One word? When seven would do…

We’ve been to the library this morning (via the art shop to buy sticky circles to fix the pictures up with) and it’s all up and looking fab.

Davies did the full display (aside from the bits too high to reach where he directed me) from sticking on the fixers to positioning the pictures. He also managed to work out which label went with each picture suggesting he really can read a lot more than he lets on ;).

The staff who were in were all very complimentary and actually it does look rather fab. He was very proud and already planning to display again (as yet undecided about whether to re-display this set or create something new).

Well thanks to Helen I’ve bought books today! Haven’t bought books for ages though and one was a tried and tested much enjoyed library book that I finally took back yesterday as someone else was waiting for it and will be a good addition to our bookshelves and the other was the set various people seem to have or be buying today of the Born with a bang, lava to life, mammals that morph series, which looks very good and will go perfectly alongside the couple of Eric Maddern books on the subject that we have and bring out fairly regularly. The whole ‘how did it all start and how did we get here? question is one Scarlett has been asking about a lot so I can justify the purchasing I reckon :).

This morning Davies and I did more of his paintings, he finished off all the painting bits and left them ready to dry before he drew in the details. That took a good hour and a half. Meanwhile Ady and Scarlett were outside, battening down the chicken run against the wind and rain that we’ve had this week and is set to continue including creating a sheltered outside bit for them under some waterproof sheeting. Then they made our garden look like we’ve spent a fortune buying plants off the telly 😆

looking at that picture reminds me we must gather some worms to put in those plastic bottle wormeries they’ve made too.

The kids watched Shrek while I made some cheese scones and chocolate brownies before our friends Kev and Sue arrived. Kev and Ady have been friends for nearly 30 years and been through some very tough times together including the tragic death of Kev’s wife (asthma attack aged just 19 🙁 – Ady had gone to school with her and that’s how he met Kev). Lifes have grown apart and they don’t see each other so much but text each other very regularly (both ardent Pompey fans :)) and when they get together it’s like they only saw each other yesterday. Ady has some very good friends that he goes way back to boyhood with and shared very strong bonds with which probably replace his family for him really. Kev and Sue are both in their mid 50s and Sue has 3 sons and 4 grandsons so they are a generation apart from me really but are lovely people. Davies and Scarlett lasted all of about five minutes before dragging Sue off to show her their bedrooms and then Scarlett clambered all over Kev showing him her DS 😆 she is discerning with her affections, but when she does give them it is wholehearted! They stayed for a couple of hours chatting and partaking of cheese scones before heading off.

Ady and Scarlett played with the toy animals for a while with Scarlett adamantly insisting to Ady that polar bears and penguins would *never* meet apart from in a zoo, while Davies drew in all his details on the now dry paintings. Then they went off to get dinner cooking while Davies told me what he wanted to write for all his labels and I told him which letters to use. Probably the most writing he’s ever done all at once.

Then there was something of a Simpsons-fest for about 2 hours while we all had dinner and the children got into pjs and watched the last one before bed. There were two more but we recorded them for them – surely 4 episodes in a row is enough yellow animated humour for anyone?! I parcelled up all the trains we’ve sold on ebay ready to be posted tomorrow and then settled down to watch Lost. I did have a post with loads of links of all the places we’re planning to visit in the next few months so I could start to work them into my diary but I accidentally closed the tab with the post on it so I lost that. Will try and do it again tomorrow.

Davies has finished his display stuff ready to be put up tomorrow. I’ve blogged a bit about it already but the whole story in order to keep it in one place for my own reference:

Davies noticed before Christmas that there was an area in the library where people can display their artwork (and things like flyers for plays or events, planning proposals etc. In short it’s a large space where subject to a few small restrictions people can display pretty much whatever they want by prior arrangement). He said at the time that he’d like to do that and I said I’d book the space for him but decided to wait and see if he expressed the wish again. He got various art materials for Christmas and after a few experiments with his watercolours said he’d like to do a display at the library again, so I booked space for February to give him time to plan and create his display.

By himself Davies came up with the idea of doing a sort of ‘library through the ages’ series of pictures. While he knows that libraries haven’t been around since the Stone Age he liked the idea of using buildings throughout the ages and turning them into the sort of libraries people of that period would have had, if they’d had them. This tied in well with his ongoing interest in architecture and buildings, meant he got a better idea of history timelines and also coincided with a couple of museum trips where we looked at things like costume, culture and leisure pursuits. Added to his previous learnings about various things and with the aid of just four pages in an illustrated encylopedia he came up with eight pictures which he drew and coloured in one day while I was at work.

After looking at the display space at the library again and talking more about the quality of work he *really* wanted to be displaying, aswell as the magnitude of the project he decided he would redo the pictures using his watercolours and some really decent quality watercolour card. We talked about techniques and he liked the one used on someone else’s display of watercolour drawn over with black ink to define the picture. We talked about each picture and he sketched in basic detail in pencil before using paint.

It’s been a fairly long project which we’ve come back to at various points over the last week or so, stopping when he’s had enough and allowing paint to dry of course! It’s certainly not been without minor tiffs between him and I as actually assuming the role of ‘teacher’ or ‘instructor’ with him as pupil doesn’t sit very well with either or us. He has had the chance to not continue at all stages and while he’s admitted it was tough and not even necessarily enjoyable at all stages he is very proud of and pleased with the finished set. He reckons he’s learnt loads – both in terms of technique of sketching and painting and drawing in aswell as the historical stuff we’ve covered in doing the series and the ‘life lessons’ of seeing something through, through the tough bits :).

We’ve done colour washes, experimented with different amounts of paint and water, mixed colours in the pallet and on the paper, looked at the method of making up layers of colour, learnt the patience required in waiting for areas to dry before moving on and seen the various stages of creating a finished piece. Finally we talked a bit about each picture before deciding on a small description to go with each one. I have certainly encouraged and suggested but definitely not coerced or been in charge and all the ideas, inspiration and creativity from initial idea to what made it into each picture have been Davies’.

The Stone Age.
Neanderthal man lived in caves, lit fires, wore animal skins and did cave drawings.

The Egyptians
Build pyramids in the desert.

The Greeks
Built beautiful temples to their gods.

The Romans
Were great soldiers.

The Vikings
Were sea pirates who raided the coasts of Britain.

The Middle Ages
Jesters entertained Lords and Ladies.

The Elizabethans
Wore fancy clothes and Shakespeare wrote plays.

Present Day
I borrow books and films from the library.

First the health bulletin. Scarlett is much better today, still a bit on the feeble side and needing lots of dummy time (usually 100% restricted to bedtime). Apparently while I was at work this morning she did a poo which I had a full and graphic report on the colour and consistency of when I got home 😆 So far none of the rest of us are showing any signs so hopefully it was a Scarlett-specific thing.

Work was fine, a nice morning. We have two Saturday assistants at Lancing, one is Tom, who wants to go to London College of Fashion and is thrilled at the prospect of the challenge, adventure and possibilities of university. Sitting chatting with him about it a couple of weeks ago made me feel envious of his youth and freedom and full of hope for him and the experiences he’s going to go off and have. The other is a new girl, Sara, who is the same age and about to finish her A levels and attending uni interviews as well. Except she wants to be an actress and has this desperate air about her of it all being so important that she does it all now. Not only that she is facing so many odds stacked against her already long before she ever gets anywhere near actually realising her dream. She is facing the prospect of not getting into any of the unis she’s applied to as they are all totally over subscribed and holding stiff audition style interviews and are apparently looking for older people with more life experience to do their courses. When I asked her what she’d do if she didn’t get into any of them she said in a really downhearted manner ‘I suppose I’ll travel and try and get some of the life experience they want, but I’d rather get the life experience while I’m at uni’. Dreams and ambitions are wonderful but a jaded 17 year old is a sad sight to see, especially one with X Factor style stars in her eyes… Talking to the Saturday assistants reminds me both of how old and how young I am simulatenously somehow.

Ady headed off to London as soon as I got home. He’d spent some time this morning finding me a new camera. I’ve never actually had a new camera, my first was a courtesy camera which we were never asked for back when we had one repaired – very beaten and battered but a great little camera. My second one was Ady’s old work camera but I have admittedly mistreated it, keeping it in my pocket and it finally expired this week after a rather lengthly decline. Ebay suggests I’ll still get 20 quid or so for it on a spare or repair basis so it’s probably worth following one of the online guides to repairing it and then ebaying it if it doesn’t work. But being without it for just two days has had me moaning about how I simply cannot live without a camera so Ady took an executive decision that our Hornby profits would go towards a new camera rather than the camping mats we’d planned to buy. He found a Canon camera with a printer bundle on clearance at Argos so the kids and I went out to collect that. I don’t think we’ll really need / use the printer so I might ebay that to recoup some of the price anyway. It’s bigger than my little purple camera and a bit plasticky looking and clunky but will more than do the job for me. I’m the same with phones, having tried various brands I am a committed Sony Ericsson affectionado and I do like Canon cameras – I know where everything is on them!

