One word? When seven would do…

official tent picture

Our tent

Last week when our new tent arrived the order was somehow duplicated and we got two delivered. Once I’d realised I was quite delighted and fully intended keeping the extra one to sell and recover some of the cost of the one we’d paid for, but a quick ask around proved my sketchy idea that after a certain period wrongly delivered stuff becomes yours was not the case and that actually if I did keep it then legally I had to keep it in the same condition in which it had been delivered. Which meant I couldn’t use it, sell it or do anything with it. Which seemed a bit pointless. The tent had come without a central groundsheet though so I decided to contact the seller about that and mention the duplicate tent arriving, semi hoping that as they are in Germany they may just tell me to keep the extra tent rather than spend money arranging for collection. They emailed back to say they would send me a groundsheet and arrange for collection of the extra tent and thanking me for my honesty.

I told my parents about it all this evening and they are rather colourful and were utterly horrified at me for not keeping / selling the extra one, so now I feel all silly for being honest 🙄 – you just can’t win!

It’s been quite a productive day today. We had a list of things we needed to get out of this month’s budget so as I got paid today we went off to tick some of those things off our list. At Tescos we got Davies some new shorts and trousers and some goggles for swimming, some saucepans and cutlery for camping to replace last years Tesco saucepans and cutlery which had gone rusty in our garage over the winter (and will be put away to store properly next winter) and a fleece for Tarly as she only has heavy winter coats or too small hand me down fleeces from Davies. They didn’t have any of the £2 Tesco Value ones but they did have nice zip up £4 pink ones. The smallest size they had was age 6-7 which looked tiny and when she tried it on was only slightly large on her, so we bought that and she’s happily worn it all day :).

Then we went to Littlehampton and into Peacocks. Both my pairs of cropped jeans from last summer have rips in them and as the denim is lighter weight on the cropped ones I did want to replace them rather than just turning up my normal jeans as I have been doing. Their cropped jeans were £15 a pair but they did have lightweight stretchy jeans reduced to half price from £12 to £6 instead so I got a couple of pairs of them and they can be turned up instead. We were also looking for sandals for Davies and sunsuits for each of them but had no luck on those. Davies has been changing his mind daily about whether to get some pretend crocs like Tarly and me or not and when we looked in a cheapo shoe shop at their sandals and he saw some orange crocs-a-like with smiley faces on he decided he did want those actually instead of sandals. They didn’t have his size but the shop had another branch in the next town so we left Littlehampton and went there instead. We found a parking space straight away and got him a pair of orange ones with smiley faces, which he put on straight away and seems to be delighted with. 🙂 Also got Tarly a pair of the jibbitz with cats on which I have managed to fix her broken strap using on hers so that was good. 🙂 We poppped into the Iceland next door and got various frozen food items too. Lots of interesting conversations in the car as always, mostly War of the Worlds or Dr Who inspired including in depth discussions about why creatures need to evolve, what ‘future’ is and how believing in aliens is a bit like God, Father Christmas, tooth fairies and ghosts – some people do, some people don’t and it’s all kind of up to you really.

We got home in time to cross paths with the Thank You Neighbour who offered to help me bring my shopping in and asked with a cheeky wink if I was off to go and have a lie down 😯 but I managed to discourage him! The children played with Barbies and Wallace and Gromit and then moved on to doing some drawing and colouring. Ali’s Freya phoned to speak to Scarlett which utterly delighted her. She knew she was going to ring and sat watching my phone, snatching it up as soon as it rang. She chatted away and listened with a smile on her face before saying goodbye and hanging up. Very sweet and very indicative of years to come!

Davies decided he wanted to make a dalek so he went and got an empty loo roll (he has a collection of these stored in his bedroom for just such eventualities) and various bits of paper, scissors and glue and made a good start. He asked for some help in making the sticky out bit so I showed him how to cut a hole in the tube and stick a rolled up bit of card in it which pleased him. Scarlett made something with the paint pens.

I made their tea, Ady came home, swiftly followed by my parents. Bedtime stories from my Mum and a very protracted bedtime with lots of reappearances from both children. Pizza for dinner and lots of general hilarity until a final conversation about Home Education and working mothers which we all very carefully avoided falling out over while all still getting our points across and then they went home.

Tomorrow’s plans rest on the weather, which is forecast to do one thing while I am hoping it does the other.

I was woken this morning by Scarlett yelling up the stairs for me to come down and wipe her bottom. So that was nice 🙄 Once I was up it seemed rather pointless to go back to bed so I was up and about pretty early. The children were watching The Pink Panther video we’d bought yesterday but it has the Henry Mancini theme tune rather than the one with words which we were hoping for. Satisfied ourselves with finding some youtube clips showing the song though. I put some washing out just as it starting raining and then made lunch to take to MM and we went to collect Lucy, Rebecca and Richard.

On the way D&S asked to listen to War of the Worlds, so there was some discussion of that on the way to MM including what the red stuff the Martians covered Earth with was made of, what their eyes were made of, what a ‘living nightmare’ is, what ‘terror’ is and some examples of some things that I find terrifying, why ‘do something every day that scares you’ is a good life motto but some things are best left avoided, why I might be scared of dogs and probably loads of other things I’ve forgotten while Lucy also told me about Wife Swap.

We arrived and there were two great activities laid on at MM today – making Elmers from milk cartons and little pieces of coloured paper and material with googly eyes, and comic / storyboard making with pens and pencils and readyprinted comic strips. We arrived at about 1130 and there were already several people there. D&S both wanted to do some comic making so we went over and had a seat at that table. Davies is familar with the idea of storyboards and layouts of comics but we’d never looked at trying to fit a story into a certain amount of frames before, we normally use as many boxes as necessary. I tried to explain how you’d decide what your story was and work out how to tell it in x number of frames but it was easier to show them, so we chose what I’d done from waking up this morning to arriving at MM in nine pictures. Davies dictated what I’d done and I drew them and we decided on some ‘comic’ effects to liven it up a bit and suggest movement etc.
, Then we moved on and made some Elmers (well the children started and got bored so I did most of, cool activity 🙂 )
D made a dalek from Lego and S was utterly delighted at the arrival and Ali and Freya :).
I chatted, drank tea and enjoyed the busyness of the group and then decided to go and finish my comic strip so sat and did colouring for a while before being joined by Ali, Davies, Scarlett and Freya. The children did some pictures of their own and Tarly did some ruining, sorry, colouring in on mine 😉
D’s comic strip

Then it all got slightly ridiculous with me claiming to be SuperNic and designing a comic strip to show off this superhero alterego with all of my superfeats of the morning so far

And then we cleared up and came home. 🙂

Davies, Scarlett, Rebecca and Richard had all been desperate to come back here and play so Lucy and I, who hadn’t talked much at MM as it makes more sense to chat to other people there, decided that would be nice. Unfortunately none of them seemed to actually want to go and play in the end so after about an hour of constant interuptions and upsets we gave up trying to have a conversation and took them home. Once home D&S magically managed to play together really nicely and then I did their tea and sewed the lastest Beaver badge onto D’s uniform. My Mum arrived so she stayed with Scarlett while I walked Davies round to Beavers and then stayed chatting until it was time to walk round there again to collect him.

The children have done loads more drawing, Davies did an excellent Pink Panther and Tarly did some scribble pictures, Davies has been doing loads of copying writing off things like dvd cases and wrote STOP pretty much by himself today on his comic strip (although his letter wandered about all over the place and were not in the conventional left to right formation :lol:). They are now playing a crazy game with a Barbie jeep, a spider man toy and the milk carton Elmer waiting for Ady to get home before they go to bed.

Oh and he’s just knocked on the door! 🙂 Back later!

Before Scarlett fell asleep last night she asked me to sleep in her bed with her. I explained that I wouldn’t, but if she woke in the night then she could come straight to our bed rather than calling me. So I *knew* she would appear at some point during the night and sure enough by about 3am she was there snuggled in beside me. She failed to sleep through the night for such a long, long time that it’s not something I want to make a habit of but actually she has gone from waking in the night and staying awake thus keeping us up too, to if she does wake in the night (a very, very rare occurance now, less than once a month I’d say) she is happy to snuggle up in our bed and go back to sleep. Wish she’d been like that for all those years before :roll:. I don’t actually object to middle of the night sneaking into our bed and to be honest it is generally because they want to cuddle me, which I am fine with, so it’s Ady who gets kicked out to share their bed with Wallace and Gromit or several hundred cuddly toys when he’s had enough of feet in his head and elbows in his back! 😆 This all meant that when Davies woke in great excitement about swimming lessons starting this morning I was completely tangled up with Scarlett while Ady was downstairs in her bed so he ended up getting up with him instead of me :oops:.

