One word? When seven would do…

Today we were mostly listening to Kirsty MacColl in the car. The children were aware of her work from Fairtytale of New York and more recently In These Shoes? but today we had some Days, some There’s a guy works down the chip shop swears he’s Elvis, a bit of Perfect Day and our personal fave England 2, Columbia 0. They were sad to learn she is dead, and very shocked at the man lying about his wife and children in the last song!

This morning we headed over to meet Julie, Jack and Maisie at the farm where they keep their pony, Honey. Julie was looking really well, she’s got 3 weeks til her due date but I could see the baby coming before that, she has that just before the event glow and calmness about her already, she looked really relaxed and happy and excited :). Nice to catch up too, it’s been a while since it was just us together although we have had several long phone calls over the last few weeks. The children were all delighted to see each other too.

Davies had first ride on Honey, then Scarlett went second, Jack had a ride and then Davies had another go as Maisie didn’t want to ride. She then changed her mind and did want a ride which meant Scarlett didn’t get the second go she’d been hoping for. Julie then offered her the promise of a bareback ride from the stables back down to the paddock which more than made up for it :). Davies is doing well, he really likes it and asks Julie lots of technical questions, both about riding and horses generally, all of which she is able to answer. Scarlett is something of a natural though, utterly loves it and wants to push herself farther each time. She is fearless and does look really at home up on Honey’s back. Her bareback ride was fab, Julie led Honey while Tarly clung on with her legs and held on to Honey’s mane, she loved it 🙂

Julie and her are already planning jumping, trotting and cantering as soon as the baby is born :).

We spent some time looking at a swollen and starting to decompose dead sheep which died while lambing – very disgusting but somehow fascinating too. We also talked at length about animal gaits further to something we’d seen on Bamzooki about horses legs. Julie showed us the patterns for trot, canter and gallop and we all did that down the road for a bit 😆 a faintly odd sight for anyone watching – a heavily pregnant woman leading a child on a pony with another woman and 3 children following behind bobbing up and down repeating one, two, three, one, two, three :lol:.

It’s been really windy here today and having done energetic stuff this morning we decided to have a lazy snuggling afternoon and made big bowls of popcorn and watched Enchanted on dvd. I really enjoyed it, Davies did too and it’s funny to see him getting slightly more sophisticated humour that still whooshes over Scarlett’s head. Sarcasm and irony are no longer totally lost on him. We cuddled up on the sofa in various combinations during the film and then Ady rang to say he was arriving at the station in about 10 minutes (he’d been to a meeting in London) so we went to collect him. I caught my trousers on a cupboard knob in the bathroom and shouted ‘bloody cupboard!’ which made the children giggle so we sang songs all the way to station using the word ‘bloody’ as many times as we could – cursing and musical talent nurturing, a rich and varied education for sure :lol:.

Scarlett fell down the stairs this afternoon, I heard a grand thudding and suddenly she appeared at the bottom in a crumpled heap face first :(. As always I let her pick herself up and run to me (foolproof way to check if they are seriously injured if they get to me, I hope I don’t see the day when they try and fail or simply don’t even try for being too hurt to manage it). She was incredibly lucky and has just scraped her face a bit. I think it is more carpet burn grazes to her nose, forehead and just under her eye and they are not too bad tonight, not even worthy of photographing ;). She was shaken though poor thing :(.

The children had tea and then it was off to Badgers. They had ‘share a hobby’ as part of this weeks activities so Scarlett took in her chocolate cupcakes for her baking hobby and Davies took in his box of art materials, his watercolour book and a photo of him standing infront of his library display. There was a fine array of things taken in by other badgers with several musical instruments (Davies was very taken with a small violin someone had, half size perhaps), a set of golf clubs, a football jersey (supporter not player), and a real cat in a carrier. Scarlett was very popular for her cakes :). While they were being Creative Badgers Ady I had a nice long walk and talked a bit about holidays and long term plans. It looks like QVC will continue through the summer with a break for just a few weeks now so a lot of our plans will have to go on hold or run the risk of missing a possible opportunity for lucrative part time work for Ady moving forward.

We’re onto Famous Five book 5 now and I’m certainly ready for a change when this one ends although I suspect we may come back to them – they are off holidaying in horse drawn caravans and having run-ins with circus folk in this one – they seem to be growing up rapidly though with Julian old enough to be responsible for all the others which makes me want to read number 21 just to see how she spun out their school ‘hols’ for quite so many terms 😆 So, stories, bed and then Apprentice. Off to work tomorrow.

If you should be on the yahoo group and aren’t, if it you would like to be please let me know and I’ll get it sorted.
Scheduled NicCamps for 2008 currently are:

June 15th- 22nd when Ady and I are planning to camp at Shell Island with a visit to CAT during that week. Could do with knowing numbers for the CAT visit actually so I can try and book group prices.

December 1st-5th – Helmsley YH. Will be in touch with people fairly soon with final balance figures and date to pay by.

Also wondered if anyone was interested in a late camping trip in September. Ady and I are planning to go anyway and I think it would be on the ‘turn up if you are free and book yourself’ rather than a group booking (so not actually a NicCamp really :)) but weather permitting we’ve got time booked off work 2nd week in September and are planning to go and camp near the Eden Project so we can visit there again. The campsite Alison and Layla stayed at last year comes highly recommended so we’ll probably try there. Anyone interested?

And finally, I was thinking about a Spring 2009 camp, either late Feb or early March and possibly Hunstanton or even Truleigh Hill again depending on numbers of interested folk. Before I start looking at venues and dates is there any interest in that?

44 today. I remember my Dad being 44, I was nine and he came dancing into my bedroom singing ‘I’ve got the key of the door, I’ve never been 44 before!’ which was rather out of character and now I wonder if he was possibly drunk at the time :lol:.

After discussion on birthday gifts Ady was adamant he only wanted a box set of dvds which I’d already ordered (and arrived just in time) but last night I popped out to the supermarket and got various little treats like posh filter coffee and croissants which I put in the kitchen with HAPPY BIRTHDAY post it notes on, a tub of his favourite ice cream which is in the freezer with post it note on and various packs of crisps and chocolates that he likes which when he next goes rummaging for snacks he will find in the cupboard with post it notes on. While we were camping at the weekend he got OCD about washing his hands because he loved the smell of the ecover handwash so much (lavendar) so I got a shampoo and shower gel by them with the same fragrance for him too. Lots of little nice things rather than something to gather dust or take up space and never be used. 🙂

Ady is always restless about his birthday about his mum – it’s the only time of year he thinks about her on the basis that whether or not they are in contact she can’t possibly help but be thinking about him too on his birthday. I think it is also one of the times he really misses his sister too. So he was up at about 4am and enjoyed his coffee and croissants apparently. He had hoped to get home early today but work conspired to keep him there later with various things cropping up.

We had a nice day at home – just the three of us ;). We watched Doctor Who from the weekend, made a cake for Ady, let the chicks spend some time outside in the sunshine, watched a baby bird that was on it’s first flying lesson and plopped down onto our lounge windowsill – we have so many nesting birds in our garden at the moment, blackbirds in the hedge, pigeons in our ivy covered tree, starlings in the roof and of course our bantam is sitting on eggs too. We watched some of King Arthur’s Disasters which was on Nick jr and I’d not seen before and thought was hilarious. We also watched some of the Rugrats show where they are all grown up and teenagery now. Ady and Scarlett made some birthday cards for Ady and we wrapped up some of his presents and then Tarly and I made some chocolate cupcakes. Tomorrow at Badgers they are doing ‘share a hobby’ for Creative Badger and Davies is talking about his painting and Tarly wanted to talk about baking as one of her hobbies so we thought it would be cool for her to take in some cupcakes she’d baked to share. She did all of it with minimal supervision and tonight we decorated them with chocolate buttercream and sprinkles. They also played with Betty Spagetty, geomags (naturally ;)) and the plasticine.

Later we had swimming lessons. Davies is doing really well and is mastering back stroke now. Scarlett is still rather at the splashy incoordinated stage but Carolyn the instructor mentioned a plan for her for next week so hopefully she’ll click with it all soon. When we got home Ady was waiting for us so presents and cards were given and attention lavished on Birthday Daddy :). I faced my fear with the fiesty cockerel (and was slightly mollified when my Dad mentioned what a nasty piece of work he is after coming to look after them at the weekend). Mum, Dad, Frazer and Granny all arrived at about 7pm with more cards and gifts and then Dad and I went out to get fish and chips for everyone’s tea.