Davies and I did a load of work on his paintings for the library. He’s finished all the drawings and given the set a title and created a header board for them. Most of them have the background colours painted so tomorrow is all about detail and little bit like the people on them. I’ll photograph them all when they’re done and we’ll get them put up at the library on Monday. I’ve given him the opportunity to not do the display (in a calm and rational manner, not a threat ;)) several times and although he’d struggled with the level of work involved and some of the more boring stuff like painting skies he has learnt loads of history through it, used lots of imagination and creativity and it’s been his first experience of means justifying the ends I think which has been a good lesson to learn. Hopefully he will be proud of his finished work and proud to display it and see it up on public view :).

Scarlett and I read a couple of books, she played a bit of Starfall and a bit of X box but I realised how much she struggles without someone to ‘play with’. She has always had Davies ready to play with her or entertain her and without him around can be quite high maintenance. So to have Davies busy painting and me spending time helping him combined with her feeling not 100% yet anyway made for a slightly disgruntled Tarly.

They had dinner, I sorted out the chickens and got dinner on for me and Ady, lit a fire and then the three of us had a bath together at their request. Then we all got ready with wine for me, TV set up for Primeval and laptop set up ready for QVC and watched the two side by side til Ady came on and flicked over to watch him. The children are rather blase about Daddy on TV really and given that Davies has been on himself and we are all so used to seeing our images and those of everyone we know on video cameras or photos on tv and computers I don’t think they quite grasp how many other complete strangers might also be watching Daddy. I think having had various brushed with the media too with Davies on radio, both of them in the papers several times and Ady’s photos in national papers this year they are quite laid back about such things. Not sure whether that is good or bad really, I think it’s probably a healthy attitude to not give much credance to fame though. 🙂 They finished watching Primeval and went off to bed.

Ady was great, he wobbled once which was probably only obvious to me and rang me as he left the studios to say one of his three lines had already sold out, one was low stocks and the other selling ok so another success for him up there. I’m very proud of him for consistently taking whatever roles are thrown at him throughout his career and adapting and striving to meet all these challenges. QVC guest presenting isn’t his dream by any means but I certainly couldn’t do it and have respect and admiration for his ability to not just do it, but do it rather well :). So yay Ady!

plonking this here to remind me too look at it properly tomorrow. Thanks Ali 🙂

Scarlett came and joined me in bed first thing for quite a while this morning. We laid there and I did that tickling game where you put one hand really high up and bring it down to tickle a child’s tummy (with occassional surprise tickling from the hand they’re not watching) – used to play that with them both lying in bed when they were tiny for ages – the sound of a really tiny child giggling uncontrollably is heart melting and her face mid-giggle looked just the same as it did nearly five years ago when she was teeny tiny.

Last night Tarly complained that her waist hurt and she was not quite herself this morning and after sitting on the sofa whimpering at me for a while (which prompted Davies to go and get her a bowl) she went off to the bathroom claiming to need a wee and next thing we heard the sound of her being sick :(. We dashed in there to find her standing over the bowl having managed with perfect aim and calm to get the entire contents of her stomach straight into the loo. She’d even held her own hair back. Clearly given her love of alcohol and the strong chance of inheriting her mothers decorum and habit of drunken vomiting this is a skill she will do well to have mastered so early – it’s one that still eludes me!

We were supposed to be meeting up with a small group of very select and elite ‘Every Other Friday Friends’ (there that’s made the included ones in that number feel all special and glowy and totally alienated the rest of you hasn’t it? ;)) at a soft play place but the thought of half an hour car journeys both way and the vomit-related horror stories (which would have made for funny retelling but probably a lifetime ban from the soft play place and enough bleach to fill a paddling pool) in high up padded areas with slides and ball pits was enough to convince me we should have a quiet day at home instead. Davies was disappointed as he’d been really looking forward to it but very mature and accepting bless him :). She actually hasn’t been sick again although she’s had several bouts of diarrhoea (I wouldn’t normally be so graphic, well okay I might, but I’m so happy to have the chance to use the mnenomic for diarrhoea – Dive In A Rush, Run Hard Or Else Accident – that I need to show off my knowledge of how to spell diarrhoea :lol:).

We watched some CBBC and then decided to use the extra time to do some work on Davies series of paintings for the library display. He did several more sketches and then some painting in of backgroundy things like skies on some of them. We chatted lots about drawing softly – a skill which seems to rather elude him, but one I recall struggling with and still press pens very hard indeed into a page when writing. We also looked at colour washing, mixing and so on and how to sketch in minor detail. In order to demonstrate I got Davies to choose an illustration out of one of our books that was out (A year in the city – he chose the picture which is on the front cover in this version of the Chinese dragon) – so I sketched it and started to paint in details over the course of the day. Actually I rather surprised myself with how well it’s come out. I’ve used the book as an inspiration rather than totally copying from it but the use of good quality paper and nice watercolours is making it very different from working on crap copier paper with hard blocks of watercolours. Anyway he’s made quite a bit of progress with it, learnt some more techniques and we talked lots about architecture through the ages again which is something of a passion of his. We decided when we got stumped on costume for the Renaissance period to watch Horrible Histories to inspire him so they sat through about 6 episodes of that on the new dvd I got them. So pleased with that, would recommend it to everyone :).

Davies and I had lunch. I lovingly served up a plateful of lightly buttered toast cut into bite sized tempting morsels to Scarlett who ignored it and begged salt and vinegar crisps off my plate instead :roll:. A plus point of the enforced housebound-ness was that I completely emptied the dirty laundry basket. Despite reports of snow elsewhere we’ve had bright blue skies here all day (although bitterly cold) so I managed to get everything washed and most of it dry with bringing it in to air on the radiators throughout the day. These things do make me happy and I like to think that looking into the future should my 80 year old self one day read this and roll her eyes at her younger incarnation filling her daily accounts of her life with laundry news from the front line she will at least appreciate that I was a content and willing slave to my laundry, if a slave nonetheless :lol:.

There was some playing with the big car mat and the toy cars but that didn’t last long once Scarlett retired due to ill health. There was also a game with the geomags and we kept going back to the paintings throughout the day. Scarlett did some painting too – I drew the outline of a butterfly for her which she filled in taking care to make it symmetrical then painted but mostly she just experimented with colour mixing and different levels of paint and water mixes.

I then offered to read to her and she chose some Doctor Seuss so we had some Wocket in my Pocket (and as always I was fondly reminded of Chris Bean when I got to the Bofa on the Sofa line ;)), Sneetches, Zax, Green Pants with nobody inside them with Davies joining in from the floor. He then dug out the dvd of Green Eggs and Ham which also has Sneetches, Zax and Grinch Night on it (including a character called Josiah which always reminds us of young master Clarke). Infact the whole exercise was very remindy as aside from the Seuss-fest I recall and Jan and Jonathans a couple of years ago we also had one the morning after Davies’ last birthday party with various Off The Path and Raine Drops children sitting round listening. I could read Dr Seuss aloud to children til my voice ran out, and then I’d do a comedy turn of Bonnie Tyler reads Cat in the Hat just to keep it going 😆 – wonder if that would work at Story time at the library? 😆

I spent some time on a questionnaire for work for the County Area Librarian who is drawing up the business plan for the year so I emailed that across in the middle of all the chaos – hopefully there are not random Seuss rhymes or references to bodily functions in it :lol:. Can you tell I’m going slightly crazy here today through enforced at home-ness when I wasn’t mentally prepared for it?!

Ady came home and Davies spent some time playing Green Eggs and Ham on his laptop (Ady’s, not Davies’) and then we put Ant Bully on which I’ve had on loan from work for ages but we’d failed to get round to watching. We all four dipped in and out of it but Davies watched it fairly closely. The bits I watched seemed quite good in that fairly predictable format for such films sort of way. Davies had tea and Scarlett and I planned a bath together to freshen her up a bit with the lure of Lush products sealing the deal. If she does have a bug then she’s spent so much time draped over me today that I have it for certain anyway. But she fell asleep curled up next to me while it was running. I tried to rouse her for the bath but she just crawled onto my lap into my arms and went back to sleep so I sat for a while holding her before popping her into bed. She slept for about two hours then woke again and sat and annoyed Ady and I from about 830 to 1030pm by preventing us from watching any tv other than Bagpuss and Mr Benn and demanding sips of my wine 🙄 Nice to see her brighter I guess. She went back to bed at 1030 and was asleep in moments. Hopefully she’ll wake fully better tomorrow.

Davies had a bath and then watched a couple of Simpsons episodes with me before going up to bed. I keep meaning to do a ‘when he was 7 post’ as he is being so utterly lovely at the moment. Not that he isn’t usually utterly lovely because I certainly think he is but he is really maturing, growing up and being very thoughtful, caring and just all-round wonderful at the moment. 🙂 He’s been a star today, totally undemanding of me given I’ve had to focus on Scarlett a lot, very caring towards Scarlett and clearly concerned about her and tolerant and patient of all my perfectionist nonsense over his paintings. 🙂 I love that boy rather a lot.

Tomorrow, assuming I do not develop The Bug overnight I’m working in the morning and then Ady’s off to London at lunchtime when I get home to go and be Famous In The City.

