One word? When seven would do…

I only worked until 130 today as I had hours owed to me for the library being closed on Monday for the bank holiday. They do this little sum where they work out your average hours per day (mine is 2.45) and then whenever the library is closed for bank holidays you get the equivalent of your average day off. Which is great for me as I don’t work Mondays so I end up with time off – less good for those of my colleagues who normally work a Monday and therefore end up owing the library hours and having to work extra.

This morning was one of those fab times when you get a real kick out of having workmates and colleagues. The children are lovely and we are out and about seeing people most days but the luxury of getting to work and standing in a gaggle rehashing what you watched on telly last night without anyone tugging at your sleeve or asking for a peanut butter sandwich (which normally characterises my chatting with people during the day when the children are around) was lovely. I remember watching Who Wants to be a Millionaire when it first came out and talking about it at work the next day, having sweepstakes at the beginning of Big Brother as to who would win and looking forward to getting to work on a Monday to talk about Pop Idol from the Saturday before. So it was great to walk into work and straight into a conversation about The Apprentice this morning. 🙂

It was busy-ish at work so the morning went pretty quick and I came home with Monster House on dvd and a cool 3d book complete with glasses on Dr Who so I was very popular arriving home. Lego had been being played with when I left for work and was still being played with when I got home. Davies and Scarlett had both been up since 530am when Ady left for work (he was delivering plants in a white van round London city centre today, poor lamb is slightly traumatised and went to bed at 10pm still trembling and muttering about one way streets!) so apologies to Lucy if they’d been as fragile all morning for you as they were all afternoon for me. They played a bastardised Dr Who game with lego Doctor, daleks, K9 (their favourite character despite never having seen him but seeing him in a book about vintage Dr Who characters :lol:) and various baddies including ‘block head’ who was a normal lego man from the neck down but a large red lego brick instead of a head. They squabbled madly and ended up in tears within about ten minutes of me arriving home (I’d got changed, made a cup of tea and some crumpets for lunch and hung a load of washing out which promptly got rained on) so Scarlett came for a cuddle, I told them not to play together if they couldn’t get on which made them both cry even more insisting they wanted to play together and didn’t want me to stop them :roll:. They eventually got some fuzzy felt out and seemed to make up after that. They looked at the Dr Who book together and then tidied everything up and put Monster House on. Scarlett was a bit scared so I got out the hama beads and sat and did that with her, which Davies eventually gravitated towards. I made a dalek and a tardis for them and whilst I expect experienced Hama-ers have been doing it this way forever found it loads easier using a cocktail stick to spear beads and then tip them onto the board instead of fiddling around with my fingers. Davies and Scarlett just do not have the patience for hama beads, they get bored way too quickly, Davies started doing an elephant board with the excellent idea of making squares of colours to make an Elmer but gave up and then started to make letters to go on his bedroom door but stopped at ‘D’. Scarlett asked for more and more unlikely creations from me such as My Little Pony and Barbie :lol:. Might do some more of it tomorrow though, I like the idea of making toys in various materials and the children seem to almost enjoy playing more with things they have to use a bit of imagination for (and of course we can’t afford the real proper plastic versions 😉 ).

Ady arrived home and cooked the children’s dinner, Scarlett had a total meltdown about not being allowed icecream despite claiming to be full up as the reason for not eating all her dinner, then another one about tidying up some beads she’d just tipped out but she finally did pick them up and was very cuddly before falling asleep very early. I popped out to get some food shopping, picking up ingredients for a birthday cake for Ady and a couple of little gifts – his present from me is £20 to go and spend in the Pompey shop rather than me wasting a fiver on p&p when he works near to it normally and I have also won a Pompey top on ebay but I’m not sure it’ll be here on time, his birthday is on Sunday. Ady is leaving ridiculously early again tomorrow but has said if Davies is up again he’ll take him with him, as long as I’m not listening to ‘Exterminate!!!’ at top volume on the stairs again before 6am I don’t mind!

When I was a very new mother I read loads of books about parenting. Most I kept little bits of and discarded the rest, many I have since come to decide were not worth the paper they were written on and really I only paid heed to the ones which suited me anyway. But one which always stuck in my mind and I have actually recommended to someone in my new professional capacity at the library is by Susan Jeffers and is called I’m okay – you’re a brat! . I have to concede that plenty of what it says doesn’t sit so comfortably with my parenting views now, particularly since I decided to Home Educate but there were elements of it which I really liked and help with the balance of the whole ‘I blame the parents’ guilt over every single litle trait and behaviour your child might demonstrate. It talked about a ‘child’s circle of being’ and said that during a child’s formative years there would be all sorts of influences on them as well as their parents and that it was impossible to gague or control who had what level of influence too. It mentioned peers, family members, friends, teachers, church leaders, neighbours and so on – basically the extended circle within which your child moves through childhood aswell as fictional characters, celebrities and heros. I think that while true to a lesser degree for a Home Educated child and without trying to shirk any parental responsibility this is very true. It can be a very chance meeting or encounter with someone that shapes someone’s life and whilst there is no denying your parenting plays a big role in who you are / how you see the world I know that were I to list the 10 people I feel have had most influence on me (so far) they range from people who touched my life briefly and have long since left it to people who don’t even exist as well as my parents and indeed now, my own children.

I blogged a while ago about people you wonder about from time to time or refer to when talking sometimes. I was reminded on Saturday at the Writing Day about a teacher I had in 1984-5 – I would have been 10/11, the second to last year of junior school. He was the first male teacher I’d had – no idea what the ratios are like now but when I was at school make teachers were very much the minority, particularly when I reached senior school and was at an all-girls school anyway where only Science was taught by a male teacher. I guess primary and juniors are less likely somehow to attract men? Anyway, he was a large, loud man, married to a woman who did occassional supply teaching in the same school and with a young daughter several years behind me. This was back in the days before National Curriculums when who your teacher was depended on what you were taught, following their passions and interests to a large degree. Mr Volke covered Maths but it was pages out of the Nuffield textbooks and Science was taught down the corridor by someone else, PE was another teacher again as was music. What we had a lot of in Mr Volke’s classroom was Art and English. We would regularly start our school day with him writing up a choice of ten story titles on the blackboard and being told to choose whichever one we wanted and write it. I recall stories I wrote entitled things like ‘How Embarassing!’ and ‘Stone Me!’. We ended every day with him reading a story aloud to us, something you don’t get a lot of by the time you are 10/11 and we were allowed to either put our heads down on our desks and just listen to him reading, or we all had a plain paper exercise book which we could draw and colour in while we listened, often the stories he read inspiring our art. He also encouraged what he called a ‘Think Book’ which was a diary of sorts – filled with thoughts, ideas and pictures. None of these items was ever collected in and marked or even had to be shared with anyone else if we didn’t want to. Another activity we spent a lot of time on in Mr Volke’s class was projects – on any subject of our choice with loads of time allowed for concentrating on these works. We would present them in project folders and had to do research, using the school library, written work, illustrations etc. My last project was on all the teachers in the school – I wrote a poem about each of them (I imagine you can guess the sort of style they were written in! 😉 ) and drew pictures of them all. Mr Volke made me take it round to show them all and got me to ask them to all sign it to keep as a momento – most of them asked for copies of the page on them and I imagine it is still somewhere in my parents loft. The year I spent being taught by Mr Volke was easily my happiest, most productive school year of my life. I was encouraged, praised, developed and given autonomy in subject matter, output and method of learning. If schools were staffed by armies of Mr Volke’s and the NC didn’t exist I imagine not only would Davies and Scarlett be attending them I’d probably want to be teaching at one myself!

