One word? When seven would do…

Yesterday was lovely 🙂 We went up to Reading for the day and evening. Ady dropped me and the children off at Alison’s and then went off to work. Layla and Claudia arrived a few minutes after us and the children all disappeared (after I’d read Scarlett two books she decided she would go and play :roll:) while we chatted.

After lunch Alison and Layla took Tilda and Claudia off to see Joseph & his Techincolour Dreamcoat and I took Scarlett and Davies, Lije and Lulah off the to park where I worked my muscles by pushing various children on the swing for over half an hour (mostly Scarlett actually 🙂 ) and saying ‘good climbing’, ‘excellent balancing’ ‘very good jumping’ and so on in response to lots of ‘Mummy / Nic, Look at me!’, then we walked back via the shop for ice lollies. My second time ever of being responsible for more than my own children and my first ever taken multiple children out of a house exercise 😀 I’m practically registered childminder material I reckon 😉

We got back to the house and they played in the garden and then very noisily in the house while I did some work. I’d finished the very complicated CV the night before and emailed it over but I had a desperate phonecall from CV lady at lunchtime to say that she had told the client that she’d done it herself and had been very happy with what I’d done but the client wanted a couple of changes, so could I ring her and make the amendments while pretending to NOT be the person who’d written it in the first place 🙄 It proved to be rather more frustrating as she then rang me back again and asked for even more changes. I did manage it though, which made it a fairly lucrative couple of hours as I will bill them again for it.

Alison and Layla came back, Ady and Si arrived after work and we were joined for dinner by Gamma and Gaffer which made for an entertaining and slightly riotous evening. There was plenty of singing of Joseph songs, some plotting of our ‘act’ for the Kessingland caberet night and some googling for images to better illustrate an anecdote from Alison 😉

Thanks for a lovely day 🙂

Today I have been super-productive Nic. I’ve changed all the beds, done six loads of washing, baked a birthday cake for Ady, made a fruit flan for him too (it’s been a long and fairly stressy week for him so he deserved a ‘happy Friday’ treat 🙂 ) assisted by Davies, done a food shop at Sainsburys for next week so I don’t have to bother this weekend, filled my car up with petrol (I stopped when it got to £62 :shock:, but I last filled it up in March so I am doing well on being economical with petrol), took a pile of library books back and renewed all of the ones we still have and got a list of them all so I can track them down, bought a book for Ady and some wrapping paper, got a curry cooking, helped the children make a card each for Ady and sorted out my kitchen cupboards. A model of muffinicity! 😉

The children have veered between helping me, playing nicely and being hideously annoying as they are both very tired and still getting over their colds. They were both really good in Sainsburys though and it amazed me to notice how intolerant people are of small children. I think we have gotten too used to removing them from everyday life and shoving them into childcare, it is actually not that frequent to see many children in the supermarket anymore and certainly when I had childcare it was one of the tasks I got out of the way childfree, but actually, if they are involved in what I’m buying, tasked with nipping off to get things and count stuff, help load and unload the trolley and we chat about what various things are they really enjoy it. They do probably get in the way of other shoppers a little, they are not hugely aware of other people and their trollies but they don’t run wild by any means and I was surprised at how many tsks and tuts, near missed with (particularly elderly) people’s trollies and utter refusal to make space for them I noticed this morning. Clearly supermarket trips should be saved as school field trips – or maybe children will just learn at school how to do an online supermarket shop and never actually visit the real place, only wander down virtual aisles…

They are now in the bath, in preparation for an early night and I anticipate the weekend starting in about an hours time 🙂

just cos I like the title! Oh and cos Michelle won 🙁

In the style of an about to fired Apprentice contestant I was a victim of my own efficiency today.

The chilli seed incident was because I was that prompt at getting dinner on I managed it before I’d even got my lenses in (I did managed to use salt and handwash to scrub the fingertips of the two fingers needed to insert lenses and get them in without blinding myself in a chilli related incident.

The workload which threw me out today was cos I’ve managed to build myself a reputation for being reliable, quick to react and able to pull good work out of the bag at short notice making me first port of call for a rush job CV.

The rushing around still pegging washing out five minutes after I was supposed to have left the house was because I managed to get three loads of washing done this morning and ready to go on the line.

The reason we were running about hanging out washing and eating lunch in the car on the way was because I have set up a Home Ed group.

