One word? When seven would do…

Ady has been numero uno parento today whilst I have done being Nicola and then swanning around 🙂

The children had Wildlife Explorers this morning – Scarlett first, which gives Davies and Ady an hour alone to look around the reserve, then Davies has 2 1/2 hours in his session which Ady and Scarlett spend going round the reserve and frequenting the coffee shop. Apparently they both watched a film about endangered species in their sessions and they all did some photography around the reserve which I have yet to see the results of.

I had a nice morning at work – no Nightmare Colleague, just an enjoyable morning with several of my favourite colleagues including the Saturday Assistants who I like a lot. I had an hour of sorting out the Reading Groups folder whilst jibber-jabbering with J, mostly about Derren Brown and hypnosis, then tea break, followed by an hour on the desk where I had hardly any enquiries and finally an hour of shelving.

I had an hour at home all to myself which I used to eat lunch, drink a cup of tea, check my emails and then did some baking as there was no defrosted bread for the kids’ lunch so I made some cheese scones and flapjacks to greet them and then some chocolate orange cupcakes to use up the eggs we had.

The others arrived home and we all watched some Doctor Who before it was time for me to head out again. The others spent the time I was away having baths and eating tea (children). I picked up Rose, my Not-Swinger friend and we went to see an afternoon screening of Fame. I really enjoyed it; it was fairly bleak in places, had no storyline at all and there was rather a lack of spilling out onto the street and dancing on top of taxis but there was plenty of singing and dancing and I thought it had more going for it than the second and third HSM films did.

Rose and I walked back to my car chatting and waited for her husband to pick up her, then I came home via Sainsburys. The others were watching Autumnwatch which I finished watching with them, then had a quick bath while they all watched The Cube. The kids and I watched X Factor together while Ady cooked dinner and very irresponsibly we let them stay up til about 1030pm before finally chasing them off to bed.

We had a low key morning at home this morning before heading out to Tasha’s just before 11 to surprise her by being on time for possibly the first time since we first met them!

Had a really lovely few hours at theirs with Davies and Toby spending the whole time upstairs playing, Scarlett flitting between playing with them for a while, then getting bored and wandering back down to us, playing with Vinnie for a while and then going back to the boys again. I knitted, Tasha and I chatted and I admired her lovely new kitchen :).

We stayed way longer than I’d planned and finally got home around 4pm in time to shove some pizza dough in. Davies and Scarlett have been watching one of the Star Wars films (Revenge of the Sith? means nothing to me) which I’d got from work and apparently ‘explains everything’ and came with a disc 2 with loads of extras on it so they’d been watching that and enthusing about it. Scarlett had a speedy pasta tea (she doesn’t like pizza) and then Ady arrived home in time for me to drop Scarlett off at Rainbows and whizz over to Asda to pick up this years Tickled Pink t shirt. Back in time to collect Scarlett again who was clutching a flyer for this Sundays church service along with an invite to the childrens breakfast club beforehand. She was very enthusiastic about this as were several other children I could hear telling their parents they ‘definitely wanted to go’. I asked Scarlett why and she said they’d been telling them all about food and they would be toast and everything. I explained that the ‘and everything’ would be about Jesus and she decided against it after all saying ‘Jesus and toast just don’t go together. I can have toast at home on it’s own’. It does annoy me rather. I know Guides is an organisation that pledges to ‘love my God’ and so on and I know it is held in a church hall and tbh I’d probably be okay about them teaching them the odd bit of religious stuff as that is something I can counter with ‘some people believe that and others believe this, you get to make up your own mind’. But bribing little kids to church with ‘fun’ and ‘toast’ just smacks a bit of ‘do you want to see some puppies?’ to me. Surely if God isn’t enough of a lure then baked goods probably won’t be either?

We read some which we’re enjoying, including Ady who was listening but then criticised me for not affecting an Irish accent. Might just do that tomorrow ;). Davies also learnt the hard way that cheat codes for X box games don’t necessarily make it more fun when he got me to find him some for a Star Wars game and then decided that without the challenge of needing to play well to win it lost all it’s fun. We googled extensively for removal of cheat code tips but could find none and he’s had to start the game again as a new player to get back to playing fair. I think the odd helping hand on these games is nice but clearly taking away all the variables means you’re just walking through the game with no need to actually play it.

Ady and I watched the first episode of Flash Forward rather dubiously. Not at all sure I have it in me to commit to 22 episodes of something but we might try the second episode.

That was me today :).

Wearing my £3 charity shop skirt and my £1.50 charity shop top along with some leggings. I had about 6 compliments on the skirt and how I looked today generally, which always makes me wonder if I look dreadful the rest of the time 😆

Work was mostly okay – I’ve been there nearly 3 years which is the longest I’ve ever stayed in any job so quite aside from Nightmare Colleague I do have short attention span itis setting in and same job fatigue. Not at all sure how to combat that really but I do feel the winds of change a’blowing round these parts one way or another…

But some nice stuff; I found a directive from above detailing how we all had to be friendly, polite, treat customers with respect, have trained personnel on hand to answer queries and various other things so we started the morning with very enthusiastic greeting of people as we opened and attempted to answer the first query of the day which was about why funeral directors are called directors. We had two of our resident ‘characters’ (read nutters) in today. The first is a bloke who tends to only really be a fan of dead celebrities. He’s very big on Michael Jackson for example and was in to ask if we knew about the new single he is releasing. This had suggestions of ‘something from beyond the grave?’ and ‘Thriller?’ from the floor along with some sniggering. He then went on to ask about contact details for the Patrick Swayze fan club :lol:. We’ve noticed since Kylie got the all clear he’s not so interested in her anymore…

The other nutter was after details of suppliers of gargoyles. He hates his neighbour with a passion and had seen some TV show about gargoyles and how they ‘really work’ with their curses, so he wants to get some for his garden to face to his neighbours house. I printed some internet stuff off for him while fighting the urge to suggest a complex arrangement of mirrors instead as a cheaper option.

Our final chance to shine with our customer service skills came when one of the borrowers who has a boyish crush on my colleague F came to say he wanted to complain about the noise – it was storytime so there was some ‘if you’re happy and you know it’ going on, the people on the computer next to him had a toddler who was rather out of control and we were all giggling at the counter about swingers. F suggested he went home for some peace and quiet! 😆

Later we were talking about a new BBC Headspace campaign called ‘what makes you smile?’ that we have a big poster, some smiley face balloons and a load of postit notes for to put up a display for people to add their own suggestions of what makes them smile. S said she’s going to write ‘Nic Goddard’ on one and put it up 🙂 Nice to be appreciated! I remember last time we had a postit note thing was about ‘something you learnt in the library today’ which was mostly filled with the staff writing things – about slowworms if I remember correctly…

Ady was home this morning and did some bedroom excavations in the kids rooms. Mum was here this afternoon and all seeemed calm and well. She stayed for a chat about various things and lurked while our food shopping was delivered. I put that away, Ady arrived home, the kids had some tea and as they were busy watching a Star Wars film I’d brought home and chose watching the end of that over some stories I made a lasagne for our dinner and went off for a bath.

Tonight I spent way longer than I’d have liked reconfiguring the router and wireless network at home. It’s been playing up and I’d been meaning to put a password back on it again for ages so I did it but it was headachey to sort out.

Feeling very blah about the world in general today although I rather suspect hormones are to blame for that and a sleep deprived rather busy week. Looking forward to a quieter day tomorrow. And tea, lots of tea.

Another day ‘in the smoke’ for the kids and I today. Last night it was Scarlett’s turn to kick Ady out of bed and sleep with me. She came crashing into our bedroom at about 1am shortly after I went to bed, claimed she had a ‘runny tummy’, used our en suite loo and then got into bed. Ady very quickly fell out as the little one said ‘roll over’ and went off downstairs to sleep in her bed. She’s a noisy bedfellow is Scarlett, full of sighs and groans and mumbles so I didn’t sleep well and had some very odd dreams none of which I can recall now.

Ady had rather lovely-ly gone off to Tesco before work and picked up some picnic bits for us. Unfortunately it was a rather random selection and whilst I appreciated the effort I was perhaps not as grateful as I could have been over the results. Felt further shamed by Michelle’s comment on yesterdays blog when I read it later on the train :oops:. So the morning was not peaceful or restful but was fairly similar to the mornings on the tv show ‘outnumbered’ with odd shriekings, crazyness fro children and everyone deciding they hated each other before 8am! 😆

Order restored the kids and I were out of the house at an unheard of ten past eight which gave us time to park at the library,walk to the station, buy our train tickets and have time to spare to nip into Asda to supplement our picnic and for me to make use of the rather bargaintastic ‘meal deal’ of a hot drink from the vending machine and a very fancy doughnut for £1.50 :). Kids chose a mini french stick each from the vast array of available morning goods and we went to wait for our train. Ady rang to say he’d had his early meeting and still had a job although about 8 of his colleagues don’t :(. I suspect Ady’s job is pretty much forever safe given our links with the owner of the business but that of course doesn’t mean for a pleasant working environment and may well cause issues with our level of flexibility for childcare. Much debate here and ongoing I suspect about what we all want out of life and what is important. Who knows what will become of it. I am feeling characteristically optimistic about things in terms of what will be will be and new challenges present new opportunities but I suspect I am far enough removed and insulated from Ady’s world to retain my rosy glow. I hope my positivity at least frees him from worrying a little whilst remaining supportive and understanding of the stresses. I don’t know,I think I have a bit of a ‘life’s too short…’ mentality at the moment and am inclined to suggest we all give up our jobs, find what we love and spend the rest of the time doing it!

Whilst wearing rainbow and stinking of tea tree oil of course 😉

So we got on the train, it was a really busy carriage and we sat with people the whole way including at one point a really offensive business-suited bloke who pressed his leg against mine really agrressively all the way (I was slightly over on his seat because the bloke on the other side was sitting with his legs open and taking up more than his seat). He huffed and puffed and tsked at the kids including rather hilariously brushing his leg off when Scarlett’s foot touched him, which I thought was very ironic given the level of physical contact he was imposing on me. I rewarded him with a tsk back and a very hard stare when he moved with great drama to another seat as soon as one was free. Need to remember to take DSs or other things for the kids to do next time as conversation alone isn’t sufficient and they either get louder than I think other passengers want them to be or bored and a bit whingey and want to both sit on my lap and slump against me. I get all nagging and end up probably being more annoying to fellow passengers by micro managing the kids than if I just let the kids be kids and be a bit giggly and silly.

In contrast London seemed really quiet today and the tube and streets generally seemed far less frantic than usual. We arrived at the RI and found Merry and girls in the loos. Merry offered to buy me a cup of tea which is an offer than doesn’t need to be made twice so we decamped to the cafe for 20 minutes or so and were joined by Alison and younger two (if you don’t count Dylan ;)).

This meant we were late in and we sat up the back on the opposite side to the usual Home Ed area while the others went right upstairs. We sat among a school group which was interesting and made me feel loads better about the kids train behaviour / my excessive going on at them ;). The lecture was fab:

Magnetism and electricity might not seem to be linked but they are, an important discovery made right here at the Royal Institution by Michael Faraday. This talk will include demonstrations on how magnets work and what they can do. From compasses telling you the way to get home to lightning and some pretty big sparks. By Ian Dunne who was just ace.