Rumour had it that Mr Volke wrote or illustrated for The Beano although I’m not sure if any of us in the class ever asked him. I wondered last week what had become of him, having cited him over the years as both the best teacher I ever had and a major source of inspiration and motivation for pursuits I still get much enjoyment from today (writing and drawing) so I spent some time googling and looking at friendsreunited and my old school website earlier this week. I didn’t track him down but it cannot be a coincidence that there is a children’s author, with many books published by a publishing house in West Sussex and a fair few books written for classroom use with the same name. I’m very inclined to contact the publishers and ask if it is the same person and if so just drop him a line telling him what a great job I thought he did as my teacher – if ever I have something to boast about in terms of my own creativity I may well do so and offer him some of the credit for it! Whenever I write something I am proud of I often picture him enjoying it and praising me for it.

I don’t think I can be both Mother and Mr Volke to my children although I don’t think I’m preventing them from meeting their Mr Volke by not subjecting them to school – to be honest I’m not even sure the other 10 years I spent in school were justified by Mr Volke for that one year, infact I think there is far more change of meeting inspirational, motivational people out and about in the world today that stood infront of an ‘interactive whiteboard’, particularly listening to the teachers I come into contact with in various places who wouldn’t have a hope of giving the sort of education I was lucky enough to recieve for that year. Days when I fret about whether I am exposing the children to everything they need to spark fire in them for the path in life they will tread I remember Susan Jeffer’s Circle of Being and Mr Volke on my list and know that when those key people come along in my childrens’ lives they will all find a way of getting across the message they were sent to deliver and recieving it loud and clear, even if at the time they don’t recognise it as having the gravity it will one day hold.

We did our annual photoblog day today, which you can see in all it’s glory over on Monster & Teeny – it was a good day for it really, lots of mixing with friends, Badgers, a Damp Spring Walk, a quick stint on the beach, frankly all that was missing was a spot of car boot sale bargain hunting and we’d have summed outselves up admirably ;).

And it appears to be fairly accurate and unbiased 😉

Going to School not compulsory

I spent a happy half hour or so chatting via IM to a friend on the other side of the world this morning, although of course it was evening for her. So that was a nice start to the day. I had half a plan to do a photoday today so did take some snaps first thing but fizzled out during the day so I’ll try again tomorrow. The children watched Words and Pictures, played with some tessellation tiles, the toy animals and the wooden blocks and eventually got dressed so we could head over to Ali’s house. Ady was at college today having mock exams which is fairly local so he took my car and I took the AdyMobile instead which was nice, still not used to having six gears though 😆

We had a slow start to a nice time at Ali’s with the children incapable of either playing away from us together, near us quietly or simply going for longer than about 20 seconds without interupting us. We admired the new gears!gears!gears! and finally they did go off and play for ages really well in the end so Ali and I finally got our chat.

We came home and they resumed their game while I cooked their tea, Ady came home having spent all day sitting in exam conditions, the kids watched Shaun the Sheep and then went off to bed and I cooked quiche for tea.

This all sounds terribly mundane and uninspired and I really do have interesting stuff to come back but it’ll have to wait for another day cos I’m simply not in the mood tonight.

I started to write a post this morning and got taken up with googling something for it, which then crashed firefox so I lost the post and never managed to come back to it. I will do though, one day 😆

Davies played Xbox this morning, Scarlett got out a puzzle book and because I was engrossed in my googling Davies ended up helping her with most of it – a quick glance over their shoulders proved that between them they were pretty much making sense of the instructions so I left them to it :lol:. Davies then decided he wanted his hair gelled up like ‘The Doctor’s’ so we had a grand hair gel hunt finally uncovering some from who knows when (we don’t get a lot of use of hair products in this house :lol:, brushes are a new fangled idea round her still!) and doing that for him. I love the way Davies totally gets caught up in his passions – Ady is mourning the moving on from Wallace and Gromit, but then he never really got over Davies growing out of Buzz Lightyear and Tarly losing interest in Dora The Explorer 🙂 I’m swinging between being pissed off that this new passion won’t be so easily fuelled with car boot sale finds, delight that I’ll finally be making / drawing / creating something other than an Aardman production character and slight disappointment that he’s gone for something so ‘mainstream’ this time 😆 ;). We’ve been plotting tonight making a giant dalek from papier mache with a new dustbin as it’s base (solid papier mache might prove too tricky to get upstairs to his bedroom!) as a birthday gift although I’m not at all sure where I’d hide it while I was making it – not the sort of thing it’d be easy to secrete on top of a shelf :lol:.
Ady was working today so we’d arranged to do ‘something’ with my parents but left final arrangements to depend on the weather. Which was shite here today, cold, rainy and windy. So I rang and arranged for us to go over there for lunch and the afternoon (if we invited them here they’d still be here now having stayed for dinner :roll:) and my Mum said she’d ring my Granny and invite her over too.
We drove over there via Sainsburys petrol station which my car just about reached with all of us willing it on to last there on fumes – it made it 🙂 then round to Mum and Dad’s. My Dad has been hassling me to let my Granny have the children sometimes when I’m working and I’ve been flatly refusing for a whole host of reasons none of which my Dad would quite accept but all of which she displayed today to the point that when I rang him later on to say ‘well, NOW do you see why I’ve said no?’ he agreed that perhaps it wasn’t wise. She ignored Tarly in favour of Davies constantly, bought him an atlas as a present but as she handed it over to him looked at me and asked ‘will he know what an atlas is?’ – my reply ‘you could try asking him, we’ve recently taught him to talk!’ was possibly slightly aggressive but FFS! I stopped a conversation over lunch about why some nursery rhymes have been ‘banned due to this political correctness nonsense’ and how ‘it’s so silly that we can’t say things like golliwog anymore’. I said I didnt’ want any racist rubbish talked about infront of my children and she asked when it would be in my ‘curriculum to teach them that some people have different coloured skin then?’, there was all sorts of nonsense over food, lunch and eating with her constantly mithering Davies and continuing to ignore Scarlett, she asked them both if they could tell her what colour their plates were (my mum brings out these bloody plastic bowls for the children to use which would be fine if they were still 18 months old but they actually have the most breakable crockery we own here at home with their own hand painted pottery plates and china bowls). Both the kids are actually quite good at self limiting with sweet stuff generally but when Scarlett refused the last mini chocolate eclair there was uproar – not at all sure where the hypocrisy of constantly making references to how ‘fat’ I am but practically force-feeding my children with cream cakes pans out. She then spent about 3/4 of an hour with them in the piano room where straight after dinner she allowed them to get whipped up into a completely hysterical lather to the point where I went and dragged them out to come and calm down and play quietly, then came and flumped down on the sofa muttering about them being ‘non stop with too much energy’. Finally having brought out a bag of boiled sweets that I made the kids sit down to eat as they were so huge even I would have been wary of choking on them my Mum caught her in the kitchen giving Scarlett chocolate after I’d said they’d had enough sweet stuff. Which Scarlett promptly threw up anyway :roll:. By the time we left – Ady came to meet us there – I actually felt ill with the stress of trying to contain the children without just being a bitch to them, trying not to resort to physical violence or saying something I might regret. A.R.G.H.H.H. Oh and the last bit was when she finally relented to sitting with Tarly and looking through the atlas – it had animals pictured and Scarlett pointed out some lemurs to her, told her what they were and said it must be Madagascar (ok so we all know she only knows that Lemurs only live on Madagascar thanks to King Julien from the film, but it was still impressive) – Granny didn’t quite believe her and said that even she didn’t know what they were, put her glasses on to check and looked outraged when she read it said lemur almost like Scarlett must have cheated and had someone whisper the answer to her. Yep – asking her what colour her bowl was at lunch really was a bit below her wasn’t it?!!!!

