One word? When seven would do…

Today I spent most of the day either fretting that I was a cross between my own mother (very, very shouty when we were children, retrospectively she was clearly struggling a lot but we were terrified of her and she seemed to be in a perpetual state of near hysteria) and Dave Peltzer’s mom or making plans to run away forever. I feel utterly drained now :(.

We were off out to Pulborough Brooks again for a Wandering about Wildlife event – and no, that isn’t one of my classic wandering/wondering misspellings, that was what they called it in a clever twist on the whole wonder / wander thing as we were wandering while we wondered or even wondering while we wandered or something. But actually we mostly just shivered. And some of us whinged a bit. And there was altogether too few wonderings or wanderings and altogether too many windings and whinings.

It all started off well, we arrived, wellied and waterproof coated up and met the rest of the wanderers, were issued with binoculars and warmly welcomed (lots of w words in this post isn’t there?). We set off and stopped fairly quickly to look at a trodden down area and try to spot clues. There were none but at the next area we found both tracks and poo which identified the perps as deer. We then found fox droppings, rabbit droppings and various other clues around the walk, stopped and spent some time in a hide looking at geese and ducks before working our way back to the centre, stopping to look at various birds along the way. Well that was the idea and in fairness that did all happen. But it was extremely foggy which hampered our view of a lot of things and it was absolutely bloody freezing, which meant a brisk walk would have been fine but lots of stopping to inspect droppings and consult spotter sheets for track references was less enjoyable. About halfway round Scarlett started crying and said her legs hurt and she was too cold to walk any more and Davies was shivering so hard if we could have harnessed the energy outout we could have lit up Brighton Pier off him! They both wanted to be cuddled / carried / have endless amounts of sympathy directed their way and I just wasn’t in the frame of mind for any of the above. I did decide that they must both be coming down with my cold and reasoned that if someone had been dragging me round in the freezing cold on Friday when I was going down with it I would have been less than great company – oh wait, that’s exactly what happened on Friday when I was going down with it and indeed I was less than great company :lol:. So I felt a bit sorry for them and when Scarlett spotted a dead and part decomposed rabbit on the way back and they were both cheered up and far more animated I decided they were poor brave soldiers rather than ungrateful brats who couldn’t tolerate minor discomfort for the sake of nature.

We got home and I was all set to make hot chocolates and stuff when they both dramatically recovered and began endless rounds of squabbling, shouting, being boisterous and rowdy and generally not doing anything I asked. Which led to me totally going off on a rant about behaviour and using the tone of voice I know echoes the one my Dad used to use with us when we had been really naughty and I don’t use with anyone else in the world other than my children (although maybe I should, it is very menacing and dark side) – I should add in the disclaimer that unlike Dave Peltzer’s mom I didn’t throw acid at them, lock them in the cellar or even hurl abusive words at them. I just shouted a lot. Til my throat hurt. And my head ached. And I started to seriously question what the bloody hell I was doing living anywhere other than a quiet hermit cottage all alone with no human contact and just a cat that I occassionally kicked when I was having a really bad day.

We did redeem the day by walking to the post office and on the way back we spotted loads of bees, took a picture of all our shadows (I told them about my lone shadow picture of yesterday)

We got home and I did make them hot chocolate and myself a cup of tea, which sat and got cold while we painted the hands and faces of our puppets then chose various materials from the old clothes we use as rags / dusters to make clothes for them. At this point I got fed up again and they ended up going off to play primeval while I did a bit of material fixing and sewing together. Until I got bored and gave up for today on that project. I can see a few errors in the design already but we’ll finish making them and then work out what we’d need to change to improve them.

I’d utterly worn myself out by then so cuddles were had by all and I made pancakes for their tea while they watched Primeval and I looked at readers group notes online. Ady got home, made all the right pacifying noises about my bad day and I headed off to the library.

It was reading group tonight and as the librarian is on holiday I’d been asked to run it. We had a full house of ten people and talked about The Kiterunner. I’d read it way back last year when it first came out in paperback which felt too recent to read it again, which was the case for at least three others in the group. We covered the ‘we all read the book and we all liked it’ bit fairly quickly so as often happens when there is general agreement over the book within the group we moved to talk about something else related instead. This time we had a very interesting discussion about terrorism and freedom fighters, society and revolution / reform. It’s a very interesting group of people; all ages and with all sorts of political leanings and lifestyles, brought together once a month solely because we all enjoy reading and then talking about books, so some of the discussions the books lead to sometimes are very interesting for all the differing viewpoints and opinions. This time was no different.

The cleaner happened to arrive just as I was clearing up which meant I didn’t have to turn all the lights out or set the alarm, which was good as that was the bit I was jittery about doing alone, so I was happily home by 830pm in time to see both children before they went to sleep and chat a bit about the day (and make up!) before having bath, lovely dinner cooked by Ady and a restorative glass of red wine which always puts things back into perspective and makes me all mellow again.

When I am questionning whether I am fit to be considered a human, let alone live with other humans, let alone try and be a mother to a couple, let alone choose to spend time with them and HE them.

I’ll write it all off as me feeling crap, them coming down with it, it being bloody freezing and it being half term anyway so I’d still be with them even if they were at school. But FFS if they could just stop breathing so noisily….

I can still remember when it used to be this morning!

An early start today with very little waking up nice and slowly which always throws me slightly off kilter for the day. Infact we forgot something and had to double back because I wasn’t really with it yet – Davies and Scarlett would always be doing PE in their pants and vests if they were at school because I’d forget to give them their PE kits on sports days if we had to be out the house by 830am every day! And as for lunchboxes… 😆

So we arrived about ten minutes late to the Green Diggers Event. Green Diggers is the under 12s offshoot of a West Sussex County Council environmental gardening initiative. We have only made it to one previous event way back last year as we’ve been busy for all the subsequent ones but that had been very good with Davies winning a wormery, loads of activities, him and I being interviewed for radio and both of them ending up on the front cover of the council newsletter so we had high hopes for this one!

It was held at Pulborough Brooks in the classroom and on last minute checking of the email invitation I had noticed something along the lines of ‘children will rejoin adults at the end’ and prepared D and S for me not staying with them. They had both been very wobbly at the prospect with Davies saying he didn’t want to go then but in the event being late they were whipped away by the friendly and efficient person running it while I was sent packing with a voucher for a free hot drink in the coffee shop and told to return in 2 1/2 hours!

So I stood, blinking in the sunshine like someone recently released from prison, not quite knowing what to do with my new found freedom! I was very taken with my single shadow instead of a triple one like normal

and the frosty but sunlit path leading away from me

So despite being not very warmly dressed (as usual) I decided to walk round the reserve and take some photos. The difference of walking round along and actually seeing birds before they were scared off, listening to bird song and cows mooing without it being drowned out by children’s noise was amazing. Eventually I started to feel inferior without huge lenses, tripods or fancy binoculars, not to mention a coat like all the other people I exchanged ‘good morning’s with so I went back to the centre to redeem my voucher for a pot of tea. I’d brought a book with me so I sat and stretched my tea for over half and hour and read my book in peace :).

When it was time to collect D & S they were just finishing their bird feeders from old milk cartons including sticks for perches and various design features. They had learnt about birds and other garden wildlife, made mini gardens in teams with other children, looked at kitchen scraps suitable for feeding birds and generally had a good time :).

It had been an interesting, enjoyable and educational morning, not to mention a big deal about us all being apart and managing just fine with it :).

We drove the scenic route to Tescos where I dashed in to get some bits for lunch before we headed to the park and ate in the car before getting out to meet up with Mel, Liam and Lily – on half term.

They played in the playpark for a while until Davies fell and cut his knee. While he was over getting sympathy and cuddles from me a small dog pushed a ball through the fence and when Davies threw it back over to him fetched it and pushed it through again. Thus starting a game which Scarlett and Liam came and joined in with and lasted a good half an hour. They eventually joined some other children in some tree climbing and then Mel treated us all to ice creams (children) and tea (adults)

We then walked to the top of the park, with Scarlett making friends with every single dog we met

she is excellent about checking first with their owners now about whether it is ok to approach and stroke the dogs- which is just as well as I don’t do any checking for her first!

The children ran about in the sunshine playing, Mel and I chatted and we ended up back at the park for a final ten minutes playing before we started to head for home.

I had time for a cup of tea and then Ady and Julie arrived at the same time – Ady to take over D and S’s tea, bath and bed while Julie and I went off to Ikea for storage solutions for their increasingly family :). We had a nice few hours chatting on the drive there, wandering round, negotiating the flatpacks, persuading someone to assist us in getting it all into the car and then driving home again.

Ady (wonderful Ady) had got a bath run and a lovely dinner ready for me. And now, what feels like days after this morning started I am well and truly ready for bed. Tomorrow we’re back to Pulborough Brooks again, this time for a RSPB event which we’re really looking forward to, so I really should go and get some sleep!

Ady was off and out way before I woke up properly this morning – he’d arranged to go to his mate Tom’s house to collect logs. On the way he’d had a phone call from Tom to say he was running late so Ady had detoured to meet his brother for half an hour or so. He finally got home around 11am with a car full of logs which then took a further half an hour or so to unload and stack up. I was busy feeling sorry for myself with my cold – into phase three now, blocked nose with added irritability and Davies and Scarlett had been watching series one of Primeval.

