One word? When seven would do…

Up with the alarm today as Richard the mechanic was coming at 830am. I was most surprised to find Davies already downstairs when I came down. He’d got up so early he’d even seen Ady :).

I’d made dough for cinnamon rolls last night knowing I’d be up early enough to make them so I made them and set them to prove and then Richard arrived. I spent some time outside chatting to him while he got the van up on his recovery van. He’s taken it off to try and work out what’s going on with the batteries as it seems to charge up but not have enough power for the couple of times it takes to turn it over and get it started, also the sockets in the van are not working off the leisure battery but the lights are so something has gone adrift with the wiring somewhere.

I rang Mike, the letting agent and we’ve provisionally agreed for us to come out of the house on 14th Feb. 1st Feb marks the 17th anniversary of us first moving into the house and our first Valentines Day together two weeks later on the 14th Feb 1994 was a hilarious affair with me attempting a romantic meal in a kitchen less well equipt than our campervan, we ate on an occassional table and it snowed heavily. I hope our 17th Valentines day together is marked with just such atypical fanfare 🙂

So, cinnamon rolls, a round of two of PvZ with D & S each getting to choose all the weapons and then I dashed off a resignation letter and we went to the library. I had to print it off there but had taken in envelopes for it so introduced myself to the new boss who I’d not actually met yet and handed her my notice at the same time 🙂 I showed Tarly where the adult books on wildlife and animals are which was like an epiphany to her 🙂 She took out four glossy, filled with colour photographs books with glee :).

There is a big display of photographs of birds from the local ornithological society up at the library and Scarlett went through pretty much the whole display and named all the birds which is far more than I could do, Davies also read them all and when we got home they went through a load of posters we’d got from RSPB for the Big Garden Birdwatch and Scarlett identified them all while Davies read them all. I also forgot to mention yesterday that Davies had asked about BC and AD while we were reading about the Romans so I’d explained it. He’d grasped it straightaway and drawn a timeline to demonstrate his understanding so he could confirm it was right. I then explained about negative numbers because it was relevant and asked him what -3 +4 was which he answered 1 without even thinking about it. We talked a bit more about negative numbers and then about temperature too with minus temperatures. I can remember really struggling to get my head round negative numbers when taught them at school so I’m always chuffed when things seem to come easily when they just crop up like that :).

Back home again I’d intended a head start on trips to the tip but when I got the garage door open I was confronted with so much stuff I bottled out and decided Ady and I could do it together at the weekend. Wuss! 😉

We came in for lunch and the kids played with the lego and toy animals and watched Over The Hedge on dvd – in a bid to enjoy as many home comforts as possible :). Davies also did some psping and Tarly some bouncy ball making while I photographed some stuff and half heartedly listed some on ebay.

I talked to Dad on the phone, chopped up some firewood and got the fire lit and the kids did some PSPing and DSing while I did some more ebaying and then Ady got home.

Bad, Good, Learnt today sparked loads of conversation as we looked at stuff about animals sleep patterns, talked about why animals mate with the male on top of the females back, checked out something Ady had heard about golf balls on the moon
Hurrah for sharing facts and being able to ‘proper google’ 🙂

Davies
Bad: Didn’t get time to finish creating a Total Wipeout level on Little Big Planet
Good: I woke up so early this morning I got to see Daddy
Learnt: Cows sleep with their eyes open

Scarlett
Bad: Used up most of my bouncy ball kit granules
Good: Mummy relented on my getting books out of the library and I got four!
Learnt: Twit-twoo is two owls, not one.

Ady
Bad:Feel guilty about our neighbours who are sad we are going away
Good: It’s Friday! And Willow is being sorted
Learnt: The skeleton from the whale from the Thames is now on display

Nic
Bad: Slightly poignant moment handing my notice in
Good: Really impressed with Davies’ reading and Scarlett’s ornithological knowledge
Learnt: There is golf balls on the moon, maybe three, probably two!

The kids went to bed (although Scarlett did get back up and come and do singing with my in the kitchen while I was cooking dinner later) and Ady and I had a very enjoyable conversation about proudest moments, memories we’ll treasure for ever and our most precious and treasured experiences. Very uplifting 🙂

I had work today. Ady took Davies & Scarlett with him on a big circuitous drive along the coast and back into Kent taking in Dover, Ramsgate and other such places. They seemed to have a nice day and managed to fit in some educational stuff along the way.