Of course none of this says much for my organisational skills but hey! 😉

So this morning the children pretty much entertained themselves this morning. There was drawing, playing with blocks and cars and the car mat, there was using the muddlepuddle bookbag to transport books up and down the stairs, there was Discovery Kids watching and then there was a lengthy and protracted game of ‘babies go on holiday’ which involved dressing up, space hoppers, back packs, coming to me for the hotel room key and plenty of leaving me to get on with my work 🙂

Group was excellent. I’d made a very last minute (as in I told Julie 😉 ) decision to have an underwater theme. Peter and Sue (the grandparents) brought possibly the best toy I’ve ever seen outside of a soft play centre which pretty much occupied the group for the whole of the first hour and then some. Our couple from last week also came, as did Julie and I and a contact I’ve been exchanging emails with for a couple of weeks came along too. So we had five families and ten children. All seemed up for coming again next time and of course Lucy will be back then which makes six, Julie and I have had contact from another person who is very interested but on a course at the moment on Wednesdays and everyone promised to spread the word today. Feeling very positive about it all at the moment 🙂 I brought some paper to do underwater pictures and was hugely impressed that Tarly chose to draw a very obvious sun as ‘a reflection on the water of the sun’ – blimey 🙂 And Davies did starfish, deep sea divers, seaweed, a seahorse and the sand at the bottom of the sea. They both very cheerily ran around yelling and participating in the games with the inflatable thing and then sat and did some excellent underwater collages. Davies decided he wanted to tell a story with his picture and ended up with an audience of the five children and three adults left as he told a long story about a diver going to the bottom of the ocean and finding a lazy fish. He then dug deeper and found lava at the centre of the earth and then suddenly he came out of the water and saw a kangaroo as he’d gone all the way through the planet and come out in Australia. Blimey!!! I think all three adults were fairly amazed at that one and I was very proud 🙂 He also pulled off a beginning, middle and end to the story as he went along.

Back home Tarly was challenging and Davies was lovely, I did some more work and read them a story each – Scarlett chose a very abridged version of the Disney film version of A Little Mermaid (I remember reading a version of the original in a book called ‘stories for seven year olds’ once) which she listened to and then paraphrased back to me beautifully. Davies chose a Dr Seuss library book which I read to him while S took the nail varnish off my toes and repainted one foot – D then painted the other while I went back to my work – going to get them trained in head massage and back rubs next 😉

Ady then took over the children’s bedtime and tidying up while I went upstairs and finished my work off. And he cooked the rice to go with what turned out to be the hottest chilli ever while I watched The Apprentice (sorry Sar, don’t know what happened at the end there). Predictable but disappointing result there.

And that was today 🙂

Just chopped up chillis and can’t get the seed heat off my hands – and I need to put my contact lenses in in about an hour 🙁

Just got the trickiest bit of a really tricky CV done and went upstairs to get dressed while pondering on the next bit. When I came back to the laptop it had restarted having got some updates or something. Had I saved the document I was working on? Had I custard 🙁

Just got another CV and covering letter in the post – which is fab, but they need to be back tomorrow. And tomorrow I will be leaving the house at stupid o’clock with Ady and not returning til bedtime. Bang goes my getting this work done this morning and having this evening to proof read it and email it across before settling down to watch The Apprentice and then talking online about it 🙁

The children and Ady (and I suspect I’m not far behind) have come down with colds. No one seems to be suffering more than a few sniffles really but it probably goes some way to explaining yesterday.

Did lots of muffiny tasks this morning like putting away clean washing, getting another load done, going through the freezer to get dinner out for tonight and organising what is in there a bit and drinking lots and lots of tea 🙂

I did some writing and spent a rather nice and peaceful hour in Tarly’s room photographing a load of outgrown summer clothes and listing them all on ebay.

The children played with Davies’ leappad, the Dora house, the megablocks and the toy cars, the plasticine, the monkey business game and a load of soft toys.

