One word? When seven would do…

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…

I think it was the eve of my ninth birthday when I went to Brighton for the day with my Mum and she bought me a new winter coat and wellies. The coat was blue and the wellies were red and I loved them both. When we got home I wore them all round the house and annoyed my brother (who would have been 6) but bouncing around and singing ‘jump, jump, jump, it’s my birthday tomorrow!’

Repeatedly.

😆

I still send him a text every year on 5th January saying ‘jump, jump, jump, it’s my birthday tomorrow’ because it’s not always the younger sibling who is the annoying one ;). Anyway I told Davies and Scarlett this story a couple of years ago and now they have adopted it too. It may well become a long held family tradition and in several hundred years time there will be decendants of mine prancing around in wellies (we don’t bother with the wellies here but they may want to go all retro and keep it real and stuff) singing it and quoting ‘great, great, great, great, great, great grandma Nic (always Nic, never Nicola ;)) on their birthday eves. Then again it may well end up forgotten eventually.

So today it has been Davies’ turn to be singing it and sing it he has :).

I’d had a bad night’s sleep thanks to further upset stomachness, Ady said he slept badly as he’s not used to a bed anymore 😆 and for two children who have sleep deficits to be dealing with Davies and Scarlett were also up fairly early so we were all bimbling about downstairs well before 9am. We talked about what to do today and fairly unanimously decided ‘nothing’ was in order.

I did some washing, put loads of music onto my new phone, flickr’d and finished blogging the week away and lots of ‘last cuddles while I’m 8′ with Davies.

Ady swept out the fire and brought in the coal and log bucket ready for fire lighting indoors. I’m not sure it’ll actually be happening for a while but it’s nice to have it there all autumny looking.

Davies and Ady made some Star Wars figures from an old cardboard box while Scarlett did a pom pom animal kit she found somewhere. We all watched Blast Lab and Horrible Histories which seemed to be on a loop on CBBC.

Scarlett wore her pjs all day only changing just before bed into a clean pair.

Ady cooked a lovely roast dinner which we all ate together at about 7pm, then we watched X Factor and the kids went to bed.

It’s been a very mellow, chilled out, reconnecting with home sort of day, which has been nice :).

I’ve wrapped Davies’ presents up and now as it’s become tomorrow in the time it’s taken me to write this I’m off to bed as I suspect I’ll be woken early in the morning!

Sunday I had intended to be on the road for 11 and arriving by midday but as I didn’t make it out of bed until 1030am (clearly I needed it!) our departure was rather delayed. In the event it really didn’t matter much and I left first and arrived just after 130 I think. We’d decided to take two cars. It’s less than 100 mile round trip so probably only about a tenner in petrol and the difference in being able to take whatever we want and not worry about fitting it all in is well worth that. Davies decided he wanted to go in Ady’s car so he could make use of the dvd player and Scarlett decided she wanted to go in whichever car Davies was in so I had the huge luxury of driving all the way on my own, listening to whatever music I wanted, as loud as I liked and singing along. It was lovely :).

I arrived, checked in with the guy at the cafe – which was no more than him telling me the code for the centre, checking if I’d been before and when I said I had and he looked a bit vague me asking ‘shall I just go down and pitch then?’ and him looking relieved :lol:. I parked up and having come without the tent which is really the only sensible place to start when pitching I looked around to decide where would be sensible given we are the smallest tent and then had a bit of a wander around, feeling instantly relaxed and holiday-ish. I so love it there :).

After about 20 minutes I started to wander just where Ady and the kids might have got to as they were supposed to be right behind me once Ady had put Candle in the kitchen. I rang Ady’s work phone, which I heard ringing behind me somewhere in my own car, his mobile was diverted to his work phone so just made that ring again and Davies’ phone was switched off. Just as I was starting to decide when I would begin to worry Davies rang me to say they had arrived.

There was a den or shelter built from old wood and roofed with coniferous branches which Davies and Scarlett instantly requisitioned as theirs and were adamant we should pitch right next to. At that point there were six or seven little one man tents scattered about the field which left two long strips suitable for Katy & Tim and Marcus & Michelle’s tents, with the area next to the den being smaller and less level / more stoney it seemed like the more sensible and thoughtful place for us to pitch anyway so we started setting up. Davies and Scarlett headed off to go exploring in the woods and left us to it. It was a perfectly still, sunny afternoon and the tent went up quickly and easily. After a bit of initial wrestling with it and lateral thinking including nicking two surplus guy ropes off the main tent we butchered our bargain porch and got that up. Have been really, really pleased with that, it’s done exactly what we wanted and massively extended the living area of our tent, given us a kitchen / storage / cooking / eating in the rain space and meant the actual inside of our tent has been kept clutter free :).

While we were doing this three of the little tents were taken down and carried away so we suddenly looked like lunatics pitching half under a tree when the field was now mostly clear 😆 We found out later that the occupants of the tents had been auditioning for a travelling academy of fools – we certainly got had by them in looking foolish! :lol:I don’t recall at what point of done-ness we were when Marcus, Michelle and Chloe arrived and got themselves set up too but I do know we were all already sitting round a lit fire and it was beer / cider / wine o’clock when Katy, Tim and Becca arrived thanks to Katy unexpectedly working in the morning (and them having by far the longest drive).

Ady had aimed for a proper Sunday roast with chicken, roast potatoes, carrots and parsnips but due to an unfortunate incident involving running children, falling darkness, guy ropes and the smoker going flying – along with all it’s contents (chicken, vegetables, hot fat, hot ashes, bowl of boiling water) that was off the menu unless we wanted it complete with ash. It could have been a really horrible accident with hospital visits and tents on fire though so a tray of vegetables was a very lucky escape.

We had it with bread and butter and gravy instead having fed the children pasta. I think a combination of it being hours later than planned, unaccompanied by the expected trimmings and me being on the paranoid side about it not being fully cooked due to losing all it’s heat at a fairly crucial point in the cooking I didn’t eat very much of it.

The evenings all rather merge into one big round the campfire experience but I suspect there were marshmallows, chatting and late to bedding for children.

Monday As usual I’d not slept well on the first night but thanks to being pitched on the far side of where the sun hit the field I got a lie in as the tent wasnt turned into a sauna from sunrise. Ady had taken Marcus to the station and brought back breakfasty things (bacon, sausages, HUGE baps) so I had a late breakfast, which Mich helped me finish.

The kids went off and did more exploring and adventuring in the woods. I think that was the day Ady and I had a wander round the woods and burial site too and I know I had a good walk round with Tarly at one point too. We’d brought a frozen curry with us which we heated up on the smoker and was delicious. Both kids seem to have decided they like curry lately so we really must make extra portions for them when we have it now. This was the night we had a lovely singsong round the campfire along with our marshmallows. 🙂

I’d been doing plenty of knitting while sitting around doing very little else and my blanket has spent all week being very used to snuggle in around the fire in the evenings, cuddle up with in my sleeping bag at night and growing during the day as I add more to it. It is currently airing on the washing line outdoors so the woodsmoke is more a hint than an overwhelming waft!

Sadly this was the night I laid awake with dreadful stomach pains and did a half naked (t shirt, pants and Ady’s boots, while carrying a weak torch and half blind thanks to no contact lenses) run across the field in the middle of a rainy night to the compost loo. It was the start of a 48 hour bout of very nasty diarrhoea which really wiped me out and blighted my week really.

Tuesday Scarlett and I went off to Asda in search of new wellies for her but they didn’t have a single pair in her size (despite having at least 8 different designs of ‘boys’ and ‘girls’ ones). We also got various things to have a second go at a roast dinner on the smoker. Unfortunately I had to also use their toilet facilities and then lost it for remembering anything else I hadn’t already bought. I did feel strong enough to pay a visit to the Mythical Morrisons that Ady had told me about last time we stayed there in May but I’d never managed to find. I still firmly believe it moves about and is only there sometimes. I tried to take a photo of Scarlett infront of it and I think you’ll agree it has a ghostlike quality to it ;).

Back at the campsite I had two phonecalls at once – one from Ros to say she was very much on her way and another from Caz to say they’d be arriving later that day. I’d known both were due to come but had not honestly expected either to do so until they were actually there! Meanwhile I did more knitting, drank more tea, had more chats, made more use of the compost loo and the kids continued to build dens and explore.

Ros arrived complete with five children and later on Caz and Bid arrived with Archie and Elliot. I know not everyone enjoyed the changed dynamic of more people but I have to be honest and say I loved the variety of people, the different chat it brought to the campfire and I know Davies and Scarlett loved having Archie and Elliot there. They are leaving for New Zealand properly in about 3 weeks so it was fab to have some proper time with them this week before they go. It’s a real shame it wasn’t as smooth and enjoyable for everyone though :(.