Really engaging, really targetted at the age group present, perfect mix of education and information combined with laughs, fun and slapstick. All 3 of us really enjoyed it :). In terms of engaging Davies and particularly Scarlett I’d say it was the best we’ve attended so far.

Davies loved that Dunne said he’d come to a lecture at the RI when he was a boy and been really inspired, that he felt proud to be at the same place as one of his heroes Farraday had been at and that had been what set him on the path to end up there himself. We found a statue of Farraday and Davies really liked the whole ‘dreams can come true’ and ‘one chance happening could set you on the path forever’ type stuff. 🙂 Scarlett just found all the information so very visible and easy to understand – a very accessible lecture. 🙂

We bid Alison and co farewell and then headed off to the park with Merry and girls. Merry and I managed a good hour of chatting which was lovely, don’t recall the last time we did that and the children mostly got on with it. I overheard Maddy announcing their family news to Davies and Scarlett in a very excited and happy voice which was lovely :). They headed off to see ‘the Queen’s house’ while we went off to the Natural History Museum to The Cocoon. We were over half an hour early so I asked if we could possibly change time slot and they put us at 210 instead of 230 which gave us about 10 minutes spare. After a quick ‘what shall we do then?’ poll we chose the dinosaurs and literally walked all the way round practically without a pause. Then on to The Cocoon.

So what did we think? Well given the amazing amount of free museum stuff in London I wouldn’t have wanted to pay but we did really enjoy it. I have booked to go again next time Ady is in London with us and will aim to visit the full works that time as we only went round the Cocoon and none of the additional bits such as the Attenborough studio or climate change wall. We all learnt loads, loved the natureplus cards and enjoyed the many interactive displays. It reminded me in many ways of the Millennium Dome. It was very quiet and that was nice as we could go round in a leisurely fashion and I read out most of the signs to the kids and we talked about stuff as went which worked well.

Well worth a visit, it did teach us all loads about specimens, how they are used and why, the importance of continued research and field trips, the sharing of resources worldwide and other such stuff. We recommend :).

The children wanted to know things about what the big dinosaur skeletons are made of and the history of the building – how long it took to build etc. so more to revisit there with them when I know the answers myself! 😉

We had time, just, for a really quick look at the stuffed mammals and finally a quick peek at the blue whale before needing to head off if we were to be home in time for Badgers. I thought we’d miss the train we caught last week but it turned out to be about 10 minutes later than I’d thought so not only did we catch it we were also on it in time to get seats and a table which was fab :).

On the way home we talked about stuff we’d found out today, my evening course, magpies which included me finding them the Richard Herring piece on the one for sorrow, two for joy song and reading them it from my phone. Davies thought it was really funny 😆 and some communal storytelling with one sentence each getting more and more surreal.

We got home shortly after Ady who had got them some dinner cooked so they had time for eating and getting changed before we dashed out to Badgers. I was all set for dropping and running as we were slightly late but I got summoned in and Julie the leader asked if I could possibly stay as they only had two adults and 18 children! Ady and I drank tea and coffee and sat chatting with each other and then Julie for the session including getting some lovely feedback from Julie about Davies and generally chatting. I was pleased as she’d pissed me off last week but she repaired that this week and made me think perhaps she was being friendly and joking rather than having the dig I’d assumed she was making at me and the kids.

Home via Morrisons and after late nights, early mornings and a long day the kids went straight off to bed, we had steak and chips and watched an interesting programme about twins.

I am so ready for my bed. And so not ready to go to work tomorrow!

Need to blog or I’ll get all behind (and I’d rather be all in front ;)) but I really have to get to bed because I need to be up at ridiculous o’clock in the morning.

Arranged to meet Caz, Bid and co at the park this morning but thanks to an awful nights’ sleep (Davies got into bed with Ady when he went to bed at 11ish and stayed there watching telly with him and then stayed in our bed all night) I struggled to wake up this morning. I then discovered Ady had left the washing up from last night so had to deal with that, plus chickens, plus getting a beef stew in the slow cooker for dinner later involving mucho peeling and chopping which meant that to be at the park on time I had to pour my first cup of tea of the day into a travel mug and bring it with me!

Fortunately there is no more relaxing company than Caz and Bid so while the kids went off exploring and adventuring with Archie and Elliot the three of us sat and chatted and made friendship bracelets. Oh how very lovely and peaceful it was :). The sun shone, we talked about all sorts of stuff and itwas just lovely. We did have far too many dogs coming and sniffing around our table for my personal comfort levels and I was aware we looked, to the casual observer, like nutters all sat with our flasks braiding threads in the park with no visible children 😆 There were two different sets of carers with special needs children who came and used the park at different times which was interesting to observe.

I’d assumed we’d be there til lunchtime and then come home but infact we ended up there til nearly 3pm and the kids very gratefully shared some sandwiches Caz and Bid had brought along and some biscuits.

We got home and they had a speedy sandwich, I had some crumpets and then we were off out again to swimming lessons. I managed 40 lengths. Now I didn’t learn to swim early, I must have been at least 8 or 9 and I never really liked it and haven’t done it regularly at all. I am morbidly obese, drink far too much and rarely exercise without feeling I am going to die but swimming does seem to be something I am managing. It’s a shame that doing it more often is outside of my reach both time and money-wise as I feel I could manage an hour a day fairly easily and I can actually feel both the toning effects (particularly in my upper arms when I do back stroke), the aerobic exercise of it (not at all sure if swimming is supposed to provide aerobic exercise but I know by my breathlessness and colour of my face I am certainly getting it) and the general fitness improvement. I still hate getting my face wet, loathe the smell of the place, the skankiness of the changing rooms, the being practically naked in public and would never do recreational swimming but it does seem to be something I am getting better at just on a once a week basis. I know I am pushing myself a bit more each time and this week for the first time I got a stitch. I slowed up a little but carried on swimming and 40 lengths was well within my comfort zone. I do think 50 in the hour by Christmas is achieveable :). So that could probably all be summarised with ‘Nic is proud of herself and her swimming’ I guess :).

Davies practised his jumping in while Scarlett had her lesson. I think he is ready for some diving instruction really which is something I know *nothing* about but I don’t think that’s available til he’s moved up the swimming classes a bit. Scarlett spent the time while Davies had his lesson on the slide and then playing a 1, 2 3 JUMP IN! game with another little girl she befriended there. At one point she ran slightly and slipped over the edge and fell in where I was doing lane swimming which caused a gasp from all around her. She bobbed back up laughing and said ‘did you see Mummy I fell in!’ which sort of captures the spirit of the water confidence they both have which I still lack now.

The diving boards had been shut while Davies was in the water but reopened so he begged for a couple of goes on them and went straight to the top board for 3 jumps off. Scarlett, not to be outdone had 3 jumps off the lower board (for the first time!) and did go to the top one for a look off the top before deciding it was just too high and coming back down again.

We had a race to get dried and dressed including singing the music from some car racing show to each other and giving progress updates from our seperate changing rooms which had me yelling ‘but I’ve got a bra, that’s a handicap!’ and then realising that might not be considered appropriate by everyone! 😆 Davies won, I was hampered by Scarlett having my shoes in her changing room and not giving them to me but I then got disqualified anyway by my own rule about ensuring your hair was dry enough not to make wet patches on your t shirt! 😆

Home for beef stew for the kids while I dried my hair and put some makeup on. Scarlett loved it so much she had thirds! Ady arrived home with news that 3 people had been made redundant today including his direct boss. Two more are due to go tomorrow apparently although he thinks he is safe for now. I am rather ambivalent about the whole thing, feeling privately that losing a job would push him into the position of actually thinking about what would make him happy rather than what he feels he should do. But maybe I’ve been spending too much time inthe sunshine with Caz and Bid, off next week to NZ to start a new life living in a converted bus and building their own sustainable roundhouse! 😆

I dashed back out again and really struggled to find somewhere to park (which won’t be an issue next week as the venue does have a carpark, it’s just that it was full tonight as they had an AGM there) at the venue of a 9 week evening course I’ve started. It’s to become a qualified Waste Prevention Adviser and is all to do with reduce, reuse, recycle, compost etc. Over the 30hour course we’ll learn all about how waste is managed locally and nationally, recycling and how it all works, local initiatives in home composting, real nappies, green cones, recycling and more. We’ll get to visit both a landfill site and a recycling plant (and I’ve asked if D and S can come along and it looks possible for those visits :)) before undergoing some tests and an assignment and an interview to become a volunteer for West Sussex County Council (who already employ me at the library) and Better Tomorrows. At that point I can attend various events including roadshows, fayres and fetes, shows, community group talks and more. I can suggest my own projects and initiatives to spread the word, and two of the previous attendees of the course have gone on to be employed in their capacity. Personally I think it will be interesting, informative and educational.I’ll learn new stuff and meet new people, the kids, particularly Davies are really interested in the subject so I can bring it all home and share it with them, it may open up opportunities in the future, it’s taking responsiblity for some of the environmental issues around us and if nothing else will look good on my CV.

A very interesting mix of people there, about which I am sure I will write more another time. It was a good first session; I learnt new things and it looks like the course content is going to be really interesting.

I got home slightly earlier (by about 15 minutes) than I’d expected to find Davies and Scarlett up and eating toast and Ady in the bath. I was fairly pissed off about this as it meant that despite me cooking dinner and having it ready at 5pm for the kids to eat we still didn’t end up eating til nearly 11pm as Ady hadn’t done the dumplings, I’d asked for the kids to be in bed if not asleep as we’re up early for a long day in London tomorrow and they have gotten into a bad habit of deciding they are hungry at bedtime for which I don’t believe toast is the answer. I don’t think I could have done much more to have everything prepared and ready but I made my point and I suspect it won’t be the same story next week…

Davies enjoyed Sea Scout Cubs again although he said there was a lot of the session dedicated to camp this weekend. I said he would have been able to go but would have missed Wildlife Explorers and Archie’s swimming party and he agreed he’d rather do those things so cheered up a bit. He’s gone camp crazy! 😆

My wireless connection is going all mad so hopefully it will stay connected long enough to post this and I really *must* go to bed!

I decided fairly late last night that we should go to the PYO today. I’ve always thought it closed at the end of October so thought we’d get some apples, maybe some sweetcorn, perhaps some raspberries and any other late crops.I stuck a message out on the local facebook list too to see if anyone fancied coming along aswell.