Speedy breakfast and getting dressed to be at the swimming pool just before 9am with Davies really excited about it. Ady and Tarly went and sat in the spectators bit while I took Davies into the changing rooms to get changed and then out to the pool. We were really early so we watched the class before and chatted a bit about what he was going to do, then they all got out so I hopped over into the spectators bit too and we all watched him. I think there was 8 or 9 children in total, all about the same age as Davies and he was one of only two boys, which suited him as he was chatting away to the girls either side of him and exchanging grins with them :roll:. Unfortunately he didn’t listen to the instructor as well as he should have done and a couple of times he appeared to not have a clue what he was supposed to be doing but he really enjoyed it and we told him how well he’d done. They all got a free swimming bag too which he was delighted with and then I hopped back over the barrier to go and help him get changed.

We then headed over to the big car boot sale we went to last week and wandered round that for a couple of hours. I wanted a second rubber mallet for camping which Scarlett spotted and with a winning smile she got for a quid (result 🙂 ), we got various other bargains including five puzzles for 10p each, really good ELC ones with 100 and 200 pieces too so that was great, our puzzle selection is now complete again. Oh and a Pink Panther (the cartoon pink cat not the Peter Sellers films) video too as me and the children really like the theme tune. :). A quick detour home to collect our tent and to the supermarket for beer and salad and then round to Lucy’s for tent putting up and barbecuing for the afternoon.

There is a big patch of grass just outside Lucy’s back garden which was ideal for the purpose of putting up their massive Khyam and our more modest dome tent. We’re really chuffed with ours, it is exactly what we wanted. Having perused tents for the previous two years and initially thinking we’d want a really big one (not dissimilar to Lucy’s new one) the first year we then borrowed a far smaller one last year which did us admirably for three camping trips and decided us that all we actually wanted was one extra bedroom pod for storage of the potty, clothes etc. Cost issue aside (as in, we couldn’t have afforded anything bigger or grander) there is also the issue of space for storage and transporting the tent, time taken to put it up and actually one of the things we liked most about camping was the whole bare minimum-ness of it, I like being all cosy in a smallish area, having to be sensible about what you pack to bring, and I like the light in the smaller, paler tents as oppsed to the darkness inside the bigger ones. I guess if money were no object we might be tempted to have a bigger one too, for longer trips of a week or more but given most of our anticipated usage will be weekends I think what we’ve got is pretty darn near perfect. 🙂 We had no instructions but worked out how to put it up pretty easily and, this is what always amazes me, we managed to get it all back in it’s tiny bag again :).

Lucy’s brother, SIL and their two boys were there too so the children had a great time playing in and out of the tents and then in the garden while we all ate lots, drank lots and chatted lots (Ady ate lots, I drank lots and Mandy chatted lots 😉 ). The children were all really good and just had a great day, Davies and Scarlett are so excited about having our own tent and we can’t wait to go and try it out :). We ended up staying until about 7pm, having come inside once it started to get chilly and could probably have stayed longer but it’d had been a long day already and I knew if the children started to go downhill it would degenerate pretty quickly so we left on a high :). The children had a quick bath, Scarlett had a complete trauma about her favourite nightdress being in the wash (proving we’d been right to leave, poor child was sooo tired) and then I sat with Scarlett for all of about two minutes before she was asleep, Davies was not far behind.

It’s been a really nice weekend all round, pictures on flickr, and now I am off to bed, to dream of tenting 🙂

I got engaged. Which was better than being vacant I suppose!

After the last post I buggered off to lie on the bed with a book for an hour or so having taken some painkillers. Ady came in and made me a cup of tea at which point I decided I felt better and we went out.

I’ve not mentioned our mice for a while partially because I don’t like talking about them, partially because I sort of forget we have them and partially because round the blogring mice are a bit like noses, everyone has them. But we do have some of our own, in the understairs cupboard. And Ady has been dealing with them with some traps borrowed from work which he baits with hula hoops as they seemed to be their favoured snack when they feasted on food we kept in the understairs cupboard. Normally he disposes of any captured specimens in a rather instant way (and no, we don’t eat them!) but today the children were aware of the captured one so we decided to liberate it in a more humane fashion just this once. So we drove to a local-ish park. Not too local as we don’t want him coming back, so we blindfolded him, did a couple of fake left turns and span his box round four times before opening it to allow him to run (albeit in a dizzy fashion) free. His horizons widened, his opportunities increased and his world made so much bigger, hopefully he will have a better life. I imagine right now he is living it up with his new found mouse friends, trading his hula hoop diet for a Saturday night feast of kebab, walking on the wild side with chili sauce and hearing stories of life on the outside. I doubt for a moment he is missing his usual Saturday night routine with the rest of his mousey family listening to Dr Who through the wall, having their own mini vote on who should play Joseph in TVs Any Dream Will Do while opening a celebratory pack of salt and vinegar hula hoops. Nope, he’ll be loving the freedom, the wind in his fur, the throb of excitement that is life in the wild. Unless of course he has found a toy car and is finding his way back here in the style of Stuart Little, enlisting help from creatures of the night as he goes. Or he may just have been eaten by a cat already! 😆

We then had to go to a Garden Centre. Now I have to admit that I hold people who choose to visit Garden Centre’s at the weekend with a high level of disdain. Having worked in similar establishments over the years and spent many a working hour compiling comprehensive lists of better places to be than there were I not being paid by the hour I am always rather astonished at the lure of such places. For a start they sell plants and things to go with plants, which would involve gardening which has always been way beyond me. Also they have overpriced ornaments and ‘gifts’ and any product which proclaims itself a gift always makes me suspicious. There is a certain type of person, from my observations, who frequents Garden Centres at the weekend and they come with no intention to buy, they may not even have a garden, they come to meander, to partake of coffee and cake served by a sulky teen in the coffee shop and then to go away and compare their experience with Other Garden Centre’s I Have Visited with other people who visit Garden Centre’s at weekends. These people either have nothing better to do (a dreadful crime IMO) or they are Grown Ups. Since when did visiting such retail establishments become a hobby, a past time? But it has, there do exist people who list visiting garden centres on their CV as a Leisure Pursuit. Shocking! But today we joined their ranks, because Ady had to visit this one this week and staying home yesterday morning prevented him from doing it then so we all went and did it this morning. They have a pet section so we went and purused that while Ady did his thing.

Then we drove around for a while trying to find something to do that was free. We stopped at the gliders club and watched some gliders landing for a while and then went to look at a nature reserve but it was very overpriced just to go in and walk round so we headed towards Arundel. On the way we realised we were at the other end of the road where the ill fated bluebell walk had been a couple of weeks ago so we decided to go there. And this time there were bluebells 🙂

We had a lovely couple of hours walking round the mill pond and enjoying the bluebells, we looked at various wildlife and evidence of wildlife and it was just really nice :). We played pooh sticks and took some photos. We did our usual self timer which ended in chaos when I crouched down behind Davies and Scarlett leapt on my back. I clutched at Davies as she threw me off balance and the three of us teetered precariously for ages before finally collapsing in a heap. Because we laughed so much Scarlett thought she was onto a winner so this continued for a while. We got some nice pictures and laughed a lot but we did leave quite a flat patch in the bluebells! 😆

On the least leg of the walk we reached the area where we’d spotted lizards last time and sure enough Ady very quickly saw one and managed to catch it. He opened his hand to show the children and it darted off, as he went to catch it again it shed it’s tail and then stayed very still on his leg, using all it’s defense techniques at once. We felt a bit bad that we’s scared it that much but it was amazing to see how it’s tail kept wriggling for ages and ages afterwards. The children held it and were fascinated by how much it continued to move. We talked about headless chickens and other things moving after death / disconnection from the brain (Davies amazed me by describing in pretty much the same words as I’d use about how movement is controlled by the brain and the brain is in the head). When we got home I looked up some info on the lizard we’d seen and about them losing their tails.
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We came home and the children had tea, Ady sat in the garden and I drank lots of tea. We’d talked about Dr Who earlier today and I’d suggested that the children might like to watch it. When it first came back we decided they were too young and would be too scared by it and actually we have given them the chance to watch it on various occassions since and they have both always refused, but they seem to know so much about it from their friends and be very aware of lots of the plotlines that I thought perhaps they would like to give it a go. Scarlett is still too little and too prone to getting scared really, but I hear Davies reference Daeleks, the Tardis and even Cybermen so often that I almost felt cruel for not offering him the chance to see it, although he’s never asked and if he had done I would have let him. It wasn’t the greatest one to start with as I’d assured him before we started watching that they all had a happy ending (his question, not my suggestion) and of course this one was a two parter so it finished on a cliffhanger but it was the right decision as he’s been upstairs playing Dr Who tonight and seemed to really enjoy putting together all the bits he already knew. Tarly was less keen, but adamant she would watch if Davies did so I let her watch some Max and Ruby before bed to end with nicer mental images and I got into bed with her and read her the whole of the Barbie Swan Lake novelisation book too, so hopefully no pig monster nightmares :lol:.