It was a rowdier group round the campfire that night with plenty more singing :). Ady pulled off the roast pork dinner which was very nice but I decided I wasn’t actually all that keen on the smoked taste. This is not a problem as it’s optional rather than essential and I think it could be nice for fish or maybe something like gammon which is already smokey.

Sadly despite hoping I was better I was awake again for much of the night with another middle of the night dash to the loo and even more horrible pains.

Wednesday At 730am I was awake and in pain so Ady went off to find me drugs and get picnic food for Butser. I have to say that if I’d not been the one actually organising the day I would have bowed out there and then and not gone as I felt really quite wretched – I was 3 really bad nights in and feeling ravaged and wrung out. I tried to bolster myself and the drugs did work in stopping the d if not the pains but I know I was fairly vacant and hopeless with questions about how many people were coming, making decisions about what to do next aswell as struggling with the lack of tea!

But Butser was once again a really good day out. I didn’t think Ann, the leader was as good as Maureen who took us round last year. She is only one year out of being a secondary school maths teacher and is still very teacher-y in her approach to the children. That said she was very passionate, knew a lot about her subject and did a fine job of keeping on top of the fairly mixed group. I’d gone for different activities this year – pottery, spinning, mosaics and the archaeological digging (which was a repeat of last year but from the feedback I’d had from various children had been enjoyed lots last year). Personally I think last years choices had been better and the wattling and clunching were very good, although I didn’t miss the jewelry making from last year and thought the spinning was far more interesting.

The day seemed to be much enjoyed by everyone. We started with a chat in a roundhouse and some observations about how it was built and how celts lived. We moved onto the archaeology next which they did in pairs this year and Ann moved round the group talking to everyone about what they’d found. Next was pottery which gave most of the adults our favourite moment of the day when she tried to do some ‘fill in the word I am thinking of’ style teaching and got some funny responses back to her ‘what is a warrior head?’ ‘where would you find a warrior head?’ questions :lol:. We got to make warrior heads, bowls or roundhouses. Scarlett and Davies both made roundhouses – Davies pushed some straw into his to make a thatched roof, Ady made an ‘anniversary bowl’ for me in honour of it being our tenth wedding anniversary that day and I made a warrior head. There was altogether too much lining up in pairs for everything for my liking which always makes me want to be rebellious and act silly.

We then visited the shop – they make a big deal about their ‘unique’ shop and how it is ‘all part of the learning experience’ and in fairness I think it is quite a good shop with a good range of sensibly priced stuff which is not just plastic tat but is relevant to Butser. She did do a hard sell to me and at least 2 other adults about their ‘Educational leaflet’ which is ‘invaluable and covers all areas of the curriculum and is perfect for following up the visit once you get home!’ Don’t think she had any takers… Davies and Scarlett both bought a lamb and Scarlett also bought a little piglets in a basket thing for Chloe who hadn’t come in the shop.

We all had lunch and then regrouped for spinning. This was led by Maureen who had taken us round last year and I asked about the clunching we’d done then and had the now finished building we’d helped to clunch pointed out – cool :). Spinning was harder than it looked but everyone had a go despite them offering lamb pictures as an option for some of the littler children. Scarlett, Maisie and Lorna also made lamb pictures but Tarly did spinning too. It was very sheepy smelling and all lanolin-y so although I did make a length of wool I doubt I’ll be knitting with it. Would like to learn how to do it properly though and actually make some wool to knit with.

Lots of pictures of people all with the same facial expression!

We were shown the recreated outdoor fridges and then into the Roman villa. Lack of tea and general exhaustion caught up with me at that point so I ducked out and sat in the sunshine instead. I personally think the Roman bit is the least interesting at Butser. The children did mosaic pictures to finish while I was gradually joined on the grass by more and more adults – all needing tea!

I’ll definitely do another visit to Butser next year but will try and negotiate in advance for something a bit different and maybe open it out to more people to allow one of their resident experts to come in and do something more specific with us.

Various people came back to the campsite – Ros came back to pack up, Alison and co came for a visit and Tora came back to stay. We drank tea and some of the children created a game lifting each other up on a rope tied to a tree. Various adults were not happy with the safety around it and there were many voice of doom proclamations about it ending in tears / injury / hospital visits but the children did a fab job of listening to each other, working cooperatively and responsibly and they all really enjoyed themselves. I thought it was ace and it never did get out of hand or become about scaring each other. If I’d not been feeling so rough I may well have had a go myself!


We waved goodbye to everyone not staying the night and Ady and I decided if I wasn’t feeling better by morning I may head for home the following day for a bath, some home comforts and a night in my own bed. I had a really bland dinner of pasta and virtually no alcohol and an early night. Not very anniversary-ish but I had very much enjoyed being surrounded by lots of lovely friends in such beautiful surroundings – stark contrast to our actual wedding! ;).

Thanks to liberal doses of the tablets Ady had got for me I actually slept well and was feeling far better by morning :).

Thursday A lazy morning sat round the still smouldering campfire (we’d burnt a *really* big lump of wood the night before ;)) chatting while Katy and Tim, Caz and Bid and Tora packed up and one by one headed off. We were so lucky with the weather and Davies, Scarlett and Chloe fell back into playing together again so the rest of us did more sitting around chatting and I continued to add to my blanket. I negotiated an upgrade for a new phone which I arranged to be delivered to the centre the following day. Ady spent a fair bit of time with Davies who has suddenly become interested in kicking a football and hitting a shuttlecock – neither of my two have ever been sporty in terms of ball games before but I think part of the motivation is getting to spend time with Ady doing it ;).

We had barbecued sausages and burgers for dinner and enjoyed the feeling of being a smaller group again. 🙂

Friday Our last full day. We’d debated various possible excursions for the afternoon including the Spinnaker tower or Portsmouth’s historic dockyard but on checking out the prices we decided against both as very pricey. We also talked about heading to Southsea to watch the hovercrafts but in the end all the adults were just as happy to stay on site and not have to drive and the three children were engrossed in their own games and adventures so we hung around the campsite again. My new phone was delivered and so Ady and I had a quick jaunt into Havant to try and buy a case but failed (I’ve since ordered one off ebay).

I also pulled off what I thought was the smoker’s most impressive feat and baked a cake while camping! I’d meant to weigh out flour and sugar and bring it from home to just add butter and eggs to but had forgotten so rather than buy bags of flour and sugar which would have gotten damp in the field and had to be chucked away aswell as needing weighing out I went for ‘just add egg’ cake mixes. The girls enjoyed licking the bowl and they cooked to perfection (better infact than our failing oven at home) in the smoker. I left them to cool for a while and then iced them and added candles for the perfect camp cake 🙂



The wind picked up and prevented us from lighting the candles around the campfire so we retired to a tipi instead for the actual singing and blowing out of candles but gathered back round the campfire to eat it. Aside from a disappointing ‘packet mix’- ness to it I was pretty impressed and would definitely try again with raw ingredients next time :). So the birthday celebrations began, just 4 days early ;).

We had takeaways for dinner (fish and chips for us and curry for the ManorBorns) and listened to the echoes of a mother and toddler group who were communally camping in one of the yurts in a not very peaceful manner. Last year our last night was a pleasant evening with the addition of Fun Dad and friends but a dreadfully disturbed night thanks to a very waily child in the middle of the night and parents who failed to deal with her. This year we had an evening still more or less to ourselves as they were camped in a different part of the site to us so we had the fire pit and field to ourselves but our night was even more disturbed thanks to various cries and tantrums through the early hours 🙁 – I really think Sunday to Friday is the way to go next year!

Saturday A perfect morning for striking camp – still and sunny so the tent and everything else was dry and aired to be put away for the winter (we have one more potential overnight but won’t be using any of the kitchen stuff or the big tent for that). We packed up fairly leisurely with plenty of tea stops and deciding we were bored so sitting down in the sunshine for half an hour. The new porch disgraced itself by being harder to pack into it’s teeny bag than the whole main tent and I finally sorted out the tent pegs so we have not brought any bent or otherwise unusable ones home with us. We really need to invest in some pegs actually, must remember for next season.

The kids went off on one last adventure, we loaded the cars up and had one last cup of tea with Marcus and Michelle before leaving them to their last few bits of tent dismantlement and heading for home. This time Davies came with me and we chatted about all sorts of things, none of which I can remember now. Scarlett went with Ady.

The kids both had baths and hair washes and hair brushes which were very needed after no washing or showering all week (Ady and I did, I hasten to add, the kids just chose not to and to live the authentic field-living lifestyle). Ady cleared up comprehensively after the cat who my Dad had decided shouldn’t be kept in the kitchen for the week and let out the very evening we left, which necessitated rather a lot of clearing up after. I made pizza dough, cooked eggs and toast for Scarlett, changed the sofa covers and then we emptied the two cars and put everything away.

It’s amazing how quickly you feel at home again in a house. I do always come back and take a while to readjust to how much ‘stuff’ we have though and we’re not even particularly minimalist campers!

