One word? When seven would do…

A couple of days at home here with lots of not a lot going on.

Yesterday there was lots of X boxing, geomagging, Tarly did some painting and I got loads of washing done. My Dad came over in the afternoon and sat with Tarly while I took Davies to Badgers. He and Tarly have a really nice relationship, very similar to that he and I had when I was a little girl and she has now gotten used to his teasing and either teases him back or just tells him to stop talking rubbish rather than getting upset like she used to.

Davies went in to Badgers on his own again with my just seeing him across the road. I still sat outside in the car but as I’ve mentioned before I am actually quite keen on this idea as I like sitting in utter peace and quiet reading my book and people watching passers-by from the hiding place of my car. When I went in to meet him he was having a great time and is so clearly part of ‘the gang’ there now after a full term and a bit. They are doing Communication Badger work this term and had been writing and learning various ways to say ‘hello’ in different languages. Davies had done some really nice copied writing which he had illustrated with a picture of Gromit (naturally! :lol:).

Ady had been to Birmingham for the day for a trade show and arrived home around 7pm so it was a late night for the children. We watched Shaun of the Dead, which I think we were probably the only people I know who had not already seen it. Thought it was a pretty good film actually. Our two months free dvd rental is drawing to a close but we have definitely made full use of it watching at least 3 films per week.

Today has been a very shouty day, which retrospectively was probably far more about me being intolerant and impatient than the children doing anything particularly wrong. They played with geomags and happymais and a new version of their long running holiday game. For about 2 years they have played a long and drawn out imaginary game where they pack their bags and go on holiday. This used to take the form of them packing clothes, toys and food up, sitting on the stairs while one of them drove before arriving at their hotel where I would be called upon to be the receptionist and issue them with a room key. As our lives have changed from the days of travelodges and hotels so their game has evolved. They now pack up their clothes, toys and their tent and sleeping bags, drive there and then set up a tent to camp in for their holiday. Their tent is created from cushions and fleece blankets draped around the furniture. They have been requesting a ‘sleepover’ in a tent created in Davies’ room so they have been promised that on Friday night.

I had some parcels to send so we went to the post office where we waited in the queue for ages. Our little local post office is also a newsagents, sweet shop and sells cards, stationery and various convenience store essentials too – very similar sort of set up to a few post offices we looked at the possibility of buying a couple of years ago. It has two counters – one for post office business and one for everything else and is frequently a bit chaotic in there with a massive queue at one or other counter and no one at the other. Today the couple who run / own it had their 10 month old jack russell puppy there which enchanted Scarlett and interested Davies who kept a safe distance away while urging Tarly to cuddle and stroke her. Tarly adores dogs so I know I have managed to shield her pretty effectively from my phobia. Davies however has either picked it up or inherited it and is rather more cautious of them. We left there and whizzed to Sainsburys where I finally made my first purchase of economy toilet rolls. We have always bulk bought from Costco the more expensive quilted brands when they are on special offer and had well over six months supply stashed away in our wardrobe. It ran out this week and we are not in a position to buy anything other than the value brands to replace it. Actually I never realised quite how cheap the cheap stuff is – 80 pence for 12 rolls! 🙂 And it’s not so bad…

This afternoon I spent ages fighting with ebay’s turbolister. After two uninstall and reinstalls I gave up. I have tonight realised that flickr uploadr is having the same problem of not recognising and being able to hook up to my account so I wonder if it’s something about my computer which is playing up / has the wrong settings perhaps. Consequently I had taken pictures of a whole pile of clothes ready to ebay but they are all still sat in a pile unlisted.

Davies had made a baby elephant from Happymais last week which he realised looks a lot like the baby elephant from his Wallace and Gromit Project Zoo X box game. So today he made a cage for it from Happymais with a long vine to hang it from. And a Gromit. (Merry I have photos, will download them and add to your group as soon as I get flickr uploadr sorted again).

By the time Ady got home I had had enough of being anyone’s mother or wife so to quell the urge to just yell at everyone to ‘fuck off and leave me alone!!!!!!’ I set off for the library an hour earlier than I needed to be there for book group. Borrowed a couple of very easy read chick lits and settled down in a quiet corner to start reading one of them. Bliss. 🙂

A deaf and rather elderly woman who comes along arrived first so we had an odd conversation with me having to face her directly and shout – which makes it odd to put inflection into your voice somehow and I end up really shortening what I want to say and how I say it (I know, surprising isn’t it that I can be concise sometimes 😉 ). She was under the impression I am a teacher – although retrospectively she may have just been confused as one of the other women is a teacher, and when I said I was not she asked what I did do then? I’m quite pleased to have come across as someone who does ‘do’ something at least 😆 so I bit the bullet and explained that I am sort of a teacher as I home educate my children. We started a conversation about it which was cut short as the others arrived but I suspect given the volume I was talking at so she could hear me that most of them heard enough as they came in that my cover is blown :lol:. Ah well, the anonymity was nice while it lasted!

The book being discussed was ‘We need to talk about Kevin’ on my own recommendation, which was good. It opened up all sorts of really interesting debate and view points. Particularly from the older generation who clearly blamed the mother, a couple of us who believed people can be ‘born evil’ and the men who far from blaming the mother feel that mothers generally take and accept blame and guilt rather than have it forced upon us by society. All really interesting stuff – I could have stayed debating all night quite happily.

I was surprised, for some reason at just how dark it was outside – it was about 8.15pm and already completely dark. Our town is not particularly rough but I am pretty cagey about walking anywhere alone after dark. So I walked very briskly debating with myself what I was most scared of the propsect of – a lone man with dreadful sexual assault acts in mind, a mugger after my watch and wedding ring and bag containing my purse and mobile phone, a gang of youths, armed with video phones ready to capture my ‘happy slapping’ to text message to all their friends or one of the dogs which people seem to walk loose off the lead after dark and feel that saying ‘oh he won’t hurt you’ as their canine friend leaps up at you like some sort of reconstruction of Cujo will reassure you. I decided the dog fear was the most real but in the event I made it home unscathed by any such dramas.

Tomorrow we’re off out with Lucy, R & R which will be nice, so I really should go to bed as Lucy is easily my most prompt friend and is sure to be here dead on the dot of when I told her to arrive. I remember when I used to manage that…

Buttercup Lulah 🙂 Have a lovely 4th birthday darling, lots of love, Ady, Nic, Davies and Scarlett xxx

You know there are odd people who you meet through your life and for one reason or another, sometimes without realising it’s going to happen you lose touch and never see them again?

Most of them you forget quite happily but every so often some of them remain people you wonder about and you think of them from time to time.

I have various people who I sometimes think about or am reminded about and wonder whatever became of them. One of them was Lucy, who was a friend when we were 17 and I lost touch with, we tracked each other down again a couple of years ago though.

I have two ex-bosses who I got on really well with and retrospectively regretted not staying in touch with despite leaving the respective jobs. One of them was the area manager for Clinton Cards. He left about six months after I did, probably about 8 years ago now.

