One word? When seven would do…

Doctor Who exhibition at Earl’s Court. Think we’ll be heading up there for that one!

Book Planets tickets for planetarium all done 🙂 going to see this show

Book Legoland for Tuesday as done as I can get it, I’ve spoken to someone who has promised someone else will ring me back today. They did sound in utter chaos being the first day back in the office after the winter break. ETA Yay all done, booked and reference number ready to quote in the morning :).

Make eye test appointments for D and S
all done and done for me and Ady too. I’m convinced Ady shouldn’t be driving without glasses and I’ve not had an eye test for ages so should really get my contact lens prescription checked.
Change dentists appointments (again) as we won’t be around done – and in a fit of efficiency have emailed all the appointment dates to Ady at work like a proper secretary!

Sort out costumes for D and S for weekend
started. Scarlett has a t shirt with very sparkly writing drying and I’m about to do Davies’ top next. ETA also done, both now have t shirts customised to show the alliterative superheroes they want to be 🙂
Get feather duster and dust star light, have just glanced up at it and realised it is filthy!thinking I could just draw someone else’s attention to that one 😉

Davies is quite taken with the idea of alliteration. It’s been covered in Relax Max which we finished yesterday. So when we were discussing today about costumes for a Superheroes party we’re going to next weekend he was very keen to be someone alliterative with ‘Davies’. I think he’s settled on Dynamic Davies and logo for his t shirt has been planned :). Scarlett wants to be ‘Super Sparkly Scarlett’ which should also be easy enough :lol:.

Yesterday morning I worked which was uneventful and then came home at lunchtime. Ady had boiled up a chicken carcass to make a divine soup which we scoffed with oven warmed rolls . The threatened bad weather was showing no signs of being present so we decided to head out for the afternoon. On our list of local NT properties to visit was Petworth House, which is pretty nearby and has a massive list of events, many of which look really good so I was keen to have a visit there to check it out and see how long it takes to get to. The house is a walk through the gardens to get to which are currently easily the biggest carpet of daffodils I’ve ever seen, all varieties, big and small with colours from palest yellow to the most vibrant orange all nodding softly in the breeze. Photos didn’t capture the essence of it so you’ll have to trust me on it’s loveliness :).

And here’s Davies, trying to count the rings on the tree trunk :).

It did start to rain as we walked through the gardens so after a brief look at the lake we walked back to the house for a look inside. I hadn’t realised but the house closes for the winter and yesterday was actually the day it reopened this year so it was fully staffed by very enthusiastic volunteers. Unfortunately the one on the door was keener to sell us guidebooks or audio tours than to give away information about the free resources so we didn’t realise there was a sort of junior tracker trail type activity to be done for the children until we left. Never mind, we can do that another time.

The house is only partially open but the rooms available to walk through are amazing. I’m sure I very vaguely recall going there as a child although whether it was a school trip or one with my parents I’m not sure and the chances are either would have been conducted in such as way as to turn off any interest in a child anyway 🙄 History was something I sometimes really enjoyed and sometimes had no interest at all in, depending far more on the teacher and how they delivered it than the actual period being talked about. I think it needs to be relevant, alive and somehow believable for children, even more so in an age where fantasy and imagination are all around us in films, tv and video games. What seems to get Davies interested in is the age of stuff, numbers mean enough to him for him to be able to work out how many lifetimes ago stuff happened and Scarlett enjoys picturing real people living to bring it alive for her. Petworth House managed to do both for them.

There is an amazing area with a very wide staircase (we stood on it in a row and then the end person ran cross to the other end and then the next end person ran to that end to work out that six people could walk up or down it side by side) which has a completely hand painted wall, ceiling and landing. The figures are life sized and very intricate and detailed so we sat on the stairs and looked up for a bit imagining the people who painted it and how they managed. Scarlett thought it would have been a nice house to have friends over to play in and we talked about how children were viewed very differently back then and would have only been permitted in certain areas and had a nanny or governess with them rather than their parents. I think Davies was doing the maths of how we have slept 24 people in our tiny house therefore his mental list of just how many friends, and who they might be, would fit into that house for post birthday party sleepover weekends :lol:.

There was a ballroom with amazingly intact black and white tiled floor, a room with entirely handcarved wooden walls depicting fruit, flowers, cherubs and busts of real people including the children. In that room Davies talked to the tour guide about the age of the house and the sculptures and their restoration. We learnt that very few sculptures have their original noses as they seem to be a very weak and vulnerable point so we spent the rest of the time there checking out the suddenly obviously visible to us nose repairs :lol:. There was one head which was from 400BC which was just staggering, it wouldn’t have meant anything to Scarlett but such numbers are starting to make sense to Davies.

Then we looked at the chapel which is the oldest part of the house dating back some 800 years and in there we discovered the tracker trail which had things to spot and some coloured paddles to hold up to the light to see how stained glass windows work and colour mixing too. That took us out of the main house so we walked across to the smaller house where servants quarters and the kitchens were. That was an excellent part of the house where loads of original features remained and the kitchens had been mocked up with fake food and so on to really recreate how it would have been. The house was used for evacuees during the war and had a very sophisicated set up of cold room for pastry making, ice house for making ice creams from fancy moulds and cold food storage, spit for roasting, washing up area using river water and steam and room just for making jams and preserves. The volunteers in there were very friendly and talked to us for ages, asking if Davies and Scarlett are twins (I get that a lot – I seem to be saying ‘no he’s short and she’s tall’ more and more often these days :roll:). We left there and came out of the house altogether for a quick look round Petworth village, which is very pretty, and a chocolate stop at the newsagents. We walked back through the kitchens and the ground to get back to the carpark.

We had some interesting conversations in the car about parents and couples and what your responsibility is to your partner and your children. We talked about whether you should stay married to someone forever even if you didn’t love them any more, polygamy and bigamy and whether we thought it should be illegal to be married to more than one person at a time or not. Whether couples who split up still love each other anymore (Scarlett likes to think they do ‘just a little bit’) and why I think it’s ok to break up with your husband or wife but not ok to shirk your responsibilities as a parent. They have both, Scarlett particularly been asking lots about Ady’s mother lately (for those who are not aware she split up with Ady’s dad and did a crap job of looking after her three children to the point that they all ended up in care. She remarried (she’d left Ady’s Dad for someone else) and had another child. Ady’s dad also remarried and had two more children. Ady had no contact with either parent or siblings for years having only a brief meet up with his father before he died about 10 years ago. His sister also passed away 7 years ago and he now has a relationship with his brother. His mother lives fairly locally but Ady has no desire to see her and I am adamant that Davies and Scarlett do not see her, although Ady’s brother sees her so Davies and Scarlett’s cousins have a relationship with their grandmother which I am sure will make for ever more interesting political conversations as the children all get older.) so I once again talked about why Daddy doesn’t see her and why I don’t want Davies and Scarlett to see her.

We got a McDs for the children on the way home, partially because it was past teatime and they were hungry and partially for the Spiderwick Chronicles toys they are giving away with Happy Meals atm.

At home we finished off the end of Relax Max and then started The Famous Five. Davies and Scarlett are now completely convinced by the idea of books without illustrations and books that we don’t finish in one setting and really enjoy a few chapters of a book (although they always beg for just one more). I remember reading Famous Five to myself so it’s not something I think I’ve ever heard aloud. It’s funny to recall with such clarity my own imagined pictures in my head of what George, Julian, Dick and Anne look like – despite some 20 odd years passing I think I still have them pictured exactly the same. I must get Davies to draw for me how he’s imagining them and see how closely our ideas match.

Today was a ‘depending on the weather’ day. We have a list of places to go but all are rather more suitable for a nice day, or at the very least one not following almost a fortnight of solid rain making ground everywhere soggy, muddy and slippery (some of us are not very sure footed and fed up of having muddy knees from falling over :lol:). Since telling me about seeing a trailer for it Davies has been very keen to see Horton Hears a Who. As the day had dawned grey and drizzly and a quick google found it showing at Brighton Marina we decided to head over there and see that today. We drove over and parked up and nipped into Asda to buy popcorn, sweets and fizzy drinks before going to the cinema. On the way over Davies and Scarlett had been speculating about how of our friends might be there today. I think Filmeducation showings with seemingly at least one family we know being at all of our most recent trips to the cinema have given them a false idea that the cinema is this little bubble which not only shows films but has a special guest star appearance from friends each time too 😆 I assured them that the chances of there being anyone we knew there was pretty small.

Which meant that when the trailers were on and I became aware that some people sitting on the next aisle were waving frantically to us and were Liam and Lily and their Dad (who we’d only been talking about yesterday as good examples of a couple who split up and were with other partners but still were very good parents to Liam and Lily) Davies and Scarlett had a real air of ‘foolish mother, we did tell her someone would be here!’ about them :lol:.

I thought the film was very good. I do love Doctor Seuss though and I though they got his message acrosss beautifully with scenes like a kangeroo going mad about children using their imagination, questionning the norm and not adhering to her belief that if you can’t see, hear, feel or touch something then it doesn’t exist! I think Cat in the Hat was a dreadful version of a Seuss classic and Grinch wasn’t much better but despite having Jim Carey (again) doing Horton’s voice this was charmingly like the book and took a couple of phrases from Horton Hatches An Egg too which I liked :). Ady thought it was ‘alright’ (not enough action) but the children and I really enjoyed it and predictably Davies came home and reeled off a few pages of Horton inspired drawings :).