Ady’s on QVC tomorrow night. 7pm on the Gardening hour (well at some point between 7 and 8pm on the gardening hour, not for the whole time). Impress your friends by name dropping your association with such a celebrity 😆

Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday Dear Joyce
Happy birthday to you!
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

for want of a better title 😆

I worked today, all day. It was very windy, infact I think about half the borrowers who came into the library didn’t mean to, they just got blown that way. It got fairly wearing after about the 27th one came in with the same witty comment about the weather though and my personal amusement at giving the same stock answer of ‘it’s not lovely is it?’ started to wear thin after the 38th time I’d said it :roll:. When I was a checkout chick at B&Q I once compiled a list of ‘things that B&Q checkout operators would love to say to customers, but can’t because we’d lose our jobs’ – I was reminded of some of them today 😆

I did a new display – the new years resolutions one which included printed off ideas of ‘things I am going to do this year’ and single phrases like ‘travel’ ‘learn a language’ ‘get fitter’ ‘be more green’ and so on with loads of relevant books, dvds and audio books displayed had been there nearly a month and it’s not feeling so new year-y now it’s practically February. Thanks to the dewey decimal system (which actually I am starting to get my head round and keep surprising myself by knowing what number books are under when people ask where they’ll find them ‘ cookery, that’ll be 641.5, ah yes books on poetry -you’ll find them at 821 and so on) there are some books which just get hidden away in dusty corners where no one ever goes in the library but actually would probably get loads of issues (that’s taken out lots) if they were more visible. One such genre is the Torey Hayden, Dave Pelzer type non-fiction books about abused children. I know they are popular, they often make the Top Ten lists of books and very occassionally someone will pluck up the courage to come and ask for one of them but they largely get missed as they live upstairs at Lancing filed with ‘362 social welfare’. So I pulled a load out, along with some similar titles shelved within the biographies section and did a big display of them under the heading ‘stories of sorrow, stories of despair, stories of hope…’ while I was photocopying something two of the books got borrowed so clearly that display is going to be a winner :).

I also spent some time at work printing off information about The Kite Runner. We are reading it for Book Group this month and as Brenda who normally runs it is on holiday I am running the group. I read the book way back last year when it first came out, sort of too soon to want to read it again but too long ago to remember it very well in great detail so I printed off the wikipedia entry on it, some guides from the publisher, the authors bio from his website and a list of ‘reading group points for discussion’ to go through prior to book group.

Lucy and The Rs were here in the morning and my Dad was here in the afternoon. I know from the layers of stuff that they played with geomags, did drawings, did some dressing up and played some X box, so I spent the first ten minutes or so going mental at Davies and Scarlett about the state of the house :(. They did a fair bit of the tidying up, I helped with some and they had a late dinner as a result. Ady was really late home (due to weather) and I’d already decided he’d been killed in a car crash and was planning my funeral outfit but didn’t want to ring just incase he didn’t answer his phone and then I truly knew he was dead. He did ring to say he’d be another five or ten minutes and was infact a further half an hour (weather related traffic again) but I’d already got the outfit planned so was able to focus on other things instead by then. Kids had a bath, I got utterly fed up with everyone and shouted lots before going to get dinner started.

I then calmed down enough to brush Scarlett’s hair, finish reading about Otto the penguin and read the first chapter about Suzy the car (Cat who wanted to go home) before having a long bubbly bath and a glass of wine and restoring my inner peace once more. Working all day is really tricky as I get the very worst of the children at the beginning and ends of the day, they get the worst of me, I feel guilty that I’ve been out and actually quite enjoyed being at work and then feel I’m being punished for that by coming home to a messy house and hungry children so have to dash around for another hour or so before finally sitting down. I’ve no idea how working mothers retain their sanity quite frankly, although I suppose the kids would be in school so the house would be tidy or I’d be earning enough to pay for childcare that did their dinner and read their bedtime stories anyway. You can’t be all things to all people and trying to pull it off simply means you end up being very little to anybody :(. We all ended the day as friends again though :).

Finally today a load of ebay listings ended. Ady bought a box full of Hornby stuff in a charity shop last year for £3 including track and trains and stuff and we’ve been meaning to ebay it for ages. We split it into several lots and made over £50 altogether from it :). I’ve already been pissed off with a buyer who has got three items and wanted a postage discount and then to quibble about the price of postage and why I don’t use a courier instead of royal mail (yes I know it’s cheaper but then I’d need to stay in all day to wait for collection and I’m not paying for the postage – you are! :roll:), so I sort of anticipate that one not going forward in a simple manner. Ah well.

Ok, here is the ‘programme’ I used last week, I’ve trawled my childhood memories for a few more but any other suggestions gratefully received 🙂

Humpty Dumpty
Twinkle twinkle little star
Old McDonald had a farm
Grand Old Duke of York
Five Little Ducks
Five little men in a flying saucer
Incy Wincy Spider
Round and round the garden like a teddy bear
Miss Polly had a dolly
Wind the bobbin up
Wheels on the bus
Hickory Dickory Dock
Row row row your boat (including crocodiles and dinosaurs)
Dingle Dangle Scarecrow (need to learn the words to second and third verses)
Teddy Bear, teddy bear
I hear thunder
Baa baa black sheep
I’m a little teapot

Ones I’ve thought of since:
Hot Cross Buns
Mary Mary quite contrary
pat a cake
ten green bottles
ten fat sausages
Cheeky monkeys bouncing on the bed
London’s burning
Hole in my bucket (is that a nursery rhyme do you think?)
Oranges and Lemons (anyone know if it has movements?)
In a cottage in a wood
There was an old lady who swallowed a fly – can’t believe I hadn’t thought of this one before – or will it give nightmares?! 😆
Ring o roses

A Winter Walk With Pony Riding of course! 😆 😉

Julie has had part-loan of a pony for the last four or five months and although we’ve been up to see it once or twice we’ve not made it there for a ride yet, which both Davies and Scarlett have been keen to do. I seem to have totally bypassed the whole pony-thing, both as a child and in adulthood. I was never remotely interested in either the Cindy / Barbie horses or the My Little Pony stuff when that came in and my one encounter with a real one when I was about 10 and our babysitter had a great big stallion of a thing (well that’s how it seemed at the time) called Jasper was a terrifying experience never to be repeated when she hoisted me 17 feet in the air onto his back and he actually moved! 😆 Davies had a ride on one at Centerparcs when he was 3 (look here is a tiny photo! ) which inspired a brief interest but investigations showed it to be a costly and probably better for slightly older children type hobby so we didn’t think about it again.

So we were up and out early and in Slindon where the stables are for 10am. It was a gorgeous bright and sunny morning with blue skies and fairly warm in the sunshine. Davies and Scarlett both had a go at giving Honey the pony a groom

and then had a quick try on of one of the many riding hats kept in the tack room (see I know all the lingo now ;)) and found one that was able to communally fit Davies, Scarlett and Maisie – Jack didn’t want to ride. Julie put all the various bits of ‘stuff’ on Honey (ok, maybe not all the lingo), explaining to Davies and Scarlett what they were all called and off we set. We probably did about a mile round walk along the road, down a bridleway with slopes up and down, back a slightly different route to the road and back to the stables. Davies was very keen to have a go and with only a slight wobble once he was hoisted up into the saddle (see I do know some lingo) he loved it. He totally got the hang of the straight back, lean forwards downhill, backwards uphill type stuff and having chatted to Julie the whole time about cues for the horse to do various things and how you might train a young horse he got the hang of some basic steering too :).

Maisie had the next turn while Davies and Scarlett carried on talking to Julie and learnt about horse body language, dos and don’ts around horses and so on. Julie is an excellent teacher, she is very patient and great at gauging her information at the right level for who she is talking to. She is also very knowledgable and passionate about horses having been riding since she was their age. I learnt loads too 🙂

Then it was Tarly’s turn. Surprisingly where Davies was raring to go and full of confidence she was actually quite nervous and took a bit of gentle persuasion to try it out. Once on she looked even more unsure but within a couple of yards had the biggest smile pasted across her face and took to it like a natural 🙂

more photos on flickr

Scarlett rode Honey all the way back to the stables so had a period of sitting still, walking along a road and up and down slopes, getting her moving again and finally after dismounting she led her into her stable. 🙂

Then Davies and Scarlett fed Honey a carrot each and helped Julie mix up her feed from four different containers learning about each bit and what it was all for in her diet (and smelling it all too, it smelt lovely :)). In the summer there is a small paddock when Honey spends her days and Julie is happy to teach Davies and Scarlett how to steer and ride Honey off the lead, learn how to canter and trot and there are a couple of other ponies Julie has access to and can even learn how to do small jumps if they want to. Needless to say they both fell utterly in love, talked all afternoon about how much they loved it and Scarlett has decided today will henceforth be refered to as ‘my horse day!’ 😆

There was a rather unfortunate incident however which I will blog just because I mentioned last week about Jack and Davies and how annoying Jack was being to Davies and how physical. Today while Scarlett was sitting on Honey and Julie, Maisie, Scarlett and I were watching a mother ewe and her newborn lamb Davies and Jack were scrambling about in a chalk pit at the stables. Jack had been irritating to Davies all morning again and quite annoyed that Davies didn’t really want to play, was more interested in the horses and spent most of the walk either riding the pony or walking alongside it talking to Julie about it. I happened to turn round just as Davies was climbing up the side of the pit and Jack threw a stone directly at him hitting him on the head. It all seemed to happen in slow motion and too late to shout out anyway (which might have made it worse as it could have hit D in the face if he’d turned round) I thought it was going to miss but it did indeed hit Davies really hard on the back of the head. It knocked him over and then he started sobbing. I yelled ‘Jack!’ and then ran straight to Davies while Julie asked what had happened and I said ‘he’s thrown a rock at Davies’ head!’ It was a bloody great rock, sort of adult fist-sized and actually I’m surprised it didn’t draw blood or do more damage to Davies. As it was he had chalk all embedded in his hair and was really crying (he doesn’t often cry). Poor Julie was stuck holding onto Honey’s reins with Scarlett on the pony while Jack refused to come over to her and when asked to say sorry to Davies just gave a really attitudey and sulky ‘so-rry!’. Davies did recover and we went off to mix the feed etc. Jack stayed near the car and Maisie disappeared into the tack room, she’d also been not at all happy for the whole walk – maybe they were not happy about Julie giving so much attention to Davies and Scarlett, or them riding on ‘their’ pony, or maybe they just didn’t like not having D and S’s attention like they normally do. Scarlett did go and talk to Jack (I’ve not checked with her but I assume to go and tell him off, she was furious with him!) and Julie had a proper chat with him too but didn’t illicit any proper apology or explanation from him.