Ady brought the kids home while I popped into Sainsburys to get some bits and walk off some of my rage, when I got in I rang my parents to rant at them (she was still there) which made me feel a bit better. The kids had a bath, Ady cooked dinner and I drank wine as it is still technically the weekend :).

No energy now to write what I was going to write earlier, but I do feel better for having got that all off my chest!

Erm yeah, three days… I’m tired so I’ll be brief:

Friday
I worked, I learnt how to do the banking, so there were books, cash, books, borrowers, Mum and the children came to meet me for lunch which we went and had in the cafe she used to own when I was little – very odd to be sitting there with my Mum and my own children, I’ve not been in there since she sold it. I used to go there every single Saturday and have a tuna sandwich for lunch, so I had one on Friday for old times sake :lol:. Mum bought the kids a magazine each and nearly fainted at the cost 😯 I guess they have gone up from the 20 pence she used to pay for Twinkle and The Beano when we were kids! Afternoon for me was more of the same, books and borrowers.

I’d walked into work and back and when I got home Mum and the children were playing with Lego. Apparently in the morning she’d given them a ‘lesson’. I’m not altogether sure what it consisted of and I’ve not actually spoken to Davies about it but I did speak to Tarly about it to find out a bit more about what was going on. It would appear it was all very innocent and fun, playing with some letters and Mum was keen to tell me how well they’d both done but I’m seeing her again tomorrow and I’m going to try and explain a little bit about autonomy to her I think. I also told Tarly that if whatever Granny suggests is fun and she wants to do it then that’s great but she doesn’t *have* to do anything and I’m very anxious to ensure there was no bribery or conditions attached to anything.

Saturday
I went on another of the writing retreat days that Ali and I went on last month. It was very good, I enjoyed it a lot and dug deeper into myself to write some rather different stuff to my usual style. I probably have more to say about all that really, but I’ll maybe come back to it another time. I did get to have a proper go at the Brand New Heavily Taxed Ady Mobile though so that was good :). Ady and the kids had spent the day in the garden, getting grubby, digging stuff and painting our bench a very lurid shade of pink – it looks fab :). Davies sat and watched all of Dr Who with me, Scarlett bottled out of it about midway so Ady took her off for fluffy bedtime stories instead and I pyrographed a My Little Pony picture onto the back of Tarly’s chair at her request which she was rather delighted with.

Sunday
Davies had swimming this morning and once again we all slept in :oops:. As the weather looked pretty ropey and we are scrabbling for coppers this month anyway we gave the car boot sale a miss and I took Davies to swimming on my own while Ady and Scarlett stayed here. Davies chattered all the way there about Dr Who – I’ve been trying to persuade him for literally years to allow his thick, tufty hair to do it’s own thing and stick up at the front – as it now gives him a bit of a The Doctor like appearance he is convinced by this at last 😆 Ironically it was the day of Ros’s Buzz’s birthday party last year (Magagascar themed) when he started talking about his own Wallace and Gromit party for his birthday, today he decided he wants a Dr Who party for his 7th birthday and has started planning that . Swimming was back stroke stuff today, he did rather better today but it was a smaller group so that may have helped. I actually learnt to swim on my back way before I did on my front and I can clearly recall the first time I swam a width on my back in the same pool he is learning in. Actually watching a load of children having swimming lessons and the same little stumbles they all have has shown me loads of things I’d never thought about before so when we got home I got a Barbie out to demonstrate how your face in the water on front crawl brings your spine straight and your legs automatically come up rather than when you try and keep your head out of the water tortoise style which curves your back and pushes your legs down. Back stroke was the same, putting your head right back brings your legs up whereas trying to keep your chin on your chest pushes your torso into a V shape. I’m a shite swimmer myself but a combination of remembering what I struggled with when learning, coupled with actually watching others learn is making me realise all sorts of things which I am hopefully making sense of to Davies – I’m sure if someone had shown me when I was his age it might have made swimming and holding your body in a certain way more logical and easier to manage – like everything really, if you’re just told to keep your face in the water without realising what impact that has it is less easy to adhere to than if you actually appreciate why keeping your face in the water makes swimming easier.

Once home we did some party planning – must check what date to do the party and book the venue before forgetting the whole thing for at least 2 months and then organising it! 😆 Davies wrote Buzz’ birthday card and drew a Yoda picture for the front, Tarly wrote her name very nicely and then as we were all fairly grumpy for no explainable reason we decided to get going early and stop at a farm and farm shop along the way to check the prices of their meat.

I managed to jam a dvd in the dvd player in Ady’s new car by forcing one in when there was already a disc in there. That caused rather a lot of cross words to be exchanged and a silent journey to the farm where I took the kids in to look round leaving Ady in the car with a pair of tweezers. He came to find us about 15 minutes later with a pair of very bent out of shape tweezers but a success in getting the disc out which has not only left the dvd player in full working order still but the actual tweezered out disc remained undamaged too. Result. And erm, phew! We looked round the farm shop with the children naming all the various organic vegetables on show. I really laughed when I couldn’t for the life of me recall the name of one of them only for Davies to say ‘oh I know, it’s an aubergine!’ and he was right! This despite neither of them, or infact me for that matter ever having eaten one :lol:. There was old fashioned apple and pear pressing going on so we watched that for a while then went into the wine and cider shop and I sampled some of their prize winning local ciders. All very nice :).

Finally, with everything all in working order and tempers restored once more we headed off to Ros’ for Buzz’s birthday barbecue. Lovely time there as always, there was pimms, trampolining, pool splashing, lovely food and some singing :). Loads of pics on flickr – I couldn’t be arsed to be discerning about which ones I uploaded so they’re all there. It was very cold and very windy although that didn’t seem to bother the children, or indeed the fully grown loons who jumped in the pool at the end 😆 Well I say fully grown, one of them was Tony :lol:. We left there and were home by about 8pm. The children had toast and a bath and a very late bedtime so hopefully they’ll sleep in again tomorrow. I still haven’t really warmed up so I’m off to snuggle up in bed myself just incase they don’t sleep in.