I made cinnamon french toast for lunch and then the children went to play outside for a while – playing Primeval, Tarly is Abi and Davies is Cutter, it seems to mostly involve a running commentary on where Rex is and what he’s up to 😆 – they are mounting a charm offensive on me to buy them the action figures but I’m trying to remain strong! (OMG no one tell them there is an anomaly playset, we’d be doomed!), while Ady and I looked at houses on the internet.

My big clock which Ady bought me for my 21st birthday present (we toyed with the idea of getting engaged but decided if we ever split up it would mean my memories of my 21st would always be to do with ‘that bloke I was once engaged to’ so I chose the clock instead) and which lives on our lounge wall has been slowly dying for the last month or so. Batteries normally last about 8 months or so in it and then it runs slow until we change it over but it has been losing more and more time despite new batteries and twiddling and eventually stopped altogether. Ady has been doing lots of taking the clock mechanisms off the backs of various other clocks in the house and trying to sort it out but none of them had long enough spindles to fit the big clock. After some online searching we decided to go to the nearest Hobbycraft and see if they had one. It’s only my second ever experience of a Hobbycraft – they are the sort of shops I really should not be allowed in, definitely not unaccompanied and never when I might have any spare money! I managed to restrain myself to only buying the clock mechanism and a craft knife for 59p as we don’t have any decent scissors let alone craft knives and I have a couple of things I want to make that will need such a tool. Ady has replaced the mechanism but either the hands are too big and heavy for the replacement (we kept the original hands) or it is getting stuck somewhere as in two hours it has lost five minutes again already :(. Grrr.

So that little excursion was the sum total of anything productive today really. Scarlett is either coming down with what I’ve got or is just really rubbish at reading hints because she’s been all over me today, which on a day when I am feeling crap / intolerant / impatient / shouty is not the best place to position herself really. Davies is way better at reading my moods and knowing when it would be a good plan to keep out of my way – and just what level of interaction is enough to make me happy. Scarlett does total overkill draping herself all over me and constantly demanding my attention, then stropping and getting upset when I am short with her which makes me feel guilty and be nice to her which gives her licence to be all over me again – vicious circle :(.

The only constructive thing we did do was use air drying clay to make the head and body and four limbs for our puppets complete with holes to fasten them together and to thread the strings through eventually. They are fairly small so should hopefully dry pretty quick so we can get on with painting them soon – Davies, Scarlett and I made one each with the idea of making them in our own form and possibly using some of our own hair for their hair and old clothes for making their clothes for added authenticity (or voodoo purposes ;)). I did some wax crayon and watercolour painting pictures too, hoping it would lure them over to join in but although they told me they looked pretty they were far too busy being Cutter and Abi to do any of their own.

Ady made a lovely roast chicken dinner which we all had watching In Cold Blood repeat followed by some Simpsons before bed for Davies and Scarlett. Ady and I did some more looking at houses online and talking about future plans a bit more. And now, in the interests of actually going to bed before I fall asleep on the sofa tonight – and because looking at the clock running slow is annoying me and with a clock that big it’s hard to ignore it, I’m off to bed before a busy day tomorrow.

I worked yesterday morning. I arrived early as I needed to nip to the collecting office at the post office to get a parcel that had been too big to delivery through our letterbox the day before, so had ten minutes in the staff room reading Heat magazine before I started work – real novelty! 🙂

I felt increasingly crap through the morning, just really spaced out and absent with my nose getting more and more blocked as phase two of my cold kicked in: when the snot comes in. I don’t think I could have managed a whole day but just about staggered through the morning. I came home to be cossetted with tea and cheese on toast from Ady and we opened and investigated the parcel which was our joining pack from the RSPB. I have to say I joined because it will actually be cheaper for us to be members and get in free for our monthly HE meet up at Pulborough as members than to pay for one adult and two children and because there looked to be a good programme of events there which were cheaper for members too, but actually even if you don’t live anywhere near a RSPB site it would be worth being members for the various other perks alone. We had the choice of a bird feeder or a British birds book as a joining gift and I chose the book (obviously, it’s a book!) which is lovely with fab illustrations and small enough to take out with you birdspotting. We’ve also got a couple of brochures to look through about all the various reserves around the country and other things to get involved with which I need to investigate further as some of them look very interesting.

The kids both got stationery sets with crayons, pencils, sketch book and stickers in. Davies got a Bird Life magazine which comes out every two months aimed at the older child, a folder with resuable nature stickers, a game which entertained them both yesterday afternoon for ages, a poster, a membership card (always attractive ;)) and a certificate. Scarlett got a folder aimed at the younger child with more cartoony stickers, a puppet theatre which we made there and then, a Wild Times magazine – again which will come every two months and the same stickers, poster and membership card. All very impressive 🙂 Davies totally floored Ady and I by quickly sharpening his pencils, getting out his sketch book and creating this drawing in about two minutes copied from a picture on an envelope:

he proclaimed it a ‘still life’ so we explained why it wasn’t.

Ady had chanced upon The Old Gardens Animal Rescue Centre near his office last week and bought some eggs there and been enthusing on it ever since so we headed over there in the afternoon to have a look. Scarlett completely fell in love with two tiny black kittens who were probably no more than a couple of weeks old and managed to lure them over to her so she could stroke them, sitting there for about 20 minutes talking softly to them – she hasn’t stopped talking about them since :). Davies, Ady and I looked at the resucued ex battery hens, the variety of large and small chickens wandering free range including some amazingly huge cockerels. We watched two cocks sparring, which kept being broken up by a peacock in a hilarious parody of a boxing match with an enthusiastic referee :lol:. There were sheep, geese, ducks, goats, a couple of dogs, loads of rabbits all on this smallish patch of land right in the middle of a fairly snooty area of Sussex. According to the website they also have pigs – fab place :).

We stopped for a look round Fishbourne Church where a friend of Ady’s is buried and started along a footpath walk which would have taken us round the harbour and quay but I was fading fast again by then and it was very cold yesterday so we came back and came home instead. The rest of the day is rather a blur – I know the kids watched Ratatouille again, I had a long bath but was left far from in peace, Ady cooked a lovely steak dinner and I fell asleep on the sofa again.

although I sort of expected to be some ungodly hour! 😆

Seen at Live Otherwise and at Petits Haricots

You are the moment when the last bell rings and school lets out for the day. You are resistant to schedules and obligations, so you love feeling like you’re in control of your life again. You are the very moment when the second hand hits the 12, and the halls fill with noise and motion. Even if your after-school time is packed with activities, lessons, or a job, somehow, you just feel freer in the late afternoon than you do earlier in the day. Maybe it’s all that blue sky and afternoon sunshine? Nah — even on rainy days, 3:15 is always a beautiful time.

indepth but good ideas

opposite end!

An early start to the day and picnic packed (or as I like to call it picNic ;)) we headed off. I’d not really checked train times as Lancing to Brighton are always pretty frequent and our meeting time with EOFF was pretty loose. We were planning to walk to the station (which is less than 15 minutes away, so we really should walk to the station) but it was really cold yesterday and I was worried that at the end of the day that 15 minute walk home from the station could prove testing. I battled with the on platform ticket machine which didn’t like my card (I could well have been putting the chip up the wrong way, I really try not to use plastic anymore having spent more than my share on it over the years ;)) so then I struggled to unfold a £20 note sufficiently to get that accepted. All of the stickers showing which way up to put cards and cash in had been peeled off and I was aware of Davies and Scarlett playing chicken with the big yellow line on the platform :roll:.

We didn’t wait long for a train and got seats with two next to the window so there was no battling for window seats either. We did conduct a fairly high volume conversation for the whole journey (neither of my kids have settings other than Loud and Very Loud indeed – no idea where they get that from ;)) about what we could see, the most amusing of which was Scarlett mishearing ‘Portslade’ as ‘Porkslade’ and asking if that was wear lots of pigs lived? 😆 This led to discussion of all the other places we could think of where we could substitute port for pork such as Pork Talbot, Newpork, Shoreham Airpork, Porksmouth and so on, which led to Davies speculating on what sort of port was in each place – air or sea. As we pulled into Brighton station we had a discussion about bombs and luggage . As public transport goes it was fine. Actually in fairness it was better than fine – the £5.80 it cost for the three of us was way cheaper than parking would have been, let alone petrol, it was quicker than driving into Brighton and utterly hassle free. I am definitely guilty of driving by default to get anywhere rather than thinking of alternatives, Brighton is certainly easier by train.

We walked to the Pavillion, cleverly avoiding the lanes where all the best shops are, thinking we might have a wander round them on the way back (which I then avoided by walking back with Ali and Cintha -gone are the days when I would have been using cunning to ensure I did visit shops rather than using cunning to ensure I don’t.) and reached the museum. We had a quick look round the first bit which had lots of African masks and costumes, mummies and things like staffs and other ceremonial things. D and S were quite interested in them and I was called upon to read the little labels on how old they were and what they were used for. We also looked at the tiles round the walls which were tesselating shapes and the mosaic floors. Then I got a text from Cintha to say they had arrived so we met up with them and went into the children’s area. Unfortunately Cintha’s two girls and Davies and Scarlett are the combination of children with least connections and all four children were being demanding of attention and being loud so we managed very little in the way of conversation. Eira arrived next with her two children and a spare (neighbours daughter on half term) which raised the noise level even more.