Julie was mortified and very apologetic but hopefully the seriousness of it – a very deliberate act from a five and a half year old who should appreciate the consequences of throwing a heavy object at someone’s head – will be enough to Jack to learn some sort of lesson from it however Julie and Chris choose to deal with it. I think he was shocked, possibly more by just how hurt and upset Davies was than anything else. We talked about it on the way home and I explained to Davies that it was likely attention seeking behaviour as Jack has always idolised him and seems to have struggled with wanting more attention from Davies the last few times we’ve seen them. It’s to Davies’ credit that he is prepared to have some empathy for Jack is feeling and has neither ever retaliated or shunned Jack really. I’m proud of him and hope that this changes things a bit.

We had to pop into town on the way home to visit the bank but managed to get parking spaces right outside both banks (one to withdraw money, the other to pay it into) so D and S could wait in the car. Then home for lunch. We watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (new version) and then had to pop out to the butchers to collect the rest of yesterday’s order. Scarlett and I were in baking moods and Davies was up for suggesting and sampling duties so he Charlie and the Chocolate factory X boxed while we made brownies – two lots, one with and one without nuts – and chocolate chip rock cakes. Scarlett sat and DS’d next to me laptopping while everything baked, Davies took it upon himself to check the progress of the brownies, take them out of the oven and put the rock cakes in bless him, and then I made their dinner.

Quick turnaround and get changed was required after dinner for Badgers and Ady arrived home with seconds to spare to come with us. We had to take 2lt plastic bottles in today and they made wormeries with alternate sand and earth layers, labelled with their names ready for air holes, worms and leaves to be added at home. They also made edible wormeries using coco-pops for soil, rice crispies for sand and fizzy jelly worms all in a paper cup which they also brought home :). Scarlett is now a fully paid up Badger and should get her uniform next week for that picture I know Liza is waiting for :).

Ady and I sat in the car and chatted, which is far nicer than him previously being home with Scarlett while I sat in the dark on my own. In the summer we’ll be able to walk along the beach for an hour which will be lovely. 🙂 Then home for some marvelling at some viewmaster reels which had arrived today from ebay. We’ve had a viewmaster for years, bought from ebay way back when Davies was into Peter Pan and we got one complete with a Peter Pan reel. Ady had found some wild birds reels on ebay for 50p so we’ve been oohing and ahhing at those tonight, sort of following on from some of the stuff we saw at the Booth museum last weekend. Funny how stuff slots into place isn’t it.

Bedtimes story of more Penguin who wanted to find out, leaving just the very last chaper for tomorrow night which we’ll follow with The Cat Who Wanted to Go Home which has already been selected by coin toss as the next title for us. Tomorrow I’m working all day and am slightly staggered to realise means it’s Thursday again already!

I was woken at about 7am this morning by the sound of Davies and Scarlett playing in Davies’ room. Although they went downstairs soon after (with Davies popping his head in the room to tell me he’d feed the cat when he got downstairs, bless him :)) I was wide awake so I pulled the curtains and read some of my book. When I was a child my bedroom was fairly big but had two single beds in it for much of my childhood which rather restricted the layout options so my bed was under the two windows in the room (it was on the corner of two outside walls), one small and one large with my head board directly under the smaller window. This was before the days of double glazing and the room was quite damp and cold and in the mornings would often have puddles of condensation on the window sills and damp nets clinging to the misted windows. Laying in bed with a book took me right back to the mornings I used to wake really early, pull the curtains and lie in bed reading a book in the cold morning light with the smell of those damp nets, waiting for someone else in the house to get up too before I got out of bed. There is something so indulgent feeling about being in bed, in daylight, with curtains open, reading not sleeping :).

Anyway I did get up fairly soon afterwards, we had breakfast, let the chickens out, hung out washing and went over to pick my Mum up before heading over to The Flying Fortress soft play. We went there quite often when it first opened but haven’t been for a year or so as it is not a cheap day out by any means. Mum paid £13 for us to get in and they are *very* strict about not bringing your own food and drink in which means to justify the entrance charge you sort of need to buy their food and drink really if you plan being there more than an hour or so. Maybe we were spoilt by the crappy but cheap Fun Junction where it was only £6 to get in and food was equally cheap but I certainly couldn’t afford to go there very often. They have spent money on things like go karts and trampolines but the rest of the place had a rather tired and grubby air about it with the sofas all stained and worn looking and the inevitable Soft Play aroma of feet and nappies clinging to the place.

Davies and Scarlett had a great time though, dashing off to play, whizzing up and down slides and things and having a go on the trampolines and go karts. Davies cried once because I said he couldn’t have chips *and* crisps for his lunch and Scarlett had a real moment when her time was up on the trampoline – both of which were surprisingly out of nowhere events and not really like them at all (they are not normally unreasonable and both of them were over these things) but other than that it was great. I made the most of my Mum having paid a whole pound for me being there and went on all the slides twice too, although the climb to the top of the big ones is so energetic I did have to pause at the top to get my breath back :oops:. Mum and I drank tea and coffee and chatted generally and specifically about Home Ed, our planned move and rather perenially whether I think she should leave my dad or not :roll:. I do love my parents lots but am frequently very frustrated by their inability to be either happy themselves or happy for other people who are happy (myself included) and feel I spent enough of my childhood and teenage years playing marriage guidance counsellor (albeit one with a very emotional interest in the whole business) and find either of them on their own even more wearying company than them together as inevitably the conversation soon turns to whichever one I am with slagging off the other one in a script I could recite from memory myself I’ve heard it so often. It’s like Eastenders really, the characters don’t seem to change, the venue is the same and you could miss it for ten years, come back and still find nothing has really moved on despite frequent dramas. Anyway…

We came home via Mick The Butcher where Davies proudly handed over his picture to Mick and was much thanked and told he will put it up on the wall. Mum came in too and was probably quite astounded at the level of conversation between Davies, Scarlett and Mick, and then in true Balamory style a community police officer popped in too (I think she actually did want to speak to Mick on ‘other business’ but waited til we’d left) so they chatted to her as well. About half the meat I wanted hadn’t arrived on his delivery yet so I left my list and will call back in the morning, with him putting what I took today on a tab and telling me to pay for it all tomorrow – felt like a right proper housewife from the 70s :lol:. We also talked about the whole Free Range chicken thing and he said he can get me one whole one for tomorrow but won’t be doing breasts til April. Sure enough the next two supermarkets I tried also didn’t have any FR but aislefulls of battery farmed but I did find five packs of free range in the Co Op so snatched up the whole stock and have enough to keep us going for a while :). We popped home to collect swimming stuff and then went to the pool via my parents house to collect my Dad too. As he finances swimming lessons I thought it would be good for him to witness them and also for the children to know that Granny and Grandad are interested in them and their pursuits.

It was a good lesson for them both, Scarlett had her hair plaited intricately all round her head which helped (she is still not at all convinced about the idea of a swimming cap) and halfway through Carolyn (the instructor) put armbands on her which seemed to make all the difference in allowing her to float on the water and concentrate on what her legs were doing rather than use all her energy in simply staying on the surface. Davies did really well on his back with one float, less well without – just like Helen mentioned about SB he is far better under the water than on it’s surface which makes back stroke rather more difficult. I’m always surprised that while she tried to call to each parent about how their child has done none of them ever stop to talk about their progress whereas we seem to linger for at least five minutes after each session just to go over it. She’d happily talk for longer too, I’m always the one walking away while she still talks because the children are starting to turn blue and shivering! But then the same is true at Beavers and Badgers actually when I always catch the eye of the organiser and ask ‘was he / she / they alright?’ before leaving. I guess that simply isn’t possible to do once children are at nursery or school so parents get out of the habit and while of course I trust D or S to feedback anything dramatic that’s happened it would feel very odd not to have at least that one brief moment of ‘handover’. Mum and Dad waited upstairs in the foyer while I got D and S changed and then we dropped them home before coming home for tea. After a hot lunch they both wanted crumpets for tea and ate four each followed by two yoghurts and a banana, so all that physical exercise had worked up appetites :). I got curry on for Ady and I, laid and lit a fire, got a bath run and the children were in their pjs and having the current story (we enjoyed the story of Plop, The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark so much I’ve got the full series of Jill Tomlinsons from work and we’ve kicked off with The Penguin Who Wanted to Find Out, which is leading on beautifully from The March of the Penguins that we watched recently) read to them when Ady arrived home :). He’s had an interesting and productive time away in London at a press day so came home with Stories From The Smoke ;), oh and a single red rose which is a new variety and he somehow managed to get intact all the way home on the train for me :). Ady and I have eaten curry, watched Hugh FW and drooled over our current dream home on the internet. Thanks to a phonecall from Julie offering the chance to go and walk their pony with them in the morning which D and S jumped at we have an early start rather than the lazy morning I had planned.