And that, was the edited highlights of my weekend!

I’ve been trying to think when would be a good day to do a photoday this year. Not one of my working days cos they’re not typical or what I hope characterises our days, not a weekend cos they are exceptional with Ady around. We’ll have to see but actually today would have been a good day as it had many of the elements which make up a normal day for us.

We had friends over, we see people pretty much every day, it definitely sums up our lives, we mix and mingle. Lucy, Richard and Rebecca were round for the morning. D&S were playing with geomags while eating breakfast and I washed all the stones we collected yesterday in the bath to get all the salt and other sea debris off them. The Dr Who games continue with Davies making cybermen, daleks and the Doctor
Lucy and co arrived and the children were mostly off playing while we desperately tried to catch up with each other. They came all wearing croc-a-likes so the kids set up something of a crocs parade in the hall which I rearranged for photo opportunities 🙂

Davies got out a balloon kit which had been a Christmas pressie from Lucy and co and set about blowing up a green one for Rebecca (her favourite colour) a red one for Richard (Davies’ own favourite colour 😆 Richard was asleep so unable to express a preference!) which he fixed onto sticks and then as I refused to do it for him he got the instruction book out and worked out how to make swords by twisting them. I was impressed :). They then tidied all that up and got the lego out while we made some lunch. Aside from lots of interuptions to grown up chatting it was a very harmonious few hours. 🙂

After they left we brought in the stones which had been drying in the garden and my papier mache Yoda, spread out loads of newspaper and did some painting. I explained that I wanted to make a good selection to take to kessingland to show people to give them ideas and we looked through the books trying to find some good examples of stones painted using the natural stone colour underneath, stones totally painted, stones with pictures painted on and stones which suggested an idea so strongly from their shape it was obvious what you should make them into. Davies did a great job of following the picture instructions to make a ladybird and a rabbit and he did some other bits too. Scarlett did a very good ladybird and then just painted lots of faces on the rest. I did a ladybird, an owl, a penguin, a crocodile, one with a rainbow, one miniature me and one which just looked like Wallace’s head so much I had to make it into just that. Actually looking at my animals they all have a very Aardman look to them – not sure if that is me seeing that in anything cartoony or me being too influenced by that look – will try and do some more lifelike painting on the next lot. I also painted the first coat on Yoda and later did the detail for his face. I’m quite pleased with him so far although I can see what I would have done differently another time, finishing touches to be added tomorrow / Saturday – hopefully he will pass muster with the birthday boy on Sunday :).


We cleared the painting stuff up, the children cleared themselves up 😆

The children had dinner – Scarlett who goes for weeks eating the same dinner every night and then moves onto the next one is currently in a potato waffles and eggs phase and then Ady arrived home with the new car. He had to go and collect some plants so we all piled in, the children tested their new car seats and the new dvd player, Ady filled it up with petrol, I had a quick go – will have a proper play when I have it for the day on Saturday but I think 6th gear might take some remembering to use :shock:. Anyway, we’re very pleased with it – it fulfils my desire for a higher up car like my Sharan, the kids get to have a dvd player they can listen to and watch without being disturbed by us listening to the radio, the rear seats fold into the floor so we don’t have to decide between space in the back or seats in the back and it just has so much space – camping this summer will be a breeze to load the car up :).

Home, bed for kids, bath, dinner, Grand Designs and about to be bed for us. Work tomorrow.

Delivery taken with just 13 miles on the clock, air con, in-car dvd player with 2 sets of headphones, new car seats for the children, roof bars incase we manage to fill up the twice-the-size-of-the-Golf back, fold down into the car very rear seats and a fuel card to keep filling it up with diesel, here is one of the (few) perks of the reason for my very absent husband’s absence:

* Ady’s work at the moment. He is doing his exam in just over a month and because it’s their manic busy time he is getting no chance to study. He’s doing 14 hour days, barely seeing the children, coming home and collapsing in an exhausted heap and then trying to study. I’m trying really hard to be understanding (not moaning about dragging Tarly to all D’s evening stuff cos he’s not home, cooking most nights, testing him endlessly on H&S questions, listening to his work woes and offering sensible advice and support rather than advising him to tell them all to fuck off and stop piling crap on him that’s not his remit or responsibility – that sort of thing) but I’m a crap wife really when it comes to stuff like this.

* Money this month is going to be a nightmare. It’s the third of the month and we have thirty pounds in our bank account, my car is empty of petrol. The money I’d alloted for Legoland got spent last month on Davies’s subs for Badgers and Beavers which I’d forgotten about having to pay termly, I’ve had £50 worth of dental treatment in the last 2 weeks and I’m about to run out of contact lenses so I did an online order for them yesterday before checking the bank balance which I’m now kicking myself for as I could have just worn my glasses this month instead.

* I’m not getting a chance to go walking. I wanted to do at least two, if not three walks a week but with Ady not getting home it’s not possible. I did do loads of steps at Legoland and again yesterday working in the morning and walking on the beach with Tarly in the evening but they’re all at child pace so unlikely to make much impact as ‘exercise’ really. Maybe I should run up and down the stairs a few times an hour instead.

*The underwire on my favourite bra broke yesterday so I had to chuck it away. I realised when rummaging in my bra drawer that it was my last decent normal wear bra so this month I will be living frugally while wearing very lacey, flouncy, frothy bras in bright pinks, reds and polka dots.

* House is a tip. I have a massive pile of stuff in both the playroom and Tarly’s bedroom which needs ebaying and no time to do it.

Fortunately I also have plenty of things to make me smile;

*Ady gets his new car today 🙂

*Scarlett was hanging out of the back door this morning while I was washing up looking for ants. She found loads of woodlice but shut the door with a resigned air and said ‘I guess it’s just not an ant sort of morning’.

*Davies had a graze on his knee which he showed me and asked what the word was again for when you skin beeped? He opened and closed his hand to demonstrate and we worked out he meant ‘throb’ 😆

* I got Space’s greatest hits album from work which we’ve all been dancing round to this morning, I’m really enjoying remembering music I used to love and digging it out from work to play to the children.