Work for me was fine, I have been rather stripped of duties which makes for a slightly boring full day really. But I talked to borrowers including my old History teacher from secondary school – not sure who was most ‘eeek’ about the fact that was nearly 25 years ago! I’ve spotted her coming into the library before and been fairly sure it was her but today I served her so was able to check on her ticket to see her name. I said ‘you used to teach me History’ and she peered at me and said yes, my face did look familiar but she couldn’t name me. I told her my (maiden) name and she said she remembered it, which given she taught there for over 20 years so would have had thousands of girls on her registers was pretty impressive I thought. She said if she’d not been a teacher she’d have liked to have been a librarian so I said I was only part time and Home Ed my own children the rest of the time which she was very interested in. She was a good teacher, one of the ones I think was there for all the right reasons although she said today that if she went back and did it all over again she probably wouldn’t have stayed in teaching so long (she is now retired). Which I guess probably backs up my theory that she went into it for the right reasons I suppose…

I did get a phone call from Mike at the Letting Agents to say our tenants have been in to collect paperwork and pay a security holding deposit of £300. We talked about potential dates and I’ll ring him tomorrow with our proposed date to be out of 15th February which gives us 3 weeks and would only mean a week staying at parents (or in van – still not heard from parents…). I’m planning to hand my notice in on Saturday, giving four weeks notice and Ady will hand his in as soon as the paperwork is all completed, hopefully mid to end of next week.

I got home and Tarly had me a cup of tea ready :), we all caught up with each others days and did bad, good, learnt today:

Davies:
Bad: Felt sorry for Scarlett that she couldn’t get up the sea defences at Dover
Good: I could climb up!
Learnt: About how pilots used white cliffs of Dover as a marker when flying in the war.

Scarlett
Bad: Hurt my knee trying to get up
Good: Found lots of pretty shells
Learnt: About red flags to show high winds and tides

Ady
Bad: Crazy mileage today for nothing really worthwhile
Good: I fixed the oven 🙂
Learnt: The actor from Robinson Crusoe still lives on an island

Nic
Bad: Really long afternoon at work
Good: Tenants collected paperwork from agents & paid security deposit
Learnt: Interesting local history photos from colleage of a large vault in Shoreham

I read a bit from the Romans in the book we started last night and the kids went to bed. Tomorrow we have a busy day starting with the mechanic coming to look at Willow at 830am.

A moosium. This blogpost title is brought to you for the sole interest of making Ali laugh. Along with where do cows go when they want to see jazz hands? A moosical. Where do cows go when they want to see a film? The mooovies? And what is a cows favourite song? I like to Moove it, moove it.

Today we had arranged to meet Julie, Jack, Maisie and Lorna at Worthing museum and art gallery. This was planned incase of my non starting car not starting as it is (just) walkable or certainly bus-able. In the end my car has now decided if Ady has some degree of mechanical ability it will behave itself after all :). I rang Julie as we had a tenant viewing booked for midday so I wanted to either cancel or arrange to meet earlier if possible. We did arrange to meet earlier but Julie came over on the train and was not only late for the newly moved earlier time but was late for the original time too!

Davies, Scarlett and I had a good look round though, we went to an event there last year but didn’t go to the actual museum in 2010 so we had a refresher look at the permanent exhibits and a look round the art gallery exhibit and talked about our favourite picture, different art techniques, how they made us feel etc. and looked at the archaeological finds of which there are many locally. Was very impressed with how much of flint knapped tools knowledge has gone in and indeed mining generally from our visits to mines in Wales in 2009 too.

Finally Julie & co arrived so we had half an hour with them. The four older children were initially a bit rowdy so I gave them a brief lecture about Museum Behaviour Etiquette and they calmed down. I listened to them for a bit and they were playing an excellent game where they were able to jump into the exhibits and telling each other things about them. Lovely to hear D&S sharing with J&M the stuff we’d just been talking about on our first look around. I walked with Julie and Lorna and we managed a brief catch up with each other before we had to go.

Back home Davies and I fell out about bedroom, specifically his bed. He draws, plays with plasticine and generally hides things in his bed including todays finds of several discarded contact lense wrappers, the containers Scarlett’s bouncy ball granules came in, loads of bits of tissue, pencils, one of my wool needles (being used to model plasticine) etc. I yelled, he cried, I came downstairs to hoover while he power-tidied and then the tenants were at the door.

Three of the four people who will be sharing attended, the fourth is on holiday but has left it to the others to find a house. They looked all around including a second look round the downstairs, out into the garden back and front, asked questions about the chickens, feeding and bedding etc and were very interested in breeding them and asked lots of question about them. They seemed very nice and after they’d left the kids and I said we’d be very happy for them to be our tenants.

There followed a tenterhooks afternoon waiting to hear back. Davies played with Lego and made a lego Willlow, Scarlett did some drawing and then played with the animals and they joined up for an animal and lego game together. I blogged, fretted, spoke to Dad, Ady and the letting agent on the phone several times each and then got the phonecall from the agent to say they would like the house :).

