One word? When seven would do…

I had a really crap nights sleep last night, no idea why but I seemed to spend hours awake and when I did fall asleep it was to dream convoluted and scary dreams about chickens :lol:. Ady left for London at about 5am and then my Dad, who is never late for anything ever cut it very fine to get here this morning to look after D and S while I went to work. Dad has Stuff Going On atm, not all of which I’ve talked to him about but he gave me a hug and kiss this morning which he appeared in need of so things are clearly tough :(.

Ady was on TV selling 3 products all of which sold out. Teasing him aside I am very proud of him and his QVCing. Not because he’s on telly which frankly I couldn’t care less about but because he has risen to a new challenge, utterly unlike anything he’s ever done before, something which I sincerely doubt I could pull off and not only is he doing it but he is doing it well. The rewards for it are yet to come in really but to be able to say he is appearing on live national tv pretty much twice a week and achieveing tangible results from his efforts is surely something to be commended. 🙂

My morning at work was good. I spent 2 hours playing with crepe paper and staple guns to create a display, an hour sat at the enquiry desk and my teabreak talking to Tom and Sara, the Saturday assistants who are both off to uni in September about their plans and dreams.

I arrived home within moments of Ady and Dad stayed to have lunch with us and see Pompey win the semi final of the FA cup. Clearly this was a big deal for Ady ;).

Davies and Scarlett have been getting on well today and played upstairs together for ages. I sat around for a couple of hours and then decided to go for a walk. I’ve been fairly low key about it but I have this plan to hit 35 (January) in better shape than I met 34. This involves one small positive change a month and I started in Feburary with drinking more water. In March I upped my fruit and vegetable consumption and in April I am aiming to include some excercise into my life. I walked down to the seafront, which I reckon must be 1.5miles and back at pushing myself all the way pace. And I nearly died. Twice! I was wearing utterly unsuitable footwear which I have huge blisters on both feet to show, didn’t take any water and probably wasn’t really well dressed for it either. On the way down to the beach I waved at the driver and all the people on the miniature train going round the park next to the sea, on the way back I waved at Lucy and The Rs who passed me in the car because obviously if you are going to go out walking in unsuitable footwear and clothing you need to draw attention to yourself and see people you know to fully acknowlegde your red faced wheezing pain suffering self along the way :lol:.

I had a bath when I got back -Davies ran it for me, lovely child 🙂 which Scarlett ambushed and shared with me before we all sat down to watch Doctor Who. Davies and I also watched Doctor Who Confidential afterarwards which was good. Tarly went to sleep fairly quickly but Davies kept coming back downstairs to join in with Ady and I while we listened to loud music in the kitchen while cooking dinner. We watched 10 items or less which I really enjoyed once I got passed Morgan Freeman not playing God (which actually he still sort of was :lol:).

Tomorrow, just for a change we have nothing planned. Bet it doesn’t work out that way ;).

You know no one ever sung a song about a woman called Nicola? And how come there are loads of songs with women’s names in but none with men’s? Eh?!

The title is of course from The Beautiful South song which we were listening to in the car earlier. I like The Beautiful South but some of their songs are tricky to explain to two children who want to know what every new song they hear is about… And just because I know you love my little anecdotes I will share with you that for a long time I thought the band were just called ‘South’ and that radio DJs were just very enthusiastic about them 😆 You can file that story with the one about Spiderman (does whatever a spider can) and the one about When A Child is Born (array of hope) 😆 And if you like those check out this website which always makes me smile :).

We went to a soft play place to meet some of the EOFFs, one of whom had rung me earlier to check we would be there so was the only one I was sure would be attending. We arrived first but E was only a few minutes behind us. Davies and Scarlett get on very well with her two children T and L and although I’ve always liked E I’ve never really sat and just chatted to her. We were on our own for a good hour before Ali and Freya and another friend and her daughter arrived in which time the four children raced round together and E and I had a really nice chat. I’m very aware that I have a habit of mentally categorising people the first few times I meet them and then being a bit unmoving about changing that initial impression of them and subsequently finding myself surprised by new things I learn about them. Anyway, it was a good chat :).

The others arrived and we had some lunch. Scarlett had a bit of a moment about me refusing to buy coke. Not huge, not particularly loud or attention grabbing and fairly swiftly recovered from but a bit of an indication that she was delicate. I only realised today that she started swimming, Badgers and Rainbows all at the same time in January and went from having no activities to 3 a week which I possibly haven’t appreciated the hugeness of for a small child. She does have a very busy life too and I guess sometimes it just all gets a bit much for her. I think the 2 weeks off from it all might be a bit of a welcome break for her to recuperate a bit.

The leaving of the soft play was slightly staggered with us leaving second as we needed to get back for the dentist.

Dentist was fine for all of us – Davies has two adult teeth at the back aswell as the two front bottom ones which have replaced his first lost milk teeth, and his two front top teeth are wobbly. Scarlett was talked to about her dummy usage potentially affecting her adult teeth again and is once again thinking about trying to give up the dummies. Otherwise all was well.

At home we spent some time with the chickens who we’re letting have some free range time each day while we’re home. The two hens are really friendly, the cockerel is still pretty fiesty even when not caged. Davies and Scarlett spend some time in the garden and then it was time for tea before Rainbows for Tarly. She had decided she was ready to stay alone this week so I was planning to go for a walk while she was there. She made a huge fuss about going to her bedroom to get her uniform, which Davies eventually fetched (he has moments of the most amazing compassion, tenderness and love for her, usually right at the point when all my patience, compassion and tenderness has run out :oops:) and then wiped her tears off her cheek and touched her arm -bless!

Her and I walked round there and she realised she’d left the cuddly jaguar she’d wanted to bring for circletime behind at home. I rang Ady and he ran round to bring it to us and then she got all upset because she didn’t have a coat to hide them in while they were playing. Eventually she said ‘I think I’m going to cry Mumma and I don’t want you to go now’ so I ended up staying. This was a shame as it wasn’t really about me going but she’d built herself up into a state about various other things which meant she had nothing left to deal with me leaving. Or of course that she was senstive to the other things because of the prospect of me leaving? Ah well. They made jam tarts as the activity and she was fine and enjoyed it all. We’ve agreed we’ll try again for me to leave when she goes back after the holidays.

When we got home she got into the bath that Davies was already in and I dashed back out to get a few bits for dinner and also get some T shirts for Tarly. I realised today she had grown out of all her Tshirts and whilst snow forecast for this weekend means tshirts are perhaps not an emergency purchase I thought she should have some ready. It did occur to me that rather than putting away all her long sleeved tops which will also be outgrown by next winter I could cut the sleeves off some of the nicer ones and hem them to make t shirts so I might look at that tomorrow.

Ady is QVCing in the morning (9-10am show, he has 3 product lines) and my hours have been changed several time and I am now working in the morning and Dad is coming over to be with Davies and Scarlett.

I started today not really in the mood for work and it sort of carried on really. Maybe I should try and work out why I struggle to maintain interest in jobs after 18 months, I’m not like it in any other area -relationships and parenting haven’t gone stale although I guess they change rather than stagnate over time. I sometimes think being considered good at a job doesn’t help. I know that sounds odd but I’m always at my most restless when people are telling me I am doing well and insinuating that my ‘talents’ are wasted. I guess it’s an overhang from retail days when you were always looking at year on year figures and once you’d cracked doing something well you were looking forward to the next promotion or career hike. Ah well, at least I have plans…

It was a good day really, I feel like quite a fixture at the library, recognising regular borrowerers, knowing lots of the answers to questions, enjoying banter with workmates. I rang Shoreham library to arrange for them to send Davies’ artwork over on the delivery van and spoke to the guy over there who had put the display up just yesterday and was brimming over with huge enthusiasm for Davies’ work. He wanted to know more about his idea for the display, what materials he’d used and so on and was staggered that not only had the idea been all his own but the artwork was too. His former career pre library work was in art supplies so he’s got a bit of knowledge and was just so fired up about Davies’ talent :). He recommended we send the artwork to a children’s book publisher so tonight I’ve talked to Davies about a bit more text to go with his illustrations. I don’t know if we will, or indeed if that is the direction Davies wants to go in but I was very proud listening to the exclamations of delight over the phone :).

Ady was off this morning and they spent most of the time outside planting things and letting the chickens have some totally free range time round the garden which they seemed to enjoy. Scarlett had dug up four caterpillars to live in the insectlore butterfly garden from a couple of years ago although they look pretty deceased to me. She is keen to do the whole caterpillar to butterfly thing again though so we must try and collect some caterpillars soon.

