One word? When seven would do…

Dad came over to be with Davies and Scarlett this morning while I was at work. I went out to let the birds out in my dressing gown and Ady’s boots and managed not to fall over. It is a total mud bath in the chickens and ducks area so I run this risk twice a day. About midnight last night I thought I heard a squawk from outside and wondered if Ady had put away the broody hen tucked in the hedge or whether that had been the sound of a fox nabbing her. I figured either way there was nothing I could do and going out in pouring rain, pitch dark and risking broken limbs wasn’t worth it (sorry chicken). This morning I found her, still in hedge but alive and well so clearly the fox hadn’t been around last night.

Dad ran me into work as it was pouring with rain again this morning so it didn’t seem worth even trying to start my car for such a short journey. Work was mad – really short staffed with just three of us and Storytime to do. When I left there were only due to be 2 staff this afternoon and a neighbouring library was running with just 1 person for a period. Not at all sustainable and we are clearly close to times when the libraries have to be closed. My own personal opinion is selfish relief that the days of situations like that being my problem to agonise over are long gone. Oh how I don’t miss management :).

Dad picked me up and he and the kids had had a good morning. Both kids had read to him and he had apparently been impressed with their progress. 🙂 I made lunch and we watched some Ray Mears on dvd then Scarlett did some painting and Davies did some bedroom tidying. I worked on Secret Santa for camp and failed to pre-read the books on Diwali I’d got for Badgers.

Today on the programme was making diva pots. I had 6 children in the group today so we gathered round and talked about what we knew already about Diwali, I read a bit from one of the books explaining the festival and then read one of the various Diwali stories of Sikh and Hindu gods. Then we got our the air drying clay and made some diva pots. I had some pictures as examples and we will be painting them so they get to do ornate and decorative stuff later but I encouraged them to all do something different and individual. While they did it I read a couple more stories.

Next week is supposed to be sandwich making which had a fair few groans and ‘boring’ protests so I am taking in ready risen bread dough, some double cream and ingredients to make wraps. We can bake our own bread, shake our own butter and I’ll take in a filling from each food group.

Back at home we’d fully expected Ady to be there already and Davies had written him a note asking if he could get the dinner on for them. He wasn’t there so I did have to tramp round and persuade the stoopid ducks in to their house, grab the broody hen from the hedge and try not to slip in the mud while using a torch, chop up some firewood, do some tea for the kids, get a fire lit and finally hear from Ady that he had been held up at work.

I read a fair chunk of Running Wild while the kids ate and then they went to bed. We caught the last 20 minutes of The Apprentice (I’d not realised it was on) and then Kevin of Doom.

Helen, Alex and Abbie came over this morning, to drink tea, cuddle ducks, drink fresh milk and coo over the van 🙂 It was fab to see them (been far too long) and show fellow van dwellers our potential home and get some tips and hints on van based living :).

They left us at lunchtime and we had lunch (home made bread and home made soup) and watched some TV and Davies & Scarlett played with geomags.

I left it right to the last minute to check the swimming bag and discovered that my swimsuit was where I thought it was but the kids were not. They both have spares so I sent them off to find them and Scarlett came back with hers, Davies couldn’t find his. I went to check his room and it was a tip – and he’d allegedly ‘tidied it up’ that morning but I realised what he’d actually done was shove stuff out of sight. I totally lost my temper with him when I opened his wardrobe and drawers and clothes tumbled out – it was like Monica’s secret cupboard! He was very upset and apologetic, I was very angry 🙁

I then found the swimming costumes from last week still in the wash (now dry but stinking of swimming pools) so he had to bring that one. Out to my car which wouldn’t start 🙁

Dad had told me to ring him if my car wouldn’t start so I did but we then realised there was nothing he could do to help anyway as if he came over he couldn’t take both kids in his van let alone me too. I carried on ranting at the kids about the car and promised to take them swimming tomorrow to make up for missing their lessons as the car clearly wasn’t going to start. To prove the point I turned the key one last time and it roared into life!

So we headed to the pool, about 15 minutes later than I’d planned but still really early for lessons. We had about 1hr 45mins and I managed 82 lengths – so 2 more than last week. I’d like to get there for 2 hours each week and aim for 90 lengths in that time. I have 7 weeks left (well 8, but we’re away for the last week of the challenge) so need to do at least one additional session too which I am hoping to get in this week if possible to put me back ahead of where I should be. Now I have done 20% I am going to start hunting for sponsors :).

Scarlett had a ‘you’ll never guess what I did today. What am I like?’ moment when she went to the wrong lesson. Just before 4pm I saw her get out of the big pool and go over to the lesson pool, I thought Carolyn would send her away but then I saw her sitting on the edge of the pool about to get in. Davies swam over and asked ‘isn’t Scarlett in the wrong lesson?’ I said yes so he dashed over and told Carolyn who stood laughing and gesturing to me across the pool about how kerazy her and Scarlett were for not realising. It was truly a riot ;). Scarlett then managed to be late for her actual lesson as she wanted to go on the slide. Grrr.

Back home with very achey knees – I’m not at all sure that is a traditional swimmers complaint, wonder if I am doing strokes very wrong or am just very unfit?

Ady had beaten us home and we walked in to the kids dinner on the table and a fire lit :). We had another raided from the freezer dinner (shepherds pie I had prepared the mince base for ages ago during a batch cooking frenzy) and have planned raided from the freezer dinners for the rest of this week at least – am hoping ebay sales ending on Sunday will help ease us through the rest of the month…

We were supposed to having Ali and Freya over today. We had a plan to catch up, be silly and maybe even drink wine together. It was not to be 🙁

With my car still over at Caz and Bid’s that had to be top priority for today, particularly when I tried to start the van and it was having none of it – I clearly don’t have The Knack.

I sorted out breakdown cover online for the van, arranged a rain check with Ali, answered a question on ebay about whether I’d sent a bulk lot of Betty Spaghetty stuff to Greece (I was inclined to reply ‘No. Fuck off.’ but refrained and have a proper answer).

Davies’ second amazon parcel of lego arrived so that was the overriding part of the kids day, putting that together. I’m amazed that the fairly small amount of Lego that has come into the house in the last few days totals £100 😯

We all decided we were very hungry and in honour of British Egg Week we had pancakes made with 12 bantam eggs. And very delicious they were too 🙂

Ady rang to say he had gone to Caz and Bid’s and got the bonnet open and the car finally jump started. He drove home and then we took him back to collect his car, giving my car a really good run. On the way home we called in to see the mechanic mate of Chris and Julie’s who fixed the bonnet catch before. He sorted it (again) and I talked to him about servicing the van. He’s picking it up next Monday and coming with jump leads. It’s a bit sooner than we’d planned but he quoted me £120 which we can just about scrape together and I would rather have the van up and running and ready to go if I need another vehicle with my car being unreliable in the rain. I also asked him if he’d be interested in buying my car off me too. He’s going to think about an offer for that although I suspect it won’t be as much as I’d get selling it privately.

Back home the kids got back into Lego-ing, I did some knitting and then sorted out their dinner. We all had some form of leftovers from Sunday’s roast – the kids had more or less a complete roast dinner and Ady and I had some rice cooked with sausages leftover from breakfast and pork leftover from the roast.

I chopped some firewood, although I chopped with such might that I smashed up the large log we rest wood on to chop – it was slightly rotten! Ady was late home and had called in to see Chris on the way so we were already reading before bed by the time he got home, with a fire lit and a bath run. We started on – we have a mission to read all the Morpurgo books in the library before we leave :).

Ady woke me this morning at 7am. 7 AM mind! to say it was dry and he thought we should go and try and get my car. I agreed and got up, chucked clothes on and contact lenses in and said he should just rouse the kids a little and tell them we were going but they could stay in bed. Davies got up though and wanted to come which meant we had to bring Tarly too, so she came in her pjs and one of my cardigans.

We got to Caz and Bid’s just before 8am and there were no signs of life in their house yet. I thought the car was going to start but it didn’t and then the battery started to flatten 🙁 . We ummed and ahhed about what to do and had another look around the house but no one appeared to be up still. Chris and Julie live just around the corner and although Julie and the kids are away Chris is an early riser so we drove round there to see if he was around and had jump leads we could borrow. He was indeed up and about (infact he’d already been out to a car boot sale) but had no leads. He gave us a tin of quickstart spray though and offered tea but we declined, conscious of the weather being forecast to change.

Back to Caz and Bid’s hoping the spray would work only to find the bonnet catch not working again so no hope of jumping it with leads anyway. Or spraying it :(. One last go at starting it before swearing lots and getting back in the car to come home again :(.