Davies was Badger of the Month
(although I’ve just realised I put Badger of the week on flickr :oops:)

I ordered several library books on painting pebbles and henna body art from work and some of them had arrived today so Scarlett and I headed down to the beach with a bag while Davies was being a Badger. The tide was right out so once we’d collected stones to be turned into ladybirds, cats, rabbits, crocodiles and the like we set about exploring rock pools on crab and clam hunts. We found several empty shells but no live sea creatures. We spent ages watching the seagulls and crows picking over the stones and calling to each other which was interesting, we looked at the lugworm casts (which I have only discovered the true nature of by googling) and tried to spot one in action – Scarlett thought she would make a good lug worm as she can do good scribbling just like them :lol:. I was actually quite pissed off that Ady didn’t make it home in time for me to take Davies to Badgers leaving Tarly at home as I really enjoy that hour a week where I either sit in the car and read (and eat humbugs) or listen to music or lately go for a solitary walk along the beach, but actually Scarlett was so full of chatter and delight and so charming with her comments and questions I really enjoyed it. She mentioned Davies at least 3 times including telling me she was really missing him (aww). It’s times like that when I realise that however much they squabble their relationship is a rather wonderful one and quite seperate from me or Ady. I can think back to my own closeness to my brother – and we can get it back in minutes with in jokes from our childhood or references to games we used to play or stories only we recall and by the time we were the age of Davies and Scarlett I’d been in school for two years full time. Listening to Poppy and Matilda talking to each other at Legoland this week and the various other siblings I’ve spent time with from HE families shows me that sibling bonds are something very special and unique and yet another benefit of Home Education is allowing them to really enjoy each others company and get their first valuable life lessons about other people from their brothers and sisters. I’ll come back and re-read that next time they’re driving me insane with their arguing cos I can tell even as I write it it is utterly rose tinted, but I know what I’m trying to say :lol:.

Anyway, Ady arrived just as we were working our way back up the beach as Davies was due out of Badgers soon so he started to walk down from the Badgers carpark to meet us. As we crossed the crossing on the coast road a man riding his bike crashed into the kerb, along the railings and ended up sprawled across the pavement with his bike on top of him. Scarlett and I dashed back across the road, lifted his bike off him, helped him up and assessed the damage to him and his bike. He wasn’t badly hurt but very shaken and his bike’s front wheel was all mangled. Scarlett pointed out his grazed cheek, I offered him use of my phone or a lift somewhere but he insisted he didn’t have far to go, so we left him to it and carried on walking to meet Ady. It seemed sensible for him to wait with us to collect Davies so we all went in. They have a trophy which they award to Badger of the Month on the first meeting of each month, allegedly for the Badger who has tried hardest that month but actually is probably just rotated in turn around them all – do you sense my disdain for rewards by rote? 😉 – this was confirmed by the little discusssion I could see taking place before they announced Davies as the winner. Still, it was nice for it to happen infront of Tarly and Ady aswell as me and we all made a big fuss of him and took pictures of him with it when we got home. 🙂 I think Davies is as casual about such things as me really, all the way home we made up silly awards of X of the month for everyone we could think of to much hilarity (initiated by him) and he told me all the people who had ‘had a turn’ at being Badger of the Month too, which led me to suspect he sees it more in the style of everyone getting a go at unwrapping a layer on the pass the parcel than winning at tennis too.

Tomorrow the plan included Yoda painting and pebble painting so I think we might be taking that one outside. Hatchwatch II continues apace with the first candling tonight showing all six eggs as expected for day 6. Ady’s practically named them all already so I bloody hope we get some chicks this time. 😆

Doing wonders for the reputation of reliability of working mothers everywhere I was late for work this morning 🙁

I woke up before the kids – who predictably on the one morning a week when they actually need to be up by a certain time were both still fast asleep at 8am. I was dressed, had one load of washing hanging out and one load in the machine by the time I woke them up. They were breakfasted and dressed and we were all waiting for Julie to arrive when she rang me at ten to nine to say she was running late anyway and had got stuck in traffic :(. I did a frantic think through of all my alternative options – that would be none then other than taking the children to work with me, gritted my teeth and phoned the library to tell them. She actually got here only slightly after 9am so I was in work just after ten past and everyone was all fine and understanding about it but I felt shit :(. I knew the time would come when I’d have a childcare issue which would make me either absent or late and I guess five months before my first ‘offence’ isn’t too bad but I hate the skin of my teeth feeling that I have every time I get to work successfully on time and manage a whole shift without being phoned to come home due to some emergency. This would be no different if the children were in school either, it’s just the curse of the working mother – and very occassionally father, but far less so, and it sucks :(. I am really happy with the choices I have made, both to have children in the first place and to be at home with them but I hate feeling I am not doing something 100% and I know that however much I’m enjoying the job I am never 100% present with the children always in the back of my mind. Oh for a self-cloning machine 😆

Julie and I had spoken on the phone last night and talked about going to the beach but I had the dentist this afternoon which would have hampered that so in the end we all went to the beach and then I popped back to the dentist leaving D&S with Julie, J&M on the beach. And there lies my other issue, I simply cannot deal with knowing the children are out and about somewhere without me either. When they went out with Lucy the other morning I was visualising car accidents, abductions and other such grim scenarios, today I had left them at the beach with Julie and no escape route if something went wrong. I know, drama queen 🙄 Lucy taking them out the other day was the first time they have been in a car without me or Ady and I only relaxed about that because they can do their own seatbelts up now. I can be so laid back I’m sure people think I’m neglectful when they are in my care but the idea of something happening to them when I am doing something else and someone else is looking after them is just horrid, the idea of someone else kissing them better if they hurt themselves and the thought of something dreadful happening to them when I’m not there is enough to keep me awake at night. At least when Lucy has them I can read a proper account of what they did on her blog, I think Julie and my parents think I’m mad when I still want a minute by minute account of everything they said, ate, drank or produced on the toilet! 😆

Dentist was fine, fifteen minutes of scraping and nearly thirty quid (:shock: that’ll be the whole months budget blown in the last 3 days then, what with that and Legoland) and then I drove back to the beach to find everyone still in one piece. We stayed awhile but Jack and Maisie had had enough really by the time I arrived back (Davies and Scarlett would happily live at the beach and were off ‘adventuring’ with some shells and a stick) so Julie and I managed a bit of a catch up chat before J&M’s cries to ‘go home now’ had to be answered so we packed up and left.

Children are now eating tea and then as Ady is late home (again, sigh) we’re all going to Badgers so I imagine Tarly and I will go for a wander along the beach while Davies does Badger stuff until Ady can come and pick her up. Might be back later 🙂

Not nearly as muffiny school at home as it sounds I promise ;).

The children were up early again this morning, but I was not. They found themselves breakfast and watched a taped Dr Who episode while I slept off yesterday. When I did get up I put loads of washing away, put loads more through the machine and on the line and then settled down to blog yesterday.

D&S were playing with the pens, paper and scissors. They’re both really into cutting things up / out at the moment and S was sitting merrily snipping away a piece of paper she’d decorated and suddenly lifted it up and said ‘oh look, I’ve made a spiral!’ and she had 🙂 She wasn’t at all sure how she’d managed it but it was very nicely cut out and looked very pretty so I showed them how to cut out really long ones and they decorated them. They are currently suspended from the lounge ceiling with sellotape and cotton and spin prettily in the breeze so will no doubt dangle there until they get ripped down by marauding children later in the week.

I then got carried away sorting out the freezer in the garage and writing the month’s menu planning up on the kitchen board and then Ady came home and helped the children tidy the lounge up and I ran the hoover round to get up all the teeny tiny snipped bits of paper which seem to characterise our lounge floor at the moment (maybe we should go into the confetti business as a sideline? NicConfetti? No?). We all had lunch of some description and then Ady went off to college.