Davies played top trumps with Frazer for ages, Scarlett was patronised by my Granny who pointed at a giraffe in a book and asked her if she knew what it was 😆 what amuses me is that she will follow that up with a question like ‘and what is 7 times 8?’ :lol:. Ady blew out all 44 candles on his cake in one breath and then I took D and S off to Tarly’s room to read some Famous Five while Ady showed everyone else our pictures from the weekend before they left.

I forgot to mention yesterday that Scarlett had appeared out of bed and watched some of Teen Mum High with me, including the 13 year old having her home birth with all her family around her. We talked a bit about all of it; why they were at school, why they still had to live with grown ups even though they were now mummies and how their bodies were still growing so there were more complications with pregnancy and childbirth. I wasn’t sure she was taking it all in until D appeared too and she then explained it all to him in wonder. Putting it in context for them that those girls were only 2 years older than some of the 11 year olds they know and still think of as ‘children’ albeit bigger children than them really hit home for them.

And that was today really. Nice, relaxed and the only other people’s children here were accompanied by their mother and happened to be my own brother and mother anyway! 😆

here is yesterday!

Davies and Scarlett have been going to play (read being looked after) at Caz and Bid’s house every other Wednesday morning so I can go to work and it’s been working really well. They have two boys A and E who are almost identical ages to D and S and the four children get on really, really well with each other. I always have to prise Davies and Scarlett away from the house when I go to collect them and never hear anything which gives me anything to worry about while I’m at work. So the other week we ‘returned the favour’ and Ady had A and E here for a few hours one morning while I was at work and then last week Caz asked if I could have them yesterday for the whole day.

It was Pulborough Brooks monthly HE meet up so I picked A and E up on the way and we went there. We were slightly late so started to walk round at a fast pace and it all went well although I’d perhaps rather have been a bit more leisurely to actually spot some wildlife the children were getting on well playing Ben 10 (A and E are also big fans) . About halfway round we caught up with another family who I’ve met a couple of times – she has 5 boys, 4 of whom are HE’d. I then rang Katie who organises the meet up to ask whether she was there or not and it turned out she’d been sitting in the park waiting for people to arrive. We met up with her and her two just after the start and as it was nearly midday she decided to forgoe the walk too and joined us in the play area for lunch.

I felt slightly under siege trying to accomodate the requests of four children, manage their picnic, ensure all their rubbish ended up in the bin etc while attempting to chat to Katie and Vicky too. Scarlett played well with Katie’s little girl and Davies and A were having a nice time but E kept nagging me to leave (which I was in no hurry to do, I’d have stayed at the park all day if I could). Eventually all the children were wanting to leave so we all left together and we came home.

The car journey was like a Baby Rhyme Time gone wrong with stereo four children singing ‘1, 2, 3, 4, 5, once I caught an X alive’ with X being substituted by more ridiculous things each time :rolls:. Davies and Scarlett were clearly delighted to be ‘getting away with’ the sort of silliness I wouldn’t normally be prepared to listen to – and knew it as they keep casting glances my way but I concentrated on driving.

Once home I filled a pool with some water and aside from a never-quite-got-to-the-bottom of set to between the 3 boys they played mostly nicely in the garden. They did all come in and watch cartoons for a while, loudly, with A and E squashing next to me on the sofa while I tried to ignore them all but when I turned it off again after Ben 10 finished and refused to get any more food for anyone after they ate most of a loaf of bread in toast and then seemed to be racking their brains for more things to ask me for they gave up and went to play again.

I really am crap with children. I adore my own, I like plenty of children as individuals well enough and there are several I could sit and chat to for hours. I don’t mind leading a group of children in a proper activity but just being responsible for other people’s kids, out and about, in public, struggling to find the balance between my own standards of what is and isn’t okay behaviour for children with what they might be used to acting like at home, maintaining some protection for my house and my kids stuff without coming across as a complete control freak is just painful for me. I spent the whole day with a ball of fear about something going wrong – what if one of them got hurt or lost or wanted their mummy. Should I cuddle them if they were upset? tell them to shut up when they were being rowdy and annoying? I can just about maintain the act of being a grown up for Davies and Scarlett – well actually I don’t bother, they are in on the secret that I’m not one and indeed sometimes help me maintain the act for the benefit of other people :lol:.

Anyway, Ady’s offered to be the one to return childcare favours next time rather than me. Know your strengths and don’t set yourself up for failure with things you just can’t pull off I guess. I won’t be offering to host kid only sleepovers any time soon anyway!

Thought I’d blog the trip in it’s entirety rather than break up the days.

We first heard of the Sustainability Centre two years ago when we went to their Sussed It fair – (I’ve just been and read that post and been astounded at how much I’ve changed and how much D and S have grown, and enjoyed reading the post directly below it too :). )We meant to go last year but it rained heavily but I had it in my diary for this year again. Ady’s planned QVC appearance on Saturday was cancelled so we ended up at the beginning of last week with an unexpectedly late free weekend. I remembered that they offer camping at the Sustainability Centre so we booked that for Friday and Saturday night and decided to have a close-to-home-dry-run with the new tent, camping mats and sleeping bags.

It’s less than 50 miles away and with no traffic around we were there in about 45 minutes. The hostel officially closes at 8pm and that is where we needed to report to but I had emailed and said we would be there around 8pm. We arrived at the same time as another family so I chatted to the woman for a while while her partner went off to check in. We only talked for a few minutes and Ady was amazed at how much information I came back with about her which made me worry I’d interrogated her rather than chatting :lol:. Her partner didn’t come back to the carpark though so I dashed off to the hostel too. There was someone lounging around watching telly who offered to show me where to go even though he was just a hostel guest and then we met another lad coming to gather firewood and a fire for the people I’d just seen so he took me over in the end. The campsite manager, Hazel, did lean out of an upstairs window and blow kisses at me in welcome though and promise to come over to us later, which she did. I liked her a lot; she worked the short sundress with cut off shorts worn with wellies look well as she tramped around the campsite pushing wheelbarrows full of firewood, stopping every so often to do cartwheels. She must have been about 40 but she was just lovely, full of fun and joy :).

I guess we were at our actual pitch by about 830pm and we were pitched, unpacked and beds set up by about 945pm which isn’t bad at all. But the people opposite were like a well oiled machine and were long since sitting infront of their lit fire eating their cooked meal before we’d done which made us feel a little amateur. There must be a knack to getting dome tents up that we’ve yet to master as we always seem to struggle with that first bit of getting the four corners square and I definitely couldn’t pitch it on my own, which is frustrating as I could get the smaller dome tent we’ve used before up on my own. We’d also tried to go slightly diagonally across the pitch and then realised it wouldn’t work so had to walk the tent round to correct that. All good practice though I guess. There is a huge Asda just five miles up the road open 24 hours so we nipped back there for various bits of food (another slight flaw in our plans, we should have taken first night stuff with us really. It was a bit horrid trailing two tired children round a supermarket at 11pm on a Friday night with us all utterly filthy, sweaty and slightly fraught wasn’t a lovely experience.). Back to the campsite and I settled Davies and Scarlett in bed while Ady cooked burgers. By midnight we were nicely chilled out and had a lovely end to the evening chatting and enjoying the peace with occasional owls calling across the night.

Saturday morning we had a lazy start with sausage and bacon and toast and lots of tea. The campsite is usually most of the fields there I think but that was all reserved for the Green Fair happening on Sunday so there were just the bays available – about 8 of them sort of self contained with a high bank around them, large enough for a big tent and various tranglings like cooking and eating area. The facilities are basic – showers and loos up at the hostel and the centre with use of the hostel kitchen and fridge space if you want it, but it’s a bit of a walk back up there to fetch stuff. The price totally reflects this though – we paid £28 for the two nights and actually we then didn’t need to pay to get into the Green Fair on Sunday which would have been about £12. We were looked in on several times to check we were ok and offered all sorts of things on the Friday night – help to put the tent up, food, drink etc. – the difference between there and Kessingland couldn’t have been greater…

We had the first of many walks round the woods and then headed back to Asda for food for lunch and dinner. While we were there we got a cool box and a bag of ice. I was amazed that not only did it manage to keep things cool for a full 24 hours plus it also actually chilled things next to the ice so we drank beer and cider that evening that had condensation on the bottles – oh the luxury :). I walked up to the hostel to pay for the pitch and buy some firewood. They sell sacks of logs and the use of a big metal dish on legs to have your campfire for a fiver. Our neighbours who later returned and packed up as quickly and efficiently as they’d set up also left half a bag of their firewood so we used that too.