They watched Roobard & Custard on video (D likes the animation style) and loads and loads of Discovery Kids, I also heard Mr Ben drifting in when I was in Tarly’s room too. Retro kids TV R us! 🙂

While they were eating dinner I was looking at animation and cartoons on the internet and stumbled across the Pixar exhibition at the Science museum again. I’ve decided I’m definitely taking Davies to it, I think he’ll like the background to films and animation side to it. I’m pretty sure we’ll go up on Tuesday 3oth so if anyone wants to join us or meet up there before or after then do yell and we’ll sort something out 🙂

When they’d finished dinner Davies asked if they could do some drawing so they did some pictures and when he brought his over to show me I showed him how to make a really simple two picture animation of someone waving. That escalated and we did one of a snowman melting, one of a cuckoo clock, one of a fish jumping out of water, one of someone yawning, a banana peeled and unpeeled and finally someone happy with hair and sad with no hair! So that was popular 🙂

Just as the children were off to bed I had a phonecall from CV lady offering me a rush job private CV to do – double the payment for hopefully not twice the work although there is five emails worth of attachments and information to dig through to find the relevant stuff so that might take some time. It needs to be back tomorrow night so I’ve printed it all off and had a quick look through it but the plan is to do some tomorrrow morning and finish it tomorrow night if I have to.

Tomorrow is the second session of HE group so I’ll need to come up with some activity to take to that – might take the flicker picture idea actually cos if Tarly can do that (and she can) then it shouldn’t be too taxing for any of the other littler ones there.

And that was today. Davies actually said to me at teatime ‘we’ve had a lovely day today, there’s been absolutely no shouting!’ 🙂 Which is not totally correct but it was certainly characterised more by cuddles, them playing while I got on with stuff and altogether less stress than there was here yesterday.

One of those days today. There is a long, long list of things I could have done with the children, possibly even things I should have done with the children but I wasn’t in the right mood. I have been in a curious frame of mind today, slightly resenting having to look after children at all and with little or no tolerance for them and their squabbling. As is so often the case this has been magnified and reflected back from them. If he had it she wanted it, if she said it he copied it til she whinged, if I told them to be quiet they shouted louder – it was just wearing. But despite the fact I shoued so much I actually gave myself a sore throat it somehow didn’t characterise the day and there were plenty of nicer bits scattered inbetween.

I did eventually decide that like a bad scriptwriter having his male character chuck his female lead ‘it wasn’t them, it was me!’ so took myself off to my room, with my laptop, and had a very happy half hour or so doing blogthings – the results of which can be seen below 🙂

Elsewhere in the day then….

First thing (before 7am again, urgh!) Davies asked me to do some drawing with him today, so still drinking my waking up cup of tea I sat on the floor with them and we did some drawing. Since Adam’s Madagascar party Davies has been utterly taken with the idea of themed parties and is meticulously planning a Wallace and Gromit themed party for his birthday. He has sorted the guest list and even decided what everyone will be coming dressed up as, decided on the games, the decoration and the catering and is currently spending all his drawing time on creating elaborate invitations, personalised for each invited guest. Can’t imagine where he gets that from 😳

I said I’d do four pictures so I dashed off one of Totty, one of Wallace and one of Wallace and Gromit in a photo frame, which Tarly took off me so she could colour it in, then Davies gave me a masterclass in drawing and colouring the penguin. He’s quite a good little teacher you know, not at all sure where he gets that from, but I watch him do it regularly with Tarly and he has a really gentle and encouraging way about him when imparting knowledge or showing skills. 🙂

I was midway through composing the first go at the ‘where I’m from’ piece and thinking about my Dad when I glanced out of the window and saw his van pulling round the corner into our road, so I shot upstairs to get dressed while the children entertained him. The children then played with the foam puzzle thing while Dad and I chatted. He stayed for about an hour and a half during which time Davies made loads of 3D letters out of the shapes – L, S, U, N, C, Z, O, P, F, E, V, Y and so on – think that quite impressed Dad actually, so hurah for that!

Dad left and I made a couple of batches of snickerdoodles with varying levels of help and hindrance from the children. We had lunch and the children played with jigsaw puzzles together, mostly nicely but with odd outbursts of squabbling which were very irritating and ended up with me yelling to break each one up (hence the sore throat). Davies spent some time playing on paint producing a picture of blobs he entitled Space but then got bored of that and I can’t get the diskdrive to work to load up any of his disks and refuse to let them play on my new laptop.

I had half a plan to do something with them to try and sort it out but was utterly unmotivated so took myself off to the playroom to tidy up a bit in there after which I’d had enough and banished myself to my bedroom!

I came down very refreshed, to find Tarly sitting on the kitchen worktop eating snickerdoodles and Davies had tidied up. So we all had cuddles and kisses and Davies got changed ready for Badgers just as Ady arrived home.