I did manage to look at one bit with Davies and Scarlett individually – a mosaic painting called a Dream Pattern with a white space and a load of magnetic shapes to create your own dream pattern.

Davies liked the idea of a man in his and took quite a lot of inspiration from the original

Scarlett was more interested in the shapes to use and liked the circles – she said they reminded her of The Very Hungry Caterpillar

and I was itching to have a go so when they’d finished I made an owl which I was inspired by the oranges and browns in the colours to do:

We decided the children really needed the opportunity to be noisy and run around aswell as eat something so we went out to the Pavillion gardens for lunch. Mel and her daughter and Ali and F had arrived in the meantime. In the gardens was a young woman dressed in white with white face paint doing that live statue thing where you stand as still as you can. She was mostly doing it with her eyes closed, which I’m sure helps with creating the utter stillness and not blinking but must be a very odd and vulnerable sensation standing, blind in public knowing you are the centre of attention. The children decided she looked like a weeping angel (she did, rather) and the adults had a variety of feelings about her such as wanting to protect her. When we get the chance to have conversations it is a very interesting group of women with diverse life experience and social, political and various other demographic backgrounds but surprisingly similar outlooks on various things. We decided the museum was not really a hit for a meeting place for that group as it didn’t really accomodate the childrens’ need to run around, be noisy and just ‘play’ when they are together so are planning to support them more and find places they can do just that for future EOFF gettogethers. Hopefully our next session at a soft play place will allow more time for the adult chat which makes that a nice group of friends. We did manage a discussion about stranger danger and how to tackle it though which was good. The children mostly fed the pigeons (which Ali suspected may have been illegal :lol:) and then watched the living statue woman again. She broke her stance for a while when we went back over to her and thumbed her nose for my camera when I tried to photograph her and held out a hand for the children to shake (none of them wanted to :lol:)

It is lovely there and it was a blue sky but actually it was bloody freezing and I was totally inappropriately dressed for it in a flimsy jacket.

The children all put some coins in her cap and we went back into the museum. This time we all split up slightly and Davies and Scarlett and I spent some time on a knock down pegs game which was good and then went upstairs where we found a punch and judy theatre that they played with for a while. I was starting to feel both intolerant and fed up by then so we decided to work our way towards home. We ended up at the lift at the same time as Ali and Cintha and caught up with Eira and Mel on the way out so we did all get to say goodbye and we walked back to the station with Ali and Cintha. Scarlett and Freya were in giggly girlie mode together which was cute and said goodbye with emotional cuddles :).

The train home was busy and rather than fight for seats we stood in the door space between carriages which is fine but does mean you get a bit battered about by people getting on and off. It was otherwise uneventful and we were home fairly speedily. By then I was feeling shivery and fairly rough and realising that I was coming down with a cold and headache so my general intolerance of loud children, sitting on the grass in February wearing unsuitable outerwear and deciding I hated museums was probably related to that more than any genuine problems with either the children, the weather or museums. I drank three mugs of tea one after the other, told the children to leave me alone for a while and just about roused myself sufficiently to take Tarly to Rainbows.

Rainbows was about puppets with four tables set up for them to work their way round in small groups. One had finger puppets, one soft animal glove puppets, one hard headed people glove puppets and one marinette string puppets. Funnily enough I have been thinking about making puppets with Davies and Scarlett, having found a cool doll making idea on a craft site using air drying clay and had decided to modify it to make voodoo style puppets of all of us with strings. There were puppets at the museum yesterday so Davies and I were looking at them and watching a video of some master puppeteers doing all sorts of extravagent puppet movements from above, so Scarlett got to have a go at puppets with strings and I told her about my idea to make mini-us puppets so she liked that lots. 🙂 She thinks she will be ok to be left there after half term which is good. I don’t actually mind sitting there watching Rainbows, it’s a nice little group and they do nice activities but I am already less invisible to the children sitting there each week and at least one or two of the girls talk to me every time which isn’t what I want really – it’s the only thing Scarlett does away from the rest of us and I want to cultivate that side of it for her as much as possible.

We came home, she had a bath (Davies had already had a lengthy one in our absence) and then I read a couple of chapter of the last of the ‘The X who Y’ books – The Gorilla who wanted to grow up before they were both off to bed. I think for the first time in months they were both asleep by 830pm. I had a bath, cooked dinner and was asleep on the sofa by about 1030pm myself! Barely managing to wake to stagger upstairs to bed around 11pm.

Work all day for me today but Ady was home (lieu day from appearing on national tv ;)). I had a good day, I did a new display first thing for the quick reads initiativewhich was immediately successful with four books being issued today :). There is just so much I love about my job it is really great 🙂 I really feel like it is a culmination of all the skills I have picked up in previous jobs along the way and whilst I have had plenty of jobs where I have felt valued and known I was doing well it was normally where I was at the top of the tree with regard to structure so to get that same feeling of fitting in within a team is very nice :). It is certainly not without it’s frustrations but for my 11 hours a week the good far outweighs the bad.

We had a costume character appearance from Maisie Mouse this morning for Storytime. I don’t have much to do with Storytime really – Baby Rhyme Time seems to have been allocated to be my ‘thing’ but none of the children ran screaming from Maisie and we had loads of issues of various Maisie stories and dvds afterwards so it was deemed a success :).

I came home for lunch with a plan to ‘do’ Valentines Day. Ady and I don’t really make much of it but Davies and Scarlett were aware of it this year and I’d bought Ratatouille on dvd as a joint present for them along with a small teddy and some chocolate hearts for one of them. So I dashed to Woolworths and got a candy heart handbag and to the charity shop for a soft toy kitten for 39pence and came home to give the kitten and handbag to Tarly and the bear with hearts to Davies. Only to find my Dad had ignored me telling him last week that he didn’t need to come today and was here to look after D and S for the afternoon! 😯 He stayed for lunch and then headed off again. Davies had made me a little finger puppet of me wearing a heart top which is very cute and Scarlett had applied much glitter and glue to a piece of paper along with several handdrawn heart shapes :). I got Ady a toblerone (traditional gift for Christmas, Valentines Day, Fathers Day and any other occassion I am not sure what to get for him for!) and a bottle of pink champagne (which I have drunk most of this evening! :oops:) while he got me a box of chocolates.

I headed off back to work for the afternoon and Dad left at the same time as me. Ady and the childen have done various things I am told although Scarlett confessed that she prefers me being home (I think she was just saying that actually as I’m sure Ady focusses more on them than I do! :lol:). When I arrived home this evening we all watched Ratatouille together before they went off to bed. Ady and I drank the pink champagne, had dinner and gave many drunken proclamations to each other about how ‘they’ said we’d never last as a couple, but just look at us now! 😆

Tomorrow we are meeting up with our Every Other Friday Friends (or EOFF as I will now be referring to them, which is a select group of handpicked adults and children :lol:) to visit Brighton Museum which I have never been to and just for colour and to get down with the kids we’re going to go by train, so expect public transport anedotes aplenty in tomorrow’s blogpost ;).

Having checked that no last minute folk had decided to contact me about coming to Tilgate Park after all this morning I put the vote to Davies and Scarlett as to where we went. I love Tilgate but it’s a place even better to enjoy with friends – or indeed Ady so it seemed silly to drive all that way if it was just going to be us. After a bit of discussion we settled on Drusillas.

We nipped to Tescos on the way to get batteries for my camera and then I decided to drive slightly past Drusillas to The Long Man of Wilmington which is one of those internationally famous landmarks we have on our doorstep but have never done more than drive past and gaze up at whenever we go to Eastbourne. There is a car park with a further mile or so of footpath to walk to actually get to it and as we were already heading towards 1130am we decided not to do the final trek but to save that for a day when Ady was with us too. The carpark was next to a field with horses in it so we lingered there awhile and got a few photos of it from afar and marvelled at a load of paragliders doing their thing off the downs across from us.

We drove back a different way to the way we’d come off the A27 which took us through Alfriston and past a NT place which we’ll go back and visit another time. I don’t think I’ve ever been to Alfriston before – very quaint and Sussex village-y place – hell to drive a people carrier through the narrow streets when loads of 4x4s are coming the other way though! We did a fair bit of up hill and down dale type stuff before turning round to do it all again. D and S thought this was all excellent run and were making rollercoaster sound effects in the back of the car and putting their hands in the air at appropriate moments :lol:.

We arrived at Drusillas and decided not to do any of the challenges or spotting this time, just to walk round. Drusillas is really overpriced although in fairness they do plough a lot of money back into the place – I think we were rather spoilt in Manchester having both Chester Zoo and Knowsley Safari Park on our doorstep so to speak, both of which were excellent. I do take on board all the issues people have with zoos but Tarly particularly is so big cat obsessed it would be nice to have somewhere nearer that she could indulge her passion in seeing them at more often. I looked at the programme of events for this year which is just a whole host of costume character appearances – none of which would interest either Davies or Scarlett and made me realise that actually they are possibly slightly older than the market Drusillas is looking to appeal to actually. Davies did some reading of signs – he won’t be pushed or have reading suggested by me and will give up quite easily if he deems it too hard but he is really trying to decode things at the moment under his own steam.