We spent the afternoon going on various short walks, we saw a huge grass snake at the pond – must have been over 4 foot long and was the first grass snake Ady or I had ever seen. We also walked through the green burial site area and had long and interesting chats about choice of funerals. I really like the green burial idea and we were particularly taken with the idea of growing fruit plants or trees over the grave and decorating the grave with pretty things made to remember you by instead of cold headstones with dry bible quotes on them. Each to their own of course but I think it would be a lovely place to go and visit and think about and remember someone you have lost. We headed off in various combinations with Scarlett and I going on several mini-walks while Davies and Ady played several rounds of Ben 10 top trumps. Ady and I got to sit and chat while the children wandered off a fair bit too, we gave them fairly wide boundaries and let them go. We also wandered amoung the people setting up things ready for the green fair and met some very interesting people including the man who carved wood and errected his stand using a frame of sticks he’d found and adapted for the use with loads of y shaped end verticals supporting the horizontals. He was wearing a pair of wooden boots with metal toe caps and talked to us about bare fist welsh mountain fighting and shin kicking contests. He was utterly charmed by Scarlett and then delighted to learn Davies’ name and it’s origin as he was a welshman but to my shame I couldn’t reply to his torrent of welsh as mine only extends to ‘hello’ and counting to ten (and infact I tend to wobble around five and often end up with 8, 9 and 10 in german, but don’t tell anyone!). I then realised that although Davies and Scarlett know Grandad is from Wales and grew up there they hadn’t realised there is a welsh language – and one that Grandad can speak . I imagine they will be hounding him for new words now :).

Davies and Scarlett gathered various sticks and leaves to use as kindling and Davies lit the fire about 7pm and they toasted marshmallows on it. We finished the Famous Five story we’ve been reading and they went off to bed. They took forever to get to sleep though – being on the same floor of the house let alone the same room, let alone sharing a camping mat is a huge novelty for them with their seperate bedrooms on different floors at home so we are always in full on ‘sleepover mode’ when camping with giggling and playing with torches til late. We enjoyed watching the shadows of people moving about in the beer tent infront of us and listening to the far off muffled voices along with night noises and star gazing.

Sunday morning we all slept in a little later and listened to the countdown to the fair opening at 10am over the tannoy system, the testing of the sound system in the live music tent and the general hubbub of it all getting set up. The fair was fairly small – probably 30 stalls in all. Some were craft workshops and demos, some free,some pay for and some stalls were just selling things. We enjoyed the children’s tent and Davies and Scarlett made a dragonfly each with lace scraps and pipecleaners, they drew round their footprints and did one with environmentally friendly pictures and one with bad for the environment things – Davies had things like solar panels and self sufficiency with growing / rearing your own food, harvesting rainwater etc in his good foot and leaving the tap running while you clean your teeth, burning fossil fuels and dropping litter in his bad foot. Surprised at how much of that he has learnt without being preached to actually. Scarlett’s was less in line with common ecofriendly ideas but did have many pretty flowers in it :). They made chalk house gods – that was what they were calling them on the stand and they were to protect your home but I’ve not been able to find anything on google about such ideas – which involved staining chalk surfaces with leaf or flower rubbing then carving into the picture with a flint tool. Not something I’d be desperate to do myself (chalk, eww!) but they enjoyed it. They made bat rings with sequins and other sparkly things and got to stroke some real rescued bats, we bought local honey made from pollen from starflowers, watched some straw bale house building, chatted to the woman from this ancient farm who was incredibly enthusiastic about HE and we’ll aim to visit soon.

We watched a very cool camp crafts talk about making fire and the children had a go at making sparks. I don’t know that our camping trips are that extreme or indeed without one of those clicky gas lighters but just incase I know about bark from the silver birch, batteries and wire wool, cotton wool and vaseline and newspaper soaked in candlewax techniques now :). We watched Morris dancers and Scarlett and I copied some of the stick clicking bits with some sticks we picked up, we wore daisy chains in our hair (well S and I did, Ady would have struggled and D was less keen), Davies and I listened to two sessions of a drumming storyteller and got up to sing and dance along with parts of his tale. We chatted to four women spinning wool with spinning wheels and one using a drop spindle for ages.

We went back to our tent for lunch which was now behind the beer and live music tent, across from straw bale house building and infront of the shamanic drum healing area. Ady popped back at one point and found someone sitting on our chairs patiently waiting to see what would be happening at our tent :lol:. Everyone who passed wanted to know what we were talking about / demonstrating / there for so we chatted to loads of people. We had bacon sandwiches and listened to the music, singing along in places. They played one song which sounded so much like Jack and Diane but wasn’t that we had to sing over it with those words instead and then when they played one of their own tracks we didn’t know we sang American Pie. Two large glasses of wine probably helped with this ;).

Scarlett had made friends with every single dog she met, first asking their owner if they were friendly and could she stroke them (the dog, not the owner, although I suspect it will be a useful tactic for her socially in years to come :lol:) and then set up a bowl and water and called all dog owners over as they passed for their dogs to come and have a drink. She was in her element and wandered off for a while with one boy and his small dog as he let her take the lead and walk it.

The fair finished at 5pm and we very leisurely packed up as we couldn’t get our car down through the centre until after that (there was a no cars on site rule so once unpacked the car had to go back to the carpark) while Davies taught Scarlett how to throw the frisbee we’d brought. We’d tried to play all four of us the night before but she’d been very resistent to being shown how to throw it when I’d tried to teach her. We were all packed up by about 630pm and home about an hour later via McDonalds for the childrens’ tea. They had a bath and story from me while Ady unpacked the car.

We’ll definitely go back next year and it would be a great place for a small group (maybe up to 4 families) to camp together, particularly on the Green Fair weekend with a trip to the ancient farm on the Saturday. It’s so close to home I doubt we’d visit otherwise but it was a fab place to camp. We were really blessed with fantastic weather and although the tent, sleeping bags and camping mats all did really well I guess it wasn’t much of a test really. Ah well, guess we’ll have to go camping again very soon to test them further ;).

Pics are on flickr but here a couple of faves:

S and a real version of the soft toy dog she carted round all weekend calling ‘Timmy’.This one was called Romeo

fitting right in

making fire

our set up

Firestarter

Peeping out from trees – D is hardest to spot

Step back in time!

To Friday.

I’d normally work all day on my every other Friday but due to them owing my hours in lieu from the bank holiday I only had to work the afternoon. I later learnt they hadn’t thought this through terribly well as in the morning I’d have done the banking and Baby Rhymetime both of which they had to get someone else to do but it suited me :).

Ady went off to do a couple of Garden Centre visits – his job role is all over the place again, due to various, nothing to do with him factors then he came home to be with Davies and Scarlett for the afternoon while I went off to work. The children and I spent the morning packing all the clothes, books, towels, sleeping bags, fleeces, camping mats etc. stuff that is stored inside. Ady got all the stuff that lives in the garage out and sorted in the afternoon ready for our weekend away. Scarlett had a mammoth trying on session of summer clothes with pretty much everything going into the ebay pile and loads of too big last year stuff coming out. She is now firmly into age 6-7 clothes and anything new I’ve bought recently has even been 7-8 years. I think she is on the taller side of average and Davies is clearly on the shorter side of it although he has grown a bit lately too. Scarlett has plenty of dresses but could probably do with some more cropped trousers as I think that is what she’ll be living in for the next few months – dresses are ok but they tend to hamper her tree climbing tendancies a bit ;). I’ve cut the arms off loads of her thinner material tops though to make t shirts instead of needing to buy new ones :). D is rather short of shorts as it were too so a shorts shopping spree is on the agenda for next payday. I do have stacks of stuff to get on ebay though so that should fund it :).

So Ady came home, I went off to work and it was incredibly hot in the library (as it would be, the heating is centrally controlled and still on :shock:) with the same borrowers who were in 2 weeks ago moaning about how cold it was coming in to moan about how hot it was outside :lol:It really is a British thing talking constantly about the weather isn’t it? I find myself doing it all the time too.