I did some laundry processing and a few online bits and Scarlett and I watched one of the episodes from this dvd I borrowed from work

The kids are in the middle of one of their long running games which seems to be a hybrid of Indiana Jones, Star Wars and various wildlife adventures including toy action figures, lego people and part of Scarlett’s vast collection of cuddly toys and small plastic animals. There would seem to the casual observer and listened to be no plot line and simply a series of instructions from one child to the other to ‘pretend I just did this’ or ‘make them do that’ along with a load of sound effects but they assure me there is more to it and it is riveting them at least. It’s like that bit in Toy Story where Andy’s Mom says ‘we’re leaving in five minutes’ and Andy says ‘five minutes eh?…’ and picks up his toys to start playing with 😆

So we drove to PYO, about 20 minutes later than I’d planned only to find it closed 🙁 Turns out it shut yesterday for the winter. Ah well. We got some petrol and some cash out to pay for gymnastics, stopped at the old fashioned sweet shop (should that be ye olde sweet shoppe?) on the way home for quarters of fizz bombs and sherbert pips and came home for lunch. The irony of going out to pick fresh fruit and vegetables and ending up with bags of sweets was not lost on any of us but we quite enjoyed the ‘up yours then’ ness of it. We had good intentions after all! 😉

Back home we watched an episode of and discussed how fab David Attenboroughs voice is. I would love for him and Stephen Fry to read me bedtime stories every night :). I sent out an email about Longleat, emailed Groombridge Park and Wildwood Trust about potential group visits for next year, did some syncing of my phone and calendar, booked an online food shop for later in the week and ploughed through a pile of paperwork. The kids mostly carried on with their game including building a landscape on the table with dvd cases, glasses of water and a pool on the floor made from an upside down desk pad. After the polar bear / melting ice bit on the dvd Scarlett got out her polar explorers helicopter and jeep and penguins and polar bears joined the game too 😆

Then it was off to gymnastics. I paid the fees and covered Scarlett’s ring up with some surgical tape – Davies has been told next week he needs to cover up or remove his wrist bands (he’s going for covering up, obviously). I left them to it and came home, arriving just before Ady who had been racing to see if he can get home in an hour (he can, but he did kill a pheasant which I hope he won’t be making a habit of). We nipped up to where Sea Scouts is so he knows where to deliver and collect Davies from tomorrow evening and then I went off to pick them up from gymnastics. They were happy and enthusiastic again although they came home with letters asking them to help recruit their friends to join. Scarlett is indeed in the 8+ group which she is probably able for in terms of being as agile as Davies at 9 but it’s odd to see both their names in an 8+ group.

Late dinner for them, then some story – a rather beautifully retold and illustrated version of Aladdin which we read about half of. Baths and dinner for us and some shennanigans with secret santa, a phone call with Babs and a spot of knitting later (still adding to that blanket) it’s bedtime for me. Tomorrow is a totally manic day!

It was an early celebration of Apple Day at Stanmer Park today (Apple Day is usually celebrated around 21st October and there are loads more events around the country and locally throughout October so we may yet get to something else too). This was in association with the Brighton Permaculture Association. Stanmer Park seems to be a good luck venue for events as everything we’ve ever been to there has been good – several Springwatch events, the annual Kite Festival and of course Davies and Scarlett had Forest School there too.

It was a free event which always puts me in a better mood for actually spending money while there but we had a very cheap day really. We started with a walk round the first field stalls which included some food and drink (locally hunted wild boar and other game, cider and apple juice from local apples), the Sussex Wildlife Trust, the RSPB and some apple-specific stalls including one running a quiz. We took a sheet and with some guess work and the help of google on our phones we all learnt stuff we didn’t know about apples. Then Davies and Scarlett both had a go at the peeler / corer /slicer machine on some local apples. There was one of these featured on The Big Food Fight (you remember, that quiz show we went all the way up to London to see being filmed and didn’t get to see being filmed!). One of those things you think is really cool but would never actually use in your own kitchen at home.

We shared a glass of very nice ginger cordial topped up with lemonade to make a ginger spritzer. Scarlett discovered it was particularly delicious with the slice apple dipped in it.

Next we went to the childrens’ activities which included apple bobbing, biting apples dangling on strings, making monsters from apples
which they left to enter into a competition and watching apples being pressed. I noticed two names I recognised among the apple monster entries so kept an eye out and sure enough we bumped into C, E, M and baby D which was nice :). Due to incompatible ages of children we never seem to see much of them which is a shame as I like C. They were supposed to come to Butser but had car trouble but are hoping to make Longleat which will be good :).

The apple pressing was interesting, not least because it was being mostly demonstrated by the two boys of the family who were engaging both children and adults to join in with chucking apples into the presser, pumping the juice with a hand pump and then directing them over to their parents to buy the juice you’d just helped make for a pound a glass. But they were also doing a mighty fine job of explaining all the processes too 🙂

all that brown mush in the bottom of that picture is the skin which makes great mulch or compost and is also used for horse feed apparently. Loved the fact that it was the windfall, rather rotten looking apples being used for this and the juice was delicious :).

We decided we were hungry so went back into the main field to have some lunch. We’d brought some food with us including a tin of readymixed pimms for me which went down very well :). While we were sitting a stallholder came over to say he was doing children’s recycled materials workshops so when we’d finished eating we wandered over there. He was making wallets out of old juice tetrapaks which is something we have tried,unsuccessfully to do at home so it looked pretty interesting. Sadly it was only after he’d hooked us in and had the children selecting tetrapaks to use he mentioned there was a £2 each charge for materials. I was a bit pissed off about that as he should have said so before, all of the other activities were free, there was no sign up to say it and I felt he had been quite aggressive in his sales pitch given he’d come over to us too. Finally, given the ‘materials’ were what most people would consider rubbish and probably didn’t cost £2 each even when filled with the juice it was a bit of a rip off. It seemed churlish to make a point for £4 though and the kids wanted to do it so I paid him and then he basically made the wallets himself getting the kids to do really menial bits like ‘just snip this bit here with the scissors’. Ah well, we’ve wasted worse £4s and then Ady found a tenner on the floor so we all felt a bit better about it! 😆

We walked over to look at the sheep next – a small pen with a couple of sheep in and some information about grazing sheep in the area. I picked up a leaflet about being a volunteer lookerer which looks really interesting so have applied for the course 🙂 How cool would that be on my CV – part time library assistant, part time shepherd! 😆 and coming hot on the heels of being really impressed with this which I saw on TV yesterday!

We then joined one of the hourly orchard guided tours which lasted pretty much a whole hour. There are two orchards there, one is between 70 and 90 years old, the other is about 50 years old. One is in almost constant shade, the other in sunlight so they have differing yields. There are some very rare and Sussex specific apple varieties there and they do loads of work and run courses on looking after them. I learnt apple trees can live for 100 years and with careful pruning can fruit throughout, the ratio of cookers to eaters there is 50:50 in terms of trees but the cookers are bigger trees and tend to harvest more so there are more cookers than eaters harvested. This is not in line with current demand which is more for eating apples, rather than a higher demand for cooking apples of 50 years ago. We learnt about ideal pruning for apple trees, what flora and fauna surround them and traditional orchard floors and various other apple facts and trivia. Davies, particularly was really interested too.

We stayed in the orchard for a spot of tree climbing and some swinging

before declaring it ice cream o’clock and heading to the tearooms for icecreams. We had a quick look at the donkey wheel which was used to pull water up from the well that served the village. There is a small rural museum there which looks really interesting but we ran out of time to look at properly today, must remember to visit again soon though.

We headed back to the main field and with only half an hour before the quiz competition prize draw we decided to sit and wait to see if we’d won anything. The kids went off to run around and I enjoyed a very nice pint of cloudy cider 🙂

We didn’t win but the kids had another go on the peeler apple machine each and Scarlett bought another ginger spritzer to dip hers in before we headed back to the car.

Back home the kids had a bath and then played DS – they have a new game called Ant Colony or something which they are both loving. Apparently the connecting features are rubbish so they are playing seperately but sitting side by side and working together to remain at the same level :). Ady cooked a lovely roast chicken and I played with my phone which the tariff for internet use is now live for so I can use all the features properly. I looked at some of the downloadable software.

We ate dinner, all watched the X Factor and the kids went to bed. It’s been a lovely weekend :). We debated chucking the little tent in the car and heading for Dorset yesterday lunchtime for a spot of micro camping and it would have been lovely but I think we made the most of staying here instead 🙂

I had a nice morning at work. Thanks to some rota / timetable mix up with me doing odd Saturdays I wasn’t expected in on the timesheet, but A, one of the young librarians who was senior today asked me to stay anyway as she wanted to talk to me about various things.

So I spent an hour putting up an Andy Stanton display with a load of Mr Gum books, some time manning the desk, some time chatting to the Saturday assistants about exams and future dreams and body piercings and some time chatting to A about a Halloween event we’re planning with dressing up and crafts and stuff and an event or workshop we want to run for the My Story BBC thing. A and I have very similar ideas about the library service and have previously been thwarted in attempts to run events before by the senior librarian who is taking voluntary redundancy next month. We’ve planned an event for her last day and were sniggering evily at the idea of it!

I got details through of the evening course I’ve signed up to do. It’s 9 weeks, 3 hours a week on already madder than mad Tuesdays but it’s a really interesting course, run by Brighton uni which will teach me new stuff, introduce me to new and hopefully interesting people, give me another thing to add to the CV, open up opportunities for voluntary and maybe eventually paid work, help me learn more about and be active in environmental issues I am interested in, allow me to share that knowledge with Davies and Scarlett and hopefully open other doors too. More on that after I’ve started the course :).

We had a very productive couple of hours at the allotment. We did some good weed clearing, checked on the parsnips (looking good), carrots (looking good) and leeks (not so good), found some onions that seem to be doing okay for next year and planted some garlic. It all looks tidy and promising and it’s been a very good first year on the plot.

A lovely long catch up phonecall with Julie. We had birthdays of children to shriek at each other about ‘You’ve got a NINE year old’ ‘yeah and you’ve got TWO SEVEN year olds!’ and some general catching up. Arranged to see her a couple of time in the next few weeks.

Have clearly made it in the local HE hierarchy as have been invited to a very select Home Ed adults only support group that I knew existed but have never been asked to participate in before ;).

Had a phonecall I returned and chatted to Not Swinger Rose inviting me to go and see Fame with her and also asking Ady and I to their house for a pre-Christmas dinner with her sister and BIL. Maybe this is the height of kinkiness they were waiting for before making their move? 😉

Having a lovely facebook chat with my mate Jim who aside from telling me all that’s happening with him and doing the same back has just said the following very lovely thing 🙂 “I am impressed by your committment to your childrens upbringing, by the way. Feel slightly ashamed for not making more effort. I hardly know my boys sometimes and I HATE the fact I’ve spent all my time in shitty jobs failing to see them grow up.” Clearly I bigged him up back but it feels very lovely to have such nice feedback from basically doing something I love doing anyway and spending time with who I consider to be the most awesome people and best company of anyone I know!

I don’t have to get up for work in the morning!

The sun just keeps on shining 🙂

And we have another day of the weekend left and a planned nice day tomorrow.

I cooked a very delicious dinner tonight of sausages, bacon, potatoes, sweet potatoes, red onions (our own from the allotment), garlic, carrots, parsnips, slosh of red wine, oil, salt, pepper and rosemary all baked in the oven. Vegetable-y, partially home-grown and good to eat!

And that is why I’m smiliing, nothing to do with all that wine 😉

I had a really bad nights sleep, which was unfortunate as I didn’t go to bed til after 1am, didn’t get to sleep til way after 2am and was awake again at 730am as I had work. 🙁

I headed off to work where I’ve not been for over a week thanks to rota deviations and had previously only been back for one day after my holiday so was feeling a bit disconnected and forgotten I even had a job at all about. I realised I’d left my phone at home so rang to ask Ady to drop it off on his way into work (he was home with D and S for the morning).