It was a truly lovely week. It’s a testamont to the company, the weather and above all the stunning location that I still had a fabulous time despite feeling really quite rough for a large part of the week. I think it was Bid who commented that The Sustainability Centre was ‘a real find’ for camping and after four, equally lovely stays there, with large groups, small groups and just the four of us and continued plans for more in the future I think he’s right. And even better I really can go there after I die!

Thanks to all who came for all or part or some of the week :).

I very nearly overslept this morning – I turned my alarm off and went back to sleep. Ady woke me at 840am with ‘are you not going to work then?’. Up, dressed, tea made with tepid water and at work for 9am still!

Did make me feel all wrong-footed all morning though. I did some general faffing around, some half-hearted planning for a Poetry Event I’m running in October, managed to send an email to someone it wasn’t intended for and then spent ages chatting to a colleage about camping. She and her husband went last week, very much based on me raving about it and thankfully the weather and campsite were on their side and they had an excellent week. She is now tent shopping and has appointed me her ‘camping consultant’. Her favourite tip of mine so far is a safety pin in the zip of her sleeping bag for nights when she wants to remain zipped up seperately from her husband! 😆 (a tip I could offer not from experience of sleeping bags but from a zip up dress I had when I was 17 that I quite specifically didn’t want any old random stranger unzipping for me in the middle of a nightclub!).

I came home to an empty house, sorted some washing, spent some time with the chickens, had some lunch and a cup of tea, checked my emails and then the others arrived home. They’d been to Wildlife Explorers. Scarlett’s session was first and she did some stuff on bird (although she claimed to have known most of what they covered already) – the leader made a point of coming out to tell Ady how well she’d done without Davies and that she’d not stopped chatting, telling the leader all about our holiday on Shell Island where the leader has also been. Davies and Ady walked round the reserve for an hour while Scarlett did that.

Then Davies went in – his first session with the older ones which is for 2 1/2 hours. This time they were learning about molluscs and did loads of stuff on snails including going off searching for some. Davies really enjoyed it and I think he’s going to get a lot out of being with the older kids and the more indepth nature stuff. Meanwhile Ady and Scarlett went for coffee and cake in the cafe, spent some time in the shop including chatting to the volunteers and getting some help identifying a soft toy bird Scarlett has which we now know to be a peregrine falcon. We get a lot out of our RSPB membership and I think we’re lucky having a reserve so close to home :). I wish the monthly Wildlife Explorers didn’t seem to fall on my working Saturday so very often though.

They all had lunch and we all chatted about our mornings, which reminds me I forgot to blog yesterday about how we’d spent time talking about public highways, the highway agency, why roads are called highways and where the word comes from anyway. That was what Davies learnt yesterday – Scarlett learnt the word ‘depression’ in context of a ditch of low point on a road aswell as the meaning of being depressed mentally. We’d not done ‘what we’ve learnt today’ for ages so it was funny that I’d been talking to Ali about it and the following day they both found something new out and attributed it to their learning for the day.

We’d planned to go and do some pre-camping food shopping for stuff to take with us and there is a new Morrisons opened locally we thought we’d try. I really wanted to get Davies a Morph set for his birthday from Scarlett – well I suggested it to her and she wanted to get it. I’d been looking online with the intention of buying from Merry but Hawkins sell it cheaper and we have one in town so no postage so we decided to combine the two. We parked up, walked along the beach into town and wandered around for a couple of hours. We went in the phone shops so I could stroke all the various phones on my shortlist – I think I’ve made up my mind now, Ady bought a carcharger for his phone, I picked up a couple of books in the Oxfam bookshop, Scarlett found a cuddly toy penguin in a charity shop, Davies got a Star Wars X box game from the second hand game store and I got the Morph thing for Davies. I’d also picked up the penknife he wanted on my way home from work so we have all his birthday presents ready now :).

Scarlett was being annoying by not listening to anything anyone said and I was feeling particulaly intolerant due to hormones so I snapped at her a few times which had her contrite for about two seconds before doing the exact same thing again :rolls:. We then went to Morrisons, along with most of the rest of Worthing – it was heaving in there. We got everything we wanted for the first few days catering and came home.

I’ve knitted a long strip to sew onto the edge of my blanket to make it wider; Davies played his new X box game, the kids had dinner, we all had baths (last for a week!), I watched X factor which made me cry twice (oh the hormones!), Ady and the kids watched The Cube and one by one the rest of them have gone to bed. Tomorrow the plan is a slow start, chucking everything in the car and heading off about 11am. Can’t wait 🙂

Our day had a bit of a soundtrack today, might add some of the lyrics in and see if anyone can name the artist, or you know, ignore that element of the blogpost completely -up to you really.

I had to rouse both children this morning – we’re still operating on weekend guest time and as we’re off on holiday again on Sunday it hasn’t really felt worth making too much fuss over. And I suppose bedtimes are something I can rarely be bothered to make too much fuss about anyway. They breakfasted and got dressed, I drank tea, let the chickens out and processed some laundry.

We drove to E’s via Tesco for petrol – we’re taking both cars away with us on the basis that it is near enough to justify the petrol costs for my car for the added ease of not having to squish stuff in (and Ady wants to bring his new camping toy which is HUGE), but worth bringing Ady’s too for the to-ing and fro-ing we’ll do whilst we’re there. So I put a good amount of petrol in mine rather than my usual £20. Scarlett was waving around a sleeping bag which caught Davies in the face so we had a discussion about how to deal with it when you’ve done something wrong. My mantra would always be ‘say sorry (and mean it), ensure it won’t happen again, do whatever you can to put it right’ so we talked about how to do that in that instance and some other examples of dealing with mistakes we could think of. We also had an interesting discussion on Davies and Scarlett’s take on their Home Ed friends who have been in school and come out to be Home Ed’d and their Home Ed friends who have never been in school. I really liked listening to their observations and what they had to say about various people. I think the most amusing one was about a friend who was in school who they claim tries to teach them ‘school tricks like swear words’ 😆 Davies tells me he ignores that and suggests something else to do instead. We talked then about swear words and name calling and appropriate behaviours and how you know what is and isn’t okay in different circumstances.

Then we listened to songs with lyrics such as ‘all those stars that shine upon you, will kiss you every night’ and ‘if I hurt you, I’d make wine from your tears’ (same artist).

We had a nice couple of hours at Elizabeth’s. It’s all go at her house with her husband Nick arriving home, her MIL arriving to collect the boys for an afternoon of fish and chips on the pier (lucky, lucky Elizabeth!) and another friend who I have heard of locally but not previously met but had had T overnight and dropped him and his own son off and then collected his son again a bit later. He lived up to all I had heard about him (she said mysteriously ;)). Both Davies and Scarlett had picked out their ‘I can’t go to school, I’m autodidactic’ T shirts (really need to order some more actually Liza, they are washed and worn constantly!) and Elizabeth was asking if they are happy to be so ‘out’ about it which led to me talking about how I’d been quite surprised at Davies’ confidence in his Home Ed status at Badger camp and having suffered at being so obvious in continuing to be so vocal about it. I don’t think the kids knew it was the first day back to school for most children round here but I love how they celebrate what has now become their choice aswell as our choice for them educationally :).

We left about 1ish and having been teased with some delicious muffins that Elizabeth baked while we were there (she did bake them for us too, not teased as in wafter under our noses but didn’t let us try while saying ‘na na na na na!’ or anything, just teased as in tantalised and tempted to have more) and realising we had 3 bananas that were drooping we made some banana and choc chunk muffins of our own. The kids helped in various ways before wandering off to play.

Davies built a domino run which didn’t work very well using the mantlepiece and hearth and spent some time experimenting with that to get it to work better – we only have a small 27 piece domino set though, which had me kicking myself for having gotten rid of the domino train pieces we’d had for ages. Might keep an eye out for some more dominoes in charity shops, I can’t think what you could use instead really for domino run building. I do remember a clip on Blue Peter or Newsround or something of a huge and very impressive one when I was a kid though.

I then spent some time pulling together some old posts on Monster & Teeny to create a new one. I’m kind of glad to be heading away from the rest of the world as such next week, I feel quite ready for a holiday from all the Home Ed stuff somehow. It always feels a bit false to be pulling our lives apart to try and deem some of it educational and I hate the idea that we might have to. I get a lot of very positive feedback from people about Davies and Scarlett, the parenting we / I do of them and who they are, I see them happy, growing, curious and learning and am so very proud of them and then I spent some time delving into the darker side of the politics and debate and just want to run away and hide really. Hopefully I’m come back ready to be all instrumental in NBTS picnics in the week after and ready to sing the virtues of Home Ed for the masses and protect the rights of all instead of just wishing the world would bugger off and leave me and mine alone.