I managed to not get to bed til 1am and then not to sleep til gone 2am last night having been online chatting and then caught up in a book once I got to bed so I was very sleepy this morning. Unfortunately the children were not being very quiet once they got up so I got up in a bad mood and then had loads to do before guests arrived at 11am. Ady popped home to collect his overnight stuff and leave his car here as he is in London tonight for a press release thing with QVC tomorrow.

Then Caz, A and E arrived, the friends we met a few weeks ago and spent the day with at their house a while back. The four children fell straight back into play mode with the full delights of D’s Doctor Who collection, the rail of dressing up clothes and the many adventures to be had in our garden fully sampled and made full use of. It’s funny, I’ve always lamented not having a very good garden for children but actually seeing it through their eyes although we may not be able to have a trampline for lack of flat area or other garden play equipment the very fact that there are different elements and heights and walls to scramble over and piles of wood and tiles, paths and lawn, different places to hide and the way you can run all round the house seems to actually lend itself really well to all sorts of imaginative games for a group of children after all. So there was plenty of playing with sticks, hiding and generally getting the cockerel all riled up and crowing like crazy while Caz and I drank copious volumes of tea and chatted. They have fairly similar dreams to us of eventual lifeplans so I shared some of our recent exciting ideas and we chatted about that and home ed generally and parents attitudes towards different lifestyles until the children came in to tell us they were hungry.

They all wanted different lunches, from peanut butter sandwiches to a request for ‘scrambled egg, beans and toast’ all of which I was able to supply. There was one tricky moment when neither Davies or Scarlett were happy about E sitting at their table to eat his egg, beans and toast (and it really was a plate of food requiring a table) so I sent them both to their rooms and then went and visited them both to discuss it. Not at all sure what it was about and they’d both whipped the other one up by refusing I think and then both decided it was fine after all so came back into the room and were lovely again. Fortunately Caz found the whole thing hilarious as she had got the false impression that D and S were wonderful at all times (one of their cunning tricks they pull off for their first few meetings with people :lol:) so was relieved to discover they could act like, well children, I guess. The three boys then chose to watch The Simpsons Movie and Scarlett decided she wanted some attention from us so we did a puzzle with her, Caz and I upside down and with varying degrees of crapness on European Geography (map puzzle) before they had to head off for Italian lessons. It was a really nice few hours including a totally unprovoked offer of childcare (which I’ve not accepted but will certainly keep as a reserve option – the four children were delighted at the prospect), it’s funny how people seem to come into your life at certain times when you are both going to gain something from it – it feels like one such situation with this family :).

Davies and Scarlett played some X box together and then they both drew pictures for the butcher as we needed to do our monthly meat shop. Unfortunately the butchers was shut (not sure why, there was a note on the door but we didn’t bother getting out of the car to read it, I suppose it could have been a ‘back in five minutes’ note actually) so we drove on to Tescos. No FR chicken at all on the shelves although absolutely loads of the cheap stuff – Ady has noticed the same as he does the rounds of supermarkets for work market research and I wonder if it is FR stuff selling fast and first or whether supermarkets are not stocking it in hopes we’ll all give up on the whole idea and return to the cheap stuff instead which all seems to have massive offers and deals on it. Realised while we were there that we were cutting it very fine for getting back for dinner for the children before Beavers so got them Happy Meals each and dashed home for them to eat them before D got changed and we went round to drop him off.

Scarlett and I very companionably sat and played with DS and laptop while he was at Beavers with odd mini-chats inbetween before returning to collect him. The church where Beavers and Rainbows is held is having a church parade and children’s service on Sunday which they are really pushing hard with free cooked breakfast and ‘fun, fun, fun’ type stuff. This actually really offends me as I have real issues with the idea of recruitment drives for religion – surely the whole idea should stand on it’s own merit and not require clever marketing or gimmicks? I’m also very hesitant about the idea of making something that has such a clear message of it’s own if you only believe in it masked as something else. I will happily talk to D and S about religion, explain to them why people believe and what they believe in but when the whole thing takes on a sort of Happy Meal free gift type mentality I start to run the other way bloody quick. So that was a long way of saying that while I smiled at the elderly woman lurking in the foyer at both drop off and collection times saying ‘Hope to see you on Sunday’ in a pointed manner to us all we have no intention of attending!

Davies came out rather subdued as he hadn’t taken a yoghurt pot to make a bird feeder. I do loosely recall them calling out to us as we left last week about bringing one and then promptly forgetting (as did Davies) so he’d not been able to make one. Another rant there really about yes we should have remembered but we pay subs for the materials for activities and it probably wouldn’t have hurt for the organisers to have had a few spares in the event of boys not bringing them rather than just excluding them. Davies did say they were all playing games and just called up one by one to make their bird feeder so when he said he didn’t have a pot he just got to carry on playing as I was all set to march back in and rant but I used to hate that punishing and making an example of the child thing at school particularly when it was likely the parents fault so I’m buggered if I’ll let Davies carry the rap for something petty like that if he’s going to get upset by it!

Anyway, Davies and Scarlett got washed, teeth cleaned and pj’d, I ran the hoover round, lit a fire and bunged some jacket potatoes in the oven for my dinner and then we sat and finished the Naughty Little Sister book before they went to bed and I had a bath. I do miss Ady being away lots but it does seem to run smoother when they are being ‘helpful cos Mummy is on her own’ rather than ‘normal and bed avoidance cos Daddy is here too’. I’ve spent the evening filling in a form for work with suggestions on increasing issues of books, boosting membership to the library, selling more income generating services and so on to send to the big boss to assist with the Business Plan for next year. Tomorrow we’re spending the day with my Mum and then both my parents are coming to watch swimming lessons. And no doubt berate my further on my away-with-the -fairies slightly mental according to them plans for the future! 🙄

My Mum rang last night and officially invited us over there for lunch so over there for lunch we went. Lunch was very nice (my Mum does put on a good spread ;)) and Ady and the children had a nice time mostly sitting in the lounge with Ady watching the football on their sky sports packaged HD big screen with the children playing with toys they keep over there while I had a very long and wearying conversation with my parents about our future plans. 🙁

I ended up in tears once and there was much raised voices, making points in a very Clear Manner before finally a truce and some joking and looking on the internet at small holdings. I think my parents firmly believe I am either a cuckoo (as in not actually their daughter) or simply cuckoo (as in mental!) but I seem to be deviating ever further away from their ideas about what grown ups are supposed to be like and what priorities one is supposed to have and how success is supposed to be measured. They (mostly) listened to my outlining of our plans before trying to totally rubbish them and list all the many pitfalls, which started to sound rather like a conversation a friend of mine told me about when she chose her profession only to have people list all the negatives of it, which to her all sounded like wonderful positives actually. 😆

Anyway we won’t dwell on that except to say that somehow the past two years of Home Ed, doing all the camps where we live communally, camp for weeks in tents during the summer, have been living on very meagre amounts of money, adopted the make-do and mend mantra, bought clothes etc from charity shops and ebay, made things like jam, baking, bags out of old pairs of jeans, raised chickens and killed and eaten them, regularly have food Ady has hunted and prepared for dinner and generally have stepped outside of mainstream living in all sorts of ways seems to have utterly passed them by. My Dad is still utterly hung up on our debts and ‘failure’ there and doesn’t seem able to grasp that this is planning on the realisation of a dream rather than a reaction to a mistake. It did inspire an interesting conversation about just what constitutes success though and whether happiness is the be all and end all (well duh! as far as I’m concerned!)…

We came home for dinner, more board games, DSing and I spent some time playing a word game that someone on earlyyears linked to which Davies came and watched over my shoulder reading the odd word here and there. Although I’d planned on an early night for them somehow they both ended up staying up late to watch The Twins Who Share A Body with us about cojoined twins which was just too engrossing to send them away from really. Scarlett has been speculating on who she would like to share a body with and apparently I’m her only choice as she’s discounted everyone else. While this is of course flattering and very sweet I’m not at all sure she’s thought this through and will be most concerned if she starts talking about plans to go into medicine and surgery any time soon :lol:. Davies didn’t say much and while children do tend to accept such ideas much easier than adults I’m sure we will have discussion on the matter at some point in the next couple of days.

