a tent up in howling wind on crutches have faded, the memories of a wonderful holiday have not and never will do.

A truly amazing time at Rosemarkie, watching dolphins with our favourite holiday companions
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We saw dolphins from our tent, daily from Chanonry Point, took a boat ride on Loch Ness, met Charlie, ate haggis, visited a brewery and generally had a fab time. A definite highlight of the year.

And what’s better than anything else at the end of a holiday? Another one! We finished off with a long weekend at Wickstead and the Festival of History with yet more friends. Some of the rides were closed due to galeforce winds, the campsite was not great thanks to overcrowding and not all the facilities being open but six months on I am remembering lovely long evenings laughing with friends, screaming to go faster on fairground rides and ice creams in the sunshine at the Festival of History along with Chris Raine being the target for Peterkin the fool. Conveniently forgetting the leaking tent, the agony of my ankle, the downpour as we watched the jousting and the readiness for my own bed ;).

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I had an evening out with friends in Brighton watching an improv. double act and we finished the month with another cinema visit, this time just dressed as ourselves, to watch Toy Story 3.

August began with a party at Chris and Helen’s during which we all enjoyed being with friends, particularly those destined for French shores rather soon and Scarlett was particularly wild (with further wildness uncovered later on)
whole new blog for the purpose.

Davies and Scarlett did a Making Space session on pewter cast pendants in carved out cuttlefish which they enjoyed, all four of us went to a Night Time Wings and Other Things event at Pulborough Brooks which we had done last year and enjoyed enough to attend again

We celebrated Dad’s birthday
and showed ourselves to be rubbish quail owners, having hatched 3, lost all of them, found one again and finally got it to a new owner.

We went to see the Firework Makers Daughter at Weald and Downland museum which was excellent, but as I got told off for taking photos I can’t possibly show you any ;), we went to a steam dipping event and caught eels and various fish , we celebrated Caz’s 40th birthday with a party at their new home, I decided to do the Aspire Channel Swim and we went for a posh luncheon at one of my work mates homes.

In September we started the rather drawn out process of packing up our lives and saying goodbye. We told Badgers we would be leaving at the end of the term, gave notice on our allotment and had a final digging stuff up and collecting tools session up there. Bittersweet as we waited so long to get it and were sad to be giving it up, but it has been a real catalyst for us going Wandering and Wondering.

Davies’ birthday present was a Campcraft Sleepout experience at the Sustainability Centre, which I went with him on. We had a fab 24 hours making shelters, learning knots, cooking over the fire, learning different fire starting methods, carving wood and sleeping out under the stars in our own shelter. , Ady and Scarlett joined us the following day bringing luxuries such as tents, stoves and chairs :). We had a great week with friends as The Barts, The Babs, Julie & co and our new friend Ian The Medic joined us for various parts or all of the week 🙂

We celebrated our friends Tasha and Ryan’s wedding with a fab party in a field.
We had a Not Back to School Picnic, I had an evening out for a leaving do for a work colleague and Ady looked after Jax’s Big and Small for an evening, we had a lovely day at the beach, lighting a fire and cooking over it with Julie & co, Davies did 3 green woodworking sessions run for Home Ed kids and made a stool, a mallet and a rolling pin and Davies celebrated being ten several times – at camp with loads of friends and a cake cooked in a field and again on his “>actual birthday with family out for a meal and with two cakes in celebration of reaching double digits 🙂
We had a day with LovelyEm and Ali in London, I got a ticker to annoy Alison, oh and chart the progress of my Swimathon swim too ;), we celebrated Jack & Maisie’s birthdays at Soft Play, Sploosh the duck started laying eggs (a couple of triple yolkers and several doubles), we went to Apple Day. Oh yeah and WE GOT A CAMPERVAN!!! 🙂

In October we did more birthday celebrating; with a survival themed party for Archie and a Science themed party for Ben where Babs and I experimented with the effects of alcohol 😉

Scarlett’s ducks were rehomed to Tom’s Dads which was emotional and hard for her but the right thing to do. We had a lovely couple of hours checking partridge pens and riding in the back of the pick up getting very muddy.