Loads of finalising details still to do including start date of tenancy, notice for Ady and I at work and quite where we will live in the interim. Dad is talking to Mum about storing our stuff – he’d not actually mentioned it to her previously… eeek. I phoned and gave notice on the sky tv and we’re now waiting for final confirmation to go ahead and cancel things like BT landline, broadband etc. The earlier leaving the house date should mean we set off with slightly more in our contingency fund but will effectively leave us homeless for the last 2 weeks of working. We’re debating the most sensible option (thankfully we have several) for that period.

Ady and I spent lots of time looking agog at each other and I’m not sure it’s fully sunk in yet 😯 Davies & Scarlett seem to be taking it in their stride, so far…

We did bad, good, learnt today:
Davies:
Bad: Set up Gruffalo theatre for a play but had to tidy it up
Good: Made a lego Willow
Learnt: Giant Earthworms can grow up to 3metres long (wall chart with animal facts may be responsible for lots of learnts in next few days!)

Scarlett
Bad: Maisie was scared of a skeleton display in the museum so we couldn’t walk past it
Good: Saw Jack & Maisie
Learnt: About various types of helping dogs including dogs who predict epileptic fits and cancer

Ady
Bad: Condensed time to get a lot of stuff done
Good: Nic’s car started today again (and heavy frost!)
Learnt: About the most expensive coffee in the world, eaten, partially digested and then excreted by an animal!

Nic
Bad: Probably be paying for a couple of weeks worth of landline, internet & Sky tv that we won’t use as have to give months notice.
Good: We’ve (probably) found a tenant!
Learnt: what a waxwing looks like (googled after it was mentioned on ff)

I read the pre-history section of which the kids may have been feigning interest in to prolong bedtime but I suspect grabbed their attention, particularly after a museum visit this morning.

Today the kids and I went to an Educational visit to Plumpton college. There are a couple of colleges in Sussex / Hampshire specialising in farming / agriculture / animals which I earmarked several years ago as potential places for both Davies and Scarlett to get qualifications in the things they are interested in if they remain the same as now. I’ve spoke to reps from Plumpton at various South of England Show events and other places, so it’s somewhere I’ve been hoping to get along to with them for a while but their open days have clashed each year with something else we’ve already planned to do so we’ve never quite managed it.

A localish Home Ed mum is pretty good at organising trips of this sort and arranged a free visit there so we booked and went along. As we were not sure about my car Ady managed to plan his days work over that way so he could drop us off and pick us up. As it happened, despite really heavy rain in the night my car started first time when I turned the key on the off chance when I went to get my wellies out. It also started again later despite a heavy frost so am keeping fingers firmly crossed that the distributor cap was the problem, although we will still change the spark plugs at the weekend.

Ady dropped us off with picnic and wellies and we spotted C and her children so walked to meet them coming from their car. We ended up being first there as many of the other attendees had either gone to different entrances or were operating on Home Ed time (ie late). That was fine as we got full access to Lynne, the woman running the session and the kids enjoyed talking to her about a couple of animal skeletons – a dog and a sheep. The kids guessed them both and made some really good observations about teeth, jaws, feet etc to help them identify them. There were also various birds nests to look at. All of this cheered Scarlett up as she was stroppy about having to wear wellies, a fleece and a coat, but she conceded it was worth it. For her wearing proper clothes and maybe even socks is going to be one of the biggest challences this year. I do have sympathy though as I’d rather be coatless and barefoot too really.

The morning session was a tour around part of the working college farm. Once everyone else had arrived, the obligatory H&S talk and introduction had been covered – Plumpton runs a mixed farm with animals for meat and produce and arable crops for animal feed. It is not organic or intensive but is on a pretty large scale and does supply supermarkets. For us it was a very interesting introduction to farming and will be a great benchmark for other things we see this year.

We started with the dairy cattle, looked at some (who I think were penned as they were about to birth), then the calves who were adorable and gorgeous but given their overwhelming instinct to suckle at anything that came close – I spent ages with one licking my hand and then another sucked at my waxed jacket while I stroked it, I couldn’t help feeling they should still be with their mothers rather than being encouraged onto straw ‘solids’ while their mothers were off being milked for human consumption.

Next the milking parlour and cow shed, which was airy, well ventilated, clean and spacious but still not a field! Davies really didn’t like the fact they spend most of their year indoors, despite all of the woman’s explanations about how it’s better for their feet and they churn up the soft grass and ground if they are out in late autumn, winter or early spring. I did note that the beef cattle are out year round and I have heard about a grass and clover seed mix which is hardy enough to create greenery year round and stand up to cows feet. I did mention that there have been cows far longer than there have been cow sheds….

Next to the pigs, where they have all stages of pig rearing from pregnant sows, birthing sows and tiny litters of newborns, weaned litters kept in sibling groups, then a ‘finishing’ area. The birthing area was slightly disturbing (as actually most birthing areas for animals that have been open to general groups of people wandering through have always been disturbing to me – it’s one of those things I just feel should be as calm an environment for as possible, regardless of species or end destination for mother and offspring). The sows were clearly stressed by us walking through and the piglets were at huge risk of being stamped on.