We had an interesting conversation about charity and whether the world’s wealth should be more evenly spread out and how people have ideas about how much they need which was as usual illuminating to get a child’s innocent take on such things – if they ruled the world eh?

There were quite a few school trips there today so the play areas were pretty busy but they calmed down after 1pm when they were all called away to go and be educated again leaving it fairly empty. I sat on a bench and watched them play for a while then they both decided to go over to the other side so I perched on a new bench which they both came over to every so often. Scarlett then walked back over to the other side, but I could see her every so often and she waved to me a couple of times. She will actively go looking to make new friends at places like parks and playgrounds now which is really sweet. I realised I’d not seen her for about 10 minutes when Davies next appeared back so I sent him over to look for her but he came back unable to find her. We chatted about how I probably shouldn’t leave the place I’d last been in and he went off on a series of hunts for her but to no avail. It was just crossing my mind that maybe I should start to be getting concerned when I spotted her coming towards us with a Drusillas employee, chatting happily away to him. Apparently she’d decided she was lost and sat on a bench crying when someone’s mother asked her if she was lost and took her to the kiosk where she sat on a chair and told them her name was Scarlett and described what I was wearing, the man was bringing her round the play area to see if they could spot me. She seemed totally unfazed and had none of the telltale blotchiness she normally has when she has been crying for more than a minute or two. I’m frustrated rather at her dizziness – I’d not moved from the place she clearly knew I was at and proud of her for knowing what to do and doing it rather than being pathetic she took charge and dealt with her situation. I do think I maybe need to have some sort of stranger danger type chat with her though, she is very confident in talking to any adult and would all too happily give way too much information about herself away. I’ve no idea how to tackle that really, Davies has always been far more suspicious so it’s not felt like an issue and I don’t want to scare her silly either…

We went into the soft play place then where I had a big cup of tea and read a (thoughtfully provided) magazine while they tore around for half an hour. We looked at the train but it only runs on the hour and it was 25 past 2 so there was no way I was hanging around for 35 minutes for a 3 minute ride on a train that plays Thomas The Tank Engine theme tune on a constant loop, so we looked in the bug world where we marvelled at leafcutter ants and then we left.

On the way back we were looking again at the paragliders and wondering about how exactly they got airbourne so we decided to take the next available left turn and find out! It was a charmingly named ‘Bo Peep Lane’ which claimed to be a T junction so I was not entirely convinced wouldn’t lead us on yet another crazy East Sussex trail but ended up being precisely the place with a carpark leading to the downs where they were jumping off. Being nearly 3pm they were mostly starting to pack up and none of them looked approachable enough to go and ask questions of. So we looked at the view and talked about how we were higher than the lowest clouds, which I said in an attempt to be poetic felt like we were on top of the world, but was corrected by Scarlett telling me ‘no Mumma, that would be the North Pole and then there would be snow!’ – humph! Amazing views anyway and the paragliding thing looks excellent fun 🙂

Home for an early tea (whilst watching Wonderpets) and then off to Badgers. No idea what they did there today but at the end there was talk of a county competition including First Aid competition which Davies seems very keen to enter so I need to talk to the leader about that next time. We listened to lots of soundtrack to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in the car so we’ve all been singing about how the Candyman can :).

Tomorrow I’m working and Ady is home with the children, which means I get to not worry at all all day about what they’re doing and come home to a perfectly tidy house and children who have already had their tea organised – much like he does every day he works ;). Hurrah!

On Monday while Davies was at Beavers Scarlett and Ady spent about 20 minutes playing with the camera. She was dancing and jumping about while he tried to catch her mid-air and then she was running back to the camera to see the results. She was getting increasingly giggly and just being so very ‘Scarlett’. I just downloaded the camera and while none of the pictures are particularly excellent they just made me smile :).

And erm, yes, those are the trousers that Davies took 3 years to grow out of, still going strong! 😆

The day started way too early with everyone but me up at some ridiculous, pre-daylight hour being noisy. I refused to get up and read my book in bed with occassional hollering downstairs to break up squabbles. Until the doorbell rang and it was my Dad come to wait out the hour before his denist appointment at the surgery across the road from us. So I had to get dressed and come downstairs.

A day at home had been requested so once Dad left I got the washing machine going while Davies and Scarlett got some plasticine out. Davies very quickly decided he wanted to make a film so he set about making a couple of figures. He is very good at copying things like Aardman figures (he does a fab rabbit) but less great at original ideas tending to be more fantastical which would be fab if he had better technique but tends to look like squashed lumps rather than artistic creations. So we talked a bit about finesse and ways of putting things together properly so they were suitable for the movement that creating an animation using them would require. I made a polkadot Trapdoor-eque figure and then left Davies to spend a bit more time finishing his characters off better. Scarlett was sitting making a kitten and then a selection of accessories for it, happily chatting away to herself. 🙂

We got out the webcam which we bought last year and aside from a quick play with it when it arrived haven’t actually used yet. It’s very basic, plug and play with audio capture and stills from pressing a button the camera itself. I won’t bother reblogging the process of making the film as it’s all over on Monster Movie Productions for any interested parties along with a youtube link to the finished project. Not his finest work but possibly his most independant and the one he learnt the most on as I was doing far more constructive criticism with some honest feedback, which he took really well and went off and made adjustments as a result of. He then sat beside me and helped with the editing process and we talked through what I wrote on his blog before re-watching some of his previous films.

That pretty much took us to lunchtime along with a bit of TV watching (Sorcerors Apprentice) after which Davies and Scarlett did some drawing for a while. Scarlett had brought in the whole banana tree thing when getting a banana for after lunch and seeing it standing on the floor in the lounge in the sunshine inspired me to do a still life watercolour – something I was totally put off from in school aged about 14 from probably a very similar subject matter :lol:. Davies came and watched and we talked about the whole process from sketching to background to the whole adding of colour and then detail and shading. It was a very speedy piece of work and he was quite in awe asking how I’d got so good at it, to which my inevitable reply of ‘practise’ was met with one of his special frowns :lol:. Scarlett did some watercolour painting of her own while Davies returned to his drawings. They have been watching Wacky Races on one of the cartoon channels and that had inspired him to do a series of drawings telling a story using the characters from that.

We then put on some Horrible Histories during which we all cuddled up on the sofa before it was time for swimming lessons. They both had excellent lessons, Davies is really and truly properly swimming now. There is still a lot of learn in terms of style and stroke but he really can get from one side to the other :). Scarlett is loving every minute of it still, and her enjoyment is infectious – she had the lifeguard helping her today while the instructor was busy with the others and made some leaps and bounds too getting across fairly speedily with floats and more or less all the way with her feet up. She is rubbish at listening and has really bonded with another little girl in the group so the two of them have a habbit of chattering whenever the instructors eyes are elsewhere but that worked well tonight as they are similar ability levels and were racing each other across and urging each other on :). She got changed opposite us and they walked out together and down the outside stairs skipping and holding hands 🙂 very cute. And also highlighted to me how indulgent I can be of Scarlett’s ‘babyness’ while having far higher expectations of Davies :oops:.

Home for tea and a reading of the whole of the Hen who wouldn’t give up, which is among the weaker of that series I reckon. We only have the Gorilla one left to go so might try and get that in at some point tomorrow as Badgers will mean a later night and no stories tomorrow.

We were supposed to be at Tilgate Park but the couple of people who were coming have cancelled today for various reasons so I think we might save that for another day and perhaps go to Drusillas tomorrow instead. Mileage is about the same and although Tilgate is fab it is quite a drive when there is no need to travel so far, Drusillas is about the same distance and I do want to get more out of the season tickets outlay. I’ll put it to Davies and Scarlett’s vote in the morning.

Today we had a Winter Walk on the agenda. 🙂 It was the second Monday of every month Home Ed meet up at Pulborough Brooks. On the way by sheer coincidence I found War of the Worlds in the car so put that on – it was disc 2 so we were straight into Martial rule and although she insisted she wanted to carry on listening to it Scarlett was a bit upset by it. She’s a funny old mix that child, brave as a lion about many real life dangers but very scared little girl about imagined ones. We also spotted blossom as we drove through some lovely bits of the Sussex countryside. We’d popped into the library quickly first to take down Davies’ display which needs a portfolio or similar folder type thing to keep it flat and safe really, must get that sorted.

We arrived and found Caz and her boys already there along with a couple of other families. I heard a shout go up ‘Davies and Scarlett are here, yay!’ which made me smile :). Another couple of families arrived and Julie, Jack and Maisie were there too. I had a brief chat with the volunteer there about joining RSPB but she was a bit crap at actually selling me the idea and thrust a leaflet at me instead. Although I said how old Davies and Scarlett were she insisted on only taking payment for me and Davies but that still came to £4.50 and on checking the website at home I discovered monthly family membership for all four of us is just £4.20 and we get free membership joining goodies and loads of other freebie magazines etc. as well as free entry to the sites and discounted events entry so it seemed too good an offer to miss when we’ll actually save money just on the once a month HE meet up before any of the other benefits. I’ve signed us up for a proper guided walk next week and an invite came through by email for a Green Diggers event there next week too so potentially we could be there again twice just next week :).