It was Rhyme Time and from having sometimes as few as 4 parent and baby couples through the summer we were back with a vengence today with over 20 mothers and 20 babies, so over 40 people crammed in to sing. I had two odd moments while sitting cross legged with a box full of kiddie instruments. The first was someone coming in and asking ‘it is baby rhymetime today isn’t it?’ to which I couldn’t help but reply ‘yes, I’d not really be sitting her like this otherwise!’ but offset with my special tinkling laugh (you may not be familiar with that one, but I do have it in my repertoire along with my more usual downtime throaty, raucous laugh) so as not to cause offence. And then the woman next to me who I had upset the child of by saying ‘Hello, would you like a shaker?’ to asked ‘are you Adrian’s wife?’. I’m sort of not really inasmuch as he is only Adrian when on TV in the same way as I am only Nicola when at the library (or when Ady forgets :rolls:) and I like to consider myself rather more than his wife but I agreed that was one of my many guises and she said ‘oh I used to work with him, we met once in Sainsburys’. Oh how I love to leave a lasting impression ;).

So we sang, and shook our instruments, and it was loud and chaotic and I threw in ‘had an elephant’ to Old McDonald’s farm just because I get a bit power crazed with such a large audience and it’s all I can manage to not split the room into thirds and have them all singing Row, Row, Row your boat in a round.

In the middle of it all I glimpsed Ady communicating that he had left my phone with someone at the counter and then running off again. Apparently he said to her ‘I’ll leave this with you otherwise she’ll drag me in there to sing!’ which was true, I would have said ‘Oh look boys and girls, it’s Humpty Dumpty, does anyone know a song about him?’ and made him come in and pretend to fall off the wall 😆

The rest of the day was fairly tame after that. Our big boss manager is leaving in 2 months so some of us have a plan to liven up the library after she’s gone as she tends to veto all our more innovative and exciting ideas for things. We were talking about ‘getting down with the kids’ and having flash mob style events communicated by text, playing with text in books and texts on mobiles, lib as in library and lib as in liberation and other such radical stuff – get us eh?!

Back at home Mum had been here and it seemed to have gone smoothly. She stayed for a cup of tea and a chat and then stayed with Davies while I took Tarly round to Rainbows. Davies and I sat and sorted out Secret Santa for NicCamp which was partially luck of the draw, partially managed with children in mind and who they would enjoy and be inspired by making gifts for and probably very good to have Davies who is an ace negotiator and diplomat helping me with. Ady arrived home just as I nipped back to collect Scarlett.

Scarlett and I had a funny conversation about what she should take to Rainbows for show and tell. She was inclined to bring a plastic lion she’d bought for 20p at a car boot sale last weekend while I was reminding her of her week including playing in the sea on Monday morning, starting gymnastics, swimming, visiting London for a lecture at the Royal Institution, catching at pigeon in Green Park while picnicking with a large group of friends, visiting the W&G exhibition at Science museum, playing outside til after dark with friends yesterday – all while everyone else was AT SCHOOL. She compromised and took the lion and some photos of the W&G thing but I bet she didn’t show them ;). My Mum was listening and said to her ‘do you know what Tarly, you have a more interesting and exciting life than I do’ which is both true and rather nice to hear her acknowledge to my six year old :).

Back home the kids got into pjs and we read a huge pile of books I’d ordered in while on a Michael Morpurgo kick last week including:

and also and

Scarlett informed me that she is ‘going to give up wine until Christmas because I am only six you know’ – I hasten to add she probably has a sip once or twice a week – which made me laugh.

I very excitedly watched my mate Dayve on the plinth which was very cool. I am on the reserve list so highly unlikely to get a place bearing in mind its impending end but I did at least get a name check from someone on it 🙂

And now, as I have to go and be Nicola again in the morning I should probably go and get some sleep.

which is as close to a title as I can think of.

We spent the morning at home. I did some laundry and various online stuff. Davies and Scarlett played with the animation station having been inspired anew by the W&G thing yesterday. Ady picked up an adaptor for it today too so I forsee it getting even more use now it’s not eating batteries. We need to install the software onto a computer too so they can explore that further and see what editing options are available. I really recommend the animation station though (not at £50 obviously),it’s giving them really good results very easily.

They then went off and connected on DSs for a bit.

At midday we headed off to friends via the post office to collect a parcel that had been undelivered yesterday. It’s a pair of green DMs the same as mine for Davies. I bid and ended up winning two pairs on ebay so we’re all DM’d up round here. He’s really pleased with them :).

We also called into Asda for some bits for dinner tonight and some fruit to take to E’s house as we’d been invited round for 1pm which is an odd time as I never know if that means ‘come for lunch’ or ‘come after lunch’. If we turn up hungry and find they’ve already eaten it’s akward and if we eat before we go and arrive to find a slap up lunch we have no room for then it’s rude. We went for eating a small snack in the car and taking loads of fruit to share therefore expecting nothing but having room for it if it came. And then, because I’m a bit rubbish at not telling everyone everything I explained this to E within moments of arriving which made her laugh and say ‘well we’d feed you regardless’ before offering various snacks, cooking muffins and making tea for all the kids later and offering me dinner too.

So we were there at 130ish having treked round Asda. We talked more about supermarkets and whether Asda was any better ethically than Tesco and what the better option for shopping would be. I gave D and S a huge lecture in the car afterwards as very unusually for them they had asked for about 8 different things as we walked round from toys to comics to sweets. Not at all sure where that came from and put them very straight and had contrite apologies from both. Coupled that with a rant at them about being annoying on the train home yesterday and all felt better.

The kids played pretty much solidly from when we arrived to when we finally left at 730pm (meant to leave at about 5pm but stayed for tea, meant to leave again by 630pm but got chatting further) including with the lads from next door but one when they came home from school until they had to go in to bed because it was getting dark and they had school tomorrow :(. Scarlett managed to crack T who is a bit of a handful and they ended up playing really well together and enjoying each others company. Davies and M always get on well except when M tries to be controlling and make Davies do things by making up conditions and house rules, which always has Davies saying ‘Oh okay, we’ll go home then’ or ‘well I’ll just sit and wait until that game is finished’ rather than bowing to the rules or overreacting.

E and I chatted non-stop including stories of how we met our husbands, early careers, how we never dreamt we’d be Home Educating stay at home mothers and loads more. I really enjoy her company and we all feel really at home there. She also offered today to be another back up childcare option which is great. We’ve been invited to a Halloween party which means Ady gets to meet them all too and thanks to all four children not wanting to be parted when we left Davies and Scarlett have an open invite for a sleepover too. 🙂

Finally got home at 8ish and thanks to the kids being filthy from playing in the garden they had the bath Ady had run for me. They both crept back downstairs while I was cooking dinner and ‘helped’ with some stirring and chopping before being chased away again. We’ve watched Marley and Me which had me feeling sentimental about Candle as obviously I failed to relate to a dog! 😆

Off to The Smoke today. I’ve decided to make the most of any RIt trips to London with something else planned during that day, so today was RI in the morning for The Bigger Bang.
(Dr Hal brings his giant chemistry set to the Royal Institution in this explosive, colourful and fun Science Show demonstrating the power of chemistry. From exploding ostrich eggs to hot ice, the show involves a high level of audience participation and interaction and offers a unique blend of high-end, spectacular exhibition science and entertainment, underpinned with long-halflife, takeaway science knowledge and educational discourse (with a small element of Laurel-and Hardy-esque buffoonery).)
NB I’ve decided to nick this idea from Michelle as by the time I re-read these things links no longer are operational to stuff that is outdated.
The kids and I saw a very similar version of the show last December at Brighton Dome – Dr Hal works for Brighton uni and does an annual show at the Dome. I’d clearly remembered Davies and Scarlett’s opinion of it rather than my own though as when I re-read that blog post I was rather scathing about it 😆

Ady had taken a day off to come along, which was great. I often feel he really misses out on the great HE stuff we get up to during the week so it was nice for him to participate (and actually he was one of 4 blokes among our group today :)) It was also nice to have him to carry the rucksack ;).

The train and tube is really straightforward with no changes on the train and just one stop on the tube. Ady is not at all used to travelling with the kids or being on the tube so needed more herding than Davies and Scarlett did 😆 We paused at the Lush shop at Victoria with a promise to return if we had time later. The kids were given the undivided attention of two members of staff showing them demonstrations of products and chatting to them.

We got to the RI with half an hour to spare so went to the basement and met up with Chris and Helen along with Portico and Manor Born children at the periodic table challenge. Lije led the children in it whilst singing along very impressively. He tells me he doesn’t know all the words but he was doing a fairly strong attempt ;).

We went up and I later realised pushed infront of a whole load of people who had been told to wait in the downstairs lobby after they all followed us up and a couple moaned rather loudly 😳 Not as impressive pushing in as Michelle and Marcus managed though 😆 I stood chatting to Maddie and Like for a while which was lovely, I do like having known these kids since they were shy and didn’t really talk to me at 3 to now seeing me as someone to chat to about all sorts :). I also always notice the way HE kids have the skill of conversation too rather than simply giving monosyballic answers to questions posed by adults or viewing you as an audience to show off to.

So, into the show. I thought it was pretty good – lots of impressive chemi-luminous displays, plenty of very loud bangs and explosions. I will forever remember Charles’ Law 😳 and whilst there wasn’t much in the way of teaching about science Davies and Scarlett came away with a smidgen more chemistry knowledge than they went in with and were entertained and amused – that’ll do me ;).

Off to Green Park for a picnic including some Happy Birthday singing and cake for Lulah. Have missed sitting chatting with this group of friends so it was really nice.

The kids ran around together and Scarlett managed to catch a pigeon. Not sure if this is down to her superb bird-whispering skills or it being a particularly sickly and ill specimen but she brought it over to show us all which freaked out many more people than it charmed 😉 😆

We bid goodbye to everyone returning to the RI, hanging about or otherwise and headed off with Marcus, Michelle and Chloe to the Science Museum for the Wallace and Gromit exhibition.

This has been something we’ve been planning to see since it was first announced and had left it til really late (it closes on November 1st) to sort out. We’d been to a Science Museum once before – Disney Pixar 3 years ago and been quite disappointed with that for the price – I think if I’d paid full price for this I would have felt a bit swindelled however we do have two SuperFans (Davies and Ady) in the house and for them it was an excellent exhibition. We did spend a full hour in there and possibly if it hadn’t been so very warm we may have spent longer. It was very much a big advertisement for inventions and patents but the amount of W&G stuff dotted around and the high proportion of interactive stuff made it worth it. We made W&G style wallpaper, looked at various scenes and props, spent a while playing with plasticine and explored all the buttons to press, levers to pull and wheels to turn. I spent quite a while chatting to one of the lads who worked there and he was quite interesting (and complimentary about my plasticine dragon in the style of an Aardman character 🙂 ). We sort of couldn’t not take Davies there really and he loved it so it was well worth the cost (which was only about £18 I think although it does put my moaned about £30 for the woodfare into perspective).







We decided to head off just after 3pm as it meant we’d arrive back in time for Badgers. We got back to Victoria with time to go back to the Lush shop where I bought the kids one small thing each and then on a very packed train home. The journey home was fairly dire -no seats, tired and slightly trying children and Ady got pissed off so grabbed a seat and spent most of the time playing with his phone but then had the cheek when we got off the train to tell me I’d spent most of the time nagging the kids in a really loud voice (I hadn’t!) so he used up his usefulness before the day was out! 😆

We’d taken the Badger uniforms in my car (which we’d left in the library carpark) but did have time to nip home for hand and face washing, getting changed and swapping cars before heading to Badgers. The kids decorated baseball caps and Ady and I went for a walk. I was a bit pissed off with Badgers tonight firstly when I told Davies and Scarlett to stop doing something and they replied that they always do it, I said ‘but I bet you get told not to every week’ to which the leader replied ‘ yes but they don’t listen! They’re your kids!’ and then when we collected them and they said ‘the children have been sworn to secrecy about what we’ve been doing tonight’ and Scarlett looked horrified and worried until I whispered to her that she didn’t have to keep the secret and could tell me if she wanted. I’m not at all keen on the idea of ‘promise not to tell your mums and dads’ even if it is harmless… oh and they do listen, it’s just that they often choose to ignore if there is not a sound reason given ;).