We did a couple of educational visits, both of which really just reminded us why we don’t do many educational visits 🙂 One to Raystede and one to the Mohair Centre.

We managed a film education week screening and went along to Ali’s writing group, met up with schooled friends during half term and the kids had another pewter casting in carved cuttlefish session at Making Space.

In November we did yet more decluttering – more on ebay, an Open House Book Sale, donating clothes to a friend’s charity fundraising nearly new sale and freecycling. We went to a seafront firework display, Mike & Rose and K came for a veggie dinner party, the kids and I went to a Shakespeare 4 Kidz performance of a Midsummer Nights Dream, we took part in a very cold and wet Remembrance Day Parade, made Secret Santa gifts and had a family film night when How to Train Your Dragon came out on dvd. The kids and I had a blowing away the cobwebs walk in the rain up on the downs and much silliness trying to capture a Christmas card picture for this year , we went to see Harry Bloody Potter, my car had an impressive blown out tyre and I finished swimming the channel (yay me!). The kids had workshops on Flint Knapping and Harpoon Making.

We all spent lots of time stripping wallpaper and finished the month with a festive trip to the theatre to see A Christmas Carol performed before heading off to Christmas Camp. which is where we saw in December.

Scarlett had her eighth birthday and a trip to the zoo and meal out with family to celebrate.

We all finished Badgers – which included Davies being awarded his Super Badger award, badge and little china Badger.
Ady and I went to see 9 Lessons for Godless people which was fab
, we went to a Traditional Christmas craft event at Weald and Downland Museum, everyone was ill with some sort of post-camp lurgy, Scarlett the worst and she ended it with a nasty rash which meant I took a day off work. Illness also prevented friends from coming to stay which we’d been looking forward to.

Christmas shopping, baking, decorating and other preparations happened, I engaged a letting agent to start marketing the house, my car needed lots of moneys worth of work doing to it and ended up needing even more once it actually got to the garage, we finally got to the Burning of the clocks that we have meant to get to for the last 3 years.

Christmas has been celebrated with family, friends, walks, slumping on sofas, visiting the beach, eating lots, drinking lots, a modest selection of gifts and we’re hoping to see it out the way we saw it in; with hopes for an exciting, adventurous year ahead, surrounded with people we love.

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How to summarise 2010? It’s been a year of dreams. Of dreams coming true – of seeing dolphins, of sleeping under the stars, of talking about our dreams and finding ways to start making them a reality. It’s also been a year of nightmares – the harsh reality that is broken marriages, broken friendships, broken families, broken dreams, broken people. The reminder that every generation is mortal – we can lose parents, siblings, partners, children even, that our health, our grip on life is so very tenuous and can slither away from us in the blink of an eye. That time is marching on and on , that as I sit here tapping away at my keyboard and re-reading my own words accounting for each of the last 365 days of our lives they are times I will never get back, never get to live again and who knows if I’ll even have the luxury of doing this same exercise this time next year. And if I do, who knows what I will be recalling and re-reading. I often think that all we really do in life is make memories, I put a huge amount of effort into ensuring I am making the best possible ones for myself and those I love. I hope this year I have managed to do that, even for those who will also be taking away way more than their fair share of sad and bitter memories too.

We end the year looking towards the most uncertain year ahead I think we’ve ever faced. We are a mix of trepidation, fear, excitement, adventure and of course wonder ;). Once again we leave behind a year in which we have paid off debts, worked hard, played hard, learned, loved and lived.

Aside from nipping out to see if my car would start (it didn’t) I’ve not left the house today. I have put Christmas back in the box though 🙂

I love Christmas, I’m less keen on the limbo period between Christmas and New Year really, particularly as it stretches to 2 weeks round here with my birthhday tacked on the end next week and I’m always itching to get everything ‘back to normal’ again afterwards. The tree was dropping, we are expecting guests so needed the space and are ever conscious of potential tenant visits at short notice so decided to get Christmas packed up slightly earlier this year. I’ve done a good sort out in the lounge and hallway, Ady’s done the playroom and the kids have done their bedrooms. It still feels like we have work to do but really everything left will be boxed up and sent to my parents / shoved in the loft.