At that point I was sharing Ady’s doom and gloom feelings. With the van not starting yesterday either and my car still stranded at Caz and Bid’s without me even being able to get it jump started and very little funds this month to fix anything, let alone my reluctance to throw money at my car when I am getting rid of it in the next couple of months life looked quite bleak :(. I then realised that me being mopey made Ady even worse, so gave myself a pep talk, we decided that the van is not a priority and if we cancel plans to use it to go away next weekend we not only don’t need to have it running until we have money to get it serviced we also save money from the planned camping to spend on my car instead. Suitably bolstered with a plan (and really you have to have two vehicles in order to be able to moan about both of them not working so we should be happy with our riches) I shared it with Ady and resumed my usual role of pacifer and cheerleading optimist.

Back home we had a large cooked breakfast to make up for leaving home without even a cup of tea (and several large cups of tea too) and decided to make the most of the day by working on clearing the playroom completely of stuff. There were lingering car boot sale goods in there along with the sorted videos, DVDs and CDs from the lounge, so armed with laptop and camera Ady photo’d and boxed tidily and I listed 19 lots on ebay including several wholesale bulk lots for collection only. We now have 4 crates of books to go through along with the bookcase in the hall to create some more bulk lots of books and then the lounge and playroom theoretically contain only stuff we will be using up before we go, taking with us or boxing up for storage.

Which leaves the kitchen, bedrooms and bathrooms – all of which I want to have completed before we go to Christmas camp – so we have about 8 weeks to do it in. That felt nicely productive and took our minds off car crises.

Davies and Scarlett played with the lego, spent some time with the chickens and ducks – decision made to take the ducks to Tom’s Dad’s in the next week or two. Scarlett sad but philosophical and understands it is the best idea all round. I am sad for her and a bit miffed that Sploosh has just started laying. Thanks to their early start the kids were a bit squabbly but took time out from each other whenever they got on each others nerves too much.

It was during one of these breaks that Tarly did some drawing and came to ask how to spell ‘dog’ we told her and she came back with ‘cat’ and ‘dog’ written on two bits of paper. I started to talk to her about the letters and she did her usual trick when any hint of reading might be about of going all silly and claiming she can’t do it and doesn’t want to do it. I hate this defeatist and not even going to bother trying attitude so took her to task on it and talked about how everything she’d ever done or achieved was as a result of effort, practise and believing she could do it – citing control over her body leading to running now from those first deliberate reaching out a hand for something shiny as a few months old baby. The Bob books happened to be in the pile of books I was sorting so I grabbed book one (Mat sat, Sam sat, Mat sat on Sam etc.) and showed it to her. To her great delight she realised she could read it once I’d helped her with each letter sound – the process of blending them seems much more natural to her than it did with Davies when he was first trying to read. She took it round and read it to Davies and then to Ady and then came back for book two! We couldn’t find it to jumped to book three and again she was quite capable and already recognising words she’d read a page or so back so not needing to spell them out again. Davies still hasn’t totally cracked that yet.

So the Bob books have been saved from the ebay pile for now and Scarlett has suddenly realised that once she has cracked the basics if she puts effort in she can read anything she likes whenever she wants. It may of course grind back to a halt again in which case we’ll leave it be but it may just leap forward as these things so often do when the time is right. But anyway, another milestone moment of first book read :). And I am guaranteed no Rainbow Fairy Magic in this house ;).

I cleared away the last of the ebaying stuff – more to do tomorrow and will try and list at least one thing a day and tackle one room per week. I did some more knitting – I’m making a bag which is in three panels – two identical sides with cabling and a gusset which goes all around. I’ve mixed colours of the same wool and can’t decide if it looks good or a shambles yet. Will do the other side and make a decision after that.

We watched a film while eating dinner, which was delicious and the kids were about to go to bed when there was a knock at the door. We very infrequently get ad hoc visitors so I was quite surprised. A woman stood on the doorstep and asked ‘Do you recognise me?’ to which I replied, probably quite suspiciously (I hate questions like that, on a par with ‘who do you think it is?’ when someone rings and you ask who they are) ‘Should I?’ just as I realised it was the previous owner of the campervan. They had got me to write my name and address on the bit of the log book I brought away with me and nowhere on the bit to send off! We had mentioned that we loosely knew their next door neighbours so they had asked them where we lived and come looking for us (having been told ‘on a corner somewhere off Western Road’) and thankfully spotted the van in the drive. I filled in the paperwork and they asked how the van was running to which I explained we’d not been able to start it, we didn’t know where the battery was and the fridge wasn’t working.

Her husband was in the car so he came out and I called Ady out. The battery is underneath the leisure battery, accessed from underneath the van on the outside, the fridge was working fine for them (and having posted to a Bedford forum this afternoon and had several replies it would seem the steepness of the drive is indeed the issue there) and confirmed they’d never had a problem starting it. So I gave him the keys and sure enough it took a bit of effort but he got it started and running and shared the knack of the choke and revs technique. Talk about lucky timing 🙂 They were very lovely, said they still miss her and we said they could come and visit us and they said we could phone them any time with questions :). All very amicable.

So that was a nice end to what has been a fairly frustrating weekend in lots of ways. My car is still over in Barnham so tomorrow may well have yet more chasing about trying to get it started but fingers crossed I can get the van going and fill it with petrol so I have another vehicle to use at least. I am also hoping for a drier day tomorrow and Ady getting my car started so we can take it back to the bloke who fixed the bonnet last time.

Ever noticed just how many songs there are about rain? My personal faves include Rainy Days and Mondays (Carpenters), Rain (Mika), It’s Raining (Shakin Stevens), I wish it would rain down (Phil Collins), I think it’s going to rain today (Nina Simone).

I worked this morning – I was looking forward to it actually. James, my favourite 18 year old has just survived Freshers Week at uni which I have been vicariously sharing with him via Facebook pictures and status updates so I was looking forward to seeing him and hearing all about it. I spent the morning covering the enquiry desk and then putting up a Green Reads display so it was hardly hard work anyway.

Ady took Davies and Scarlett to Wildlife Explorers where they made bird feeders and coloured in pictures of birds. Even Scarlett is nearly too old for the group they are in now, let alone Davies but they may as well stay there for the next couple of months til we leave. They were both up at about 6am to do more lego building this morning (so were most horrid and low on emotional resources as a result for the rest of the day :rolls:) and carried on with that when they got home. Ady came to collect me from work and then we headed over towards Barnham to collect my car.

Unfortunately the rain started up again and got progressively heavier as we headed further west until I decided I didn’t have a hope of getting my car home even if it started on such wet roads so we turned round and came home again. Todays plan had been for Ady to do garage clearing and dump runs while I tackled the wardrobe in our bedroom but Ady had been foiled by the weather and was all depressed that a planned porch over the back door step hadn’t worked. The chickens and ducks area is a total marshland, in no small part due to Ady tipping out a pool full of water every morning in there and filling the pool back up again. I suggested he move the pool closer to the edge of the enclosure and empty it onto some grass with better drainage. I also suggested that some of the many, many roof tiles which are proving to be a total nusiance (removed from our roof when we built up, nearly 10 years ago, moved about 6 times from location to location around the garden, sat on the drive infront of the garage for a couple of years, moved to put the campervan there and now in the way elsewhere – no one is interested in buying them, I’ve had them listed on freecycle with no takers) get used to create paths in the quagmire. I do sometimes feel like the only person to have successfully reached the other side of puberty in my house, everyone else here seems to see sulking and sighing a lot as the only feasible solution to things. And for me to be feeling like the grown up things have to be pretty bad ;).

Anyway, he was struggling with not having succeeded in any of his planned endeavours for the day. I was quite happy to have some lunch (I was really hungry), shove some flapjacks in the oven (felt the need to eat something sweet and home made) and start a knitting pattern I’d sneakily photocopied from a book at work which I thought would be perfect for using up some wool I had and learning how to do cable knitting. Davies and Scarlett were very happy playing with lego / playing with Sploosh and Lucky on the lawn.

I got to the end of a row and decided to go and check that the van wasn’t leaking inside with all this heavy rain and to turn the engine over too. It will be insured from Monday and I want to get it full of petrol, have a bit of a go at driving it and maybe will need it if the rain continues and my car is unreliable – if we have another road legal vehicle it makes sense to use it if needed. But it wouldn’t start either 🙁 I was rather unsurprised to be honest – it’s been sat on the very sloping drive for a whole week, with loads of rain and it is old and we know it needs a bit of attention but Ady took this as another sign of doom 🙁 We then spent some time looking under the bonnet and trying to work out where the battery is.