I cooked roast chicken for dinner, we tried and failed to watch National Treasure which didn’t hold any of us so we gave up on it. I’m sure it was going to get better but it was just too slow a start. So we found an Attenborough programme about birds which was very interesting instead.

I read some more Famous Five and the children went off to bed, probably to dream about shipwrecks, islands, Timmy the dog and lashings of ginger beer :).

This morning was all rather like being at the hub of some sort of international dispatch centre. We took our first delivery at 845am which was two vango camping mats bought for a steal on ebay and having a five pound ebay voucher redeemed against as well. We are *so* ready for camping this summer (watch it piss with rain from April to September ;)). Next came the post bringing our water rates and finally the Citylink man came (and wasn’t he a laugh a minute, another of those delivery men who masquerade as delivery men while actually being comedians in their other lives. He brought not only my new phone but also alerted me to the parcel on the doorstep that the postman had failed to bother knocking to give me, which contained Davies and Scarlett’s new waterproof over trousers (ready for that camping in the rain trip or three we’ll be taking this summer!).

So we spent a happy morning playing with the self inflating camping mats, trying on waterproof trousers and ogling my new phone. Scarlett wants my old one so we just need to track down a spare SIM card for her. She won’t actually be using it as a phone you understand, she just likes the idea of being able to press buttons on it but it is totally unusable without a SIM. I did a spot of baking too, some rice crispie cakes which I ‘Easter’d up’ with some mini eggs to make them nest-like and some cheese scones. I do like to take home baking containing as many dairy items as possible when visiting the homes of Crap Vegan friends :lol:.

We also had a visit from David and Jeannette (thank you neighbours) bearing further Easter gifts for Davies and Scarlett. They brought over chocolate based items yesterday (yes, a whole bloody week before Jesus was even feeling a bit fretful about his future, let alone nearing the cross) just after I got home from work so Ady answered the door to recieve those. Today they arrived after the vango self inflating camping mats but before the postman left the waterproof trousers on the doorstep and the phone arrived (I feel it’s important to get the order of the happenings correct ;)). They were bearing a Ben 10 activity book for Davies and a Dress Up Sparkle Princess activity book for Scarlett, gratefully recieved indeed. David did make a point of gesturing towards Jeannette and saying ‘these are from JEANNETTE and I’ which makes me speculate that yesterdays chocolate offerings were from her when she was being ANNETTE although Ady doesn’t recall who she was being referred to as yesterday. I’m thining of getting a white board and some dry wipe markers beside the front door so we can keep track. My other theory is that they are bombarding Davies and Scarlett with gifts until we let them in the house. For this I am considering a sort of graded system whereby points will be awarded for quality of Easter gift, originality of outfit (today ‘Jeannette’ was sporting a funky pink beret type hat which probably qualified for admittance into the hall but not as far as the lounge) and how far we let her come when she was being Annette in comparison to Jeannette. I can’t decide whether the two personalities should be afforded equal rights or whether we should have a favourite?

We drove over to Ali’s listening to a very scratched cd of Mika and the soundtrack to High School Musical. The scratchingness amused all three of us and we enjoyed listening to Soaring Flying with odd leaps and truncated lyrics :lol:. Davies did a fine job of adding a sort of megamix stylee to Mika’s Billy Brown which is a charming little ditty about a man who has a wife and children, falls in love with another man, leaves his lover and family behind and meets a ‘girlie’. Scarlett was keen to ascertain precisely what his sexuality was and whether ‘girlie’ meant girl or woman. I think she was by this point questioning his relationship with his dog too :lol:.

We had a nice time at Ali’s, managing some chatter, some steadfast refusal to watch a Christmas My Little Pony film, feeling rather offended and repelled by the most huge piece of pink plastic I think I might ever have seen which even had magnetically controlled expansion happening 😯 and enjoying Ali making a ‘squirrel’ (those at Helmsley might recall the squirrel we made with leftover pizza dough and pepperoni, thus called in homage to Leandra’s pronunciation of the word ‘swirl’ :)) with puff pastry and an array of vegetabley ingredients. The children all seemed to rub along well enough together (another friend and her two girls were there too) and Scarlett and E got on well insect hunting the garden for a while. Davies did very well considering the age and gender and pinkness of his peers :). We left when a visit to the P.A.R.K was mooted on the basis that the play equipment would be wet, Scarlett would have a strop about me not pushing her on the swings, they would likely be giddy walking in a group of 5 children along a busy road when pack mentality kicked in and we needed to get home for Rainbows anyway. I hate parks. There, I’ve said it! May the Lord of Good Mothers hereby strike me down for crimes against the chipped bark and bouncy tarmac flooring, nasty metal slide with marker pen graffiti and broken bottles and syringes that congregate in all such play areas. I didn’t much like them when I was a child myself let alone when my arse got too big to go down a slide myself!

Davies and Scarlett accepted it with minimal fuss and we headed for home. We stopped at Argos on the way to collect a pair of cheap binoculars that Ady had reserved for ornithological excursions and then came home. Scarlett had a bath as she was very grubby and had matted hair still in plaits from swimming on Tuesday that needed attention before Rainbows. Ady arrived home and sorted out tea for the children (Tarly had poached, freshly laid eggs and toast :)) while I detangled Tarly’s hair and sewed badges on her Rainbows top.

Davies stayed home with Ady and had a bath himself while I took Tarly to Rainbows. Grace, the little girl who has been trying very hard to make friends with Tarly since almost day one there finally got something back from Scarlett today which was good :). They were decorating little cupcakes with chocolate eggs, little fluffy chicks and icing and they had a mini egg hunt where they all got a little plastic egg to bring home. Davies adores those fluffy little chicks you can get everywhere at this time of year and has been after one for weeks since we saw some in Hobbycraft. Scarlett decorated three cakes and put two chicks on all of them which she very loudly informed everyone in the room was ‘one for me and one for my brother Davies. My brother is called Davies and he comes to this hall for Beavers. You see that picture of Noah’s Ark on the wall over there? There, THERE (pointing to the wall for anyone daring not to show interest), he drew the biggest of the two cows on that ark. His name’s Davies and he’s my brother!’ 😆 She finished her cake decorating, put them on the side, went to wash her hands and then came over to tell me how proud she was of her decorating and of getting chicks for Davies too. Then she went off to tell at least 2 other grown ups and 4 other Rainbows how proud she was of herself too :).

In the breaks between actvities there is a toy box with various things like skipping ropes and hula hoops that the Rainbows can play with and Scarlett always gets this oversized purple tennis ball and brings it to me to play catch with. Today she did so and then Grace came over to ask if she could play too and then another little girl, Niamh also came over so we set up a three way catch game which I oversaw rather than joined in with :). I was also a source of some fascination for various of the Rainbows tonight as I was wearing jeans with a big rip in the knee which they wanted to know more about :lol:.

Scarlett took a little first aid kit that Ady had brought in for her to show at circle time, despite me suggetsing things like how she went to the cinema yesterday or is planning to go to Legoland next week. All the other girls talk about school, skiiing trips in the half term, sleepovers with friends and Littlest Pet Shop birthday presents. Scarlett takes a small plastic box with a green cross on the front loaded with plasters, bandages and safety scissors! 😆 She went round at the end and wished everyone a Happy Easter and she joined in with all the singing and dancing too and chattered all the way home about Grace :). Davies was delighted with his chicks and she was delighted with his reaction :).

On the short walk home Scarlett and I talked about why there are only girls and Rainbows and only boys at Beavers. She was very anti this idea and adamant that boys and girls should be treated the same and outraged at the idea that they hadn’t been historically. I told her the word ‘sexism’ and how scouts used to be about knots and building fires which guides would have been about sewing and baking. It’s interesting to see a mini feminist emerging with all the rage against the system and inequalities almost primed with a banner ready to march already!

I spent some time fiddling with my phone and then talked to Julie for ages too before reading three stories to Davies and Scarlett before bedtime.

Maureen from across the road has popped a Thank You card through the door for Davies and Scarlett’s pictures of her dog and the flowers Ady and Davies took over there. 🙂 I am resisting all urges to send one back thanking her for the thankyou card 😆

Today I have worked. This involves wearing clothes without snot, tears, embellishments by Scarlett or in any way reminiscent of motherhood or home education. It does of course still involve cleavage ;). And a badge, proclaiming my employment at WSCC LIBRARIES. I have had various name badges over the years – my first was age 5 on my first day at school when we all wore a name badge so the teacher could learn our names. There were five Nicolas in my class. At primary school I had a round green badge to denote my ‘house’ which was Highdown (there were four houses all names after local places which are high up.) At secondary school I had a CHOIR badge which I wore with quite some pride actually. What I never got to wear was a PREFECT badge which at the time I recall being quite upset by, I sort of assumed I’d definitely be a prefect and my best friend Vicky was one and it really irked me. I had a name badge at B&Q, my first one said ‘NICOLA DAVIES CHECKOUT OPERATOR’ which my Dad wrote the number 3 on in biro as he’d seen my contract of employment which said I was a checkout operator level three (which basically meant part time, Checkout operator 2 meant full time and Checkout Operator 1 meant full time with supervisory powers, and it amused him). Then B&Q went all equal rights and everyone had to wear their own jeans and B&Q emblazoned sweatshirts and these pinnies (they liked to call them aprons but we always called them pinnies) and all our name badges were first name only with no job description. Mine said ‘NIC’, I was with Ady by then and his said ‘LADY’ because I wrote an L on it in black biro. Ah the japes we’ve had with name badges over the years ;).