Tomorrow D has his very first swimming lesson and we’re having the grand errection of the new tent aswell. I imagine there will be pictures to follow :).

Feel crap again this morning. I had a full night of horrid dreams, having gone to bed by 11pm, which is *really* early for me. I’ve woken with a headache, in a really nasty mood and want everyone to fuck off and leave me alone. Ady is cutting hedges outside (with the noisiest hedge trimmer in the world) and the children have been standing out there screaming every time the hedge trimmer goes until I called them in and told them to stop incase the neighbours called social services or the police. They are now running in and out of the house every two minutes yelling ‘Mummmmmeeeeeee!’ to tell me something. Argh, I need to go and be somewhere with no people!

I worked yesterday. Ady stayed home in the morning (really need to properly sort my every other Friday morning out for childcare, I spoke to a local HEor who comes in the library yesterday as she does childminding. Problem is we are now tight to a budget again so that would need to be changed to accomodate childcare and it is only every other Friday morning but would mean I’d need to get the children there before work and then pick them up during my lunchbreak to bring them home for my Dad to have them in the afternoon – Dad only has a two seater van so even if we could sort out childseats for him to go and pick them up, he couldn’t fit them in his van anyway. Oh, it’s all so bloody complicated! And Julie was doing one Friday morning a month for me but now she’s working Fridays too so that doesn’t help any more. Grr). It was really busy in the morning but quite quiet in the afternoon. I walked into work and back though, which was nice. I’ve done a fair bit of walking this week so I’d be feeling all viruous and healthy if I didn’t have this headache making me feel shit.

When I got in we didn’t have any bread (kids wanted sandwiches for tea) so we had a debate about whether they wanted to stay here while I nipped to the shop or come with me and they chose to come with me. They had their sandwiches, Davies played Monkey Ball on xbox and Tarly sat and looked through some books I’d bought home, then they got in their pjs and I read them the whole pile of library books I’d got them to last the week 😆 It’s really nice having Scarlett old enough to listen to a proper story and not worry so much about what the pictures are doing. Recently I read Davies a couple of the Roald Dahl stories with limited illustrations and he really enjoyed them after some initial ‘but there’s no pictures!’ moaning. I think Scarlett is almost ready for the same, which means audio books won’t be far behind I guess too :).

They went to bed, Ady came home (he still had to do his day’s work, just didn’t start it til midday, so he didn’t get home until about 730pm), we had dinner and bath and then I fell asleep on the sofa around 1030, before waking up and staggering to bed at 11. I’m so rock n roll 😆

And now, I am off to go and select a cocktail of drugs to try and combat my headache, hayfever and continued extreme tiredness and try and engage with the rest of the family for the day.

Room, soon, Brigadoon, swooned… I guess your choices end up limited if you decide to write a song which required ryhming words for ‘moon’.

Platoon, spoon, doom, rune, June, loon, dune, boom, tune, cartoon, typhoon, spitoon, afternoon, bloom… yeah I reckon it could have been done better 😆

After our ususal Wonderpets fest first thing we packed up a picnic and left the house, amazingly slightly ahead of schedule to collect Lucy and Co. As we were about to turn into their road I got a text from Lucy to say they were running late so we double backed and went to get petrol first instead of after we’d collected them. This involved driving a little way along the seafront which caught us up in a census going on. The window on the drivers side of my car doesn’ open – it hasnt for 2 summer and I can’t afford to get it looked at so we just sweat 😉 so we had to roll down Davies’ window behind me and I leant back to talk to the census woman about our last couple of car journeys – wonder exactly what the information is used for, I should have asked. Then petrol, then back to Lucy’s. We’re listening to Catatonia at the moment in the car, which is actually way too high for me to sing along to, but I like to try anyway 😆

We collected Lucy and co and drove to Highdown Gardens with the chidlren demonstrating how much I must talk to them without realising it when there is only us in the car by expecting the same level of interaction from me while I was trying to tak to Lucy and then being gits to each other when they didn’t get it and me demonstrating that being around any people at all is a bad idea on certain days of the month! We were late but Julie was later, pulling into the car park moments after us, so that was good. 🙂

We piled out and the children all disappeared off together running round the gardens and then we stopped for lunch. We actually stopped for about two hours and had a lovely time sitting chatting while the children played hide and seek and running about games. They made a new friend, adopting a small girl (she was 4 and a half and called Hannah!) who joined in with their games and generally enjoyed themselves. I was ranty at Davies particularly for a while, but he stopped being annoying and I stopped being a cow and we were fine by the end of the day. There was a brief interlude where I was really cross with them when they’d been walking on the plant beds, something I had just told both of mine to stop doing when one of the volunteers who works in the gardens came over to tell them to stop. Jack and Maisie ran and hid behind a bench so Davies and Scarlett followed and also hid while this woman was talking to them, as a result of their reaction she probably was slightly more ranty than she needed to be, but FFS they shouldn’t run and bloody *hide* when someone is talking to them. So I have D&S a lecture about that and hoped that J&M got some of it. At least D&S both were able to tell me why I was cross (rude to the person talking to them and just not a great demonstration of how they do know how to behave, they should have listened to what she said and apologised and agreed they wouldn’t do it again – and they both KNEW that! :roll:). Julie and I skirted round some chat about the Steiner school stuff she is involved in, admitting that we both knew it was the total opposite of lots of my beliefs but that it was also probably great for J&M.

Eventually the children became restless and the slight headache I’d had when we arrived started to get worse so we walked back to the cars via the fish. Earlier we’d thought about half the fish in the pond were dead as they were all lying, very still, at the surface of the ponds and didn’t even move when some of the more adventurous children poked them. But we realised they were just sunning themselves and Scarlett wanted to go and see if they’d eat some of her leftover bread. We tore off some really tiny bits and once it had soaked in the water some of them did indeed come and eat it. There was one particular one which was HUGE and kept coming up and grabbing a bit then swishing off with a great splash to eat it lower in the water before coming back for another bit. Maisie did the missing child trick for this visit (we always lose one of them there for at least a brief time) so I stayed with Davies, Scarlett and Jack while Lucy and Julie went off to find her and then it was time to head home.

We had something of a repeat performance of whinging on the way home in the car which magically stopped the instant Lucy, R & R got out and I talked to the children, again, about how they should behave in the car, how lucky we are to have a car to use whenever we want, how I need to focus on driving rather than dealing with them being horrid and so on, so they were contrite. They played for a while when we got home but having been up, again, since before 7am this morning and then running around for a couple of hours they were not at their best. I made them tea and they put on a Peter and the Wolf film I’d got from work for them. They are really familiar with P&TW, it being a piece of music we’ve listened to a lot and we have a Disney cartoon version they like to watch, but this is a really nice adaptation so that seemed to calm them down a bit. Which was just as well as my head was really pounding and I was all shivery by then. Ady got home and I retired to the bedroom with a book, really hoping that I’d not developed the flu bug that my Mum has been knocked out for the last fortnight with, having escaped it a while back when Ady and the kids were ill. I read for a while, then dozed off. I woke to hear the children in the bath so I got up and put my pjs on with the intention of coming downstairs to help with bedtime, but looked at the bed again and it’s lure was too much so I climbed in, pulled the covers over my head and slept for two hours! Ady woke me about 845pm to ask if I wanted a bath and any dinner and I got back up again, feeling loads better, if a little woolly headed.

And that is where I am headed back again now. Some pics on Flickr of today, which finally did seem to knock the children out, S was asleep by 730 and D by 800 (apparently, obviously I was also asleep at that time :oops:) and tomorrow is a work all day day.