At that point we realised we were standing outside and not getting wet anymore – ie it had stopped raining so we decided to head over for my car again. We gathered the kids and as Ady had a car full of stuff to go to the tip we went via there. Once we started driving it started raining again and the tip closed at 5pm – we arrived at 5.03pm to see the man locking the gate and driving away. Further doom for Ady 🙁

We came home and I made him a coffee and gave him flapjacks and tried to help him gain a bit of perspective about the whole ‘it’s going to rain forever, both of the vehicles we actually own are not working because of the rain, the garden is flooding because of the rain and I haven’t cleared the garage because of the rain. I suspect my suggestion that we should look on the bright side and proving the campervan floats we don’t actually need the engine to work as we could use it as a house boat instead didn;t really cheer him up…. 😆

So Ady did some being in the kitchen with music blaring which always restores his good humour, the kids and I watched TV, they both took themselves off to bed as they were so tired and Ady cooked a really nice meal and seems to have cheered up a bit.

I’ve spent some time online trying to work out where the battery might be and concluded I am probably right that it will be under the passenger seat so I’ll go and look tomorrow and hope for windows in the rain to collect my car and get the van started.

Scarlett has agreed that we should rehome Sploosh and Lucky sooner rather than later (they are too big for the area and house we have them in really, if we were staying we would remedy that but as we are not it seems silly to do it for the sake of a couple of months) so I spent ages talking to her about empty nest syndrome and the job of a mother to prepare her children to grow up and leave home. In lots of ways I think it will be better to get this particular hurdle over and done with, although it will be painful for her and so painful for us too 🙁

Today was Archie’s birthday party, held over at Willow (no relation to the van) Organics where Caz and Bid are and with a Survival theme. When we woke up it was already raining and that pretty much set the tone of the day really.

Ady had woken me to say he was not letting the chickens and ducks out as it was still too dark (fox alert) but when I got up I looked out of the window to see the ducks and some of the chickens out with the chicken shed door closed. I assumed we’d not put them all away properly last night so dashed out in nightie and wellies and realised he had let them out after all but the door must have blown shut in the wind, leaving the chickens already out confused as to why they were shut out in the horrid wind and rain and the chickens left in looking all perplexed as to why leaving the she had been such a brief window.

We’d got Archie a fire steel for his birthday (am feeling a bit fretful about the fact we have given three firesteels as gifts in the last couple of weeks after firesteelgate, but reassured that none of the recipients are likely to be near duvets belonging to Chris and Helen ;)) so the kids wrapped that up and made a card and then we set off.

I was fully expecting my car not to start given all the rain but now it is living out on the road rather than the drive and was facing up the hill rather than down it started just fine (had always assumed the angle of the driveway, fairly steep with any rain running down into engine might well make it worse) so off we went. The spray on the road was making me twitchy though and about half a mile away from Caz and Bid’s as we went under a railway bridge with a bit of a puddle at the bottom the car lost power and died 🙁 I managed to get it going again, we got to their road (private road, full of pot holes) where it died again and I got it going once more and it stalled again as I reversed up their driveway. If nothing else it reassures me I’ll be fine with the van, all this experience with unreliable cars…

Once everyone had arrived (people operating on Home Ed time ;)) the party got going – there were 5 families totalling 9 children there, all of whom get on really well together (Scarlett only girl). They did a hunt for pinned up letters around the farm which spelled out ‘sausages’ and arrived back having cracked the code in time for getting sausages cooked on the barbecue :). They made flags with fabric pens, played a variety of crazy games and did loads of running around getting thoroughly filthy and mudcaked and soaking wet in the rain.

I really enjoyed chatting to friends – Caz and Bid, Debs, Olivia and Emma all of whom I adore and are interesting people to talk to. Olivia was telling us about her grandmother – Mary Norton, author of The Borrowers and Bedknobs and Broomsticks which was just fascinating and we also touched on education, marriage, parenting girls and boys, WOOFing and loads more.

The rain carried on and so I rang Ady and got him to come and meet us after work to bring us home and leave my car there until it stops raining (tomorrow is forecast to be dry). The kids decamped to the house before the adults did, but not before Bid and they had lit a huge fire. It was very smoky thanks to the rain but I think that made it all the more impressive to look at with great wafts of billowing smoke tossing about. The kids put a HP film on and all snuggled up together on sofas to watch that while adults cosied up in the kitchen to drink tea. Ady came and joined us and it was a really nice atmosphere – felt very similar to that we enjoy with our circle of scattered Home Ed friends when we all get together :).

We finally left realising we needed to get going before dark to put birds away and called into the supermarket on the way home for pizza supplies. We were greeted by a huge amazon parcel on the doorstep for Davies – one of the two Harry Potter lego sets he got for his birthday (eventually ;)) so that was fallen upon with great delight. They had a quick decontamination bath (they were wearing mud, rain, flour, grass and all manner of other unidentifed things) and then did some constructing. I made them a hasty tea and got the pizza dough on for Ady and I, ran him a bath and got a fire lit while poor Ady went back to Sainsburys to return the pack of mushrooms I’d bought as they were all mouldy 🙁

I read the last section of the Elephant in the Garden (lovely book, made me cry) and then they went to bed – reluctantly, they wanted to stay up and do lego. I battled with my wireless router which had taken against being wireless but seems to have gotten over it now in that unexplained, not really sure what I did to make it work again but I am very relieved fashion that computers have. I’ve been interestedly reading various school based things today (aswell as talking about learning and education IRL) as friends have been debating schools, if so which ones and whether to do it at all in at least 3 online places today (must be something in the air as they were not remotely related to each other). I did ponder worring briefly but then decided I have more years ahead of me HEing than I have currently spent HEing so the time to worry has not yet come upon me as I am reserving that for the halfway point. 😉

Today was my ‘working all day’ day and Ady was taking Davies and Scarlett to work with him. This is a not-at-all sustainable solution that we have just four more months to try and muddle through. It’s not ideal, the kids spend a long day sat in the car, Ady gets stressed about trying to hide the fact they are with him when talking to his office on the phone and on days like today when the library is very quiet and I spent too much time standing around with not much work to do I resent the time away from the kids too 🙁 .

So Ady dashed off first thing to do a store visit while the kids and I got ready then he collected us all, dropped me off at work, dropped Davies off at Green Woodworking, did some store visits with Scarlett, collected Davies, came home with the kids for lunch, went back out to do some more store visits and the back home to cook the kids tea, leaving them home eating while he came to collect me from work.

My day was okay, it felt really long and it was very quiet with not a lot to do. I put up a Morpurgo display and enjoyed chatting to borrowers and colleagues but the the afternoon was slow and dragged by.

I rang Davies at lunchtime and he had just finished his woodworking. He’d finished his stool although as he banged the legs into the seat it had split so he’d ended up with a seat that someone else had started and then he said he and another child sat around for a quite a bit with nothing to do, then they asked if they could make something else and they made a rolling pin each. He’s really enjoyed it and seems to have got a lot out of it even if I am viewing it in the same way as Forest School as a rather expensive indulgence of spending time with someone who might have lots of talent but isn’t necessarily that good at sharing it and teaching others. Once again I need to leave my reservations to myself and focus on whether he has gotten something from it and he has.

Back at home I read some more of Elephant in the Garden while D&S finished their tea, took a break while they got into pjs and I started running a bath and then carried on for a bit longer. We’ve just got the last part to read which I reckon we’ll finish tomorrow.

We’d had post – a birthday present for a friend we’re seeing tomorrow and a gorgeous bracelet each for Scarlett and I from June. Scarlett’s is rainbow beads with a cat, a rainbow and a chicken charm, mine is purple and green beads with a wine goblet, a book, a tree, a chicken and a ‘recycle to save the earth’. Predictably we have both already thought of additional charms we’d both like so might get in touch with June to see if we can order a couple more and fix them on ourselves.

I cooked dinner and we watched River Cottage on Fish – I know one of the students who was on it tonight, she does relief work at the library in uni holidays and I was only talking to her last week about going WOOFing :).

Tasha, Toby and Vinnie came over today to see the campervan. I nipped to Sainsburys for fruit and veg supplies for Badgers before going to pick them up. They had the guided tour of the van including all of the ‘rules’ about taking shoes off, not playing in it etc. Then Tasha and I came inside to do knitting / crocheting and bitching :).

Poor Vinnie gets a bit of a rough deal when we meet up as Toby plays with Davies and Scarlett so he loses his big brother and isn’t really welcomed into their games. Scarlett particularly can be a bit vocal about not wanting to entertain the toddler and I struggle a bit with how to deal with it. On the one hand I know if we had friends where one of my two was repeatedly left out and made to feel unwelcome I simply wouldn’t take them there, but on the other I do understand that tolerating him for a while is a fair ask but changing games to accomodate him and giving in to his sometimes unfair demands (in their eyes) is a nusiance. I also think she struggles with not being the youngest sometimes. We are asking a lot of Scarlett at the moment in terms of growing up and maturing and dealing with stuff and the fall out happens every so often in ways she can still exhibit power and control when lots of areas of her life seem to be happening regardless of what she wants.