Back to the classroom for lunch and some interesting chats about meat and animal product eating between Davies, Scarlett and I. Both children really grasped why I am so passionate about animal welfare, natural behaviour and of course good treatment, respect and ethical slaughter. I really enjoy meat, dairy and poultry and have no intention of stopping consuming, although I do have massive respection and understanding of vegans views (less so for vegetarians really as despite not eating actual animal flesh, there is just as much poor treatment of animals in the production of milk, cheese, eggs etc.) I am looking forward to seeing the difference in self sufficient animal rearing when the need is just to feed yourself rather than farm sufficient levels to make money. So slightly saddening, very educational and just good to be outside, on a farm, with animals.

Lunch did that thing of raising blood sugar levels and creating crazed children 🙁 Who were then cooped up in a classroom :(. Davies, Scarlett and I had lunch sitting with Ali & C which was nice, but we watched several of the other children getting increasingly louder and badly behaved around us. The afternoon session was about the arable side of farming, so there was talk of cereal crops, what is made from them and then some bringing out grains and seeds to mill and grind in hand powered and electric grinders and rollers.

This was done in that style of teaching I find particularly irritating – encouraging children to finish the end of your sentences by guessing the answer and putting their hands up. This excludes a huge swath of children who don’t bother listening if they are not being directly talked to and I just find patronising. If the kids know the answer then they get bored being tested, if they don’t know the answer then why not just tell them and then they will. I much prefer a session on giving information, which includes everyone; those who already know get it reinforced, those who don’t get to learn it, then questions from the children to back it up rather than questionning the children.

Lots of toddlers were being noisy, wandering around the room, lots of children old enough to know better were also being distracting and I got two boys out from under a table where they were sitting being really annoying. I hate that parents bring kids who clearly have no interest in learning anything somewhere, allow them to be disruptive, rude and prevent others from learning and sit back without dealing with them at all. It is all of the very worst of Home Ed trips 🙁 Don’t bring younger siblings who will ruin it for older children, don’t bring kids who are incapable of sitting still or being respectful to places where they need to demonstrate those behaviours and don’t sit on your arse ignoring your kids being gits!!!

In the main it was a good morning, I just wish it had been a slightly smaller group of children who would have had the chance to learn a bit more as it could have been pitched more to their ability and allowed them to ask more questions. When the woman was doing more of a one to one chatting to D and S earlier about animal skeletons she was excellent so I think it was simply lowering her pitch to the lowest common denominator when the larger group was that which brought out the ‘teaching style’ that I disliked.

Ady picked us up and dropped us home, popping in for a coffee. We spent the afternoon playing PvZ, Scarlett made some more bouncy balls, Davies played with the geomags and I cooked their tea. I took a phonecall from the agent booking a viewing for tomorrow, Ady came home and I went off to Reading Group.

It was my penultimate one and it’s looking likely it might be everyones last group next time. B, the chief librarian who runs it is taking voluntary redundancy so we will both be leaving at the end of February. We had thought a couple of the group would be up for taking it on but no one seemed willing to and they all just looked sadly at B and I saying ‘oh it will be really sad if the group stops, we wish you weren’t going’. But we are, so if they want it to continue then they will need to make it happen themselves. I’ve really enjoyed being part of the group, it was an evening out once a month way back when the kids were very small when I got to talk to adults, I’ve read loads of things I would never have looked at before, it was instrumental in me getting the library job and I’ve made some good friends, particularly Mike & Rose, the not-swingers, through the group.

Back home for bad, good, learnt today, dinner and watching ‘The Nuture Room’ which I found both sad and uplifting.

Scarlett:
Bad: Some of the children at the college were ‘gits’
Good: Went to the college farm and really enjoyed it
Learnt: That there is a runt in a pigs litter which can be loads smaller than it’s siblings

Davies:
Bad: Sad about cows being inside for three out of four seasons of the year
Good: Piglet I was worried about was fine
Learnt: People knit jumpers for ex battery hens to keep them warm when they have lost feathers

Nic:
Bad: Too many examples of the behaviour that gives Home Ed a bad name
Good:Car started after heavy rain and heavy frost
Learnt: that the phrase ‘chalk and cheese’ to suggest two very different things may have origins in the fact cows grazed on chalk land would not produce very creamy milk and therefore it would not be much good for cheesemaking. Not at all sure how much I believe it and a quick google (as opposed to a proper google) suggests it is more likely they are simply two things which are nicely alliterative and different, but something new for today nonetheless.