And that’s pretty much taken all day. Not really very interesting but I suspect this post will be tucked away unread under the mammoth end of 2010 post anyway ;).

Today we’d arranged to head over to Caz and Bid’s, both to see them and to give them various bits cleared from our garden / garage that they might find useful.

Caz was not there but the kids went off to play and Ady and I had a nice couple of hours with Bid and Harry, a guy who also lives there.

We came home via Lancing as Davies wanted to get the Pirates of the Caribean on dvd from the library and we had a pile of stuff to take back. While there we also popped to the toy shop as they sell buckets of plasticine. I’d got Davies one for Christmas, which psp aside has been by far the most played with present and Scarlett has been wistfully looking at it. Both kids are fairly cash rich at the moment so she decided to spend some of her money on a tub of her own. It is funny how a toy both Ady and I recall getting for Christmas as kids still has such timeless appeal. We have had loads of fun with Davies’ already with Ady having several dough-offs where the kids get to shout out something for us to make and then judge our efforts – currently I have won safari jeep, statue of liberty and Christmas tree but Ady won on dragon 😆 no worries about us making our own family entertainment in the van next year 😆

Back at home we watched some TV, the kids played with said plasticine and did some drawing, Ady cooked their dinner, Ady and I did an inventory on the freezers as we are utterly broke this month thanks to the car and so food shopping as the only flexible expense will be on a very tight budget. It’s no bad thing to be running the freezer and cupboards down I guess anyway.

I had a very, very long bath with strict instructions that no one come in to have a poo, tell me about something they have made, seen on tv, thought about, want to sing to me. It was very enjoyable with a glass of wine and a book by one of my favourite chick-lit authors. 🙂

I got out as Ady was reading some of Mr Stink to the kids and made a couple of quiches – one for dinner tonight, one for the freezer. The kids went to bed, Ady and I ate and watched a TV programme about Rolf Harris (he’s so cool 🙂 ) and tomorrow we get to dismantle Christmas and put the house back together along with a good clean in preparation for that flood of prospective tenants we’re expecting from next week.

I’ve stayed in all day yesterday and today. Feels slightly like wasted days I have to confess but probably I should be savouring sitting in the warm and dry on a sofa with a TV as I’m not planning on doing much of that next year.

Yesterday we had half a plan to go and do some beating for Tom’s pheasant shoot but we didn’t get confirmation from Tom until too late to make it there in time. I suspect Scarlett would have not liked it much anyway so it was probably for the best. Instead we sat around, did craft kits, Davies psp’d, we watched loads of TV, ate and drank lots and generally enjoyed being tucked up infront of the fire for the day. We only have one sofa in the lounge at the moment and spent lots of time with all four of us slumped on it, across and on top of each other all tangled up together, which was just lovely. Nothing feels lovelier than being in physical contact with all three of my family at once :).

I’ve also been compiling my round up of 2010 blogpost which entails skim reading every post of the last year, quite lengthy 😉 I’m up to May…

Today we made plans to go out tomorrow, Ady and the kids did a run to the tip, I listed a whole boxful of stuff on ebay and we all did plenty more psping, drawing, blogpost compiling, eating, watching TV and so on.

My parents popped in for an hour or so and the kids took forever to go to sleep including Davies appearing just before 11pm with an oil painting he’d done in bed. This after coming down just before 930pm with a plasticine creative he’d done in bed. No, he’s not supposed to have plasticine or oil paints in bed… next year we’ll not let him have a bed, that’ll learn him!

I had a festive lie in this morning which was much needed. Ady had a festive early morning, he loves being off work at Christmas (after so many years in retail the novelty has yet to wear off of a full week plus off work at Christmas) so he made a cooked breakfast, chopped firewood and other such busyness.