I was walking through Sainsburys with the children earlier today, having just told them off for playing with the checkout barrier thingy and walking at an angry pace with them clucthing a hand each to keep up when I walked past him. He looked at me, I looked at him, he looked at the children. And we both kept walking! So that was silly, but I know if I’d stopped in the middle of Sainsburys the best I could have hoped for would be a two minute ‘hello, tell me everything you’ve done in the last eight years in 30 seconds each’ exchange before I had to go and rescue the children from removing all the free gifts off the front of the magazines, or being trapped in the revolving doors. Or something.

So, who would you like to bump into from your past – without the encumbrances of two small children – for a half hour catch up to find out what the hell they have been up to since you last saw them?

Roslyn 🙂 Have a lovely day, lots of love, Ady, Nic, Davies and Scarlett xxx

Today started way, way, way too early at about 6am. 🙁 I’ve been so tired just lately and although I am managing to go for a couple of walks a week I am really lacking energy and enthusiasm for anything. We’ve been watching lots of films as part of the free trial on Tesco dvd rental and I don’t think I’ve seen the end of any of them due to falling asleep about an hour into the film every time. Last night was no exception.

So me and the children were up from 6am and we spent our time playing Xbox. I can actually understand why people are into gaming, it is quite addictive 😳 I’ve just won a Willy Wonka X box game on ebay and have bids on Cat in the Hat, Hello Kitty, Super Monkey Ball and Tetris too – all of which I’ll put away for Christmas if I win. Well maybe not the Tetris, that might be for me 😉 I remember spending hours playing on Frazer’s Game Boy years ago on Tetris. Oh and his Donkey Kong, BMX bandit and pacman games too. Funnily enough I never had my own, just used to bribe him with things to let me play his. 😆 We got a second controller for the Xbox – a slightly smaller one than the official one that came with it, which is better for Tarly but she is going to take some getting used to playing with it I reckon, and probably needs to do it when her ability is not being relied on by Davies when they are playing toegether.

Ady had his lie-in (which he bitterly missed last weekend 😉 ) and we headed off nice and early to the local car boot sale. The children were both up fairly late last night – Scarlett well past 9.30pm and so were tired and didn’t do well with the sudden heatwave we’ve had again this weekend (Davies actually has mild sunburn under his eyes :oops:) but we did have a successful day W&G wise with Davies getting a puzzle for 50pence and two books for a pound. Tarly pulled her usual cute blonde princess act and got a free bright pink poodle soft toy from some naive old lady who fell for it. Honestly, that child comes away with something free every single week! 🙄 We bumped into Colin and Lucy there, I was hailed by a lady who used to come to the original Home Ed group I ran with Jenny last year and Ady saw a couple of people from his old work too.

We left there and popped home to collect a picnic then headed up the downs to find a good viewing point for the air show. We started in one field which had a fab view of the sea and the far side of the airfield but after eating we explored a bit further and a ten minute walk netted us an even better corn field, filled with other people settled in with a full panoramic view of the airshow and the crowds who’d paid over a tenner each to get in below. We were there for a couple of hours, the children veered between happily running about, sitting on my lap and eating the picnic. We had a who can make a minstrel last the longest competition, Tarly did loads of drawing and ‘writing’ (Tarly style) in my diary and Ady sat oohing and ahhing, taking photos and video footage of the planes. Tarly and I had a chat about bombs, the world wars, how planes were used for fighting and evacuation of children from cities while there was a WW2 reinactment style dog fight and explosions, Davies and Ady had a slightly more indepth equivalent about wars just out of our earshot. The children were starting to get really restless at the end so we watched what we assumed (judging from what we saw and heard from our garden – about a mile away from the airport – yesterday) was the last couple of jets and then packed up to walk back to the car. We had got a few paces down the lane when our ears were practically blown off by a Mig jet so we headed back to watch that. Tarly went from hating ‘aeroflanes’ to deciding they were the best fun ever and that she wanted to ‘be the one to make them do crazy upside down stuff’ when she grows up (that’d be a pilot then 😉 ) while Davies just stood there with the craziest grin on his face and we were deafened by it roaring over our heads.

When it finally headed off again we started back towards the car. As we crossed one very recently mowed field we spotted a (dead) slow worm. I’ve not seen a slow worm since I was a child – they used to be everywhere, you could guarantee that if you dug about in any long patch of grass you’d find a couple. Don’t know whether they are rarer nowadays or I am just not so into digging about in long patches of grass looking for slow worms now. We had a tank full of them in the classroom when I was about 10 and they were hugely educational, shedding bits of skin and stuff. As we were investigating the slow worm we were spotted by Lucy who was also up there watching the planes with her Mum, R & R.

We headed for home, via a conker tree where the children had tea and early bed. We have had a lovely roast dinner and are drinking the bottle of champagne from Lovely Ros for our anniverary last week as it has been the first time we’ve sat down at a decent hour since then. Thanks Ros 🙂

Tomorrow is a day at home and then we have plans for the rest of the week. So I imagine there will be X Boxing! 🙂

I went through some of Davies’ clothes today to try and sort out what extra stuff he might need for autumn/winter and up the pile of stuff for ebaying too. I was actually more ruthless about deciding he’d outgrown stuff than I probably need to be simply because some of it has already done two winters and I’m sick of the sight of it.

We have a pair of camo print trousers that I swear I bought when we still lived in Manchester – I have picture evidence that he wore them at Melrose 2005

and Melrose 2006

and actually they are only marginally too short now. And because I was really quite excited at the prospect of them no longer residing in our house Tarly came along and tried them on and fell in love with them and has put them in her wardrobe now. She also appropriated various other outgrown Davies items including a pair of Christmas pjs which she wore all morning and had a fit about not being able to wear again to bed tonight until I dug them out of the wash again and several jumpers including the skull one Davies wore lots last winter which completes her new Punk Tarly look to perfection. 😉

I’m verging on being slightly concerned about Davies’ height, joking aside. He simply doesn’t appear to have grown much for well over a year. I am fine with the fact he is on the short side – his genes probably dictate he won’t make much of a basketball player but appearing not to grow from his own four year old height is a bit disconcerting. And I know there has been discussion elsewhere about kids clothes sizes being a bit of a law unto themselves but actually he is barely out of aged 4-5 clothes (and no, I wasn’t magically expecting him to start wearing age 6-7 overnight on Thursday 😉 ) . So I’ve googled children’s height and growth and will measure him in the morning to ensure he is into the ‘average’ scale at least. At then when he has a sudden growth spurt in the next few weeks you can all say ‘told you so’ 😆

We’ve done not a lot today really. It’s the local airshow which has meant there have been all sorts of noisy planes flying about overhead exciting Ady and the children. Ady has done stuff like defrost fridges, chillers and freezers and moved both freezers into our garage, I’ve cleared Davies’ room of various bits of tat and sorted his bookcase out – there is about half a shelf empty now – in the old days that would have sent me straight to the Book People website ;-).

Davies managed to tread on his glasses in a comedy moment involving a daddy long legs and they are beyond repair so will need replacing. He doesn’t really need them but actually quite likes wearing them and Ady is pretty strict about ensuring he wears them for things like Xbox playing and they do quite suit him.