Can you tell that during the writing of the Monster and Teeny stuff I got my period? 😆

Davies and Scarlett went off and did something, not sure what although part of it was Davies making up a new ‘Day’ story. Not sure if I’ve mentioned Day before or not? Day is a character Davies made up who is an old paper bag who lives at a tip – his friends include Calyppo the ice cream wrapper, an old broken TV set (who’s name I forget) and other un-recyclable rubbish. Davies has written and illustrated about 4 or 5 stories with all these characters. I think Day is a bit auto-biographical and he quite likes the idea of being called ‘Day’ as a shortened version of Davies. Its’s odd how I never shorten his name but am always shortening Scarlett’s – maybe because Davies was my name for so long I still have it as a word rather than a name to be messed about with?

I had been looking at a book from work yesterday and noting down interesting looking links from it so I carried on with that and went through the whole book. The result is a new page of things to look at further for next year. Inbetween I also made pizza for Davies’ dinner, an S shaped pizza crust for Tarly who only likes the crust and the bases for our pizzas for dinner later.

Ady was really late home as he’d been being all supportive and counselling of a colleague who is having a few personal problems at the moment. Poor bloke 🙁 (the colleague, not Ady).

I read several chapters of Kensuke’s Kingdom to the kids who begged for more. We’re really enjoying it and I even flicked to the back page later to check how it ends ;). Intending to read to the end with them tomorrow.

The kids went to bed and we listened to some Arrested Development and Alanis Morrisette which I enjoyed very much. No point really in putting lyrics from either of them as I’ve already named the artists. Watched Jonathan Ross and I sewed a couple more knitted bits onto my blanket.

Tomorrow morning I’m off to work and Ady’s taking the kids to Wildlife Explorers – Davies’ first time in the older group which he is really looking forward to.

Work for me this morning. Lazy, didn’t go to sleep til ridiculous o’clock children just barely scrambled out of bed before I left 😆 I started 15 minutes earlier than normal but finished at 130pm rather than 5pm as they owed me my prorata equivalent of one day off for Bank Holiday morning – I think my average day is 3 and 3/4 hours or something. This meant for the 4th week in a row we didn’t need Mum to come over and of course next week we’re away. I suspect this means when she does have them again (on her own, she was of course here last night with Dad while we didn’t see Hugh) it will be all the harder, but it’s been quite nice for the kids to have the break I think.

So Ady was home with them – no real idea what they got up to but everyone seemed happy when I came home. I’d had an okay morning at work, slightly marred by working with Nightmare Colleague who just seems to slow the whole pace of the library down to her own snails pace. There was also minor excitement when a strip of lighting stopped working but noone but me seemed to notice. I turned that strip off at the switch and then there was a dreadful burning electical type smell throughout the library and we realised I was the most senior person there and supposed to be about to go home. I was very reluctant to leave, thought about finding the fuse box as I was fairly sure something had blown and the switch had tripped but I know a) how anal workplaces are now about you touching anything remotely dangerous and b) if I’m going to die young and tragically I don’t want it to be electric shock in the library – that’s so much more Cludeo than Rock n roll! Eventually another colleague came in and urged me to go and I felt better about it then.

Once home Davies went off to play DS in his room for a bit and Scarlett and I ate toast and chatted. I started to work out various upcomming things in my diary and realised I was running out of diary. I also needed to get some bits for dinner so decided to head back into Lancing to pick up a new diary and food. Davies was engrossed in his game so I said he didn’t have to come if he didnt’ want to and he said he’d rather stay home. We were only planning to be half an hour and I told him to not open the door to anyone and ring me if he needed me.

Scarlett and I did the diary and food shopping and popped into the library where I’d parked to check it hadn’t blown up. All seemed fine 🙂

Davies rang just as I was pulling up outside to check how much longer we’d be. It felt both strange and completely fine to leave him here. Camp has definitely had subtle effects on him in terms of his maturity and keen-ness to try new things, be bold and take chances. I am noticing a slight distancing from me but it feels fine, in very much a ‘you have given me the strength to do this, now watch me and be proud’ type way – and of course he still comes back very regularly for cuddles. Nearly 2 weeks home I am able to put aside how crap I felt about his absense and revel in the positives for us all of the experience. 😉

I spent some time online when Scarlett and I got home. I did some notbacktoschool picnic emailing, some Longleat finalising, some checking of RI dates and emailed the RI to see if I can go on a reserve list for the event that clashes with the Mass parliament lobby as I’m torn between the two and if we could go to the morning RI we could do both. I also spent some time going through a book from work about 1000 ideas to do in the school holidays and writing down loads of links of cool looking things to look up more.

While I was doing all that Davies did a huge floorplan of both the upstairs and the downstairs of the house, wandering round from room to room to get it right and add in furniture etc. With very minimal help (as in just checking it was spelt how he thought it was) he labelled all the rooms and stuck it up on the lounge door. He and Tarly then made markers each for them and the cat and Davies rang Ady to ask him to bring some bluetac home. It is now a ‘where in the house is everyone?’ board and Ady and I have made our own markers too so we all have to move ourselves around the house depending on where we’re going. No idea where he came up with the thought but it’s great piece of artwork and all pretty much to scale. I should dig out the proper floorplans of the house really from when we had the loft converted so he can see all of them with the various outside pictures and notations too, I think he’d like them.

I made the kids tea while they tidied up and watched a random programme about Cain and Abel which led them to ask what religion they are. I explained that in terms of the programme which was referencing Judaism and Christianity and Islam they were Christians but in practise we don’t have a religion and we talked about heritage a bit. Then they turned over to CBBC and watched something with a knitted bear instead…

Ady was really late home having been here til nearly 2pm with the children so they wandered off to play after their tea while I carried on with online stuff, mostly reading my own old posts on Monster and Teeny in a vain effort to pull together something interesting without repeating myself for Jax’s blog carnival thingy. Eventually Ady did arrive home and we read several chapters of Kensuke’s Kingdom. Really enjoying that and they did beg 2 more chapters than I’d planned. I’d almost have kept going but it was getting dark and my bath was calling me.

Tomorrow we’re off to E’s in the morning for a couple of hours. I’ve been looking at last few bits for Davies’ birthday (he wants surprisingly little so I want to boost it a bit but am also quite happy to be moving into more considered gifts rather than a sea of plastic tat!) and debating ordering online or sending Ady off with a shopping list ;).

Off to Ali’s this morning, via collecting a very PINK Barbie coat that the woman I collected a load of freecycle girls clothes from had emailed me to say she also had. I suspected Scarlett would screw her nose up at it and indeed she did but we collected it anyway as we already had most of the first bag to hand on to the next people we thought might like the clothes. Predictably Scarlett did indeed do nose-wrinkling – out of that whole load of clothes she dismissed anything pink as ‘too pink’ anything with slogans on as ‘too sloganny’ and pretty much only took the very plain t shirts. She’s very much a jeans and t shirt sort of girl my Scarlett :).

At Ali’s we have first refusal on the rest of the clothes to Ali for Freya – I think one or maybe two garments made it into their pile but Ali assures me the rest will find a very good and gratefully recieved home with someone who will be happy with High School Musical t shirts and tracksuit pants with ‘angel’ emblazoned across the arse! 😆 (sometimes I do wonder about the company she keeps ;)).We did get a bag of very lovely fleecy tops in exchange for Scarlett so that was a bit of a result! And you will be pleased to know Ali I have resisted the urge to visit the Boden website – but only just…. when she grows out of that lot please do bear Scarlett in mind 😉

A lovely time as always at Ali’s – we all feel very at home there. Scarlett did incredibly well with being largely ignored by everyone and entertained herself with the cats and some bubbles for a good couple of hours before getting fed up. Davies and Freya X boxed, which they both love and are pretty evenly matched I think for competing or playing as a team together. Ali and I had a good old chat and were clumsy together in the kitchen.

We left just before 3pm and I blasted the kids out with a KLF album I’d borrowed from work – on the way over it was INXS so I’ve enjoyed very retro car journeys today with the sort of music I was listening to in my very first car that I had a radio cassette player balanced on the dashboard of that I had to hold onto when I went round corners otherwise it would slide from one end of the car to the other. The opening bars of 3am Eternal took me instantly back to a nighttclub I got together with my first proper boyfriend in when I was 17. I could smell the dry ice and see my own arm, clad in about 20 jangly bangles and leather ties waving above my head to the music, feel the big clumpy DMs on my feet and the effects of the snakebite and black all over again in that split second.

And then I caught the eye of my nearly 9 year old in the rear view mirror and remembered I was 35 again.

So I turned it up a bit louder ;).

Back home the kids disappeared to make video clips on Davies’ phone – this is their current passion. Some of the video clips are quite funny, others are really only appreciated by children under 10 ;). We’re definitely planning a video camera purchase for one or other of them at Christmas though, they’d clearly get loads out of it at the moment.