So we had to do some smoothing over and then she lost her temper because the boys were cheating at a lego creationary game by peeking at the cards so she yelled at them that she wouldn’t play with them if they couldn’t play properly and left the room. They did try to lure her back but she stood her ground and came and sat with us in the lounge for a while. She did some ‘potion making’ and sat on my lap and knitted a few of my stitches for me too.

We made some lunch for everyone followed by some of Tasha’s cupcakes and order was restored between the children who played really well together for the rest of the afternoon.

I dropped them off home and we got ready for Badgers. On the programme was making fruit and veg kebabs to talk about healthy options and how cold food could be appetising. I asked Davies how they’d done it when he did Hungry Badger last year and he said it had been all pre-prepared cubed fruit and veg that they had put onto skewers. So I packed a peeler and several knives with the intention of doing some peeling and chopping with the Badgers.

I had 8 children and 2 adult helpers today so we were good for knife safety ratios. First we got tables and chairs set up and I sent them all of to wash their hands. Next they all sat down and I laid out all of the fruit and veg I’d brought. I got their attention and told them to listen to me as I was talking and one of the lads asked why we had to listen to me and not him, so I got him up and told him to tell everyone what was happening instead :). I had to whisper to him what to say next but he led the group in identifying all of the fruit and veg and saying whether it was fruit or veg including the ‘trick’ ones such as peppers and tomatoes. He then sat back down and we talked about where the fruit and veg grows (on trees, plants, bushes, in the ground etc.)

We then set to work on peeling, chopping and dicing everything – I’d brought mushrooms, apples, tomatoes, peppers, grapes, strawberries, kiwi fruit, bananas and carrots. They all did an excellent job of that and then they put chairs away and we laid out the table canteen style for them to queue up with kebab sticks and get creating. I encouraged them all to try something new if there things they’d not had before and several of them liked stuff they’d previously thought they wouldn’t :). I also said they could make kebabs for sibligs or parents to take away and all of the fruit and veg went :).

We cleared up, I’d taken a compostable bag to bring all the waste home and we had a brief chat about compostable waste and landfill waste then it was time to rejoin the rest of the group for drinks and some games. I felt it went pretty well tonight and am much happier having gone with my own way of doing things. Next week we’re doing Diwali based stuff and the week after is supposed to be sandwich making so I’m taking in risen bread dough for them to shape bread rolls, ingredients to make flour tortilla wraps and cream in a jam jar to churn butter – I will do this my way! 🙂

Back home Ady had arrived and got dinner on for the kids – steak for Davies and the latest Sploosh egg for Scarlett. When cracked open it proved to be a triple yolker!
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She didn’t really like the taste of it just fried though, I think they are better in baking. I love the way all three yolks are different sizes :).

I read to them while they were eating which we were enjoying so much I ended up reading for nearly an hour with breaks to get into pjs / wash faces / clean teeth. We’ve over halfway through now and it’s quite a gripping story.

The kids went to bed (alas not to sleep, there was much reappearing with ‘a story I’ve drawn in 14 picture sections’) and we had dinner and watched Grand Designs.

Originally we were supposed to be having friends over today, they cancelled and so I thought I’d be super organised, go through the rest of the Badger meeting ‘lesson’ plans, write down a list of all the stuff I’d need to buy, get anything non-perishable now, write in my diary reminders for things to buy the day before for all the rest and schedule in a few rather more interesting things I’d thought of doing with the Badgers too.

I’d also stuck the chicken carcass from yesterday (dinner, not one of ours!) in the slow cooker to make stock and had half a plan of getting some rolls to go with and making soup for lunch. So I told Davies and Scarlett we’d be going into Lancing mid morning to get shopping once I’d created the list and to gather some audiobooks they had finished with and had waiting lists of people wanting next so we could take them back and collect some more that I’d had email notification of being ready to collect from the library.

Except I got bored doing the Badger lists – several of the girls are quite challenging and moan about the stuff we’re doing being boring. Partially they are being tricky on purpose and partially they are right, it is pretty boring and I could just imagine their disdain presenting them with some home made playdough to make ‘play food’ with. So I’ve started to think up some alternative ideas which I’ll slip in instead and I need to redraw up the schedule.

And then we had a hiatus when the case for an audiobook couldn’t be found and I had to get involved, Cue a rant from me about bedrooms, looking after stuff, how we’re leaving in four months and everything , EVERYTHING needs to be gone from bedrooms. Cue Tarly getting all wobbly lipped, Davies going into hyper-helpful mode (calming me, pacifying Scarlett) and all of us ending up with a full bin bag, several tidy boxes sorted into ‘keep forever and put into storage while we’re away’, ‘keep for now and probably give away before we leave’ and ‘yet to make a decision’ status and lots of things like shells, conkers, sticks and pebbles relegated to the garden.

Painful but productive…

The post arrived and with it insurance paperwork to complete and return and the hook up adapter. I went and plugged the van into the mains in the garage and we have power 🙂 Kettle, toaster and telly all now working. I’m not sure if the battery is charging and the fridge appears to not be entirely happy but it could be the angle of the drive.

We had lunch and I put off til tomorrow what I could have done today with the shopping.

I did manage to make a couple of phonecalls on some other paperwork kicking around though. Our debt management plan needed an annual review which I had attempted to email to the CCCS. I’d initially said our situation was unchanged but they said they still needed an income and expenditure form completed and emailed me one. I completed it and emailed it back but they couldn’t open it, I copy and pasted it into the body of an email and they emailed back with some queries at which point I decided I should probably just talk to them. One of the queries was a big leap in our gas payment per month which is clearing some arrears from an underpayment, so I took meter readings and had an online live help chat with our energy provider to check where we were with that before listening to the worst hold music ever (a sort of jazzed up, house version of ‘all the ducks are sitting in the water’) for about 20 minutes before finally talking to a person at CCCS. I was feeling really wobbly about the debt suddenly. It is our intention to not tell anyone that we are not working or change our official financial status at all but to carry on paying out of the revenue from renting the house out which will cover both the debt repayment and the mortgage.

I did feel better having talked to someone and got it all sorted out and OK’d for another year but it did have me feeling a bit crap, my bluster and bravado about the whole business and how well we’re doing all took a bit of a kicking really in the face of being questionned as to just how long I wouldn’t be working full time and would be Home Educating the kids. I felt very reminded of past mistakes 🙁

All of which contrived to make me decide to go swimming early. I felt the need to go and be good at something, to do something that has a good effect on others and swimming is something that I find quite relaxing, it’s almost meditative to go up and down the same 33 metres, brain totally disenaged other than chanting the number of lengths I have done to myself, challenging my brain with fractions and percentages of achievement against target and generally switching off.

We were at the poolside for about 345pm, giving me 1hour 45 mins to swim as much as I could. I decided to aim for 80 lengths given I had done 75 in 1 hour 37 for the Swimathon but had been in better condition. And I managed it 🙂 Felt very wobbly of knee when I got out and actually my knees are still protesting now but as that is the most I have ever swum in one session I guess I should expect some noise from my body. No one has actually sponsored me yet and I was half thinking I would quietly not bother to do the channel thing but I feel inspired anew to carry on again now.

Back home I stuck some tea on for the kids, Ady arrived home and we messed about with the van and the electrics for a while. I read the kids some of the latest Morpurgo – An Elephant in the garden and they went to bed, very tired as they had also had over 90 minutes in the swimming pool each :).

Today was the RSPB walk meet up that we’ve not managed to get to for ages. I had full intentions of going but on checking the facebook event saw I was the only one planning to attend. We do love it there and can have a nice time when it just the three of us but none of us were that fussed so we decided not to go today.

Scarlett collected another Sploosh egg (one a day at the moment 🙂 ) and wanted to bake some cupcakes with it and I had a sudden flash of organisation and remembered the kids Badger uniforms were in the wash and both of them had said their shoes didn’t fit. So I dug out the uniforms and got them in the wash and then we headed off shoe shopping. Scarlett also needed winter shoes which can be quite epic as she is quite specific about what she wants. She doesn’t like black shoes or boots (I agree, why wear boring black shoes when you don’t need to), she doesn’t want high heels, she favours boots and knee high ones rather than ankle boots, she doesn’t like pink and doesn’t want flowers, hearts, dangly beads or fluffy or furry things on them. She likes a zip, hates the Ug style furry lined ones and I won’t spend more than about 20 quid on them as I know she often gets through two pairs over a winter and she doesn’t need special width fitting or anything like that. Davies and Scarlett are so infrequently in shoes all day long I have long since stopped worrying about Clarkes shoes being properly fitted.

In previous years we have done well in Littlehampton as they have a cheapish shoe shop and a Peacocks which often has boots she likes. We drove over there first. Sure enough Peacocks came up trumps for some cheap black shoes for Davies for Badgers (fiver 🙂 ) and I got both of them some more pants as they keep running out now washing isn’t get dried as quick on the line. The other shop didn’t have their boots in yet.