Ady and the children spent a couple of hours in the garden this afternoon, I read my book and enjoyed the peace and then went food shopping. I went with cash in my pocket rather than cards, forgot and went over budget so had to put stuff back. Embarrassing but a good reminder that actually I shouldn’t be forgetting about budgeting and really should only pick up what I went in there for. Had a quick flick through The Green Parent at the article Dani and Allie feature in though. 🙂

And that’s probably about it for today. Tomorrow we’re heading off somewhere high with a picnic to get a free good view of the airshow. 🙂

Today was The Day Of The X Box (TM). For one day only constant Xboxing was allowed. So that’s pretty much what we did.

So Davies and I learnt how to use the controls – at length. We alternated between W&G Project Zoo and W&G curse of the were-rabbit with me desperately craving something without the words ‘cracking’ anywhere in the dialogue – but not desperate enough for Halo mind you 😉

Tarly and I looked at books for a while, I got out the Bob books but although she knew all the sounds for the first one (m, a, t and s) she couldn’t get her head round stringing them together at all. Slightly torn as to how to proceed with her on this really. I’ve happily accepted autonomy for Davies and reading – he knows all the letters and the sounds and knows how to blend them to make words, so aslong as a word if phonetic he is fine and he is gradually recognising more and more words by sight anyway. But Tarly is still right at the beginning and she just wants ‘to read’ by the quickest and most painless method I can offer. Erm…. I so don’t want to miss the boat or fail her here but at the same time I want to offer what works for her. Watch this space!

We listened to the jets and other noisy aircraft coming in to the local airport in preparation for tomorrows RAF annual airshow. We have gone along for the last two years but this year finances, my own honesty that actually I have little or no interest in WW2 aircraft and the children not being remotely bothered about going means we won’t be attending. I’ve told Ady to go on his own as it is so his ‘thing’ so depending on the weather I might push him a bit more tomorrow.

When Ady got home I went on another of my hour long walks, this time taking in the hall where the party was and posting the keys and payment back through the letterbox. I very foolishly wore flipflops so I now probably qualify for invalid status with the sore bits on the bottom of my feet, but hey, I’m getting fitter! 😆

And that would be about it for now.

Sentimental. Obviously. 😉 Haven’t done a Blogthings or Quizila quiz on it and don’t know if there is one, but that’d be the answer I got. I like being sentimental, I like reminsicing, talking about what I was doing X years ago today. And I like balancing out all my yelling, stropping and feeling fed up with people with sometimes celebrating what I adore about them too. Let’s face it, I spent 18 months managing a card and gift shop where we sold cardboard sentiment with it’s own envelope for three quid a shot for people who didn’t have words of their own to tell people that they loved them, they wanted them to have a happy birthday, or they were glad they had stayed married to them for so many years. And believe me, those cards with the long soppy verses, the declarations of undying and forever love were easily the best sellers – followed closely by those dreadful Forever Friends teddy bears (which I used to beat up and torture in the managers office for fun!). Anyway, yesterday marked the end of my big emotional sentimental week each year so I’ll be back to normal again now. 😉

I’d fallen asleep on the sofa watching a film which utterly failed to capture either Ady or I and staggered to bed sometime around 2am, so Davies waking for his birthday to start sometime very soon after 6am would have been far less received on any other morning. Scarlett emerged not long afterwards so we had present opening – a couple of X box games (ebay), a Wallace and Gromit T shirt (also ebay, but new), the latest two W&G comics (too expensive to be bought for occassions other than birthdays), Feathers, Preston and Wallace soft toys from charity shops, a Wallace and Gromit board game which I’ve never seen before also from a charity shop and Cube World – which he saw in ToysRUs and has seen on TV ads and was the only thing he kept on about getting for his birthday. That was a joint pressie from Layla and Si – so expect him to be thanking you profusely for that next he sees you L & S :-). Oh and a hologram dinosaur book, also from a charity shop. Somehow he ended up with as many presents, probably with as much ‘as new’ value as he has ever had but all at bargain prices. 🙂

As part of our (much discussed 😉 ) practise of a small present for the sibling Tarly got two Barbie videos (also both 50p from charity shops).

Ady headed off to work leaving Davies playing Cube World, Tarly watching Barbie in Fairytopia and me icing the birthday cake.

I’d planned to do whatever Davies wanted in the morning but he was pretty indecisive and came up with a variety of wild and wacky suggestions including going to Centerparcs, going to Devils Dyke and going swimming. Swimming I was prepared to accomodate but in the event he was not that bothered and far happier to play at home instead. We did one of the plaster of paris dinosaur moulds that had been a present from the party (Alison, I think) and then they played with geomags. I joined in and tried to make a 3d dinosaur but gave up. Davies took over and did a pretty good job of it though. 🙂 I also spent some time online and found contact lenses at less than half the price I have been paying. They have arrived this morning, complete with four days free trial ones to try first to check I am happy with them before opening the paid for ones. Next day delivery very impressive and so far, so good. 🙂

Ady arrived home and we headed off to my parents for birthday lunch. My Granny and brother were there too so we had a pleasant couple of hours with Davies opening his XBox (my parents and brother paid 1/4 each and we raised half by selling a few bits including outgrown toys on ebay. So it is 1/2 Davies’ birthday present from them and 1/2 the ‘family x box’ as I didn’t want it belonging to him solely, both as it is too extravagent a gift for a 6 year old and because it could cause arguments if it belonged to ‘him’ when and if Tarly gets games to play on it.) He got a cheque from my Granny which will go straight into his bank account and a globe from my parents too which replaces the one he had which used to be mine and got broken a while back. Tarly was given a couple of tins of sparkling jewelly from my Mum so she was very happy with that too.

Birthday lunch followed by birthday cake followed by Davies teaching all the adults (except me :lol:) how to use his cube world.

We left there as Ady had promised Davies a McDonalds for dinner so we headed over there. It is in a complex with a Tesco and an M&S so I went and got a few bits from Tesco while Ady sat with the children in McD’s. Davies got a crazy frog one of those music thingys and Tarly got a The Faders one. Never heard of The Faders before (which probably makes me either really sad, middle aged and out of touch with the youth of today, or the mother of young children rather than teenagers perhaps? 😉 ) but she is utterly in love and has learnt all the lyrics to the song snippet on there. She walked all round M&S with it clamped to her ear dancing along to it and has played with it this morning too. I found The Faders website and played her a couple more of their songs which she also loved so maybe I can dilute the pink fluffiness of Barbie before it takes a complete hold after all. I guess it could be black nail varnish for her fourth birthday after the pink glittery one for her third 😆 We drove around a couple of electrical retailers looking for a second XBox controller but as everywhere has stopped selling XBox stuff in favour of the 360 stuff we gave up. Loads online though so if Ady doesn’t get one at Game today we’ll get one off ebay or somewhere instead.

Davies was allowed to watch a film in bed as the end of his birthday and chose Willy Wonka so he was still awake at about 10pm. I cooked dinner but suddenly felt really ill so served Ady his and went off to bed instead. Watched Mock the week which I’d not seen before and found very funny and was asleep before 11pm.

Today Davies intends playing Xbox ‘all day long’ which for one day only I’ll allow, I need to try and clear the laundry mountain inbetween showers of rain and I still have to return the keys and pay for the hall from Davies’ party. Hopefully Ady will be home in time for me to walk there as my second walk of the week. Oh and I want to try the Bob books with Tarly who insists she wants to read but is clearly expecting it to happen at a far greater speed that 100EL is going to allow 🙄

I can’t quite believe it’s six years since you were born. In many ways the years have raced by and the memory of sitting looking into your eyes for the very first time and saying hello to you feels like it was just this morning. In many other ways it feels as if you have always been here, like I’ve known you forever.