Then I moved away from name badges for a while and had business cards instead – ‘Nicola Davies, After Sales Advisor’, ‘Nicola Davies, Showroom Manager’, ‘Nicola Davies, Recruitment Consultant’. Then back to badges but I just had one that said ‘Manager’ at Clinton Cards and ‘Team Leader’ at Bhs. At Dreamieland I had business cards and name badges for both roles so ones that said ‘Nicola Goddard, Marketing and PR Manager’ and ones that said ‘Nicola Goddard, Personnel Manager’ depending on which meeting (at Starbucks) I was attending 😆 I quite like my library one :).

So anyway, labelling aside ;), it was a nice day at work, fairly quiet but with mostly nice borrowers coming in and plenty of workmate banter. Ady and the children popped in on their way back from the cinema because they’d left the house without a front door key. The film was very good apparently and it was lovely for them to see Ros and co there – Davies was saying he hadn’t seen Adam ‘all year!’ so there was much ribbing of Ady from my workmates asking him for autographs and to pose with them for photos – I think he was glad to leave :lol:.

Ady is the perfect housekeeper and so I got home to a tidy house, clean children and a cup of tea waiting for me which was nice. I went through the rather large pile of library stock languishing in the corner of the lounge and hoiked out all the books and films we are either not going to watch or need to watch / read before Saturday when I take them back which included Ballet Shoes. I know it was on telly at Christmas and loads of people seemed to watch it and rave about it so I’d borrowed it from work and then it had sat in the corner for a couple of weeks. So I stuck it on while the children had their tea and we all sort of watched it. I thought it was quite good, excellent cast and good story but it wasn’t fast paced enough to hold the children who sort of dipped in and out of it. Definitely not one they’d bother to watch again.

I then popped out as we needed chicken breast for dinner (bagels) but couldn’t find any free range at Sainsburys or Co op. There was loads of battery chicken all on special offer knockdown prices – and seemingly not being bought. I couldn’t be bothered to drive to another supermarket only to discover they didn’t have any free range either so we rethought dinner and I came home. I’d offered bedtime stories but Davies and Scarlett were in the middle of watching a Simpsons episode and then snuggled up and watched Jamie at home with me (bizarre viewing choices always win through when the alternative is bedtime! :lol:) but I enjoyed the cuddles having missed them today more than usual.

We’ve been to Paradise Park today with Lucy and the Rs. I like Paradise Park, it’s been a bit of a staple day out venue for us for several years now and is actually owned by a distant relative of mine so I always feel very loyal to my family going there and supporting them :lol:. We went there a lot when Davies was in the full throes of his dinosaur interest and as the season ticket pass is so reasonable (under £40 and gets in 2 adults and 4 children) we have had one for the last 3 years, last year sharing one with Lucy. I’d decided not to renew it this year as we have bought NT membership and signed up to monthly RSPB subs too and have sort of moved on to other interests. Also as we’re not sure whether we’ll still be living here in a year it seemed shortsighted to spend money on something we may not realise full use of so I thought we’d give it a miss this year. But Lucy has a season ticket so it was an ideal chance to go over and have a day there cheaply :).

We met, only slightly after the arranged time and had a rather cursory walk through the main Planet Earth area, past the dinosaurs and into the cactus gardens with the children barely stopping to glance left or right. We walked through the gardens and Davies did stop to point out the miniature Bodiam Castle and Long Man of Wilmington to me but otherwise they headed for the pirate ship area. We had a good 15 minutes or so of sitting there with them playing before they were ready to move on to the indoor amusements area. We were in that space for a good couple of hours and they made full use of the soft play bits, games machines (they had 4 x 20p tokens and a 20p piece each, the 20pence went in the grabber keep trying til you win a prize sweetie machine, I think Tarly spent all her tokens on the spider stamp game which is a bit like a dance mat and I’ve no idea what Davies used his on but they both came back with fistfuls of tokens worth a penny each in the shop). Lucy and I sat and chatted and ate lunch.

It was really nice, the children haven’t really seen each other for a while and they all seemed to enjoy each others company, Lucy and I got to properly chat which we’ve not managed for ages and although it was a nice day I was reassured that D and S won’t miss having Paradise Park on our list of places to attend for a while, which was good :).

We came home to find two more eggs from the bantams which one of the hens was sitting on. I took them away and infact Scarlett had them for her tea but I am going to read up on letting them hatch as she clearly wants to although I am worried the nights are still way too cold to leave chicks out there and I don’t want to be bringing them inside for weeks if we are going to let them hatch their own, I need to be more learned about the whole thing before we let them start hatching. Tom (Ady’s mate) has an incubator he can lend us and he is keen to have some of our eggs to hatch in return for some of his bantams (another, different rare breed to ours) eggs so we might do that as I want a couple more hens and I think we’d sell roosters quite easily as they are purebred rare breeds so worth having six or so chicks hatch. I think we’ve had 12 eggs in all in the last week which is way more than we’d been led to expect we would get from just 2 hens and is still very exciting to lift the lid of the house and see them nestled there in the straw :).

We had various conversations in the car about various things most of which escape me now. Davies put LSOH on when we got home but then I started playing the evil SHIFT as linked to by Alison and they came to join me with that. They had tea and then it was time for Badgers. Ady arrived home in time to come too and my Mum ended up coming down to sit in the car with us too and catch up which was nice if slighly surreal to all be sitting in the dark in a car in a car park chatting and making plans for Good Friday :lol:.

Home for bed for the children after a few more pages of Relax Max which is all about poetry and they both finally seem to have gone to sleep at a more sensible time tonight. They are off with Ady to a fimeducation screening of The Spiderwick Chronicles tomorrow while I’m off to work.

I have been supremely slack today in both my parenting and educational provision. Fortunately I’ve done lots of spade work in the last few years so can afford to take the odd day off here and there ;).

I was up for various things to do with them but they were far too busy playing :lol:. I did do various muffiny things instead though including loads of washing, making three quiches as some cream was on it’s last date to be used and I had all the other ingredients so I made pastry and custard and cooked bacon and they have all been frozen ready to pull out later in the month for dinners. Then I made pancakes for lunch with bantams eggs which are coming at an average of one day between the pair of them :).

We watched The Bear, well actually we didn’t watch The Bear really. We put it on, all sat and watched the first bit and then I wandered off and then they got distracted by playing but they did come back to it and seemed to take most of it in. I read my book and did some needlefelting.

I had planned to watch films, read to them, maybe do some craft or art or something but I would have actually been disturbing them from their serious business of playing which seems rather criminal to me so I left them to get on with it. Which isn’t to say I didn’t talk to them lots because there were plenty of ‘what does this mean?’ questions and various observations of things and other chatting, just no organised stuff.

Instead they played with the toy animals, did some drawing, watched Little Shop of Horror twice, did ‘exercising’, acted out LSOH with a geomag Audrey2 they built and then took photos of it, morphed their game into the Simpsons, watched me needle felting and had a go, looked at books from Knowsley and Longleat Safari books that they found on the bookcase from long, long ago and spent ages tidying up Davies’ bedroom.

It was swimming lessons tonight which went well for them both, then home for tea which they ate watching Maggie and the Ferocious Beast. Scarlett took ages to go to sleep and Davies was still chattering in his bed at nearly 11pm again :roll:.

Tonight I was supposed to be going to bed early but got sucked into online chatting which has been really nice and had me giggling away at the screen but kept me up Very Late Indeed :oops:.

Another day, another walk, another alliterative capitalised blog title :lol:.

Today was the monthly Home Ed walk at Pulborough Brooks and with Ady off it was planned to be a nice first time there for him. Chris was supposed to be bring Jack and Maisie and it would have been a chance for him to meet Caz (who has Davies and Scarlett once a fortnight) too. Unfortunately the weather had other ideas.

We woke to no damage to our house or garden (although the chicken run was blown halfway across the garden and their food bin was rolling around the patio – they were still secure in their house and very reticient about coming out although we did get another egg today :)) but many of our neighbours had fence panels down or other damage. The weather was predicted to continue through the day and Julie rang to say Chris wouldn’t be going. I assumed no one else would be either but as we have membership and were going in Ady’s car it wouldn’t cost us anything and we might just get an hour or so of dry weather to walk round in so it was worth driving over to see. So we packed our picnic and did just that.

We got there at about 11am and were met with shocked glances from the volunteers when we said we were going to walk round rather than there to use the cafe like every other car in the carpark. Although they’d been open for nearly 2 hours the door to the reserve had to be unlocked for us as we were the first (and indeed only) people going out there today :lol:. The children were given a spotter sheet each to find things as we went. Scarlett got a cartoony one with things like ‘bird flying’ ‘bird singing’ ‘flowers’ to spot, Davies had a proper photographed one of various wetlands birds to find.

We started the walk in dry albeit windy and soggy underfoot conditions and had a good 20 minutes or so of walking and spotting. The ponds were all very full and quite murky with mud so there was very little to be seen. Also very few tracks or evidence of animals was around either, having all been washed away.

We did find a couple of trees that looked like they might well have just come down though with very fresh wood exposed and roots that looked newly disturbed:

We spent some time admiring some cows and talking about our own ‘one day maybe’ cow owning plans and then happened across the footpath being closed while the farmer herded the cattle across into another field so stood and admired that awhile:

It then started to rain so we headed for the nearest hide and sat in there for a while until the worst of the rain passed over. Very noisy as it has a tin roof but also very snug – reminded me of camping actually, feeling cosy yet in the middle of it – and the ground reminded all of us of last year’s Kessingland with it’s moist squadginess 🙄

We’d left our picnic in the car which then seemed really silly as my flask of tea and bags of sandwiches would have been very welcome.