On the way I drove down my favourite ‘turning of the seasons’ road. It is a dual carriageway that is tree lined on both sides of the road and on the central reservation with desiduous trees which look stunning as they turn all shades of autumn before shedding their leaves this time of year. The same stretch of road has daffodils and crocuses in the Spring giving an equally colourful and stunning display as winter comes to a close. I used to drive along that road on the way to sixth form college, again on the way to work when I worked in Bognor and then again fairly regularly when we first moved home and used to visit Julie every week. I drew Davies and Scarlett’s attention to it – wonder if they will one day drive down it themselves at this time of year and remember today?

The next town (working our way back towards home now) had two likely shops but neither had anything Scarlett (or I infact) liked, we tried Brantano which had various black ones and a few brown furry and fluffy ones, which she did deign to try on but hated. I got some petrol while we were at that retail park and we headed into Worthing town centre. We found a parking space (sooo expensive, 20pence per 10 minutes :shock:), dashed round all likely places in town, found nothing and were heading back to the car when I diverted past where I thought there was a shoe shop. Indeed there was, with a pair of brown boots that ticked all boxes, fitted and she wore out quite happily – yay! :). We celebrated by popping into Greggs the bakers for something each on the way back to the car.

Back home again I hung out washing and did some camp organising and planning and cleared my inbox of a few things while the kids played lego. Scarlett and I then made her duck egg cupcakes. I don’t know when I stopped calling them fairycakes but D&S have always called them cupcakes. I blame the Cat in the Hat movie 😆 I told her the ingredients and she weighed them out and did all the rest. Consequently they have much home made charm 🙂 but she is better at keeping her eye on things in the oven than I am.

Scarlett did some painting and Davies did some DSing while I did some more online stuff and we all watched a documentary about evolution on aswell. I really like the channels that have a constant stream of good documentaries on and it’s often our default choice.

I went and sat in the van for a little while, theoretically because I wanted some more pictures but once I was in there I just enjoyed hanging out for a while :). The kids did some running around the garden.

Then I got dinner on while Scarlett made some icing and decorated her cupcakes. Ady arrived home and he read to Davies for a while and then it was dinner time. We watched Australian Masterchef while we ate and it was a lovely dinner, finished off beautifully one of Scarlett’s cakes each.

I’d intended to sleep in this morning but Scarlett and Ady were awake early as usual and Scarlett’s excitement at going to the duck house and finding a third egg was rowdy enough to wake me. She brought it up to show me and snuggled up with me for a while by which time I was thoroughly awake so stayed in bed and read for a while as it just felt too early to be up on a Sunday morning.

We’d been planning to go to the local Apple Day as we’d had such a good day there last year and had mentioned it to my parents who’d said they’d join us so my Mum rang to ask what the arrangements were. I’d not really thought of any so suggested they come over to us for 11 and we’d head over there, it was pretty chilly and not really sitting around picnicking weather so I suggested we not take food but just grab some tea and cake over there to sustain us.

Mum and Dad arrived and we had a quick 10 minute sit in the van as their previous look at the inside had been on the drive of the sellers last weekend so I wanted to show everything off a bit. 🙂 Then we drove over to Stanmer Park for Apple Day. They had marshalls at the entrance directing you to the carparking area and pre-warning that they were asking for a £2 per car donation as the event is free. I thought this was a very fair ask as the money goes towards Brighton Permaculture Trust and other worthy local organisations who operate on a similar basis but all of the cars infront of us were either refusing to donate or kicking up a fuss. The poor girl with the collection bucket looked so relieved when we just chucked our money in and said she wished everyone could just be like us.

It was actually quite disappointing this year compared to last year when there seemed to have been far more happening and the weather was pretty ropey, cold and cloudy rather than the gorgeous sunshine I am sure I recall last year. We walked all around the stalls set up but most were selling stuff, with fairly tenuous links to apples in most cases, the kids had a go at the all in one peeler, corer, slicer apple gadget which is one of those impressive at demo but unlikely to ever be used things that requires two pairs of hands but is fun to make apple spirals with. We avoided the kids activity tent but it looked like colouring in apple pictures and some trying to bite apples on a string, Davies and Scarlett did some apple rolling and then we walked round to the well. We stood under a conker tree for a while trying to catch them as they fell from the tree when the wind blew and the kids both collected a pocket full of conkers.

We walked back to the cafe and got teas and coffees and a couple of portions of apple crumble which we shared between us before joining an orchard tour. It was the same tour we’d done last year but interesting enough to listen to again :)We then popped in to the rural museum which is on site and has all sorts of old curios from the past, many of which myDad looked at fondly with memories including freestanding mangles, blacksmiths bellows and more. Dad grew up in a remote North Wales village at the end of the war (the Hiroshima bomb fell on his seventh birthday) in a little one up, one down cottage with an outdoor loo, no electricity where the fire was kept burning year round and used for all cooking, heating, drying clothes, warming the Friday night bath water etc. I can see why he thinks we’re bloody mental wanting to go off in our van for a year :lol:. There was also a really cool gypsy caravan for pulling by a horse that had a little cage on the outside with some straw hens in it which of course had us all speculating about something similar to bring the birds with us :).

We walked back through the park, avoiding some people we saw a bit of last year (the woman who looked after the kids a few times and mislaid Scarlett) but I’d let the friendship lapse. Fortunately Davies and Scarlett merely smiled and said hello to the boys and we all carried on walking so I didn’t even see which parent, if either, was with the boys, avoiding a potentially embarrassing reunion.

We called into Asda on the way home as we needed to get something for our Sunday Roast. Mum suggested some french bread for a late lunch so I picked that up too and quickly realised if we were not eating lunch until nearly 4pm we certainly wouldn’t be having a roast dinner so that has been shelved until tomorrow. We all had very late lunch and my parents stayed for a couple of hours chatting.

We went on amazon and ordered Davies’ birthday present – he wanted a Harry Potter lego set which Mum, Dad and Frazer were getting him. He had hoped he had enough for a second, smaller set he also wanted but he has £20 and the set was £40. Scarlett sat very quietly and then suddenly announced ‘I can help you Davies’ and went to her room and brought out her own £20. Even Davies said ‘Scarlett you don’t have to do that’ but she was fiercely insistent that it is her money and if she wants to spend it on that then she can and that making Davies happy makes her happy so it’s money well spent. The last time she saved up a stash of cash she spent it on something for Davies. It was very touching :). So touching infact that I said she could pay £10 and I’d match it so she could keep £10 of her money. Mum was then so touched that she gave Davies back £5 of his money and gave Scarlett her £10 back too saying she had not given Scarlett a present on Davies; birthday as she usually does so she would give Scarlett £10 which means the lego is still partly from Tarly but she is not out of pocket. One of those lovely, proud of everyone moments usually seen only on American sitcoms ;).

Ady took off the side gate which we had put up to stop the children running all around the house when they were small (our garden goes all the way round our house but we closed it off so we could keep the kids in the back) but we now need open as our previous path for moving wheelie bins out has been through the garage which is now blocked by the van in the drive. The kids had duck egg pankcakes for tea and we all watched Countryfile, which threw up some more questions about the whole WOOFing thing from my Dad who still thinks the whole idea is crazy bonkers ;).

Mum and Dad left, the kids and I watched X Factor and then they went to bed. Ady and I had dinner and pondered over what a long weekend it seems to have been.

I had a bit of a hangover this morning having drunk a bottle of fizz last night rather later than planned due to the whole Scarlett Firesteelgate investigation 😆 I could have done without an alarm going off for me to go to work really.

But I had a really good morning at work once I’d drunk tea and eaten breakfast so all was well :). Scarlett went to check the duck house for eggs (they lay at night / early morning so can be collected first thing unlike the chickens who lay throughout the day). Sure enough another egg, this time a proper sized elongated egg.

It was Wendy’s last day today. She is a Senior Library Supervisor and I have always gotten on really well with her. After 22 years in the library service she is off to work in a doctors surgery and I think she will be really good at it and enjoy the new challenge and getting away from all the cuts and doom and gloom talk of working for the local council at the moment.

She was due to Lancing at 1230 so we spent time in the morning decorating the Enquiry Desk with a banner I had printed off yesterday saying ‘Bye Bye Wendy’ and loads of ribbons and sparkly things one of the girls had brought in from home. Another colleague shot off to the pound shop and picked up some bits to turn the chair into a throne for Wendy to sit on for the afternoon. We then realised that everyone sitting at the desk in the morning (mostly me actually) would have people thinking they were Wendy so we all made a name badge saying ‘Not Wendy’ to wear, except for James who made one saying ‘Certainly not Wendy’ which pleased and amused several borrowers during the course of the morning :).