Ady had brought his laptop in and loaded it up with a dalek game for Davies he’d found on a website so Davies played that while I made a start on a papier mache Yoda for a birthday present. Scarlett sat and cut up strips of newspaper for me and ran to get supplies of flour and water as the paste got used up and we had a very peaceful hour doing that. I put Yoda in the garden to start drying out and cleared up my papier mache mess, Ady’s laptop battery ran out which called an end to Davies’ playing so we decided to do some baking.

When we were food shopping on Saturday we’d seen a Dalek biscuit kit in Sainsburys. I normally refuse to buy those cake making kits – they’re so overpriced for what’s in them and we make far nicer baking from scratch but when you get a cutter in the box too I think they are slightly more worth the money as at least you get something to keep. Davies, in his usual style with one of his fads is totally obsessed with all things Dr Who and Dalek at the moment so it seemed like a good investment. He did most of the mixing, kneading, rolling and cutting out and Scarlett helped with the putting rice crispies in the biscuits before baking. They came with orange writing gel to finish decorating them but Davies wanted me to do that. They were not the worst packet mix biscuits I’ve ever had but I reckon when we use the cutter and home made mixture next time it’ll be nicer.

The geomags and the animals came out then and a hybrid game of the last Dr Who episode, featuring the Cybermen which Davies had seen on the website earlier and an assortments of animal slaves based on the pigslaves all seemingly called Lazslo or Tallulah starred in a lengthy adventure. I made a geomag dalek for them and then retired back to my laptop.

There was a big fuss from Scarlett at teatime about tidying up but she got through it in the end, they had tea, Ady came home, they all watched Shaun the Sheep and eventually they went to bed, we had dinner and watched Inside I’m Dancing which I thought was excellent.

Trying to think of a branding for Nic organised days out – NicAwayDays? NicTrips? NicScertions? 😆

Yesterday we went to Legoland. It was, I think, our fourth trip there. We’ve done two with Ady and two without him and with him is definitely preferable. I’ve perfected the art of packing a bag which doesn’t break my back with unnecessary items, but isn’t so lightweight that I’ve forgotten essentials. I came away with no excess food but well fed children, I had spare underwear enabling them play in the water bit in their pants and have dry clothes to get back into, I had a carrier bag for wet clothes, one for rubbish and a spare one which I’d not attributed a use to until Si whipped one out to keep his mobile phone dry during the log flume ride. I had water – but only one small bottle so I wasn’t carting gallons of it about and could fill it up at the drinking fountains, I had suncream, which I applied to all of us liberally so none of us burnt on what was a simply perfect day for being out and about. I had fleeces for the children so when they were blue and shivering after the water play I could wrap them up and that was it :). What I didn’t have was a necessary additional adult 🙁 . Scarlett is now tall enough to go on all but the very biggest rides and both my children adore thrillseekers rides, they are utter ‘trackies’ so wanted to go on everything as many times as they could. On the bigger rides I can understand the need for an accompanying adult with each child although some of the smaller ones seemed a little ridiculous to have to have an adult next to every child – wider rides for three people abreast would also have been useful too 😆 Thanks to the occassional people who stayed with one or other of my children, or in Si’s case took Davies on the big rollercoaster when Scarlett refused to be unglued from my side we did go on pretty much everything, but having Ady would have meant we could have gone on stuff more than once. Next time I organise something I’ll be a bit more sensible about which days suit our family 😆

That aside, and Tarly’s couple of moments and Davies’ fever pitch of excitement making him loud, giddy and slightly unbearable at one point, we had an excellent day. Although it was lovely to know so many of our friends were there it is not feasible to wander round in big gangs and although we congregated for lunch at the Johnny Thunder show it didn’t make sense to linger socialising when there were so many rides to be going on instead. We did spend a bit of time with Simon and Claudia and various points of wandering round with Alison and co for a while, including going on the log flume with Poppy and Tilda for a final 3 times at the end which was ace 🙂 but the rest of the time it was more waving and smiling than spending time with anyone.

Davies and Scarlett had a go at the driving school. Davies was old enough for the bigger one although I don’t think he quite got the hang of it as every time I saw him he was going off in a different direction to the one he looked like he wanted to be going in 😆 I didn’t even manage to get a picture of him. Scarlett loved the littler one and seemed a bit more coordinated. We watched an excellent 3d lego show with all sorts of effects which we all thought was very good and as we went round the monorail style ride Scarlett took a deep breath, gave me a beautiful smile and said to me ‘I’m SOOO happy Mummy!’ which was lovely :). We ended up heading off to the water bit just the three of us at the end so they striped to their pants and had a great half hour or so splashing and playing while I sat down and smiled indulgently at them, then a French family ushered them into the big dryer with their children so they got dried for free before getting dressed again and heading up to MiniWorld where we caught up with various people again in time to say goodbye before taking the hilltrain back up to the top and the exit.

We’d had a straightforward, but longer than expected due to really heavy traffic, journey up there with us taking it in turns to choose the music. Davies wanted High School Musical, Tarly wanted Tumble Tots actions songs and I’d got a cd with various songs from Take That, Catatonia, Proclaimers, Kaiser Chiefs, Mika and Tracey Chapman – an ecclectic mix :lol:. The journey home was much the same. I’d promised them a McDonalds having spent nothing other than the admission price all day and Tarly had about 20 minutes sleep just after we got into the car, then we woke her and played I Spy until we reached the McDonalds. That kept them quiet for the last half an hour until we reached home, just before 8pm. Ady had run them a bath and then they went to bed having told him all about their day. I slouched on the sofa while Ady brought me wine and cooked dinner before falling asleep on the sofa and waking around midnight to stagger up to bed.

I’m thinking about doing a trip to Chessington maybe in September so if anyone is interested shout and I’ll try and sort out dates and rates for it. 🙂

I knew it was an error to book early Sunday morning swimming lessons – we all woke up barely an hour before we had to be at the pool this morning so it was a mad rush to get breakfasted, dressed and out of the house in time. Last week there were two out of three triplets at the lesson and I chatted to their grandmother who was saying the third triplet would be there this week too. Ady came home in the week and told me that a bloke he worked with who’s wife had triplets not long after we had Davies were expecting another baby now but for some reason I’d not made any connection, despite the fact all girl triplets are probably not terribly common so it was a nice surprise to arrive at the pool and find the third triplet and her parents being the couple we knew. To continue the bizarre coincidence at the same time as Ady worked with Neil I also worked with his ex-fiance at another job and we bumped into her later today too.

The lesson was fine – I’d got D goggles this week which I’m sure would have helped if I’d put them on him properly but he enjoyed it and if we can manage to go swimming at some point to reinforce some of what he’s learning I’m sure that would help too. Personally I can’t think of anything worse than trying to teach 8 six year olds how to swim all at once with none of them really listening or following instructions but the woman seems to do a fairly good job.