Tomorrow we have our new local HE friends coming over to play which we’re all looking forward to and Ady is away for the night again at a press release in London.

Which I got to in a very roundabout sort of way but have been having a quick explore on and am loving so far…. NB it’s crafty and home-makery so not for the non-muffiny among you 😉

Yesterday morning Davies and I went to the library first thing as there is currently an art work display there in the space Davies will be displaying in soon that is very good so I wanted to show it to him, also he needed to get an idea of how much space there was to display in so he has enough art work to fill it. The artist has used various materials including pencils, felt tips, ink, watercolours, pastels, oil pastels on paper, card, canvas and most strikingly some coloured foam which he’d created 3d pictures of Disney Pixar heros like The Incredibles, Toy Story and Nemo and then added pencil shading to give them depth. There were portraits of famous people and some animals including a very good Christopher Eccelston and an alsation dog.

We talked a bit about what he might want to display now he had a better idea of the space available and then went along to the art shop nearby to look at their supplies. Davies decided he’d like to use watercolours to recreate his library through the ages series on some watercolour paper and use a pen to draw round the detail cartoon stylee, so we bought three huge sheets of watercolour card and a nice pen then came home. I cut up the card with our guillotine contraction and Davies got out his pictures and drew out the first two with pencil ready to start painting. He is going to need some chivvying along with the whole thing I think and some managing to ensure he keeps the quality up as he starts with good intentions and then degenerates into speedy work rather than consistently good. This is the first time that I think he’s actively wanted to do something that is going to require a level of ‘work’ or times when it’s about the ends rather than the process and of course if he struggles or decides he doesn’t want to do it then we don’t need to but I know he will be really proud to see his work displayed and when it comes to putting it up will be far happier knowing it is his best efforts – tricky one for the autonomous, not labelling things as work, you should enjoy whatever you’re doing combined with the pushy mum, wants him to be proud and do his best! 😉

Scarlett was being tricky for most of the morning so her and I fell out about her getting dressed but I think half an hour with Daddy restored her equilibrium a bit and she was happy again by the time we got back. The rest of the morning is a bit of a blur but at about 1pm ish we headed out armed with our food shopping list for the month. But food shopping is pretty tedious at the best of times so I suggested we pop over to the Booth Museum as we were going to Sainsburys in Hove anyway. I only heard about the Booth museum recently from a friend and couldn’t believe there was something so close to us with such displays. We managed to park right outside for just £1 for 2 hours. The museum is really quite remarkable with literally floor to (very high) ceiling displays of stuffed birds and animals all the way round. Mostly smallish boxes with backdrops suitable to the bird displayed, through the middle of the museum is a series of displays including fossils, butterflies and moths, eggs and shells and finally at the very back is a load of skeletons of various creatures displayed together in groups. There were birds, reptiles, monkeys and primates, a single human, fish and sea creatures and things like lions and tigers. Fascinating stuff. We still had a bit of time on our parking ticket so we had a quick walk round the park oppposite.

I’d picked up a leaflet for the Brighton and Hove museums and we realised Hove museum was very nearby so we drove there for a visit too. Having been to Worthing museum a couple of weeks ago I’m quite determined to visit all the nearby places like that and have a list of places to go to this year (which I must blog actually). I remember us doing the same just before we left Manchester and having a very intense month of so of trying to get round all the places we’d been saying we ‘really must visit’ while we lived there when we knew we were leaving soon. Hove museum was good, we particularly liked the toys through the ages bit and the history of Hove with lots of information about film making with zoetropes and other early animation techniques. They have a basket / weaving art work exhibition there at the moment which I confess I struggled with not reaching out and touching as we walked round, it all looked so tactile, so Ady and I seemed to spend the whole time hissing ‘don’t touch!’ at D and S until we reached the bit where they were allowed to touch and had a go at weaving paper, scoobies, wool and rope through various things. There was another tricky moment when we looked at a sculpture of a naked woman who had stabbed herself and was pouring with blood (very powerful images) and the information described the art as depicting a woman who had been raped and upon gaining the promise of her husband and father to bring the rapist to justice / avenge in other ways had stabbed herself as she couldn’t deal with the shame. Ady and I both fumbled around trying to explain a little bit without full graphic detail in the middle of a fairly quiet museum with lots of other families and children bustling about to two children who know about the mechanics of sex for baby making but are probably not quite ready for the leap to rape being explained to them just yet. Fortunately there are softly gliding out drawers under lots of the exhibits with yet more smaller exhibits in them and they got distracted by those while we were still agonising over how to phrase things. Phew.

So having detoured quite dramatically from our food shopping we finally got to Sainsburys and armed with a child and a trolley each set about gathering food for the month. There was small drama in the shape of finding a Weeping Angel toy in the Doctor Who figures which Davies has been wanting for a while and me initially refusing to buy it as there was no particular reason, we are only just after Christmas and Scarlett would then want something too. I changed my mind when we found watercolour tubes of paint on special offer at half price as she has been wanting some of them since Christmas when I bought Davies tubes and her blocks much to her dismay. So he ended up with his Weeping Angel and she got some watercolours and I bought them both a £1.99 tool box to keep all their various art materials in.

The food shopping always seems to take an age, as does the loading onto the conveyor belt and packing up at the other end of two full trolley loads of shopping, not to mention the loading it into the car and finally at the other end unloading the car and putting it all away. I bloody hate it! Fortunately it doesn’t seem to take much longer to unload and put away shopping for one month as shopping for one week, how we used to shop and it is nice to pour a glass of wine once it’s all done and sit down knowing the cupboards are full and I don’t need to do it again for another whole month! The various bits for the children coupled with me being on a mission to lower their white bread consumption meant we spent a bit more than usual and we still need to go to the butchers but I’m really trying to get into feeding the children better so the extra cost is very justified. They both only eat white sliced bread, I’ve tried making breadmaker bread, buying brown or wholemeal all to no success and as they often have toast in the morning, sandwiches at lunchtime and quite often toast or bread and butter to go with their dinner too we get through nearly a loaf a day and I know it is full of crap. So we bought a selection of pittas (they will eat wholemeal pitta), tortilla wraps and lots of crackers to have with cheese as lunch alternatives. They also gave me a list of dinners they would like too so we are now stocked up with things to make them for dinner too, deviating from their usual requests of tinned food for every meal! (oh yes, Jamie Oliver would have a field day! ;)).

We watched Primeval which I’d not really sat and watched before, thought it was quite good actually although the ‘creatures’ are not as seamlessly animated in as I would have expected from primetime Saturday night tv somehow. Can’t quite get my head around it being the girl from S Club 7 in it either 😆 although I did get used to it being Billie in Doctor Who.

D and S went to bed, we had dinner and watched ‘Thank God you’re here’ which I’ve really been enjoying although some of the guests are really quite weak in that format, that somehow adds to my enjoyment :lol:. Then I fell asleep on the sofa so went up to bed early (for me) so went up to bed. I still haven’t totally shaken the cold I had over Christmas and was thinking yesterday that I don’t feel 100%, a busy day totally knocks me out and I really struggle to get up the morning – several actions I could take with regard to that really, just need to summon up the enthusiasm for any of them, meanwhile Ady has gone down with yet another cold which I’m sort of hoping still having traces of this one left will mean I’m immune to – frankly I’m fed up with my body being a snot factory, there are so many more interesting things I’d like to be doing with it! 😉

This morning Ady and the children have had a game fest with Kerplunk, snakes and ladders and Going Crackers (W&G -totally mental and random!) and we’re about to head over to my parents for lunch.

Work all day for me today. It was all fairly routine and normal aside from being in charge of Baby Rhyme Time. We used to do Storytime every week and Baby Rhyme Time every month but the changing of children going to school so much earlier (as in pre-school at 3) has altered the demand for the under 5s story time to less and the demand for the up to 18 months Rhyme time to more, so experimentally we are doing it fortnightly to see how it goes. We had about 12 babies and 12 adults last time and today I had 19 babies, 21 adults and 5 older siblings as it was an inset day locally with children off school. Which is actually quite daunting picking your way across a packed floor of mothers and babies in order to sit infront of them and sing songs for half an hour. I learnt a few things today for future reference:

1. I need to learn more songs. I managed to fill the whole half an hour by singing several songs twice and offering requests at the end. It would be good to have some slightly longer songs and be able to ring the changes a bit

2. Cleavage is less succesful when you are sitting cross legged on the floor doing the actions to incy wincy spider in a room full of possibly breastfeeding under 1s than in other locations in the library. I was wearing one of my nicest bras (black and red lace, present from A) but that was possibly something only people related to me need to know rather than all the mothers in Lancing 😆

3. I need to ensure I know all the words very well to I’m a little teapot, Miss Polly had a dolly and that we don’t lose count of how many ducks have gone swimming that day midway through the songs. Fortunately one of my greatest skills is coping well with cocking up by laughing, so I was able to make jokes about the different versions of I’m a little teapot (we had kettles boiling, seeing kettles, seeing teacups and all sorts), the difference in doctors coming back with bills if they were not NHS or yes they will, will, will if you are lucky enough to get continuence of care and how on earth we can be expected to raise the youth of today if we can’t count backwards from five and have people laughing with me instead. And we mixed up wheels on the bus with some really s l o w buses and some really fast ones too. 😆 Hey if I’m not going to get to be a stand up comedienne any time soon I can still milk my audience of milk drinkers! 😆

Ady had been home with the children in the morning and my Dad in the afternoon and all seemed to have gone well. I got home slighly after Ady and he supervised tidying up while I got their tea ready and micro managed Scarlett eating hers speedily ready to go out again for Rainbows. Davies stayed home with Ady and enjoyed a long bath.