At Badgers they made German flags using various stuff for sticking on the red, yellow and black, they learnt a German nursery rhyme and looked at where Germany is on a map and on a globe. There were only nine children there this week and the little friend who Davies was full of talking about last week wasn’t there. 🙁 I didn’t check on him (I sit in the room next door, the door is open and I could listen to what goes on but I’d rather switch off and read my book for an hour 🙂 ) but he was slightly subdued and said he’d been sitting next to the assistant leader Badger (18 year old lad) and was very pleased about that. He does have a tendancy to attach himself to an adult if at all possible rather than another child, but that’s fine and he said he really enjoyed it again.

I overheard the end of the session where they were being given out letters to ask about going along to a Funday on a Saturday in July. 8.30am to 7.oopm and you drop them off in the morning ready for breakfast and come back for them at bedtime. I showed appropriate levels of interest and excitement for the activities and the ‘Fun’ of it all but he was already saying he wouldn’t be able to go as he was on holiday then and he doesn’t want to miss our holiday – actually the date is fine but when I gently clarified that no, I wouldn’t be going with him and yes, it would be something he did without me and I came and collected him later he imediately said he didn’t want to go. I asked him if he’d think about it and he was still certain it was a no.

When we got home Ady tried reasoning with him on it too but I think we may have pushed too hard as he ended up crying on my lap because he really, really doesn’t want to go. 🙁 And of course he doesn’t have to and I categorically do not want to undo the good work Badgers is doing and my current softly softly approach by blowing it all for the sake of one fun day – and I have to admit even I am not at all confident that ‘once he gets there he’d love it’ so I’m not going to push him any harder than making it sound attractive but being realistic about what it might be like too. We’ve agreed that next week I will wait in the car rather than in the room next door for him at Badger and maybe the week after I might just drop him off and come back so I am pretty happy at the fairly quick progress we are making there and TBH it’s not until July by which time we may well be ready for it anyway. We’ll see…

So tomorrow we have nothing at all planned and I really want to have a nicer day all round. There is a big stack of library books waiting to be read and if the weather is nice or if they are suffering from cooped-up-ness then I might take them for a dash around at the park or the beach.

This is Davies’ first attempt at a self timer shot. He’s had a little digital camera since his fourth birthday but not really used it much. Both of the children are really into taking photos at the moment and for Davies particularly it’s something lovely for him and Ady to bond over.

So he brought his camera along yesterday and as his father’s son found a tree stump to position the camera on and cajoled everyone into a pose before setting the camera to self timer, then dashing across to join the group.

but quite like the sentiment!

Your Theme Song is Beautiful Day by U2

“Sky falls, you feel like It’s a beautiful day Don’t let it get away” You see the beauty in life, especially in ordinary everyday moments. And if you’re feeling down, even that seems a little beautiful too.

You Will Die at Age 70

You’re pretty average when it comes to how you live… And how you’ll die as well.

not me at all 😀

You Have Low Self Esteem 0% of the Time

Which can be translated to mean, you have high self-esteem and a healthy sense of self worth. You believe in yourself, and you know how to be the real you. You love yourself, imperfections and all.

Your Famous Last Words Will Be:

“So, you’re a cannibal.”

You Have A Type A- Personality

You are one of the most balanced people around Motivated and focused, you are good at getting what you want You rule at success, but success doesn’t rule you. When it’s playtime, you really know how to kick back Whether it’s hanging out with friends or doing something you love! You live life to the fullest – encorporating the best of both worlds

Happy 4th Birthday Amelie 🙂

I am from Rainbow, from Bod and Jackanory, from Jamie and his magic torch. I am from sherbet fountains, chalky lollies, jelly tots. I am from Marathons not Snickers, Opal Fruits not Starbursts. I am from a Mars a day helps you work, rest and play.

I am from Karen Carpenter singing Yesterday Once More, from Abba on Top of the Pops, from steak for dinner every Saturday night, from a teasmade that was never used.

I am from the ‘Big House – the biggest in class’ I am from big rooms, heavy doors, dark corners. I am from those doors slamming with raised voices behind them. I am from the van dropping me and my brother off to school, sitting nestled in the back among paint tins and brushes, dustsheets and turps, putty and varnish. I am from the smell of of a decorators overalls.

I am from the dandelion clocks which you blew to tell the time, 1 o’clock, 2 o’clock, 3 o’clock, 4. I am from clover you sucked for the ‘honey’. I am from the bramble berries picked from the alleyways, staining my fingers with deep purples and reds.

I’m from filling pages and pages of paper with drawings, pictures of friends that I wished that I had. I am from writing and writing and writing, stories and poems, diaries with emotions spilling from the pages, I am from finding words in song lyrics to express exactly what I was feeling. Sitting with my tape played pressing stop and play after every line, writing them down and learning them by heart.