The children all dashed off ahead and I walked most of the way with Caz, Julie or both which was very nice :). I did talk to Davies and Scarlett once about general rowdiness – I know we paid to be there the same as everyone else but it is a nature reserve and I do feel quite strongly that we should respect both the plants and animals there as well as the other people who have paid money to be there and observe the animals that noisy children are sending scarpering away. I think loud running screaming games are probably more appropriate at the park somehow. We saw deer, robins, various plants and other wonders of nature but by far the biggest attraction for the children was the ice 😆 There had been a pretty heavy frost last night so all the puddles, ditches and slower moving bits of stream were coated with a thick layer of glass-like ice which made a satisfying musical sound when shattered. They also did plenty of tree climbing, stream scrambling and general getting muddy with friends in the woods. About halfway round we were joined by others including a couple of much older boys who really befriended our younger six children – lovely to see :).

Just before the end of the walk Davies found a large patch of ice and broke off a big bit and announced he was ‘setting myself the challenge of getting to the end of the walk with some ice still left’ with gained a bit of interest from the other children with a running commentary on what the remaining lump of ice looked like at each stage of it’s rapid melting (now it’s a pteradactal, now it’s a person with one leg). He did it though 🙂

There is a wooden play area at the entrance where we meet and where today we lingered awhile. Everyone except us had brought a picnic lunch which they normally do apparently but as it had been fairly cold and muddy last month and noone had done so I hadn’t realised it was a usual part of the plan and had come unprepared. Caz kindly shared her rice cakes with Davies and Scarlett but I was mindful of getting home to get a beef stew cooking for dinner tonight and when what had previously been a wonderful example of all ages of HE kids cooperating and playing together beautifully degenerated into a competition to see who could chuck the biggest thing into the pond near the entrance and smash the ice up I took that as our cue to leave! Davies and Scarlett were most disappointed as in fairness they had been spectating rather than participating but there was a small crowd of elderly people looking disapprovingly at the rainbow clad ‘yobbos’ and I was keen to disassociate ourselves from them 😳 a middle class moment of worrying what other people think surfacing there :lol:.

We came home via town for some veg to go in the stew and a quick nip to the bank to pay in a cheque that someone had paid for an ebay win with – seriously can’t believe people still have cheques when there is paypal! 😆 We listened to the end of War of the Worlds for closure for Scarlett and followed it with some Queen for loud singing along to forget about martians purposes.

Once home I got the stew on, the kids X boxed and DSed, we looked at a book that had arrived in a parcel from ebay for us, I offered to read to them and they declined so I spent some time online joining the RSPB and then having heard back from NT that their Home Ed discount only means you can visit during term time weekdays so is no use to us I joined that online too and spent some more time planning places to visit and booking a couple of days out in advance. I also visited my neglected Monster and Teeny blog for a general boast about how well HE is going for us just now. Davies and I had a bit of a chat about how much he’s enjoying having some local same age boys who are home educated friends – a combination of the new friendship with Caz and her boys and the lads at Thursday Home Ed group (very specifically Andrew too :)) mean he is really enjoying not feeling torn between grown up and younger children company quite so much and is able to be himself instead of feeling he is pulling himself down to 5 year old level or trying to hang out with me and my friends – both of which he does very well and enjoys to a point but it’s nice for him to have the balance of both :).

Beavers time was upon us before we realised so we walked him round there, in daylight, which was lovely :). Scarlett and I watched some Dora together, Ady came home and she posed for lots of photos of her jumping and him trying to catch her midair before it was time to collect Davies. He’d been making grass heads and generally having a good time and came out clutching a note about a couple of upcomming Beavers events. I overheard the leader talking to one of the mothers about problems with her son there in the group too so that is positive, it seems like they are tackling some of the bad behaviour issues there that have been spoiling it for all the boys.

Davies and I walked home starspotting and when we got home Ady and Scarlett came out too. We spent about ten minutes identifying various things before finally spotting the International Space Station as it went over. Very exciting to get something real and tangiable back from yesterdays visit so quickly as we’d never have known to look for that otherwise :). We came in and found a NASA video on youtube all about it so we watched that and then I showed Davies and Scarlett the video I found last night about hubble and just how big the universe is. Mindblowing stuff :).

They had hot chocolate and I read the end of the Aardvark who wasn’t sure to them with Davies slowly managing to read the chapter titles out to us. I have a feeling Scarlett might wake in the night having said she would much earlier in the day she seems to be able to programme herself to do just that. Tomorrow we’ve managed to keep free aside from swimming so weather and mood depending we may or may not go out or stay in and have a quiet home day.

endless, consuming darkness. Out of this darkness come pinpricks of light, growing ever brighter, ever bigger. Music, quiet at first but with increasing drama and volume adds to the overall effect.

I think this weekend I have mostly done sleeping! I didn’t wake until about 930am yesterday, was exhaused and fast asleep by 1130pm and slept right through til gone 9am this morning. 😳

We moved the chicken run this morning, the cockerel is a fine looking bird, getting ever more cocky and proud and the two hens are looking like they may just lay sometime soon with their combs reddening. Can’t wait for our first home-laid egg :). Ady and the children stayed out in the garden and then it didn’t seem to be long before it was lunchtime. Davies and Scarlett went back out into the garden again straight after lunch and at about 2pm we headed off to Chichester to the Planetarium. On the way we listened to Peter and the Wolf followed by a Young Persons Guide to the Orchestra – this particular version is narrated by Sean Connery which utterly distracts me as I feel the need to repeat most of the things he says in a poor imitation of his accent – the way he says ‘brass’ particularly makes me want to do this :lol:.

As part of our ‘places to go in 2008 programme’ I’d booked tickets to todays show Stars on frosty nights. We were very enthusiastically greeted and told they had a full house today (the star theatre seats 100 people) and had time for a quick look around the downstairs before it was time to take our seats. I imagine for people very interested in astonomy it is an amazing place, with many posters and models, a very full library, a computer room with all sorts of information being recorded and an amazingly good wax model of Patrick Moore on show. It is fairly ‘low tech’ in terms of our over inflated expectations of museums really, with no buttons to press or big showy interactive displays but is staffed by volunteers who are among the most passionate people I have met, desperate to share their knowledge and experience with anyone who will listen :).

The seats are old jumbo jet chairs, in blocks of three with reclining buttons and old ashtrays still in the arms, arranged around a projector which beams the images onto a 10 metre dome above your heads. The show we saw today was possibly not the very best introduction for children, being fairly intense and very information heavy with technical terms aplenty and possibly some previous knowledge of stars assumed. All the shows are billed as suitable for children aged 6 plus although I would have thought 10 plus would be more accurate for most children. Davies sat transfixed for the whole thing but Scarlett struggled after the first half an hour as I imagined a lot of what was being said was simply way beyond her comprehension of language let alone subject matter. Ady and I found it utterly fascinating though and I think with a bit of pre-visit preparation Scarlett would be happy to give it another go on a topic she was more interested in before she got there so the commentary, pitched at intelligent adult level, would be something she could zone out from and just enjoy the pictures.

We drove home, chatting about some of the stuff we’d seen and looking at the rather magnificent sunset tonight. One of the things talked about at the show was the space station being visible for the next few evenings as it flies overhead, along with Mars and Saturn also visible and the other constellations most clear in the night sky at this time of year. We got in and Ady finished up cooking dinner so we sat down to a lovely slow roasted roast lamb before bundling up warm and dashing out into the garden at the appointed time to see the space station. I am not sure whether we were looking in the wrong place or whether there were just so many planes in the sky that we failed to identify it apart from them but we didn’t spot anything we could claim as it. We did see at least 20 planes flying overheard at different heights and the moon with a very slim crescent and the dark side of the moon sillhouette created by ‘earthshine’. Davies then staggered me rather by demonstrating just how much everything had gone in at the Planetarium by pointing out Orion’s belt, followed by the rest of him, then the hare then the dogstar 😯 all correctly names and indeed correctly identified. We looked hard for Mars or Saturn but had no luck. The children and I had already hopped over our garden wall to get a better view of the lower sky unobscured by our house but couldn’t manage it so we decided to drive to the beach for a better view. We discussed the downs versus the beach and Davies decided the beach would have less light pollution as the downs would mean we were overlooking towns and cities so would have loads 😯 again!

We got out of the car at the beach and spotted various other constellations before deciding that we really need to travel somewhere properly dark so we can stargaze efficiently. Also that we need a bit more practise to identify everything with confidence. I was so impressed with how much Davies had taken in and actually Scarlett was really quite enthusiastic and full of snippets of stuff she’d remember too, so I take great heart that these things always yield far greater than you’d first realised. We came home through Shoreham Airport and then children had hot chocolate and a couple of chapters of The Aardvark who wasn’t sure before it was bedtime for Davies and Scarlett and Lost time for me :). The plan is to spot the space station tomorrow and maybe learn a bit more about stars and night skies along the way. I’m quite tempted to book another show though :).

Yesterday was just amazing weather for February, really warm and sunny and just lovely.