Davies, you were the very first person I loved from the moment I met you, the very first person who’s life counted for more than mine, for whom there is nothing I wouldn’t do. The first person who made me want to be the best, do the best, make you proud of me. You have changed me in so many ways, not all of them positive, but all of them necessary and to be celebrated.

Your life is celebrated in the photos that adorn the walls of the house, the hours worth of home videos stacked in a box, the storage box sitting on top of your wardrobe filled with the cards sent to Daddy and I when you were born, the one or two outfits over the years I have not been able to get rid of, your hospital bracelet, your drawings pinned to the walls, how I know so much about dinosaurs, educational approaches and how I am so familiar with each of your passions – Wallace and Gromit being my best example. It will probably surprise everyone to learn that actually I have never sat and watched any of the films myself, yet I spent most of last week creating the props to turn your birthday party hall into a shrine of all things Aardman!

Your marks are left physically on me – I have the first silvery stretch marks on my tummy – later joined by the fresher ones from Scarlett, emotionally on me from the tears I shed over the difficulties of motherhood to the laughter you bring to my every waking moment and spiritually from where I hold no religious beliefs but do believe in the bond we share, your ability to take everything I can offer you, add to it and take it soaring far past where I could ever go.

I’m aware that you and I have an intense relationship, we spent many hours more together than plenty of other mothers and sons of similar ages. The closeness we share has the inevitable downside of too much time in each others company at times but I hope that as you grow older we will spent less time together perhaps, without ever losing what makes us Mummy and Davies.

Davies I am so very proud of you, as I watched you running surrounded by friends this weekend and you stopped as you dashed past just long enough to share with me ‘it’s hard work being the birthday boy, Mummy. Everyone wants to talk to me’ with a look of delight on your face. As you stood infront of your birthday cakes with the candles blazing, a room full of people who travelled to celebrate your birthday with you singing Happy Birthday to you, as you quietly told me later in the day what a wonderful party it had been and how much you’d loved it. When I kiss you goodnight and watch you slip back to babyhood as you go to sleep. When I hear once more from another adult what a lovely person you are.

Have a wonderful birthday darling, enjoy every moment. I love you. xxx

This morning we loaded up the software Davies got from Ali for his birthday. My old laptop – the one which died after being knocked off the arm of the sofa and was replaced on the house insurance by the lovely little one I am using to post this – has not got a working disc drive but having realised recently that the external disc drive Ady has for his work laptop would probably work and tested it to find indeed it does, so we were able to set it up using that. The software looks to be one of those which despite coming with full instructions – both in leaflet and onscreen – is easier to work out by just playing and fiddling. So with an occassional audience of Tarly that is just what he did. I didn’t actually see any of what he was doing but he certainly seemed to be enjoying himself and I’ll have a better look at it myself soon. So that was a Hit. 🙂

I baked some brownies to take to Lucy’s house, tidied up a bit and managed to be on the way to Lucy’s arriving a mere half hour after I’d planned and slightly before Julie. As ever we had a very nice time there, the children just get on with it and Lucy, Julie and I enjoy chatting about all manner of things, tossing ideas into the forum and generally enjoying each others’ company. Today there was some party post-mortum chat to be done and topics as far reaching as reusable, washable toilet wipes, cruel to be kind ‘breaking in’ children to situations they initially resist and more.

Davies was in the frame of mind where he seemed to be ‘looking for trouble’ – which is where him and I so often clash. He is not ‘naughty’ as such and the instant I tell him not to do a specific thing he will stop, but I feel as thought I spend the whole time nagging him as he stops doing one thing and moves straight onto another. All the while celebrated by his younger posse of followers as some sort of junior superhero. 🙄 Today I had something of an epiphany as I realised that actually what is bothering me is not what he is doing, but my fear of what other people will think and how they will judge him. I am able to see that while it is very frustrating to steer him constantly away from antics such as collecting sticks, finding muddy water, exploring how he can cover a table top in mud using only a stick to paint with or mixing together toilet roll, soap, toothpaste and shampoo in a sink full of water (an example rather than something he did today, I hasten to add!), it is actually not him being deliberately naughty at all. I put quite a lot on Davies and when I look back into the past at what five (or as it has just struck midnight now six) was like it was a time of wonder, of not ever thinking in advance what the consequences might be for actions, of exploring, investigating, of having an idea or notion and carrying it out straightaway. Of wondering ‘what if?’ and just going right on ahead and finding out. Of actually nobody expecting you to know any better because after all you were only six and how would you ever learn unless you did it and found out anyway? So while I still won’t be letting him paint friends’ houses with ash mixture, dig up prize flowers by the roots, block up their plumbing with plaster of paris down the sink without a ‘What were you thinking?’ Go and say sorry right now!’ maybe I’ll try and give him a bit of a break on the whole assuming it was all premeditated and done just to piss me off side of things. Perhaps we’ll work more on the listening to what I say rather than the expecting him to have such a strong sense of responsibility and take it from there.

Julie left with Jack and Maisie so Lucy and I decided to take the remaining children out for a walk. We chose the beach over the park on the basis there is a small playground area there too. Davies and Scarlett pretty much imediately kicked their shoes off and headed for the sea. I started to protest at Davies going into the water but actually it was a really nice day, warm and sunny and we were headed straight for home afterwards anyway so I gave up and let him do his thing. He clambered on rocks, paddled, splashed, waded and crawled around in the sea and had a whale of a time. He has utterly fallen in love with the ocean this summer and given that I too have been in the sea this year having not done so since teenage years I can quite see the attraction. Tarly spent some time digging and building using a shell as a scoop / spade which she then brought over to show me and explain how she’d used it. I told her about how cavemen used things like stones and shells as early tools and then sent her to find a bit of driftwood, a sharp edged stone and some seaweed to lash it together and made her a little axe type tool. The seaweed was very brittle and didn’t really hold it all together, so we plaited it to make it stronger like a rope. It still didn’t really hold but I showed her how much tougher it was to pull and break a plaited thread than a single strand and we talked about that. We also looked at how the tools might have worked and what they could have been used for and I told her that if we’d hit two stones together in the dark we might have seen the sparks created. A lovely little impromptu education session 😉 Then we made anklets from the seaweed before she ran off to play again. All the while having a conversation with Lucy about Home Education 😆

Eventually R had had enough with us not agreeing to her request to go to the park – although in fairness I imagine if we had gone to the park she might have been upset about not having been at the beach – she had reached irrational levels of tiredness as 3 year olds are so often prone. We walked back, Davies stripped off to sit in the car and we came straight in the house for them to have a bath while I cooked their tea. Ady arrived home while they were still there and I was still cooking so I made Davies’ cake too ready for icing in the morning.

An early-ish night for the children, allowing me to make a card for Davies, Ady to blow up several balloons, presents to be unearthed from hiding places and wrapped up and a heap assembled on the lounge floor ready for the morning. Tarly made a card in bed for Davies and did some very nice writing inside – no real concept of what she is ‘writing’ but she copies letters very well and is good at forming them in a ‘proper’ manner rather than the series of sticks and lines that Davies, despite being able to form all the letters still does (e.g circle, then lift the pen from the page before going back in to make a tail to form an ‘a’ giving it more of a capital Q like appearance).