We set off again on the rest of the circuit but the rain really had started to set in. Everyone remained cheery and we did stop at a couple of the other hides but we were getting really quite wet and it was cold too with a blustery wind pelting at us. Consequently we didn’t spot many of Davies’ birds but Scarlett ticked off all but one of her’s (bush with berries on it). It had stopped raining briefly on the last leg of the walk and we took a slightly slower pace and noted the way the water was running down the slopes and making use of the trenches the volunteers had dug out. Ady and Davies had been talking about dams this weekend for some reason (I think it was while walking alongside the Thames) so we built a small one to see if we could alter the route of the water running down and see how it built up behind a dam.

There was not a tremendous volume of dam-building material around (mostly been washed away :lol:) but we managed this effort:

which did indeed stem the flow and perfectly illustrate the point of dams.

and only one of us fell over while walking on slippy bits of path to collect stones 😉

Then we were dam-busters and returned the flow to normal.

Ady went to hand the pens and spotter sheets back into the visitor centre while I helped D and S out of their wellies and wet jeans and into the car and he came to join us with ‘well done’ packs from the visitor centre each for them. Not sure whether this was for attempting the spotter sheets or simply for going out there at all but they were crammed with posters, stickers, back issues of the RSPB magazine and other bird ID sheets, so they were very pleased with them :).

We ate our lunch in the car and then drove home via a different, more scenic route ending with a drive along the seafront to check out the waves. It was a very high tide and the waves were most impressive but as the children had no trousers on they had to view it from the car. There were several people down there taking photos though, the sea at it’s most angry and powerful is an amazing sight, Ady and I often used to walk down to the beach in extreme weather before we had the children who would almost certainly feel the need to explore just that bit too closely and get swept away!

We came home and were greeted by Maureen our lovely neighbour (the one who knows all the gossip but only has the one single personality and has never called the police to keep her husband from getting in) to say thank you for some flowers Ady had left on their doorstep last week. She said she was sorry she’d not said thanks before but they’d had their dog, Ali, put to sleep last week and been very upset about it and not really left the house :(. Davies and Scarlett, who adored Ali were very upset and came in the house and made her a picture each of her and Ali. Davies asked for the letters to write ‘Maureen’ and did a lovely picture, Scarlett wrote her name and did a great picture of Ali too. Ady planted up a container with various QVC-shown plants (we have soooo many plants and containers here atm) and him and Davies went over to give the pictures and plants to Maureen :). I made hot chocolate for the children and they sat playing with the toy animals for ages. Then Davies went off to help Ady in the kitchen and Scarlett was looking at her poster of birds. She was writing down the names of them and then bringing the bit of paper over to me to read and surprised me by converting lots of the lower case letters on the poster into uppercase letters to write in (she always writes upper case) and knowing a fair few of the sounds of letters too. I’d happened upon the first set of Bob books on the bookcase last week so knew where they were and grabbed the first book to show her. She already knew the sounds M A T and S and managed to read the first couple of pages fairly easily, which I think surprised us both. She then got bored at the repetitiveness and didn’t want to do anymore, at which point Davies rejoined us and read ‘Sam sat on Mat’ without sounding it out first at all. Either my Dad is sneakily giving them literacy lessons or something is sinking in all by itself 😆 I like the fact that they seem to be at the same stage as it is an incentive for Scarlett to be as good as Davies and for Davies to ensure he remains ahead of Scarlett – friendly sibling rivalry could well provide the key to reading here I think! 😆

Then it was time for Davies to go to Beavers so Ady walked him round there while Scarlett and I looked at pictures of Big Ben on the laptop, then she got engrossed in playing a game with the animals again, Ady was cooking dinner and I went round to collect Davies. I was met by the Beaver Leader with a broad grin telling me it had been a much better session due to ‘a certain person not being here’. Davies was bursting to tell me the news which was that Matthew – the one who had hurt him last week, had been met at the door with his Mummy at the start of Beavers to say that he was not welcome to come anymore :shock:. It had not been done infront of the Beavers but she had made an annoucement to the rest of the boys about it and apparently they were all thrilled, he really has terrorised that group. Davies said he was very happy for Beavers that Matthew wouldn’t be coming any more but he did feel a bit sad and sorry for Matthew. I have to admit that despite having violent feelings towards him myself last week (mother lion!) I felt pretty sad about it too. He is just a little six year old boy and to be excluded from something at such a young age must surely set you up for a pretty crap start in life really. Davies and I talked about how knowing you are loved makes you feel worthy of being loved and therefore act like someone who deserves to be loved and the opposite of that being someone who is treated badly and therefore feels like that’s what they are worth and acts accordingly. All very simplistic and not at all the root or reason in every case but I know Davies has learnt something pretty deep from the whole Matthew experience which no doubt he will continue to process and remember. Poor child 🙁

We had a lovely roast dinner while watching a zoo programme followed by the Simpsons. Both of them are struggling to get to sleep having had a couple of messed up bedtimes and Davies was still awake at gone 11pm tonight when Ady went up to bed (I think he’s gone to sleep now). The wind has died down but it is still pouring with rain here with loads more forecast over the next couple of days. Tomorrow we have nothing planned in the day, Ady is back to work so I think Davies and Scarlett and I will have a nice quiet day at home, watch some films and generally recover from the weekend.

Down to breakfast nice and early again for me and the children – Ady had already long gone to QVC. This time we breakfasted rather lighter than yesterday and felt much better for it. We were back in the room and all packed up just after 9am so we had a bit of a rest (read Davies and Scarlett did drawing, I laid on the bed and read my book) until the Movieum opened at 10am. We got given a flyer for this yesterday, a brand new attraction just opened at County Hall but I was adamant I wanted to go to the Tate Modern and then we were worn out by the time we got back after our epic walk so I’d decided to take D and S there this morning while we waited for Ady to come back and collect us.

They are clearly still learning as it is very new and I’ve just emailed them as looking at the website it appears we should have had entry to an animation art bit too which looks very fab indeed and precisely the sort of thing Davies would adore. I can’t decide if it hasn’t moved over from Castle Street yet (which would appear to be the case from their website) or if the people staffing the Movieum were simply lacking in directing us to it. As it happens we ran out of time anyway and I think we got great value just in the Movieum but it would be well worth another trip to see the Animation bit. We’re building up quite a list of places we want to visit in London so we really must be more organised next time we go up and plan our itinery better. Davies suggested one of ‘your schedules Mumma!’ cheeky child! 😉

Anyway what we did see was fab :). We walked down the rather impressive corridors of County Hall to get to the entrance. It’s an amazing building really housing a couple of hotels, various museums and galleries, the Aquarium and a McDonalds 😆

The main hall takes you on a journey through filmmaking including set design, props, make up, costumes, special effects, sound effects, editing to cinema with all sorts of dressed sets to illustrate it. There were some fab props including the Tardis and a dalek;

Characters from Star Wars (mean nothing to me ;)), the mini from Italian Job, an underground scene:

The special effects bit includes various video footage about special effects including some stuff from Little Shop of Horrors and various methods used for creating the effects. The next section was showing backdrops with people filmed infront and had a flying scene (like Superman over seas and mountains etc.) which you could pose infront of in a flying stance which the camera filmed you doing and projected the whole thing onto a big screen above you. Great fun (if all but impossible to get a picture of!).

Next was sound effects where a short film was running on a loop with a drum machine style pad for you to put the sound effects to it with. Scarlett liked that lots – hitting something with drum sticks and getting a variety of noises from skidding brakes to gunfire to explosions!

Next you walked down more corridors all lined with giant film props with each little room leading off having different displays. There were a couple of rooms with genre types in including period dramas and horror. The horror had a severed head which looked like the eyes might blink at any time and some shrouded figures which were actually quite terrifying. None of us wanted to be the last to walk out of the room 😆

There were also rooms with loads of stills, a film room with a big screen showing interviews with directors and producers, a room with props you could have your photo taken with (jaws, giant throne, spaceship etc. but at a fiver a time we declined :)). There was an IT room set up with webcams and various animation software which we played in for a while, a room with oversized props and giant telly showing clips of tv shows made into big screen films (Are you being served was on when we were in there):

There was an area with remote control daleks set against a backdrop of Big Ben on fire on a small screen showing how some special effects are done on mini-scale :

Great excitement when we saw Wallace and Gromit displays 🙂

It was a really good museum, particularly for Davies and Scarlett who adore films and are interested in the process of creating them. I’d definitely go there again and Ady is keen to see it too. Davies was just so ‘Davies’ as we walked out saying to me ‘I really need to do some drawing now, my fingers are itching’ he was clearly inspired and desperate to commit it to paper :).

Ady rang to say he was on his way back from QVC which left Davies, Scarlett and I just enough time to walk over Westminster Bridge to get closer to Big Ben. Scarlett has been really entranced with it this weekend (actually I remember Davies was when we visited that bit of London a couple of years ago) and was desperate to get as close as she could to it and wanted to touch it. I told her touching it wouldn’t be a possibility but we did get as close as you can. She’s intrigued by it being the bell that is actually called Big Ben rather than the clock tower and having wikipedia’d and learnt a bit more about it tonight I have some more stuff to tell her about in the morning :).