After a long lie in we debated whether to go left, right or up for the day – clearly down is restricted by not all four of us having current passports so France being off the agenda! 😆 Right would have been a trip towards Eastbourne, up would have been Crawley way but we are going to Tilgate on Wednesday anyway so we went with left. I’d heard rumours (backed up by web searches) that there was an ice rink in Littlehampton so wanted to check that out and there is a small museum called ‘Look and Sea!’ there which I’d seen advertised and been meaning to look at further for a year or so, so we thought a nice sunny day was perfect for that.

We parked up and were greeted by a load of swans who gather round the slope into the sea used by the RNLI lifeboats based there. They were very friendly and although the children didn’t get close enough to touch I reckon they’d have been up for a stroke. Scarlett still very clearly remembers her run in with a swan a couple of years ago but showed no fear anyway.

We walked along the marina to the beach to look around for the ice rink and found signs saying it had been closed down :(. That’s a real shame as ice skating is something both children have expressed a wish to do this year and the nearest one is well over an hours drive away and bloody expensive, meaning it will be a day out treat rather than something we can do with any regularity 🙁 Maybe I’ll encourage roller skating along the seafront as an option instead!

We had half an hour or so sitting on the beach with the children playing in the sand until hunger (and my fear that it was only a matter of time before the lure of the sea became too much and we ended up with soggy children!) drove us back up to the marina again.

There is a row of fish and chips, ice cream and gift shops, about half of which had opened. There were queues at all of them but one had by far the most people waiting and proclaimed itself to be award winning so I joined that queue which Ady and the children watched the fishing boats and got two large portions of chips. Scarlett and I shared one (complaining that we didn’t have enough vinegar but not quite caring enough to walk across the road and battle the queue to the counter to get more) while Ady and Davies shared the other portion. Nothing quite so nice as chips by the sea 🙂

which in the spirit of being beside the seaside and it just being so warm and sunny we followed with ice creams 🙂

Judging by the very little amount of ice cream management Ady and I had to do I have to conclude we may well be redundant by the time they next have ice creams – landmark moment indeed 😆

We watched the swans and some people crabbing for a while and then went into the Look and Sea! place. It was pretty cheap at just £3.50 for the four us of but probably wasn’t worth any more really. There was a second floor with a few activities such as fitting birds into their right habitats to make them sing, a couple of puzzles and games and some interactive touch screen tvs with various displays. I think it is one of those things that could be great with just a bit more but is either unfinished or they’ve run out of money as it has an air of incompleteness about it.

The very top floor had great views though and we went out onto the balcony to see properly, out to sea, over the downs, Arundel castle and all across Littlehampton. We talked about the various buildings we could see and then went inside and climbed to the very top where they had informtation sheets about some of the places you could see, so Ady and I looked at those while Davies pretended he could see through the telescope that I refused to put a pound into and Scarlett wanted to know more about the lifeboats.

We left there and came home via the supermarket for a few bits for dinner. The children had a long bath while Ady and I watched a Masterchef online that we’d missed last week and then we all watched Primeval before D and S went to bed. I stayed awake barely long enough to watch Thank God You’re Here before having a very early night indeed.

Work for me this morning. I was ten minutes late as Julie was late to me – a road had been closed and then she’d had a narrow miss with a car so was all overcome and breathless when she arrived and I felt I couldn’t just dash off. It was fine though, work are amazingly laid back about my constantly diving through the doors five minutes late looking harrassed and have assured me it’s not an issue (I always make sure I work into a tea break or lunch break to make up the time though, even though I doubt they even notice). I was staggered today to realise just how much Julie is showing though. She is in maternity clothes now and only 16 weeks away but suddenly looks good and properly pregnant 🙂 Very exciting!

There were three class visits today hosted by the children’s librarian, Cara, who is everything you would expect a children’s librarian to be. She is lovely, very sweet, holds all her conversations with everyone in the same sing song voice she uses when reading The Gruffalo to a class of 6 year olds and would say something like ‘whoopsadaisy’ if she shut her fingers in her car door! 😆 In the middle of all these class visits was Baby Rhyme time though so with precision timing we whipped everyone in and out of where they should be with children being swept away upstairs to learn about reference books while I did Rhyme time and then me hustling the attendees out while the school children were brought back down again.

I had over 30 babies attending and as some of them had two or even three adults accompanying them we were pretty much at capacity really. I had to struggle to find floor space to plonk myself down in the midst of them and spent most of the session with a small girl resting her hand on my shoulder and grinning adoringly at me. Surprisingly I was okay about this and didn’t feel the constant need to brush her hand away and say ‘eeewwww babies, yuk!’ like I thought I might. I had a full programme and due to being aware of the school visits waiting I actually cut out my last two songs (Jelly on a plate and If you’re happy and you know it) but other than that it was a great success. I have found my stride with it now, realised that I’m in charge and am customising it to suit me rather than trying to be like the other people who have done it before. And it must be working because numbers are growing every week and everyone is very effusive in their thanks at the end of it. My only error this week was in singing ten green bottles – do you have any idea how bloody long that song is? 😆

The rest of the day passed fairly quickly. There was a man waiting outside long before we opened this morning who spent the entire day coming in and then wandering back out for 15 minutes or so before coming back in again. I would guess him at roughly my age, somewhere in his 30s, dressed in a heavy black coat, filthy jeans and big boots that appeared way too big for him, he was smothered in tattoos and absolutely stank of that unwashed smell that meant we had to have all the windows open in the library because the stench filled the whole place. He sat and read a bit, spent lots of time wandering the place like some sort of restless spirit and talked and laughed to someone that wasn’t there almost constantly. But, he was absolutely gorgeous, one of the most beautiful people I think I have ever seen outside of films. None of us had ever seen him before, he was clearly either high on drugs or suffering mental health hallucinations so quite how he got to Lancing and found the library at 830 this morning is rather a mystery but I spent the whole day haunted by how this was someone’s son, wandering where the wind had blown him from and who cared about where he was. People like that fascinate me, I want to know their story. Working at the library has really opened my eyes to just how many faceless nobodies there are drifting among us without most of us ever noticing. The library is a warm, dry, comfortable place where people do collect to sit and read, while away the hours and often find someone to chat to and I am constantly amazed at just how many people there are with nowhere else to be.

Davies’ display continues to attract attention and compliments and the librarians have asked for some pictures of Davies with it with the intention of doing a press release to the local papers about it. It is execptional in that he is so young and it is a library related and inspired display but also (naturally) it will be free press for the library, advertise our free display space and remind people of libraries role in the community. I’ve booked the space again for Davies in April and will try and book space at Worthing and Shoreham too so his display can travel around a bit – I think it probably does deserve more than one week up before being stored away :).

So Julie, Jack and Maisie were here this morning. They had a trip to the park apparently. Dad was here in the afternoon and did some reading and some board games with Davies and Scarlett, they say they have had a nice day. 🙂 I got home and did a speedy tea for Scarlett, sat and had cuddles with Davies and then Ady arrived home in time for Scarlett and I to go to Rainbows. She took two soft toys with her for the show and tell bit at the end, was prepared to say ‘Rainbow Scarlett’ before sitting down at the beginning and joined in with singing Old Macdonald but still refused to do the Rainbows song at the beginning and end of the session! She was slightly disappointed that they didn’t make anything this week – they played with a load of dressing up stuff and then had to do a fashion show catwalk thing wearing the costumes – she didn’t fully participate in that, just draping a scarf round her instead of the tiaras, boas and fairy wings the others were going for. They played a few games, she got involved in a minor altercation with the girl who was mean to her on her first visit who was telling her not to sit on the table next to her while Scarlett told her she could if she wanted to :lol:. She told the group about her pink teddy who she calls Pinky ‘because it’s pink!’ and her white cat who she calls Malice :). I had recognised one of the girls from Rainbows at one of the class visits this morning and sure enough she mentioned in her show and tell that she’d been to the library today :). They were handing out leaflets for a disco tomorrow night but Scarlett isn’t keen so we won’t bother with that.

They chose Simpsons instead of stories tonight so they watched that before bed. It’s felt a long week this week but we don’t have anything particularly planned this weekend so I’m hoping the weather holds and we can have a nice relaxing weekend with sunny days.

before you get the sharp knives out!

Davies was awake in the night with bad dreams so came into our bed for the remainder of the night. I don’t really remember this happening, but it was the reason why I didn’t get up til long gone 9am this morning. Because he was asleep next to me (and he snores) so when I stirred once or twice and felt another body next to me in my sleepy state I assumed it was Ady and went back to sleep thinking it must still be really early. It wasn’t until Scarlett came upstairs, having also slept in late that I realised it was infact Davies and it was late!