Name the song and the artist
1 I don’t like cricket, I love it
2 that’s all right, it’s only money
3 she’s the hunter, you’re the fox
4 your money or your life
5 will we live or will we die?
6 played it till my fingers bled
7 living it up as we’re going down
8 hey driver, where we going?
9 take me somewhere I can breath
10 in the desert you can’t remember your name
11 you paid me twenty pounds
12 she’s got it, yeah baby she’s got it
13 pray for the other ones
14 all the Japanese with their yen
15 the man with the Midas touch
16 how can we be lovers when we can’t be friends?
17 she’s giving me excitations
18 keeps her face in a jar by the door
19 I love you from the bottom of my pencil case
20 I’ve been kicked around since I was born
21 restless lover, spread your wings
22 no need to run and hide
23 get your ass on the dance floor
24 let’s do it like they do on the discovery channel
25 love in the nineties is paranoid
26 this Romeo is bleeding
27 lover of the Russian queen
28 I want to shoot the whole day down
29 and I’m sitting in my tin can
30 pushed around and kicked around I was a lonely boy
31 she stands up when she plays her piano
32 pictures came and broke your heart
33 you had a temper like my jealousy
34 trust the ocean, you’ll never drown
35 no romance, no romance, no romance for me
36 pretend that you love me
37 ooh baby do you know what that’s worth?
38 why do birds suddenly appear every time you are near
39 coz you and I know it’s all over the front page
40 if you got no plans I ain’t going nowhere
41 superstar DJ, here we go
42 I really don’t think you’re strong enough
43 you and me and a bottle of wine
44 he has no concept of the tone of skin he’s living in
45 half of us are satisfied, half of us in need
46 he sings the songs that remind him of the better times
47 I’m begging you darling please
48 a smash of glass and a rumble of boots
49 but do I really feel the way I feel?
50 a spider web and I’m caught in the middle
51 there may be trouble ahead
52 she can’t walk but she’s trying
53 you’ve got me wrapped around your finger
54 you come and go, you come and go
55 hand in hand is the only way to land
56 oh yeah, I wait tables too
57 kissing like a bandit, stealing time
58 joker is the name, poker is the game
59 I think we both kinda liked it
60 words are very unnecessary
61 I depend on me
62 and then you call me and it’s not so bad
63 he got the action, he got the motion
64 she’ll provide you with drinks and theatrical winks
65 where is my friend when I need you most? gone away
66 I love you more than you love me
67 you say to me I don’t talk enough but when I do I’m a fool
68 my mom does more drugs than I do
69 sail away, sail away, sail away
70 and the fishes in the sea have gone to sleep
71 I’ve travelled the world and the seven seas
72 we’re heading for venus
73 I can’t get no sleep
74 through the hard times and the good
75 things you do don’t seem real
76 just a man and his will to survive
77 sex and drugs are the new gods
78 strumming my pain with his fingers
79 a snow white pillow for my big fat head
80 couldn’t see we were never meant to be
81 I am rental kitchens
82 just turn around now, you’re not welcome any more
83 been woken by a million screams
84 and I don’t want the world to see me
85 I’ve got sunshine in a bag
86 let go of your heart, let go of your head
87 try to walk away and I stumble
88 captain america’s been torn apart
89 someone left the cake out in the rain
90 let’s head for home now, everything I have is yours
91 how did you know I needed you?
92 don’t leave me now, now, now
93 pack it up, pack it in, let me begin
94 hand in hand we’ll take a caravan to the motherland
95 born to make mistakes
96 it’s a nice day to start again
97 the twenty first century is yesterday
98 nobody loves no one
99 stop ******* with me
100 January, February, March, April, May
101 although I search myself it’s always someone else I see
102 I don’t want to die for you
103 she stood there laughing
104 girl I’m on a mission to kill my condition
105 I believe I can touch the sky
106 I’d like to take her home, that’s understood
107 oh daddy dear you know you’re still number one
108 l, a, t, e, r that week
109 and we all have our daddy’s eyes
110 the sun’s gonna shine on everything you do
111 hang my head in a crying shame
112 suddenly we’re strangers
113 New York, London, Paris, Munich
114 you should keep on aiming high
115 temptation is on his way
116 hey mister DJ, put a record on
117 it’s easy to laugh, it’s easy to cry
118 she’s into superstition, black cats and voodoo dolls
119 I swear I left her by the river
120 how can you have a day without a night?
121 the good old boys were drinking whiskey and rye
122 he just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich
123 I don’t have no time for no monkey business
124 put your tiny hand in mine
125 I think I caught his spirit later that same year
126 laa laa laa, la la lala la
127 flowers blossom in the winter time
128 I’m brave but I’m chicken ****
129 can I just make some more romance with you my love
130 everyone’s a Captain Kirk
131 Johnny, don’t point that gun at me
132 3 a.m., we ran the miracle mile
133 your love’s like a slow train coming
134 I can eat my dinner in a fancy restaurant
135 he was shot six times by a man on the run
136 you should have stayed at home yesterday
137 another kiss and you’ll be mine
138 there’s a gun in your hand and it’s pointing at your head
139 hey teacher, leave those kids alone
140 you took my dreams from me, when I first found you
141 giant steps are what we take
142 maybe I didn’t treat you quite as good as I should
143 I might be great tomorrow but hopeless yesterday
144 maybe I’m just like my mother, she’s never satisfied
145 Lewis no more
146 twisted animator
147 I took her to a supermarket
148 waving your banner all over the place
149 rows of houses are bearing down on me
150 coz this is the naked truth and this is the light
151 from the very, very young to the very, very old
153 lonely as I am, together we cry
152 thought she was James Dean for a day
154 let’s play twister, let’s play risk
155 we’re going where the sun shines brightly
156 is it me you’re looking for?
157 we talk about love, love, love. we talk about love.
158 the next time someone’s teaching why don’t you get taught
159 she was on a 48 hour fast, just water and black tea
160 I see you my friend and touch your face again
161 so please be gentle with this heart of mine
162 remember me to one who lives there
163 I bet you think this song is about you
164 lasers in the jungle somewhere
165 and I love the thought of coming home to you
166 start spreading the news
167 it’s for your own protection
168 and if a ten ton truck kills the both of us
169 I don’t know why she’s leaving or where she’s gonna go
170 don’t touch me please, I can not stand the way you tease
171 however do you want me, however do you need me
172 and I’m not from Wales
173 my loneliness is killing me
174 learn to speak Arapaho
175 we dress the same ways only our accents change
176 when you coming home dad?
177 if you really mean it just reach out and touch me
178 I like my toast done on one side
179 on the ship, tied to the mast
180 and my brother will be so, so angry
181 you and me, you and me, you and me
182 what ever I said, whatever I did, I didn’t mean it
183 these are the things I can do without
184 I just need a friend
185 it’s such a fine and natural sight
186 for the love you bring won’t mean a thing
187 you make everything groovy
188 American express will do nicely thank you
189 so you’re Brad Pitt
190 on your knees boy
191 going back to Romford
192 I live upstairs from you
193 I know I’ll see your face again
194 you saw brigadoons
195 according to all sources the street’s the place to go
196 listen to iron maiden baby
197 plays by sense of smell
198 come and have a go if you think you are hard enough
199 looking from a window above, it’s like a story of love
200 the girl is all right

Up early this morning as I was working. While we were running around getting ready to leave the house I realised we’d forgotten to put the bins and the blue recycling boxes out. I was on the phone to Ady when someone knocked at the door. I was hoping it was the tent delivery but it was the blue box men – three of them – come to ask if we had any recycling as we normally do 🙂 Really must email the council to commend them about that. 🙂

Picked Lucy & co. up, dropped them all back here and headed off to work. It was really busy this morning and it went really quickly. F was in working and I get on well with her, also the normally mardy old cow D was very friendly today too and a new starter was in for training. She works for the council already and mans a council helppoint in the library a couple of afternoons a week so she knows us all already and knows the building but was learning all about the Dewy Decimal, shelving and issuing and discharging books. I quite surprised myself with how much I could tell her :). There was a slightly hysterical episode at the photocopier when a woman came in with very limited English and two sheets of paper with arabic or similar writing all over them asking for them to be copied onto a double sided single sheet and to have two copies of that. She finally got across to me what she wanted and then I couldn’t get the bloody photocopier to do it, so I called over F, the woman ‘assisted’ me in explaining to F what she wanted, F couldn’t get it to do it either so we called over D too and all told her together what we wanted. We eventually got the key for free vending copies and just tried every setting until it did what we wanted :lol:.