In the Afternoon Dad was here and they seem to have had fun. Dad took the details of next term’s swimming lessons to pay for 🙂 Which is just as well as I’ve realised Badgers, Rainbows and Beavers will all be due to be paid in 2 weeks which is about £70 total :shock.

I arrived home and made pancakes for tea by request and read several chapters of Famous Five to them. We’re all enjoying them although they are throwing up various questions (most indignantly by Scarlett about just why George wouldn’t want to be a girl :lol:) which means they are not sit still and listen type books.

For some reason neither of them went to sleep before about 10pm tonight which was quite wearing. Scarlett was playing with her Betty Spaghettys in bed and Davies was constructing a ‘person’ on the landing using his clothes, a teddy bear for the head and a variety of accessories 🙄

On the way home from London on Sunday Tarly was talking about Drusillas and when we’d next go there. We’ve got just over 3 months left on our annual passes so it does make sense to get a few visits in before they run out so I said we’d try and get there this week. When Mum called in on Monday I mentioned it to her and as she was off today she came with us. We had a couple of ‘granny goes free’ vouchers so it didn’t cost anything for her to get in either :).

She was over half an hour late arriving which pissed me off a bit although she was armed with a list of ‘reasons’ for her tardiness :roll:. Ady had popped home too as he was off to QVC and David Thankyou was out too so we had quite a send off when we finally got on our way. I always find my Mum quite tiring company if I’m honest and at the moment she is in a fairly needy phase. To be fair to her life is a bit crap at the moment for her but I’m very keen to be supportive whilst not getting involved. She also has the ability to be utterly selfish and insensitive without realising it at all, something over which I shed the last of my tears and accepted as just who she is a long time ago but still makes for a draining day with her. Today she was full of the six theatre trips she has lined up over the next couple of months, all up to London and all with meals out either side of the show planned too. I don’t begrudge a single moment of her pleasure or a single penny she might spend but the irony of her bragging about this to me after I confessed we’d shared a KFC bargain bucket in our hotel room on Saturday night so that we could afford to go to the caves on the Sunday on the way home struck me even if it didn’t occur to her :lol:.

Drusillas was quite good, they are the other side of doing lots of investment and improvement on the place over the quieter winter months so there were new things to see including Lemurland, a walk through enclosure, with keeper on guard where you are in there with the lemurs wandering around you. Davies and Scarlett loved it and even both sneaked a quick stroke of the lemurs as they passed by :). There were some new ‘attractions’ in the play area too. Mum and I had a cup of tea while they had a play in the soft play area for half an hour.

We left and went to a nearby pub for lunch at Mum’s suggestion which was a real treat for me. Mum complained about it as expensive and not great but I thought it was quite nice- of course I wasn’t paying 😉 (but I did drive and get her into Drusillas so I wasn’t getting much for nothing). The weather had turned cold and drizzly so we headed for home and I called into the supermarket on the way home for some cream cakes to have with tea.

Cakes eaten, hair brushed and socks worn (Scarlett only ever wears socks to Badgers each week and at soft play places where socks are The Law, she hates them and was totally socked out by the end of today :lol:) we set off to Badgers. It was presentation night tonight as it was the end of term so I’d asked Mum if she wanted to come along too. Scarlett had requested that I present her with her Badger Promise certificate and badge (they can choose whoever they want apparently. I was pleased to be her choice but disappointed she’d not aimed higher for a celebrity or cartoon character :lol:). The badgers went off to do something upstairs while the parents were entertained in the coffee lounge. We chatted to a few of the other parents and I struck up a conversation with someone I was at school with but have never talked to before. We were also talking to Julie, the Badger leader who is a Teaching Assistant for reception year. She was asking how Scarlett was enjoying Badgers and I said she was loving it (which she is) and Julie was saying she is very bouncy but has already started to calm down a bit.

We went through and sat down and Ady arrived soon after but had to sit at the back. Scarlett was presented with her enrollment and promise first

Then all the Badgers got presented with their Wild Badger badges which they have been doing this term:

Scarlett was really struggling with the whole parade thing. She doesn’t have to adhere to the being still and staying quiet thing anywhere else and it is something she is rather rubbish at. Personally I think there is no need for five year old children to be able to stand still and be quiet really but I do think showing respect for other people talking or wanting to listen is important. She did lots of finger up nose, flapping her skirt about and jumping type stuff and kept stage whispering to me little observations. It was entertaining the rest of the parents but I did keep shushing her and trying to convey ‘be quiet’ messages to her with meaningful eye contact 😆 Some of the Badgers, including Davies were presented with Silver Badger awards (they get bronze after their first 3 badges, silver after the next 3, gold after the next 3 and SuperBadger when they have done 12 badges, so four years of work.) Silver marks Davies’s end of second year and he really has got loads out of Badgers, it’s a great organisation and the Worthing one is extremely well run.

Finally it was time for the Badger of the Month. Davies has won it twice already and whilst we might have been smiling indulgently at our bouncy little front row Badger with her plait already falling out, her socks already falling down and her finger up her nose Scarlett’s was the last name I was expecting to hear. But she was commended for trying her best, being kind and helpful and really getting the idea of what Badgers is about in her first term and her name was called out! 🙂

She’s already been polishing it and has taken it to bed with her :). I’m not big on rewards, punishments or extrinsic recognition but I have to concede it means a hell of a lot to her and I am proud that out of the 18 children there my two have both had that award even though the teaching assistant leader quietly makes her feelings about Home Education known because they have both been given it for trying hard and embracing the being kind and helpful ethos of Badgers, traits I am delighted to see them exhibiting and being commended for :). So there you go, hypocritical sell out I may be but we’ve got the cup here again! 😆 ;).

Home for stories and whilst I had all good intentions I’ve not sewn the five badges they came home with between them onto their uniforms yet but I will try and do it before they are back at Badgers next term :lol:. This week has rather run away with me and tomorrow is my working all day day.

Ady took today off. His lieu days for all the evening and weekend work have been backing up rather and with travelling time he worked something like 70 hours last week so although it was nice to go up to London with him and make it feel less like work he was in need of some time off. He didn’t really get it to be fair, as he took at least 4 work phone calls during the day but he has so many various things he seems to be responsible for there it is easier for him to take the call and deal with it rather than turn his phone off and deal with it -and the repurcussions of letting someone else try and deal with it tomorrow. Having had jobs like that myself I know how frustrating it is and I do really feel for him at the moment. He is trying to take short term crap for long term potential which will either pay off or he’ll simply have to stop at the end of this ‘season’ (July). Either way there is an end in sight although the irony of him putting in loads of hours, taking extra responsibility and not really enjoying large chunks of his job in order that we might be able to live a totally different lifestyle is not lost on us.

So having stayed slightly later yesterday in order to take all of today off we had browsed the RSPB and NT handbooks and decided to go to Dungeness today.Of course what we had failed to do was work out how long it would take to get there so when we set off after 10am needing to be back for swimming by 5pm and then realised when we put the details into the Satnav that it was a 2 hour drive we had to swiftly amend that plan! 😆 It does look good though and we will get there another time. We turned left (right would take us into the sea!) and decided to go north. Before long we hit signs for Woods Mill. Now I’ve never been to Woods Mill which is odd given how close it is to us. There used to be a school trip there every year but it always clashed with the trip to France (sort of consolation prize for those not going across the channel I guess) and I always went to France. And I was always under the impression there was an admission charge, which I think is because I’ve only ever seen events there advertised which do carry an admission charge. But we were there, the sun had started shining and it was free so in we went!

We had a lovely few hours there walking round. We spent ages at the reed beds and lakes, wandered through the woodland area, sat in the hide bird watching for a while, got very muddy tramping over marshland, followed the stream, played pooh sticks on every bridge and talked about all sorts of birds, animals and plants including some tracker stuff like footprint and poo spotting. Scarlett spotted carp in the lake so we spent ages trying to catch one – and failing 😆

Most of the bridges had poetic woodland names like ‘Kingfisher Bridge’ except for a flat wooden one, which looked fairly new and had the beautifully carved wooden sign on it to say it was called ‘Steve’s Bridge’which amused me greatly. We found a net abandoned nearby and the children and I spent a very happy 20 minutes or so floating things and then catching them again while Ady played with the camera 🙂

How one of us (me) didn’t fall in I don’t know :lol:.

We came home via a quick trip to Sainsburys for various forgotten items from the online shop and a new laundry basket as my old ones are both broken and fairly lethal with sharp plastic bits. Home for pancakes for Davies and Scarlett before heading out again to swimming lessons.

They’ve missed the last 2 swimming lessons (Legoland and then London trips) and this was the last one before the end of term. They did jumping in, which they both love and then some messing around type things with the floats and noodles. Davies has really come along and Scarlett seems to be making progress.