We left there and went off to a car boot sale. Nothing much there today so we came home pretty much empty handed. We did spot a box full of various toy sea creatures including rays, sharks etc but the stall holder wanted £20 for the lot 😯 so we left them there. There were worth it in terms of what they would have cost new and them being in good condition but that is so not what car boot sales are about :lol:.

Home for lunch and then back out again to the optician. In February last year Davies had his eyes tested and was prescribed glasses for a short time to wear each week. He actually really liked wearing them but they broke a few months back and we’d not got them fixed so when we were in town in the week we popped into the opticians and had them fixed and made an appointment for him and Scarlett to both have their eyes checked. Davies’ were fine, the slight astygmatism (sure that’s not spelt right) that was in one eye has cleared up so he doesn’t need the glasses at all any more. The optician said if he wants to still have them for occassional wear when doing close reading or similar then that’s fine (it was a very low prescription). Scarlett was really nervous and where I’d booked appointments one after the other with the intention of her watching Davies have his eyes tested and then doing hers two opticians called them simultaneously so I went with Davies and Ady took Tarly. She did really well though and her vision is fine, no need for any glasses and very healthy eyes, so that was a good investment of an hour or so.

When we arrived in town there were two fire engines parked right across the pedestrianised main street with loads of firemen standing around. One of the engines was hitched up on these four big feet so the actual vehicle was about 2 foot off the ground and then two firemen and a woman from the RSPB with an animal carrier got into the cherry picker bit and were sent up to the top of a 3 storey building where a seagull was hurt and all tangled up in some wire barriers on the roof. There was a massive crowd gathered while they rescued the bird, freeing it from the wire and bringing it back down again. The fireman brought it over to the crowd so we could all see it (he was loving it, the fireman, not the bird :lol:) and there was much applauding and cheering before we all went on our way and the fire engines headed off again. We had a wander round the town after the opticians before coming home.

The children had an early tea with the intention of getting them to bed early in preparation for an early start and a long day tomorrow although they didn’t actually get their early night with both of them still awake after 9pm :(. We all watched Dr Who taped from last night and Ady and I had roast beef.

It feels like the weekend hasn’t really happened, with me working and so much going on today and now, despite the fact the children didn’t manage it, I really am heading off early to bed.

well not quite, but pretty damn close 😳

The headache cleared with the walk into work and the quiet and soothing environment of the library. There were four of us in this afternoon including Frankie who I like most. She has this habit of coming and saying things to me in a very low voice so only I can hear while I then have to deal with trying not to laugh at what she’s said infront of whoever I am dealing with at the time. She is a total bitch and I like her a lot 😆 The first hour was pretty quiet and I was on shelving duty so I mainly stood around with Frankie and Linda and we talked about a new starter and what we all think of her and I had a very protracted period of helping an elderly man photocopy his vehicle documents for a car he’d just sold. For the second hour I was on the counter so that was books in and out, packing up some items ready to go to other branches and occassional dancing behind the counter when noone was looking :lol:. Then it was tea break time and then I had an hour’s Enquiry Desk training. The Enquiry Desk is hallowed ground, you only get to man that when you are Fully Trained and Ready For Anything. It is the font of all knowledge, the place we send all questionners and best of all you get to sit down while you are manning it! I dealt with a few queries, learnt various new things and gossiped with the boss :). You gotta love that all female working envrionment for that aspect ;). My last half hour was spent doing the closing procedures. This includes closing and locking any windows throughout the building which have been opened, turning off the emergency exit alarms and bringing in the traffic cones which mark out Library staff parking spaces in the carpark, putting keys in all the various cupboards, shutting down all the computers and helppoints, cashing up the photocopier, telling any public that we are about to close and finally turning off all the lights.

Ady and the children were in the carpark waiting for me to go off food shopping. They’d had a great day out in the garden, they’d spent time cleaning Ady’s car inside and out with him – he gets his new car delivered next week 🙂 and David the Thankyou Neighbour had been over to sit and listen to the football on the radio with Ady. They’d been bathed (which means they must have been really filthy!) and fed.

We drove to Sainsburys and after a brief hiatus when I marched everyone out into the carpark, lectured them all about behaviour and then directed them back in again all was well. We were in there for ages, mostly because we got the kids to help pick things off shelves and put them in the trolleys. We finished there and got home around 730pm so the children got themselves off to bed while we put all the shopping away and then Ady read Davies a story and I read Tarly one from the massive pile I’d brought home from work.

Bath, much consumption of alcohol and a very late dinner means I will probably not be on top form tomorrow for my turn to get up but as we have a busy day of swimming lessons and opticians appointments planned I imagine I will have to get my head in the game pretty quick!

I’ve got a headache – drank too much wine last night 😳 Children and Ady seem even noisier than normal. D&S are outside caterpillar hunting for the butterfly garden – they have one so far.

Can’t decide whether it is day two or day three of Hatchwatch II but we are being more solicitous in our looking after them this time having read the instructions for the incubator properly, not at all sure yet what we’ll do with the chicks if they hatch!

Right, off to get changed for work and gather up books to take back.

As we pulled into our drive today Davies suddenly said ‘did Granny and Grandad have a sticker in their car with children in a not broken triangle when you were a little girl to show you and Uncle Frazer went to school then?’

I explained that no, they didn’t. He then wanted to know why not and I explained that it was not a regulation that you had a sticker in your car stating the education choice for any contained children within and that ours was an EO sticker advertising Home Education because it is something different to normal. He insisted that it was not and reeled off a list of names of other childen he knows who are Home Educated saying ‘loads of our friends are Home Educated’. I explained that he was the only child at Badgers, Beavers and Swimming lessons that didn’t go to school and it was more than a happy coincidence that everyone at NicCamp, Kessingland and Magical Mondays happened not to go to school. Given the whole Danny and Sandy thing from earlier I think we might just have hit the magical age of worrying about what everyone else is doing…

The weather’s been lovely here again today, very windy but lovely and sunny just the same.

We had to go and transfer some money from one bank to another, which are at opposite ends of town and I’m still on a quest for sunsuits for both children too. Also Davies had some funny squidgy faces from a cheapo shop a while back and burst one (they seem to be made from thin rubber like balloons filled with some sort of powder – should try making them ourselves really) last night which upset him so I said we’d replace it.

So we drove into town and parked up really easily as it was really quiet today. On the way we listened to the OST of High School Musical which I’d borrowed from work. Davies listened to the first song with a thoughtful look on his face and then as soon as ‘Getcha head in the game’ came on said ‘Oh, this is from that film we watched – what was it called again?’ I told him and then he reminded me that it had the working title of Grease 3 which I’d told Ady having read it somewhere, so he wanted to know about Grease 2. I told him it was rubbish! 😆 We talked a bit about how they were similar stories – set in high schools, with lots of singing and dancing and the two central characters playing out some sort of doomed love story. I likened it to Romeo and Juliet (at which he nodded, but actually I’m not at all sure he had any idea who I was talking about!). We talked about how Danny was really cool but Sandy was not so cool and their friends were really different groups and how that was similar in HSM too. But Davies pointed out that in Grease Sandy changed herself to fit in with Danny and in HSM they didn’t change but made what they were cool for everyone. Which I’d never really realised before about Grease but actually that’s a shite message isn’t it – don’t be yourself, be like all the cool kids and fit in! I asked Davies which he thought was the best thing to do – try and fit in to be cool or be yourself and be so good at it that people thought you were cool just for being you. He said he’d think about it :lol:.