And now, with thoughts on my mind of the agony I was in this time six (SIX!!!!) years ago right now I am off to bed. Scared myself today to realise I will have a five year old again by the end of next year, except it will be Tarly. And if Tarly will be five then Davies will be seven!!! 😯

Amelia also known as Pea – have a lovely 10th birthday with lots of love from Ady, Nic, Davies and Scarlett xxx

Back to Badgers last night for Davies. And in true Back To School fashion I was the mother sewing on the Global Badger badge he was presented with at the end of last term onto his jumper moments before he was putting it on, while he was stuffing his tea down and hopping around trying to change into his smart trousers. I was also trying to locate his other black shoe and take his pink nail varnish off from the weekend 😆

On the way there I asked him if he was ready for me to not wait outside any more – I had a plan to go for a walk for an hour but leave the car there if he was cool with it, but he said he still wanted me to wait outside and it wouldn’t be for much longer but he would tell me when he was ready!. Instead of taking him in this time I just saw him across the road though and he went in with just one backwards glance and a small wave through the window to me about halfway through the hour. I sat and read. Inspired by that Homeschool Meme of last month about resources and books I looked on my bookshelf last week and have been reading this and finding it reassuring, inspiring, challenging and interesting. I’m finding loads in there to continue pushing me toward autonomy at a time when I feel almost guilty for not feeling guilty about our approach somehow. Probably have more to say about that but it will have to keep for another time.

Once home I got changed ready for my Mum to arrive. Way back earlier in the year we had planned to go out for a meal together – can’t even remember what the reason was now it was so long ago. Anyway every year since Ady’s sister died of breast cancer I have made a purchase from the Asda Ticked Pink range – perfect for me it combines shopping, clothes and charitable giving in one nice easy hit. For the last couple of years my Mum has bought something in the range too so we’d arranged to go to the Asda in Brighton together to look at the range and go for a meal afterwards. My selection was obviously far more frugal than in previous years when I have been inclined to have ‘one of everything’ but I did select two tops, while Mum (and now you will understand where I get it from) did indeed have pretty much one of everything! She also wanted to buy her and I a bracelet each but they only had one left, so she was planning to try the other local branch to try and get a couple there later this week.

We then tottered – I had worn stupidly high heels again for the second time in 3 days and my feet had not yet recovered from the first – down a very steep slope to enter this Chinese restuarant. Mum was in a very cheery mood and we ended up totally overordering and ladening the table with lovely food. Of which we left a fair amount but thoroughly enjoyed what we did manage to eat. 🙂 It was a nice evening although I still struggle to see my Mum as someone I can sit and chat with for any length of time without anyone else around so I did rather more listening than talking – which is slightly out of character really :lol:.

Today I had promised Davies we could play with some of his presents and the only other thing I had to do was parcel up and send various ebay sales. First he chose a digging out a dinosaur kit. We’ve had various of these over the years but this was easily the best one in that the clay to dig the bones out of was not rock hard and he was able to dig most of it out, using the hammer, chisel and brush before he got bored and I finished it. I left him to wash the clay dust off of the bones while I went and got dressed. I was tidying up some clean washing when the doorbell rang and my Dad arrived. Scarlett and I did some of 100EL first thing as she had said last night she’d like to learn to read. Mostly refreshing stuff we’d done before and it was only about 10 minutes before she started to mess about so we ended it there – might try her with the Bob books actually and see if they grab her.

Davies had then cast aside the dinosaur bones – which he did later go back to and we made up into a stegosaurus – in favour of the Happymais. Now we’ve had magic maize and the ELC equivalent before and it’s sat in the cupboard for years with only brief forays into using it – generally for the flat pictures rather than making things although we did make a few festive bits either last Christmas or the Christmas before which kicked around for a while. But today he was inspired by the illustrations on the box, the serated edge knife and the slightly brighter colours and he made a baby elephant, the sun, a lake (that’d be lots of blue joined together then :lol:) and a couple of other things copied from the front of the box. He did make me laugh lots by wanting to know what it was made from, being very interested that it was the same basic ingredient as some of the crisp-like products he enjoys and then coming up with his first pun which he repeated regularly ‘it’s a-maize-ing!’ – the marketing bod in me was oh so proud ;-). Tarly went and dug out the magic maize so she could do some cutting up with the serated knife too – which was all she was actually interested in doing with it :roll:. Meanwhile I chatted with Dad, made lunch and started to parcel up clothes ready for the post office. The children put all the various mais / maize away and then we loaded all the parcels into a big bag. Davies and Scarlett had already run into the garden and were chatting away to our opposite neighbour over the garden wall – I’m still slightly torn between loving the way they can chat to any adult and will talk about all sorts of things and ask questions and worrying that I am not cautious enough with them talking to strangers. Ah well, at least they know this neighbour well, but I do think I need to have some sort of warning chat with them before too long – wonder if there is any childrens books available on the subject to ease it into a conversation rather than just scare them rigid…

Davies begged to ride his bike so as part of my giving Davies more physical exercise and letting him ‘be a boy’ as much as possible I agreed to that and we set off. We go to the local post office a fair amount and the children veer between the most angelic and well behaved model children out to the sort of children that would make it onto a Disney film with an evil stepmother – or Supernanny! Today was a mix – they accidentally, and it was an accident, knocked down a spinner of ‘pocket money toys’, but were really apologetic and helped put it all back together again and then they charmed an elderly man waiting in the queue behind us. By about ten minutes in they had gotten bored and elicited a tsk from another woman in the queue as they started to play a game with some pens on display. I guess if you are from the children should be seen and not heard era then curiosity, loud observation and constant questioning could be seen as not ideal child behaviour though…

We walked back, chatting about the world around us as we went. Once home Davies requested to get out his make an electric buggy kit – we used to sell these kits at Dreamieland and I could never wait for him to be old enough to have one so I was thrilled when I saw someone had bought him one of those for his birthday. He needed a fair bit of help, and sadly Tarly was also wanting to ‘help’ which meant we didn’t get quite so much educational mileage as I might have hoped for out of ut. We managed all the basic construction before deciding to put it aside for completing another time when we were all still interested rather than me doing it and him not understanding what was going on in relation to the electric bits. Finally he selected a magic sheep kit to do. We’ve done similar ones with Christmas trees and things before so we chatted a bit about crystals – might dig out the borax and do some more crystal-y stuff if they show more interest in that tomorrow.

He’s also desperate to do some animation software which was a pressie from Ali but I haven’t sorted the other laptop out for him yet – must do that in the morning.

Ady started his college course this afternoon so he was home early but with a head full of new information, he seems to think it will be a fairly challenging course. I’m actually quite envious.

I took the opportunity of him being home early to head out for a walk – to the library to return some books, ‘fess up to having lost one – I now have 3 weeks to find it, replace it with a new copy or I can pay 75% of the cost of it instead. Grr. I was very reserved in my borrowings and only came away with 3 more books – walking home carrying them is a good motivator for not going crazy! I popped into the supermarket for a few bits to weigh down my other side equally and walked home again.