Then it was off to the local parish hall to give blood for Ady and I. It was the fourth time we’ve been and only the second time I’ve actually managed to give blood although Ady has done it all four times. The first time we went they did something wrong putting the needle in my vein and had to give up and last time my whatever they test first levels were too low to donate. This time they used a ‘side vein’ in my arm which bloody ached and the man said I was his personal record for slowest time to fill the blood bag at 12 minutes something. The bloke next to me took 4 minutes and Ady was even faster than that. My arm is still sore but it doesn’t look like I’ll have a bruise which is unusual. Davies and Scarlett were well looked after and taken off to do colouring activity books all on the blood donor theme and plied with juice, crisps and biscuits. If it hadn’t hurt it would have been a win: win situation really, lying down in peace for 15 minutes with a guaranteed tea and biscuit at the end while feeling smug about doing something good 🙂 :lol:.

Home again for a couple of chapters of Famous Five and then a very late dinner for Ady and I. Tomorrow he’s off QVCing again (3-4pm show TVAG fans ;)) while the children and I hit Drusillas with my Mum.

We’re breaking ourselves into BST gently here 😆

All we *had* to do today was pop into town to pay the mortgage so we elected to do that after lunch and have the morning at home. Davies and Scarlett caught up on some playing (some sort of Primeval meets geomags with added ponies type game), I caught up on some washing and online bits and we had amicable peace (ish).

We had lunch, Scarlett got pecked by the cockerel when she was cuddling one of the hens. Both the hens are very friendly and happily come to be picked up but the roo has gotten increasingly fiesty. That is sort of his job and it didn’t even draw blood but I made sure Tarly told him off (which she is very proficient at doing :lol:) as I don’t want her to be scared of him. Cautious yes, but not scared!

We drove into town, parked, popped into a shop where I tried on some clothes and with the kids’ help chose a couple of new summer tops :). Scarlett noticed a helping dog in the shop with a wheelchair-bound woman and another woman and was looking at them before telling me she had short arms and legs. I looked and it was Alison Lapper. I reminded the children that we know who she is from watching her on Child of our Time and they wanted to go and say hello. As she was in the middle of buying pants in a cheap clothes shop I explained that she would probably rather be left alone to do her shopping but secretly was quite starstruck as I’ve long admired her :).

We whizzed to the two banks to withdraw and pay in money, took a phonecall from my mum to say she was killing a couple of hours and would we be home soon and then headed home again. Mum popped over and her and I chatted while D and S played upstairs in our wardrobe. It is rather Narnia-eque built into the eaves of our loft but they did trash it a bit so I chased them out to have their tea. Mum stayed with Tarly while I dropped Davies at Beavers and then she left. Tarly and I grated loads of carrots and minced lots of garlic for some of Katy’s Carrots before going to collect Davies from Beavers.

Ady arrived home while I was sewing today’s two badges onto his uniform (otherwise it will get put away for the holiday and I’ll be sewing it five minutes before he’s supposed to be there in 3 weeks!), the children had a bath and then suddenly it was crazily late. I’m still not at all ready for it to be daylight at 8pm!

I finally sorted my clock out today and it’s currently keeping perfect time after weeks of running fast, slow or not at all. We had to dispose of our whole bucket of frogspawn as they all seemed to die before hatching. We started 25 eggs in the incubator yesterday though – 15 of our own and 10 of Tom’s who has different rare breed bantams to us. I’m hedging bets that they won’t all hatch otherwise it will be bedlam here in 3 weeks 😆

Ady worked a bit late today so that he can have tomorrow off which is great as although London was good it does feel like we’ve not had a weekend. We’re still debating what to do with the day though, depending on weather. And from starting this morning with a fairly empty diary for this week it is now full again every day.

can be found here will add to it more when I am not confused about just what time it is 😆

I woke at around 9am which was sort of 8am or something. Reading the twitters from Mazportico and Helenharicot confused me further so I went to have a shower :lol:. When I got out the children were both awake so they got dressed and we went down to breakfast. The hotel we’re in is the same one we stayed at on Monday night and the staff all know Davies and Scarlett by name now and dote on them. Which meant when they went back to the table with their cereal while I toasted my bread and sorted out a pot of tea and then they started arguing loud enough for the whole restuarant to hear I was doubly embarassed :oops:. I went back to sort it out, discovered the squabble was in relation to two identical, as yet unopened packets of Weetabix and loudly berated them for ruining everyone in the restuarant’s peaceful breakfast and made them apologise to the people on nearby tables before we all laughed at the ridiculousness of the spat! 😆

We arrived back at the room and were discussing the plan for the day which involved us packing up and waiting for Ady to arrive back. Davies asked when that would be, I said I didn’t know and the door opened to admit one Tv’s Adrian Goddard! 😆 We packed everything up, said fond farewells (for now) to the hotel staff and were off.

I’d borrowed a book from work with various London attractions listed – from which I am planning to create a page of links for subsequent visits up to London – there are many places we want to visit and it would be good to tick more off on such budget visits :). One of the suggested places to visit ‘outside London’ was Chislehurst Caves. I’d never heard of it although being in Kent it is only about an hour from home for us actually.

We arrived at about 1230 so had time for a drink in the cafebefore our tour of the caves started. There is 22 miles of manmade caves in 3 areas which the tour guide explained are believed to be from Saxon, Druid and Roman times with signs of each area being created at those times. During WW2 the caves were used as an underground town with up to 15000 people living down there. Pitches are still marked out and there are toilets, a hospital, church and even Citizens Advice Bureau down there. No one ever died in the caves but a baby, christned Cavina was born there :). There is a stage carved into the caves where various acts including Hendrix and Rolling Stones played.

We had a tour guide and were underground for about an hour -it cost just £16 for the four of us (once again the only money I spent all weekend, everything else was covered by Ady’s expenses :)) and I’d thoroughly recommend a visit there if you are within travelling distance.

About halfway through the guide took off anyone who wasn’t up for it and left the rest of us without our lanterns in utter darkness. He banged a drum which echoed throughout the caves at deafening decibels and we literally couldn’t see our hands infront of our faces. We also at one point were totally silent and it was the most noiseless environment I think I’ve ever experienced. Very atmospheric, spooky and yet utterly peaceful and lovely. They have recreated scenes along the way from when people lived there and you can feel past echoes around the place. I loved it and Scarlett, who was walking with me, and I kept hanging back and darting down different turnings to experience the creepiness. Davies was more nervous and clung to Ady’s hand very tight but did still enjoy it lots – he does have the most vivid imagination of the four of us though ;).

Photos were both hard to take due to lighting but also impossible to capture the essence of it but a flickr set is here

The walls were full of carvings, initials, paintings and other signs of life and the guide was full of stories of ghosts, hauntings and tales of challenges to stay in the dark for 12 hours.

We returned above ground and headed for home, arriving about 3pm. I cooked ham in coke while the others spent some time in the garden then we watched the documentary about Stephen Hawkin which the children were surprisingly interested in. Tomorrow I am toying with the idea of staying home to recover from a mad week or listening to requests from D and S to go to Drusillas this week with tomorrow being our only free day. We’ll see…

I woke as Ady closed the hotel room door behind him with the children already awake and watching TV. I dozed for a while as the restuarant wasn’t even open for breakfast at that early hour and then we went down to eat. I’ve learnt my lesson with all you can eat breakfasts that eating all you can when you don’t normally eat anything at breakfast time is an error. Greed does not pay when it comes to sausage and bacon, croissants and toast and sugar coated cereals! 😆 Davies and Scarlett OTOH normally do eat fairly well at breakfast time at home and need to be coerced to eat lots to keep them going through the day until lunch.

We got back to the hotel room in time to watch Ady’s first show online and then decided to go and explore Putney. The bridge was being set up ready with barriers to control the anticipated crowds for later and bedecked with big balloons. We browsed the charity shops and bought some very cheap fleeces in Woolworths with camping layer-wear in mind for later in the year. We walked back along the other side of the road and performed a death defying dash across the five lanes of traffic on the bridge arriving at the hotel at the same time as Ady who made us all jump by getting out of the lift next to us 😆

After a cup of tea we decided to go and explore some more. We were not confident of getting back to Putney in time for the beginning of the boat race if we started heading into central London and everywhere seemed pretty busy too so we decided to stay local this time and just walk in the opposite direction from the hotel than we’d walked earlier. This took us into Fulham. A quick look at the ‘take the kids to London’ guidebook I’d borrowed from work informed me that the church opposite our hotel was the one featured in the film The Omen and that Putney Bridge is the only bridge in UK with churches at both ends. I am a walking London trivia trove these days ;).