We went to the first bank, kept ourselves entertained by guessing which cashier number would be called next – similar activity to listening to the footballs scores read out on the radio and trying to guess how many goals – Nottingham Forest one, Wolverhampton Rovers…nil. We got Davies his replacement squidgy face things – he went up and paid for them himself, then off to the other bank. We had a look in Claires Accessories just because Scarlett and I love it in there and then had a wonder round various clothes shops, not buying of course 😉 before ending up in The Works. I got a painting by numbers kit each for Davies and I having been telling them about them the other day and some Disney princess posters and watercolours for Tarly. She also got one of those rainbow sponge paint things which are advertised by JML all the time for about a tenner for 59 pence! A random stranger came up to Davies and gave him a balloon which he’d obviously been given in a shop which nearly caused a fight as of course Scarlett wanted one too then but we managed to calm her down. She went off again though in Woolworths when I wouldn’t double back to look at something again even though I’d already seen it once and agreed that yes, she could have it for her birthday. So I was that mother walking briskly out of the shop with one child screaming behind me and the other trotting along with his balloon bobbing about and hitting people as he walked past them. She recovered pretty quickly when I picked her up and talked reasonably to her though and apologised and kissed me which given the crowd we’d attracted I was surprised didn’t warrant a round of applause. Actually she has been being tricky again lately and I’ve been putting it down to her being tired, which it is, but I possibly haven’t been dealing as well with her as I was a while back, getting pulled into the threatening punishments and shouting at her cycle rather than being rational and calm in response. However that was a tiny episode during a couple of hours being out and about and I was thinking how lovely it was to be able to walk round town and properly look at things without having to push pushchairs, worry about children running off or generally fretting about having them with me. Actually most of the time the children are pretty good company nowadays, they ask interesting questions which make me think, hold intelligent conversations and make me laugh. I’m aware that from September it won’t just be Davies who shouldn’t be with me during school hours, Scarlett will be obviously not in school too. Even though they are pretty little as soon as they open their mouths and speak they mark themselves out as ‘not in school today’. I think that’s what was bothering me at Fun Junction really, suddenly it is obvious that they are different, just by looking at them and anyone overhearing the conversations we have will realise that. I am proud of what we do but I don’t always want to be quite so visible, all the time.

We left there and popped into the CoOp on the way home to get some bits for dinner tonight. We came home and had a late lunch before embarking on the painting by numbers. Davies very quickly got bored of it, Scarlett enjoyed painting her poster and I did most of mine. I had told the children about painting by numbers kits when we were talking about ways of copying things exactly rather than your own interpretation or creativity. I recall doing kits as a child and whilst admiring the finished product as it was indeed a good replica always feeling rather unfulfilled by it as it required little or no real talent, imagination or creativity. Always made me want to muddle the colours up at least and make 1 orange rather than blue and 2 red instead of green just to see what would happen 😆 Davies retired from arty pursuits and went to play on his Xbox – today he was playing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and got to another new level so he was pleased with that. Tarly mostly made a mess with her rainbow painting sponges, but being rainbow coloured at least it was a pretty mess :lol:.

Ady came home, the children had tea and then went out to play in the garden, they came in requiring a bath and while they splashed around for a good half an hour or so Ady and I pulled all the cupboards out in the playroom and gathered a new pile of stuff ready to be listed on ebay. The children got out of the bath and came to join us on decision making on outgrown toys. Tarly is like me, she is quite happy to let stuff go particularly if in doing so there is a chance of acquiring new stuff in return – I love clearing half my wardrobe out, selling it on ebay and then feeling utterly justified in refilling it again afterwards. 😆 Davies is a bit more reticent about getting rid of things and would happily keep rattles and stacking cups claiming some sort of emotional attachment to them despite not having seen them in four years 😆 It probably doesn’t look very different to the casual observer (not that we have many people coming round to casually observe our playroom) but it is clearer, with space for this weeks car boot bargains to slot straight in to :lol:.

Children off to bed, late dinner for us and either The Queen or episode 2 of Prison Break which we watched the pilot of last night and got hooked on straight away. 🙂

‘Nicola – Queen of the library’ but you lot can still call me ‘Nic’ 🙂

Actually it’s not nearly as glamorous or regal as it sounds and doesn’t include a sparkly tiara or a bouquet of flowers. It was a nod to my efficiency and speed of work apparently. My predecessor used to have the crown for being the most super-speedy worker there and they decided today that I replaced her in more ways than just taking her working hours. So that was nice :). I wouldn’t have said but I knew you’d all be keen to hear ;).

It was really busy today actually, loads of people bringing back books so lots of shelving, lots of books in the daily delivery for borrower reservations so lots of phoning people to tell them their books are in and also The Rotation Plan, which we must speak of in a hushed and reverent tone. But all it really means is that print outs of statistics spew out regularly and are looked at by Important People (librarians). One such print out lists books which have not been borrowed for X period of time and are therefore taking up space on shelves but not justifying it. So the first course of action is to move them around to other libraries to see if they get borrowed from there. Eventually they either get sold or last copies get kept in stores. So today’s task was to work off a print-out and pick all the books, videos, cds, dvds etc. listed ready to be packed off to another local library. Not really that taxing and once you know which shelf a book is likely to be nestling on it’s pretty straightforward to go and grab it, but I do still work at Retail Pace and view every task as one to complete and get onto the next one rather than the ‘job for the day’.

I found a recipe for pork chops (planned dinner for tonight) in one of the cookery books so during my lunch break I went and got the extra ingredients for that, stupidly forgetting that I’d walked in to work and would need to walk home again. I then compounded that by selecting a load of books for the children which got heavier and heavier as I walked home until I thought my back was about to break – bet it’s stiff tomorrow, so that was silly, but I did hit more than my specified target of steps for the day. 🙂

The children had had a good day, going to the local park with Lucy & co in the morning and spending the afternoon out in the garden under my Dad’s care. They’d been grazing all day with all the fruit in the house eaten, all the bread and a load of cereal consumed so were not in the market for any tea so we tidied up, watched Shaun The Sheep together and then they got their pjs on and I sat and read them the whole pile of about 10 books I’d brought home.

Ady arrived home during all this with a half dozen fertilised eggs so we can have a go at Hatchwatch II. He’d found a local farm with free range chickens and been to talk to the farmer about the whole thing. He’s seen the farmer’s set up for hatching and talked to him about some of the errors we might have made last time leading to our zero percent success rate. So tonight we’ve set it all up again and have six eggs hoping to become chicks in three weeks time.

I can’t quite believe it’s Friday again already tomorrow, we have a few things we need to do but I’m going to aim to get them done first thing and spend the day doing nice things with the children, today felt like a long time away from them.