Back home for a very late tea for the kids, a shower each while it was cooking to wash the London grime off and then baths each for Ady and I before a fairly normal time dinner for us.

A really good day, I’m so pleased Ady got to enjoy it too :).

Ady was up at 430am to go to Birmingham. I did wake when he got up and didn’t really get properly back to sleep before Scarlett wriggled into bed with me at 7am ish. She is dreadful for not lying still and wants to clamber all over me and kiss me which is charming and lovely but better saved for when I’m not still trying to sleep really!

So this morning was fairly lazy with the kids watching some TV, playing together on the xbox, connecting on DSs and generally relaxing. Scarlett spent some time looking through a pile of books. She is utterly insistent she is NOT going to learn to read but she does seem to spend a very long time perusing books lately, I wonder if she’ll suddenly announce she can read after all 😆

I spent some time messing about online and then decided to do some baking. We had no bread so I made some cheese scones for lunch and then using my very fancy and expensive cacao I rather loosely followed a recipe from his book borrowed from the library to make brownies. They are very nice, very rich and definitely nicer than they would be with value supermarket chocolate but I’m not sure they are proportionately nice enough to justify the price. I have a second lump of the cacao to try something else with.

We had lunch, while watching Raven with me trying to explain what ‘react’ means which I struggled to do without simply repeating ‘react’. Yesterday over dinner I researched and explained what we have tonsils for, I’m learning loads at the moment just answering random questions.

After lunch we had an hour or so to kill so I decided we should all paint our left knees green. I confess this was partially in reaction (see how I use my words ;)) to writing my latest blog post over on Monster and Teeny and spending some time this morning thinking about how we could integrate what might be required of us at some future point without losing what makes us us.

Davies likes the idea of the Chicken Song Curriculum so we chatted about some of the other parts of it and discussed wisdom teeth in more detail. We can’t extract ours as the kids don’t have them yet, Ady has already had all of his extracted and I only had three to start with – two of which have already been taken out and the last one still isn’t fully erupted. Wise, we are not ;). We did learn the words hyperdontia and hypodontia though and counted all our teeth, debated a full set of milk teeth and a full set of adult teeth and how Ady and I had had ours extracted (Ady, under general anaesthetic in hospital, me under local in the dentists chair). We looked at some youtube videos of string quartets and have a plan for that as our next thing.

Scarlett decided she wouldn’t stop at knees and painted my left foot green too and then made a big production of washing it all off again so we didn’t look mad at swimming.

Swimming was good. Scarlett had her lesson first while I started ploughing up and down doing lengths. I was aiming for 30 today. Davies spent some time on the slide and lower diving board and then just before he had to go to his lesson I spotted him on the top diving board. I’ve been off it once, when I was about 10. I’d gone off the smaller board and so Frazer did that and then went off the high board before me to prove he was braver. I had to do it to match him but it was soooo high I never did it again. Davies had that look on his face at the point when you wonder if you are ever going to hit the water and then he resurfaced with the hugest grin on his face – very proud of him :).

I think I was on 22 lengths by that point so he set off for his lesson and Scarlett came over to the big pool after hers. Technically she’s not supposed to be in the pool on her own (although I suppose I am in the pool too, just not with her) but usually it’s fine as she spends the whole time on the slide. Today the slide wasn’t open so she bobbed about practising jumping in and finding another girl to play with while I did some more lengths. Eventually the slide re-opened and I got to concentrate properly on my lengths and finished up doing 36. A personal best, although I do now have longer to swim. I reckoned that took me about 45 minutes with various faffing. I could have carried on, definitely to 40 so hopefully I will improve my speed and be able to spend the whole hour doing it and achieve my aim of 50 lengths by Christmas :). Quite proud of myself :).

Finally all out, dried, dressed and back in the car. We stopped for fish and chips for the kids tea at our favourite fish and chip shop run by a father and son who seem to provide a comedy and magic show at the same time as cooking chips 🙂 – and at £3.90 for 2 kids cod and chips which more than fills the kids up it’s a bargain too :). The kids ate their tea, I did some washing up, dealt with some laundry and had a cup of tea (resisted a brownie) before it was time to head out yet again, this time to Sea Scouts (Cubs) for Davies.

It’s in a hall close to our allotments so in the summer it’ll be walkable and I can do some allotmenteering while he’s in there, this time of year, starting at 7pm it’s getting dark so feels really late. The leaders were really friendly and the boys all looked nice and friendly too so Davies said he was happy for me to go and Scarlett and I came home. Ady had finally arrived home in the meantime so we caught up with him and then I nipped to Sainsburys for picnic food for tomorrow, collecting Davies on the way home.

First impressions of the Sea Scouts are good. The leaders seem to have it well under control and command maximum respect from the boys. There is a lot of fun and affection and the walls of the hall are plastered with all the camps and trips they have all been on, full of happy beaming faces having a whale of a time. I arrived slightly early to find them in a middle of a boisterous running around game which Davies was right in the middle of chatting and laughing with other boys.

Davies says he really enjoyed it, it was lots of fun and he was even slightly put out that he can’t go on the weekend camp in 2 weeks time :shock:, he definitely wants to join and seemed really impressed with the whole thing. I asked if he’d chatted much to the other boys (it is all boys there too) and he said they’d asked how old he was and when he’d said 9 they’d asked what year he was in. He’d repeated he was 9 and they’d said no, what year at school to which he replied he didn’t go to school. He said they accepted this straight away and asked a bit more about it including whether Scarlett went to school and if I didn’t let them go. Davies said I said it was up to them, if they don’t want to go to school they don’t have to and if they do want to go to school then they can. Apparently they all said he was really lucky and had a ‘really cool Mum’ and wished they were in our family 🙂 🙂 Obviously I took this in my usual modest and humble manner ;).

So that’s that then – sign ’em up! At least they’ll never feel they were denied opportunities to try things, join groups, socialise and participate even if we can barely afford the time or the money! We are definitely at maximum capcacity for ‘stuff’ though but we’ll give it a term and see how sustainable it all is. Also after Christmas Scarlett moves from Rainbows to Brownies, which is also on a Tuesday evening meaning Tuesdays will be crazy but it does cram everything into Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday which makes it feel less tying down.

Oh and one last Davies thing, he claimed to not know the days of the week last Friday so I taught them to him in the car. We forgot about it since and today he remembered them all again so that’s another little thing he breezed through when the time was right to learn :).

So, home late at 830pm ish, toast to fortify them as it was so long since their tea and then bed for the children. Tomorrow is another mad busy day so I’m off to bed to dream of swimming, getting from activity to activity and the magic tricks from the men in the chips shop!

Ever conscious of the clock ticking down to Caz and Bid leaving for NZ when Caz posted up about a meet up today at Littlehampton Peace to celebrate International Peace Day we decided to go along and snatch hours in their company while we still can. I’d cancelled our intended RI visit today anyway last week when I did a rationalisation on all the lectures I’d booked deciding whether they justified the £20 plus train fare for the 3 of us to get to London and todays was a casualty of that so we were free.

We arrived just after the arranged time of 10am thanks to not actually knowing exactly where the park was -Caz’s instructions had been ‘you know, its the park next to the beach in Littlehampton!’ which did narrow it down a little so we drove along the coast at Littlehampton until we saw a likely looking park and then spotted Saphire who has the same colour hair as me so is distinctive and headed off to park. There is a pay and display right next to the park for £3 for 4 hours, or a walk across the green for on street parking for free. So we went for free and ran across the green (well some of us did, I was more about walking sedately ;)). Katie and her brood were already there along with Caz and Bid, Archie and Elliot. My two and their two fell straight into being together and after a very brief go on the swings
headed for the beach with Bid. The rest of us drank tea from the nearby cafe and chatted, the littler children (two more families joined us) played in the park, Bid veered between the park and the beach and it was just a lovely, lovely morning. We talked Home Ed, parenting, life, the universe and everything and meanwhile Davies and Scarlett played in the sea with some of their very best friends in the world who will soon be playing in oceans on the other side of the world :(.

Eventually Caz and I drifted over to the beach too and Caz, Bid and I chatted further while the four kids continued to play on the sand, building sea defences with sand and seaweed and stones, beachcombing for treasures, splashing about in the waves and just loving life.

The whole conversation was punctuated with loads of ‘oh we’re going to miss you guys soooo much’ from all sides with Bid deciding that we’d just have to move to NZ too and a plan afoot to go straight to Ady’s work and kidnap him so he could sit on the beach with us and dream too. I’ve no idea how, where or when but I am utterly confident we will one day sit on a beach together again…

Caz and I both got sunburnt cleavage, the kids all ran around in sandy pants while their clothes dried out on the beach, Bid and the kids wrote ‘PEACE’ in pebbles on the sand before the tide came in and washed it away and it was just the most perfect way I can think of to be spending a Monday morning really. 🙂

Eventually we all decided we probably should go back to the real world and parted company. Davies, Scarlett and I headed into Littlehampton to get Scarlett some winter boots and to Tesco to get some shorts for gymnastics tonight. The kids and I had a really interesting conversation about the evils of Tesco, the *real* cost of the £1.75 t shirts I’d bought for Scarlett and who actually pays the price (all inspired by The Story of Stuff – if you’ve not seen it, please do watch it!) and why charity shop clothes shopping is a great thing on so many levels.

Back home I made an early tea for the kids and then it was off to gymnastics. Davies and Scarlett have both expressed an interest in gymnastics for the last few months although it has to be said it is solely due to a desire to learn how to do back flips. I did warn them this may not be a speedy goal and we discussed at length the pros and cons of gymnastics including cost, discipline, time investment, commitment to another evening per week, having to listen and pay attention and so on. It’s a half termly fee although there is also an £18 each club membership and insurance to pay out initially for the year which means the first half term is nearly £90.

We got there and they were whisked off upstairs leaving me to watch the activities downstairs. I guess there were 3 groups of children downstairs between about 6 coaches – one lot of smallish kids doing handstands off a springboard, another group of lads doing body conditioning type stuff and a group of mixed age but very high ability girls doing work on the bars. I personally hated it. I hated the way the coaches bullied and spoke to the kids telling them they were lazy / not trying hard enough / didn’t care or want it enough. It was done with bursts of humour and affection and consistent enough to make me realise it is a proven method rather than a bunch of people with really crap interpersonal skills but is so not a way I would respond well to. But then authority and discipline have never been things I have done well with so gymnastics would never have suited me and I know that about myself. I suspect it will not long term suit Davies and particularly Scarlett either but I can see them considering it a means to an end, sticking with it to learn the ‘tricks’ they want to master and then moving away from it. I certainly don’t see this as the beginning of a long term love of the sport. I have massive amounts of respect and admiration for those who do do well with such committment and tolerance for such disciplines really and I can see that it would pay off if that is what you want to do.