I also made a sign to go on Wendy’s throne about how we would miss her and wish her well and a badge for her to wear saying ‘I am actually Wendy’. I finished sticking letters onto a piece of card for my Michael Morpurgo display so now have that ready to go up. And then Wendy arrived :).

She was most touched by all the decorations and I suspect would have been quite emotional by the end of the afternoon but I parted with a big hug and a promise to stay in touch and left them all to it.

Ady had promised to take Chris, Julie and the kids to Portsmouth docks as they are off to the Isle of Wight for a two week holiday and were going car-less so he shot off to collect them and was gone for most of the afternoon. He’d left me some cheese toasties and a cup of tea already made for my lunch so I took them with me to have my first meal in the van :). The kids came with me and we spent a very happy couple of hours just hanging out in there. They brought a pillow each and some toys to shove in the cubby holes in their bunk, I got frustrated with the wireless broadband not quite reaching out there and then busied myself taking photos and reading the big pile of paperwork that came with the van.

There is the original paperwork from when it was bought new in 1981 and all the warantees for things, instruction manuals for the loo, the fire, the fridge, the tv aerial, the cooker, the hook up /mains / running off the car battery / running off the back up battery power and various bits of service history documentation. I love it very much :). The kids hung out on their bunk playing DSs and telling me how much they love the van :).

I finally decided I needed more tea so came inside and was followed by the children. Scarlett busied herself painting pictures of ducks eggs on mountains and in other such picturesque landscapes while Davies did some animationstation stuff creating a very good little sketch with a plasticine face. I compliled a post which I’ve not published yet on Wonderingwanderers about a reading list, partially so I can stick amazon associate linkage in and partially because there are lots of excellent books that have helped shape our ideas of what we think we want to do and set us on our journey towards doing it.

Ady arrived home and we did some more moving the van about to get it better positioned on the driveway. Ady amused me by giving me all sorts of advice about starting it and using choke etc and then had to concede that actually I did seem to know what I was doing and infact have rather more of a knack than him for it. He then had a bash at reversing and getting it in straighter and I ended up taking over that too. I actually think he is rather more scared of handling it than I am but then he is the one who drove a motorbike only until he was 30 and has then had mostly nice new cars while I am the one who has driven all manner of old bangers for nearly 20 years and spent many winters towing my Dad’s van and bump starting decrepid vehicles every time you hit the brakes (oh that double feet skill of braking so you don’t crash into the car infront while still revving to keep from stalling on a cold damp winters morning!). I’m actually itching to get driving her again and having looked into insurance again I think we might just get her insured as for £20 a month it might well be worth it – must see about getting six months worth and then paying upfront for a year in March.

We then sat and worked methodically through all of the manuals and had a go at lighting the cooker, grill and hob, the heater and the fridge and tried to understand how all the power works. It has gas bottles already hooked up which run the cooker and fire just fine, the fridge doesn’t seem to be working on the gas but it was hard to tell. We think the secondary battery is probably flat although everything seems to switch across okay when the engine is running so we’ve bought a hook up adaptor so we can plug into the mains in the garage to test stuff (and be able to use hosts electric when we’re WOOFing too if we’re close enough to a power supply, and they have electricity of course ;)). We were amazed anew at how tidy it is inside and how well equipt it is :).

We came in and I cooked pancakes for the kids tea with Sploosh’s egg from today which looked about normal size but very elongated and turned out to be a double yolker 🙂
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and made good pancakes 🙂

We watched a very good evolution animation the kids had made together with two cells evolving into creatures, parting as one became a bird and one a mammal, the bird did great things while the mammal evolved into a human and then hunted the bird and ate it. Very deep :). Must work out a way of getting them onto a computer and uploading them.

We all watched X Factor, kids went to bed and Ady cooked steak for our dinner. Tomorrow we’re hoping for good weather as it is Apple Day at Stanmer Park and we want to go along with my parents.

Ady and the kids dropped me off at work this morning and went off to do some store visits for the day.

I did the banking, sang songs with quite a large audience of parents and babies (10 adults, 14 children, 24 pairs of eyes all looking at me to see what else Old McDonald had on his farm and just who else was riding on that rotating wheeled bus), had lunch, made letters out of old envelopes, ripped up newspaper and string to form the words ‘Green Reads’ for my next adult display and cut out letters to form the words ‘Michael’ and ‘Morpurgo’ in the font used on his books to be part of the next junior display. I spent time on the desk, joked with colleagues, teased a very nice man who came in to join the library and generally had a pretty good day.

Ady, Davies and Scarlett came to collect me and Davies and Scarlett were bursting with something they wanted to tell me about at home. They managed to resist until we actually got home and Scarlett presented me with the first duck egg. It’s pretty small for a duck egg (as first eggs often are) and is a lovely greenish colour. Hurrah for Sploosh :). Ady and Scarlett have both seen the ducks mating so we knew they were mature enough to be at that stage and were expecting eggs but I had thought it might not happen til spring. yay for duck eggs :).

I got changed, gathered up all the cash and Ady and I went off to collect the campervan. The kids elected to stay home and wait. We paid, filled out the log book, had a quick show round which key is for what (two sets of keys, both with seven keys for all the various locks, doors and ignition) and then Ady went off as I had insisted he did and I settled into the driving seat. It started first time but juddered to a halt and needed some choke (how many years is it since I had a car with a manual choke!?). We then struggled to work out where the lights were and finally I was off. She stalled again at the end of the road but started straight up and from then I made my rather hesitant way home. It was fine, if weird to drive. The height and width didn’t really bother me and I was largely oblivious to the length, I don’t think it’s much bigger than my Sharan really but the steering will take a bit of getting used to having had the luxury of power steering for several years and the automatic-ness of it will also need adjusting to. I more or less got it in position to reverse into the drive but Ady was slightly flappy and kept wanting to do it so in the end I let him. It does need re-doing actually as it is too much over to one side making it a bit of a squeeze to get in the drive but we’ll sort that tomorrow.

David from across the road appeared and came and had a look inside before finally leaving us to it. The kids scrambled about up in their bunk and then Ady and I worked out how to get the sofa / chairs to convert to a bed. Ady then took the kids in to sort some dinner out for them and I had a quiet ten minutes or so in there by myself. I put the bed all away and opened every cupboard and drawer, folded out the kitchen-y area and stood in the shower. The previous owners have left things like a kettle, toaster, mini tv, hook up cable etc all in there along with a heap of paperwork including instructions for all the appliances, a service history and other interesting looking things which we’ll look properly over the next few days.

Finally I turned the lights off and came out locking it up behind me. Ady said I looked so happy in there :). It reminded me of getting my first car, a clapped out old mini, bright yellow with furry brown seats when I was 17. I got it the week before I passed my test and it cost me £450. I remember sitting in it and just feeling like I’d never had such freedom, I could go anywhere I liked it in, sleep in it if I wanted to, keep whatever stuff I wanted in it. I’d never owned my own little bit of space before to do whatever I wanted with and it was one of the most exciting moments. I felt a bit like that sitting in the campervan tonight :).

I nipped up to Sainsburys for some food supplies – felt very strange driving Ady’s new this year company car after the van :). Back home we had a minor drama as I dealt with Scarlett and the firesteel incident 🙁 before settling into toasting the van with a glass of fizz, a very late bath and an even later dinner.

And now I am exhausted!

Today has been my least favourite sort of day, too much driving and not enough tea.

Davies had the second of his Green Woodworking session so it was up with the alarm. The kids had breakfast and then did a birthday card each for Jack and Maisie (well they did one each and J&M got one each, Scarlett did Maisie’s and Davies did Jack’s) while I wrapped their presents. At their request we’d got them a fire steel each. Maisie had wanted a little one like Scarlett’s but in red and Jack just wanted a fire steel so I got him a bigger one (in my opinion the tinyness of the little ones compromises how well they work rather) in army green. I’ve never bought them the same present before as Julie really plays down their twin-ness and they are less siblingy and alike than Davies and Scarlett are so never before have same presents been remotely appropriate so I wanted to choose a fire steel specifically for each of them this time too.

The kids put the telly on while they were eating and it was Chuckle Brothers which I just loathe. They must be about 80 now as they were around when I was a kid and I didn’t like them then. I had to do far too much reminding them to eat and get dressed and get on with card making and as I loathe and detest nagging this put me in a grumpy frame of mind really.

We set off, Scarlett with a bag containing Maisie’s card as she wanted to do some more to it, her DS and some coloured pencils and me with a pile of books and magazines. We got to the Youth Club where Woodworking is held dead on time and went in with Davies. He is by far the smallest (although not necessarily the youngest) and just sort of hung around on the periphery. There are too many tools etc around for Scarlett to be there without being in the way and I think doing these things without us around is good for Davies so we dropped him off and went to stay in the car. It’s just slightly too far to be worth coming home and there is nowhere else nearby I’d want to go for an hour anyway. Plus is was looking very grey and I was dubious about my car in the wet so didn’t want to risk being away from there.