We saw signs for Fulham Palace and museum so followed those and arrived at the palace

After a wander through some of the very impressive rooms where Davies and I enjoyed looking at dado rails, picture rails, fancy skirting, coving and ceilings aswell as fireplaces we came across the tea rooms. These were housed in the very grand back rooms complete with real fireplaces burning cosily away and furnished with little tables infront of every sofa, large coffee table books and selling tea in china cups and terribly posh cakes from cakestands with doilies 😆 Not really our natural environment but as we were hungry and Ady had his £10 expenses for lunch to spend we blew it on earl grey tea and two cupcakes to cut into four pieces 😆 Then we spent some time looking at the books:

We had a walk round the grounds afterwards and saw some green parrots flying noisily around. They looked very surreal and we talked about how some non-native animals now live wild in this country having escaped as pets or from zoos over the years. A quick google at home today showed parrots in London to be very common! All of the gates were locked which meant despite being right next door to the church grounds opposite our hotel we had to walk all the way round to get back there. We talked about how many people suffer injuries from getting impaled on metal fence spikes and how we could see why :lol:. We walked along a small section of the Thames where crowds were already gathering and ceremony and fuss starting for the boat race.

We had an hour or so back at the hotel as it was pouring with rain and enjoyed watching the live coverage of the boat race start on tv with the same view we could see from our hotel room window 🙂 Ady and I had large glasses of warming wine as a precaution against the cold then we wrapped up warm and walked across the road to join the crowds. We got a spot right at the front on the bridge against the barrier, Scarlett was on my back, Davies was on Ady’s shoulders and we saw the start of the race and then the many boats chasing after them. The crowds quickly dispersed with there being nothing to see once they’d gone so we went and sat in the hotel bar to watch the rest live on the big screen. The Boat Race is something I’ve never had any interest in really – if it happened to be on tv when I was near one then I might watch it but not being remotely interested in sport as either a participant or spectator, nor having any allegance to either university it’s all rather irrelevant. It was pure fluke we happened to be staying at Putney Bridge which is Ady’s hotel of choice for it’s proximity to QVC but as it was happening right outside our window it was nice to add it to our list of things we’ve seen and done :).

The kids had some chips in the bar while we had another couple of drinks by which point I was peaking rather early and laughing raucously with Davies as we recreated the story of the 3 little pigs and the big bad wolf making shadow patterns on the table and adopting regional accents for all the characters. We went back to the room, Ady popped out for takeaway to bring back for dinner and we all watched Willy Wonka on tv. I fell asleep on the bed around 8pm, Ady woke me at 10pm to try and tell me it was really 11pm and then I woke at 1am / 2am, wide awake and very thirsty. I drank loads of water but felt it would be rather selfish to turn a light on to start reading with 3 other people in the room so laid awake listening to London At Night noises for about an hour before finally falling back to sleep.

So can blog a bit about yesterday.

I’m sure I’ve said before that our brand of Home Education, the autonomy, the out and about-ness, the no structure or formal learning and the following interests only works for us because it works for us if that makes sense. I view it as a partnership and a lifestyle choice which has to make most of us happy most of the time. I try to put myself, and Davies and Scarlett only in situations that bring out the best in us and best suit our strengths, passions and interests.

Mostly we get the balance right. I enjoy being busy and spending only fairly limited time at home, I like being out and about, enjoy spending time walking, driving, socialising, learning alongside Davies and Scarlett. I like my role of facilitator and I enjoy it. I get a lot out of spying potential places to go, activities to do and introducing Davies and Scarlett to things I think they will like, be challenged by and learn from. I love talking to them, sharing my ideas and views on things, answering questions I know the answers to and helping them find out the ones I don’t. I enjoy my life and I think I’m pretty good at it. I can see the results of my efforts and am content that there is nothing else I can think of to be spending my time doing that would be more productive, rewarding, making a difference or generally enjoyable. I feel very free and very fortunate.

It works too for Davies and Scarlett. They are thriving. I look at them and see happy, healthy, interested, curious, inspired and passionate children. They are open to ideas, keen to learn and play and live life as fully as possible. They gobble up the new experiences and adventures as eagerly as sweeties and express great interest in what we’re doing, where we’re going, who we’re seeing and play a big role in planning our lives.

But there are odd times when it doesn’t work. Times when most of us are not happy most of the time. This is always either a temporary issue which remedies itself, or something we identify and deal with so that things change and improve.

Philosophically I believe, 100% in Home Education. Autonomous Home Education. Most of the time we live pretty close to my ideal too. But that doesn’t mean I think everyone not living like us is wrong. I had an interesting conversation this weekend about default expectations on children which made me realise it is not simply about what is happening now that shapes how we live, it is what we anticipate happening in the future too. It also means that while I might believe in AHE in theory unless it is actually working for us in practice then I don’t necessarily think we should cling to it as a theoretical belief at the cost of other things. Namely personal happiness, relationships between parent and child, siblings and even spouses.

Someone very wise once said to me ‘Happy mother equals happy baby’. At the time it was in relation to breastfeeding but I do think that idea mostly holds true across the board. Of course if ‘Happy Mother’ is achieved by class A drugs, wild shopping sprees and sex with many unsuitable partners then perhaps the child may not be quite so thrilled but in the main, in circumstances where the parents are loving, not entirely selfish and mostly concerned for their child’s health, welfare and happiness I think this is the case.

So all the while our lifestyle and autonomous HE is harmonious, happy and enjoyable for all of us I am confident it is the right path. On days when I am simply pissed off with spending so much time with the children, feeling trapped and resentful of what I am sacrificing personally in order to stay home it doesn’t work. On days when Davies and Scarlett play for hours, bounce off each other’s energy, ideas, questions and company, working as a team; partners then it works. On days when they cannot be in the same room as each other without squabbling, a car journey requires some sort of riot shield dividing the back seats and my role turns into one not dissimilar to a mediator in a very messy divorce settlement I am very keen to seperate them for seven hours a day into different classrooms.

I’ve never really demonised school, I am very honest about the downsides and I have clearly talked about the differences between Davies and Scarlett’s lives now and those of their schooled friends but I have also talked about the plusses of school and Ady often talks fondly of his own schooldays. It is totally not what I want for Davies and Scarlett and indeed not something I have any real intention of doing but I did speak to them this week about options and choices and how for me school would be a preferance to a miserable existance compromising my relationship with them, their relationship with each other and both their and my experience and memories of their childhood. I explained how I wanted them to recall their childhood, how I wanted their impression of me to be and just what each of us needed to be confident we are getting out of what we’re doing. We talked about the consequences of actions, of how me being grumpy would effect the tone of our days, of how my lack of confidence in their behaviour might impact on my willingness to take them to places and hamper their enjoyment and experiences of them and how lacking respect for other people in the family might make them react in ways that negatively effect us.

This all sounds very serious and doom and gloom and while it was certainly a serious converation with tears on all sides it was also positive and affirming in as much as it made us all think about why we’re doing, what we individually and collectively want to get out of it and how much impact our efforts have on what we get back. I have had similar conversations with Davies over the years about how Home Education is a partnership between us. I can be the adult who decides that my children are not going to attendschool and facilitate their learning, introduce experiences and ideas but they have as big a role to play in terms of behaviour, feedback and how their recieve all this. I like to believe I have empowered Davies and Scarlett, I believe in doing so I also have a responsibility to ensure they know what to do with that. As difficult as they may be I think conversations such as this week’s are positive and productive. It’s not about threatening and certainly not about empty threats but it is about striking the balance that ensures that all of the people involved in this choice are happy with it and redressing the balance as and when, like it has recently, that balance starts to slip.

Things have been much improved and we’ve all had the chance to refocus on things. Yesterday was a good day and levels of cooperation have been high. We’re all feeling renewed enthusiasm for what we do and that can only be a good thing, even if the process of getting there wasn’t a piece of cake. I really do believe that life shouldn’t have to be hard, or a struggle or something we endure and all the time I can find a way to enjoy it I’m quite happy to skip along that path instead.

Work for me today. There was a flurry of initial excitement when we thought we were shortstaffed but it all got sorted out. I did Baby Rhyme time which is getting both harder and easier. Easier because I am now pretty familiar with the songs and actions (although I spent some time googling today for new ideas just to add to the mix for next time) and the attendees and harder because they are used to me so the children are starting to edge closer and try and sit on me and things :shock:. I did get a mum come up to tell me how well she thinks I do it though which was nice (if not something I ever, EVER pictured I would be getting compliments on! :lol:).