Davies was psp-ing, Scarlett was exploring other gifts and then we all wrapped up warm and drove to the beach for some fresh air. It was pretty busy with people along the cycle / foot path with people testing out new rollerskates, bikes, scooters and skateboards but the actual beach was fairly quiet. Davies did some standing right out on the rocks risking splash hazards while Scarlett had brought along an Usborne spotters book on seashells she got for Christmas to try and identify as many shells as she could so she was beachcombing.

It was gorgeous down there, incredibly still and actually very mild with no wind and the sea perfectly calm. The sun was hanging low in the sky which was all streaked with pink and grey – just beautiful 🙂
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We came home via Sainsburys as we’d run out of lemonade and wanted to check out the reduced to clear meat – we got loads of bargains, a £20 free range turkey crown for under a fiver, a couple of really posh steaks for a quid each and a joint of lamb for £3. About £60 worth of meat for under a tenner, so that’s topped the freezer up nicely as this is set to be a skint month before it’s even started.

We settled in with the end of Over the Hedge and then Enchanted along with loads of nice food. Scarlett is officially addicted to twiglets, may need to see about rehab for her.

Scarlett and I did some of her crafty stuff, some fridge magnet plaster moulds and then Davies and I made a robot electronics kit he had, we watched Countryfile and all spent some time looking out of the window using Tarly’s night vision monocular, it’s very good. She’s really looking forward to being in the van next year and using it to spot stuff at night. Might try and do an after dark nature walk with her sometime this week to have a go.

The kids are back to their own beds again tonight, Scarlett was certainly asleep much quicker, although they were still late to bed.

We had our takeaway last night and it was delicious. We were just settling down to watch something on TV before bringing out the presents and maybe getting an early night in view of expected early morning to follow when the phone rang. We didn’t answer it but listened to a rather slurred message from my Mum saying ‘itsh yer muvver, we’re coming round’. So I went and got dressed again (I’d been in pjs) and sure enough they appeared having been out for a meal somewhere local. They were on good form but quite loud and so the kids who had been at least pretending to be asleep gave up on that and reappeared.

In the end I went up and read to them both, one of those books where you can have a childs’ name put in the story that we’d got for Scarlett years ago about helping Santa deliver presents and then ‘The night before Christmas’, which settled them both down and they were asleep not too long afterwards. I filled their stockings and then pretty much evicted my parents around midnight as I really wanted to at least have gotten to sleep before the kids woke up for the first time.

We put presents under the tree, dealt with the carrot, mince pie and brandy left on the hearth and went to bed. Infact I slept through the first waking at about 4am when they opened their stockings and played with stuff before going back to sleep. Davies came in at 7am to ask if it was 7am yet but I lied and said no it wasn’t 😆 I did give in ten minutes later though and they both brought their stockings in to us to show us what they’d got. The usual stuff like chocolate coins, new toothbrush, toothpaste, bubble bath, some new pens, couple of things like paper aeroplanes, wind up toys, jumping beans etc – Hawkins finest ;).

Then downstairs for present opening proper along with cinnamon rolls in the oven and much tea. They were both really happy with what they got, along with a few things like craft kits, warm socks, a new top each and a gorgeous journal each with some twig colouring pencils, a stylophone and the usual chocolates and art materials, Davies had a second hand psp and several games and films to go with it and a big tub of plasticine while Scarlett had a night vision monocle, cuddly ducks, a couple of memory sticks with more photos from this year for her digital photo frame and a bouncy ball making kit. All four of us had a new knife each for next year too. Ady and I had had a strict budget of £10 each on each other and had very spookily spent it on the same gifts for each other of chocolates, a hip flask and handwarmers although I got Ady the snap the metal disc then refresh in boiling water type while he got me a rather more swanky one where you put lit fuel sticks into a case.

We almost instantly lost Davies to his psp and indeed he has had to be prised away from it all day today. I was deeply reluctant to buy another games console but he does get lots of use from his DS and he put forward a good case for the psp for next year as another portable, small entertainment gadget, one he can watch films on and it does have several games he really wanted but are not available on DS. He was given the choice of a new one with just one or two games or a second hand one with several games and films and he went for the second hand option. Thankfully way back in August one of Ady’s workmates was selling his in really good condition so we bought it back then and have been keeping our eyes out for bargain games and films on ebay so had amassed a fair few for him.