Scarlett and I spent the first hour very harmoniously in the car listening to PopMaster (both contestants got full 39 points, I’ve never known the like!) with me looking through some green magazines and getting ideas of places it might be worth contacting to see if they’d like us to try their products next year in exchange for a blog review 😉 and then reading my book while Scarlett finished the card for Maisie with a spot the difference quiz, a little maze and more all pony themed :). Then Scarlett got bored so came and sat in the front with me and rummaged through the glove box for a while before having a licking contest with me and generally distracting me from my book. She did spend a while drawing glasses and beards on all the people in one of my magazines though which she found most entertaining :).

We went in to collect Davies who was making a stool. One of the other mothers was heloing him and it all felt slightly odd. It is the building we used to go to Magical Mondays in and the group is made up of some kids I sort of vaguely know but not really well enough to talk to. Davies clearly isn’t talking to anyone but is really enjoying the woodworking and it just felt like quite a strange atmosphere in there. Eventually the other mother asked if I could take over holding the thing Davies was doing which I gladly did. He has enjoyed it lots but I think we are at that akward stage of him needing a bit of help at these things but not necessarily from me and certainly not when I have a smaller sibling tagging alongside me. Anyway, next week is the last one and I will be at work so it will be Ady taking him.

The stool looks good though. Davies had done some sawing the seat part off a larger piece of wood, smoothed down the edges with a knife and was using a sort of giant corkscrew to drill three holes through for the legs to go in. He needs to bring it back next time to finish. I personally feel he needs a bit more one to one tuition as he was looking very cack handed with the knife and tools again and I think that is where he needs some help as once he has got his head round the construction of wooden pieces and how to use tools properly I think he’ll be great at it as he certainly has the imagination and creativity to make some cool stuff.

We left and headed in the increasingly heavy rain over to Ford to the Flying Fortress Soft Play – over an hours drive with both children feeling hungry and me feeling in need of tea (should have brought a flask and sandwiches, oh how one lives and learns). The party was booked from 1-3pm and I assumed like all kids parties there would be a spread of junk food. I didn’t factor in the Julie element though!

The kids got lost straight into playing with mates although there was a potential disaster when Scarlett brought out the socks I’d managed to think about her needing to grab. They turned out to be lacey, white knee high socks which probably fitted her fine when she was about 3 which would have been the last time I bought her socks what with her not ever wearing them. So they took some shoehorning on. I suspect in the style of binding babies feet two hours in those mean she is now at least 2 shoe sizes smaller!

I sat and chatted to Caz, Katy (of quail owning fame) and Elaine, only realising too late that Julie was not with us and that maybe I should have been helping her with whatever she was doing. I did enjoy the chatting though, even though it was punctuated with both children appearing at least once each to whisper that they were hungry and a distinct lack of tea.

We were then called in to the party area where Julie had chopped up great platters of raw veg and fruit with hummus. I could hardly blame Davies for not eating much when I didn’t either ;). I did then help Julie with decorating the birthday cakes – Maisie had a sponge which I put white chocolate mice and raspberries while Julie did Jacks chocolate sponge with crumbled chocolate flake. We sang Happy birthday to them and they blew out the candles before all the kids escaped for another 10 minutes or so playing before we were called out. I am filled with admiration for Julie really as she managed to go down the soft play birthday party route but brought her own fruit, veg and organic squash food, took all her rubbish home with her to either recycle or compost at home, flatly refused the party bags for all the kids full of sweets and plastic tat despite them probably being included in the price and remained true to all her principles and ethics while still giving Jack and Maisie the birthday party they’d asked for. Davies commented on how you get more gifts if you have a party to which I commented you don’t in our house as a party is part of your gift from us so less presents from Mummy and Daddy in exchange for a party which probably nets less good gifts from other people ;). Scarlett wants ‘some sort of animal experience and a pen knife with more gadgets’ for her birthday so that will be tidily sorted without any additional stuff coming into the house :).
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We said goodbye to everyone and drove home. Both the kids were very hungry by now as was I and Davies had a bit of a whinge which earned him a lecture from me about how I had had even less food as I’d not eaten breakfast or had a slice of birthday cake, was about 3 cups of tea down and so far all I’d done was drive for 2 hours and sit in the car for 2 hours and sit in a soft play centre for 2 hours so really I thought he’d got the better deal. He agreed and at bedtime gave me an extra cuddle and thanked me for the day. I rarely pull the martyr card, mostly because I am not one so can’t justifyably do so but I really didn’t feel up to sympathising with a bit of hunger in the face of being chaffeured round to things he wanted to do today.

We called in on my Dad to collect the money for the van tomorrow and I stopped at a cash point to withdraw the funds already available. I have no real idea what daily limit I have on my bank card but it had occured to me I could well be scuppered in my intention to take out nearly £1000 through the hole in the wall tomorrow so we have 3/4 of the cash here now ready for me to draw out the rest tomorrow lunchtime before going to hand it over tomorrow evening.

Back at home I had several rounds of toast and jam and tea and got the kids tea on quick. We watched some Deadly 60 and I read them Dancing Bear and finally Ady came home in time to say goodnight before they went to bed. Ady is working lots of hours at the moment which is tough as it is usually the quieter time. I am trying – and quite possibly failing – to strike a balance between supportive and not letting them take the piss out of him particularly given he’ll be handing his notice in in a couple of months anyway.

I’m guessing it was a lack of caffeine and just too much time sat in the car or a horrid, oppressive soft play centre that made me just feel irritated by everyone and longing for bedtime tonight – I have a suspicion we’ve not had enough time outside this week, must remedy that for next week.

Ady went to Glee today, not the TV show, the gardening industry trade show at Birmingham NEC. He was there for work but did a spot of networking for potential jobs he could freelance at including some future QVC work. I like the idea of him having something lined up for while we’re away and for when we get back, not least because it will appease my Dad a bit and also be a comfort for Ady to think he has a bit of security.

I got up and dressed and found Dad and Scarlett sitting in the lounge chatting. Dad had arrived before the rest of us were up, tapped on Scarlett’s bedroom window to wake her and got her to let him in. I left them all breakfasted and went off to work for the morning.

Work was hectic as Wednesday mornings tend to be but with plenty of laughing with colleagues too.

Back at home Dad and the kids were out in the garden having found a hawk moth caterpillar and were trying to find some leaves to put in a box with it to watch it do it’s metamorphasis thing. We all had lunch and then Dad left. I looked over the stuff for Badgers today and Ady arrived home.

Scarlett and I walked across to the dentist. She has dodgey enamel on her back baby teeth and whilst it’s not decay she does have a small hole in each. Last time we went she had some fluoride enamel put on one, today she had the other done. The dentist is happy with the way her front teeth are coming through although she does have a bit of overcrowding which might need dealing with at some future point. I’d been feeling really guilty about the fact Scarlett had needed treatment but having talked to the dentist further today she explained it was not about diet or oral hygiene (although good practise will minimise problems obviously) but one of those unexplained, no one knows why things which made me feel better in terms of mother-guilt at least. Scarlett just enjoyed the banana flavoured enamel paste so she was happy :).

Back home again I made a couple of phonecalls to try and get rid of the roof tiles we have had since we built up into the loft. They have been moved around the garden several times and are now on the driveway where they really need to be moved from as we want to put the campervan there. I didn’t get any interest so they are now on freecycle where fingers crossed someone will want them.

Then off to Badgers. Scarlett was hard work so has been given a firm talking to. I’ve no idea where that environment brings out the clingy in her when she really isn’t a clingy child at all but I don’t have much patience for it at all. I had six in my group this evening and sent them off with one of the other parents who is helping this term to learn about handwashing – she is a nurse so perfectly placed to teach them the right way. I sat and chatted to them about food groups, special diets and then we did some looking at following recipes and gathering ingredients. I really struggle with how dumbed down everything is and have a plan to introduce more interesting stuff in stealth mode :).

At the end we played a running around game and Scarlett collided with someone bashing her mouth and taking a huge chunk out of her inside lower lip which bleed and made her cry 🙁 She soon recovered although I think she’ll have a bruise on the outside too.

Back home Ady had tea ready for the kids and I read to them while they ate. Catie had recommended a Morpurgo book to me as one her favourites so I’d ordered it from the library and we started reading that. Unfortunately we ended on Giant’s necklace which is a sad one. I’d realised before the end what the likely outcome was to be and was right and predictably it was not a great one to end on at bedtime so I read the first couple of chapters of an Andy Stanton read and hear pack (large print book and unabridged audiobook to listen along with) I’d brought home for Davies to cheer us all up again.

And that was Wednesday :).

but it’d only annoy Alison and like I said I can’t be arsed.