Childcare is currently very easy with Davies and Scarlett loving the fortnightly visits to Caz, enjoying the monthly being looked after by Julie and the more regular time with my Dad, all interspersed with loads of Ady being off to look after them as a result of lieu days for his many weekends and evenings working at the moment. Unfortunately this has rather coincided with something of a classic Nic plateau – back when I worked fulltime I hit a time about 18 months into every job I ever had where I suddenly got bored of it,felt I’d mastered it and it suddenly lacked challenge or interest for me. I hope that there is enough I can focus on to keep me going but I am starting to have that feeling of clockwatching and killing time… I guess I’m just not very good at staying in one place doing the same thing for very long before looking ahead to the next thing.

Meanwhile Ady and the children had a great day. They went to see The Gruffalo this morning,which they all really enjoyed and are singing the songs from – really must catch The Gruffalo’s Child on it’s next tour down this way. They had a trip to the evil Tesco for sock purchasing for Goddard males (Goddard females don’t do socks, infact we struggle to do shoes!) and some shirts which interested parties can see showcased on TV tomorrow between 9am and 11am and again on Sunday morning between 9 and 10 :). They also had McDonalds for tea.

I came home and got bags packed for another two overnights and then took Tarly to Rainbows. They rolled out a very long length of paper and got out the paints for them to do tonight, always a winner :). Scarlett is loving it and really finding her feet there now. She is still insisting she is not ready for me to leave her there but for now that isn’t a problem anyway. Several of the older girls will be moving up to Brownies next term which I think will help her even more and she is now responding to the friendly (and thankfully ongoing) overtures of Grace, a really nice little girl :).

Scarlett and I got home and then we set off to London. Our hotel is at Putney Bridge and looks over the starting point of The Boat Race for tomorrow 🙂 so we might just lurk round here tiomorrow for that.

covertly blogged while manning the enquiry desk at work! 😉

I do have a draft post about the whole school thing to complete too but it’s draft on my laptop so I can’t do that right now.

Yesterday was lovely, we were off to meet Julie, Jack and Maisie for some pony riding. We’d not managed to get together with them for ages and I think the last time we saw them it was when Julie looked after Davies and Scarlett for me to be at work so I didn’t actually get to see them then either. Julie is Very Pregnant now – just 10 weeks to go and at that tired and ready for it to be here stage now. It’s a whole different experience for her being pregnant with just one baby, by the time she was this far into pregnancy with Jack and Maisie she was almost at bed rest stage and enormous (they were both over 5lb each, Goddard’s don’t seem to do small babies! :lol:) so it’s a real novelty for her to be feeling a baby inside her kicking and rolling all around – I guess by this far in to Jack and Maisie’s development there was no room in there for aerobics! 😆

The skies looked a bit threatening and indeed we did have about 10 minutes of hail but it was while we were in woodland so fairly sheltered. Davies rode second and really enjoyed it, his progress is of the slow and steady variety, like most new things for him but he isn’t scared, enjoys both the being up high and the movement of Honey the pony and is happy to take things at a measured pace.

Scarlett rode next and was on for the longest time. She is just utterly loving it and desperate to learn more and advance faster every time. She spent the whole time asking Julie questions about how to do things, more about horses and ponies and expressing desire to jump, gallop and ride bareback! She also wants to master standing up at some point – circus child that she is! 🙄 Julie said she could have a try at a sitting trot where she sits up as straight as she can while Honey trots – the next stage is a riding trot where she will move with the pony. A bit of youtube footage of that can be found here.

Back at the yard Julie told me that she thinks Scarlett will make a very good rider, she already has very good balance and mostly rides one handed or at times with both arms out straight. She is keen to take her feet out of the stirrups and has no fear at all. Julie and Scarlett have always gotten on very well so she is the perfect person to be teaching Scarlett as she is patient, passionate about horses and riding and just so pleased to have a child who really wants to learn too. She was already making plans for teaching her to jump, canter and so on :).

As we arrived back at the stables we were called over by the farmer to see a lamb who had just been born. As we quietly went over there was a second one actually being born so we watched it’s first breath as the farmer cleared it’s mouth and heard it’s first ‘baa’ :). We’ve seen lambs born up at Coombes but it was a rather different experience all huddled round quietly in awe than the rather chaotic atmosphere at Coombes.

Scarlett helped to groom and feed honey while Davies, Jack and Maisie played on the muck heap and in big tractor wheel formed puddles in the mud :).

We headed for home to have lunch and make the most of the sun with several loads of washing – you just wouldn’t believe my laundry piles with all the trips away we’ve had ;). Maureen (opposite neighbour) popped over to say we’d gone out and left our front door wide open so after watching for a while she’d nipped across and closed it for me 😳 We had Primeval series 2 on dvd so several episodes of that were watched and some watching and playing at the same time went on with their characters too.

We’d got an opticians appointment at 4pm and Ady rang to say he wouldn’t make it home to collect us so we should meet him there at about 330pm so I gathered everyone up and we headed out of the door. Without taking any keys! So from leaving the door wide open in the morning we were now stood in the garden with no keys to either get into the car or back in the house 🙄 😳 I rang Ady (with a meek tone as I’d just been stroppy to him about him not getting home :oops:) and he rang the opticians to make a later appointment and came home to collect us.

Scarlett and I went in together – her eyes are fine, one is slightly dominant but not sufficiently so that she needs glasses. I was having a contact lens check as I buy them online and it’d been about 3 years since I’d had my eyes tested to ensure my prescription was right and my eyes were healthy – all fine too. Ady hasn’t had his eyes tested since school and I was concerned about the amount of driving he does but the optician said he has excellent eye sight for his age (oh how I chortled!) and he was also recognised from telly (oh how I chortled further – TV’s Adrian Goddard gets his eyes tested! :lol:). Davies was also fine and doesn’t need to use his glasses at all any more.

Home for tea and bath for the children and then an internet food shop delivery from Sainsburys. It was way less efficient than before, possibly as a result of having TV’s Adrian Goddard there ‘helping’ and 9 six pint milks were missed off the order meaning I had a lengthy phonecall trying to sort that out 🙄 so dinner was a rather late affair.

I worked this morning. Davies and Scarlett went to Caz’s although actually Caz herself wasn’t there. They had a fab time as always, playing Ben 10 with Archie andElliot, filthy and full of chatter about how cool it is round there and how much they like playing with A and E :). I’m getting better at leaving them and not worrying…

I picked them up and we headed straight round to Lucy’s. We had birthday gifts for both The Rs and were rather keen to meet Buzz, their new kitten. Buzz did very well at dealing with curious and adoring children and tolerated their attention for a while before retreating behind the sofa :lol:. They then headed off to play and seemed to all get on well. Lucy and I managed some chatting althought it’s been too long so we were butterfly jumping from conversation to conversation and probably not finishing any of them.

We left there to go home for tea and to get changed to go back out again to Badgers. I popped to the supermarket while they were at Badgers then we came home. After a very serious chat about school, behaviour and how unless homeeducation works for the whole family which meant tears from them both but I’m confident got across a message I’d been struggling to make them understand the last couple of weeks we had a chapter of the 2nd Famous Five book. I won’t blog more than that because whilst I am totally serious that they would go to school under certain circumstances I am equally confident that it won’t ever happen and hopefully everyone’s upset at the prospect will be sufficient to guarantee that. It did mean we missed Ady on telly though, which went very well and his product was a sell out :).

I spent nearly an hour on the phone to Julie (10 weeks to go! 🙂 :)) catching up on her news – we ran out of time to talk about me! 😆 and then Ady was home for a very late dinner.

I really struggled to stay awake last night to watch Ady do his 12.45am show but just about managed before crawling into bed and falling asleep instantly. I did stir around 3am and checked the time and that he was in bed next to me before falling back asleep until after 7am when he’d already left again.

The kids and I went down for breakfast where Scarlett selected honey and yoghurt only from the massive selection of breakfast fayre available, then managed to get honey in her hair, on her hands, on her dress and all over the table before deciding she didn’t like the yoghurt and didn’t want anything else. So that was honey for breakfast then :roll:. Davies ate plenty though.

Back upstairs we checked our London pocket planner and the tube map before heading off. Having never really used the tube on previous trips to London and avoiding it since having children as way too tricky to manage with pushchairs or toddlers last year was the first time I’d taken Davies and Scarlett on it. My London geography is really rather ropey so being underground on the tube would normally make it worse but actually due to some redirecting yesterday as one of the lines (Circle I think) was out due to engineering works I felt pretty confident about it today. Sure enough it was a breeze and we navigated our way all around on Central, Piccadilly, Northern and District lines just fine :). And it was dirt cheap at just a fiver too :).