After 3/4 of an hour of brief glimpses of the kids from the mezzanine floor room they came downstairs and did work on the bars, the beams and some other bits. They both seemed to do well with stamina and strength type stuff (both won their hanging on the bars for the longest against clearly more experienced children) but were very inept with things like handstands and neither knew what a ‘tuck jump’ was. The coaches seemed patient and dealt with them well, the kids both paid attention and seemed to enjoy the challenge and both are adamant they want to sign up so I’ll sign them up for the first half term and see how they go with it – that unfortunately means they need to get the annual insurance and club membership at £18 each so it comes to nearly £90 for the first half term although it will be more like £50 normally per half term for the two of them. Gulp. On the plus side I won’t need to hang around and it is about a 3 minute drive so I’ll get 90 minutes to myself on a Monday evening.

Back home just after Ady and I had a headache. The kids were hungry after such an early tea so I read them a few chapters of which I found a bit too silly (especially when it talked about penguins and polar bears together – grr) but the kids seemed to like while they ate toast.

I had a bath and cooked dinner (first time in ages – for cooking not bathing) and we watched Come Dine with Me. Ady’s off to Birmingham for the day tomorrow so he’s got a very early start – the rest of us have a bottom heavy day with swimming and Davies’ first time at Sea Scout Cubs in the evening.

Last night Ady and Scarlett were talking about Car Boot Sale-ing today so Davies and I said we’d go along too. I’m not at all sure what possessed me to trade in a lie in for tramping round a field viewing other peoples unwanted tat and offering them money for it but clearly I was having some sort of seizure or something at the time.

So this morning saw me in a field, viewing other people’s unwanted possessions and trying to curtail Scarlett’s desire to give every unwanted soft toy in Sussex a new home in her bedroom – no toy too skanky with cigarette smoke odour, stain of other child’s dribble or needing batteries to make it perform annoying noises turned down. No toy too ugly, no price for this made in China by poor overworked infants and won at the fairground then kept in someone’s garage too high.

Davies isn’t much better. He is on a mission to collect every single Happy Meal toy every given away FREE in McDonalds since the mcnugget began but for a quirky twist he wants to have paid for them instead. Long live consumerism! 😆

Ady is collecting videos. He has an extensive library of politically incorrect, racist, sexist sitcoms from the 70s and a full back catalogue of ‘treasures’ such as Only Fools and Horses.

I, for once, unusually I know for a self confessed spendaholic walk alone in my disdain for the fayre of the car boot. I sneer at the dusty, smelly wares spread out on paste tables and pride myself in finding nothing I want. Of course this could be some sort of alfresco purchasing snobbery because there is every chance if you were to puff eau de la charity shop over the same goods and tidy up the presentation a bit, put the clothes on hangers, the books on shelves and the glassware in a cabinet I might be persuaded to have a better look and even pay three times as much for it then!

Davies and Ady walked together while Scarlett stayed with me. About half way round I was hailed by my old boss from the library so had to make some small talk with her whilst keeping my eyes on her rather than the table of old stuff she didn’t want any more and was selling. There might have been loads of ex library books or something! We then bumped into Tasha, Ryan and Vinnie and shared some ‘I hate car boot sales’ mutterings with them.

We were cutting it fine for getting to the nursery where the Made in Worthing kids artwork display was but got there with about 10 minutes before it was officially closing. Ady and I both admitted afterwards we’d been on the defensive about even going into the building but it was lovely and we were greeted in a really friendly manner with handshakes and everything by the nursery manager (who had an accent just like Miss Hooley’s from Balamory which seemed so very fitting 😆 She was really interested in Home Ed, chatted as much to Davies and Scarlett as to Ady and I and showed us all round the building which is huge and spread over 4 floors. They have over 100 children and over 50 staff there. The grounds are also huge and quite magical with all sorts of areas. She was very passionate about the ethos of the nursery and some of the things she was saying were so in line with my ways of thinking it was uncanny to hear them from a worker in a childcare institution. After some research it turns out to be not just any nursery and one with a very special philosophy. What a shame the whole idea doesn’t extend beyond pre-school age. I left a very positive comment in the comments book and then as we left we popped into the office to say thank you and goodbye and Scarlett told them ‘If I ever went to school I’d want to go somewhere like this!’ which touched them so much they asked us to put that in the comments book too, so I wrote it and Scarlett signed it :). I loved what the manager said about ‘maybe we can change the world from this one small place…’ much the same as the way I feel I guess.

We came home and slumped. Scarlett was being challenging and has been shouted at lots by both Ady and I this weekend for not listening and pleasing herself without thinking of the consequences. She fell out with Ady again and then I made his mood even worse (yes, sometimes he does get grumpy ;)) by messing up the music software for our phones and muddling up the computers that are active. Worst case scenario is he has to use my laptop for downloading music for 3 months before I can swap them back again which isn’t the end of the world but he wasn’t in a resilient place this afternoon. I have emailed their support to see if it can be remedied sooner and apologised profusely.

All was redeemed with a lovely roast beef dinner and communal watching of Drop Dead Fred. There is rather more swearing (quite a lot of ‘piss off’ s and a couple of ‘pile of shit’s) than I remembered and some allusions to sex which don’t quite go over the kids’ heads any more but it’s only a 12. Overall though it had them laughing loads and they both now know where the affectionate term ‘Snotface’ which is used here all the time comes from (complete with actual snot wiped on actual faces, might discourage that ;)).

We finished reading which made us all laugh. Infantile and purile but really quite funny stuff, very much in the same style as the Andy Stanton stuff we’ve been enjoying.

An early start for the ailing Goddards this morning as Davies had YACs. This months meeting was at Bentley for the annual Wood Fair. I’m still not sure precisely what they were doing as they were warned to be dressed for messy crafts but Davies seemed to spend most of his time wandering around the fair on his own. I don’t know if they were supposed to be participating in one of the stands to recruit new members or just having a day out really but he was happy!

I’d checked the price for the wood fair online and been a bit shocked to find it was £30 (the cheapest ticket price for Ady. Scarlett and I was a family ticket) so we’d pretty much decided not to go in and to visit Raystede with Scarlett and then collect Davies at 1pm. Bentley is down a single track road and we were worried it would be really busy at pickup time so we made sure we were early returning.

Raystede was fab as always. We had a walk round the geese, ducks and chickens and fed some of the birds. Scarlett ducked into one of the henhouses and found an egg :).

We enjoyed fronting out the geese trying to front us out, looked at the rabbits (I’m not big on rabbits to be honest, but some are quite pretty) and then had a look round the charity shop on site. They have proper sensible charity shop prices so we got a selection of stuff including some fancy ornate teaspoons that Scarlett took a liking to (and got five for about 10 pence each), several T shirts for Tarly, some nice balls of wool to continue adding to my blanket and a few books. We also had a drink in the cafe there too.

A quick walk round the birds – parrots and such like, saying ‘hello’ to them and getting ‘hello’s back in return and we headed back to Bentley. In the end the traffic was fine and we parked really quickly with over half an hour to go. After some debate we decided to go in after all.

We spent the first 20 minutes or so trying to find Davies as I didn’t want to have to trek all the way back round to the beginning again to meet him at 1pm. Along the way we bumped into Caz with her dad and A and E who had seen Davies several times during the morning. We had a fairly hurried cuddle and hello with them and then continued looking for Davies. We found him, sitting peacefully with a woman doing tablet weaving working with her and doing a fab PR job of Home Ed. I don’t know if it’s a result of Badger camp and finding his feet defending his lifestyle or all the campaigning and protesting we’ve been doing and talking about lately but he is on a one boy crusade to convince the world :lol:.It’s fab to see and hear him so proud of his Home Ed status, so articulate about why he’s Home Educated and how it all works, so sure and confident in what is surely now his lifestyle choice rather than ours any more and doing such a good job both of talking about it lucidly and indeed being such a good advertisement for it :).

I joined him in the weaving and chatted to the woman running it for a while and then went and sat with Scarlett who was talking to another woman about brushing, washing and spinning fleece so we had a go at that. I was surprised at how much I know, let alone how much Scarlett knows about wool and processing it from various things we’ve been to (Green Fair, Weald and Downland Museum, Butser, Open Farm Sunday). One of the women came over to ask if she could take Davies’ photo – apparentely she’d wanted to earlier as he’d been doing such a fab job with the tablet weaving but the YAC leader had said they couldn’t give authorisation and it needed to be a parent. Still seems odd that they can’t just ask Davies really 😆

We finally left that stall and Davies wanted to show us a couple of things that had caught his interest earlier so he took us to the flint knapper. He was cool – a huge bear of a man who makes all sorts of flint tools – knife blades, arrow heads, axe heads and so on. We listeded to him talking for a while and Davies showed me the knife he really liked made by him. The guy runs a flint knapping course but it’s for over 16s. Maybe Ady or I need to go on it so we can teach Davies?

Next Davies wanted us to see the food being cooked and talked about in one of the houses. There were two guys, cooking over an open fire and toasting nuts and berries, talking about fruit leather and other edible foraged for foods. We tried some hawthorn berries (raw – a bit dry but quite apple-y), some plum fruit leather, some toasted nettle leaves, hazelnuts and various other bits. I admired his fab basket made from birch bark and another from brambles and then we moved on.

Next we paused at tree climbing. Children were being winched up a very tall tree with gear used for tree felling. We got there at just the right time with only 2 children in the queue so Davies and Scarlett joined it and both had a go at being pulley-d up. They both went well over halfway, which was very high indeed. We only saw one child go all the way to the top and they had been asking to come back down again but misheard by the guy doing the winching.

We decided we were hungry so headed back to the main field in search of refreshments. The kids had an ice cream each and after much debating we settled on sharing a couple of portions of chips. The small girl who’s parents owned the burger kiosk came to chat to us while we sat down and told us all about her pickup, lorry, kiosk and how she lives in the East End. We suspect she is also Home Educated as a traveller but she was so chatty we didn’t get a word in to ask! 😆

Suitably refreshed the kids were each given a soft toy by one of the stallholders, Scarlett tried on a felted tiger skin
and they both had a go at paddling a wooden boat. I got cross as I assumed someone had pushed their child infront when Davies ended up with a random small child in with him and accused them of pushing in. I got a fairly mild mannered answer back from the father that he’d not pushed in but Davies and Scarlett hadn’t wanted to go together so he thought it would make sense for his daughter to go with Davies so I apologised but it turned out it wasn’t about them not going together, they’d both wanted to have a go on their own – which of course Davies didn’t get at all then. Grrr.Not sure if I am more cross with Davies for not being assertive, the bloke for shoving his kid in or myself for interfering at all or for not getting the whole story and then interfering properly. I suspect the only person wound up by it still is me though…

We walked round some more and came across one of the rangers from Forest School who was there selling wooden cutlery and bowls he whittles himself. We had a chat with him and then watched a blacksmith forge a snail which he hammered into the tree – very cool 🙂

The children had a go at a wood turning tool which was being used to make rungs for a ladder

swapping over midpoint so they both got a go at turning and shaving.

We moved on to watch the heavy horses moving wood about for a while and then stopped at the East Sussex Wildlife Trust stand for them to make a bee hotel and an apple bird feeder each. Both Ady and I were flagging by this point so were glad to pause awhile.