Given we’d managed to be in London for a whole weekend and the only money I’d spent was the admission to the Movieum I was able to say yes to the request for ice creams which gained me title of ‘Best Mummy in the world’ – a title I am not sure should be bestowed for shelling out just £3.60 on dairy produce but was happy to accept (it didn’t come with a sash or flowers or even a tiara unfortunately)

As an aside I am always slightly fascinated at looking at the people in the background of photos which contain strangers. I remember going on a ride at Blackpool pleasure beach years ago and buying the photo of the ride which had another couple in the same car as us and them buying it too and feeling odd that forever after they would have a picture of us and we’d have one of them even though we didn’t know them. I always wonder about the people in the background of my photos and the fact that I will be in the background of other people’s photos.

We met back up with Ady and gathered all our stuff from the hotel room before heading for home. We drove through London and past QVC to show the children. We got home about 4pm and had a quiet few hours with the children spending ages playing upstairs in Davies’ room (with Doctor Who stuff, clearly inspired by what they’d seen today) before coming down to eat toast and watch Little Shop of Horrors before bed. One of the hens had laid another egg (bringing grand total to 7 :)) and we’ve enjoyed having a bath you can lie down in and after Lost and Willy’s Wonky Chocolate Factory I am now very ready for my east/west facing bed :).

I slept really badly and woke just after 630am when Davies clambered into bed with me (Ady had just left for QVC) and then tossed and turned and muttered for ages. I have this theory about needing to sleep with your body in the right direction – eg at home my bed is east/west, Davies’ is the same but Tarly’s is north/south. I know in the same was as I have to sleep on the same side of the bed wherever I am and even if Ady isn’t in it too I don’t sleep as well if I’m not east/west. This is backed up by Tarly sleeping just fine here in the hotel room (where all 3 beds are north/south) but me and Davies struggling. It also explains why when she comes into our bed occassionally she feels the need to sleep across it 😆 Or it could all just be bollocks, but I’ve harped on about it for enough years to practically make it a scientifically true phenomena ;).

So Davies, Scarlett and I headed down to breakfast at about 845am. The hotel, which has about 800 rooms is fully booked so breakfast was very busy. We were shown to a table and then had to queue up to help ourselves. As I neither felt comfortable leaving D and S out of sight at a table for 15 minutes or so while I queued, nor would be able to manage to carry all 3 breakfasts myself anyway they came with me. We got all our cooked breakfast stuff and sat down to eat. Then they went up to choose cereal, then I did, then we got more to drink. I never normally eat breakfast and infact can’t face food for a good 2 hours until after I’ve woken up really, although I do require at least 4 pints of tea :lol:. Mindful of the fact lunch might be a long way off and breakfast was on Ady’s company though I felt obliged to eat my fill, which was a mistake I won’t be repeating tomorrow morning as it left me feeling distinctly odd for the rest of the day really.

Breakfast finished we came back up to the room and checked to see if Ady’s appearance was online yet – it wasn’t – and to find the right route to the Tate Modern. Just as we were about to leave to start walking Ady rang to say he was back and parking the car so we walked down to meet him and then walked alongside the Thames to the Tate Modern. It was the one thing I really wanted to do this weekend, having never been there before and never taken Davies to a ‘proper’ art gallery. It was *very* hot, I was feeling quite peaky and Scarlett was not as entranced as I would have hoped but Davies really enjoyed it. It was interesting to sit and view the art and get the children’s ideas of what they thought it meant, how it made them feel and so on. Some of the artists work they were slightly familiar with eg Picasso and some of the artists they had heard of or were aware of eg Jackson Pollock. I think the main thing was the scale of the art which was overwhelming. We spent a fair bit of time downstairs in the Turbine where the current exhibition is the rather quirky (as if any modern art isn’t ;)) crack the entire length of the actual concrete floor. I am probably of the school of thinking that art should speak to you itself and if it needs explaining then it is either a bit crap or a bit wanky in it’s ego but I could ‘get’ the crack although I thought it would have been more ‘poetic’ if it had stretched from a tiny fault to a widening chasm by the end of the floor.

We had a drink in the cafe and a look round the rest of the galleries (although we didn’t view everything) and then watched a film crew setting up at the Millenium footbridge. There was a helicopter and police boat going up and down a small stretch of the Thames for the entire time we walked along it which was intreresting for the children who have seen Thames scenes on so many things from Doctor Who to Primeval. No idea what the crew were filming for but we were the last people off the millenium bridge before they closed it for filming as we crossed the Thames to walk back along the other side.

We’d started to half heartedly look for somewhere to get lunch but never really quite managed it as we walked along past various landmarks including St Pauls which we popped in for a quick peek at

and past Trafalgar Square, Downing Street, the horse guards, a protest/ demonstration about justice in Zimbabwee which meant Davies and Scarlett got a proper introduction to what demos are about. Finally we were at Big Ben / Parliament with still no lunch and it had started to rain so Ady popped into Tesco and got a few bits and we went back to the hotel to eat. I checked my phone which has a built in pedometer to discover we’d walked 7.2 miles :shock – so no wonder we were all pretty worn out! Davies and Scarlett did amazingly well for such a trek, and plenty of it was at brisk walking speed too. We ate and then I had a nice long bath (I say nice, it was narrow and not at all deep as hotel baths so often are but the soak was nice just the same), Ady and Scarlett had a bath followed by a shower, Davies spent ages on the BBC website creating a Doctor Who comic and learning what ‘scene’ ‘prop’ and ‘dialogue’ mean. We lazed around for a couple of hours before heading back out again for a walk around the block which takes in Big Ben and London Eye.


Back to the hotel where as the restuarant was so packed we arranged to bring our food up to the room and eventually around 10pm D and S finally fell asleep.

Tomorrow Ady is off early again to QVC and me and the children are planning breakfast followed by a trip to the which has just opened and looks very ‘us’. So far we haven’t actually spent a penny so I’m quite happy to pay for us to visit something so very suitable looking :). Then hopefully by careful coordination we will manage to have Ady back to collect us so we can exit the hotel room by midday without me and the children having to tote all our bags round with us. Precision timing will be key :lol:.

But using Ady’s horrid clunky laptop cos the wireless prepayment thing was clever and wouldn’t let me use it on my laptop after we#d signed in on Ady’s. So expect lots of / instead of . # instead of ‘ and othe general mistypes as his keyboard is slightly different to mine 🙄

I had a good day at work today; I did Rhymetime which went well and two of the mums stayed back specifically to thank me which was nice :). I then finished my latest display in the junior library of a Very Hungry Caterpillar design which I am really pleased with. I have photos but they’re on my laptop so I’ll pop them in this post once I’ve flickr’d them.

Julie was looking after Davies and Scarlett this morning and they had a nice time with Jack and Maisie. My Dad took over at lunchtime and Ady was home mid-afternoon. Not at all sure what they all got up to as for once the fall out of tidying had all been done before I got home :).

Great excitement as two more eggs were there in the hen house today which means both hens are definitely laying :). Common sense tells me they can’t not lay but it is still pretty damn amazing to go out there and find the eggs waiting for you 🙂 First baby steps on our road to self-sufficiency ;).

I got home just after 5pm and Davies, Scarlett and I got all our stuff for the weekend together and packed up, I brushed Tarly’s hair and she got ready for Rainbows. She decided to wear her Susumama rainbow trousers with her Rainbows top which looked very cute :). Tonight she was enrolled. First they did tonight’s activity which was making pizza from slices of bread spread with ketchup and cheese then topped with all sorts of things. Tarly rather surprised me by putting a bit of everything on hers including things like peppers and mushrooms and she tried them all when it was cooked :shock:.

The other parents arrived at 630, as did Ady and Davies and the new starters all said their promise and were welcomed into Rainbows. Again I have pics I will add in later 🙂 Very cute.

We popped home to collect the car and lock the house up before heading up here to London. The journey was smooth but busy and took longer than SatNav expected. The carpark is a few minutes walk away from the hotel too so by the time we’d finally got sorted and settled it was already nearly 11pm. We got pizza to bring back to the room from the hotel restuarant and everyone else is asleep (and at least two of them are snoring :lol:).

Yes, today we have been mostly listening to the OST of Little Shop of Horrors which is the current favourite film here again (seems to be a very cyclic thing here, favourite films) and having listened to Scarlett’s megamix of ‘I’m a mean green mother from outer space, now SPIT!’ I thought I’d get the soundtrack from work and let them listen to it and learn some of the words. 🙂 So we’ve listened to it in the house, taken it out in the car with us and then brought it back into the house again.

This morning was a bit of a late start for me then we had some communal putting away of clean laundry which was threatening to fall from it’s rather precarious tower in the playroom before I offered to cook bantams eggs for all in whatever form they chose. They both went for pancakes so I made up some batter (D and S came in to break open an egg each) and 3 eggs made the perfect batter for 2 small pancakes each. It was easily the yellow-est batter I have ever seen 🙂

I came over a bit Pioneer Woman and took pics of the pancakes cooking too 🙂

and the toppings (butter and maple syrup for me :))

and the grateful recipients

and then Scarlett who had some sort of circle of life moment and decided she simply *had* to give the chickens some of her pancakes to return some of their eggs to them

(rather charmingly attired in her Christmas pjs, my broken pretend crocs and plaits that have been in since Tuesday 😆 – oh how I prayed the neighbours wouldn’t notice her at nearly midday!).