I am from imagining the year 2000 and being unable to imagine myself at 26, wondering if I might possibly be married, where I would be and if by then I would feel grown up and have all the answers.

I am from sad Sundays, from long endless summers. I am from sitting on a stool in my Grandmothers flower shop, scented with cut flowers, eating marmite on toast, fingers itching to touch the green oasis and crumble it to dust. I am from knowing that in my Daddy’s arms I am safe and nothing can harm me. I am a Davies, I’m from Sandra and David, big sister, small daughter.

From ‘I’m sick of shouting’. From trying to sleep before the shouting began, from catching sight of myself, a small figure in a nightie printed with a cartoon dog in the mirror, as I shouted at my parents late at night to stop rowing. From knowing my life would be different from theirs.

I am from churches for Christenings, for Weddings. From never believing there was Anyone there. From singing pop songs inside my head while the rest of the school assembly recited Our Father… so my mind wouldn’t even form the words.

I’m from Sussex, from south downs and chalky beaches, from parents from North Wales and Sussex herself. I’m from seeing the seasons changing reflected in the sea, murky grey, muddy green to the clearest of blues.

I’m from being one of a class with six girls called Nicola, being the only ‘ginge’ in the year. I’m from being part of the choir but never singing alone. I’m from never having a guaranteed friend to sit next to, being paired up with the other oddball when working in pairs for Science.

From the brother who worked his way through the textbook of challenges offspring could test their parent with, from being ‘no trouble ’til she reached 17′. I’m from the cousin who incited us to mischief, from making potions with every perfume and lotion in the bathroom in the toothbrush mug.

I am from six heavy photo albums, charting my early years. With a glamorous woman always in full make up, not the mother I remember at all. I am from school photos, the same image in all sizes. I’m from a gap in records of what I once looked like until it starts over again with me as an adult.

Up early with children this morning (6am – urgh!) so I did lots of organised stuff like getting two loads of washing done and on the line and getting croissants for everyone for breakfast. 🙂

Ady sorted a picnic out and we were off and away by 10am to The Sustainability Centre where they had a ‘sussed it’ event. It was very good actually, if quite low-key. I still struggle with such events not being managed to within an inch of their lives with people with clipboards on every corner, in constant radio communication with a minute-by-minute schedule of events, but spending so much time with other Home Educators is helping to get me used to it 😉

We met up with Chris and Julie slightly earlier than planned by virtue of bumping into them by the straw bale house being built next to the tombola raising funds for homeless otters (or similar!), we walked round the grounds for a bit and then stopped for our picnic. On the way me and Ady, Davies and Scarlett stopped to chat to some volunteers who were cutting down and burning some bushes to clear a copse in a chalk area to encourage wild flowers to grow and wildlife and insects. Davies had brought his camera along so he was taking pictures of butterflies and grasshoppers. The volunteering for projects like that sounds really interesting and we talked about maybe doing something like that all together when the children are a bit older.

After lunch we walked round the green burial site which is in the same site and chatted a bit about such things – Chris and Julie both want to be buried there and as executors of their wills – and an interested party in the idea myself it was interesting to see it. Ady was quite spooked out by the whole thing as there is none of the feeling of reverence somehow that you get in a church graveyard, more a feeling of peace and a normal area of woodland. No gravestones but plenty of carved wood, woven willow shapes and so on adorning the graves.

We then ended up on a diversion which led us uphill and down dale on about a five mile trek. We ended up on the main road and walked back to the entrance of the centre again where we had to convince the people on the gate that actually we’d already paid once to get in and had accidentally come out! We did have photographic evidence on cameras if necessary but I think they could tell by the fact we were all carrying a child each that we’d done a fair old trek!

We had some restorative tea and cake in the organic cafe and the children all had a go on the people-powered swing roundabout and then Chris and Julie went off to get Maisie’s face painted before going home while we went round the various bits of the children’s corner. Davies made a kazoo while Tarly petted a little puppy tied up outside the teepee where the kazoo carving was going on, they both had a go at making a clothes peg pixie and then we went back to check on the progress of the straw bale house. Very Hesfes! 😉 We also talked at length to a beekeeper who showed the children his hive and had glass covered bees (drones, queen, bumble, honey etc), pollen and beeswax and honey for sale.