Rainbows seemed to go without incident tonight. They played with the toys, made air drying clay hedgehogs with shaping the body, cutting the spines with scissors, pushing glass beads in for eyes and putting them on bits of card with their names on. Scarlett’s is here drying out. They had further play with the toys, followed by a circle of talking about nocturnal animals and a game called rabbits up, rabbits down which seemed fun for them all before they trooped into the smaller room for what I presume is called ‘circle time’ which involves sitting round in a circle with a Rainbows doll passed around and them only talking when they have the doll. There seems to be some sort of show and tell type arrangement to this with some of them bringing things from home to talk about and others boasting about their skiing holidays or upcomming trip to Disneyland. Scarlett is planning to take something next week. There was also some other game where they had to get into pairs and she was paired with a nice little girl who she bounced around with for a while. There was no nastiness tonight and she seemed to slot in just fine so that was good. I think she probably has the right mix of not giving a shit and being confident about herself to fit right in really. She thinks the circle stuff is ‘a bit silly’ and flatly refuses to announce herself as ‘Rainbow Scarlett’ in the circle or show any interest in learning the song about loving god and learning about the world but she says she likes the games and the making stuff. 🙂 She reckons she’s not ready to be left next week but maybe the week after although aside from telling her to shush at one point her and I had no interaction for the whole hour.

Home for a bath for Scarlett followed by them helping assemble pizza for mine and Ady’s tea and several chapters of MNLS, a documentary about tigers and bears and then bed for them and pizza, alcohol and Friday night tv for us :).

Davies and Scarlett love American Pie (and Vincent actually too), mostly thanks to Ali and I making them listen to the whole song while we sang along way back last summer (in the old house!) but we listened to it at the weekend and talked about what the song was about and answered Scarlett’s question about what whiskey was! 😯 Yes I know, if ever there was an area of that child’s education that I was fully confident I wouldn’t leave any gaps in it was alcoholic beveredges – how can she have gotten to five years old without knowing what whiskey is? I am truly ashamed of myself 😆 So today it came on the radio and she came running in the lounge to tell me ‘Miracle Pie’ was on and then proceeded to sing it – all correct apart from it being ‘Bye bye, a miracle pie’, which actually is far nicer and goes with the whole day the music died thing much better, so hence forth as well as singing ‘let it never be said the romans are dead’ along to Kaiser Chiefs Ruby we will also sing ‘Bye bye a miracle pie’ to Don McLean. So there! 😆

This morning was a slow start for me, Davies was progressing further with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Scarlett was DSing, we had an early lunch and watched some more Horrible Histories. Infact we watched even more later while they had tea and they love them so much I’ve splashed out and bought them the full set off ebay for £13.99 which I thought was an excellent price. So I can take the library one back and they can watch their own. They’re really loving them and learning loads of little factoids from them which I’m hearing coming up in their games and other points of reference, it’s totally their sort of thing :).

I’d planned a meet up at Highdown Gardens for this afternoon although I had no idea who was coming aside from Julie, Jack and Maisie and another localish to them woman F with her two smaller children J and S. Infact that was all that came and as J had just woken up in the car and was very grumpy and didn’t get any cheerier F turned back about five minutes into the walk leaving just Julie and I. We’ve spoken a few times on the phone in the last couple of weeks but not actually seen each other for a while so had a good catch up. She was fairly hormonal and ranty (22 weeks :)) and quite irrational about a few things but able to be gently ribbed about them and coaxed into a better mood. I couldn’t have wished for a better SIL really, we have enough in common to be really quite close friends and enough different to keep it interesting.

Jack and Maisie were being menaces though, she has been saying lots lately that she’s struggling with them over various things and they were very odd and annoying today. Davies was in a fairly mature mood and was getting fairly pissed off with them as they do this very irritating pushing and pulling him about thing and rarely seem to communicate verbally. He tolerated it very patiently and with great maturity and I was proud of him but felt very sympathetic towards him over it. They all found a birds wing skeleton complete with feather stems etc. so set about finding as much of the rest of the skeleton as they could.

Davies and Scarlett were really into it and tried to reassemble what they’d found and were speculating on what bird it might have been, how it may have died and so on while J and M made silly faces, ran around with sticks and were just slightly strange. At one point I complemented Maisie on her haircut (she’s had it cut short again after a year or so of growing it longer and Julie was saying how happy M is with it and so on, really making it sound like she has had long chats with her about it, as indeed I do with Scarlett about her hair) only to get a blank look before she pulled a silly face and ran off waving her arms about without actually answering me. I really struggle with that :(. Ooh this is ranty and I didn’t mean it to be really, it was fine, a nice couple of hours it’s just that every so often there is such a disparity between Scarlett and Jack and Maisie that I do wonder about them. Anyway…

We walked on, spotting snowdrops and crocuses and things all starting to flower and it was lovely and mild with a beautiful blue sky and all felt very spring like. Davies commented that he wished he’d brought his watercolours and pad so he could capture some of it so I suggested he take the camera and take some photos. We then talked about how to take a series of shots to stitch together to make a panoramic view too and then he went off to take some macro shots of flowers. Finally he looked around for a suitable prop, assembled the other three children on a bench and set up a self timer and then tried to get them to pose for arty shots tilting the camera and telling them to pose as if they were falling.

There was some rock clambering, some tree climbing and Davies made a boat with a leaf and a small stone passenger and sent it down the small series of waterfalls before we were ready to head for home. On the way we’d listened to Michael Buble and talked about ‘kissing a fool’ (because he thought she really loved him but she didn’t so he was a fool and she had been kissing him so she’d been kissing a fool), Come Fly With Me (did she go flying? why did he want her to go flying? were they really on honeymoon? couldn’t he fly on his own?) and Crazy Little thing called love (did Queen write it? did they mind Michael singing it? Had they asked him to sing it?). On the way back I couldn’t quite face such levels of lyric dissection so we listened to Peter and The Wolf instead.

When we got home Davies got the watercolours out straight away and started to paint one of the pictures he’d taken employing all sorts of techinques including dabbing paint off with kitchen roll, colour washing and so on. Scarlett painted Mars, Earth and a pink space blob type thing and I had a go with some pastels before deciding actually they really are very much like chalk and therefore I cannot touch them at all – my skin has gone all goosebumply just thinking about them and their dust (shudder). Then the children had tea and watched more Horrible Histories.

Ady got home and I dashed off to Sainsburys for emergency supplies like milk and came home to read a couple of My Naughty Little Sister stories. I know I read them as a child but hadn’t remembered specific stories until tonight when MNLS throws a china doll out of the window which I distinctly recall really upsetting me as a child and I was transported straight back with the very first sentence of the story and the one where MNLS and Bad Harry eat all the birthday party trifle too. The children love them and are really liking the idea of half an hour of reading aloud to them without pictures each night before bed so I can start looking out for more sophisicated stories now which is great, what with having a whole library at my disposal and all ;).

Tomorrow is a working day for me including doing Baby Rhyme Time first thing so I’ll be spending 11-1130am with ten babies and their parents singing about the Wheels on the bus – think of me! Ady is here in the morning, Dad in the afternoon and then Scarlett has Rainbows again in the evening so it’s going to be a long day all round. Just as well we have a weekend to recover afterwards!

I went to Shoreham library this morning as I had my annual review and Wendy, the colleague doing it had to cover the enquiry desk there for the first hour so I went and joined her at that library and worked on the counter there for the first hour. There is a really different vibe at Shoreham – obviously it’s a different building, with different staff and different borrowers but it is also the area office with a large basement where lots of important county library staff are based in offices and there is just a very different feel to the place than at Lancing. I met a 91 year old man who could have told me he was 71 and I’d have believed him and still thought he looked good on it, who was returning a joke book and recommending both the book as crammed with good one liners and laughter generally as a good life philosophy – he got no argument from me on that one!