And now I am sitting here watching the rain absolutely pour down. Tomorrow I’m off to Lucy’s house, I need to make a birthday cake for Davies (he wants chocolate this time), Scarlett and I need to make birthday cards, I need to wrap presents and there is one remaining present to purchase, although I’m hoping Ady will take care of getting that one. Oh and of course write and post one of my sentimental, schmaltzy posts about what was happening six years ago ;-).

And what a weekend it was.

Friday In the morning I did some last minute food stuff while the children played with geomags. At lunchtime Lucy, R and R arrived with Em, R and E. We had lunch, Davies and Em’s R either remembered each other from camp or were struck by adoration at second sight as they were pretty much inseperable with Davies genuinely quite upset that they were not staying here for the night and were returning to Lucy’s instead. 🙂 We persuaded them outside with the bribe of ice lollies, tested whether Lucy’s R could carry off a pony tail in his long hair and Lucy attempted to perform non surgical cosmetic enhancement to him using micro tape, much to his big sister’s dismay and upset!

They left and the children and I had a quick whip round tidy up in preparation for the next lot of visitors. Chris arrived with SB and BB about half an hour before Katy and Becca so plenty more playing and chatting carried on inside and outside with BB almost but not quite able to join in with the older ones – won’t be long though 🙂 Ady arrived home and somehow we managed to get children asleep and adults fed. I think we were all in bed by about 11.30pm though.

Saturday Seemed fairly unchaotic in the morning actually. All probably due to Ady being so fantastic at just staying in the kitchen meeting everyone’s food and drink needs before they are even aware of them themselves ;-). Lucy arrived with Em and her two and I had made the last few bits of food (sandwiches) so Lucy and I did a couple of trips to the hall to set it all up with food and decorations, I dropped her home to collect her children and headed back to the house. Si, Layla and Claudia arrived, Ady, the children and I got changed and we headed off in convoy to the hall. We kept the children outside on the grass while we made the last few preparations to the venue, then we allowed them all in.

I lasted in my unfeasibly high heels for all of about half an hour and I spent most of that sitting down. 🙂

We had a complete guest list, which for a couple of cases where I’d been convinced people wouldn’t come was a very pleasant surprise. There were obvious gaps though and various people were missed 🙁 Davies seemed to spend most of the first hour and a half opening presents – I long since lost track of who gave him what and he appears not to have a clue either, but he does have a fantastic haul of ‘stuff’ so thank you very much indeed for all his gifts. 🙂 They are mostly still residing in Ady’s boot due to there not being a spare inch of house to cram them inside during most of the weekend. We’re planning a full day of exploring them properly and playing with them tomorrow. 🙂

With possibly only two exceptions none of the children seemed particularly interested in playing party games, so given I am an autonomous home educator it seemed a bit out of character to suddenly become anything other than an autonomous childrens’ party host. And to be honest, much though I have really enjoyed planning, organising and preparing for the party I am not really that keen on the being in charge once everyone is there – not to mention having totally the wrong disposition to deal with children – my own included – upset by not winning musical statues, judging who sat down first on musical bumps or being the one to stop the music in exactly the right place to ensure every child gets to unwrap a layer of pass the parcel. So ably assisted by Layla as judge and chief hand-over-your-eyes-spin-you-round person I managed possibly the worlds longest game of musical statues to the Wallace and Gromit music – interupted by a phone call from Ady :lol:, a pin the bow tie on Wallace game and a game created by Ady and I when drunkenly panicking about not having enough themed party games called The Wrong Trousers. We didn’t bank on quite what a mixed age and ability range we’d have, quite how many of the littler children would all want to be in Davies’ team and just how tricky it is tp count 21 participating children and organise them into 3 teams however so the setting up of the game lasted way longer than the game itself, but I do think it was a fair sequel to The Popcorn Game from Halloween. And it did spawn many a photo opportunity 😆

Ali then brought on the bubbles, which were such a hit at Freya’s party and I think may have gone down even better at Davies’. Thanks for that Ali 🙂 Ros did sterling work, assisted by Chris F the Milk Fetcher in providing second rounds of tea and coffees and there was a veritable army of helpers for tidying up the hall and returning it to it’s usual ‘glory’. Top mention has to go to Bob and Katy’s Libby for her carpet sweeping :-).

I think anyone who didn’t live locally came back to our house, the children made full use of the garden, those who got there first made full use of the limited sofa seating, various men were sent out for alcohol and made lots of drinks for people, Ady returned to his rightful place in the kitchen and produced a steady stream of toasted sandwiches, leftover party food and Katy’s baking. When darkness fell a beauty salon appeared to have been set up in Tarly’s room, with a parade of beautiful little girls made all sparkly, glitterly, sticky and scented. Oh and Davies, who appeared to have been the modern day equivalent of the Girls World head and shoulders model I wanted for Christmas when I was about 7! Must take that pearly pink nail varnish off him before he goes to Badgers later tonight! 🙄 😆

I confess to having a quiet hour closeted away with Layla and Kirsty while we got Tarly to sleep and chatted as I was pretty much hostessed out by that point. Then as wherever you sat in our house on Saturday night you were in ‘someone’s’ bedroom we all headed off to bed.

Sunday A lovely lazy morning with lots of chatting and enjoying the last of Katy’s baking as we waved goodbye to Katy and Becca, then Barbara and co and then Bob and Katy leaving just Kirsty and James with us. Despite the temptation to just sit around for the day being very strong we roused ourselves and drove down to a local beach. Slightly further than the one at the bottom of our road but slightly prettier and with the added attraction of a lagoon. The children played on the rocks, got wet and enjoyed the last of the summer sunshine, Ady and James also played on the rocks and took lots of photos, Kirsty and I sat on the pebbles and chatted – and looking at the photos I mostly frowned ;-), then we had an ice cream. 🙂

Home again via the local airport where we’d hoped to play football and watch some planes and helicopters, but lack of green area (all being used by the fairground which is due to set up ready for a massive airshow next weekend) and very tired children, drove us home again. Pizza for the children’s tea and then they defied our predictions that they’d all fall asleep really quickly and were awake for ages, I cooked a curry, which the other three complimented with Bob and Katy’s chickpea and veggie dish, we watched a US musicians show on one of the cable music channels which had us all reminiscing and laughing about childhood and teen years before turning in for yet another early night.

Today Ady was up and off to work long before any of the rest of us surfaced and we had a leisurely morning with Davies, Scarlett, Marcus and Alex playing and watching Charlie and Lola. They all left late morning headed the same way as at least one other set of houseguests – in the direction of Ros’ shop. The children have played with geomags, watched films and done plenty of tired whinging while I have done several loads of washing, attempted to exercise patience and caught up online. Davies is back to Badgers again today and I am going out for a meal with my Mum this evening (bad timing really, as I could do with a quiet evening and an early night far more!).

Last year on 6th September I wrote this post, which is actually very similar to a post I was going to sit down and write this morning, so I won’t bother 😉

Tomorrow is me and Ady’s seventh wedding anniversary. I wrote a bit about our wedding two years ago on our fifth anniversary here. Anyway I guess we’ve already bored most people with the story of our wedding day, shown you the pictures and several of you have seen the wedding video too 😳 But for those newer readers, those who can’t be bothered to follow links to old posts, or the romantic / bored / trying to kill time by reading blogs this morning among you I’m going to take a moment now to just reminise again about it.