Scarlett had proved really difficult to think of a gift for but given her love of wildlife and nature and the endless opportunities for night time spotting she’ll have next year the night vision will be ideal. We’re really impressed with it, her and Ady took it outside after dark for a while tonight but it was just so cold they came back in again after a few minutes. Scarlett also liked the couple of mixing up potion type kits she got – a bouncy ball making one from us and a crystal growing one from Chris & Julie. So her and I looked at those together and she made bouncy balls for everyone in the family and set her crystals off growing. The bouncy ball kit is excellent actually, I’m hoping the refill kit I’ve tracked down and ordered online will work with the moulds from Scarlett’s kit.

Chocolate eating, bucks fizz drinking and general present exploration continued before we gathered ourselves up and headed over to my parents for midday. I think it’s most we’ve ever contributed food wise this year as we bought the turkey and Christmas pudding, I made the mince pies and a Christmas cake and we took over several bottles of wine too, including a non-alcoholic bottle of pink fizz for Tarly 🙂

We arrived and had mulled wine and mince pies while Mum stressed about the cooking (I refused to get drawn in), Davies showed Ady stuff on the psp and Scarlett and I did a lizard puzzle, or rather failed to do a lizard puzzle.

Granny arrived eventually and after helping a bit with timings of food we cracked upon a bottle of wine and exchanged presents. We’d got Mum and Dad a cd she’d specifically asked for, a bottle of drink and a new coffee maker as their old one broke this year and a photo card for their digital frame with some pics of this year. They got Davies a digital photo frame keyring and a game of jenga and Scarlett a wildlife book and a soft toy pillow which was a huge hit as she’s been after one for ages but I’d proclaimed them over priced and not worth it so she was delighted :). I got a set of bath stuff and Ady got several pairs of decent socks and gloves and then they called us out into the kitchen and said they were wiping off the money we owe them from our boiler earlier this year. We had paid off nearly half but with various things the last couple of months we have not managed to pay anything and it was obviously going on hold while we are away. A very generous and welcome gift :). Frazer was then called out into the kitchen too and I know he owed Dad a fair bit so I’m assuming he was given the same. The kids also got their premium bonds from them as usual. They also got money off my brother and Granny so now have another injection of cash to add to the balance they both already have. I’m trying to persuade them to keep it as their personal fund for next year for anything they might want along the way.

That pretty much took us to dinnertime so I helped serve up and we all ate. As usual it was a lovely dinner, far too much washed down with fizz :). Afterwards I helped stack the dishwasher and then we all sat down and pulled crackers. Mum usually gets everyone a little present for the table but this year she’d bought decent M&S crackers instead but they were crap! Looked beautiful and were such thick paper they were a real bugger to actually pull but the ‘quality gifts’ inside were still tat! 😆 The paper hats were fancy gold ones though 😆

Ady and I had a game or two of jenga and then it was dessert time. Davies uttered the immortal line of replying to ‘which is your favourite bit of the trifle?’ with ‘the pastry!’ 😆 which had us laughing like drains 😆 We watched Gruffalo and Doctor Who, the Frazer went to fetch Kat (his girlfriend) so we briefly exchanged greetings with her before deciding we were ready to come home – I’d fallen asleep during Doctor Who!

Back home for just before 9pm, the kids watched the end of a Blackadder episode and thought it was hilarious – another landmark milestone reached them, I remember watching my first Blackadder :). They are having another sleepover although it took a while for any actual sleeping to happen. I hope they sleep in and catch up a bit in the morning.

We’ve watched some TV too, Ady’s heroically eating his way through festive nibbles and looking forward to tomorrow which has been declared No Real Food Day.

A very successful Christmas. Not too much spent, everything wanted / needed / delightedly received, excellent and generous gift from my parents, lovely food, no tears or stress. Couldn’t ask for anything more really. 🙂

like a normal blogpost but with added alcohol, no wait that is a normal blogpost. Like a normal blogpost but with added cheer and merriment and feelings of goodwill and happiness, no wait that is a normal blogpost. Like a normal blogpost but with music blaring from various rooms, kids in bed but nowhere near asleep, no wait that is a normal blogpost.