We came home via the scenic route – I love Sussex at this time of year, the downs look exactly like the sort of fields and hills you used to draw pictures of as a child with vibrantly different coloured crops -rape being the most striking at this time of year. We also went past some of the places Ady lived and worked in his younger days – some of the commentary suitable for the children (this is where Daddy used to cycle to work at the Game Farm – see all the bluebells like a carpet) and some less so (this is the pub outside which part of my anatomy was clipped by a car wing mirror…) .

Home for tea, bath, bed for the children, sewing of Totty, spot of gardening, roast dinner and soon to bed for us.

Lots of pics on flickr, but here’s a couple of the nicest:

Lots of gallivanting today (and yes I know I am something of a gallivanter anyway 😉 ) and very nice / productive it’s been too.

This morning I spent ages putting black ribbons in Tarly’s hair, finishing her zebra striped nails and painting stripes on her cheeks. Then I put coloured spikes in Davies’ hair, painted his face and sewed a tail on his costume before heading off to Adam’s Madagascar party. (Which reminds me Ros I never did take a picture of Alex before I gave it to Adam, can you take one at some point for me please?). We made a card for Adam which Tarly copied her name really nicely into again too. Seeing her start to write is spurring Davies on even more and I noticed he’d written his name in red pen on his hand earlier and seems to be practising it lots generally.

Ros had done her usual excellent laying on of activities including having the film projected onto the wall, ‘I like to move it, move it’ on an all but constant loop. various very covetable prizes for games, giant handdrawn pictures of the characters around the walls and activities ranging from plasticine modelling to flag making.

The children had a fab time (and please thank Adam again for the chicken Ros 🙂 ) and I enjoyed seeing Let and watching all the children enjoy themselves so much – and no, not a Disney costume in sight! Photos on flickr but here a couple of my faves:

Thanks Ros for a great time 🙂

We left there and dashed back to Worthing so I could go to the optician. As I had thought might be the case we decided to go with daily disposables during the summer while hayfever creates problems with the all day all night ones and then back to the extended wear ones again in the Autumn, so he fitted me with a pair of daily ones to try for half an hour and come back again with. At which point I sent Ady and the children (who’d been waiting in the car) home and rang my Mum who works in town to arrange to get a lift home with her instead. Popped back to check they were fine and pick up a months supply of the daily disposables before walking down to my Mum’s work. She was cashing up (she manages a charity shop) so I spent a happy half hour rummaging through rails and trying on stuff – didn’t find anything I liked but it was fun trying!

She dropped me home and popped in for a coffee and to see the children and then I went to Tesco to do the food shopping for next week while Ady bathed the children and washed all the face paint and hair colour off them.

Have just watched Dr Who and am about to head to bed. Tomorrow we’re off here for the day and meeting up with Chris and Julie. The weather is supposed to be nice and I think it will be another lovely day. 🙂

Wore my glasses today as I’m getting though a bottle of eye drops every couple of days with my contact lenses atm. Need to sort that out really, but last year when it happened they couldn’t really explain it, it’s some sort of hayfever related thing which creates protein build up (or gunk as it is techinically known 😉 ) and then coats the lenses. This makes my vision all blurry and can be cleared very temporarily with eye drops but it makes my mascara run and eye drops are expensive! A pair lenses (I use the all day all night ones) are supposed to last a month but during the summer I could do with a new set weekly. Wondering whether to go to daily disposables through the summer perhaps? Not sure, will make an opticians appointment for next week sometime and ask them.

Anyway I rarely, if ever wear my glasses. When I do I would love to think of them as an accessory giving me a whole new dimension to my appearance akin to Lisa Loeb, or make me look intelligent like Alison & Jax manage, or wise like Helen, or funky like Kirsty. Instead I suspect I look like Nic wearing glasses – not really any different but without the head tipped back mascara running eyedrop application every few minutes 😀 By coincidence Ali was also wearing her glasses today so I suspect we looked like Nic & Ali pretending to be teachers or something!

Anyway… this morning there was the chance my Granny would be coming over (now she’d have had a comment to make about them making me look slimmer or something I’m sure!) so I had everyone dressed by 9am, no mean feat around here! I got some washing done and on the line and compiled my camping list. The children appeared with some workbooks (WTF!!?? 🙂 ) and Davies sat happily doing a cat in the hat one while Tarly messed about with some letter formation ones. On the back cover of the CITH one was a cut out optical illusion – two circles of card, fish on one, fish bowl on the other, glue them together with string in the middle, spin them and the fish appears to be in the bowl. So we made that and D was of course thrilled with this given his interest in optical illustions, his love of CITH and his burgeoning interest in all things animated, I think flick books would be a good next thing to show him actually, must google and see what I can find.