Davies and Scarlett played with the toy circus (a very cheap last minute Christmas present about 3 years ago that was crappy and fell apart almost immediately but still gets brought out every so often. It has a wooden base, wooden crowds and a fabric big top complete with cannon man, tigers in cages, elephant with tassles and so on) while I did lots of washing, drank lots of tea and ate lots of fruit. Ady arrived home briefly to collect overnight stuff for being in Norwich tonight.

Then off to Home Ed group. We had an aim to get there fortnightly but actually even that is ambitious as things seem to keep cropping up. When we arrived Davies and Scarlett very amusingly sat themselves down at the tables and chairs, poor table-deprived children that they are long before today’s craft activity was set up. They soon got bored of sitting at an empty table and headed off to play though. There is a pile of ‘stuff’ round behing the church hall of things like rope, traffic cones, bamboo canes, planks of wood and so on which to a group of children is like a pile of gold – almost unlimited play possibilities. I’m slightly torn as always between allowing D and S to do what clearly comes naturally which is to explore, experiment, use their imagination, get grubby, take risks, learn from silly mistakes and generally be children and adhering to what I think other people’s idea of what they should be doing might be – like the neighbours to the hall and any passers by. Clearly it is not ok to infringe on others’ space or peace but equally I don’t believe they should be prevented from doing what they want aslong as it doesn’t hurt each other or anyone else. So today was a fairly boisterous session for them joining in with general loudness and running about with sticks.

The craft was quilling which I’d never done before or even really been aware of but was very relaxing and easy to do. I made a card with a bee and some flowers on it which I was quite pleased with for a first ever attempt at the craft. It’s one of those things that is quite enjoyable to sit doing while chatting but not something I’d ever sit at home and do on my own. I do like crafts though :). Davies and Scarlett both came back to the table and did some of it at one point before wandering back off again to play with sticks and spiders. Scarlett seemed to pal up with a couple of other little girls which was nice and Davies seems to have been accepted into the gang of lads. It’s the ideal group to dip in and out of as and when we are free on Thursdays I think :). I enjoyed chatting to grown ups and was also presented with various outgrown clothing from people for Davies which was all very gratefully recieved :).

The others were heading over to the beach but the weather was on the turn. Davies and Scarlett were both complaining of being hungry and I was keen to get home and get them fed and bathed as we’ve got late nights coming up at the weekend. Next time we really will try and go to the beach though with everyone else.

So dinner, long bath and then bed for the children. I cut Davies’ hair, he is keeping the top and front longb but I shaved the back as it was getting crazy with it’s stickingoutness – it will still stick out but mostly just up now :). Then I cut mine as it’s getting long. I did the front and sides and Scarlett followed the line round the back under Davies’ supervision as he cut it for me last time. My hair is very forgiving as there is lots of it and it is fairly random with it’s curls and layers anyway so easy to hide all but the most dramatic of mistakes – which luckily were not made today :).

As seen but definitely not tagged for because she is too shy at Green House By The Sea ;).

Twelve years ago me – March 1996, I was 22

LOCATION: In this house in Sompting, Sussex – we’d been here just over 2 years and having carpet on the floors was still a novelty. The lounge was peach coloured woodchip wallpaper.

CHILDREN: not on the agenda at all. I was still adamant that I didn’t want any.

JOB: I was working at B&Q in Shoreham as a Showroom Administrator / After Sales Advisor for kitchens and bathrooms. I had my own office, although I used to spend most of my days sitting in the manager’s office next door drinking tea with him. My actual job was phoning through orders for kitchens and bathrooms to the suppliers in Blackburn, coordinating with the installers and customers to arrange to have the kitchens and bathrooms fitted and dealing with any issues. Which were approximately every kitchen or bathroom ever ordered or fitted 🙄 I sometimes had to visit customer’s homes to deal with complaints and negotiated compensation claims where things went really wrong. It was my favourite B&Q job in the three different ones I did during my 6 years working for them.

TRANSPORT: We had one car between us then, a white Ford Escort. I worked furthest away so Ady mostly walked to work and I picked him up or if he needed the car he ran me into work. I wrote it off later that year in a spectacular accident right outside our house witnessed by Ady who had nightmares about it for several years afterwards.

EMPLOYEES: None.

FAVE DRINK: had alcopops come out by then? I think they probaby had which meant I would have drunk Hooch or Two Dogs alcoholic lemonade back then. But not in vast quantites because we couldn’t afford it. Used to drink many cups of vending machine tea every day in managers office at work as mentioned above.

LOVE INTEREST: That’d be Ady :). We’d been together for nearly 3 years by then.

CONTRACEPTION: the pill.

WISH FOR FUTURE: I had serious career plans within B&Q back then and wanted to reach the giddy heights of Department Manager as quickly as I could. We’d already bought a house and my relationship with Ady was going well but I don’t think we were particularly planning marriage back then.

SPONSORS: This would have been one of our rare periods of financial good health I think. We’d have gotten used to paying the mortgage and household bills, it would have been before we started using credit cards and with two wages coming in we were probably among the richer lot of our social circle.

HAIR: Long, red and messy. I had occassional perms and it was rarely cut.

UNDERWEAR: Blimey, no idea! This was in pre-cleavage days when I was a fair bit slimmer so it would have been black and cheap I imagine.

FAVE OUTFIT: I know I stopped wearing jeans for a few years when size 14s got too tight so this would probaby have been the age of those ski-pants style leggings with stirrups under the feet. I *always* wore high heeled boots in the winter and kids black elasticated front plimsolls in the summer.

9 years ago me: March 1999 , I was 25

LOCATION: Same house as now, still a two bedroomed bungalow. Lounge walls were green at this time I think. 1999 was actually the year a lot of the bungalow got decorated including the kitchen getting finished paid for (along with a new cooker and washing machine) as a wedding present from my parents.

CHILDREN: something we were talking about but still not intending happening for a while. Late in 1999 we actually started trying.

JOB: leaping ahead from 3 years previously via a stint in Recruitment and managing a Clinton Cards shop, working in newspaper ad sales very briefly and having a career stumble being asked to leave a job after 10 days in 1999 I was working for Bhs as a Team Leader. I managed Ladieswear, Menswear, Shoes and Accessories. I ran the whole store every third Sunday and was in charge of some 40 odd staff. In March I was still enjoying the job, later that year I would grow to loathe it.

TRANSPORT: I was driving a red peugot 405, our second ‘proper’ car after a selection of old bangers. I loved it, it had sunroof, electric windows and ‘volume on a stick!’ (the volume control for the radio was on a little stick on the steering wheel – the novelty of that never wore off in all the years we had that car :lol:). We had a second car by then too, Ady was driving a red escort estate which was an old banger but he needed for his gardening jobs.

EMPLOYEES: none

FAVE DRINK: A friend at work had introduced me to white wine which was now my drink of choice. That and copious amounts of tea.

LOVE INTEREST: Ady. Late in 1999 we got married but it was with just 3 weeks notice so no talk of it back in March.

CONTRACEPTION: the pill, until I stopped taking it in September.

WISH FOR FUTURE: In March when I was still enjoying my job I would have been hankering after furthering my career within Bhs. I had vague ideas of wanting to travel a bit more but most of my wishes were of the job description and associated salary back then.

SPONSORS: We changed mortgage supplier and consolidated some debts in this year – so Virgin were our main sponsor 🙂

HAIR: it was shorter and straighter and I did a bit of experimenting with wash in wash out hair dye with varying degrees of success. At one point it was decidedly pink, which didn’t go down well at work, or look that good with my suit!

UNDERWEAR: I was a fair bit heavier by now so I think this would have been my pull you in and push you out again underwear phase, coupled with staff discount making nicer Bhs underwear affordable!

FAVE OUTFIT: I wore suits for work and had an impressive wardrobe full of them. Infact work seemed to be what I spent most of my time doing but on days off I would mostly be found wearing jeans, crash helmet and motorboke jacket so I could ride pillion on Ady’s bike.

6 years ago me: 2002 I was 28

LOCATION: A lovely big end of terrace house in Sale, Greater Manchester. The decor was not to our taste as it was a rented property but it was big and spacious.

CHILDREN: I had Davies, who was 18 months old and had (literally) just discovered I was pregnant with Scarlett after 3 months of TTC.

JOB: In March I had just started working at Dreamieland in the capacity of Marketing Manager / Personnel Manager. I was part of the management team and had one person reporting directly to me. It was a bit of a dream job really, having been taken out to lunch and told to write my own job description and pitch for my salary! :). I officially worked 3 days a week, one of which was Ady’s day off so he stayed home with Davies and the other two days Davies went to nursery. I did quite a lot of working from home. My role mostly seemed to involve meetings at Starbucks. I handled recruitment and did some of the interviewing, wrote and rolled out the training for new staff, handled contracts and personnel paperwork. In the marketing capacity I arranged all the promotions and PR (more meetings in Starbucks) advertising and events.

TRANSPORT: I was driving the same white Sharan that I still drive but it was distinctly newer and in better nick. Ady was driving the red Peugeot mentioned above (the one with volume on a stick). I also toyed with public transport back then as the Metro / tram into Manchester city centre was so good. I also did quite a bit of walking with pushchair then too.

EMPLOYEES: none

FAVE DRINK: Starbucks hot chocolate 😉 Having discovered I was pregnant I wasn’t drinking wine and was drinking ever such a lot of water.

LOVE INTEREST: Davies! Oh and Ady of course.