Yesterday there had been a very friendly woman at the Putney Green tube station and she was there again today and remembered us from yesterday. She wanted to hear all about what we’d done yesterday at the Museum of London, told Davies and Scarlett random facts about the Great Fire of London and urged us to go and see The Monument, also built by Christopher Wren (of St Paul’s fame) to remember the Great Fire, standing 202 feet tall as the fire started at 2am on 2nd September. It’s funny, I remember being in America (on both of the visits we’ve had there; one to Vegas and one to New York) and commenting on how very proud Americans are of their country, how knowledgable of it’s history and keen to share that with tourists. Normally I don’t think the English are as bothered by our own history but the last two days we’ve encountered loads of people wanting to share stories and knowledge with us :). On the tube Davies came up with a very funny conspiracy theory that the trains don’t really move at all but there are teams of people shaking the carriages to give the idea of it moving and running alongside the windows with huge pictures of changing scenery. I explained some of the flaws in his theory and also what a conspiracy theory is and then told him about a series Ady and I watched years ago called Last Train which we’d really enjoyed. I love his flair for the surreal and ridiculous 😆

Two changes later we arrived at Leicester Square and walked to Trafalgar Square. After yesterdays snow it was a gorgeous sunny day and the fountains looked lovely all sparkling in the sun. We threw some pennies in, had a quick run round the lions and then went into the National Gallery. I’d not been before and it’s a real rabbit warren of a place, with rooms leading to rooms leading to rooms. We decided to walk into each room and see which painting ‘spoke to us’ first and why. Sometimes it was the sheer size, or the colours, in one it was how realistic the materials in the painting looked. There were loads of religious images so we talked about them a bit. Scarlett was very taken with the Whistlejacket painting that Em mentioned after her visit there a while ago, we also liked the Surprised Tiger painting and all of the Van Gogh and Monet collections. I’d half thought about the National Portrait Gallery as well but one gallery per trip to London seems to be sufficient.

We came out and Davies wanted to slide down the handrail of the big steps down to the fountains. I agreed he could so he did, with much glee. Scarlett got about halfway, wobbled and scared herself and then wailed. She has been rather delicate today, easily explained by tiredness from weekend spilling into a late night last night but still rather wearing just the same. Davies further compounded it by winding her up lots today so plenty of times all three of us were either whining, winding or being Very Cross as a result of the previous two :roll:. We then had what was possibly the highlight of the trip for me in meeting up with an internet friend who I adore and have only managed to meet up with once in real life before. She was childfree and indulged Davies and Scarlett with great patience considering it was a special treat to be alone for her. We went and had coffees in a shop in the square, had further chatting time when D and S played on the lions again and finally parted as we wanted to get to our afternoon location and she had busy things like a theatre trip to be getting on with. Fab to see her though 🙂 :).

Scarlett got involved with a mother and son who were feeding the pigeons and trying to catch them until we left to get another tube.

This time we were off to the Bank Of England Museum
, yet another place I didn’t even know existed until I found it in our guide book. On the way out of the tube was a shoemenders / key cutters kiosk which also sold watch batteries so I got a new battery for my watch that stopped working over a week ago and I have been wearing to remind me to get sorted ever since. The children were fascinated with the shoe mending and key cutting side of it and the very friendly man fell in love with Scarlett (and her name) and chatted away to them for ages about London.

The museum has the usual no photos rule which was a shame as there were plenty of exhibits I’d have liked photos of. We had to walk through security with xray machines to get in before being greeted and given activity sheets to complete as we walked round. The museum is quite small but packed with a variety of recreations, interactive touch screens, real people who are only too happy to chatter away to you, waxwork figures, machinery exhibits and more. We watched films about the role of the BoE, inflation and monetary policy and more. We learnt about security features on banknotes and who the people on the reverse of each denomination are, we looked at minting of coins, coins through the ages including recent one such as pre-decimalisation and the old halfpennies, bigger five, ten and fifty pence pieces, poundnotes and talked about when the 20p and the £1 coins came into circulation and what happens to old and tatty banknotes. There was a solid gold bullion (or ingot as us Famous Five readers call them ;)) to try and lift weighing 2/3 as much as them. We also did jigsaws of banknotes and I did a ‘crack the code’ quiz about the new £20 note which meant I opened the safe to get a ticket for a prize.

Back at reception we handed in our activity sheets and my ‘I cracked the code!’ ticket and claimed our bagdes of ingots, gold pens and picture postcards of all the bullion bars, which was pretty cool :). We realised we were very close to Monument so grabbed some food from a local Sainsburys and walked up to see it. It’s closed for refurbishment and has scaffolding round most of it meaning we didn’t get to see much detail but did see the height. We were all pretty tired by then so made our way back to the hotel.

We were back in time to watch Ady’s last performance of the day from the hotel room. The children built an ‘adventure park’ in the room with pillows and things to enable them to get all round the room without touching the ground and I drank lots of tea. Ady returned and we headed for home.

It’s been another nice cheap trip – food, hotel, parking and petrol to London were all on expenses for Ady and when I totted it up all I’d spent was the £15 on tube fares. The kids were both tired after the weekend but it’s been great to tick another 3 things off our list as seen and visited, I’ve gotten all confident about the tube and despite seeming to take very little in I know from listening to their games already plenty of what they’ve heard / seen has gone in for processing.

“I am happy and open to new things”

Adventurers are energetic, lively, and optimistic. They want to contribute to the world.

How to Get Along with Me

* Give me companionship, affection, and freedom.
* Engage with me in stimulating conversation and laughter.
* Appreciate my grand visions and listen to my stories.
* Don’t try to change my style. Accept me the way I am.
* Be responsible for youself. I dislike clingy or needy people.
* Don’t tell me what to do.

What I Like About Being a SEVEN

* being optimistic and not letting life’s troubles get me down
* being spontaneous and free-spirited
* being outspoken and outrageous. It’s part of the fun.
* being generous and trying to make the world a better place
* having the guts to take risks and to try exciting adventures
* having such varied interests and abilities

What’s Hard About Being a SEVEN

* not having enough time to do all the things I want
* not completing things I start
* not being able to profit from the benefits that come from specializing; not making a commitment to a career
* having a tendency to be ungrounded; getting lost in plans or fantasies
* feeling confined when I’m in a one-to-one relationship

SEVENs as Children Often

* are action oriented and adventuresome
* drum up excitement
* prefer being with other children to being alone
* finesse their way around adults
* dream of the freedom they’ll have when they grow up

SEVENs as Parents

* are often enthusiastic and generous
* want their children to be exposed to many adventures in life
* may be too busy with their own activities to be attentive

mostly like me…

This morning we were up and about bright and early (although I should probably make it clear that that is by our standards rather than other people’s so – 8am ish :lol:) breakfasting, getting dressed and packing. The year before last we were away from home so regularly we had a set of bags with all the basics already packed ready to go, I think we are at that same point again now so I really should organise that again. Ady had gone off to work to collect various things for his QVCing and was back to collect us around 9am. He had a meeting in the sevices at Pease Pottage (which just always makes me think of the nursery rhyme and want to chant about Pease Pottage hot, pease pottage cold, pease pottage in the pot nine days old!) to collect a storyboard from someone.

In the car we had all sorts of conversations but the most interesting was one about words that sound the same but mean different things. It started with how some numbers -one, two, four and eight- sound like words that mean different things – won, two/too, for/fore, ate. We then moved on to other words rhyming with ‘light’ which Davies had asked me to spell out for him – kite, bite, bright, sight/ site, height, fight and how spellings and meanings were different. As I’d been talking to people about the history of language at the weekend I was able to throw in some additional examples to impress, which got us talking about primary and secondary colours (bonus points to the only two or three people that could recall the example I cited!).

We got to our hotel in Putney Bridge just before midday having driven through lots of snow on the way. The room was not officially available until 2pm but Ady is now a Business Acccount Holder with the chain so they scurried about and sorted a room out for us, offered the children chocolate eggs each and an activity pack with colouring bits, story book and so on in it :). After a debacle with the credit card key not working to get us into the room with various people of various levels of importance getting involved before declaring the lock broken we were given a different room. It is HUGE, overlooking The Thames with the whole width of one wall made of windows. We had a cup of tea and debated plans for the day eventually deciding on The Imperial War Museum.

At reception we asked for some directions / best advice for transport and the reception clerk was keen to tell us the IWM might be a bit old for D and S. TBH I’m not sure I agree but neither was I desperate to go there myself so we decided to go to The Museum of London instead. I’d checked it out online yesterday after a tip off from Jan and discovered the ground floor is shut for refurbishment which to me made it perfect as you so rarely see all of a museum anyway and I was cagey about how busy museums would be today so thought the closure might put off enough other visitors to make it quiet.