I was home just after 1pm to find not one but two tents delivered 🙄 .

I was home in time for a quick cup of tea and a chat before dashing off again to the dentist. Davies and Scarlett claimed a tent packaging box each and set about decorating them – Scarlett started writing her name, getting stuck on the R and then finishing it off. Davies drew all over the inside and out and got me to spelt out ‘private’ for him so he could write that.

My Mum has lost all of her top teeth due to gum disease and her gums receding so badly that her teeth all became wobbly and were taken out before they fell out. This has understandably hugely traumatised her and although she’s had her false top set for about 5 years now she is still not accepting of it and is currently undergoing some sort of consultation with someone about getting permanent implants drilled into her jawbone. Her problems with her gums started when she was pregnant with me and our original dentist always said it might be a hereditry problem and watched my gums closely for signs, which appeared to be there. I have already been told by our new NHS dentist that they want to see me every 3 months instead of every 6 for that very reason so today was my 3 monthly check up. Sure enough she said my gums were not looking great and she wants to do a treatment on them to do with plaque built up. She’s given me mouthwash and posh toothpaste and I’m going back again in 2 weeks for some treatment costing nearly £50 that she promises will make a difference. It seems a fairly small price to pay if it prevents what Mum’s gone through I guess. Fortunately, aside from the financial cost I have no objection to going to the dentist so at least it won’t be something I have to dread.

I came home and Lucy and co headed off. Davies and Scarlett came inside with me – they’d been in the garden for most of the morning I think, and played really nicely together all afternoon, although they did get loads of toys out :roll:. On Ali’s recommendation Davies watched Bamzooki yesterday and utterly loved it, so he’s been drawing creations and making them out of k’nex ever since, just his sort of thing. 🙂 So there was plenty of that going on.

Dad arrived as I was getting the kids’ tea and then Davies and I went to Badgers. Davies announced out of nowhere that he was happy for me to not wait in the carpark today and he’d see if he was ok with it. I’ve been to the localish supermarket briefly the last twice we’ve been, having shown him where it is in relation to Badgers in advance so he knows where I am. I’d already decided to take a book with me and wander down to the beach instead of sitting in the car so I told him that and that’s what I did. I took him in and he waved me off and then I walked down to the beach. The tide was right out and it was lovely down there, I found a quietish place to sit up on the stones and watched people walking their dogs, flying kites and walking along, I read my book for a bit and then drew a picture of the pier (not very artisically using the biro and blank paper in the back of my diary, but I think it’s recognisable as the pier 🙂 ) and then I tried to write a bit about what I could see, feel and hear as a writing exercise. It was all quite poetic until I got to the line about being ageless, nameless, careless thinking about how I had sat on that beach as a child, as a teen and now as a wife and mother and may well sit on it as a grandmother and an old woman too and for that brief moment in time nothing else mattered about me or who I am other than sitting on the beach when my mobile rang with Davies’ voice hollering ‘Mummy, Daddy’s on the phone! Mummy, Daddy’s on the phone!’ which rather spoilt the line and gave me at least two of my labels back again – teach me to be pretentious and arty eh? 😉

I walked back up to Badgers and sat in the car for the last 10 minutes watching them playing out on the grass running around and playing Stick in the Mud which was nice and then it was time to go in and fetch him. They’re doing Eco Badger this term and had been making bicarb and vinegar volcanoes which D is an old hand at, but it looks like they’ve got some pretty cool environmental stuff coming up to do this term which is nice. On the way home we talked about how Scarlett will start going there in 2 more terms and how she is braver about going to places without me, but how that is mostly because she has Davies there.

I read Scarlett a couple of bedtime stories then had a bath. I cooked curry and pilau rice for dinner and Davies appeared in the kitchen so tried a bit of it all and helped to put the spices etc. in for the rice before going back to bed, then we watched The Apprentice for some shouting at the screen tv.

Just come to the blog to write a comment and found this picture in the side bar
from two years ago. It is where we’ve just got home from today. Sometimes two years seems forever ago, sometimes just like yesterday.

The children are really tired at the moment, the light evenings mean they are taking ages to fall asleep, despite being utterly worn out from playing outside all day every day, and the bright mornings mean they are still waking at 7.30 at the very latest. Consequently they are both a bit fractious and whiny when there is nothing to occupy them. Today we had no real plans and nowhere to be. I had the doctors first thing about some itchy patches on my feet, elbows and knees which seem to flare up every summer and drive me insane (on Sunday Scarlett stood beside the bath and scrubbed at my feet for me with a body brush which was bliss until I got out of the bath and it was agony. GP diagnosed eczema and gave me some steroid cream which will hopefully sort it out.

I spent some time sorting out the trip to Legoland for a couple of weeks time and sending out group emails while the children were horrid. They couldn’t play together without arguing, couldn’t play apart without baiting each other and wouldn’t leave me alone – I spent about 10 minutes on the phone to the Legoland bookings woman with Scarlett wriggled behind me on the sofa, clutching onto my back and whispering in my ear about peanut butter toast. So by the time Ady got home for lunch before going off to college I’d decided we needed to get out of the house. Much discussion and debate ensued about where to go with the beach, the downs, the park and a walk all vetoed. I was not in the right frame of mind for dragging reluctant children anywhere so I wanted a consensus and finally we agreed on Paradise Park. So Ady took my car to college which is local and I took his car off to Newhaven which is less local and off we went.

On the way, on a complete whim solely because we were almost driving past it we stopped at the RSPCA animal rescue centre where we’d got Malice and Candle from years ago. To get to the Cattery you have to walk though the kennels which for me is the equivaent of that bit in Silence of the Lambs where Clarice walks through the corridor in the prison with inmates leaning against the bars and telling her what bits of her anatomy they can smell while she walks past stony faced looking neither left or right. It’s a walk of terror where I have to fight every impulse to not run screaming or check every padlock to ensure a dog isn’t about to leap out at me Cujo style and get me. Scarlett was in her element and wanted to stop at every dog, be told what it’s name was, how old it was and what breed and say ‘hello Fella!’ to it, but Davies felt similarly to me and we walked rather speedily down that bit to where the rabbits and guinea pigs are.

Lots of rabbits there, plenty of them already reserved and all named by the same, obviously hungry, volunteer after pastries and morning goods. Strudel, Waffle, Muffin and so on. We looked at them for a while and then went to the cattery. It has moved on quite a bit from the mesh fronted cages Candle and Malice were in and every cat had it’s own indoor glass fronted bit (which prevented us from stroking them 🙁 ) with a basket and blanket and an outside bit with some toys. A wide variety of old cats and a tiny 9 week old kitten who just happened to be black – all my cats have been black who we all fell in love with. We stayed there a while before doing the Walk Of Barks back to the car. I told Scarlett that when she’s older she can volunteer to go and walk dogs for them so she can get her fix of playing with dogs while I am safely somewhere else. And we’ve spent the rest of the day explaining why we don’t really want a kitten and why when Candle dies we won’t be replacing her.

Then on to Paradise Park and as usual despite having been there probably dozens of times each time the children are slightly more interested in the posters and information up on the walls and slightly less inclined to run past all the interesting stuff in favour of the dinosaurs at the end. It helped just being the 3 of us too. Oh and me having a packet of maltesers that they wanted to share :lol:. So we walked through looking at and talking about things as we went, which led to Davies asking the question ‘who invented the internet?’ which I promised to look up on the internet when we got home 😆 – I have and there appears to be no real answer, let alone one I can tailor for a 6 year olds comprehension when it is beyond mine, but I’ll have a go and formulating some sort of answer for him later.

We then walked round the outside, for once actually following a set trail (the longest one which takes in the whole place but on a proper route), stopping to play at the wooden pirate ship bit and again at the wooden playpark where you have to get all the way round without touching the floor. I was quite amazed at how well Davies did on that. Scarlett has always been the more physically able of the two of them, she already runs faster than Davies and he is not as adventurous as her so his caution has led to less aptitude for some things like climbing and balancing. He got a lot out of Tumble Tots when we did it and his confidence was improved but aside from the odd bit of tree climbing on our Seasonal Walks TM or clambering round soft play places he doesn’t get much practice for such endeavours so it was great to see how agile he was. 🙂 I guess because neither Ady or I is remotely sporty or physical I’d just decided he wouldn’t be either when he was nervous of heights and risks when he was smaller and not given it any more thought 😳 He has no interest in football or other sports like that but he was really taken with the circus skills stuff at Leo’s party so I really should follow that up and see if there is something along those lines he could be doing. I didn’t bother taking a camera as I already have tons of pictures of them at Paradise Park and I liked the idea of not carrying anything at all too.