CONTRACEPTION: being pregnant sort of negated the need really 😉

WISH FOR FUTURE: career dreams had totally diminished and I was happy to be part time. We were very hopeful that Dreamieland would hold the passport to our big life dream at that point of living abroad for a while – infact Japan and US both seemed very strong possibilities for a while around that time, neither of which came to anything. A healthy pregnancy and new baby and the normal hopes and dreams for my toddler would have been key priorities too.

SPONSORS: Mastercard and Visa! And probably every other credit card you can think of too. 😳

HAIR: this was one of my most ‘groomed’ phases and it was longish and curlyish – a smarter version of what I sport now, without occassional bunches or plaits!

UNDERWEAR: a rather gorgeous rotation of leopard print, black and white polka dot and floral maternity / nursing bras and matching pants from Bravissimo. Which I later sold on ebay for almost what I paid for them!

FAVE OUTFIT: Suits for work, my wardrobe-ful had steadily increased. I’d also started to sport cleavage around this time.

3 years ago me: 2005, I was 31

LOCATION: We were back here, in the same house again. By now it had grown from a 2 bedroomed bungalow to a 3/4 bedroom house (although it’s still small according to some ;)). The lounge was yellow.

CHILDREN: A 4 year old Davies and a 2 year old Scarlett

JOB: I think I might have been doing the freelance CV writing about then and possibly odd bits for Miranda here and there. The only period since I was 14 when I wasn’t doing any sort of paid work though.

TRANSPORT: I was driving the Sharan, Ady had a company car of a VW Golf. We’d given the red Peugeot to my brother as a birthday present when we moved back to Sussex.

EMPLOYEES: none

FAVE DRINK: tea between 4am and 7pm, wine between 7pm and 4am :). This would have been the start of my long term love affair with teas of all sorts including hippy teas.

LOVE INTEREST: Ady.

CONTRACEPTION: Ady had been snipped to ensure no further children for us.

WISH FOR FUTURE: We had already decided to Home Educate which meant my dreams for the future were for success in that, health and happiness for my family.

SPONSORS: hmm, wherever I could get credit at this point I think. 3 years ago is just before our finances finally imploded so the full list of 13 creditors would have been borrowed from by now.

HAIR: Longer than now, red and messy

UNDERWEAR: Ady and I seem to be the main purchasers of each others underwear – so mine was mostly lacey, cleavage enhancing and in pretty colours.

FAVE OUTFIT: the suits had been pushed to the back of the wardrobe and I was mostly to be found in cleavage revealing tops and jeans.

Me now: 2008, I am 34

LOCATION: still here, 12 years later although it’s bigger than it was and I have spent some time away. This will be an interesting one to revist in another 3 years as my hope is not to be here then.

CHILDREN: Davies is seven, Scarlett is five.

JOB: A nice balance of just 11 hours a week at the local library. Not my favourite job or indeed what I want to be doing forever, but pretty much perfect on all levels for me, for now.

TRANSPORT: still that white Sharan, increasingly ‘loved’ and with a catalogue of ailments these days. But I like it, it sorts of reminds me of me, bearing marks and evidence of having been loved and worked hard, wearing stickers and badges reflective of it’s lifestyle, bigger than the average and often filled with laughter, shouting or music :).

EMPLOYEES: none

FAVE DRINK: 😆 Thatd be tea between 4am and 7pm, wine between 7pm and 4am.

LOVE INTEREST: Ady :).

CONTRACEPTION: Sex with someone who can’t have babies anymore 😉

WISH FOR FUTURE: It’s all over on Make a Dream come true really but continued health and happiness for me and my family, hopes of a greener and more self sufficient lifestyle, continued success with Home Education and many more days filled with love, laughter, friends and fun.

SPONSORS: technically I can’t say ‘none’ because we still owe £££s but it’s decreasing steadily.

HAIR: slightly shorter, still red, still messy, currently has lots of tiny plaits in it.

UNDERWEAR: still cleavage enhancing, still lacey and pretty coloured, still mostly purchased by Ady :).

FAVE OUTFIT: all the suits have long since been sold on ebay. I have ‘Nicola’ clothes for when I’m at work and ‘Nic’ clothes for when I’m not. My tops are still mostly cleavage revealing, my shoes are still mostly green DMs and my bottoms veer between jeans with rips and hand drawn art by Scarlett or grown up skirts and trousers :).

Clearly we’ve been watching the goings on over at Dragon Lady’s with great interest. On Monday she had workmen there fitting a new double glazed front door. It is very pretty, one of those with stained glass window panels with flowers on.

Scarlett was observing the whole thing and speculating that that was why she didn’t let MBM back in the house, because she wanted a new pretty front door and he didn’t. I explained that whilst that was certainly not beyond the realms of possibility it was unlikely to be the whole story.

Then she gasped, and speechless for a moment just pointed in shock over towards Dragon Lady’s house.

”Mumma, she’s got a MAN in there!’

Darling, that’s just the man who is fixing the new door on for her

“aha so that’s why she wouldn’t let him come in then. She has fallen in love with that other man and wante him to live there instead!”

When I’d finished falling about laughing I did try and explain to her that the idea of DL falling in love with the barely out of his teens slightly yobbish looking double glazed door installer (which isn’t to say appearances can’t be deceptive and he may have the soul of a poet and the maturity of a man seven times his age for all I know ;)) was even less likely than the whole police being called because DL wouldn’t let MBM in because they’d disagreed on front door design choices. But she’s having fun with the idea, so I’m loathe to crush her wild speculations too much – after all there is a market for them in soap plot line writing of the future :lol:.

I worked this morning. Davies and Scarlett went to play at Caz’s with A and E. I mis-timed the journey slightly even though I was organised and got the car windscreen defrosting ten minutes before we left. I think it was half term or something when we last went and it took nearly 20 minutes to get there this morning when I’d only allowed 10. The traffic going back to work again looked as bad if not worse so I was fully expecting to be late to work, but five minutes later having dropped them off it had thinned out and I was dead on time for work :).

There was no fussing on any part this morning, D and S were looking forward to going, greeted with great joy when they arrived and disappeared into the house with cheery ‘bye Mumma!’ said over their shoulders. They had a fab time, were grubby and happy when I collected them, having played all morning, been for a walk, spent loads of time outside and impressed Caz. They love it there and certainly on the basis of two visits are very welcome houseguests indeed :). Childcare seems to be working well at the moment, Ady is managing to be pretty flexible with all the extra hours of TV shows he is doing, Dad seems to be putting more effort in on his afternoons and the mornings with Caz and Julie seem to be working well for Davies and Scarlett. It’s all totally transient of course; Caz is intending to go off travelling soon, Julie is having a baby in less than 3 months and Ady’s work can be as inconveniently timed as often as it works to our advantage, but for now it is working well :).

Work was good. I spent some time creating a giant Very Hungry Caterpillar and ordering in lots of books ready for a display in the children’s library to finish off on Friday. Very pleased with how it’s come out so far and might do a bit more at home in the morning with Davies and Scarlett who love having contributed to displays that go up there. I did lots of running up and down the stairs today too, drank lots of water and ate lots of fruit so it felt like a healthy day :).

We came home via Sainsburys for fruit supplies to find two parcels had been delivered. One was the new mechanism for my clock; the one we bought at Hobbycraft didn’t work and further research showed that for hands as big as those on my clock a ‘high torque’ mechanism was required, basically we burned the motor out in the one we had, hence it only worked for a week or so before dying. I spent some time fiddling to install this one and although it seems to gain slightly in the first half of every hour and slow slightly in the second half (whizzing downhill and labouring uphill :)) it appears to be keeping time more or less okay over the hour.

The other parcel was a needlefelting supplies set of needles, foam and wool as I’ve been hankering after some sort of craft and I really enjoyed that at Kessingland a couple of years ago so bid on a cheap ‘starter kit’ on ebay and won it :).

I made pizza for the kids tea and then went out to see if the bantams liked pineapple (as you do) and quickly checked for eggs like I do every few days. Then did the ‘we got eggs!’ dance in the garden before running in to fetch Davies and Scarlett and the camera. Then we all did the ‘we got eggs!’ dance and took some photos before coming in to ring Ady and tell him the happy news. And twitter it, flickr it, blog it and post it on two forums :). I’ve since been reading about broody hens and we’ve been discussing the prospect of fluffy chicks round the place again :).

Then it was Badgers. Ady came along too and had brought a load of plants, pots and compost for the Badgers who are doing EcoBadger this term and had planting things planned in as an activity. Ady had spoken to Julie, the leader at the beginning of term and offered the supplies which were very gratefully received. We sat in the car and chatted and then Julie came and invited us in so Ady could talk to the Badgers about their plants – he’d got them ivy, fushia, verbena and something else I can’t recall the name of, special compost with beads of slow release water activated feed and pots which the children all labelled. I showed Scarlett how to spell CAT at the weekend (she had a question in her activity book from the Italian restuarant which she had to fill in her favourite animal in so she got me to tell her the letters to spell ‘cat’ – Davies got me to tell him the letters to spell ‘all of them’ :lol:) and has been writing it lots ever since, including on her pots complete with little pictures of cats :).