This involved something of an epic tube journey but we were given lots of maps and hints of good places to see by the woman at the tube station that it was pefectly achievable. When we finally came above ground again it was snowing heavily as we walked to the Museum Of London.

There is a time line in the foyer with temperature /climate changes through the ages from ice age to today so we walked along that – and yes, there were the pictures about skating on the frozen Thames and Frost Fairs:), there were a few hands on activities to do with weather which we did before entering the London Before London bit of the museum. This bit was pretty busy and whilst interesting was similar to various other museums in it’s archealogical finds of early tools, pottery, human and animal remains, except of course these were specific to London.

Next was the Great Fire of London exhibit which was all of our favourite. Plenty of pictures and articles to really give a flavour of the time and the event. Davies and Scarlett did some drawing of the Great Fire and tried on firefighters helmets from 1666 and the modern day.

We then looked at the Roman London, plenty of which was familiar from information we’d recalled from visits to Fishbourne and finally Medieval London. By the end we were all hungry and slightlyMuseum-ed out but agreed it was a good one we’d like to return to, especially when it reopens completely.

We tried to bridge a bridge (nearly)

and were very interested in a convoy of 3 oddly behaving vehicles below the bridge, realising they were filming the ‘driver’

We had a quick walk round St Paul’s and got some food before retracing our tube journey.

We dossed around ther room for a while, all had a bath and watched London At Night start to appear through the window as it got dark. We had dinner in the hotel restaurant which was actually very nice and the children got loads of attention. We retold the story of Willy-Nilly while we waited for our food and then played a sort of real-life Cooking Mama with the children talking through and miming out baking flapjackes, victoria sponge (which we also had to go in a time machine for to give to Queen Victoria herself, so we used vanilla pods for flavour to make it special :lol:) and cheese scones. I was slightly amazed at how much of the recipes, techniques and equipment for actually :shock:. Over dinner we talked about autonomy, home education, money versus happiness and other deep and meaningful things.

Finally me and the children came back to the room, where they were asleep very quickly while I scoffed all the chocolates from my Thorntons EasterEgg, had a very unsatisfying hotel bathroom bath as it is so short and narrow I have to bath sections of myself in shifts as my whole body doesn’t seem to fit in at once 😆 and am drinking red wine out of a mug waiting for Ady to be on QVC between midnight and 1am.

I’m aware this all sounds delightful and easy – and therefore rather fabricated! So I will mention how the children drove me insane bouncing on beds while I was trying to rearrange the Sainsburys delivery for later this week that I have realised there will be noone home to receive, how Davies drew a crowd of confused looking people when he was waiting for a turn at the firefighters hats by being oblivious to all else other than his own reflection that he was pulling faces in the mirror and finally how Tarly managed to be holding my hand but facing the wrong way when the tube started with a jerk throwing her away from me while I grabbed her, thus twisting her wrist so she sobbed as I yelled ‘well it was either that or let you fall!’ and then realising by the horrified faces of everyone else on the train that they thought I’d deliberately smacked or hurt her and were all glaring at me, meaning I felt all defensive and felt the need to explain loudly and repeatedly to Scarlett precisely what had happened so they’d all overhear me and believe me 😆 :oops:.

Tomorrow the children have voted for ‘an art gallery’ and ‘Bank of England museum’ so I need to work out transport routes and idea of a plan while Ady is off being famous again.

No one will be!

We love that line from The Incredibles and quote it a lot – or variations of it. Davies did today actually when Scarlett was wishing that we had snow all the time and Davies commented that if we had it all the time there wouldn’t be anything special or exciting about it, it would just be normal. She agreed and amended her wish to snow being warm instead of cold because that would be really ‘snuggly to play in’ – can’t argue with that! 😆

But actually yesterday managed to be a day where everyone was super and that was a good thing. We left home at about 9ish having done last minute packing up as usual despite good intentions to be better prepared on Friday night. We had a really easy run and arrived at Bob & Katy’s pretty much exactly when we’d expected to. The Babs and co were already there so as the front door opened we were greeted by an excited crowd of children all very thrilled at the arrival of Davies! The rest of us were given a cursory greeting as Davies’ entourage and Davies was spirited away in a flurry of high pitched small boy craziness and after initial shyness and establishing whether any cats lived at the house (Scarlett’s rider really for anywhere she visits) Scarlett seemed to divide her time between Beth, Rachael, Libby and all of the above. Ady got involved in table football and I made myself useful with some vegetable chopping (even the ones I don’t eat! :lol:).

Jan and Jonathan and co arrived as did Chris and Alison and then we were off to the party venue, just down the road. We’d driven through every extreme of weather on the way up there and it continued through the day with very impressive hailstones. Davies and Scarlett got changed into their Super costumes and joined in with the very comprehensive array of games and activities on offer, from mask making, bead threading, various other crafty bits, the chocolate game and more. There was loads of lovely food including four (count ’em) cakes and it was a really good childrens’ party :).

We all piled back to Bob and Katy’s where the children were mostly heard and not seen until the ones left were all staying the night so were rounded up, pj’d and read several bedtime stories before scattering to various parts of the house for bedtime. We’d taken our new camping mats for a first test run and were very impressed with them :).

The remaining adults had a couple of games of Blokus – which I was pretty crap at, I so don’t do games, I just don’t care enough about winning to be any good at them I don’t think – and they get in the way of the serious business of chatting and drinking wine IMO! We had some really interesting conversations about education, autonomy and more which I really enjoyed. It’s lovely to be in company where you know offence won’t be caused by differing viewpoints being discussed and noone will take anything personally :). I was not last to bed but gave up just before 3am which I think was late enough ;).

This morning we woke to snow. Quite easily the deepest snow Davies and Scarlett have ever seen in real life as we so seldom get any down here. Davies enjoyed it for a while, Scarlett would probably still be in the garden now! 😆 We’d initially thought we might go along to church with the others, or stay behind and leave after lunch but I was concerned about the roads getting bad if the snow continued, given how the UK does tend to grind to a halt when it snows, so in the end we left for home when the others headed off to church.

We actually had a very good run home. I guess the weather and it being Easter Sunday meant there were very few cars on the road and actually the further south we came the less snow had fallen until we saw none at all once we were past Dartford. We arrived home about 1pm ish so had crumpets, lots of chocolate and roast chicken around 6pm. The children played with their Primeval characters and made anomolies out of geomags for them :).

Davies has been asking all sorts of interesting questions today, both in the car and at home including:

Why do we have toes? What are the palms of our hands for?
Would plants go quicker or slower in space than on earth?
Why do boys like toys like cars and girls like dolls and pink things?
How do we know mammoths lived at the same time as people and what would be the difference between elephant and mammoth remains?

This led to googling and discussions about anatomy, evolution, NASA experiments, gravity, artificial and real sunlight, watering in zerogravity situations, creation of hybrid plants suited to their environment, sexism, nature versus nurture, social conditioning, which is the more important role – breadwinner or homemaker? Is there any difference between sexes? Cave paintings, remains found frozen, hot countries and cold countries and animals natural diets and habitats, extinction, relationships between animals and man and, oh, so much more! He is doing a lot of observations or statements at the moment and a lot of information gathering too about all sorts of seemingly unconnected and random things. But if I’ve learnt anything since having Davies it’s that nothing is ever random or unrelated and even if it seems to be then stuff seems to happen to make it relevant very quickly. As we drove over the Thames today he asked if it had ever frozen and I was telling him about paintings of people skating on it in years gone by – I just bet that ties in somehow with something we do while we’re up there for the next couple of days.

I’ve already mentioned this to a few people but thought I’d put it out
now for us to discuss dates:

We’re planning to go camping in Wales in June – we want to go to CAT
still and thought we’d do a week in tents somewhere nearby – there are
loads of campsites in the area.
We’re pretty flexible on dates,although keen to fix one asap so we can
get time booked off work. So who is up for it and what dates would suit
you / be best / mean you couldn’t come at all?

My plan is to do something Saturday – Saturday – ish with a CAT group
visit maybe mid-week, say Wednesday, so people could join us for as
little or long as they like really. I’m very keen not to be organising a
Home Ed camp although once we’ve got dates, venue and attendees booked
we could maybe talk about some group activities if people are up for it.
I think the best idea is for me to find a site that will suit us in
terms of numbers, price, facililities and location to CAT – I can then
try and organise some sort of discount if we’re a big enough group and
people can book individually. CAT is probably easiest organised as a
group trip but again I’ll get in touch with them direct when we have
numbers / dates. On that basis I am happy enough for people to suggest
to friends that they join us if you know people who would like to come
along, but very much on the basis that this is not an organised camp
where everything is laid on (I think you all know what I mean!).