We moved on and Scarlett got caught up doing some painting which was egg yolk mixed with pigment. Not sure what Ady and Davies looked at, I suspect it was the flint knapping again.

Another Home Ed friend hailed me while I was watching Scarlett so I had a brief chat with him and marvelled that our allegedly hidden and unsocialised children had bumped into two sets of friends, a ranger from Forest School and Davies had done a marketing job on someone about Home Ed at an event 30 miles from where we live!

We started to head for the exit but stopped to chat to a guy on the endangered species stand about stag beetles. We admired some amazing wood carvings and then looked at the owls and other birds of prey on display. Ady loves owls, I don’t think he has ever looked at me like this 😉

The owl did have very beautiful eyes though, I suspect I was looking at it in much the same way!

Finally the fair was closing and I think we’d done it justice for our entrance costs, so we headed back to the car. Home via the supermarket for various bits. The kids had tea and watched The Cube. I watched X Factor and we had a curry. Given we are all still in the throes of a cold I suspect today was a bit too long a day for us really but I’m glad we went.

Well certainly the early part of it passed while I was sleeping ;).

So as first thing as it got round these parts Davies was making his lego x wing fighter thing. He’s mostly spent today doing that and mostly without any assistance. He says he really enjoyed following the instructions and seeing the pile of single lego pieces all come together to make a single construction. I feel he would get pleasure from flatpacked things in the same way I do :).

Scarlett was drawing and colouring. She does that a lot and is quietly improving her artistic skills in the very specific areas of drawing cats, birds and foxes.

I spent some time clearing a pile of stuff that lurks beside my sofa, chucking some out, filing some away, relocating some to other places in the house and finally removing the small table the pile lurked under and replacing it with a glass shelf unit. Ady seems to have inherited the table and the world is a better place for less crap down beside my sofa :).

We had a trip to Sainsburys for petrol and various other stuff, I made pizza dough for dinner and Davies did more lego-ing.

I have also spent a large amount of the day being ranty and stroppy and a bit of a cow really. I had both children in tears once each. A fact of which I am not at all proud but stand by as having educational value with regard to them learning when is and isn’t a good time to argue with someone / not put full effort into what you’ve been asked to do / know how to graciously accept an apology from someone who knows they’ve been a cow, has calmed down and is now feeling contrite. The latter is a skill both children already possess but it never hurts to get in a bit of additional practise.

After a couple of false starts they both created a piece of art for the local display. Davies listened to me (in the end) over doing something he found easy and was good at rather than trying to nake life hard for himself. Scarlett did a fab drawing and then managed to write her name in perfect mirror writing on it – not at all sure how or why but we fixed it. Ady came home and was also shouted at (when will people learn NOT to breath or exist where I can see / hear / smell them when I am in an intolerant mood? ;)), I took Tarly round to Rainbows and sat and finished the last few stages of the lego with Davies.

I read some of which we were all enjoying but I got stroppy about the fourth interuption (for glasses of water, using the toilet, to ask a stupid question about something else) and stopped. I hate being interupted while reading, especially a story which has a certain amount of pace to it. It feels like a performance and you really lose your thread when you stop and try to pick it back up again. I then spent some time in Scarlett’s room sorting out her wardrobe which had finally rebelled and started spewing clothes back out again after she’d been shoving things in there when I asked her to put clean washing away. Cue more rantiness and lecturing from me, tears from Tarly and finally tired apologies all round.

So not a great day but it ended with love all round and tomorrow will of course be better.

This morning started pretty badly. I would say shittily, quite literally. 🙁

Candle, who is very old – we’ve had her for 15 years and she was at least 2 when we got her, has been blind for about a year and protests in a rather disgusting manner at us going away on holiday. She quite comprehensively protested (none of that peaceful picnicking and bubble blowing for this cat!) while we were away last week and has continued to protest since our return. However this morning she had vomited all over the sofa and crapped in many places downstairs during the night. While Ady was clearing that up downstairs she came and continued to protest upstairs. Both of us were late for work due to clearing up her bodily fluids :(.

Ady took Davies and Scarlett into work with him for the morning. He was working in a local garden centre removing some incorrect labels off plants and replacing them with the correct ones. Time was when he really didnt like being out and visible with the kids in school hours but these days he is more out and proud than I am (and I’m pretty out and proud ;)). So they sat and helped him with that while fielding ‘not in school today?’ questions between the 3 of them – and quite possibly setting us up for a visit from all sorts of agencies with regard to child labour, servitude, truancy and all sorts of other accusations.

Meanwhile I went to work for the local government myself and spent most of the morning researching cat euthanasia.

At lunchtime Ady returned the children home, met my Mum and headed off to work without his little helpers. I went round the charity shops and got a pile of long sleeved tops for Scarlett who is desperate for autumn / winter clothes. I also spoke to Michelle a couple of times :).

The cat has won a temporary reprieve as Ady admitted he’d bought the wrong cat food (as in something other than the *only* flavour of the only brand she can eat without being sick) so she has a minor excuse. Her days are definitely numbered though… 🙁

Work was all very much the same as I’d left it 2 weeks ago – frustrating Nightmare Colleague, Summer reading game is over for another year, I spent a very theraputic hour removing staples from a hessian covered wall. Due to quirks in my rota again I’m not working again until next Friday, so over a week between shifts. It would be tricky to be more part time really and remain employed! ;).

Back at home all was calm. All four of us have the beginnings of a cold but have a quiet few days ahead before next week kicks in with a vengence so will hopefully recouperate speedily.

This evening I spent time transferring all the dates for various clubs into my diary and phone calendar. Then I had an email from the gym to say both children can start on Monday for 90 minutes a week and Scarlett can go straight into the older group as she is nearly 7 (which is very handy), then I came across phone numbers for the Brownies leader to get Scarlett’s name on a waiting list for January (she now has a place for Tuesday evenings) and the local Sea Scout Cub leader where Davies has been on the waiting list for a year and finally has a space. He’s going along next Tuesday evening to see what he thinks but it sounds just his sort of thing so he’s really chuffed about that. This means our weeks are very full again potentially with Gym on Monday, swimming followed by Sea Scouts for one and Brownies for the other, Wednesdays with Badgers for both and until the end of term Scarlett has Rainbows on a Friday. They both have Wildlife Explorers on Saturdays once a month and Davies has YACs monthly too. That does satisfy everything they have both asked to do for now though and means we keep Thursdays free (and Fridays after Christmas) which is good as those are my working all day days each week. I’ve signed up for a 9 week course which starts on Tuesday evenings too and is likely to lead to more out of the house stuff for me too. Aside from gulping at the amount of time off of these things other stuff we want to do, like holidays, trips to London etc. means it is nice to have full calendars and be providing all the stuff the kids ask for :).

We started reading as I’d brought home the book and the film with the intention of showing the children the two interpretations as we’d been talking about films from books the other day. None of us got hooked by the end of the first chapter though so I think we’ll watch the film instead. I suspect it’s a bit too old for Scarlett and maybe not a book that lends itself well to reading aloud anyway. We then read some which I have to say didn’t really do it for me either but both children kept asking for more and said they were enjoying it so we’ll carry on with that tomorrow.

Tomorrow’s plan is some baking, some artwork for Tasha’s display of kids artwork for the Made in Worthing festival and probably some sniffing, nose blowing and coughing.

I had stuff to do this morning having been running (well limping maybe) to catch up with myself after the holiday and birthday stuff, so Scarlett waking me up at 930am was not how I had planned the day starting. Must have needed the sleep, but still…

Got everyone breakfasted and dressed and we headed out to the supermarket for picnic food and bubbles. We arrived at Brooklands at about 11.10am and there was already one family there. I’m really glad they turned up as they were very specifically the people who had wanted a Worthing picnic which had made me arrange one rather than just attending the Brighton one. In the end we had 11 families comprising 13 adults and 18 children, so over 40 people, which was a respectable and heartening number of attendees 🙂

We had a grandmother (my Mum) and a visiting family from Wales (who I met years ago when we first moved home, just before they moved away, so amazing to look at each others children who were babies / toddlers back then and have them among the older kids today). There was one family I’d not met before and I think all the people attending met at least one new person, which given we are all from the same town meant we did some useful networking :).

We were there for the full four hours and the kids had a whale of a time playing in the playpark, clambering on the rocks, joining together as a big group to play a Star Wars game and of course the obligatory bubble blowing :).

It was a smaller gathering than many and we didn’t have press or MPs attending (although I will send pictures and a few words about the event to both local radio and my MP) but it was great to add our town to the numbers up and down the country, kickstart some local contact building, reassure the new HEor who came along and just enjoy the sunshine with the kids running wild and free together. I love Home Ed and days like today remind me of why :). It was lovely to have two lots of friends who had also joined us at points last week and I’m really proud of my Mum for coming along to up the numbers and chatting away to everyone. I think she got as many goodbye hugs from the group as I did! 😆

Back home again the kids were desperate to play with the animation station some more so they did that while finishing off the very large picnic in lieu of dinner. I did some flickring and other online catching up and then we had the Grand Badger Uniform Hunt which wasnt too bad aside from Scarlett’s shoes. She has some boots donated by Chloe but could only find one. The other turned up on top of her wardrobe so I can’t be blaming her for that being there 😆 I did my usual last minute sewing on of badges, put some plaits in Tarly’s hair and we headed off.

Davies was loudly and excitedly greeted by the two lads who’d been on camp with him which was nice to see – and Scarlett got included in their posse too. I had a chat with a couple of the other parents and then sat in my car playing with my phone til Ady arrived. We walked down to the new Morrisons for something for dinner and as I have just borrowed the book from work ” alt=”” /> I called into Waitrose for a couple of blocks of his chocolate so I can do some baking on Friday, which I am stupidly excited at the prospect of :).

Gathered the children up and arranged to go for coffee next week with 3 of the other parents who stay around as it’s not worth them driving home – should be nice :). Davies went home with Ady and Scarlett came with me – we sang American Pie all the way home although some of the verses were repeated :).

I read at bedtime and ended up reading the whole thing – personally I thought it was rubbish but the kids enjoyed it.

Scarlett has been sniffly nosed and ‘bumpy’ throated (her description) although it didn’t stop her running around playing, Davies has a more runny nose than usual, I’m now sniffing and have a ‘thick’ throat (my description) and I can hear Ady upstairs sneezing so I think it’s safe to say we are all coming down with something. I will not elaborate further on the state of my stomach but I am tentatively hopeful that episode is over as I’ve eaten lunch and dinner and thus far it remains inside me… just in time for a Not Back to School Virus!

Scarlett got into bed with me this morning, which is always lovely. But she then described, in great detail, how horrible my breath smelt, which was less lovely, so I got up to clean my teeth! 😆

I’d promised Davies we’d explore his animation station today but first I had some online stuff to get done. This included contacting local paper and radio about the NBTSP tomorrow and a very last minute invite to our MP. It’s been hard gauging the timing for this as prior to going away last week I was not at all convinced we had enough prospective attendees at our picnic to contact press and MPs to invite them to come along – I *really* didnt want it to be me, Davies, Scarlett and a camera man and our MP 😆 or even two or three families which was all I had confirmed. I’m still not sure it will be a huge event but I do have about 8 confirmed attending families now so it was worth putting it out there. If we’d been home last week rather than camping I would have done more work on it earlier and of course with Davies’ birthday yesterday it did only really leave today. I think last minute is fine for press as they are either interested or not and tend to run with very tight lead times on stories anyway. Neither radio or newspaper have contacted me back but both have my mobile so may well do in the morning, if not I’ll send in some photos and a report about the event for them to use if they wish.