Ady arrived home and we both got changed into different versions of what we were already wearing. My parents arrrived and we headed off. Ady has been registered on a website for free audience tickets to TV shows for ages and ages and regularly applies for all sorts of shows but has never before got tickets. In the last few weeks he got tickets through for both Big Food Fight and Argumental. The Big Food Fight was tonight and we were really, really looking forward to it.

The ticket said doors would open at 645pm and close at 715pm. We looked into prices for parking and train fares and as petrol is free and we would hit the congestion charge zone after 6pm paying for parking was cheaper than the train for both of us. Tne route according to satnav and route finders to the studios was 1hr15mins so we alllowed double that, left at 4 to be there for 630 giving 15 minutes queuing time to be right at the front for good seats.

Doubling the time was not enough and as we crawled along at a mile every 15 minutes we started to realise we were possibly not going to make it in time. The satnav clearly has some sort of bipolar personality and took us across the Thames, round a roundabout and then back over the Thames again on some sort of Monopoly board magical mystery tour. We eventually googled the studios on Ady’s phone, saw the OXO tower in the picture, spotted that and headed that way and parked in the first carpark we found in order to run to the studios. At 7pm we parked, asked the security guard where the studios were and then ran, YES THAT’S RAN!, in the suddenly started to pour with rain conditions clutching our tickets and the photo ID it said we had to bring.

There were two very camp blokes all dressed in black with clipboards outside the Audience Entrance area who hailed us with a friendly ‘are you here for the Big Food Fight?’ to which we gasped yes, Ady bent double and me taking drags from my inhaler while my hair hung sopping wet and my mascara ran. ‘Sorry guys, the studio is full up – we can’t fit anyone else in’ they said.

There were 3 more lots of people behind us, bearing in mind we were right in the middle of the half an hour doors open window and one of them asked how long ago they’d filled up to be told ‘a good hour ago’ 😯

So it turns out even if we’d been there in advance of the doors opening we’d probably still have not got in, maybe people were even there from the night before…

On closer inspection of the tickets it does indeed say in teent tiny small print at the bottom that the tickets do not guarantee entry and it will be first come, first served. So our own fault really, but easily done given all the blurb in much larger print about how you must not sell on the tickets, must bring photo ID, must ring to inform them if you can’t make it as they have a long waiting list along with details of when the doors are open from and til.

So now it’s pissing with rain. We have no coats. We have parked the car with a minimum 2 hour charge of £5.50 and we’re not about to meet Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and become his close personal friends after all. And I think we both sort of expected that was what was going to happen. It’s largely down to Hugh we have bought into the self-suffish lifestyle. We joined the forum on River Cottage and signed the Chicken Out campaign petition and everything.

And also I needed a wee.

So we went to a nearby theatre and used the toilets and thought about what to do next. We decided not to try and find somewhere to eat in London as it was still a bit early for us but we didn’t want to pay for any more parking, it was pissing with rain so not an evening to be wandering about seeing the sights of London, we really can’t afford to find an alternative entertainment option and we were both a bit stunned after the fretting we wouldn’t make it, scraping in just in time, doing RUNNING and then having it all taken away from us.

After some discussion we decided to retrieve the car and head for home. My parents had taken Davies and Scarlett out for dinner so we knew if we came straight home they’d not long be back and we’d end up having to put the kids to bed while my parents either hung around (most likely) or left which would mean a 4 hour round trip then having to persuade excited children to bed and needing to cook for ourselves. So we decided to head for a Chinese that my Mum and I went to last year where I spent most of the time thinking ‘Ady would love this’. We got home, parked up and were in the restuarant eating a mere six hours after leaving home and travelling two miles down the road to a Chinese restuarant via Central London ;).

It was a set eat-as-much-as-you-like menu at just £14 per person so we decided to celebrate our tenth wedding anniversary a week early, make the most of the very rare childcare (they’d NEVER have the kids so we could just go out for a meal together) and stuff our faces with very delicious Chinese food safe in the knowledge that no way would any of the chicken be free range so HFW was being punished in the long run 😆

The food was gorgeous, we really enjoyed laughing about all the people who said we’d never last and congratulated ourselves on being buoyant in the face of being let down, finding the funny side of it and looking to other people like we might even be proper grown ups even though we both know the truth ;).

We got home at 11pm, pretended to my parents we’d stopped for a meal on the way home while still in London, heard about their meal out with the kids which sounds like it went well 🙂 (Davies tells me they made snidey comments about the state of my car though) and they left, safe in the knowledge that our evening hadn’t gone according to plan 😆

We’d planned a picnic lunch at the beach with Tasha and co today, for which we were predictably running late. I did do laundry, chickens,washing up, making picnic and checking emails all before we left though.

The mention of beach picnics on twitter by both Tasha and I clearly bounced off some satellite or other and created instant gloomy clouds and downpours of rain though, so we had a lounge floor picnic at her house instead. Well Vinnie did. Davies, Scarlett and Toby ate at their dining room table and Tasha and I ate on the sofas while knitting / beading / cooing over their two new kittens.

Davies, Scarlett and Toby played upstairs together for pretty much the whole time. Tasha and I caught up with each other and it was all very nice :). We left just after 2pm to have an hour at home before swimming lessons.

Scarlett is still in the 4pm Swimmers One lessons she was in (with Davies) last term but Davies has been moved up to an inbetween Swimmers One and Swimmers Two class which only had four pupils today. I suspect it is a very small class size with the intention of coaching them up to Swimmers Two asap so they can join that.

Davies informed me, just as I was feeling smug about knowing where all the swimming stuff was after the summer holidays that he had lost his goggles whilst at Badger camp. They had gone swimming and he had left them in the changing room before even going swimming and then never found them when they came out. I was really cross, not that he’d lost them but that he’d not told me in time to get a replacement pair. The last pair were from the swimming pool and were really overpriced so I was determined not to get them from there again and have promised a new pair for next time from a sports shop but said he’d have to do without for today.

So Scarlett went off to her lesson, Davies went off to the slide and I did my lengths. I could really, really feel not having been for six weeks and after 10 lengths I was struggling, after 16 I could have very happily stopped but I carried on to do 20 as I was really cross with myself and surprised I could lose such ground so quickly. Davies went off to his lesson, Scarlett came to the big pool and as all she wanted to do was go down the slide which she can do by herself I carried on and did another four lengths to punish myself for being feeble. I could barely stand up afterwards! 😆

I watched Tarly do some slides and then she did some jumping in the deep end and swimming to the side. Her arms are still a bit doggy paddle-ish but she has lovely long, perfect swimming legs and glides along really well. She was very enthusiastic and when I said she’d done about 2/3 of a length of the big pool she was desperate to do a whole length. The pool was fairly quiet, particularly the lane swimming area so we got in and I swam behind her to do a length. I actually had to put effort in to keep up with her in the beginning but about 2/3 of the way she flagged and wanted to rest. She went to the side and I expected her to climb out so I carried on to the end but when I looked behind me she had started again and finished the length 🙂 She was really chuffed with herself and I was very impressed with her after a half hour lesson and 25 minutes on the slide and swimming making nearly an hour in the water. It also meant I did a 25th length which made me feel better about myself even if that was also spread over an hour for me.

Davies was finished with his lesson by then. I’d seen a bit and it looked really good -= proper intensive coaching with lots of individual feedback and concentration on styles and strokes. Davies was really pleased with himself that he’d managed without the goggles and done some very good swimming too. 🙂

We called at the Chippery for fish and chips for their tea and got home shortly before Ady. There was some debate about books to read so we went through the whole pile from the library and seperated them into books to go back that we’ve read, books to go back we’ve not read but noone is interested in enough to read and a far smaller pile of ones to keep and read. From that pile we chose some to further reduce it and read and had a quick flick through which I’d ordered literally months ago when one of them (don’t even remember who) was worried about something or other but had taken ages to come in as it was on loan to the schools library service. We quickly decided none of us worried about anything enough to need helpful coping mechanisms from a book so moved onto the first chapter of which has come much recommended from various people and sure enough we found very engaging from the off.

I have a long and *very* full day tomorrow so along with various other people BKing late tonight I must also go off to bed.

I’m not a big fan of Bank Holidays really. Ady generally works them and everywhere is full of people. Urgh, people! The kids and I very often seem to end up at my parents for the day on Bank Holidays so today having rung to check they were in we did just that.

First I had to nip to a house a few roads away to collect a bagful of clothes for Scarlett that had been on freecycle. Most were very, very not Scarlett-y so have ended up back in the bag but she did get a couple of T shirts she liked and two skirts that she might wear when she grows into them (she’s not big on skirts really, Scarlett). I left the kids at home while I nipped out to do that, they were sitting at the table playing some game and were still in the same positions when I came back ten minutes later.