I got home and took Tarly to Rainbows where they made spinners but colouring in discs of card then they were laminated and cut into spirals and string attached. Scarlett drew a Ben 10 chick on hers so decided she didn’t want it to be cut up and asked for it to have a hole punched at the top and the string tied there instead to hang it up. The leaders commented she was much more like a Brownie wanting to do it her own way when usually the Rainbows have to be really encouraged to deviate at all from the leaders example one. I thought that was a bit of a generalisation, particularly given the individuality of most of the small children I know, but sure enough lots of them produced very similar patterns. I had a bit of a chat with the leader about the Guides policy on bullying, violence and discipline generally as she has been a leader for many years across Rainbows, Brownies and Guides. Scarlett took her Fur Real cat round for circle time but I fear nothing will eclipse the real live chick from a couple of weeks ago. Everyone knows her name now and she is getting better at playing with them instead of hanging round with me in the breaks between activities.

Scarlett and I got home and after Ady’s final seven checks that he’d locked the back door / turned off the gas / changed the batteries on the smoke alarms/ packed everything we were off!

We had got plans to meet friends at the park this morning but they were unable to make it and cancelled yesterday so we decided to have some time at home instead. Davies and Scarlett played a lengthy and rather hilarious to listen to game featuring aliens from Ben 10 and Timmy the dog from the Famous Five. Storylines seemed grafted together too with dungeons and tunnels working alongside other planets. This was all played with geomags, soft toys, Betty Spagetty (which I always struggle with the misspelling of) and the use of various regional and international accents :lol:. Listening to and watching them play like that reminds me of Andy in Toy Story with his muddled collection of toys, all different perspective in size, coupled with junk models and hefty doses of imagination along with borrowed cartoon characters from now and Enid Blytons stories written before their own grandad was even born. Oh and Abi from Primeval puts in the odd guest appearance too 😆 Just lovely :).

I watched Child of our Time on iplayer. I know opinion is split on old Dr Bob and indeed the format of the programme but it is something I have watched all the way through first with a tiny baby born in the same year as those on it, comparing his development along with theirs, then rapidly departing from lots of what was being talked about on it as our paths deviated from those children when they all headed off to nursery. When I did sociology we looked at the series 7up (and indeed 14up, 21 up and so on) as part of the course and this is for me the updated version of that of our time. Very interesting from a sociological point of view and relevant to me as I have a child the same age as the ones featured. I thought the gender stuff was amazing and scary at the same time, the little girls attitudes towards body image horrifying and it made me realise once again how much of a bubble my two do exist in in many ways.

I know from the couple of schooled friends we have that there are all sorts of peer pressure type things Davies and Scarlett miss out on; fads and fashions, latest toys (neither of them would know what a yu-gi-oh or whatever they are called is), latest pop music etc.It’s not that we particularly shield them from it, more than we just don’t expose them to it I guess. I know this will change over time and to be honest there is nothing from that show today I feel they are missing out on that wouldn’t be negative anyway (worrying about being fat, wanting to have boyfriends/ girlfriends, even knowing what ‘bling’ is, putting rich and famous as priorities above being kind or healthy) but I hadn’t realised quite how much we are protecting their childhood / innocence either. As I say I would view that as a positive thing, I’m sure others would disagree… And 25 years ago my parents were probably talking to other parents about how quickly my generation was growing up, as indeed their parents had probably been 25 years before that. Does make you think that growing up faster with each generation is a phenomena that simply can’t last though really…

By popular request – and because we have a glut of eggs and some milk that needs using up before we go away for the weekend – I made pancakes for lunch. Ali and Freya arrived not that long afterwards. We’ve had one of F’s DS games here since their last visit, accidentally left behind which I rather foolishly had been vaguely aware of but not thought to gather up and put in the hypothetical ‘safe place’. Scarlett remembered it as soon as they arrived and was proud to report that Davies had been playing it and unlocked loads of new stuff on it for Freya. Now Davies regularly does this for Scarlett and it is wanted and appreciated genuine help so Scarlett viewed this as a good thing. I think Davies hadn’t quite taken the time to think it through properly and had half thought he was being nice and half just wanted to play the game. When I reminded him how he would feel if someone played one of his saved games on xbox or DS and either got him further along when that is something he takes great pride in achieving himself or worse still made a wrong move and deleted a game he was rather mortified :(. But worse than that we then couldn’t find the bloody game anyway! I was equally cross with the children for not having looked after something belonging to someone else and with myself for not doing the responsible adult thing about it previously so gave them both a hard time about it.

Eventually the game was found, F was fine about it having been played with and I thought all was forgotten except I’d clearly laid it on a bit thick with the whole ‘how would YOU feel?’ stuff with Davies who had gone down worst case scenario avenue and was feeling crap :(. He’d decided to ‘punish himself’ with a selfimposed ban on playing out in the garden which he’d been looking forward to doing all morning. The whole punishment thing is an odd one really as he knows my feelings on rewards and punishments – the theory even if I don’t always hold true in practice ;). Ah well I guess he’s bound to rebel somewhere and end up as a law enforcer or something :lol:. So we had a long chat about all that while Scarlett and Freya went and played outside and eventually he cheered up, worked through it and headed off to play with them. A sensitive soul is Davies, a trait I can admire in him (and indeed Ady who is very similar natured and equally hard on himself and takes any outside criticism completely to heart and agonises over it for ages) but struggle to empathise with.

The rest of the afternoon went fine – the children played indoors and out while Ali and I chatted. Freya had a moment of struggling to get Scarlett’s attention (she was off playing with Davies and they can be quite inpenetrable sometimes I think) and then not getting the response she’d hoped for when she did so she came to help me make pizza for their tea instead.This of course meant Davies and Scarlett appeared to help too :rolls: There was some debate over choice of dvd to watch while eating their pizza which they sorted out between them easily enough with Davies being the one to manage it and pacify all wounded parties :). Ady arrived home, pushed plants onto Ali (they’re like goody bags at our house, all visitors go home with some sort of as seen on TV greenery :lol:) and then I ran Ali and Freya home.

Ady bathed the children (well as I explained to Freya he ran the bath and then left them to it, infact Davies can now run a bath and is very sensible about checking the water temperature too) so when I got home it was story time while Ady did some gardening. We’re only 3 chapters away from the end of the book and several plotlines were revealed to great delight that they’d guessed them right. There is much excitement about our camping trip this weekend so bedtime was a bit of a shambles as they were both too giddy to get to bed and go to sleep easily apparently.

I worked yesterday morning. Normally Davies and Scarlett go and play with Archie and Elliot every other Wednesday morning but my Mum is off work this week so she offered to come over for the morning. They walked down to the laked park and all round it so were worn out already by the time I got home at 1pm.

I had a fairly stressy first half of the morning at work. It is unusual to have stroppy customers at the library really but I had two within the first hour :(.One was a teacher who was very stressed as she’d been sent in by her headteacher from a local first school to the library to find out all about the school’s history. I think she was expecting me to either present her with a colour illustrated book entitled ‘X school – a complete history’ or be able to do all her research for her. While the library is an information centre it is very much about assisting people and pointing them in the right direction rather than being unpaid researchers for them – a bit like my view of Home Education really ;). So I showed her the area with the local history books in it and left her to peruse those while I made a phonecall to the local studies expert at Worthing library for his advice. Which was to give me a direct number for an archivist at the West Sussex records office and tell me to get the teacher to ring them for details of the schools log (apparently all schools are supposed to keep a school log, a bit like a captains log with details of events, teacher issues, admission registers, governors meeting minutes etc. which are then stored at the records office).Then to go to Worthing library and look through the local papers archives which date back over 200 years for key events at the school which would have been covered in the paper when they had dates for them. I thought that was pretty helpful, along with a cuttings folder which had some paper clippings about the school too that she could copy. She was less enthused and stroppy about having to do photocopying :rolls:. Then I had someone who got really arsey when she wanted to print a Guardian online article but was getting the banner ad off the webpage printing instead. I explained she would need to copy and paste the article text into a word doc and print that but she blew up at me saying she didn’t *need* to do anything and she was illegally parked and had to go and it was a rip off and the computers shouldn’t work like that!!! I managed to revert to retail management blank face and ‘I understand your frustration’ type response before walking away from her rather than exploding at her back which was my natural reaction. Fortunately the rest of the morning went smoothly and was fine.

Mum’s car was booked in for an MOT at a nearby garage so we followed her there and then drove on to Highdown Gardens – a local ornamental gardens with all sorts of ponds and different plants and flowers. We were walking round the pond and bumped into a woman and her son that we’d met at Julie’s Not Bluebell walk last month. We recognised each other at the same point and stood chatting for about an hour altogether while the children played. Her son is about3 and she is facing the nursery or not dilemma at the moment so we chatted about that. I put forward my case against and explained that we’d avoided all the associated issues with not going by throwing ourselves into the Home Ed scene at that stage and surrounding ourselves with other home educators, taking inspiration from older HE children and parents and enjoying the freedom of not being tied down. She is really nice and I’ve said I’ll email her with more information and perhaps get together to chat again. Davies and Scarlett were in full on perfect HE children mode being all lovely with her little boy, charming to each other and spotting all sorts of educational things to comment on 🙂 Clearly she caught us on a good day ;).