Okay, it’s a normal blogpost but could you picture it with a couple of holly sprigs festooning one corner please? Ta 🙂

Up early this morning, something of a pattern this week and I imagine one to be continued again tomorrow but hopefully broken on Sunday 😉 as we were off festive visiting and Ady was taking us on his way into work for the morning (festive early finishing at lunchtime).

First to Caz and Bid’s. Once again we have let far too long pass us by without seeing each other and sadly Bid was not there as he was visiting family (very sadly his Mum passed away earlier this week after a long illness 🙁 ) but Caz and I had a lovely catch up while the kids disappeared off to play coming back for a warm up (Scarlett) and food (the others a while later).

Ady came and joined us for a quick drink and then we headed off to meet Julie, her mum, Jack and Maisie for a walk round Swanbourne Lake in Arundel. We arrived first and fed the extremely hungry wildfowl that were congregating hopefully around anyone who appeared. Scarlett was obviously in her element 🙂
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The others arrived and Ady entertained everyone by putting bits of bread on his head so the birds dove at him. I know, he’s so Krazee

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The first half of the path around the lake was similar to how I’m imagining Jan and Jonathan’s lane is, thick with inches of compacted ice. The kids seemed fine on it, Ady, Julie and I managed by walking along the edge of it but Gerda (Julie’s mum) struggled, but she is in her 60s which is easy to forget. Very beautiful though.
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We got half way round and then climbed The Steepest Hill Ever to the folly.
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The plan was to walk down into the town and then back to the cars but a little way along the lane after we’d made them pose for Festive Photos the kids rebelled and disappeared into the woodland
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We walked on for a bit with Ady explaining to Julie and Gerda what bit of a turkey the ‘crown’ is. Julie and I entertained ourselves for ages trying to think of other birds you could crown going from wren to emu but then Julie trumped me with penguin which is still amusing me now. Roast crown of penguin! 😆 Festive roast crown of penguin 😆 😆

We then realised the kids had disappeared and when they didn’t respond to our hailings we decided we had better follow them. Trouble was they had gone down, quite literally vertically down. Ady went first and rang to say he had found them, the rest of us followed. It was incredibly steep, covered in ivy and frost and frankly crazy. Julie and I sort of canonned from tree to tree with knees fully bent. Poor Gerda fashioned some ski poles from large sticks and brought up the rear. The very last bit had been made into a mud slide by the four kids and to their encouragement I slid all the way down. Julie refused but having watched me had a go for the second half. Gerda took the ivy covered trail all the way.

It was very fun, very muddy and given I had stated at least four times I didn’t want to spend any time in A&E on Christmas Eve probably rather silly. But fun 😉

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The blurred rainbow thing is Julie brushing the mud off, which looked rather like festive ritual woodland spanking to the passers by who walked past as it went on, while Ady took pictures 😆

The finish of the walk was rather tame in comparison with no steep climbs or steep descents and no ice and no flocks of hungry diving birds but you know, it is all about peace on earth and that ;).

We exchanged bags of gifts for kids back at the car, along with festive greetings and then went our seperate ways.

Back at home we have done festive stuff. Festive daylight drinking, festive film watching (Narnia), festive twiglets, pringles and cheese ball eating, festive nicking candy canes off the tree, festive bathing. The kids are now having a festive sleepover, I’ve stuck some festive cinnamon roll dough in the breadmaker and rung for a festive takeaway, Ady and I have both done some festive last minute wrapping. All that remains is festive takeaway consumption, festive finishing the wine bottle, festive putting presents under the tree when festive children have finally fallen afestivesleep and maybe hooking up with some festive friends for midnight twiglet eating at midnight.

Work again this morning, a shorter shift though, and my last before Christmas.

Dad was over with Davies and Scarlett and we had a potential tenant viewing booked for 11am, so Dad and the kids were fully briefed on what they could and couldn’t do and say, I lit a fire and with strict instructions for no one to eat any candy canes I headed off to work.