We decided to walk over to my parents which takes about 20 minutes or so. On the way we discussed funeral directors, campfire songs from Badger camp, road safety, whether Davies had grown since last time we walked that route, what Davies wants for his birthday, possible reasons they might use walkie talkies when out adventuring together and loads of other stuff I have now forgotten. I asked Davies what a sign outside the pub said (open all day) and he then decided to read a whole load of signs. He did well with ‘No Parking. This road is used for access at all times and must be kept clear’ and then stopped to read ‘Give Way to Oncomming Vehicles’ – he’d just read the ‘give way to..’ bit when a woman came out of the house we were standing infront of to put something in her wheelie bin so he had an additional audience for the two hardest words. He spelt them out with no help and the woman gave him a clap and said how pleased she was to hear a child spelling something out phonetically like in her day rather than with all this new fangled reading scheme ideas :). I resisted the urge to tell her about Home Education but agreed with her anyway :).

We had a nice few hours at my parents although there was some underlying tension between them so there was the usual point scoring against each other at various points but we largely ignored it or the kids shot me private eye rolling looks 😆

Ady finished work at 2pm so was with us shortly after 3pm and we stayed for another hour or so before coming home. The kids had tea, I read them four books and then cooked our dinner. Children are still on weekend time so getting up and going to bed late – hoping a full day tomorrow including swimming lessons starting again will wear them out a bit so they go to sleep earlier tomorrow.

Woke up respectably late this morning having ensured I got my full 7 hours. This meant it was 11 am! 😳

Ady, who I must point out probably also had 7 hours sleep, just a different 7 hours so while I was busy doing late night and very, very early morning hostessing I passed the baton for him for later early morning hosting ;). He made a lovely cooked breakfast (I don’t really like the word brunch although I guess as it was about midday when we ate it probably should count as brunch) for ADULTS only – we had to fight the kids off and eventually they got the leftovers anyway ;).

I dedicated myself to finally sewing up the squares, or rather mostly not-squares, of knitting I’ve been doing for about a year. It was not as much of a job as I’d had been dreading and I just about finished it before they all left but it did mean the lounge floor was strewn with knitting pretty mucn all day. It now looks fabulous though, I am even more pleased with it than I thought I would be and although I still have plenty of wool left to carry on and make it as big as I’d like it to be (it’s about long enough but I’d like it wider) it is now a blanket and I can take it camping next week and have achieved my goal of a camping blanket right at the death of the years camping season :).

The others either played, did some squabbling (third late night in a row had the children flagging a bit by the end but they actually all did very well indeed and had a great time together – I think The Barts are the family who’s kids Davies and Scarlett most look forward to seeing and get on consistently well with. It always seems very easy and we rarely, if ever, have to intervene with any of their time together), watched some more music TV (Lady? Not Lady) and enjoyed spending ages superimposing all of our heads on crazy dancers on a jibjab website which had us all in stitches 😆

The kids had tea and then our guests gathered everything, well nearly everything ;), up and headed off. Ady had already done most of the tidying up so he had a bath while I read the end of to Davies and Scarlett. Scarlett has decided she might quite like to start reading after all so her and I decoded the title of Six Dinner Sid as she knew it said that and knew all the names of the letters but not what sounds they made. I suspect when she gets it she’ll get it quickly.

Davies and Scarlett went to bed, but not to sleep – despite them clearly being tired sleep was elusive. Scarlett decided she was cold – I suspect because she has her eye on my blanket, which she is not having so she made do with multi-layering two of my fleeces and Ady’s jumper. She finally fell asleep while we were eating dinner and I think Davies is now asleep too.

Tomorrow Ady’s working but hopefully not all day and the kids and I may go and visit my parents but I suspect none of us will be up particularly early. 😉

And off to work again for me. I left only Ady up and was starting to feel the effects of a second morning after the night before at work ;).

It was a fairly low key morning thankfully – I did a Back to School display by putting up some black paper and writing on it with chalk (I know, chalk, me, see how I face my demons!) and artfully arranging school related books (I included Spot Starts School, First Term at Malory Towers and I am absolutely too small for school along with everything inbetween I could find). I spent teabreak discussing camping trips and then an hour on the enquiry desk properly In Charge of the library as the senior nipped over to Shoreham to collect something. I was a fairly rubbish in charge person mind you as I just let all the staff go on the internet 😆

I spent the last hour writing a letter to all the reading groups based at the library about the new Reading Groups Charter and trying to organise how we run the groups a bit better. All very productive :).

Back home I had a quick cup of tea and got changed into Nic again and then we all piled into cars and headed to the beach via Asda for supplies (sausages, rolls, marshmallows and readymixed Pimms in tins). The kids did rock clambering and various degrees of entering the sea (both of my two changed into swimsuits and went right in – Scarlett got dressed and then later got changed back into swimsuit and went in again, mad girl!). Ady did barbecueing of sausages on our little portable barbecue which we then all gathered round afterwards and melted marshmallows on.

It was fairly windy and not incredibly warm but nice food, lovely company, impressive kite surfers to watch and happy children so a good couple of hours :). The only slight blot was a dog that seemed to be completely ignored by it’s owners, wherever they were and hung around us in what I found a very menacing way although was probably just after our sausages. It made me very nervous 🙁

We left at about 4ish and Scarlett got stroppy about wanting an icecream so we called back in to Asda to buy a packet which appeased her. Back home again the kids played, Kirsty and I did knitting and we all drank lots of tea. The men and kids wanted to watch Total Wipeout (I have my own name for it which keeps the Total bit…) so Kirsty had a shower and I had a bath to avoid that ;).

There was a brief hiatus which we all searched for a missing chicken which we had to admit defeat over. Sadly the chicken was found this morning – one of the cockerel chicks. It had managed to get itself stuck behind a box,upside down and had died 🙁 Feel a bit bad for not having found it last night although I suspect it may still have been too late even by the time we’d realised it was missing. We were agonising over what to do with the extra cockerel anyway but it is still a horrid way to die :(.

Ady cooked pizza and we had a very funny evening watching virtual music videos on youtube. Our runaway favourite was the Total Eclipse of the Heart one which is a mental video anyway but quite hytserical with the new voiceover 😆

Ady and James went to bed and in honour of it being their last night with us and me not having to get up for work in the morning Kirsty and I stayed up til late o’clock chatting :).

I went to work!

Ady was up and away super early with the intention of being home very early. That didn’t quite happen as he ended up sitting in his car for about 4 hours on a completely stationary M25. He did come home with an amusing tale of some people who tried to get everyone out of their cars and dancing to ‘I’m every woman’ though. I don’t think they had many takers – I’d have joined in ;).

I fed the four children cereal, had a very nice chat with Marcus about the contents of his suitcase, told them all to try and be quiet and headed off to work.

I had a good day at work, really like the new computer system :). I did Baby Rhyme Time which was very small and intimate although I boosted the numbers by persuading Lucy and The Rs to stay when they happened to call in just before it started 😆 My least favourite task at work is shelving – putting returned books back on the shelves in the right place, I just find it rather tedious. Our rota is split into hour long slots so an hour of shelving, particularly if there isn’t actually all that much to do is plain boring to me – like filing really. So I was very happy when the hour I was supposed to be shelving didn’t happen as there was none to do so I got to do some copy typing instead on the basis that noone else is as quick at typing or happy using the computers as me :).

I got home at 5pm, fully expecting Ady to have been home for hours but he actually arrived about 15 minutes after me so thanks hugely to Kirsty and James for their all day long supervisioning :). As far as I’m aware kids did lots of playing, inside and out and enjoyed each others company :).

Another very nice evening with food cooked by me and further name-that-tune-isms moving onto the tv music channels in search of Lady Gaga who I remaine unconvinced does actually have a real title at all.

We had our new friends rescheduled visiting today from Monday.

I’d slept in a funny position so have a stiff neck/back/shoulder although it has eased through the day but it got me up earlier than normal as it was painful lying in bed. So I had a burst of efficiency first thing and replied to lots of emails and sent out details about the Butser trip, washed up and did some random tidying up.

I realised we had very little in the way of lunchtime offerings so we nipped out to the newly opened Asda in Lancing (we did have a Coop and a Somerfield but Coop bought out Somerfield so have revamped the Somerfield store and moved into that and their old unit is now a mini Asda. I’m not a huge fan of loads of supermarkets but given they were already both supermarkets anyway it’s nice to have two decent ones so close – we now have a Sainsburys, Asda and Coop all within about 2 miles of our house.) We picked up bread, crisps, some biscuits and fruit for lunch and the kids noticed Madagascar 2 on dvd for £7 and decided to go halves on buying it with their money (Scarlett had £13 from the week Davies was away, in theory to spend in Winchester and at Marwell but she saved it and has so far spent £3 on a Michael Jackson cd and £2 on a soft toy for Davies, today she spent another £3.50 on her half of the dvd and £1 on buying a kinderegg each for her and Davies. Davies had £8 left over from the £20 pocket money he had at camp and has spent £2 on a bead necklace and now £3.50 on his half of the dvd. It’s good to record it here as I’m losing track! So Tarly has £3.50 left and Davies has £2.50). I bought Davies a comb as he has suddenly started combing his rather long hair in a sort of hippy The Fonz style 😆 Scarlett said she wanted a comb too but I explained the chances of getting a comb through her hair were virtually nil so she settled on a little fold up brush instead.