It was really nice to be out for a couple of hours and given the childrens’ tiredness and my pre-menstrualness we were definitely better off out than in! We came home, I sorted their tea and then Ady arrived home.

I had reading group so I packed up my two books, plugged in my headphones (INXS again) and walked at a brisk pace to the library. We’ve been reading books from the longlist for the Orange prize this month, as many as we could. The shortlist was announced today and neither of the books I’d read made the shortlist, which I was a bit pissed off about. So there are now six books on the shortlist and we’re having an evening event as part of Adur Festival where we get together the day the winner is announced and all vote for our favourite and see which actually wins. The library does loads of stuff for Adur Festival actually, I’ve never really paid much attention to it before and for the last two years we’ve been at Kessingland so have missed at least part of it. This year even Richard Herring is appearing (actually does anyone want to come and see Richard Herring with me, Ady is not up for it and I don’t want to go on my own!). So reading group was fun, there were only six of us so we had some good chats about things other than the books including children and reading. As two of them are teachers I am always slightly quiet during such talks and I’ve never come right out and said I HE (although obviously the librarian who runs book group and is my boss knows) but some interesting things were said about schools and reading and literacy.

I walked home again, read some of the Shaun the Sheep comic to Davies, then Ady called me in to watch some of Horizon which Davies reappeared and watched with us.

Oh and our tent should have been delivered today but they came while I was out, so it’s coming tomorrow instead – hurrah! 🙂

After all he’s married to me 😉

Ady had a snip after Scarlett was born. He was very brave and manly about the whole business, volunteering to have it done and being very stoical about the whole thing from the initial appointment where he was asked ‘Are you sure you won’t want more children? What if your wife and children die – can you know you still won’t want more children then? Eh?’.

He went along to have it done, wore the medical support jock strap with good grace despite me laughing at him and being wholly unsympathetic (hey, I did my bit with two pregancies and labours! 😉 ) and lived through one testciular lump episode to brave another day. And that was that.

Until about a month ago he discovered another lump, a bigger one. The last time we went through all this is was pain more than a lump he was worried about and it was just months after his snip. This time there was no pain but it was a very definite lump so off he went to the doctors again and waited for another ultrasound scan appointment to come through. Which it did, for yesterday.

So Lucy stayed at home with D&S and this time I went with him. The GP had said he thought it unlikely to be cancer as he is too old and more likely to be more snip related or a result of earlier testicular trauma (and no, I’m not going to share that story here but I’m sure Ady will one night over a beer or seven 😉 if you’ve not already heard it!). So this time I did go in with him. It was the same little room where we had Davies’ scans when I was pregnant with him. There was the sonographer, a nurse and me, just to make him feel really at home :lol:. He had to take his trousers down and have a sheet over him, then use some tissue to hold his penis up against his tummy (so noone saw that, although of course I’ve seen it before 😉 ) and then had the cold gel stuff on his testicles. After much rubbing with the scan thingy and peering at the screen at unidentifyable grey stuff which looked not unlike every baby scan I’ve ever had, proving right my theory that I have not missed a calling as a scan-type-woman, she pronounced it not cancer and said it was probably still snip related. While she was talking to him hed wiped all the gel off with a tissue which he was holding in one hand. The nurse popped a glove on and went to take the tissue from him but as he was not looking at her I grabbed his hand to move the tissue closer. He dropped the tissue and took the nurse’s hand instead, thinking that he was about to be given bad news and she was holding his hand to comfort him while he heard it 😆 😆

Then he got dressed and we left.

So that’s it. And I think Chris may have finally sussed that despite all the words on my blog I don’t really have much to say, it’s all utterly cyclic stuff but as most of you have told me that you only skim read my blog I thought I’d get away with it. So here you are, a definitive list of things I blog about with as many words to describe them as possible:

Ady’s testicles

Sentimental stuff about children’s birthdays, places I live in, songs I like, friends I have, shoes I have owned, toenail clippings I have cast aside from my life

How much the children like magazines

How well I’m doing at work and when I get told about it

Going to the beach

Going for seasonal walks

Anything I ‘adore’

Having a bath

What meat we’re eating for dinner

feel free to add any more you’ve spotted in the comments box below 😉

I was a mistress of efficiency this morning, getting loads of washing on, getting everyone breakfasted and dressed and making playdough before the Wonderpets had finished. But – disaster – we only had a dribble of salt left (key playdough ingredient) so as we needed to pop to Sainsburys to get money from the cashpoint and petrol we left slightly earlier to get salt too and took the rest of the playdough making ingredients with us.

It was not very busy in Sainsburys but for some reason it was really noisy, which meant the children spoke REALLY LOUDLY to fill the space :roll:. We’d looked at the magazines to see if the new W&G one was there as Ady had told Davies it was due out this week and he could have it. It wasn’t there but the 1st episode of the new Shaun the Sheep comic was so Davies chose to have that instead of W&G and Tarly chose a Barbie one. I used to buy the kids loads of magazines (along with the loads of everything I used to buy 😉 ) but stopped as they are about the same price as a book. However as an occassional treat I don’t mind as they do really get value for money out of them, doing all the puzzles and mazes, colouring in and getting Ady and I to read them cover to cover for them, any posters get carefully pulled out and stuck on their bedroom walls and it really has become about the magazine rather than whatever cheap and nasty novelty is stuck to the front page with tape that will rip the front page in half when you try and remove it.

So they were content with their magazines, we’d walked round and got all the bits we needed, we’d chatted about things but as I say they were being noisy, not naughty or disruptive, just noisy. I saw the checkout woman size them up and decide they were probably old enough to have gone back to school after the Easter holidays today so I was waiting for some sort of question, but aside from a slight narrowing of her eyes at me when she asked if I was collecting Active Kids vouchers for schools there was no mention of anything. 😆 On to get petrol and then to collect Lucy, Rebecca and Richard.

I did lots of not very coherant starting sentences and then being interupted by D or S, or needing to concentrate to turn left and then forgetting what I was about to say but Lucy seemed capable of normal speech and didn’t try to convince me that children of 4 could be living in extreme locations in some parts fo the world today, so that was good :). MM seemed very quiet althouh I realised as we left that was mostly because everyone else sat outside in the sunshine. That was fine though because it meant Richard and Rebecca got to see everything as shown round by Davies and Scarlett without too many other people about. I made some very illfated playdough which mostly got crumbled until I swept it up at the end (ah well!) , there must be something in the altitude of the hall because I’ve yet to make playdough there which doesn’t come out at utterly the wrong consistency :lol:. The children had a good time and Lucy and I got to chat a fair bit too.

We came back here where the toy animals and some plastic click together toys were got out and played with and then Ady came home. He has a hospital appointment for an ultra sound scan for a testicle lump which we’ve both been worrying about for about a month since he first found the lump. Lucy had offered to stay here with D&S so I could go with him. We drove to the hospital, found a parking space, walked into the radiology department (having washed our hands with the special Layla foam on the way in they have there with big red signs for everyone to use to stop the spread of superbugs :shock:), barely sat down before they called him in and I got to smile smugly at how cold the gel is they squirt on you for ultra sounds :lol:. After lots of moving the scanner thing about the sonographer pronounced it NOT cancer and in her opinion something connected with the vasectomy (again!). So nothing further to fret over. Phew! We were back at the carpark paying machine and had been so speedy that we didn’t even have to pay as it allows you 15 minutes dropping off / driving round to find a space time before you are charged. Hurrah for the nhs eh?!