We drove back to the garage where Mum’s car had dismally failed it’s MOT on about 4 things so I brought her home with me and we left her car there for them to work on it. Home for tea and icecreams before heading out again to Badgers, dropping Mum home on the way.

Davies and Scarlett are doing ‘creative badger’ this term, they’ve split the group into two and the other half are doing ‘caring badger’. Last night was wax drawings where you do patches of colour, cover it with black and then scratch off pictures. I dropped them off and went for a lovely walk and occassional bout of running barefoot along the beach. The tide was out and it was lovely 🙂 Then I had about 20 minutes sitting in the car reading a book which was also lovely and I watched the badgers play a game on the lawn for the last 10 minutes or so too.

Home for stories – the plot lines of Famous Five are clearly too transparent, much as they are enjoying them and I’m seeing the characters spill out into their games, art and general conversation they areboth guessing what will happen long before it does. I know I do that with books now but I don’t recall doing it as a child but I guess I was reading them myself by Davies’ age so probably concentrating on that rather than thinking ahead in the story.

I packed the children off to bed at 8 and had a bath, got dinner on and was ready to watch The Apprentice at 9pm but Ady arrived home just as it started so the children got up to see him (Davies has really missed him) and then we spent some time working out how to zip two sleeping bags together so I only half watched The Apprentice. Late dinner of curry and some online chatting and trying to find some free software to stitch photos together.

We had this plan today to get all the camping stuff sorted out, assembled and checked and a list made of anything we needed to replace / purchase. Except when we were up and the sun was shining we decided it would be a waste of a lovely day and went out instead!

We decided to go back to Woods Mill where we’d been a few weeks ago and enjoyed. It’s the HQ of the Sussex Wildlife Trust and the venue for a great programme of outdoorsy / nature based events through the year that we aim to get to a few of including an excellent looking one about building camps, making fires and whittling wood type stuff which I think Davies would love. Actually I think Scarlett would love it too but she’s too little :lol:.

It was lovely there, we walked round, admired the bluebells, watched the fish and newts for ages and just enjoyed the sunshine. There was a school party there being paraded round in a structured fashion having certain things pointed out to them which was just so at odds with how we wandered round, spotting things as we went with Davies and Scarlett playing some sort of dragons game at the same time. Sunny days like today when it feels like the rest of the world is at work or at school make me so happy with our choices and the freedom they afford us.

We had a picnic lunch there and wandered further then popped to the garage to get Ady a couple of new tyres before heading home. The children played in the garden, I read my book and Ady packed up ready to go to QVC tonight then he headed off. Davies and Scarlett had swimming lessons so we went to the pool. They both had good lessons with Tarly doing a few strokes. I’m sure it was the heat in the building because I don’t normally have such urges but I would have very happily have jumped in with them tonight. I wish the pool wasn’t so expensive as I would probably take them once a week if it were not about a tenner for the three of us :(.

It was lovely when we left and the pool is right on the seafront at the end of a parade of shops including a chip shop so we bought a couple of portions of chips and took them onto the beach. The tide was out and it was actually quite busy with lots of other people eating chips, walking dogs, flying kites and generally enjoying the sun going down. We chatted about camping this weekend and how much we’re all looking forward to it. They had ten minutes running around on the sand, which meant they needed another shower when we got home having just had one at the swimming pool :rolls:.

Home for stories, a run in with the cockerel for me, cleaning out the noisy, messy chicks and sorting out my own dinner. I watched a film and am now very s l o w l y uploading some photos to flickr and waiting for Ady to be on QVC before going to bed.

I hated them when I was a child and there were just an additional day of a weekend which Sundays were already a day too much of and I hated them when we worked in retail and not only did we have to work when everyone else wasn’t we also had to put up with work being busier than normal because everyone else was off work. I hate them now because they have all the trappings of being a weekend day – everywhere is busy, people are doing things as a family with none of the plusses of a normal week day.

Today Ady had hoped to be finished by lunchtime so I’d left the day free for us to do something this afternoon. I dislike going anywhere just me and the kids on a bank holiday for the reasons mentioned above as well as that single parent feeling. I have nothing against single parents but somehow being out with the children alone when everyone else is out as a family just irritates me and gives me the feeling I never normally get of being a ‘childcarer’ rather than a parent. Probably totally irrational and loony but there you go. We needed a quiet morning anyway as we were all tired and grumpy. Davies and Scarlett did some playing, DSing,watching TV, drawing, some jigsaws and general bumbling around the place. I did some online stuff and some reading and plenty of drinking tea.

At about midday Ady rang to say he wouldn’t be home early after all so I was very stroppy with him and after lunch took the children off to the beach. Despite half of Sussex being at the beach and the bank holiday market in full flow the sea worked it’s usual magic and I calmed down after walking briskly along the pebbles and the children got to roll up their jeans, clamber on dangerous rocks and scream into the wind and the sea to let off steam. They had been playing a Famous Five game before we left the house – Scarlett is agonising over who to be; she doesn’t like Anne because she’s ‘silly and gives away all the secrets’ but she doesn’t like George because ‘she doesn’t like being a girl and thinks boys are better and actually girls are just as good as boys and she should be proud of being one’. George tends to win over Anne because then she gets to use a cuddly toy to be Timmy the dog :lol:. When we left they were constructing a Kirrin farmhouse, island and cottage set up with tunnels and beach so they just carried on with that at a real beach. I think the grouping of rocks was supposed to be a rowing boat with the sea lashing at it’s sides :).

I sat on a rock and enjoyed the sunshine and then Ady rang to say he was home after all. I told him roughly where to find us and we walked down to the road to meet him (having walked about a mile along the beach away from our parked car). It was by now 3pm gone and both children had soggy jeans from the knee down so options were limited but we discussed what to do next. We decided to drive along to another patch of beach for ice creams but on the way drove over the bridge that crosses the river Adur and noticed the tide was very low and people were out on the river bed looking around. That seemed like a pretty interesting thing to do so we parked up and joined them. The river continues to flow with a very strong current but at about a quarter of it’s usual width so the river bank is very wide with with beached boats and loads of rockpools. You are walking on what forms the river bed for much of the time and it is made almost entirely of muddy sand and shells:

Oh and crabs! 🙂

Scarlett collected a full double handful of tiny ones, I think she had about 12 of them which she let go at the end in a handily situated rock pool

Davies found a decent sized fully intact dead one which he’s brought home to dissect and see ‘how it works’ wanting to know answers about bones, muscles and so on. I have delegated supervision of that to Ady, our resident cut it up and talk about it’s insides expert ;).

It was heading towards teatime so we stopped at McDonalds for the children to get Happy Meals and Ady and I to get icecreams before coming home for more Famous Five story. It started a fairly crappy day but ended on a high note :).

But we’re planning camping here Friday and Saturday night of next weekend and going to the Green Fair before packing up on the Sunday. Anyone want to come along? 🙂

When we first joined the National Trust I spent ages going through all the local events and marking them in my diary. This weekend I had ‘tunnels at Petworth’ written down. We’ve been to Petworth once already and it was a good day out – interesting house with lovely gardens. This weekend they opened up the underground tunnels linking the house with the servants quarters and kitchens. I’d spoken to my parents in the week about plans for the weekend and they’d asked to come along with us so we coordinated picnic packing and then rang them as we left our house so they could leap in their car and be ready to pull out of their road behind us as we drove past.

There was a road closure (due to accident :() on the way which increased our journey but we arrived, checked the times for the tunnels to be open and then walked to the lake and had our picnic. There were loads of ducks and geese including some goslings (awww, cute!) at the lake. The weather was overcast but warm (T shirt warm). We finished up lunch and walked back to the house. The children decided to follow the NT trail round the house so had clipboard and trailsheet each – Ady helped Tarly with hers and I helped Davies; Mum and Dad flitted between us. The sheets were good with a great mix of information and bits of trivia, quizzes and things to do and spot etc. Davies did some good writing and spelling out, sensible thinking through of things (questions like ‘why were lamps and candles put infront of mirrors?’) and enjoyed spotting things and chatting to the volunteers about the artwork. I’m always so proud of him on days like today when he has a passion for learning, wants to talk to people and find out more and has a go at things and clearly gets so much from doing so :). Scarlett’s attention waned slightly earlier but Davies finished the whole trail and loved the challenges of designing a mural to paint on a wall and doing a self portrait.