On the way home we talked about some ‘house rules’ for the visit which included ‘no harm to animals or plants’ when out in the garden (our many plants can get a bit of a battering when kids come over to play, particularly tomatoes and strawberries which get picked to use in games and I’m always worried about other children and the chickens) and shutting all bedroom doors as Candle is on a pooing wherever she can mission in protest of having people over. We also talked about how to ‘enforce the rules and why I couldn’t just tell the boys when they arrived as that would imply to them and their mum that I expected them to need telling not to trash our home and garden and that could cause offence.

Davies suggested playing outside straight away so that when they arrived they would already be outside which seemed like a good plan so I left them out the front and went through to put the shopping away and hang some washing out. E rang me to say she was lost as she was where she thought she should be but the house had a big white VW bus so it couldn’t be our house. I said it was indeed our house and our bus and went out to meet them! 😆 Definitely need that artwork on it so everyone knows it!

They arrived about 1130 and stayed til 430 but actually the time flew. M, the oldest gets on very well with Davies and Scarlett and the three of them played really well together, indoors and outside, both at the front and in short bursts with the chickens. They would have happily stayed with the chickens the whole time and built a ‘chicken playground’ which the chickens tolerated with good grace but I kept it to half an hour or so at a time and then a break so they didn’t get too stressed by the invasion of kids. T, the younger one, who is actually a lot younger than I’d realised and doesn’t turn 6 until shortly before Scarlett turns 7 so there is nearly a whole year between them, is very hard work. E certainly doesn’t deal with him in the same way I would but she seems to have a very effective method of managing to not get herself stressed, which is, I suspect very healthy given I don’t think T’s issues are naughtiness as such. They are clearly behavioural problems but I suspect are more deep rooted than just a lack of discipline, especially as his older brother seems so nice and clearly has the same parenting. So despite some demonstrations of fairly atrocious behaviour I found myself warming to him and wanting to help him see the world around him more positively rather than simply wanting to put him over my knee or shriek at him!

E and I had some very interesting chats and I recommended a couple of books to her that I’ve come across through work which are ‘situational’ books designed to help angry or otherwise special needs kids cope with stuff by way of giving them a story that they can identify with the characters in. We also talked about self esteem in kids, how I’ve often totally over analysed every little personality quirk in Davies and Scarlett from being supersensitive to them having been around them 24 hours a day and come to accept that as humans we are all flawed anyway and I can’t manage every little oddity out of them anyway simply by parenting alone.

It was a nice couple of hours anyway, I enjoy E’s company, Davies and Scarlett like spending time with M and I hope we can all overlook the trials of being with T and maintain a friendship.

They all left, I cooked tea for Davies and Scarlett and then Ady arrived home. Our food shopping order arrived so I spent time putting that away and then prepared the play room for guests, clearing away a load of stuff including the tent which needed putting all back in it’s bag after being aired on the washing line, a pile of clean washing, various toys and paperwork and more. It needs a good clear out in there again but I’m not feeling motivated to do it just now – more of a winter task I think.

Scarlett did some clearing up in her room and then Scarlett and I both helped Davies clear loads of stuff from his bedroom including about 6 cardboard boxes. He is such a womble! Scarlett settled into Davies’ room for a sleepover, Ady and I had baths and I put a curry on for later and set the rice cooker up. Ady made some bombay potatoes and we settled in to wait for Kirsty and James to arrive. They hit some traffic but were with us before 11pm. Scarlett was already asleep, but Davies came down to say hello to Marcus and Alex who were sleeping in Scarlett’s room for the first night. He went back up to bed and we had a lovely curry and enjoyable evening playing ‘name that tune’ with music from the laptop :).

No proper childcare arrangements this morning so Ady took the children with him on store visits til 1130 and then dropped them at the library for the last hour and a half. Fortunately I have plenty of stored employee goodwill and they were well behaved and it was really busy with children in there generally so they just blended in.

It was a mad busy morning too – we had new computer systems fitted on Monday so today was my first experience of them. I was fine, actually a lot easier than before with loads of good new features and twiddly bits so it’s more a case of getting used to what they can do. I spent the first 90 minutes on the counter, then had tea break and then another hour on the enquiry desk. By then Davies and Scarlett had arrived and were hanging out in the junior library and also did their next Questseekers visit each. Scarlett has finished and got certificate and medal and so on. She also got a free dvd voucher but handed that back as ‘my Mummy gets free dvds anyway, thankyou 🙂 ‘. Davies still has one visit to go. The collected big piles of new books and in Scarlett’s case a big of big book as she chose the classroom size edition of Six Dinner Sid, which as I said to her at the time we probably all know well enough now to not even need the book let alone the HUGE one ‘altogether now, Sid lives at number one Aristotle Street. He also lived at number two, three, four, five and six’. The big book is enough of a nusiance at the library, here at home it’s dwarfing the sofa!

We called home so I could get changed and make the kids a speedy sandwich each and then went back out again to the park to meet Lucy and The Rs. Had a nice couple of hours chatting to Lucy while the kids played :).

Back at home Davies and Scarlett played in the garden. I got the washing in before the threatened rain started and collected eggs – another 2 today, steadily climbing again, hurrah! :). The kids came in and looked at books together while listening to Michael Jackson cds that I’d brought home from work. They had tea and Scarlett painted glue on my arm and then peeled it off when it had dried (oh the larks we get up to here!), then I read a fair chunk of which we’ve been enjoying.

Ady came home, the kids went to bed, I’ve spent ages pondering mobile phones, netbooks, internet and digital tv suppliers and more. And now, as Joyce has failed to deliver and Ady is watching something truly dire on telly that I really can’t bear to be in the room with any longer, I’m off to bed!

See I can do educatin’ too!

Seems to be a child in my bed most morning when I wake at the moment. I’m sure they have some sort of ‘says she misses us when she’s not with us ehh?’ type conspiracy going on to try and break me from extremes of ‘don’t ever leave Mummy for a whole week ever again’ hysteria and ‘For crying out loud can I just have five minutes to myself!’ to a middle ground of normalness. They shall not win though. Tomorrow I’m going to teach them about possessive parentalness. (you may wish to read Joyce’s blog first for a while, she’s tending to beat me to it daily and I’m struggling not to reference her!)

So this morning it was Tarly anyway.

I had a bizarre dream which I can’t quite recapture now but was very vivid at the time, came downstairs, sorted breakfast for Davies as Tarly had already eaten, sorted out the chickens (3 eggs today, woohoo!) and packed a picnic.

We were meeting Mel, Liam and Lily at Pulborough Brooks before they go back to school at the end of next week. For once we were on time and arrived at the same time as they did. We parked and were greeted by the volunteers and workers there who all but know Davies and Scarlett by name excitedly telling them about the new rainbow spotter sheets they have. They had 12 colours (rainbow plus black,white, silver, brown and pink) with spaces to write what you had found ‘in nature’ for each colour. And new pens!

It was an interesting start to the walk as we gathered around the pond and Davies and Scarlett were spotting various things like newts and watersnails. Liam, particularly is very competitive and always has to spot the biggest one or tell a story about how he once had an experience with something better. Davies and Scarlett always impress me with their tolerance for this. Davies and Scarlett managed to find stuff for every colour of the rainbow anyway, including elderberries, clover, thistles, feathers. lilypads and more.

Not very far round it suddenly started to rain very heavily for about 10 minutes. Mel, who is far more organised than I am whipped out raincoats for her and her two, I stood ineffectually under a tree and Davies and Scarlett took the opportunity to run around laughing madly and getting soaked. This was much to the bemusement of Liam and Lily and delight of a youngish couple also sheltering under the not very sheltery tree who commended my kids on being ‘proper kids’ 😆 Liam asked me what they were doing and looked at me like I was mad when I said ‘making the best of whats come along and enjoying it’ but it did strike me that both kids have definitely got Ady and my optimistic streak. Coupled of course with a bit of a lunatic streak 😉

The rain stopped and we continued along the trail spotting various things as we went. At one point M,L and L went into one of the hides. Scarlett was on the rowdy side today so I discouraged them from going in as she just annoys people doing proper birdwatching (and rightly so, so I keep her a proper distance away from hides and shush her when she’s in that frame of mind) and while we waited D and S looked for four leaf clovers in a clover patch along the way. When M, L & L came back out they joined in so for about 10 minutes all four children were down on their knees methodically seaching for four leaf clover. No one found one.