Ady:
Bad: Worried that potential tenant might not be perfect match
Good: Tenant viewing tomorrow
Learnt: The earliest cultivated crop in history is garlic

I feel like I’ve already blogged today from various friendfeed updates 🙂

The kids and I had a lie in, so letting out & feeding chickens, sorting the kids breakfast, tidying up the kitchen and then sitting down with a cup of tea was all I managed before about 10am. Both the kids needed a bath so Davies went and had one after breakfast and before getting dressed. He spent quite a while in there (no idea where he gets that from ;)) while Tarly got out her bouncy ball kit. She got it for Christmas and I’d really recommend it as a fun and well priced kit but she used it up straight away on Christmas morning and so I scoured the internet to find some refill granules. Eventually I found a company that sold something that looked similar and bought a refill from them. It too ages to come (obviously caught in the postal backlog from Christmas and the snow) and got put to one side when it arrived last week as she’d long since forgotten about her inital enthusiasm in it. But this morning she dug out the moulds and made a load more balls. This stuff actually seems better than the original granules and is making more pleasing balls.

I rang the letting agent to chat about the house. I said I was getting twitchy and he said he was too so we discussed possible reasons for not getting viewings and some ideas for action. We decided to reduce the price by £100 a month, which is fine as it only actually takes it back to what we’d initially expected, as we’d inflated it slightly to see if we got any early takers. We also agreed to have a To Let board put up and we are going to be less specific about the term of the lease as actually we don’t 100% know that we’ll be back in a year anyway. Fingers crossed these measures will have a speedy effect…

I also rang and booked a mechanic to come and look at / collect Willow on Friday to have the work done to get the electrics sorted so that she is running and ready for an MOT just before we go. We have a weekend sleepover planned in her next weekend so really want her running for that.

Ady came home as he was going up to London today to deliver some stock for a press release photoshoot and we’d initially planned to go with him as the congestion charge and parking was pre-paid so we’d thought we could have late afternoon / early evening in London and go to one of the musuems or something. In the end the kids both felt they’d had more than enough time sat in a car this weekend so we decided not to go after all.

Ady managed to change the distributor cap on my car but try as we might we could not get it started and the battery was completely dead. Dad’s jump leads are either now ruined from our trying or we were simply failing to get a connection on them as jumping it didn’t work either. Ady went off to London and I rang our breakdown cover. I decided if they couldn’t get it started then the time had come to put it into storage now. The guy came and did get it started by jumping it off his van, warming up all the spark plugs and spraying loads of dampstart on it. He recommended new spark plugs though as the existing ones are not a set of four so two have been changed at different times to the other two.

I rang a couple of places but nowhere seems to just change plugs (I guess a garage would but at a price), so we took the car for a run to charge the battery back up and then came home. We decided to have popcorn for lunch as I’d brought home The Last Airbender on dvd from work so the kids half watched that and half played with Davies’ Doctor Who characters. We nipped along to Halfords for some spark plugs and a tool but I don’t have the knack for opening the bonnet so Ady needs to teach me how to do that tomorrow in daylight and we’ll change the plugs over. Another £25. If that does not sort it then it will definitely now go into storage and I can cancel the insurance and tax, particularly as the campervan should be running pretty soon.

The kids and I played some Plants vs Zombies, they had tea and Scarlett had her bath and hairwash – much talk of hairwashing and cutting here today thanks to Chloe :). We played some more PvZ and Ady arrived home. We did a quick recap of the last four days for bad, good, learnt today as it’s just not practical to try and do a daily catch up.

Davies:
Bad: didn’t get bedtime stories (he was outvoted in the shall we play more PvZ or read a story ballot)
Good: got full version of Plants vs Zombies
Learnt: Lynda & Stuart had extended their house – he didn’t realise they had had the work done.

Scarlett:
Bad: Spent about 9 hours sitting in car this weekend
Good: had lovely weekend with Lynda & Stuart
Learnt: Play area in Chill Factor – the indoor ski slope in Manchester, for some reason the fact there was a little area for just playing in the snow hadn’t registered with her last year when we visited.

Ady:
Bad: Nic’s poxy car!
Good: Lovely weekend, good to go back to Manchester
Learnt: Giraffe’s cannot cough or swim

Nic
Bad: Had to drop potential rent as no tenant yet
Good: Reactions of Lynda & Stuart and Miranda & Harmen to Wondering Wanderers Adventure
Learnt: seedless grapes (the question was asked at breakfast at L&S’s about how seedless grapes reproduce and why pretty much all grapes are now seedless, so we did a proper google and all learnt together about fruit grown from cuttings and grafting. Great to show L&S how our HE works in action) and how to authenticate amber – I really love my amber but was surprised that it feels more like plastic than glass when I’d expected it to be the other way round. So I’ve been researching ways to ensure it is really amber. I’ve done several of the tests and am pleased to know it is indeed real amber 🙂 (which is what it was sold as but I’m glad to have checked).