Then it was tunnel time. Ady and I both confessed later that we were slighty disappointed with it and had expected something more somehow. They had opened a portion of the tunnels between the two houses. The children were excited by them though – all very Kirrin Cottage to Kirrin Farmhouse for them :). I think a trip back to Corfe is in order sometime this summer. We went and had coffee and hot chocolate in the cafe next and Davies and Scarlett got to try ginger beer as it was a posh NT restuarant that didn’t have things like coke on the menu :). Neither of them liked it! 😆

We had a quick wander round Petworth including the church there and then back into the house again for a second walk through the tunnel and ice creams. We had a leisurely walk back through the gardens to the car and then back to my parents for coffee before heading for home. It was a lovely day with my parents who were on good form and everyone got on well with no tensions.

I have pictures but flickr uploader is playing up so I’ll edit them into the post a bit later.

I was up early enough to walk into work this morning. A fly flew into my eye on the way which meant I had to remove it from my eye and repair my make up when I got to work and had a sore eye for the rest of the day. It also meant the fly had an abrupt and pointless death. Pretty much the opposite of a win:win situation really.

Work was good, I quite like the Saturday morning shift, you get ‘regulars’ who are up for a bit of banter. I finished my display which I didn’t manage to get a photo of but will do next time I’m in and spent the last hour talking to my colleague Jan about monks, nuns and local ghost sightings :). Ady and the children arrived shortly before I finished and sat in the childrens area reading stories.

We had much discussion about what to do this afternoon and eventually decided to stay home. Davies is a but under the weather with a painful mouth ulcer and we have a day out planned tomorrow which I’d rather he was well to enjoy. We watched Swallows and Amazons on dvd which was good although D and S dipped in and out rather than watching intently. Then Scarlett and I nipped out. We needed bacon and mushrooms for dinner tonight, cakes for tomorrows picnic and some ice lollies as requested by D and S. Scarlett is also in dire need of some t shirts so we went to the Co-op which has a cheap clothing concession instore and got her several new tops, a pair of cropped trousers and a dress that she fell in love with instantly and couldn’t be parted from (she got changed into it when we got home and is now asleep in bed still wearing it. She says it makes her look like ‘a lady’ 😆 and :rolls:) aswell as a pair of size-too-big but she’ll grow into them and they were only £2.50 leopard print shoes. I adore my children as a duo but love time spent with just one of them even more so that was lovely :).

Home in time for tea, Doctor Who and Doctor Who confidential, bed for them and pizza for dinner for us.

Scarlett discovered a nest formed in the hedge today by one of our hens complete with 6 eggs. This is great news as I had worried that neither hen had laid for a week. The other hen is in her house sitting and has clearly gone broody despite not actually having any eggs to sit on.This is fine as Tom sent another 6 fertilised eggs home with Ady yesterday so broody hen is now sitting on 3 of them to see how it all works naturally (albeit with eggs she neither laid nor were fertilized by our cockerel). We’re thinking we might let D and S have total responsibility for incubator duty for the other 3 and maybe 3 of our own hens’ eggs with all the temperature checking, egg turning and humidity maintenance that involves.

Finally tonight Davies called Ady up to show him the calendar he has in his room. He had worked out which month was September on it (only one beginning with a Ssss apparentely :)) and then written ‘8’ in the box of the 14th. It’s still months away but party planning is happening in earnest. He can’t wait to be 8. Personally I’m in utter denial at the very idea of being the mother of an 8 year old :lol:.

Accent: Southern English – I say carstle, laurgh and barth 🙂
Bra style: very supportive and mostly lacey
Chore I hate: None that I do 😆 I hate the word ‘chore’ actually and the word ‘errand’. Probably the one I avoid most is putting clean washing away.
Dad’s name:David Davies. Davies was always going to end up with one or the other of them.
Essential make-up: mascara
Favorite perfume: it’s called Joop Berlin and was a limited edition one to celebrate the Berlin wall coming down. I managed to track some down from US a couple of years ago but am coming to the end of it. Must try and get more actually when I next have some spare pennies.
Gold or Silver: gold
Hometown: Worthing
Interesting fact: No normal sized piece of paper can be folded in half more than seven times. This I know from googling ‘interesting fact’ and picking the first entry from the first hit.
Job title: Library Assistant for 11 hours a week, ‘Mumma’ for the rest.
Kids: I doubt there is anything new to any reader here but that one I know you all know already!
Living arrangements: ex two bedroom bungalow, now a 3/4 bedroom house.
Mum’s Birthplace: Brighton
Number of times you’ve been on the phone today: Once – listening to a voicemail from Scarlett 🙂
Overnight hospital stays: once, when I had Davies. It didn’t live up to expectations. I thought that the orange lidded water jug and my own bedside locker would be ‘fun’ (this was based on envy when a friend had her appendix out aged 9). The whole childbirth thing distracted me sufficiently that I didn’t really notice! 😆
Phobia: dogs. I also have minor issues with chalk and chipped nail varnish.
Question you ask yourself a lot: is it too early for wine?
Religious affiliation:None. I was christened as a baby so officially C of E but certainly no religious beliefs nowadays. I am religion-curious though.
Siblings: One brother, Frazer, who is 2 years younger than me and still lives at home with my parents. Weeks at a time go by without us seeing each other but I would still consider us close – he shared the most important years of my life with me.
Time I wake up: I am an owl. Left to my own devices I suspect I would be up til around 3am and wake around 9am. Sometimes this happens. I try to get up around 8am though.
Unnatural hair color: my hair colour is natural. I have dyed it in the past, both lighter and darker but not for a long while.
Vegetable I refuse to eat: I think we’re all probably PMSL at this one 😉
Worst habit: Ooh….used to be spending money I didn’t have. D and S would say shouting.
X ray I badly sprained an ankle when I was about 6 and had it xrayed, I had whiplash from a car accident when I was about 22 which I had an xray for and I have had lots of dental xrays done over the years. Nothing very glamorous.
Yesterday’s mail: can’t actually remember, would either have been nothing or junk mail.
Zodiac sign: Capricorn. I totally don’t believe in any of that star sign stuff and couldn’t tell you what signs D and S are.

Off to Drusillas today to meet up with C, E and M and Ali & Freya of EOFF fame. The plan was to meet at 10am which was always overly amitious for the likes of us and indeed it was 950am by the time we finally left home despite all good intentions to the contrary :).

Tracy Chapman and They Might Be Giants were in car music of choice. We’ve talked about the whole ‘soundtrack of your life’ idea before I know but I do wonder which will be the songs that shape D and S’s musical taste, which will take them back to sitting in the back of my Sharan and driving off on another adventure with just the opening bars long into their adulthood. Yesterday Once More by The Carpenters takes me straight back to my Mum, young and happy singing along at the top of her voice in our old house that we left when I was just four, so way younger than Scarlett already is. Status Quo and Billy Joel were played a lot in my Mum’s car in my older childhood – Status Quo while I still travelled in the back of the car, Billy Joel when I had graduated to the front. They Might Be Giants actually reminds me of my own first car; a bright yellow mini with furry seat covers. It had a cassette playing stereo that was wired in to play but unsecured to the dash board so you had to hold onto it when driving round corners or roundabouts otherwise it would slide along the dashboard and disconnect itself :lol:. I listened to lots of Simply Red, Elton John and Phil Collins in that car, aswell as a fine mix of 2Unlimited, The Shamen and KLF. On Wednesday we drove past my old sixth form and popped into the bakery and newsagents in the parade of shops I used every day to buy my Malboros, The Times and for days when I wasn’t pretending to be a grown up Rowntrees Fruit Pastilles ice lollies :lol:. Relatively speaking I probably had fairly few ‘freedom years’ as I only did A levels while still living at home and I left home at 19 to move straight in with Ady to mortgages and gas bills. My two years at sixth form were fraught with more than the usual share of growing up dramas and heartbreaks too but that bright yellow mini and it’s errant cassette player blasting out Birdhouse in your soul through tinny speakers embodies the freedom I did have and I love hearing my children singing along to it now and knowing it will be one of the musical hooks they hang childhood memories from one day.