Today we had no alarm to wake us, instead I was semi roused and lay there, eyes still closed, sort of dozing and listened to the house waking up. Ady is Busy In The Mornings. Well frankly unless Ady is sleeping he is pretty much always busy really. And even when he’s sleeping he dreams of hoovering and polishing and things like getting rust spots off antique mirrors that have been obstinate for generations but have now been removed thanks to his industriousness. Or something. So I had an ear cocked to his bustling about before he went to work. Next to wake is Tarly. Sometimes she takes blankets into the lounge and watches nature programmes on telly from under a blanket, sometimes she comes and plays with the make up in my bathroom, sometimes she gets into bed with me and puts her cold feet right in the small of my back. Other times she goes and hangs out near Davies, who remains her most favourite person in the world even when asleep. That’s what she did this morning. I do recall Frazer coming to wake me up and sometimes getting into bed with me when we were little, much smaller than D&S are now and I also recall getting up to mischief in the mornings before our parents woke up and making them tea and coffee and taking it into their bedroom. Davies woke next and I could hear the low murmur of them chatting and playing before I decided the day had started and got up myself.

I put some bread dough on as we’d arranged to go to Tasha’s and as she’d made the soup I said I’d make and bring the rolls. In the end I put too much mix in and had to finish kneading and shaping it all by hand as the breadmaker protested. Davies and Scarlett had been directed to to room tidying by Ady so I spent the time catching up on the Wondering Wanderers blog and then baked the rolls, gathered together swimming stuff and knitting stuff and we headed out to Tasha’s.

The kids disappeared into Tasha’s house where they tell me they did DSing, putting on music shows for each other (I think one of the games they play with Toby is being in a band), running round with wands being Harry Potter characters and more, stopping to eat and then heading off to do more of the same. Tasha and I ate rolls and soup, chatted and did knotting yarn with needles type stuff.

Then on to swimming. Having not been since before I cracked my ankle I was rather out of condition – good exercise for my ankle infact although it is now protesting. I’d organised a half price admission for the duration of the Channel Swim I am doing. It’s 1073 lengths of the pool and I have until the week before we go to camp to get it done which will actually be quite a challenge and require at least one additional trip per week to the pool. We arrived about 15 minutes early but thanks to swimming a few lengths with each child and stopping to chat to another woman doing the same challenge (she had a swimming cap on with it on, I wasn’t wearing mine) plus it being tough not having swum for so long I just about managed the 50 lengths before the pool closed.

Back home I cooked the kids tea, Ady came home, the kids went to bed – I’ve been avoiding starting a new book as Ady had said he’d read with Davies but he’s not started yet so I will probably pick back up with a new story from tomorrow again, I do like reading to them at the end of the day for a nice reconnection half an hour of snuggling up together.

Whilst in the bath I pondered over which continents the north and south pole are in, vaguely knowing Antartica for the south pole, so when I got out of the bath I looked it up. I had not realised that only land is categorised as within continents. It is coming up with questions like that and not knowing the answer that makes me realise how stunting my education was – I went to decent state schools and achieved above average qualifcations by reliably learning all I was taught. I would consider myself fairly bright and certainly not a failure of the education system but whilst I recall asking fairly challenging questions of my parents in my early years I don’t remember even thinking about stuff to myself once I’d been in school awhile. I suspect having been told I was being delivered an education and that I needed to work I simply switched off that part of myself that asked questions and had a thirst for knowing the answers to things. I guess I had enough to keep me going keeping up with school and there was nothing left over for more. Jonathan’s post tonight about the tangents Home Ed days go off on captures perfectly for me that dealing with it as it crops up, realising you don’t know the answer and being bothered and motivated to go and find the answer, along with the next three answers to all the tumble-down questions that follow. Yes, google is an amazing thing and the internet makes it far easier to get this information within moments of the thought occurring to us but I know pre Home Educating my own children I would never even have wondered which continent a pole fell into, let alone been bothered to actually find out when I got out of the bath.

All of which might go some way to explaining how we got to talking about food groups, special diets and healthy eating last week at Badgers when we were supposed to be talking about kitchen safety and why I still haven’t even looked at what is on the programme for tomorrow yet and would rather wing it based on what the Badgers want to talk about under the vague banner of Hungry Badger tomorrow evening…

Six years ago (almost to the day) Davies, Scarlett and I met up with some previously ‘imaginary’ friends at the Diana Playground in London. In many ways it was the start of our Home Ed journey. It was the first time we met Jan & Jonathan, Alison, Layla, Jax, Sarah and Barbara – people who I now number among my best friends.

That was one of the first trips I took to London with the kids and an epic journey home. Today we were off to meet more friends at the same venue. Turned out six years on we still haven’t quite cracked doing it smoothly ;).

Everyone was up, fed and ready to leave by 845am, we drove to the library, parked the car and bought train tickets (having already had a mini drama when I realised my family and friends railcard was out of date and despite me being convinced I had renewed it I couldn’t find a current one so we had to leave without. So £5 more on rail tickets than planned – grr 🙁 . I’d left without a cup of tea as the Asda right next to the station had a vending machine last time we went to London so I could pop in and pick one up to bring on the train rather than bolting one made with cold water before we left. Turned out they don’t have the machine any more 🙁 So in serious need of tea we bought some pastries there and then I ducked into a little cafe and got a takeaway tea before we went to the platform. 909am saw us on seated on our train, complete with pastries all round and tea for me, my book for Book group tomorrow (large print copy, argh for being heavy carting round London but I needed to get it read) and the kids DSs. Davies struggled a bit to settle and spent some time trying to get Tarly and I to chat / play games but eventually we were all doing our thing.

We got to Victoria, crossed to the tube and jumped on the circle and district line getting off at Kensington High Street. Despite having been to the Diana playground three times before we’d not done train and tube from home before – the first time we black cabbed it, the second we went from Reading with Layla and Alison and the third we went with Em from within London. For some reason I had in my head it was left from the tube so we set off left. 20 minutes later I was forced to concede it might not be left after all. So we retraced our steps a little and asked someone who said it was right from the tube. So 15 minutes back to the tube, another 10 to Kensington Gardens and then a further 10 minutes through the park – London parks are HUGE. I had a child holding each hand, both Davies and Scarlett still default to holding my hand if we’re walking somewhere. I know it will end and I know we’re probably way past the age most kids hold a parents hand but they do most of the time. Which is lovely and special, but given both of them tend to prance rather than walk it gives me an odd gait when I have that going on at the end of both arms 😆 Add to that my very heavy bag slung over a shoulder containing food, drink, that large print book and my still slightly dodgey ankle. Within ten minutes my previously super comfortable shoes had given my a HUGE blister on the sole of my foot so I now had the appearance of a marionette operated by a three year old with both arms and legs marching along to different tunes pulled by children and hobbling with bad ankles and blisters and a bag throwing the whole balance out of kilter.

We paused a while to watch some people abseiling down a building in a crazy fashion and then continued on our epic journey to the park finally arriving nearly an hour after we left the tube 🙁

Fortunately the company of LovelyEm and later Ali made it all totally worth it 🙂 I barely saw Davies and Scarlett who had a whale of a time and just appeared every so often for food, drink or to be fawned over by me :).

LovelyEm and co left to get back for Cubs and we galvanised ourselves to be off not long after. Ali suggested the bus to Victoria which given the bus stop was a much closer option than the tube sounded like a good plan to us, our travelcards are valid on train, tube and bus anyway so we went for that. We got straight onto our train at Victoria which was already packed full and standing room only really. It was one that split further down the line with Ali and Freya needing the rear half and us the front half but we decided to stay on the rear half with them and just move forward when it split, theoretically so we could chat. Infact the packed train and demands of children meant that didn’t actually happen anyway with Ali and I managing just the smallest bit of verbal banter and resorting to texting each other. I did chat to a very nice Australian bloke who was standing next to me for a bit though and Scarlett rang Ady while Davies sent me texts saying ‘poop’. Oh it was a laugh! 😉

We moved forward, sat on the floor for a bit and finally walked down the train and found seats for the final bit of the journey. Scarlett had brought a little bird spotting book with her so sat charming the other passengers by finding all the birds she’d seen in London and knowing all their names – for a child who can’t read she is surprisingly adept at finding birds in a book 🙂

As we went past the library we called in to collect books for tomorrow’s book group only to find the big boss is off sick. They had been ringing me to find out whether I was happy to host it and having not actually finished the book yet I was quite happy to make the call to cancel it so brought home the list of contact numbers for everyone and rang round to say we wouldn’t be meeting tomorrow after all.

Back at home the kids had a bath and dinner and I retired to the bath with a glass of wine.

Ady came home, the kids went to bed and we had dinner and finally watched some of the Crazy Gap Year programme having been told about it by about 6 different people.