Work was good, several of my favourite borrowers came in and exchanged festive banter. Earlier this week I was talking with friends about how public libraries simply aren’t financially viable, how they service a minority and are very vulnerable under the scrutiny of the cost cutting local government spotlight. Today I was reminded anew of just how very important we are to that minority though. They won’t be taking to the streets to march and protest, their vocal thanks comes in the way of boxes of biscuits and chocolates to the staff come Christmas or Easter but they should count, they should be included in the shouting hoardes…blimey, had a socialist moment there… 😉

During my tea break I checked my phone to find a message from the letting agents cancelling the appointment. I rang home to let Dad know but he’d also had a message. When I got home at lunchtime the agent had rung again to let us know why the appointment had been cancelled – because the tenant was looking for somewhere long term rather than the 1 year only term we are looking at. Disappointing but it was so quick I had already convinced myself nothing could possibly come of it anyway.

Back at home I made lunch for us all and while we were eating our friend Bruce turned up with Christmas cards and tin of chocolates for the kids. He stayed for about an hour and chatted to my Dad too, then they left within a few minutes of each other.

I marzipanned both Christmas cakes and iced and decorated one. I thought i had some royal icing sugar but I only had glace. I did one with that anyway and added hand drawn holly leaves and berries with writing icing. Ady picked me up some royal icing on the way home for the other one.

In previous years the kids have decorated a pillowcase each for stockings. This year I ran up an oversized stocking shape each for them to use up some of my fabric stash and they decorated them instead. While they were busy with that I made the second cuddly duck for Scarlett. I also re-did the beak on the first one. I am only semi-happy with them but she adores them and proclaimed them ‘bound to be my best present!’ which is all that matters.

We tidied up and I made them some tea then Ady arrived home. After some debate about our dinner Ady and Davies nipped out again to get pineapple and pepperoni for pizza while Tarly and I watched some Deadly 60. I did some more wrapping (just the tiniest bit left to do now, always feels right to have some still to do on Christmas Eve somehow). Ady and Davies came home, the kids went to bed and suddenly it’s ridiculously late again!

I had work this morning. Ady took Davies and Scarlett off with him and they drove north of the downs where there is actually some snow. Other than the heavy fall here while we were at camp, which we missed all of while having only a fairly small amount in Okehampton we have had no more than the odd dusting here. I know it’s caused chaos and I obviously don’t wish it to come along and disrupt travel arrangements and stuff for people but I’d quite like a more even distribution so we actually got an inch or two of the snow that others have had feet of! So the kids got to play in some snow :).

I had a busy morning at work wishing people Merry Christmas and doing the odd thing here or there relating to books ;).

Back home Ady and the kids were here eating lunch so Ady left as I got in and I had some lunch too. Then we nipped out to a localish store which sells fabric to get some for Scarlett’s other cuddly duck (or indeed dick) and feed my car with some petrol.

Back at home I sorted the kids tea and made myself a cup of tea laced with brandy and headed upstairs to begin wrapping. The kids were stars keeping the fire going and finding stuff to watch on TV while I got everything out of hiding places and checked size of respective piles against each other. I had a minor wobble about the smallness of the piles but got over that reminding myself that actually they both have several pretty expensive items, we are cutting back on consumerism and we are going away in 11 weeks etc. etc. Then I had a major wobble when I decided I would ensure the psp for Davies was fully charged and couldn’t find a charger 😯 I couldn’t get hold of Ady to check that we had one (we got it second hand from one of his workmates) and was frantically checking online about chargers, price and availability of chargers and so on. How crap a Christmas present would that have been? It turned out we do have the charger, just stashed in a different location.

Despite my misgivings about volume of gifts it still took me over 2 hours to wrap stuff, which meant even a very late home Ady was back. The kids went off to bed and Ady and I did a swift tidy round the house ready for our first potential tenants visit in the morning. Ady cooked and it was another late dinner.