Drusillas was good. We have only 2 more months of our membership to run and I will try and make the most of them and get over there more regularly. There were lots of pushchairs and school trips, both of which – utterly irrationally – set my teeth on edge. As we walked in and met up with Ali and C we walked past a woman saying ‘let’s go and see the moo cows and the piggywiggies’ to her child. I’m sure it’s just me, I’m sure I will have done all sorts of therapy-requiring-unravelling deep seated, emotionally stunting damage to my children by not calling animals moo-cows, baa-sheep and horseys, not to mention vroom-cars, choo-choo-trains and talking about myself in the perpetual third person but whilst I might not be great at taking myself very seriously I do seem to have afforded my children the respect to take them seriously and not felt the need to dumb anything down for them. Worse still those who adopt childrens’ mispronounciations as new family vocabulary and are still calling helicopters ‘olly-ollys’ when their children are 28 and have left home!

All that aside it was a nice day, the sun shone, the children had a ball and it was good to see Ali and C and their offspring. It was great to have Freya be receptive to some help with a tricky bit of clambering which she very tenaciously stuck with and managed (yay F! :)) and great to watch Davies and Scarlett run off into the play area and just get on with it. I regretted not bringing the book it had half crossed my mind to bring when I ended up sitting in the sunshine along for an hour as we were all being quite literally child-led today which meant we spent much of the time scattered from each other. I also managed to get my arms, face and (this will surprise noone) my cleavage sunburnt today too. I feel a bit ashamed about this not least because it is the one thing I am almost paranoid about for myself and the children and rant about lots but simply hadn’t crossed my mind yet this year to think about sun protection – infact I was feeling neglectful that Tarly didn’t have a vest on 😆

Scarlett brought her toy lemur and a pink puppy with her and introduced the lemur (yes, it is called ‘Lemury’) to the real life lemurs in Lemurland. Rather hilariously they seemed to recognise it as one of their own. Scarlett propped it up on the fence and one came over to investigate and grabbed at it and knocked it into the enclosure (the lemurs are semi-open in that you can walk around their enclosure with complete access to them). I’ve been looking around at ‘keeper for a day’ type things for Tarly including the one at Drusillas and I think it might well be something we have a whip round for her next birthday for as she’d just LOVE it and most of them are for six plus ages.

There are some new play bits in the play area so we made full use of them (and the fact D is still little enough to get away with being in the six and under areas :)).

and they both had loads of goes on the zip wire including Tarly who was intially cautious (in a completely out of character way she has a slight fear of heights)

What else? I did managed a bit of time chatting to both Ali and C which was nice. I was also approached by an ex-home educator who I’d had two meetups with several years ago – Ros, you’ll remember Lisa with K and D, who was there supervising her daughter and others on a school trip. I spent about half an hour chatting to her which was nice and whilst feeling very sorry for her left me feeling very happy with our decisions about HE and stuff generally.

We started to leave about 330pm as we needed to be home for Tarly to have tea before Rainbows and I knew leaving would be a prolonged affair. Ady used my car to go to QVC last weekend so filled it up with petrol on the company so my petrol was free and we have season tickets,so all I spent was ice creams for us which meant I was happy to splash out on a packet of popping candy for all three of us on the way out (at a whopping 15pence a pack :lol:) which is another blast from the past for me straight back to childhood and our summer holiday babysitter who was all of 14 taking us to the sweet shop for space dust popping candy and penny shrimps. It doesn’t appear to have increased in price much in 27 years but I imagine the packs are smaller and less full.

The drive home was fine having left just early enough to avoid traffic. Scarlett had tea and Davies elected to wait for Ady to come home, which he did just before Scarlett and I left for Rainbows.

We didn’t take a chick this week but Tarly took her pink dog and lemur in a little suitcase on wheels which I’m fairly sure came from Ros filled with make up at one of her birthdays (3, 4, 5?). The chick last week did the trick though and she was greeted with a chorus of ‘Scarlett!’ from the other Rainbows, plenty of ‘I LOVE your hair’ (currently in 8 tiny plaits) and she was generally held hands with, fawned over and adored this week. The activity was making a crown which involved sticking foam coloured circles to pre-cut crowns which were extremely hard to detatch from their sticky backing paper. This meant as permanent fixture adult who once brought a very cute child I was the one every girl queue infront of to remove the sticky backing and Tarly stood in attendance basking in my reflected glory with occasional ‘that’s actually MY mumma’ comments :). They then played a blindfolded prince and princess game in which Tarly was regularly chosen as a partner before moving into the other room for circle time where she happily chattered away about going to Drusillas today. Now she has their attention I have no doubt in her ability to utterly charm them and show them how fab she is but I’m so pleased we had the prop and me as ‘cool mumma’ to help that spotlight shine on her so they’d notice her given she lacks the usual intro of being in their class at school.

We came home and popped straight back out again to Sainsburys for a couple of missed off our big food shop items. Tarly came with me and was lovely :). Davies has an ulcer in his mouth which I would put down almost entirely to his failure to be asleep before about 11pm for weeks yet still being up at 7am – he exists on little more sleep than I do that boy. A couple of chapters of FF and then off to bed for them.

Ady was supposed to be QVCing in the morning but it’s been cancelled so we have an unexpectedly free Saturday afternoon when I finish work although we don’t yet have plans to fill it.

I seem to have that every so often. For no particular linked to real life reason it seems an effort to blog. I do, mostly because I read back on my blog myself every so often and it is my long term intention to keep it as a record of this period of our lives from my perspective so missing days also makes me feel uneasy. But I’m lacking enthusiasm for committing it to keyboard at the moment.

So today was a working all day day for me. Work was good. There is A Man working at the library now. I only actually work with him once a fortnight so this is only the second time I’ve met him but he seems very sweet and mostly harmless ;). He doesn’t ever make eye contact when talking though which I find rather disconcerting :?:. I spent some time moving my Very Hungry Caterpillar display to a different location. Everyone said it would be a shame to take it down and we have some very high up and therefore rarely used display space that I thought would be the ideal location for it in a semi-permanent display so I did that. It is the National Year of Reading this year which has lots of initiatives and events built into it, some of which we are participating in. One of which is theming our library displays in line with their monthly themes. For May it is ‘mind and body’ which we are free to interpret any way we like. Ady suggested (when I was agonising over it) ‘the senses’ which I thought was great so I have made heads and hands of a boy and girl (who bear striking resemblances to a boy and girl I know quite well ;)) and put up a background ready to do something interesting with that concept. I’ll finish it off when I’m at work on Saturday.

Meanwhile back at home Ady was off all day today – the first block of two days together he’s had off for ages, probably months. He’d happily volunteered to have Archie and Elliot over to play for a while as Caz and Bid have had Davies and Scarlett so often so they visited this morning. Apparently they’ve spent most of the day in the garden, playing and doing gardening. It was lovely to come home at 5pm and find the children already fed, the house tidy and a cup of tea waiting for me :).

I’d brought home a few books including a picture book with a story based on Pompeii so we sat and looked at those together – highly recommend The Day I swapped my Dad for two Goldfish – I read about it in a book called The Ultimate Book Guide that is a National Year of Reading publication and ordered it in for us and it’s fabulous. We also read Don’t say that Willy Nilly which I read at Storytime at the library once and had told the children about, indeed reciting it to them several times with added embellishments of my own as it’s a great comic tale which they both know by heart too. So it was great for them to see the actual book and illustrations.

We then walked round to the poling station to vote, cue much talk of democracy, elections, voting etc. Not sure how to feel about the fact both Davies and Scarlett wanted to know when I intend standing for election 😳 :lol:. Once home the children had a bath, I colour coded the geomags and put them away (sooo satisfying 😉 and then read some Famous Five before their bedtime. We’re on book four now and I am already at the point of probably being able to cheerfully leave them to get on with it but they have proved very popular with D and S, neither of whom I can tell to read them to themselves just yet. I have got The Indian in the Cupboard waiting in the wings to read to them which is another book I recall fondly from my own childhood and am looking forward to sharing with them.

They both took forever to go to sleep tonight. Scarlett was still awake at 1030pm and Davies still awake at 11pm, however for the second night running Tarly has gone to sleep without a dummy :shock:. This of course means nothing yet but as she now knows she can hopefully her last attachment to it being something she *needs* is rationalised for her. Fingers crossed.

Tomorrow we’re off with some of the EOFFs to Drusillas which should be a nice day followed by Rainbows for Tarly in the evening.

Today’s question which I’ve just found out the answer to was why are bonfires called bonfires and what makes them different to just fires?

They don’t get any easier 😉

I have done very little today actually :). Ady has been off so I took that as a perfect excuse to stay up til 2am and then not get up again til nearly 10am which was nice :).