Friday Feels a long time ago now, despite only barely being the day before yesterday. I worked all day, Davies & Scarlett went off with Ady for the day. Work was fine, I did Baby Rhyme Time which I’ve not done for ages and if we find a tenant and leave as planned I will only have 3 of them left before I go. I have been pretty much stripped of all my jobs and wasn’t even down to do the banking, which I understand as contingency plans need to be put in place to keep the library staffed and running but feels rather odd when I’ve still not formally handed my notice in. So wish we had a tenant sorted…

I’d had to walk into work as Ady and the kids left before 8am and my car was still not running, besides they were picking me up to leave straight from work anyway. Ady had left an umbrella out for me which I dithered over taking and double-backed for when I opened the front door and realised how very hard it was raining. It was an error though as I walked through the alleyways which is much quicker than the roads but too narrow to carry an umbrella through and actually the odd bits of road I walked along were so blustery that the brolly blew inside out several times anyway, so I ended up carrying it most of the way and resenting it for that as I *hate* carrying things. It rained non stop all day so I didn’t even bother going out at lunchtime.

Ady and the kids had nipped home to put chickens away and made me a toasted sandwich and thermal mug of tea, collected Mum & Dad and they were all outside the library waiting for me when I came out at 6pm. We’d had a long standing weekend planned to stay with Lynda and Stuart who we really wanted to see properly before we go off WWOOFing and had also planned to visit Miranda while we were there. Whilst out for my birthday Mum & Dad had been talking nostalgically about when we lived in Manchester and a spur of the moment plan was hatched for them to come up with us, stay in a nearby Premier Inn and join us on a Memory Lane trip as they’d not been up there since we moved home nearly 7 years ago.

So family, tea and possibly best of all my birthday amber was waiting for me in the car as that had also arrived in the post. I totally ♥ it 🙂

We had a really, really good run up there and dropped Mum & Dad at their hotel by 10pm and were with Lynda and Stuart drinking wine / Guinness / making an early start on breakfast crossiants / admiring their fantastic new extension by 1030pm. Davies & Scarlett went to bed about 11pm, we sat and had a brief catch up and went to bed just after midnight.

Saturday We woke and had breakfast then Ady went and collected Mum & Dad from their hotel. A quick cup of tea with Lynda & Stuart and then we left them at home while Ady, the kids, Mum, Dad & I nipped along to the Trafford Centre past our old house. We pulled up to look at it (very special place in our hearts, quite aside from a very happy 2.5 years there because it was the home in Scarlett’s home birth :)), waved at our old neighbour, drove past several landmarks, had a wander round the Trafford Centre (and I bought a length of leather in John Lewis to string my amber onto so could start wearing it) and then to the indoor ski slope nearby to show Mum & Dad having told them about it after our last visit.

For us, it was mostly about spending time with Lynda & Stuart though so after a couple of hours we drove back to their for a late lunch and a lovely afternoon spent chatting and catching up on each others’ news. They get on well with Mum & Dad having seen a lot of them over the years and whilst the closest relationship is probably between Lynda & I it is as close to having in laws as I think we’ll ever get, both in terms of the children having a second set of honorary grandparents and us having a second set of older people who love us, support us and are generally important in our lives :). Their support and enthusiasm for the whole WWOOFing idea has meant a huge amount to us as I think we are close enough to them for them to give us honest feedback if they felt horrified at the idea. I can’t believe I once used to pay Lynda to look after Davies & Scarlett and I don’t think she can either.

We had fish & chips for tea (Dad, the kids and I walked to the chippie at the end of their road), Lynda, Mum, the kids and I gathered round Lynda’s laptop and looked at a load of our flickr pictures of Scotland and various things we’ve done this year with the kids giving a running commentary. Then Ady ran Mum & Dad back to their hotel, the kids went to bed and we had another couple of hours chatting.

Sunday After breakfast Ady went to collect Mum & Dad and we had a leisurely morning before saying goodbye to Lynda & Stuart and dropping Mum, Dad, Davies & Scarlett off at a big interior design, furniture & gift shop place with a cafe for a couple of hours while Ady and I went to see Miranda & Harmen.

She had already guessed we had come ‘with news’ so we asked her to guess what it might be. ‘You have come to hand your notice in because you are moving to North Wales?’ was her first guess. Which was not far wrong ;). Both of them were really enthusiastic and positive. The farm next door to them has WWOOFers so they knew about the organisation, Miranda declared it ‘ a gap year for grown ups’, which is the closest we could possibly expect to the promise of a job for Ady if he wants to come back, realistically I knew she would be of that opinion and while we were honest about hoping we don’t come back she made it clear if we did then there would be something for Ady within the business. Which hopefully goes some way towards appeasing my Dad.