We had a lazy morning, Davies played with the k’nex and made some impressive moving things, Scarlett played with some horses and we watched something interesting on TV which totally eludes me now. We had to pop to Argos to take back a battery charger I bought which we don’t need, to Sainsburys for various bits and pieces where we tried samples of chocolate horlicks and had a lengthy discussion about malt as we went round and had an interesting conversation with the man behind us in the queue who suggested we should get our own cow (we were buying 6x 6 pints of milk) – so Scarlett talked to him about just how much we would indeed like that while Davies worked out what 6 lots of 6 were (impressed 🙂 I was!) then got me to test him on how many tens are in? questions including telling me there were 4 and a half tens in 45 to demonstrate what sort of questions he wanted. It’s really interesting seeing the connections he’s making with numbers and how he is playing with them lately, particularly as it’s all mental maths so the patterns he’s recognising are not written on a page which almost makes it more amazing to me as I remember seeing things like the patterns in the 9 times table but that was all written down so was more about the shape of the written numbers than the mental image I had of what those numbers meant as quantities if that makes sense? Davies seems to be getting a really appreciation of the relationships between numbers and then applying them to everything around him – pints of milk in 6 pint containers, pennies in pounds, weeks in a month and do on – all different measurements but all with patterns which he is wiring together as relative and relevant to each other. It’s ace 🙂

We whizzed home for speedy lunch and pegging out some washing before dashing off again to Shoreham Beach group. Liza was outside when we arrived which was really nice actually as I had vague feelings of unease about it – this was the group we first tried when we moved back to Sussex and I struggled with as too rough and unsavoury for my precious little darlings (aged 1 and 3 as they were at the time!) and eventually left to start up a group with Jenny, under whilst not unfriendly possibly not entirely amicable circumstances. Clearly we wouldn’t have been allowed back in if there was any resentment or bad feeling but I was still a bit hesitant. But I was welcomed with a hug from Nikki, a barrage of information from Avis, tea aplenty from Liza and an ‘alright babe’ and two tops for Scarlett from Kate, so couldn’t have asked for more really 🙂 :).

Nikki laid on a watercolour painting session, the kids banged about on the piano, they both played outside with a ball for ages and we all three had a great couple of hours. It was really nice and both Davies and Scarlett were full of enthusiasm for going again in 2 weeks. Plus is is cheaper than MM and only a couple of miles up the road and fits better into our week. So plusses all round really.

We walked in the front door to the phone ringing, it was my Dad checking if we were home so he could come over. Scarlett and I made some banana and chocolate chip muffins with some very mushy bananas, the kids had tea and Dad and I chatted until Ady arrived home, then we headed out to the library where we met my Mum so Ady and my parents could see Davies’ display in situ. Much praise and pride was lavished on Davies, Scarlett chose yet another pile of books and issued them out herself and then we all came back here.

Mum read most of the pile of books to the kids (which is great, I can take them all back tomorrow!) and played k’nex with them for a bit before they went off to bed. Dad and I went out to get fish and chips which we had and then sat chatting about Home Ed. Mum rather amazed me by being excedingly vocal about how wonderful she thinks it is, how proud she is of me and the kids and how she can see how much it is working and is starting to really ‘get’ it. She talked about coming to the butcher with me and the kids last week and how amazed she was at the children chatting away to him, how much they knew about the meat, how they talked to the community police officer and generally interacted and were with everyone they met. As I always hoped it is Davies and Scarlett who have convinced her that this is the right path by simply being themselves and demonstrating how fab they are and how well this is working for us. I think Dad will always have reservations but I do believe we are slowly winning him over. Tonight he said he felt they should be with big groups of children more and that ‘well it’s hardly the path to university is it?’ but when I talked him through what we’ve done just this week (Beavers, swimming, Badgers, Rainbows, all with groups of other children, post office, supermarket, library, home ed group, being with Lucy and The Rs yesterday, with Julie, J & M tomorrow, playing in the garden, selling lavendar, displaying art work in the library, sitting planning what they want to do this year and working out how we’re going to do it, playing with geomags, puzzles, k’nex, lego, painting and drawing, watching documentaries, playing X box and DS, listening to Carnival of the Animals and Peter and the Wolf in the car, baking…. the list goes on and it’s actually been a pretty quiet week!) I think he started to realise that he actually gets a fairly narrow view of what their lives are really like and that’s its not all playing x box alone in the house all day every day – maybe he should read my blog! 😆

Anyway, it’s very late, I need to have a bath and I’m working in the morning but it’s been a good day and I wanted to record it tonight before tomorrow happens (it’s rhymetime day!) and I forget it all again.

I worked this morning. Lucy and The Rs were here to look after Davies and Scarlett for the last time and finished on a high note with them all seeming to mostly get on well and plenty of outdoor play once I got home. Davies and Scarlett reprised their lavendar selling stall although I don’t think they made any money today – maybe they need some sort of marketing plan ‘new season sale’ or something? 😆

Work was fine, I spent the first hour doing a new display in the children’s area. I started with the idea of doing some sort of dragons and fairies type thing but decided against it and went with an under the sea theme instead. It looks pretty good and I’ve managed to use loads of illustrations from books to do it complete with cut outs of the front cover of loads of sea themed story and non-fiction books. One of the relief staff who works sometimes, Maria, is a children’s book illustrator so her and I had an interesting conversation about that – the idea of freelance work is so appealing, it’s just finding the right line that people want to pay someone to come and do for them. I then spent ages reading through the very comprehensive notes on Story time and Rhyme time from a recent top level staff meeting which apparently had a very surreal quality to it with heavy discussions about the best rhymes and why – makes my thread on here look very frivilous :lol:.

Lucy and chatted while the children played inside and out and then they headed off and Davies and Scarlett did a quick tidy up while I cooked their tea. It was Badgers tonight. We were slightly early due to lack of traffic so I pulled up on the beach to take some photos as it was a lovely sunset with the tide out. The barriers for the wood clearing operation had been knocked down so I was able to clamber down to a bit of the beach that’s been closed – and couldn’t resist grabbing a small piece of the wood to bring home :). Most of the wood has been cleared right up onto the stones and is now being smashed up by machinery. Presumably it is too water damaged / loose from it’s ties or just too big a job to recollect it so they are breaking it all up and I guess will come and shred it perhaps before moving it away as sawdust or something. I might try and go down again to get some better pictures as it is still amazing to see all stacked up along the beaches.

I saw in the car and read some of my book and played with Scarlett’s DS. I did have to keep turning the engine on to put the heater on though – it was cold. They iced biscuits today – Davies had done a very good owl which all the leaders were complimenting him on and they made a point of telling me how artistic he is :). Scarlett got her Badger uniform today so we tried to take some photos of her when we got home. Unfortunately they are more reflective of Scarlett as a person than or Scarlett in uniform – and the few with Davies in the background are equally demonstrative of them 😆

Ady had arrived home and run a bath for them. We then read them a chapter of the current story (The Aardvark who wasn’t sure) each before they went off to bed and we watched Torchwood.

I had a long chat to Julie on the phone, she was slightly hysterical as she’d misdialled our number and got some bloke. Except instead of establishing it was a wrong number and no Goddard’s lived there the person happened to know us and kept Julie talking for about 10 minutes introducing himself and explaining how he lived with his mother and promising that if she misdialled again it must mean something and he’d have to take her out for a candlelit dinner. Can you guess who it was?

Coincidence? Or some elaborate phone tapping scam they have going on over there as well as reading my blog. I have warned her to expect a Thank You card for such a nice wrong number call :lol:.

Day two in the Goddard house and the housemates are starting to get on each other’s nerves!

We really do struggle to be home more than one day a week without clashes around here. This morning I had an altercation to deal with before I even made it downstairs with Davies insisting Scarlett had pushed him off the sofa and Scarlett most indignant that he’d fallen off and was blaming her. Neither was going to back down and they were getting increasingly upset and adamant that they were telling the truth – Davies even more crossly than Scarlett until he lashed out and kicked his legs. He wasn’t actually aiming for anything but he did kick the basket of make up that he was next to so I sent him off to calm down for a while and then went to talk to him about it. We talked about being angry and that being fine, but lashing out not being such a fine way of dealing with it. I can never quite decide whether Davies has always been very self controlled or whether I’ve always been very controlling of him but ever so often he does or says things that shock both of us as they are out of character. I’m sure others would think I totally overreact to what are probably very small incidents but emotions and reactions are tricky things to deal with so I think the more we talk about stuff and try and work out how best to manage them the more chance they stand of being balanced adults. Or something :lol:.

We watched some TV and decided that it really was too rainy to venture out anywhere today. D and S got the lego out and played really nicely for a while. D built an excellent plane while S played with horses and lego men with the two games sort of combined, sort of side by side, sort of amicable with odd fallings out :roll:.

I went and picked out a couple of science experiment kits we’ve got from Tesco which I think were about £1.97 each or something ages ago so I bought a load of to pull out when they caught their interest. I picked the two most interesting, least technical looking ones and we tossed a coin to decide which to do which was musical instrument making. I was rather surprised by Davies’ very poor manual dexterity skills. I know he has always had a funny pen grip and seems slightly awkward with other tasks but his drawing, gaming and other skills requiring steady hands and good control are fine so I’d never really thought much of it and certainly never corrected him. He holds scissors with both hands, one on top and one beneath, but is very accurate with them too and I remember my brother always been told he was ‘cack handed’ with his knife and fork when we were kids so all the time he’s not struggled with anything I hadn’t been worried. He did struggle with meauring a length of cotton, cutting it and then knotting it today though – none of which are probably essential skills particularly but did make me wonder if I shouldn’t try and do something about it. I did get him to hold the scissors ‘properly’ which he did for a while, managed very well with and then went back to his two handed approach again, so maybe I should just let him do it his way after all!