I’d been asked to think in advance of what has gone well over the last year and what has gone less well so I’d jotted a few things down and worked out that if I’d worked 37 hours (full time at the library, still shockingly part time in retail terms ;)) then I’ve only actually been there the equivalent of 3 months, which made me feel very good about what I have learnt and got to grips with in a very procedure-heavy work environment. I didn’t actually do much of the disclosing what I thought had been good or bad as Wendy bombarded me with her list of what she thinks I’ve done well at; integrating very well with the team, completing the training which has been mostly outside of my normal working hours and they appreciate the efforts I’d made to attend it all having to find extra childcare, bieng willing to do extra events and travel around when required, being very competant both at procedures and the general working practises aswell as competant and confident generally, apparently they regularly consider me the ‘number two’ on duty :). The things which have gone less well according to Wendy are that I’ve had little or no time working with senior staff, only working with most of my colleagues once a fortnight – none of which are within my control of course. I had a couple to add – that I struggle with not knowing what I’m doing and can sometimes try and do things without being utterly sure about how to and sometimes cock them up through trying, which she discounted and said she’d never noticed and actually she thinks I am very good at asking for help when I need it. I also agreed with the initial concerns voiced to me at my interview about struggling with both the pace and culture change from retail to libraries and the fact I have been at management level in previous jobs for years and would be going back to lowly assistant level again in libaries. I confessed that I had indeed struggled with both those issues but she decided that was another strength in that I’d overcome it and recognised it and put that in the things that have gone well box aswell. So erm, yay me I guess! :). I know it is *just* a libaray assistant job and it is *just* 11 hours a week and it’s not what I want to do when I grow up but coming to it some 6 odd years after I last had a ‘proper’ job with no experience in that area and having to juggle it (sometimes very precariously) with the rest of my life I guess I am quite proud of what I’ve pulled off with it this last year and it was nice not to get the praise particularly but to know it is recognised and appreciated :). She summarised that I am a real asset to the library and that the managements’ only issue with me is a frustration that I am not able to work more hours as they can see much more potential and hope as and when I am able to work more I will do so and develop my role further. 🙂

We then got right off track chatted about her job a lot, she got all upset and tried not to cry when she was saying how rubbish she feels about some of the changes that have happened in the library service this last year (top level redundancies, staffing changes, different business focus and pressures etc.) so we deviated a bit with her doing lots of ‘between you and me’ and ‘to go no further than this room’ type stuff. Bet she does that to all the library assistants 😉 :lol:. We over ran slightly and will have to finish off the review another time but it was all good and fluffy and stuff so I am really pleased that if we stay round here I have a career path to tread again if I want to and if we leave I think I have found a good niche for my skills and available hours for now in libraries with the possibility of higher level career things moving higher up. A years good service and a glowing reference off that back of that should assist with finding another job if we do move away too :).

I came home and although Lucy and The Rs had intended heading off fairly soon after I got home Scarlett and Rebecca were deep in a game with baby dolls (so Rebecca in her element and Scarlett probably having used her entire baby doll game quota for the next six weeks 😆 she clearly needed the balance after all that testosterone / Harry Potter / muddy stick games of yesterday :lol:), Richard fell asleep and Davies was playing x box, getting Lucy and I – well more Lucy actually, I’m rubbish at gaming – to help with a tricky bit on his Charlie and The Chocolate Factory game while adding snippets to our conversation so disproving the idea that kids on games get locked into some electronic world that you can’t penetrate them through ;). So Lucy and I (with added bits from Davies) managed a nice long chat which was great, I don’t remember the last time we’ve done that. Oh we were also interupted a bit when Scarlett brought me a birds and their eggs book and we looked at the eggs (actual size and colour) on the inside covers and talked a bit about sixes of eggs in relation to birds, why some are coloured, incubation periods, biggest and smallest eggs and stuff.

Lucy and The Rs left, I found a walkthrough for Davies for his game and then left him working through it a bit more and Scarlett DSing while I sorted their tea out. They ate, got changed for Badgers and Ady arrived just in time to come with us so I got to sit and chat to him in the car instead of sitting in the cold all alone for an hour. 🙂 He had his laptop with him as he’d come straight from work so we tried to see if we could pick up a wireless signal so I could bring mine in future to occupy me while it’s dark and tricky to read a book by the car interior light. This involved driving across the carpark which meant we ended up under the window and could see in to the Badgers. I drove Ady mad by watching the children and trying to decide what they were doing and saying and thinking instead of ignoring them but we did firm up plans and plotting a bit more which feels good :). I went in to collect D and S and checked that S is still doing ok and will pay for her and get her uniform next week :). They got their timetable for the term, they are doing Wild Badger and there is some really cool activities on there which they’re both going to really enjoy including making a wormery next week, looking at animals we eat, food chains, plants and how they grow and stuff like that :).

Today’s out of nowhere learnings including double negatives and why ‘not done nothing’ is the same as ‘have done something’, why bananas are bent and a monologue from Davies about how ‘school makes children different’. Oh and a very jazzed up version of Walking in a Winter Wonderland from Scarlett on the way home (oh we’re walking, yes we’re walking, we’re walking in winter, oh yeah it’s winter, we’re walking and talking, talking and walking, walking in a winter wonderland, a won derrrrr laaaaaanddddd!) with added jazz hands, which brings us rather nicely to tomorrows activity – can anyone guess? 😆

At 11am the doorbell rang, which could have been either of the visitors we were expecting at 11am but it was the estate agent. I showed him round the house, he exclaimed ‘whoa, oh wow!’ when entering Davies’ room which I thought was surprise at the size (last time someone came round to value the place they were amazed at how big the upstairs bedrooms are as apparently usually loft conversions produce small rooms) but actually it was the dalek! 😆 We had a brief chat and I explained that him coming to give us an idea of price was simply step one in a very long drawn out master plan but he left having given me an idea of price which he confirmed later on by letter. Which was good news :).

I’d made some cheese scones just before he arrived so Davies and Scarlett were tending to those while he was here, which later struck me probably appeared slighly odd actually, having school age children home (he asked their ages having wondered if they were twins and been told no (Scarlett bounced around saying ‘no, we’re brothers and sisters!!!’ just to confirm that for him :lol:) and then a bit later asked just how old they were) during school hours and getting them to manage baking in the kitchen 😆

Our second guests arrived shortly afterwards – Liza and Andrew. I’d always felt Davies and Andrew *should* get on as they have similar interests but they never seemed to make it onto each others radars really at MM so I’d invited them over to see if without anyone else around they did indeed get on. And because I like Liza and missed drinking tea and chatting with her now we don’t get to do that at MM each week :). The children disappeared off upstairs straight away and then asked if they could play outside, put their shoes on and did just that – for about 2 hours! Without coats, in January! It’s been a lovely sunny day here today and they totally made the most of it. There was plenty of getting muddy, leaping, clambering, scrambling, stick waving (in a non violent fashion of course ;)) and generally being kids while Liza and I did indeed sit and drink tea and chat. It was great :). They came indoors eventually and there was some DSing and some Xboxing went on in various combinations with Davies and Scarlett having goes on some of Andrew’s DS games, Scarlett monopolizing Liza’s attention to play some Dolphin game and general electronic bonding. Eventually when Liza looked in danger of falling asleep on the sofa and even declined another cup of tea (I never thought I’d see the day when I out -tea’d Liza, but she did then say ‘oh well if you’re having one yourself’ and managed another cup :)) they headed off.

Davies and Scarlett did some drawing and some hiding drawings for each other to find until it was time to get changed and go to swimming. Ady was supposed to be home to come with us but didn’t make it and then he was supposed to meet us at the pool to watch the lesson but he didn’t quite make that either. He was waiting in the foyer for us when we came out though. Davies did well, he’s doing more slow and steady progress now than the weeks of nothing followed by bursts of progress but that’s all good :). Scarlett struggled a bit today as she still keeps her mouth open and she was just trying too hard, putting loads of physical effort in and not really getting anywhere bless her. The instructor, Carolyn and I talked about it after the lesson and she suggested using arm bands next week just so she can actually focus on the whole kicking her legs stuff and being on her front or her back as at the moment she is struggling with the floats and the noodle and focussing on that rather than learning anything about the strokes. She also suggested a swimming hat or at the very least tightly plaited and pinned to her head hairstyles as Scarlett just has so much hair it seems to get in the way even though I tie it back it floats all around her and is probably quite heavy. There are a couple of children in the group who probably aren’t really classifiable as non swimmers anymore and she said she was conscious that she has about 3 ability levels within the group and doesn’t want to do a disservice to any of them, but it is a non-swimmers beginners group. I asked what I should be practising with D and S if I brought them swimming and got a few ideas so I might try and do that (in our free time, ha!) but the main thing she wanted to get across was that it should be fun, they should enjoy it and be water confident, none of which are remotely a problem for either of them, so that’s good :).

I took them both to the showers to strip down, shower and hair wash and where I’d been planning to swap cars with Ady so he could take them home and I could go straight to Southwick library I managed to get both my sleeves sopping wet in their showers and then kneel in a wet patch in the changing room so I took my car home on my own (they both went with Ady in his), nipped in, got changed and headed straight back out again.

The author Pauline Rowson was giving an author talk at the library. It was fairly well attended with about 50 people there I guess including several from our Lancing reading group and a few library staff from around the area. She talked for about 30 minutes, read the prologue from her latest book, offered signed copies at very cheap prices and then took questions. I spent some time chatting to Pat, who is a retired granny with a very interesting and enviable lifestyle of lunching, reading, theatre going and plenty of holidays with odd interspersions of looking after her grandsons, Mike and Rose the married couple from book group and Brenda who usually runs our Lancing group. She has asked me to run next months book group as she will be on holiday so the others have promised not to heckle me too much and I’ve threatened clipboards, proper reading group ideas for thought type questions and maybe a quiz at the end :lol:. I slipped away about 845pm when a few other people did as Ady was cooking and would be waiting for me to get home to have his dinner. Plus as I was driving I couldn’t have another glass of wine!

So a long, busy, but good and positive day really :). More of those please!