The week leading up to our wedding was fantastic. One set of friends had a party for us in their garden where we all got very drunk. On the way home from their house drunkenly weaving about as we walked home we decided to start trying for a baby – 3 months later I was pregnant with Davies.

Another set of friends had a barbecue for us. They have a dairy farm and their house is next to a field with loads of cattle in it. When it got dark we had a firework display which made all the cattle stampede. It was on the way over to their house that I think I had my most pure moment of utter happiness actually. We went over on Ady’s motorbike – long since sold once we had children. I used to love riding on the back of it, we went really (stupidly) fast, everything was just a blur and I used to sit inside my crash hat laughing insanely at how crazy it was. I was there on the back of this bike, holding tightly to the man I loved so much I was heading out to Las Vegas with him in less than a week to marry him and stay with him forever, on our way to a good evening with friends riding the equivalent of a road rollercoaster. Bliss – and of course utterly responsibility free 😉

Our actual wedding day dawned with an alarm call at about 5.30am and just that one morning we had breakfast delivered to our room.
We got dressed up and headed down to the lobby to meet our limo to take us to the wedding chapel with my parents and brother. Once there we sat with the minister who married us chatting about what sort of service we wanted and he managed to work out how to pronounce my name – in Amercia they seem to have lots of ‘Nicole’s’ but no ‘Nicola’s’ so he was saying Nicole – a. Then Ady went off to stand at the altar and my Dad came in to take me down the aisle to him. Frazer passed us the rings, my Mum held the bouquet while I held Ady’s hands. It was a romantic, perfect, intimate, amazing experience with every single word said loaded with meaning, truth and love.

We left the chapel back to the hotel by limo, which dropped my parents and brother off, we nipped back to the room to get changed out of wedding clothes – getting stopped innumberable times as we ran through the lobby trailing confetti and dressed up by random strangers wishing us congratulations and wanting to kiss the bride. Back into the limo and off to the airport. We were issued with name badges and as we were slightly early we sat in the waiting lounge for about 15 minutes looking at our wedding rings and catching each others’ eye, giggling and feeling amazed at being married. Then we got a helicopter with another four people and a pilot and flew to the Grand Canyon, over Hoover Dam and landed in the canyon. We had a champagne picnic lunch and were toasted by all the other picnickers, then we got back in the helicopter and flew back over the Vegas strip. Limo back to the strip again from the airport where we walked hand in hand trying to get to grips with the very surreal feeling that this was our wedding day and here we were in probably one of the most unlike our ususal lives places in the world.

We went to the MGM Grand where they have a lion enclosure inside the hotel and petted a lion cub while watching a constant stream of Elvis impersonators, we watched the fountains at the Bellagio dancing to classical music and many of the other amazing sites and sounds around Vegas.

But of course that was just one day, just the start. And actually it was a full six years after we’d already been a couple. So while I love to celebrate that day, to mark another year since we said those vows to each other, to recognise how long it is since I became Mrs Goddard – and to think again about what being Mrs Goddard means to me. It is not the years which make our marriage. It is the moments, the snapshots of our life together, our children, our names said together in one breath, our identity as a couple as well as individuals. It is knowing that we can always rely on each other, we can trust and belief in each other, know that when the rest of the world is somewhere you’d really rather not be you can shut the door, close the curtains, take each others hand and be happy that you have all you need right there.

Tomorrow we won’t have a spare moment to celebrate our anniversary, we’ve got a houseful of people and the birthday party of our son – seven years later it is lovely to see what was stretching out infront of us waiting when we said ‘I do’. So for once an anniversary in the Goddard house will not be marked with moonlight and rose, champagne and expensive cards – it will be simply living the life we have built together – children, friends, chaos, laugher, celebration, music, love. Sounds about right to me :-).

And I missed yesterday too. So,

Yesterday morning the cooking fest continued, then a trip to the post office for further ebay parcel sending and then Sainsburys for some more baking ingredients.

Over to the park to meet Lucy, Rebecca and Richard who had already been there for nearly an hour without knowing whether we were coming thanks to Lucy’s mobile phone not being about her person to pass on my text message. We had a play on the slightly quieter play equipment than last week but it wasn’t long before the children tired of that and wandered further afield. This week we trailed along behind them for a while but when they started to scatter and disappear in different directions we decided to call it a day at the park and had a race back to our house.

The children all played really well, if very noisily while Lucy and I chatted. I had ordered the Wallace and Gromit Were Rabbit OST as a birthday present for Davies to be given to him early to use as music at the party so when Lucy, R & R went home that was listened to for at least the 4th time that day. The children really enjoyed listening, working out what bit of the film it was the soundtrack to and which instruments were playing. We have got the Monsters Inc and Toy Story soundtracks which they have always enjoyed listening to and doing the same with but we’ve not listened to them for ages.

The children were both really tired having been up until 9pm ish the night before and having run around lots during the day so they were both asleep by 7.30pm. I did yet more baking including the two victoria sponge cakes ready for icing as Davies’ birthday cakes. I had a lovely curry and made all the party bags while watching The Eternal Sunshine of the spotless mind on dvd which I thought was an excellent film. Had various phone chats with Ady who was away for the night and spent about an hour trying to sort my internet connection out.

Davies crept into my bed sometime in the middle of the night as he very often does when Ady is away and Tarly woke us around 7am. We all got up and they played with the toy cars and animals while I had another go at sorting the internet out. Then we were actually out of the house for 9.30am to go to the party venue to collect the keys and make any final arrangements – I’ve got the hall booked from earlier in the day now so party guests can arrive there from about 2pm onwards. From there we went to collect the Susumama order which having left the routefinder to I found by almost pure fluke – oh and the great big pink Susumama van outside the house. And what a fantastically cool house it was – ordinary street, very middle class south coast seaside town on the outside, possibly the most dramatic houses I’ve ever been inside on the inside. Massive and cavernous with an amazing view of the sea out the back, very little furniture but loads of jewel coloured floor cushions, amazingly textured walls and ceilings with stacks of plants, ornaments and sculptures and a real ‘worldwide’ feel. We had a brief chat about Home Ed and education generally and I reluctantly turned down a cup of tea as the children were in full on picking stuff up and asking what it was mode but I promised to go back to collect the next order and I will ensure I go without the children so I can linger awhile longer, maybe see a bit more of her house and talk to her more about all her festival going and travelling – very interesting and cool woman is Susumama lady :-).

We left there and went to Ali’s for the first time in ages, we’ve managed lots of instant message chats to keep abreast of each others’ lives but real life contact has been low so it was nice to catch up properly and let the children do their thing too. We had a walk – which both Freya and Tarly managed to draw blood on and saw some very anti-social goats, they played in various combinations – including Scarlett and Freya for longer than possibly ever before which was nice to watch. Tarly had her first ever go on an xbox playing a Barbie game (what else!) which was very cute to watch – Davies then saw her cute and raised her an adorable by promising to count all the money in his moneybox and buy her a Barbie game if he had enough money. Awww. 🙂 Davies then played a W&G game on there with lots of support and back up from Freya – who we may need to borrow Ali for techinical support next week when he gets his :-).