Lovely to see them if all too brief – I can’t wait for our lives to slow down as they are inevitably about to do so we can decide to stay longer in places it feels a wrench to leave…

Miranda asked Ady’s permission to share the news with the MD of Ady’s work which he agreed to and she said they had only been discussing Ady last week with a view to a new venture so although like me he still has the formal handing in of his notice to do once we have a tenant the actual telling his boss part is now over and done with. We both felt pretty relieved, Ady even more so than me. All that now remains hurdle -wise is the finding a tenant and then we really are on our way 🙂

We collected Mum, Dad, Davies and Scarlett and drove home. A straight run with just a small hold up on the M40, but a slow and tedious journey nonetheless. We got home just before 9pm and I suspect for the kids and I at least it won’t be a speedy start to tomorrow.

Hmm so my gift to the rather more structured HE folk out there is the bad / good / learnt today. Their gift back is introducing us to Plants Vs Zombies… something not quite right there ;).

More rain, don’t remember the last day it didn’t rain actually. Sod getting the car started and dealing with the electrics on the campervan, I think ark building might be more useful.

Really pissed off with vehicular things today, between the car and the campervan we are paying £70 per month insurance and both are taxed at about £40 per month so that’s over £25 a week we’re spending just to have two engines outside, neither of which are working at the moment. I’m not entirely sure what the issue is with the campervan and not really too worried that it is something not easily sorted so have taken over dealing with it and on payday next week will get a mechanic to have a look at it and get it roadworthy. Will also spend the small amount to get a new distributor cap for the car and if that doesn’t sort it once and for all it can go into storage from then, I’ll cancel the insurance and tax for it and use the campervan. Feel better for having made a decision. Frankly if we’re managing without a car anyway it might as well not be costing us money!

Caz and Bid dropped Archie & Eliot off with us for an hour or so while they went to do a gardening job. Aside from one short yell at the kids not to chuck toys down the stairs (fretting about chipped paintwork) I didn’t really see or hear them. Caz and Bid returned and we cobbled together some lunch and had a lovely couple of hours chatting about life, the universe and everything.

They had to go to deal with the dogs and eventually extracted a very reluctant Eliot who really didn’t want to leave ;). Davies and Scarlett went to tidy up Davies’ room where they’d all been playing and I tidied up the kitchen.

Davies was doing some PSPing and Scarlett some DSing when I saw Babs talking about Plants vs Zombies, googled it and downloaded a trial. The kids were both lured over and the three of us lost the rest of the afternoon to it, but we did work our way through the entire free trial. We realised it had gotten dark around us so hastily put chickens away, lit the fire, pulled the curtains and sorted their tea, which they equally as hastily ate, finished with some jelly that Tarly and I had made earlier and then back to the game.

Ady arrived home, slightly stressed from a bad day and in discussing what to do about cars and vans we lost another hour or so. I read a couple of chapters of Narnia to the kids, my parents rang to discuss plans for tomorrow and then it was 9pm. Davies and Scarlett were about to go to bed when we realised we’d not done bad / good / learnt today so we did that:

Scarlett:
Bad: Archie & Eliot couldn’t stay longer
Good: That Archie & Eliot came today
Learnt today: Kangaroos find it difficult to walk backwards (we presume their tail gets in the way)

Ady:
Bad: I’ve run out of beers!
Good: I didn’t have my appraisal today
Learnt today: All clown fish have three stripes (thanks to animal facts from Tarly’s DS game)

Davies
Bad: full plants vs zombies game costs money
Good; Manchester tomorrow!
Learnt today: throwing something west means it will go further than throwing it in another direction (another blast lab gem, apparently to do with the direction the Earth spins in)

Nic
Bad: Running really late this evening with still lots to do (stress infected from Ady)
Good: had a really chat with Caz & Bid
Learnt today: seahorses change colour to match the plants around them (ditto Tarly’s DS game)

The kids went to bed, Ady cooked dinner, I packed up bits for tomorrow and had a bath and then we had a very late dinner watching recorded Fish Fight.

I worked this morning. Dad stayed here with Davies and Scarlett. Apparently he mostly teased Scarlett while having a conversation with Davies about how people who climb mountains ‘because they are there’ are suicidal idiots. Oh he’s all about the tolerance and respect for the views of others is my Dad ;). My car wouldn’t start again (heavy rain overnight) so he did run me into work and come and pick me up again afterwards though.

Work was fine. It’s a very curious atmosphere there as they have all known for months that I am leaving but now when I should really be giving a firm leaving date and can’t due to the ongoing ‘when the bloody hell will we get a tenant’ debacle it’s thrown things rather into chaos. Knowing I *will* be leaving means for long term planning’s sake they are getting me to hand over tasks I do, train other staff in things and try to put a plan into place for covering my hours once I go. Not knowing when that might actually be makes everything really rather tricky. Added to that the big boss (who I do Reading Group with) is also leaving at the end of Feb as she has taken voluntary redundancy in the latest round of cuts and restructuring so she is also torn between being professional to the very end and that whole end of term yipee feeling of leaving a job.