We finished the trail, handed in the sheets, Davies and Scarlett each spent a couple of their own pounds in the shop and then we headed to the playarea for a picnic. I guess we got there for 1ish and were still there at 4! We had a really nice time with the four children mostly playing together. They started off creating a Total Wipeout circuit with the play stuff and did that for ages, then they found a ‘secret den’ in the undergrowth and played in that for ages. Mel and I had a really nice long chat and it was all very sunny and lovely.

We chatted a bit about Home Ed as Mel had seen the new and papers of the bubble event. She’d clearly researched it all a bit to find out what we were protesting about and was all indignant and supportive on our behalf 🙂 My spirits are always lifted when a ‘civilian’ is on our side ;).

Finally, after Scarlett went over to see what a cluster of RSPB volunteers were all gathered looking at and came back to ask for the camera to take some photos of the lizard and her babies we were all ready to go and we parted and headed for home. Really nice to see them :).

Once home I did the kids’ tea, made some cookies for afterwards and then Ady arrived home. I read a pile of books (all now ready to go back to work tomorrow) to them and they went off to bed. I cooked dinner (toad in the hole) and having drunk far too much wine and peaked too early I’m off to bed now too.

No idea what happened to the end of yesterdays blog, but my Granny is fine and well.

So, kids needed shoes, I’d cancelled friends coming over incase Davies has a lurgy but he was feeling fine after a hearty breakfast so we headed off to Littlehampton for shoes.

We got Davies some new pretendy crocs, Scarlett wanted yellow though and they only had pink left. We called into Rustington to the other pretendy crocs shop but they also only had pink or blue. Ebay has now come up trumps and she has a pair of yellow ones on the way (and for less money even with postage than the shop was selling them actually!) though.

We got home about 2ish and had a late lunch followed by some debate about what everyone wanted for dinner.Ady and I were having salmon, Davies wanted pizza and Scarlett had been promised french toast for days. So I put the pizza dough on and then afternoon was spent with the kids watching a drumming dvd I’d brought home, playing with the geomags and generally reconnecting. Davies was fine, it must have been a bodily reaction to the week rather than anything more worrying but I think a day at home, just us, was probably the best way to spend the day anyway actually.

The kids had tea, Ady came home, I read them a pile of books, they went to bed. Neither of them went straight to sleep, infact Davies came down again at 930pm to invite us to go and see the amusement arcade he’d set up in his bedroom! He’s back! 😆

And that’s probably it, maybe wordpress cut it for being uninteresting actually ;). Except for upsetting my mother by ringing her to say we didn’t need her on Friday afternoon this week. This is the third week running we’ve not had her looking after the kids while I work – the first because Ady took both kids rather than hang around waiting for her to get here (she always cuts it very fine despite having been told the earlier she can get here the better as Ady has to catch up the mornings hours), last week Scarlett really didn’t want her to look after her without Davies here so Ady took her with him again and this week we had a childcare issue in the morning which has been sorted for the whole day now. She got a bit arsey and said ‘are you trying to tell me something?’ to which the answer is no but if I’m honest she is the kids’ least favourite person to look after them. I wish it weren’t so and I suspect she does try hard to make it a nice afternoon when she’s here but she is so inconsistent with them that they are now at an age where they have made their own minds up about her and it’s not all favourable. We did want my parents to have the children next Wednesday evening though which we asked about when they were here on Sunday and got a very non committal answer so I followed that up with her – it’s from 4pm to about 11pm, so all evening and I really struggled again to get her to say yes. I eventually asked ‘so is that okay then?’ and got a ‘well it will have to be won’t it?! stroppily back in reply. I said ‘no, if it’s not okay we’ll find someone else to have them or not go at all’ and then she was fine. Honestly though is it any wonder the kids would rather not be looked after someone who clearly sees it as a massive chore and imposition of her time? And I shield them from most of this crap :(. Life was much easier in Manchester when we just paid for childcare and were able to dictate dates, times and just hand over an hourly rate to someone who was happy to be doing it…

Sorry Joyce, I left you to cope with it single handed yesterday. In my defense there was a blog post started but it was interrupted by vomit which along with the dog ate it, I had my period and I was at my Granny’s funeral surely qualifies as a proper excuse?

So yesterdat then… we spent some time at our rather neglected allotment. In fairness there are no crops being neglected as such, just general tidiness. I won’t blog about what’s happening up there over here I’ll do it over there instead. To be fair Ady’s was the conscience that was prickling the most and he was motivated more by the excellent view of Shoreham airport from which the annual RAFA airshow was happening this weekend than woe on behalf of the carrots!

We had a fairly slack morning for getting up and finally were ready to go at about 11am. Davies was still sitting on my lap – more about observations Post Camp (PC) later – and decided he wanted to walk up to the allotment, while Scarlett was dressed and raring to go with Ady in the car. In the end we actually left at exactly the same time – them in the car with picnic and us walking. I suspect Davies wanted some one to one time with me. He decided to read every word we came across on the way and surprised me with how good his reading is getting. His spelling is still on the ‘creative’ side but he really seems to have taken to reading. He tells me he did some practising with stuff last week while at camp!

We talked about various things along the walk, which is about half an hour I suppose (nearly 2 miles but we walked quick) and it was nice to have my boy back and still my boy if that makes sense.

Up at the allotment the kids varied between doing stuff on their plots, sitting under umbrellas to shelter from the sun, watching the planes, heading off into the woods and fields a couple of times for ‘adventures’ and making friends with the various wildlife. Ady and I did loads of weed clearing and we all paused to watch the impressive planes coming over every now and then. I managed to get a narrow strip of sunburn in the gap that showed between the top of my jeans and the bottom of my t shirt when I was bent over weeding! 😆

At about 315pm Davies and I headed off to the newly opened Asda to get some meat for a roast dinner. We had £10 and ended up with 8pence change as we got free range chicken, reduced carrots and bread and a notepad and some fancy pens each for the kids from the back to school range. They now each have an ‘Adventure book’ in which they draw, write notes and stick things in from their various adventures :).

We went back to collect Ady and Scarlett from the allotment and ended up going back in to watch the vulcan as it came over before heading for home.

The kids played in the garden doing stuff with their adventure books, Ady cooked dinner and I spent some time with the chickens. I’ve been enjoying watching some old photos on my old laptop recently and whilst I suspect they are already on flickr somewhere they are not in sets or tagged so I re-uploaded some of them at the same time as copying them onto our new external harddrive. So now you can all enjoy walking through memory lane with me just by looking at my flickrstream of when Scarlett and Davies both had short hair and non-grass stained clothes, my hair was longer and my eyes had less lines around them and the backdrops were all northern.

My parents appeared while the children were in the bath and stayed awhile. We did offer to split our dinner but they’d not long eaten. It all seemed fairly sociable but they did beat a rather hasty exit – not sure why really. We had dessert (the crumble S and I made on Friday) and finally the children went to bed. Scarlett took a fair while to get to sleep but Davies really struggled which I was surprised about given the late night on Saturday. He asked me to sit with him for a while at about 11pm which I did and then as Ady went up to bed around midnight he came downstairs complaining of a stomach ache. He was in the loo for ages and then suddenly called me to say he’d been sick.

Thankfully my role was limited to some back rubbing and chucking some bleach down after it – despite being very rarely ill (as in vomit ill) both Davies and Scarlett are very good at self management in that respect and I’ve only ever had to flush toilets or empty bowls, unlike my poor Dad who often had to scrub carpets. My mum is very, very vomit phobic so Dad always had to deal with us being sick when we were little. I suspect her phobia rubbed off actually and made us deny we were feeling sick until it was too late to make it to the bathroom, hence lots of hallway accidents. I’ve always tried to be very relaxed about sick with my kids and they are both fine with it when it does happen, actually probably far better than I am.

Davies was fine afterwards although a bit pale and wobbly and wanted to be with me so we went up to bed. I woke Ady and gave him options about where to sleep (in bed with Davies and I but running the risk of infection / disturbed night, in bed with just Davies although Davies wanted me or taking his pillow and going to Davies’ room which was his best bet for sleep really) – he wisely evacuated our bed for Davies’ and Davies was soon asleep peacefully. He slept right through and is fine today so it must have been too much sun / accumulation of not enough sleep / too much apple and blackberry crumble / something else not very serious.

Today was supposed to be the return visit of our new friends coming to our house but I emailed her last night to say Davies was unwell and even if it proved not to be a contagious bug he was probably best off having a quiet day at home to rest and recover so we’ve rearranged for later in the week.

Davies was actually up fairly bright and early at 8am. I chatted to him awhile and then turned over and went back to sleep for a bit. When I got up and the kids had breakfasted we debated what to do with the day. Davies was fine, happy to go out for a bit and as both of them were claiming to need new crocs