We came home and Davies was very keen to hear the prognosis. He’d wanted to know where we were going so I’d told him, properly. Scarlett didn’t question us going out or pay any attention to what I was telling Davies but he had lots of questions and I have a firm policy of answering anything he asks as truthfully as I can. He had obviously been really worried while we’d gone as he came dashing over to ask about it and asked again later tonight too. I assured him that I would tell him if there was anything to worry about and that I promised there was nothing wrong. I hope he believed me and I hope the answering questions policy gives him confidence to trust that I am telling him the truth…

I ran Lucy and co home while Ady fed the children, then Davies got changed and I walked him round to Beavers before plugging my headphones in (Jamiroquai and INXS) and going on a brisk walk. I stopped midway for some shopping so I was weight bearing for half the walk too and I shall walk into work for Reading group tomorrow night too so I’ve made a good start on getting walking again already. 🙂

Not sure what we’re doing tomorrow yet. I’m up for a day out somewhere but if the children are happy to then we’ll stay home and laze in the garden. Or of course there is always the beach….;)

It’s the sabbath day, the day of rest, the sun is shining and you are of British stock. So obviously you need to wear as few clothes as possible whilst crisping your shoulders to a burnt frazzle you need to be off at a car boot sale before heading back home for a barbecue, possibly going via a garden centre :lol:. We came out of the house this morning to find a huge gathering of neighbours – the Thank Yous were taking the people three doors down off to the local market, Keith the attractive builder was looking quite scared and was very relieved when we exited with the children which instantly created a diversion of all the neighbours coming to coo over D&S. He got in his van and was away! I quite enjoyed crossing the road and giving an exagerrated wave and a cheery ‘How diddly doo neighbours’ but I think they are all too infirm and hard of hearing to have noticed. 😆

We did do the car boot sale bit of that ourselves. I love ’em. I love the poignancy of people selling once treasured Christmas and birthday gifts of children long since left home, I love the pretend cockney market stall holders who even wear money aprons and call people ‘darlin” as they try to see you cut price batteries or pound shop blister pack toys for two pounds. We went to a huge car boot sale at Fontwell Race Course today, it was seething with people, the road was all ground to a halt with people getting in and out of the car park and there were people everywhere carrying other people’s unwanted junk!

We spent just under £4 and got a Barbie puzzle, 4 Barbie books, a Barbie dress up designer toy, a huge box of toy plastic animals including loads of sea creatures and a really cool kangeroo with a joey that comes out of it’s pouch, a little Gromit bag, a Wallace sitting on an armchair, a peg doll making kit and a coloured peg puzzle game. A good haul 🙂

We came home and the children played in the garden with the slide, a green rowing boat filled with sand and another filled with water and various toys we dug out of the garage, while Ady and I cleared the whole garage out onto the drive, divided into ‘Crap which needs to go to the tip’ ‘Crap which probably should go to the tip but we can’t part with it so we’ll shove it back into the garage again’ ‘Crap which should probably go to the tip, won’t so should at the very least be shoved back in the garage but for some reason we think we might use it so we’ll bring it into the house for a few weeks before it gets put into the cupboard under the stairs which is a sort of holding bay for things which will find their way back into the garage again’ ‘stuff to sell on ebay’ and ‘stuff we genuinely do need and does actually belong in the garage’. We went through all the camping stuff and I’ve made a list of things we need to replace / get this year and then we put it all back in again with the stuff for the tip near the front for us to feed out bag by bag into the normal rubbish collection each week or actually take to the tip if one of us can summon up the energy to queue up there (there is always a massive queue for our local tip). I say ‘we’ but of course Ady did most of the work. The garage is full of things like mice and spiders and dust and although I was able to contribute in a supervisory manner (I am pretty ruthless about not keeping stuff, Ady is a total womble) I didn’t really like getting my hands dirty so I made lots of drinks and lunch and shouted at the children a bit to appear useful :lol:. Then I stopped bothering and sat and read my book chatting to Ady while he washed both the cars.

We came in and I did the kids’ tea while they watched Barnyard. What a pile of rubbish that is! Even Scarlett noticed that the male cows had udders which upon googling appears to have been quite a talked about thing. I didn’t really watch and I think there was some good music in it but certainly not one to recommend or watch again.

They took forever to go to sleep tonight, infact I fell asleep on the sofa for a while waiting for Lost to start and I think Davies might still have been awake :roll:. Ady cooked a lovely roast beef dinner and now I’m about to go to bed properly.

I really really didn’t want to go to work today. It was just such a nice day and I could think of at least 47 better things to be doing here with my family instead.

First thing Scarlett and I had a massive trying on session with all her clothes. That’s clothes from last summer to see if they still fit, new clothes I’ve had put away to see if they fit yet and things like trousers and skirts to see whether they will be worth putting away for the winter or whether they will be too small by then. She thoroughly enjoyed it, dancing in and out her bedroom to go and show Ady and Davies all her different outfits. So I have a big bin liner ready for ebaying and her wardrobe is all tidy and hung up nicely. My mother has bought her loads of really pretty pretty dresses over the years, none of which are really very Scarlett and none of which I’ve ever felt were right for just wearing for normal days but as this will be the last summer for most of those such items if she liked them then we kept them and she can just wear them whenever rather than the whole saving things for best notion which means clothes get kept unworn until she outgrows them altogether. Today she wore a very pretty pink and white polka dot dress for pottering around in the garden but she looked very cute and enjoyed sweeping around the place. 😆

Davies and Ady were playing all sorts of games in the lounge including a butchered version of hangman and some sort of racing game – nice to take Tarly out of the equation and hear them really enjoying each others’ company in the other room. 🙂 Then Davies wanted to try on his summer clothes too. He has a load of new tops which I bought in the sale at the end of last summer but as he’s still not really grown he also has all of last summers tops too, so he has an embarrassment of tops and will probably take to having three changes of clothes a day just to get wear out of all of them 😆 Last years cropped trousers are still a fine fit round his waist and are now properly cropped rather than just a bit short so he is fine for clothes too.

We then all went outside. Ady was using a wire brush borrowed from my Dad to rub down the camp kitchen I got from freecycle last week and then the children and I painted the top section with some donated by Dad white hammerite. It’s not covered it very well and I desperately want to jazz it all up with some different colours and maybe even some stick on jewells. I really like the idea of making the camp kitchen as camp as possible! Ady is torn between thinking it might be quite a fun idea and knowing full well it will mostly be him actually stood behind it doing cooking so feeling a bit cautious about the idea of that on a public campsite! 😆 We’ll see ;).

I had some lunch, got changed and headed off to work leaving them all to it. Actually the walk to work was nice, I listeded to some Sheryl Crow on my phone which has a built in MP3 player which I don’t often get to use. Work was very slow and quiet – the odd person who did come in said the town was dead but there was a huge queue to get into the carpark for the beach. Walking home again (listening to Oasis and Jack Johnson but also walking along reading a book too) the air was filled with the scent of a hundred barbecues.

I found Ady, Davies and Scarlett still in the garden pretty much as I’d left them 4 and a half hours previously having had a lovely afternoon playing. We needed a few bits of shopping so I popped up to Tescos and came home with choc ices for everyone, a new sunhat for Tarly (cowboy style white straw, so far she is wearing it!) and a packet of Tesco value coloured pencils each for the children. They are both taken pens and paper to bed with them each night and drawing / writing and I’d told them I didn’t want pens and felt tips in their beds so I’d get them some colours just for bedtime. Must get them some cheap notebooks too rather than them taking loads of paper to bed.

We all sat in the garden for a while longer, I’m on a not-drinking-as-much-as-I-have-been kick so I was mixing wine with schloer in an effort to only drink half as much alcohol, so that was very pleasant to be drinking sitting out in the garden. We came in, the children had a bath and then went off to bed eager to use their new pencils. We taped and watched Dr Who while eating dinner and now, as it is my turn to get up in the morning I’m off to bed.

Oh it is the season
when I wake and I start sneezing
and my eyes are really, really itchy too
I have mascara streaks
running down my cheeks
and all that people say to me is ‘bless you’
I like the warmer weather
and I really would never
wish the summer over before it’s even here
but I really wish the sun
didn’t have to come
with all these side effects which give me quite severe
sneezes, itches, runny nose
and I don’t suppose
I look at my best all reddened by the sun
so I’ll drink my pimms and sigh
long for summer to pass by
and wash it down with loads of piriton.

another piece of junk mail from Park Resorts. I must get at least two pieces of mail from them a week trying to sell me a static in one of their parks from the time I book Kessingland each year until the end of the season. This has happened for the last three years – considering they only get about 50 quid a year from me they must spend about a quarter of that on sending me glossy leaflets and letters and postage!

I worked this morning – extra hours (hurrah about £30 bonus money -that’ll pay for Africa Alive!) and Ady WFH to look after D&S. It was really busy for the first couple of hours which went really quick but then it really dragged from about 11am-1pm when we had all of about 5 people in for the whole five hours. I spent most of the time ordering cds and dvds in for myself and choosing a couple of films for the weekend and then wandering round the shelves browsing the books. When it is only for an hour or so I can’t really think of any nicer working environment to not have much to do, but a whole day really drags when it’s quiet and I start to miss the children and think of all the things I could be doing at home.