The weather has been very April-y with the added nusiance of lots of wind and cold temperatures to aid the rainclouds along so any possible plans involving being outside were immediately shelved. We did need to go and move money between bank accounts to pay the mortgage and to get the meat for the month from the butcher so we achieved that.

We also popped into Worthing museum for a look round as Ady had not been there before. It’s not that long ago that the children and I went there but several exhibitions had changed and the art was new. They had added a few ‘please do touch’ areas upstairs including a tardis with dressing up clothes through the ages and a dalek outfit :). There was some interesting jewellery on display too of beads made from human hair and photos of dead flies arranged in the shape of necklaces. Slightly odd but quite beautiful too. We all lay down to see how we compared to the height of a female skeleton found buried from 200 years ago and talked lots about the farmers kitchen compared to ours now. I was particularly charmed from an entry in the visitors book. Amid the normal nonsense written by teenagers thinking they are clever and earnest praise from tourist was a childlike handwritten saying ‘my nanna is from the olden days’ 😆 😆

Scarlett has been desperate to go back to the animal resuce place where there were puppies and kittens last time we visited so in the absense of any better suggestions we drove over there. Unfortunately there was loads of roadworks making for traffic jams and a long drive and then no puppies and kittens anyway. Finally she ran across a very muddy area and as the words ‘don’t run!’ left my mouth so she managed a full body slam wipeout into the mud (and no doubt duck and chicken poo aswell :().She was unhurt but a stupid bloody woman standing nearby with two children of her own found the whole scene hilarious and laughed long and loud which really upset Scarlett. I was incredibly tempted to go and push the woman over herself mud wrestling stylee but refrained and helped Tarly clean up and get out of her clothes in the car instead. That cut short any further ideas so we drove all the way home again, calling at the butcher where just Davies and I went in before coming home.

The children had tea and then we went back out again to Badgers. They did paper weaving there today which they both really enjoyed while Ady and I had a whole hour during which we walked along the beach and through the town but it was so bloody cold and windy we gave up and came and sat back in the car and chatted instead. Nice to walk along hand in hand without any children interupting every other sentence though. I recall thinking of the day when we might not have a child with us one day in the future and it’s lovely to finally be here :).

Home for stories for the children, bath, dinner and The Apprentice for us. A cracking show tonight and nice to see Debbie Lewin from Clintons hasn’t changed in the last 10 years or so since I worked for them :). Tomorrow I’m off to work all day and Ady’s home with the children. They also have A and E coming over to play so they’re looking forward to a good day with Daddy :).

And I’ve just blogged our day over on Monster & Teeny as we did our annual photoblog day today :). I don’t think there is anything additional to add to that so I’ll be off to bed!

Yesterday was a planned ages in advance as diaries seemed to be full day trip to London to meet up with Em, Eve and Rei :). Em had suggested the Museum Of Childhood which sounded a great place for a visit and also one suitable to going to with friends rather than some of the museums which are better for doing just us so we can talk about the exhibits instead of run wild with mates (them) while I trail behind shushing and trying desperately to get them to look at things instead :lol:.

So the children and I were up early, dressed, breakfasted and picnic packed and off walking to the station. I was convinced I had allowed more than enough time for the walk(10-15 mins max) and buying tickets etc. but somehow despite walking quick enough to have the children moaning about their pace and stride in comparison to mine we were still struggling for time. The ticket office is the other side of the crossing to where we arrive at the station and indeed where we need to get on a train. The gates were down so we dashed over the footbridge, across to the cashpoint as I recalled at the last minute that they don’t take delta cards and then as the ticket office had a massive queue we went back over the footbridge as the gates were down again to the platform for our side and joined the equally big queue for the self service ticket machine. The woman in front of us kindly let us go infront of her as she overheard me telling the children ours was the next train due to arrive, but that flustered me enough along with the children both wanting to press the touch screen buttons that I bought the wrong tickets :roll:. Instead of the travelcard which gets us return rail tickets to London and inclusive tube tickets too for under £20 I bought single rail tickets for £16. And only realised once we were on the train which pulled in just as the machine spewed the change and tickets out.

We stood for the train journey up to Haywards Heath (about half an hour) and made friends with a woman taking her siamese cat to the vets in a wheely cage. Then we got a train to London Bridge where we sat in the end with the luggage racks which filled up lots when we stopped at Gatwick Airport. We played paper, rock, scissors and the ‘on Monday I went to the supermarket and I bought’ memory game. And talked about luggage and bomb threats. We then totally deviated from the journey planner of the tube route and got there earlier than expected anyway despite stopping to buy tube tickets and get a tube map.

The museum was good, I guess we were there for maybe half an hour before Em and the girls arrived; time to find the loos, look at the zoetropes and start playing a make your own character to go through a platform computer game terminal – sort of a rudimentary Bamzookis :). The children took all of about ten minutes to warm up to each other and then we walked round the rest of the museum as a gaggle. The children were interested in the puppets, the ‘antique’ fisher prices stuff that they have seen at grandparents’, the geomag Big Ben and a lights and optic fibre area. Em and I enjoyed the nostalgia of toys from our own childhood and the custom made dolls houses made as replicas of rich children’s own homes and decorated in miniature.

We left and sat in a park next door to eat lunch. Well Em and I sat and ate lunch; Davies chased pigeons, Rei worried about him chasing pigeons, Eve worried me she’d got lost by sitting on the floor next to our bench and Scarlett ate carrots. They were all very adamant that the park was not a park at all as it had no play area. Em and I speculated that it might actually be Bethnal Green :lol:. Put to the vote all the children wanted to go to the Diana playground at Kensington Gardens so that’s what we did. As we left what I will now call Bethnal Green there was an interesting discussion between the children about what makes a birds feathers fall out and quite how it happens. Neither Em or I could contribute anything concrete factually to the conversation but we did enjoy listening to Davies speak with utter confidence and authority of tone even though we suspected he was talking nonsense! 😆 I’ve since googled and can answer any future questions on the matter.

On the underground Scarlett sat with Eve and Em and was impressed with Eve’s reading while introducing them to Rose her cuddly dinosaur who accompanied us to London (much against my advice). Rose, who is a triceratops was only christened on the train on the way up to London as Rose, having previously enjoyed the more Scarlett-like name of ‘Dinosaury’ previously 😆 I stood with Rei and Davies who were being shrill and rowdy pulling faces at their own reflections in the window 😆 Eventually we all sat together and Scarlett, Rei and Davies managed a three way game of paper, rock, scissors.

The park, as always, was fab. The sun shone, the children played, we chatted and drank caffine :). What struck me most was that aside from poor Rei chipping a tooth in a wonky leap from the pirate ship and Em having to intervene as a horrid child with a toy rake managed to irritate Scarlett and Eve in their game and then pin Rei down while brandishing his rake we didn’t have to deal with the children at all. There were no fallings out between them, they mostly paired off into Davies and Rei & Scarlett and Eve couplings, coming together as a foursome every so often and were utterly happy and absorbed in their games. Scarlett and Eve spent ages burying Rose in the sand at one point completely losing her. I was called in to assist and was told ‘in this general area’ when I asked just where she’d been buried. It was JUST like that old AA advert ‘Kevin, where exactly did you bury the car?’ ‘In the sand!’ 😆 😆

Ady rang to say he was in Crawley so would we like him to drive the extra few miles further up and collect us at about 4pm. Given I hadn’t sorted out my ticket dilemma and was likely to have to spend another £15 odd quid to get us home again this was very good news so we arranged to take the tube as south as we could get (Wimbledon seemed most sensible) and meet him there. When told we would be leaving soon Davies and Rei insisted they still needed to save the world and wanted to know if we thought they could do it in 15 minutes. We assured them they could manage it in ten – and they did :). It was a lovely afternoon, excellent company, great conversations, sunshine and happy children :).Thanks lovely Em x

Aside from a slightly daunting encounter with a drunk man on the tube it was straightforward and we met Ady with a big cup of tea for me and a plan to pop into Ikea for the children’s tea – both very gratefully recieved. 🙂 We got home about 830pm in the end and I showered the blackness off the children (along with plenty of sand!) before dispatching them to bed. Yesterday should have been Beavers but Davies had been happy enough to miss it and seems very content not to return so our plan is to complain to the group scout leader and for him to make up some little letters / cards to hand out to the couple of lads there he would like to stay in touch with. So it continues to bubble away undealt with as yet but I do have a plan now.