The MP was a different story though. He’s a Tory and is actually the shadow minister for children so quite a relevant topic for him. I have emailed him before and had supportive correspondance back but our consituency seems to be a bit thin on the ground of vocal Home Educators. He emailed straight back to say he would have come if he’d been given more notice to clear his diary, to confirm that he won’t be in Westminster on the day of the mass lobby as he is already booked to speak at a conference but continues to support us and would be happy to meet here or in Westminster and to contact his office to set up a meeting to discuss the whole issue further. Clearly a Conservative MP is likely to prove easier to get on side anyway but overall I have been impressed with his performance as an MP generally and feel he does tend to listen to local issues and work for us. I’ll speak to the other local people tomorrow and see if anyone wants to attend a meeting with him or whether to arrange it for just the children and I.

That done I did a few more emails including our income and expenditure to CCCS as it’s time for our annual budget review, I booked Longleat and rationalised our RI bookings a bit. I’d been panicked by losing bookings last season and booked everything in sight but looking through them again some of them were top end of KS2 (which I’m fairly sure is older than Davies, I don’t think Scarlett is out of KS1 yet?) and it is still £20 for the train to London so not a cheap day out. I decided against the one for next Monday and also one which had come with a warning of being suitable for older children. I’ve also managed to change our booked session that clashed with the mass lobby as even if our MP won’t be there I think being present to make up numbers aswell as the interesting experience of taking part is worth attending for given we are in London that day anyway.

Then I was done and ready to look at the animation station. It takes 3 AA batteries or says you can buy a mains adaptor at ‘all good toy or electrical retailers’. Turns out Currys is not a good electrical retailer 😆 We searched the house for something we could nick an adaptor from but found nothing and didn’t have any batteries and then I remembered that Davies still needed new goggles for swimming so we nipped to the local retail park and tried in Brantano and Boots for goggles (no luck. I bought some at the swimming pool in the end, very overpriced but as it was my fault this time for knowing for a fortnight and not getting organised to get some I can live with paying over the odds) and in Currys for the adaptor – again no luck so we bought batteries.

Back home we had some lunch and then set it up. It is very straightforward but very good. It plugs into the tv or pc on the video hole and has a webcam style camera angled down. It comes with four backgrounds (two plain colours, one a park and one a beach) and you just do your animated whatever on the flat base and press ‘capture’ then can play it back animated on the tv. You can hookit up to a computer and do fancy editing and add soundtracks and text and stuff too but the kids just played with it through the TV today. I found an old SD card which shows it as able to store 25000 shots so they should be able to make some good length films with it.

They worked together for nearly 2 hours making mini films with plasticine, coming up with plot lines and working as a team to animate. I think I’d have been impressed with it if we’d paid the full £50 for it but it was a stonking bargain at £15 🙂 🙂 They played til the batteries ran out and we definitely need to find / buy an adaptor given 3 batteries only lasted 2 hours and I could see this being a very used piece of equipment.

Then it was time for swimming lessons. My stomach is still protesting so I decided not to swim today and watched the kids’ lessons instead. Scarlett was first and is a nightmare to teach as she has such a short attention span and is so easily distracted by shiny things, like the lights reflected on the water 😆 She did so well with me a couple of weeks ago but really doesn’t do well in the ‘water classroom’ that is swimming lessons with 12 other kids. To her credit the instructor keeps reining her in (and to be fair it’s not just Scarlett by any means) and she is making good progress. She went off to the changing room alone to get dried and dressed and then came and sat with me to watch Davies’ lesson.

While Scarlett had her lesson Davies went off to the big pool. I watched him swim for a bit and then start going on the slide so I turned back to watch Scarlett and then couldn’t see Davies again when I next looked. I eventually spotted him, jumping off the lower diving board 😯 I watched him twice, really confident and loving it but utterly lacking in technique 😆

Davies’ lesson was really good. His front crawl is textbook and looks really strong and steady. His backstroke needs some work and that was what was being done today. He made progress just in the 25 minute lesson though and his group is smaller and with older children so there is virtually no chatter and messing about between the kids there.

Chip shop fish and chips for their tea. Ady came home and I headed out to the library to run reading group. We’d read Patricia Wood’s ‘Lottery’ which I read when it first came out a year or so ago and enjoyed then but have re-read to be able to run the session. We had 11 attendees and everyone liked the book which can make for a dull meeting but we got chatting about Home Education (I’d been recognised off the telly!) and happiness and success which was all very interesting stuff :).

Back home again for bath and dinner. Scarlett has a cold and is sniffly of nose and sore of throat, Davies does have a snotty nose but is always snotty anyway and I am still dealing with an upset stomach. Tomorrow we have to buy bubbles and picnic food and then go and be glittering examples of Home Education at the NBTSP – here’s hoping for good weather, a decent turn out and maybe the local paper coming along too. It’s also first Badgers for Davies and Scarlett (missed last week which was the actual first one back) so a long old day ahead – which reminds me I’ve not sewn badges on yet -oh poo!

I will do a proper 9th birthday post on a page at some point soon but if anyone wants to read that it’ll be on the side bar rather than in the body of the blog. Clearly it will be mush-ridden and sloppy so probably not for most of you ;).

Today started far too early at 7am with Tarly leaping on me chanting ‘It’s Davies’ birthday, you’ve got to get up!’. I realised Ady should already really have left for work so it was either Davies opening with an audience of Ady and me still in bed, or Ady gone to work and me getting up later so I staggered down and Ady put off leaving for ten minutes to watch present opening.

Davies had asked for surprisingly little this year and had already decided on the things he did want about 3 months ago. The very short list has remained unchanged all that time, which was great as it gave us ages to research and source everything on it which included:
a one man tent, a proper one for actually camping in

a pocketsized firesteel – really impressed with this, it strikes easier and with massive sparks, way better than the bigger and more pricey ones I’ve seen before:

A penknife with ‘loads’ of pull out tools – he’d seen this one in the local hardware store and prefered it even to the proper swiss army knives we’ve shown him due to its amazing amount of gadgets and small size

Along with an Indiana Jones style hat (‘but not a toy Indiana Jones hat or one with Indiana Jones written on it!’) that completed his wish list.

We added to it a set similar to this one it stays as one to bring out spoon, corkscrew, bottle opener and punch or can be seperated into two pieces with a knife on one and a fork on the other. He loves it 🙂

I found this on special offer online a month or so ago and ordered it for £15 and put it aside for his birthday after that animation workshop he went to. This is very similar to the kit they used there and on first glance is excellent – we’re going to have a proper play with it tomorrow

and Scarlett had wanted to get him this Morph kit

He was gratifyingly delighted with all his gifts and got stuck straight into the Morph kit and accompanying dvd while I went off to get dressed. First attempt looks pretty good I reckon:

I left them playing with that and nipped to the shop for eggs before making and baking the choux pastry for Davies’ requested birthday cake of a giant chocolate eclair. I was planning an oversized traditional cigar shape but decided to make a number nine instead. That done and everyone fed and dressed we headed off to Pulborough Brooks. It was the monthly HE meet up today and we’d initially not planned to go but Davies was keen to see Jack and Maisie on his birthday so last week we decided we would go. A lovely surprise was Caz, Bid, Archie and Elliot there in the shop when we arrived :).

We’d managed in all the holidaying and me being ill last week to forget to buy Scarlett her traditional sibling birthday gift, which she was very cool about this morning,telling Ady ‘no it’s fine, it’s not my birthday!’ but she has been coveting a soft toy rabbit at Pulborough Brooks gift shop for months – it’s way over my usual veto price for soft toys but it’s been an enduring want so I said she could have it today. Davies also picked up a cuddly ant that makes clicking ant noises and a bird windchime there too. I think the stuff they sell is reasonably priced, very good quality and it’s a charity I am happy to support so I was pleased they got some of Davies’ birthday spending. Davies and Scarlett are greeted by name as they walk into the visitor centre there, thanks to Wildlife Explorers and our regular visits and attendance at their events which is just so nice when we arrive :).

We walked part way round with just Caz and Bid (well I did, the four children either lagged behind or raced infront) and then caught up with the rest of the group. Julie and co arrived just before the end so Davies did get to see his cousins aswell as his mates which was nice :). We had a very brief time in the playpark before heading off to go to my parents for lunch. We detoured home to collect the pastry for Davies’ cake and got to them at about 1pm.

On the drive we’d been chatting about what Davies might want to spend the small amount of birthday money he’d been given from people and he suddenly said ‘Oh I remember, I wanted some lego but forgot to ask for it!’ so I suggested we go to the Lego store in Brighton this afternoon. Originally Davies had wanted to go to the cinema this afternoon to see Ice Age 3 but it turned out not to be showing during the day now everyone is back at school.

My parents had dug out a leather hat that had been bought for Frazer on a family holiday to Spain when we were children. It’s cleaned up beautifully and although I’d primed Davies for it and assured him if it wasn’t the right sort of hat then he didn’t have to accept it and could still get the hat he did want he was really pleased with it. It fits well and is excellent quality despite being nearly 30 years old. It does have ‘Mallorca’ written on it though so I suggested a buff, which Davies has been desperate for for ages would be ideal to wear round the brim to hide that.

Mum and I went to get bits for lunch including the cream for whipping and chocolate for melting to fill and top the cake. Mum put lunch together while I finished the cake and we all ate. The cake came out really well and was very yummy 🙂

We discussed how neither child ever seems to have just the one birthday cake each year…Davies tried to decide which had been most impressive – the dalek that made it onto cake wrecks? Cake in a field? Princess castle cake? teddy bear cake? 😆

Cake eaten Mum, the children and I headed off to Brighton to visit the Lego store. Davies specifically wanted Star Wars characters. They sell most of them in little 4 character packs for about £9 a time and cunningly split the main ones you’d actually want between 5 different packs with the rest being fillers or peripheral characters. That led to us looking at the lego packs which came with some characters and Davies chose a boxed set with a fair few figures in it, one of the packs of four and a keyring of the final character he wanted. £50 later he was very happy! He put some towards it, I put a couple of quid more and Mum paid for the rest as the present from her and Dad. We then popped to Millets and got a red buff which Mum paid for from Frazer. Davies was very pleased with a very respectable haul of gifts :).

We dropped Mum home and then headed for home ourselves where Davies and Scarlett played with the new lego. Ady came home and we all got changed and went back out again to meet Mum, Dad and my Granny at the local Harvester for a meal. I hate the Harvester, I think it is overpriced mediocre quality food but it’s the only place I’ve ever seen steak and chips on a kids menu, which happens to be Davies’ favourite meal. I had a steak too, which was perfectly acceptable and as I wasn’t paying I was grateful and gracious. 😉

We came home and as Frazer is on lates this week and my parents had told him to come round to ours after work everyone came back here which I could have done without really (still suffering… 🙁 ). Davies and I went up to his room and he put his new tent up pretty much single handedly though and is really pleased with it. He and I had a lovely chat about life, birthdays, growing up and stuff (which I will expand on fully in my birthday post page obviously ;)).

Finally everyone left, the children went to bed and Im now headed that way myself…