On the way home we listened to Terrible Tudors and all sang along then the children picked up their game of cars and dinosaurs again while I started to decorate the cakes. My Mum called by to drop off 4 pairs of ‘wrong trousers’ for one of the party games and while she was still here Ady returned from Cambridge. Final party preparation, a tidy up and dinner later and here we are.

Tomorrow I have Lucy and Em round at some point, followed by the arrivals of Chris F and Katy B so I’ve a feeling it might be a back after the weekend moment about now.

Having major probs with my internet connection. I have managed to reconnect it after *hours* of trying but can’t get wireless going atm. I’ve got so much else to do the next 48 hours for once internet connections are going to slip way down my ‘to-do’ list.

So if you need to contact me for any reason you’re probably better using the phone than email. Think I’ve given my mobile number to everyone who is coming this weekend, so if you’ve emailed me and I’ve not replied chances are I’ve not seen it yet.

Might be back later – if not, look forward to seeing anyone who is coming this weekend!

It’s been a lovely day today, possibly more so because I’ve been surrounded in real life and online by people dealing with first day back to school and far from last week’s feeling that actually I was quite envious of them I am renewed with enthusiasm for Home Ed again this week.

This morning a long awaited dvd request from Davies arrived and while I was getting dressed upstairs the children had been into the garden and got their space hoppers, brought them into the house and were sitting infront of the tv watching the film and bouncing happily away. 😆

I iced the biscuits I’d made last night and packed up a picnic ready to go to the local park and meet Mel, Liam and Lily. We saved the three quid parking fee by parking a two minute walk up the road, met Mel in the carpark and headed straight to the playground. We got the swings out of the way first and Davies, Scarlett and Liam headed off to play having a great time. Lily was a bit slower to warm up and was struggling to break into the game – Davies and Scarlett tend to just continue one of the games they play together at home and often other children just join in – the most common one being Wallace and Gromit. Today they were playing Cars – with Lightening McQueen 1,2 and 3 and then they moved onto being Agents. Liam was Agent Fast because he’s super speedy at running, Davies was Agent Small on account of being well, small, and able to fit underneath and through gaps in the play equipment. Tarly may or may not have been alloted an Agent name, she was far too busy doing daring climbing and clambering stunts to come and tell me!

We left the playground to find a grassy spot to eat lunch, the children did some clambering about on an area of rocks and then we had a ride round on the miniature train. The boats were out on the boating lake but they only had pedalos and as neither Mel or I fancied pedalling our children round (they are only four seaters so we’d have needed one per family) for 15 minutes we chose the train instead. Then over to the cafe for ice creams. Davies had a bit of a moment as the end of his ice lolly had snapped off inside the packet but we sorted that out and he ate it happily in the end – rather unlike him but ably demonstrating a conversation Mel and I had just been having about 6-7 being a tricky age for boys with their not a little boy any more but not a big boy really either feeling. Back to the playground again for a last play before home time.

We got home around 5pm and the children did some drawing, watched Dinosaur again while they had their tea and I finished icing and decorating the biscuits, made a lasagne for dinner, cooked a load of cupcakes ready to decorate and made loads of ear-shaped biscuits to decorate them with. That will have to wait for tomorrow though. The children had a long bath and then watched Mr Bean on tv for a while – they often watch the cartoon but had never seen the orignial tv show before so that had them laughing lots. I finally got them to bed and had a bath, then sat with first Tarly, then Davies until they were asleep before sitting down with my lasagne to watch Supernanny.

Ady has been to cricket with my Dad this afternoon and has only just arrived home. He is off again first thing in the morning to Cambridge and won’t be back until Thursday which means I should get plenty done again tomorrow night at least, leaving Thursday night for tidying the house in preparation for all the various houseguests this weekend.

It’s been lovely to listen to and watch the children playing so well together today – bouncing on their space hoppers, at the park, in the bath – it has all been very harmonious today. And the sun shone so much we all have red bits on our cheeks – truly the last day of the summer holiday. 🙂

This morning we were watching CBBC which is quite unusual but something caught the children’s attention as we flicked past so we stayed with it. Which meant I was semi- watching Newsround when it came on with the news about Steve Irwin. We talked about that and I was distracted from a post about reaching potential I have been meaning to write for ages, so that is still saved as a draft for another day. The sun has been shining all day today so I cleared a lot of the backlog of laundry which has backed up over the wet weekend. The children played first with the geomags making a massive abstract flat creation with panels which resembled a stained glass window and I would have photographed if they’d not broken it as part of some game they were playing. Crocodile Hunter came on Discovery Kids and Tarly’s current theory (based on some crap my Mum fed her about Malice) that you come back after you have died and it is ‘not forever’ got backed up by her saying ‘look Mummy, there’s Steve now’.

I had a couple of ebay parcels to send off so I packaged them up and we headed off to Tescos via the post office. Our local Tesco is having a massive revamp with what looks like the same size again extension built onto the side so is in disarray at the moment which meant we had to walk the entire shop to find the various bits we wanted. I’d said the children could choose some sweets if they behaved in the post office and Tesco but Tarly started to get bored and was messing about with the make up so after several warnings I told her she’d lost her sweets. Shortly afterwards we were walking along and Davies announced he would choose something they both liked for him and share it with her. Which resulted in me melting at what a lovely boy he is and her telling him what she wanted him to choose with no appreciation of what he had offered at all 🙄 So they both got their sweets!

Once home we had lunch and I persuaded myself to make a start on party preparation. I’m going with party bags as I’ve already got the paper to make the bags and a few bits to go in them. When I said my two expected party bags I meant at their parties rather than ones they are guests at and as Davies has planned most of this party himself, along with there being goody bags I am happy to go along with it. So I decided to start making those. I kicked the children out of the lounge as they were playing really nicely together but at high volume, so I sent them to go upstairs and play. Not at all sure what the game was and at one point when I peeped in Davies was playing with a Vtech laptop thing while Tarly lazed around looking at Mr Men books but it was all very harmonious and gave me some peace. 🙂 Davies also came down to say he’d been playing a game on it called ‘silly sentences’ which had nonsense like ‘the car jumped over the house’ – so he seems to be getting all the education he requires nice and autonomously from the electronic gadgets around the place. 😉 I got quickly bored with the party bags but emailed Ady to get him to print things off for me at work which will make it easier to sort them out tomorrow instead. I found the Wallace and Gromit OST on Amazon marketplace very cheaply so ordered that for the party games music, phoned my Mum to get her to bring me some ‘wrong’ trousers home from the charity shop she works at and sorted out the order for Susumama – I’m collecting it on Thursday so stuff will be here for the weekend.

Then I turned my attention to outfits. I’ve ordered Davies a really cool W&G T shirt but although it should be here for his actual birthday it probably won’t be here for the party. I’d talked the children out of fancy dress but they wanted something themed so we dug out white shirts and fabric pens and paint and created W&G tops for them both – designs their’s, artwork mine. 🙂

I did their tea and they sat down to eat that while I cooked loads of quiches for dinner tonight, party food and for the freezer. Then I started the first load of baking too with some little biscuits to be decorated tomorrow for the party.

Blimey what a shock this news is. How very sad.