We went over to Ali’s where the children pretty much left us alone and played in the garden. The price to pay for this was my two covered head to foot (with copious amounts in their very thick hair!) with ash from an incinarator! We decided this was not so bad and even let them back out again after lunch but when it all went quiet in the garden and I went out panicked about their disappearance from a secure garden I found they had managed to lean on a fence panel which had given way and let them into the alleyway running behind the gardens. They were all out there looking confused, dazed and slightly bewildered as they truly seemed to believe they had found some sort of secret door to another world or something! 🙂 We brought them in at that point but they did continue to play fairly well although there were casualties in a very wet bathroom floor I believe…

Ali and I did some stitching and bitching 🙂 Ali failing to complete Freya’s costume for the party tomorrow and me making some headway with cuddly Totty for Tarly. Nice though 🙂

We came home and the children disappeared into the playroom to play some game – Ady has tidied up so I don’t even know which toys they were playing with but it sounded fun! Ady arrived and took over bathing them (apparently the bath water was very black 🙂 ) and I went over to my parents to get some water from their pond for our tadpoles. We started with about 100 frogspawn and now have about 50 tadpoles, they seem to be developing back legs OK and then dying shortly after the front legs sprout and their tails reduce. Need to read up on them a bit, but we did know we would lose most of them. Ady and the children transfered the live ones to the fresh water and looked in depth at all the dead ones at their various stages of development which they seemed to enjoy.

It’s been a lovely day actually and furthermore It’s Friday 🙂 🙂

Tent
borrowing Alison’s – do I need stuff like pegs and mallets Alison?

Sleeping stuff
double blow up bed for me and Ady, pump to inflate it duvets, pillows, fleece blankets.

Kids have ready beds and sleeping bags.

Lighting
We have various torches dotted around the place and a couple of head light thingies. Probably need to get a battery operated light / lantern or two for inside the tent after dark.

Furniture
Folding picnic table & chairs thingy
Couple of camping chairs
Folding clothes airer for drying wet stuff – I might have one in the garage if not then a cheapo Tesco one
Stacking crates for food and clothing
Lid with box for kitchen stuff like knives
cool box for stuff like milk.

Cooking
Something to cook on! I have got a single burner thingy from freecycle but it looks fairly flimsy. Have been looking at the single burner things from places like Halfords for around a tenner but wondering if that is false economy and a double one would make more sense? I can’t see me being a one pot eater really 😉 Am also wondering at the wisdom of a BBQ instead? Infact Ady’s just rung me and said that if we do end up bringing both cars then we’d be silly not to just bring our gas barbecue (not the mobile kitchen one, our original one, which has a burner and a lid and would open up a whole new world of cooking things like roasted chicken etc – infact we’ve previously cooked Sunday roasts on it so if we do bring it then I’ll have all meat eaters over for Sunday dinner 🙂 )

Things to cook in. Now I’ve looked at the camping cooking stuff and it’s really flimsy – is that because it is supposed to be light and portable for (shudder) carrying in a backpack or does it need to be that thin so that the weak little flame from the stove can penetrate it and heat the contents? Cos we have various saucepans I could bring instead with weight and size not being an issue.

Kettle – any tips – is bigger better? or should I stick to a one cup capacity or I’ll be waiting all day for it to boil? I’m thinking a flask might be a cunning plan too.

Crockery and cutlery – no need to buy, will bring stuff from home
mugs, glasses, plates, bowls, knives, forks and spoons – two sets for everyone.

Cooking utensils, will bring from home.
wooden spoons, sharp knives, peeler, chopping board, tongs, spatula, matches.

Food – list nearer the time when sure of cooking facilities.

Housekeeping
washing up liquid, washing up bowl, cloths, washing up brush, kitchen roll, tea towels, dustpan & brush

Personal Stuff
Clothes for all including swimming stuff, warm and cooler weather wear, waterproofs and wellies, warm nightwear.

Towels – are those lightweight camping ones worth bothering with?

Shampoo, shower gel, cosmetics, toothbrushes and toothpaste, no water handwash.