Ady stood at the front and talked to the children, most of whom put their hands up to ask questions. Davies was excellent, talking about root systems and stuff, Scarlett was less sensible but charming and cute nonetheless putting her hand up and then starting her questions with ‘Dadda…?’ 😆

Home for a bit more of ‘Relax Max’ which is dealing with many a thorny issue and of course throwing up questions as it goes along. Curry and Torchwood for us. We’re off to London for the weekend courtesy of Ady’s employers who are paying for me and the children to stay in the hotel while Ady is on tv which will give us all Saturday afternoon and evening when Ady rejoins us before coming home Sunday lunchtime after his Sunday morning show. We’re staying at Country Hall where we stayed before when we had a few nights in London a couple of years ago and the children are really looking forward to it. 🙂

I am very eggcited to report, this is no yolk and it’s smashing to be able to tell you, our route to self sufficiency has slowly but surely begun!

After many a false start, of hatching four cockerels on our second attempt at incubating eggs, after ending up with two cockerels that were bought as hens, almost a year to the day since we started I discovered four eggs in the chicken house just now!

Bantams are supposed to lay 2 -3 eggs a week each. It’s definitely only four days since I last checked which means they are both laying well already :).

I’m going to read up about getting them to hatch some of their own chicks and how long after they start laying we should let them go broody but for now, pancakes for breakfast in the morning with the very first of our own produce 🙂

Today was Sunday on our ‘deferred weekend’ of Ady being off yesterday and today we’d planned to start using our National Trust membership with a visit to Bodiam Castle, about an hours drive away.
It’s not the first time we’ve been, we went for Boo of the Scream Team’s birthday party way back in 2005 which was a lovely June day where all the children dressed up as knights and princesses:

Davies remembered that visit, Scarlett didn’t, which surprised me but probably shouldn’t given she was only two!

We had a look at the pillbox, which had been internally ‘decorated’ by various people’s handprints in mud

Ady listening to the audio guide while Davies and Scarlett explored and then did some clambering on top:

Then Tarly made friends with a duck

And we spent some time admiring the moat

We had a quick look round the visitor centre which has a mini-museum and ate some lunch sitting on a bench watching two moorhens fighting in hilarious and entertaining style (two males presumably vying for a female) before going into the castle.

It is a stunning castle, externally almost unspoilt although the inside is fairly ruined. There are still plenty of scarily steep stone spiral staircases to climb up and down;

windows and arches to peer through;

and turrets to peer down from and up at:

It was a lovely hour or so before we got too cold and needed to be getting home to get ready for swimming. We kept expecting snow and the sky darkened several times but blew back over again and remained sunny.

Once home Ady got roast beef cooking and between squabbles Davies and Scarlett played a Wallace and Gromit game with the playhouses and figures they’ve got.

We went to swimming and Scarlett got her level one badge. Having refused to fork out more money on top of lessons to pay for a badge for Davies and him not being bothered anyway I decided if I was buying Scarlett’s badge then I should probably get Davies’ too so got both of their level one badges and sewed them onto their swimming bags tonight. They both had good lessons and are making progress. Every week I pledge to try and go swimming with them between lessons and every week I fail to manage it, so I won’t say that I really must try but I do think they’d benefit from it ;).

Home again for roast beef and Simpsons watching until they finally had another late night. Lots of interesting conversations today about things like drinking alcohol and smoking, advertising and marketing and some classical music appreciation when we happened upon Classic fm and left it on for a while in the car. And now, because being a bitch to people is really rather exhausting and although I’ve been better today than I was yesterday I am still very aware that my frame of mind has been far from forgiving, patient and loving 😳 I’m off to bed.

Yesterday a copy of Unconditional Parenting arrived for me from Amazon Marketplace. I opened the parcel, put the book to one side and commenced with my ranty shouty day.

When we got home the book seems to have totally disappeared. Of course I know that what has actually happened it is has been a victim of one of Ady’s tidying up sessions and will appear in three months time in the lego box or other such area where stuff was piled up by him and stashed in the guise of clearing things up when all it is actually doing is stuffing things in (similar to landfill mentality).

But I just can’t help this little feeling that somehow one of Alfie Kohn’s agents was sent, in an undercover operation to take it away because clearly I wasn’t demonstrating the book’s principles.

It’s not been the best of days really. Which probably serves me right for being all drunken and smug about motherhood last night ;).

Ady did some outsidey stuff first thing which seemed to take bloody forever. I know he emptied his car out but I lost interest in what else was happening. The children were playing with plasticine and I was being bad tempered.

Finally we got ourselves together and it being practically lunchtime we decided to go and do a bit of a south coast charity shop run as both Davies and I need new coats. I genuinely need a decent coat due to not owning one and needing one for nature type endeavours during the winter and bloody cold weather conditions during the summer when camping. Davies doesn’t actually need one as he has one but it is soooo school coat style, doesn’t suit him and has these reflective stripes on the sleeves which wreck any photos with flash so clearly a new one is a priority 😆 Or perhaps I could craft him one from old jeans, or dead woodland creatures pelts or woven home baking or something ;).

This was a mistake.

Despite being told we were visiting shops with the express purpose of coat purchasing, we would not be buying any soft toys and that being giddy in charity shops would not be tolerated both children seemed incapable of processing this. Scarlett ended up in tears at least twice as a result of me bawling her out. Davies did fairly well until we stopped following a lorry with incovered haybales which were shedding bits of hay and amusing him. He then cried. Not just gentle weeping either, full on wailing and sobbing with blotchy eyes and everything. Ady irritated me by simply breathing and I was a paragon of calm and peacefulness.

Don’t believe me? Ok then I am on day one of mooncupness and a totally irrational irritable bitch from hell. But crying over bloody haybale trucks? Not listening when told not to ask for a soft toy puppy at £1.50 carrying stains from three previous owners? Breathing? Criminal activities fully deserving of rantiness I’m sure you’ll agree!

We came home and I sat not talking to anyone for a while, popped out to send a book sold on amazon marketplace and faithfully promised would be sent on Saturday and then ordered a replacement clock mechanism for my clock which is still not working.

Davies went off to Beavers, Ady took him and within ten minutes I’d had a phonecall from them to say he’d hit his head and wanted to come home. I ran round there – well actually I ran to the end of the road, required artificial respiration before I could continue any further and then walked sedately to the church hall to collect him. It turned out he had been tripped up then pushed over by Matthew, terrorist of first Sompting Beavers. I asked in a rather cold tone if it had been dealt with and was assured he’d been told off and his father had still been there when it happened. Davies had left his coat in there so we went in and I’d slipped into full on wanting to kill the six year old boy mode (some of you may have witnessed this in me before, at Kessingland for example last year, or at Magical Mondays with certain individuals) and this seemed to have been sensed by the other adults who’d formed a sort of protective circle around Matthew. The leader came over to apologise to me and I asked again if it had been dealt with and was told yes Matthew had been given his final warning. This is clearly bollocks as I was present and eavesdropping last week when Matthew’s mum was told he’d been given his final warning. For me, if his dad was still there when this happened he should have been directed home with his father, but still…

Davies and I walked home with me in full on rant about ‘Noone NO ONE hurts my children and gets away with it’ mode – clearly this was not the right day for Matthew to have messed with someone I care about, they were right to form a human forcefield around the little shit! Ady was far more rational, telling Davies we should feel sorry for Matthew and that clearly he isn’t loved enough otherwise he would have a higher self opinion and feel like he should be liked and act like someone who should be liked rather than acting like someone who no one should like because he probably felt like he didn’t deserve to be liked. Davies was confused saying how he always is nice to Matthew, I was angry saying what Matthew needs is a @*@!”£ good hiding and Ady was being all sensitive and new-man about the whole thing. Scarlett, who takes more after me was asking to go round there and sort Matthew out herself 😆 Oh I’d be crap at dealing with the playground politics at school :lol:.

Davies appeared not seriously hurt anyway, he recovered fairly quickly and I think was just in a poor frame of mind for being hurt. Ady made hot chocolate for both the children, which Scarlett managed to drop, over her, me, the sofa and the floor. I imagine you can already picture the tolerance, understanding, patience and great sense of humour I demonstrated at this :oops:. After Ady had Ady-machined, I’d washed off the sofa cover in the bath, stripped off my hot chocolated clothes and calmed down we managed a nice end to the day with a bit of Relax Max and some of the tv show with Chester Zoo in it (no idea what it’s called).

Tomorrow we have Sunday of our deferred weekend and the aim is to get out bright and early and do something nice. Hopefully I’ll be in the right mental state for such things and it will all work out.

Are on the verge of cockiness what with all their fame and celebrity ;).

Ady’s on telly, Davies is a locally celebrated artist (with exhibitions lined up in two further locations in the next month) and the cockerel. Well he really is getting above himself!

In fairness he is gorgeous, bloody good at his job (shagging hens and crowing at regular intervals) and I secretly have maximum respect for him and all his attitude, but he has started getting a bit pecky. We either need to be handling the bantams more or appreciate that they are not pets and as such need to be given a wider berth. In order to let them out each morning we have to pull across the wedging bit of wood from their coop and then lift up the flap of thinner wood directly across their doorway. He has obviously learned the sound of the sliding across bit and is ready waiting, with a pecky beak for you to move the lifty bit which involves having your fingers in the run and he is there to have a go. Cos he clearly thinks he’s hard enough!

The first time he went to peck me I did the chicken textbook reaction of making myself big, looming large over him and shouting. Clearly he doesn’t understand english but I shouted in it anyway and gave him a bit of a ‘Don’t you DARE peck at me’ type lecture. To which he listened, cocked his head and with more attitude than Catherine Tate’s Lauren did a full on ‘cockadoodle DOOOOOOO am I bovvered?’ at me :lol:.