So we made chimes, talked about the different pitch and length of chime bars. We made a drum, a guitar, some pan pipes and some windchimes. Not a bad little kit for 2 quid although not really very science-y and with no explanation about them being experiments particularly. We put the finished bits in the instruments box when we’d finished.

In looking for some plasticine to plug the ends of the pan pipes (the little bit that came in the kit had dried out and was no good) I had one of my regular ‘this playroom is a tip!’ moments so Davies and I spent some time sorting that out too.

And then we had lunch :lol:.

Davies and Scarlett spent some time playing DS, some time playing a dvd extra game on the Willy Wonka dvd and then got distracted by the fire. We’d put a HUGE log on the fire last night which had only about half burnt when I went to bed. It was still smouldering this morning but suddenly caught alight properly again and burst into flames, surprising us all. I chucked some of the rubbish from the playroom on the fire which flared it up again so they started experimenting (in a very controlled and fully supervised manner of course ;)) with various materials including wet and dry things and reporting back to me on their findings. Without realising they were doing all the proper experiment things of developing a theory, testing it out and reporting on their findings – and all without bunsen burners or conical flasks and test tubes! Ah well, where the tesco kit failed our own fire and bits of wet and dry loo roll succeeded! 😆

I was on a declutter roll and finally went through the bottom two shelves of the bookcase in our hall weeding out all the books which are too young, too replicated with other books we have, too workbooky or too phonics systems I spent money on once but am clearly never going to use now. That resulted in a pile of ebay / amazon marketplace listings to do so I sat and did them.

Finally I put on the Summerhill drama that I’d downloaded last week when everyone was talking about it and have been waiting for a clear hour and a half to sit and watch. Scarlett dipped in and out of it but Davies and I watched the whole thing, pausing it sometimes and talking about it all lots as it happened. There are a couple of examples of children losing their tempers and lashing out in various ways which were interesting for Davies to watch after this morning, and they both got very into the bit of the storyline where someone lies and gets someone else into trouble they were yelling at the screen for them to tell the truth! Davies had the idea of miscarriages of justice and false accusation illustrated beautifully for him which was good ‘but what if he’d been punished for that and he really hadn’t done it? If he was a grown up he could have gone to jail. Do people go to jail sometimes even when they didn’t do something because someone else said they did?’

Funnily enough nothing on the show was groundbreaking or new to Davies and Scarlett, it’s what we do anyway. Davies did lots of ‘well yes, obviously!’ type comments and plenty of ‘that’s how we do things – learn about stuff when we want to if we want to and get on with playing and living the rest of the time’. What was shocking to them was the concept of boarding school ‘what you *live* there? for how long? How many days?’ and even more shocked at the parental contact discouraged bit. I can actually understand that bit personally – if they are working so hard to build a flat structure where everyone is equal and has a voice and freedom then to have that compromised by parents who don’t buy into the whole idea totally could prove difficult. What is odd is that if parents do buy into it, which you sort of assume they do given they are sending their children there why they are not just doing it at home really? We decided they are home educated at Summerhill – it’s just that Summerhill is their home and the other children and teachers are their family… It was interesting though, I watched with a lump in my throat almost from the opening credits – I think if something happened to me and Ady that would be a great place for Davies and Scarlett.

It was swimming lessons tonight and Ady managed to get home just in the nick of time to come with us. They both had a good lesson, Davies is getting the hang of swimming on his back but is still much better underwater than on the surface. Scarlett has really bonded with the other little girl in the class but is coming on leaps and bounds suddenly and armbands seems to be really helping her. She has very strong legs so when she is able to concentrate properly on kicking rather than staying up she gets across the pool pretty quickly.

Home for pancakes for everyone. Both the children had a go at tossing them and Ady had to make a second batch of batter up as we decided to have pancakes at the same time instead of tea tonight. Then I read the whole of The Otter Who Wanted to Know – partially because it seemed to move along fairly quickly, partially because I was begged at the end of each chapter for ‘just one more’ and partially because I can now add it to the pile of books to go back tomorrow :).

We’ve had a nice day today :).

We started fairly lazily although ever mindful of the blank display space at the library waiting for us. We watched some CBBC, although quite what escapes me now, they made a giant brio track, we had breakfast and got to the library for about 1030am. We needed to get velcro dots to stick on the back of the pictures so first went to Woolworths, where Davies went up to pay for them himself (when he takes ownership of something he does it very wholeheartedly :lol:) but realised very quickly they wouldn’t be enough so went to the art shop to get more. Scarlett played on the childrens pc in the junior library and then chose a pile of books while Davies put the display up and I assisted. We filled in a form for the display space and chatted to the staff who were on duty. Scarlett also chose a film (Charlottes Web, the animated version which we’ve had out before) and she went off with her and my library cards to take them out. She chatted away to Frankie who was on the counter and was pretty much issuing them herself including a discussion about the security tags on some of them. She’d taken her small collection of soft toy jaguars (which she still pronounces ‘jag-wires’ – Dora still has a lot to answer for in terms of early influence :lol:) and was introducing them to Frankie too. Davies wanted to get Series of Unfortunate Events out again too (we had it way back last year and watched it again when it was on TV at Christmas) so after Davies’ little photosession and flurries of goodbyes we came home again.

Davies put Lemony Snicket on, we had lunch (reheated leftover pizza, they both refuse to eat pizza but love the crusts, which are the bits I tend to leave so Jack Sprat and his wife stylee we shared lunch) and then Scarlett played with a variety of ponies and horses that she has (an eclectic mix of lurid pink Barbie unicorns, anatomically correct brown ponies and the clunky My Little Ponies all forming a surreal stableful), Davies played with geomags and they looked up at the interesting bits of the film.

I decided to do a puzzle and we have a skeleton and internal organs double pack one we’d not done before so I got that out and did the skeleton. As planned both children gradually worked their way over to me and we ended up doing it together. Jigsaws and reading aloud are two things I would happily sit and do all day every day with them. I would also do baking, most art and craft type stuff or watching documentary type programmes on tv. Unfortunately they would far rather I pretend to be the voice of a baddy with their Doctor Who characters, dress up Polly Pockets or watch them play on the xbox. I have repeatedly told them both that the sole reason I underwent pregnancy and childbirth twice was to relieve me of these duties by way of giving them each other :lol:.

I repacked a parcel that had been a casualty of being used in the morning’s brio game as one of the boulders in the quarry and we went off to the post office. They chose to walk as ‘it’s far too nice a day for us to be cooped up inside’ said Davies :lol:. He’s going through one of his Young Fogey stages again at the moment – he told me the other day that he ‘wouldn’t feel the benefit of his coat when we went outside as he’d been wearing it in the car’ :lol:They had lots of races on the way, of the ‘race you to the big lamppost’ type ones, which Davies despite being by far the most cunning and ensuring he had a head start before he issued the challenge lost pretty much every time to Scarlett on by virtue of her being so very fast. She really is very speedy even though I am cringing with her every step expecting her to fall over with the way her feet seem to narrowly avoid getting tangled up in each other. I let them have 10pence worth of sweets each at the post office which they organised themselves. On the way home we paused a while to stroke a friendly cat, were stopped in our tracks by a beautiful smell which we traced back to a bush with tiny but highly scented flowers and speculated on whether the wing span of a seagull we saw pecking at something on the pavement was wider than their armspan – it definitely was and would probably even have been wider than mine, bloody great birds seagulls – and seem to be increasingly coming further inland.

On the way back they decided they wanted to play Super Monkey Ball on X box instead of watching Charlottes Web as planned so they did that for a while and then they watched the Simpsons that we’d recorded for them last night before tea. I worked on my page of places we want to go to this year which will be a work in progress but has already got me marking a few things in my diary and emailing places for more details. We talked about it too and they added a few ideas to the list.

Then it was time for Davies to go to Beavers with Ady just about getting home in time for us to not have to take Scarlett with us. Davies and I ran most of the way with me barely making the top of the road before feeling like I needed an inhaler – I am embarrassingly unfit :oops:. Scarlett and I sat and read her pile of chosen library books from this morning together and then Ady went out to collect Davies. The deal was that if they got pj’d quickly I’d finish the whole book of ‘The Cat Who Wanted to go Home’ as I’ve not read any for a few nights, so we did that. Davies was really looking at the pages and picking out odd words here and there too, this books without pictures seems to have come at just the right time for him to get lots out of it and I could see how the suspence of wanting to know what happens next after I decide to stop reading could well be enough to spur him on to carry on for himself :). Scarlett still gets fidgety really – she likes the interaction of picture books and was much happier snuggled on my lap talking about how many clownfish we could see, guessing the next word in rhyming couplets and looking for things on the page while Davies was out, although she has been saying ‘chez moi’ and ‘merci’ and ‘au revoir’ lots which are all from the latest book so it’s all going in even if she feels the need to prance around and illustrate the book with actions due to lack of pictures in it.

We watched the Life in Cold Blood Attenborough programme which was excellent – must try and remember it’s repeated on Sunday afternoon so the kids can see it too. Tomorrow we are free aside from swimming lessons so I am trying to decide whether to have another day at home or get out and about instead – I think it might all depend on the weather.