First aid
Bite and sting cream / spray
sun protection and aftersun
piriton / benadryl hayfever stuff
plasters, antibacterial wipes, antiseptic cream
calpol and paracetamol

phone charger
batteries for camera / battery pack charger

Today I have been mostly sewing a pesky King Julien outfit for Davies from a pair of charity shop curtains and quelling the little voice inside me saying that a) I’m crap at sewing, which is true by the way and b) actually home made costumes are a bit crap generally and all the cool kids will be wearing Disney store jungle animal outfits! So Davies has felt like a bride with countless fittings and pins sticking in him while being put into poses like an action man.

We had a bad night with Tarly awake and up and down in various beds so I’ve been far from my best, tired, needle pricked and aware my job list is far from going well. Tarly has been tired and horrid too and Davies has been crying at every little thing 🙁 A trying day.

First thing Davies played with some plasticine. He made a figure of the Llama and the emporer from his current fave film and then a Wallace too. his figures are now pretty much as good as mine, you’d be hard pushed to choose who’d done which and as I am no slouch in the fairly recognisable plasticine figures myself I am thinking this is a very good thing and being proud and supportive of him in this. Unsure as to whether to open up to offering further challenges, suggestions and maybe a wider variety of materials to use or to let it develop as it goes, and indeed also unsure as to what to offer next anyway – and ideas gratefully recieved? He got the wire out and Ady gave him some wire cutters to use very carefully so he was feeling all grown up about that and experimenting with movement and the basics of animation as picked up from the dvd extras on his fave films. He made eye lids for his Wallace and showed me him with his eyes open and closed and open and closed and etc, then he made a Gromit head to go on Wallace’s body, then a Hutch head (the rabbit), then he re-made Gromit in red like a scene where he gets covered in jam – I’m blogging myself into knowing actually I should be offering more here…

This led on to Scarlett joining in and bringing some of the playdoh tools and bits in. We have some of the ELC crazy creatures so they were using the hat, eye and shoes accessories to make Zoombinis style characters which led to some complicated game or another with them.

We had lunch and then headed out to Halfords to look at camping stuff and to Boots to get some hair colouring stuff for Davies. I’ve managed to sell him the idea of colouring spikes of hair to make the King Julien headgear rather than trying to make a hat which will fall off when he runs anywhere. They both behaved really badly in Boots leading to a fine example of public parenting 🙄 before coming home and being banished to their rooms!

They both aplogised and as I decided painting Alex would be better done outside than in we all went into the garden for an hour or so. Ady had set it up before very reluctantly going off to work this morning with a chair and a parasol for me and a sandpit and water area for the children. So I did my Alex while they played. We came in for tea, Dora and the continuation of the sewing. I finally finished it around 8pm and have now just completed and emailed across my CVs.

Tomorrow we may or may not be entertaining my Granny in the morning and then we’re over to Ali’s for the afternoon. Looking forward to some chatting and the countdown to the weekend. It’s a busy one for us but with nice things 🙂

Do you enjoy playing host / hostess?

Do you have a wide array of dvds?

Would you welcome the invasion on your home of four Goddards and enjoy the prospect of return hospitality at a south coast location at your leisure?

The Goddard’s are taking their all singing, all dancing fully expensed company car on tour this July. Heading North, cos let’s face it if we went south we’d just get wet in the channel on an as yet undecided route we are looking for somewhere to park our ready beds for one or two nights before moving on in the style of the Littlest Hobo . We won’t eat all your lentils and we don’t expect to be using your best china 🙂

Sort out breakdown cover

Do second CV and email both across

Prepare camping list and start scouting round for essential stuff and costing it out – went and looked round Halfords at camping stuff, browsed the Argos catalogue and read Jax’s camping list page. Will post my list later and accept any comments / suggestions gratefully!

Change Tarly’s bed – decided not to bother!

Finish costume for Davies – trousers are done, and we’ve decided to do something with colours to his hair rather than try and make a headpiece, so just the top to do…

Get first coat of paint on Alex – done. And Ady’s bringing me home the varnish so I’ll get that finished tonight.

Sort out dates for Grand Northern Goddard Summer Tour and contact all hosts to check dates availability emailed two of the people on the tour agenda, will await their response!

Find competition form for W&G comp and get it completed and sent off for Davies

Sort out pile of clothes on top of Tarly’s wardrobe. Bag up winter stuff for garage, get summer stuff on ebay

Go through Davies’ clothes and check for ebay-able stuff

Email Mel to rearrange for two weeks time done
Email Granny to pin her down to time on Friday done

And I think that’ll probably do!