I popped into the CoOp after work for a few bits and pieces and as there was a huge queue for the cashpoint I used my debit card. We’ve not had any plastic for the last 18 months at all but recently our bank sent us Visa Electron cards which have instant authorisation and will only allow you to spend funds available in your account there and then. I’ve only used it a couple of times for things like buying contact lenses online or for small purchases under a tenner when it is better to spend 6 or 7 quid on a card than to withdraw £10 from the cashpoint and waste the change on frittering it away. Except my card was declined. This was (to quote the Wonderpets) ‘sewious’ as I’ve been dead careful with money this month and thought we had about 40 quid left. The cashier tried it again with me having hot and cold flushes and feeling sick at the thought of having cocked up our finances somehow but it wouldn’t go through so I slunk out of there and dashed home. Ady went off to work and I checked the online balance to find we have nearly 80 quid in there so I’ve been even more careful than I thought. Not sure why it got declined but very relieved it is not because direct debits have been bouncing or anything like that.

The children were out in the garden when I got in. Our garden goes all the way round the house as we are a detatched house on a corner. It doesn’t have a back or a front garden and is fairly equally spaced all the way round but with all sorts of differing levels as the house is on a slope. This is the first year I have let the children out there on their own to play as plenty of the garden is utterly exposed to the street, road and passers by which has worried me wrt to snatching, reporting of school age children in the garden during school hours as well as general hideous accidents from all the dangerous split level bits and pieces. But of course all that makes the garden dangerous to an adult is what makes it exciting and adventure packed to a child, with things to scramble over, climb across and risk life and limb over. They have a couple of slides, a mini trampoline, a sandpit and various garden toys (outside toys obviously, not the indoor ones 😉 ) and they have been out there loads this week and really enjoyed it. With the front door and windows open I can hear them playing anyway and I check them every so often and it’s been lovely to have them outside enjoying it this week.

Lucy, Rebecca and Richard came over and the children mostly left us in peace to chat with some indoor and outdoor play. We had some good chats and mutual clog admiration with Tarly bringing hers to join in which was all very lovely.

They left and the children finally came in from the garden and wanted to do some drawing with an oil pastel set I’ve had for ages. Davies wanted some ideas of what to do with such an array of colours so I showed him how to do scribble pictures. He managed to do and colour his own and Tarly got me to do one for her to colour.
mine
Davies’

Then I showed them how to do a design based on something else with the example being my name
and we talked about how art should be individual with no two people’s productions looking the same. Davies is actually quite good at replicas of things – for examples his Wallace and Gromit pictures and models and I can do a passable image of most things in 3d or paper given a bit of practise but actually I think real art is in creation rather than imitation and I was trying to show that from random scribbles with the same colour pastels we still managed to produce differing end results by way of colour selection, how hard we pressed etc. I think creativity is too underrated and wish more had been made of my creative streak in childhood, whether it was drawing or writing and whilst I have massive respect for the applying the certainties of mathematics and science I personally probably place more gravity on creativity of individuals. I was reading Gill’s blog the other day about writing before one can read and that made perfect sense to me – both of my children are far more interested in writing than reading and it seems utterly logical that they would place more value on getting their own message out there than receiving other people’s. Reading is great but when the choice is reading ‘Peter likes the ball, Jane likes the ball, the dog likes the ball’ and committing your own ideas to paper be they words or pictures for me it would be my own work every time.

Then we snuggled up and watched Wonderpets together. I’d watched most of it before I went to work this morning but watched it in entirety tonight as it was a special feature length episode. Oh it was lovely, I wiped away a tear ;). Then pjs for the children and I read some stories. I’d borrowed a children’s book about Anne Frank which I read to them and a book about Creation and one about a trampolining superstar. We all enjoyed all of those and Davies asked loads of questions about the Anne Frank one which I’m sure will lead to further discussion at some point, but took in geography, history, religion and several bits of language when I explained certain terms to him. Ady arrived home then and we finished the children’s days by dancing around all four of us to a Chas and Dave cd I’d brought home from work so the kids could hear such music, specifically ‘Rabbit’!

I had an email from the tent seller today to say our tent has been despatched. Well actually it didn’t say that precisely as it was in German but babelfish translated it for me and that was the gist of it so hopefully it will be here soon. We’d had a mad idea about heading off somewhere local for a nights’ camping when I get in from work tomorrow if it had already arrived this weekend as we’re planning to dig all the camping stuff out of the garage in the morning and see what we need for this summer so I guess that won’t be happening but we have a car boot sale with our names on it on Sunday morning anyway and a long summer awaits with the promise of much camping ahead. 🙂

I worked all day today – the days I work always seem sooooo much longer than the days I don’t – possibly because I am actually up earlier but this morning feels a million miles away.

Ady left at some ungodly hour as he was in Peterborough (or as he calls it Merryland) today and wantd to get back at a decent time, so I was woken at 626am after he’d already gone by Tarly. Fortunately she made enough noise to also wake Davies so he went downstairs with her instead :lol:. I was having a very odd dream in which I was doing some sort of storytelling from memory of a story of my choice to a wide audience of children at work, except work seemed to have morphed into some sort of Home Ed camp so I knew all the children who would be attending. It was all a bit Apprentice-style too with one of us going to get fired for not being good enough so there was fierce competition between me and the other storytellers with us all having to choose a classic tale (I’d chosen The Hare and The Tortoise but had really wanted The Three Little Pigs but someone else had already chosen it) and then tell it from memory with our own interpretations. I wasn’t worried about that and had some good comedy asides up my sleeve including IIRC a song and dance routine and plenty of audience participation, but then I realised some of my colleagues had made masks and decided that would complete my story to perfection as I could nominate audience members to play the roles if I had masks, so I was trying to covertly make masks but kept getting interupted – for real, by the children coming to ask if they could eat Easter eggs and the alarm going off on snooze every 8 minutes. All rather surreal :lol:.

I managed to get us all breakfasted and dressed and a load of washing done and hung out before we headed off to collect Lucy, R & R and then drop everyone back here before going on to work.

Work was really busy and I enjoyed knowing what I was doing and being busy. The admin and organisation side of the job really appeals to me, as does the constant flow of people when it’s busy and today was one of those days. I had a bit of training and enjoyed feeling part of the team on one of those early summer days when everyone is feeling spring in the air and on good form. It was a nice working day. 🙂

I’d worn a jumper which I was baking in for the morning so was very delighted to find a linen top at the charity shop on my lunch break which I changed in to in the shop. I also found a box of metal puzzles for Davies for a quid which went down well when I got home.

Lucy, R & R came into the library in the afternoon which was nice. I love it when people I know come in 🙂 and I gave Rebecca the same training session D&S have had to enable them to zap their own books – unfortunately the security tag on one of the books wasn’t playing ball so a colleague had to come and sort that out which rather ruined my expertise :lol:.

I got home and Ady had already been home an hour or so and cleared up from Dad being here all afternoon, fed the children and done the washing up, so that was nice not to have to come home to (although less nice I suspect for him to have to come home to having left at 530am!). I’d got out a load of book and cds for Tarly which she fell on with delight but decided not to listen to tonight in favour of a story with me. Davies and I did some of the metal puzzles and then the children went outside with Ady who was mowing the lawn and cutting the hedges while I sat inside and sneezed and started reading a book for reading group next week.

The children came in and washed, cleaned teeth, got in pjs and we snuggled up and watched Wonderpets together with them both on my lap. I brushed Tarly’s hair (she’s still loving that!), Davies brushed my hair (not quite so gently!) and then I read Tarly some stories and Ady read some to Davies.

The children were full of tales of what they’d been up to today and I do really miss them when I am at work for a whole day, a half day is so much better. But on the flip side I think that whole day off from dealing with squabbles, getting food and drink whilst doing grown up stuff and being a person other than Mummy actually does me the world of good once a week. Like so many things that have cropped up mostly unplanned in the last few years it seems to have panned out pretty well. There are always bad days (I had one just last week!) and there could of course be tweaks in the arrangements but certainly today they had a great morning with Lucy and co and a good afternoon with my Dad and Ady was home in time to feed them tea at a decent hour followed by time with him in the garden and cuddles and stories with me at bedtime. Not how I’d want us to be spending every day but certainly a nice way to spend one day a week at least :).