I got home and we had lunch. Dad had dashed off to look at a job but rang me shortly afterwards for a favour. I love the way he asks for favours, he’s just like me and hates asking but is clearly incredibly grateful.

Davies and Scarlett had their plasticine out and were watching a video of a load of Morph episodes so were happily engaged with just the odd admiring comment at their creations. Scarlett is obviously rather animal-centric in her creativity but is just as imaginative and talented as Davies at creating pieces of art and I am often in awe of both of their abilities to visualise something in their heads and commit it to paper or 3d sculpture the way they do. Davies remains very Aardman inspired with his plasticine modelling but I guess he would really with it being such a strong early influence. Today he was creating a whole farmyard of animals and started with a sheep and pig. I love the way all his characters get full biographies when he makes them.

I was flicking through some online stuff and stumbled upon a link I’d mentally made a note of going back to look at again from a local HEor – the flushtracker to see where your poo (and other waste water) goes to. We loved it (and very entertainingly started a whole poo tracking trend too :)). Once we’d seen where our flush ended up we then tracked a flush from my parents to see if our speculation that it would go to the same place was correct. It was. Both the children were quite fascinated with the google earth stuff and the ability to zoom in and out, get aerial views and street views so we played with that for a while, looking into our neighbours back gardens and talking about the vans that went round getting all the images.

Further speculation on waste water thanks to the worthy message from Domestos meant I looked at our water suppliers website and found some interesting information on how waste water is treated and how tap water is treated so we also spent some time looking at that.

There was more plasticineing, putting chickens away, lighting the fire, cooking kids’ tea, looking at zone two and adding a few more potential hosts to it and emailing them, going through the zone three list and finishing that off ready for an email to be composed and sent to them maybe tomorrow, checking again to see if my car would start, looking at the WWOOFing forum and discovering a HE family about to do something very similar to us and making contact with them and talking to Scarlett about her very valid and non hysterically made point after watching Newsround that there are so many natural disasters happening it’s like the end of the world is nigh.

Ady arrived home having had a long and all too much driving day at work so once he had had a restorative cup of coffee we did bad / good / learnt today:

Davies
Bad: Can’t get favourite dvd to work on downstairs dvd player
Good: Making plasticine farm animals made me feel really excited about WWOOFing
Learnt today: car windscreen glass cracks at 300mph (from Blast Lab earlier, unseen by me so unchecked statistic!)

Scarlett
Bad: Grandad teased me
Good: watched some good animal programmes
Learnt today: where our flushed water (poo) ends up after leaving our toilet

Ady
Bad: had to go to Cambridge (not specifically Cambridge, just a long drive – 408 miles in total driven today)
Good: England won the cricket
Learnt today: worldwide a child (under ten) starves to death every ten

Nic
Bad: Bloody car won’t start!
Good: organised a swap of my shift at work so I can be off for our Bye Then Party.
Learnt today: that although all the water that comes out of our tap is drinking water quality only 3% is actually consumed as drinking water or in cooking, the rest is sent down the drain as waste water from toilet flushing, hand washing, baths and showers, washing machines, dishwashers etc.

Before bed Scarlett and Ady looked at the RSPB magazine together while I showed Davies a youtube clip I’d told him about ages ago but not got round to showing him about a weather balloon being sent up into space.. Davies went off to bed as he was actually feeling quite tired, although he did come back down again to enquire as to whether I thought he might have an intenstinel worm as he was hungrier than usual at the moment! 😆 I assured him it might just mean he was finally growing!!! Scarlett and I looked at the Insect Lore catalogue which had come in the post and she was about to go to bed when I ran the hoover round and discovered it was all clogged up with hair and cotton threads so spent some time unpicking all that from it’s brushes. Scarlett decided this was just her sort of project (she loves picking and fiddling) so her and I had a very satisfactory half an hour or so doing that (similar to the wool untangling at camp!) while half watching a programme about seriously overweight teenagers which just happened to come on after whatever we’d been watching and was interesting if rather sensationalised.

Scarlett went to bed, Davies seemed to actually fall asleep at a respectable hour, Ady and I watched Hugh (and I cried 🙁 ) and I exchanged messages with the Also-WWOOFing family.

I love days like this when we come across educational and interesting stuff by accident, one question leads to another and we are all fascinated and learning alongside each other. I love that everyone is in the room together doing their own thing but interacting and saying ‘hey look at this’ every so often. It reminds me anew of why we do what we do, how we do it :).

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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” alt=”crabhunter Tarly” />
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” alt=”fisherman dugging for lugworms” />

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.