Oh what an anarchist I am 🙂

We needed to pick up and pay for my car this morning. After some debate we decided to walk there (Dad had offered a lift). It’s not far but it’s a tedious and boring route alongside a busy road just walking past houses and then the last ten minutes through an industrial estate. But we’d not really been out much and despite it not being *fresh* air as such I decided it would do us all good.

So we walked, and chatted, and jumped in icy puddles and prepared a response to what we felt would be the inevitable question to the kids from the bloke at the garage ‘are you looking forward to Christmas?’ with ‘we’ve no money for Christmas, we have spent it all on the car’ 😆 which entertained us no end.

The card machine at the garage was playing up so after several attempts I said I’d go and get some cash if I could have the car to drive. The bloke was quite happy with that and very apologetic about the machine not working. This did mean I had to dash home, collect a card for a different bank account and withdraw from two places as the bill was more than the daily cash machine allowance from either one. Back to the garage to pay and then home to juggle money back about online, including a minor panic attack at the amount of money left to last until the end of January until I realised I don’t get paid til tomorrow so my wages were still to come.

We had lunch and the kids spent ages playing with the cardboard box Scarlett’s Playmobil came in, tying some string onto it to create a sleigh to tug some of her soft toys around in and then making furniture for it to turn it into a house. There are loads of festive films on so we watched some Spirited Away, Nightmare before Christmas and Alaska.

I finished Maisie’s bag (a Christmas present) and then made a soft toy duck for Scarlett – she wants a Sploosh and a Lucky so I started with Sploosh, the black one. It went really well aside from the bill / beak which I just couldn’t get right despite two attempts. Will have another go at that tomorrow but Tarly loved it regardless.

I took a phonecall from the letting agent, very excited because he had got a viewing lined up for Thursday. All sounds quite promising too :). I really don’t expect it all to fall in to place quite that easily but it’s nice to know there is interest straight away even if it comes to nothing.

The kids and I had a bit of tidy up, they had some food to tide them over til later and Ady arrived home. We’d decided to drive into Brighton for the Burning of the Clocks – as it turned out the right decision as it only cost us £2 to park and the train would have been about five times that for the four of us with a far longer trek home. We wrapped up warm, drove in and parked, had a quick walk round the big shopping mall and then walked towards where Mike & Rose were who we had semi-arranged to meet up with but we got caught up in the procession so walked along with that instead and waited at the pier for Mike and Rose. Amazingly, given how many thousands of people there we did find them although we didn’t manage to meet up with Ali which was a shame – my phone had patchy signal and it was so noisy it would have been all but impossible to make a call anyway.

We walked along with the procession which was amazing and wondrous but I understood the advice to get to the end location earlier when we actually arrived and despite being only two or three layers of people back we could see nothing at all other than the back of other people’s heads. The kids saw more thanks to Ady and I lifting them up – I had Davies on my shoulders which retrospectively is pretty crazy even with a smallish ten year old ;). Thankfully the people around us holding their cameras and phones up high gave us small screen views of the burning and then when the fireworks started it didn’t where you were as long as you could look up.

We really enjoyed it and would definitely go again but would go for the birds eye view of being higher up next time rather than at lower level with limited visibility. We said goodbye to Mike and Rose and walked back to the carpark which seemed far longer on the way back, particularly as we were all hungry and walking through Brighton is one great big lure towards eating with cafes, bistros, restuarants etc at every turn. I showed the kids where my car had once been towed away from and shared other such anecdotes of my youth.

The car park was way cheaper than expected so much cheered by that we headed for home. Ady cooked the kids something and packed them off to bed while I had a bath and then I cooked for us while he had a bath. Since Alison mentioned a fry up a while back I have been craving one and thinking it would be good for dinner rather than breakfast so that is what I did – sausage, egg, bacon and potatoes with onions and garlic and some beans for Ady. Yum 🙂 Did feel very decadent to be eating ‘breakfast’ washed down with a glass of wine instead of a strong mug of tea or a glass of orange juice though.

Friendfeed induced silliness kept me from blogging and bed but having outstayed the wusses I am now headed that way myself.