So interested? what dates suit you?

Smacks own forehead in exasperation!

We were supposed to be going to see The Gruffalo today. Well in my world we were. We’d booked the tickets last week and I’d seen the show advertised as Friday, Saturday and Sunday and just assumed it was therefore Easter weekend. Therefore our Friday tickets would be for today -Good Friday.

Except that somewhere deep in the back recesses of my mind something was tickling my ‘something’s not right’ button. Sure enough when I checked the tickets this morning it is actually next Friday :roll:. Next Friday I’m working but fortunately Ady is off with the children in the morning anyway so he’ll take them. It does of course mean they will be the only children of school age in the audience as it’s a schoolday next Friday and it also means I’ll have that same strange feeling I had last week when Ady took them to a filmeducation screening while I was at work that someone else is living my life while my back is turned but Ady is pleased :).

So that rather put us at a loose end this morning. Davies and Scarlett had had chocolate mini eggs to find this morning and a present each from Ady and I of a Primeval character so they were hyper on before 8am chocolate 😆 They spent some time in the bathroom playing with the raft Davies built earlier in the week from lolly sticks in a sink full of water. They were floating Rex on it and experimenting with polystyrene to see how much weight it could take. I explained that polystyrene is very light and therefore not the best material and suggested coins instead so they continued armed with loads of coppers and silver. The experimenting finally came to an end when the water based glue Davies had used to fix the lolly sticks together dissolved in the water and the raft fell apart! So Science and Maths all jostling alongside water play there :).

Meanwhile I spent some time looking at smallholdings on the internet, googling for the normal range of heights for a seven year old boy (he’s well within range, phew!) and then breaking – and trying to fix -my spacebar. It remains broken and is looking likely to require proper technical help to fix. Arse 🙁

Davies and Scarlett then moved on to some stair surfing. This dangerous activity is entirely my own fault, having showed them the mattress trick a couple of weeks ago. We have this rather mental, and classic IKEA rug made of green fur with two enormous air filled lumps in it – it looks like something from the Teletubbies! So they were toboganning down the stairs on that together. I let it go on for a while, admiring their imagination, daring, courage and so on before starting to fret about just how I’d explain two lots of multiple injuries in casualty from stair surfing related injuries to two children still in their pjs after 11am! 😆

We finally got dressed and organised and headed over to my parents for lunch. Granny was there too with a classically unsuitable gift for the children each for Easter. She’d got them a large tin of Quality Street each! Which would be too much even if it were relevant to Easter, suitable to give to a child considering it is mostly foil wrapped toffees or coffee creams or clearly purchased reduced to clear after Christmas! I was proud of the children for being grateful and thanking her while whispering later to me that they didn’t actually like those chocolates! She also brought them a small gift each from Thailand where she’d visited earlier this year. Scarlett got a lovely little bag with embroidered elephants while Davies got a woolly mammoth which she was adamant was a ‘Thailand Elephant’. Davies insisted with one glance that it was a mammoth and then (poor child) got into a convoluted discussion with her about what made it a mammoth rather than an elephant and what the difference was anyway. She genuinely didn’t know so Davies and then Scarlett rather incredulously explaining the physical differences, then the whole Ice Age, extinct, possible evolving into elephants had both comedy value and shocking reality to it. I enjoyed mentioning to Dad about Home Ed 5 year olds teaching 80 year old schooled women a thing or too – and Davies joined in too ;). Further hilarity was had when the ‘elephant from Thailand’ was upended to show ‘Woolly Mammoth, Made in China’ printed across it’s underside :lol:.

Ady joined us for lunch which was very pleasant. Frazer made an appearance and we had interesting conversations about all manner of things, most of which escape me now. All very commonplace for me and the children type stuff but equally excellent evidence of D and S’s wonderfullness, intelligence and amazing capacity for knowledge. At one point Davies pointed to four pork pie halves and told me that the four halves made two wholes. Rather surprised as we’ve never really touched on the idea of fractions much I asked him what eight halves would make and he instantly said ‘four’. I caught Dad eavesdropping and looking impressed at that one :).

Ady had to go and visit one last garden centre so I went along with him. Davies and Scarlett were happily installed with Granny, Grandad, Uncle and Great Granny and didn’t bat an eyelid although my parents managed to look quite disapproving :roll:. It was nice to have a couple of hours uniterupted chatting time, we talked about loads :).

Back to my parents and we’d called into Sainsburys to get the children some tea, Dad wanted to see a property I’d found online this morning and we actually had quite a nice couple of hours there before coming home.

I read the end of the first Famous Five book – leaving the children desperate for their next adventure and then while cooking dinner managed a spot more baking to bring this weekend. Time ran away rather and it was nearly 11pm before dinnner was ready which meant my intended packing hasn’t happened, so I should probably go to bed now in order to be ready for the early start in the morning.

The Thursday night before Good Friday the year I was 17 I went out to Brighton for the evening with a friend and a group of her friends. I was in a rather wobbly emotional state at the time for various compounded reasons and thought a good night out would cheer me up / make me forget.

The plan was to go to the pub, go on to a nightclub ( I think it was called The Lancaster although I could be wrong, it might even still be there. It was very dark and smoky but had pinprick holes on the dance floor where twinkly lights showed through), then when the club shut at 2am go to an all night cafe for breakfast and then catch the first train home in the morning. I was working at 11am on the Good Friday but regularly went without sleep for a night back then in favour of socialising :).

I wore a thin black jumper, thick black tights, black DM boots and a pair of black shorts that looked like a pleated black mini skirt. Depsite it being only Easter (and I’m pretty sure it was an early March Easter that year too) and bloody freezing I wouldn’t have worn a coat because I don’t think I possessed one.

We did the pub and club part of the plan, got drunken on snakebite and black and then wandered the streets of Brighton for about two hours in search of the All Night Cafe that I came to believe was merely a myth and never actually existed at all. The kebab shops shut at 3am and we decided to go to the station to wait for the first train home in the end, all dreams of bacon sandwiches and hot strong tea out of chipped mugs dashed and forgotten. We discovered that the first train the next morning wouldn’t be til about 830am as it was bank holiday hours but there was a train waiting in the station so we thought we could sleep on that. We’d just got comfortable when a guard arrived and chucked us off.

I recall trying to curl up to sleep on one of red metal bucket style chairs on the platform, pigeons cooing overheard before we got kicked out of the station too as they were closing it for the night. By now it was about 430am, I was very cold, very tired, rapidly sobering and due at work the next day. I was fragile anyway and just wanted to go home. So I got a taxi!

That was exactly (more or less ;)) half my life ago. Tonight, aged 34 the Thursday before Good Friday I found myself in Brighton for the evening again. Only this time I drove, had a clear plan for the evening of going to see Richard Herring do stand up and knew exactly how I would be getting home. I am in a rather better emotional state, although these days I probably couldn’t afford a nighttime taxi home from Brighton ;). However I was still not wearing a coat and instead of my sensible DMs I was wearing the highest heels I own. Now I often wear these boots when I go out of an evening, which is very infrequently but what I’d failed to think through was that usually going out of an evening means I don’t need to drive or walk anywhere and I can cling to Ady’s arm to keep me upright in them. Tonight I did have to drive, and walk and had no arm so I did a wobble instead. I made the most of it as despite the boots being very nice to look at for most of the evening they were hidden under the table I sat at so the only time anyone had the chance to see them was when I was wobbling in them. Sadly I don’t think Brighton’s nightlife was either interested or impressed by them. Brighton – always lets you down like that the Thursday night before Good Friday, even if you leave a 17 year gap! 😆

This morning I was woken way too early by rowdy children. I’d not gone to bed til nearly 2am and then read my book til nearly 3am so getting up before about 9am wasn’t really on my agenda. Once up I did sewing of capes onto T shirts, let Scarlett lose with the fabric pens on her cape and then went to do some baking. I made various biscuits and a chocolate cake to take to my parents house tomorrow. Davies and Scarlett came and helped with some of the baking and all of the licking of chocolate cake mixture spoons :). We had lunch and they watched an Enchanted Wood dvd I’d brought home (which looked really rather surreal). I’d just started to read a bit more of Famous Five to them as I wouldn’t be around for bedtime stories when Dad arrived.

I headed off to work for my mini 2.5 hour shift which went even quicker as I was given a 15 minute teabreak in that time, which as I went with my boss and we got chatting was probably closer to 25 minutes :lol:.

I dashed home and had time to sort the kids’ tea out, have a quick tidy up and get ready to go out before Ady arrived home. I had a great evening, really nice to be out doing something utterly selfish, laugh lots and enjoy being a grown up.