One word? When seven would do…

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.

Is what it has felt like. Yesterday morning I went off to have my hair cut. I’ve been rubbish at getting out again this week for another walk so I ducked the rain and walked into town and back for that. Which was good exercise but did very little for keeping my professionally cut and blow dried hair looking it’s best. It was a new hairdresser as my usual one has left hairdressing altogether which was a bit of a shame as I used to love hearing her life stories and the on again, off again saga with her and her boyfriend. And she always did a really good job of cutting my hair for less than twenty quid. So I had made an appointment with another of the juniors there. She was nice enough but we didn’t really talk much so I’d drifted away thinking and wasn’t paying attention to what she was doing with my hair and realised about halfway in that she wasn’t cutting off nearly as much as I’d wanted, it was a very cautious trim with millimetres off the ends and no sorting out of layers or anything. It was too late to say anything by then and I guess not enough cut off is better than too much cut off and she did do a lovely job of drying and straightening it – which sadly no one but me saw by the time I’d walked home in the wind and rain. Next time I will be more specific about what I want, infact I quite fancy a change of some sort so will start keeping an eye out for the sort of style I’d like.

Can’t really remember what we did in the afternoon, I know Davies and I made some models with DAS clay but we both got bored with that pretty quickly. I’m really struggling with ideas for goody bags for the party and quite inclined to not bother at all except I know all children expect them really – including my own. But I refuse to spend a load of money on plastic tat which will get broken or left at our house by everyone anyway and there is simply no W&G type stuff around. I have a couple of ideas though and one of them was to make a little W&G model for each bag but I think that might be more time consuming than I’d hoped, particularly as Davies isn’t inclined to help as much as I thought he might with that one. Ah well, I’m sure inspiration will strike – or everyone will get a funsize lump of Wensleydale 😆
The children have been watching Nanny McPhee lots, we got it from Tesco dvd rental so that was on and they were off playing with a dolls house for quite a while too. The weather has been crap here all weekend so the kids have actually not left the house which never does them any favours, they get that cabin fever ‘wet play’ feeling I remember from school when we didn’t get to go into the playground at breaktime or lunchtime because it was tipping down with rain. We watched Fantasia and the children were working out what instruments were playing. Tarly recognised The Nutrcracker thanks to the Barbie film so I guess all the pinkness is drumming a bit of culture in with it. She also had no idea what a harp was so I dug out an ex library book about instruments and they looked at that with Ady for a while. Ady had a bath in the afternoon, followed by me and Tarly sidled into the bathroom, strippe naked and jumped in my bath with me. She washed my back for ages, had to be dragged out by Ady to have her tea and made me promise to stay in the bath until she had finished and could get in with me again. No argument from me there, so I topped it back up with hot water and read my book while I waited. Then Davies had a bath and Tarly came upstairs with me to supervise me putting on my makeup to go out.

She very often sits with me in the morning while I put make up on and knows what everything is and quite often does thinks like powder, blusher, lipstick and eyeshadow for me quite well. She can’t do mascara though, several wand in eye moments have put me off letting her try again for a while. 😆 But she’d never sat with me doing evening make up before and was amazed at all the various glittery powders and lotions I’ve amassed over the years for party make up. Not that I wore any of it last night but I showed her it and she oohed and ahhed over it.

My parents arrived to babysit and Dad took us to Matt and Clare’s so we could both drink. Ady and I worked with Matt at B&Q 16 years ago and Matt and Ady shared a house together with another couple of lads for a year or so too. He and Clare got married in America four months before we did and their son Aydan is 6 months younger than Davies. Despite getting on really well and living fairly close we never seem to see as much of each other as we’d like as Clare is doing a weekend qualification in chiropractise so is away or studying whenever Matt is home. We seem to manage three times a year at the most – the last time probably being when Matt brought Aydan to our Halloween party last year. The party was to celebrate Clare’s 30th birthday and a belated housewarming as they moved into their new house – 3 doors down from their old house – at the end of last year and have just got straight enough to have lots of guests round.

The rain didn’t prevent a barbecue going ahead thanks to the back garden being gazebo’d up so there was loads of lovely food and drink and one of these rather amazing birthday cakes. Arriving shortly after us came another face from B&Q past and my sixth form college days – he was at the time one of the heartthrobs of the day so it was quite shocking to see him balder than Ady and not much thinner! 😆 And a reminder than similar thoughts would have been running through his head on seeing me 😉 He was there with his lovely wife, having just moved back to Sussex again after a couple of years away and with two young children. So there was plenty in common to catch up on there and lots of chatting about ‘whatever happened to X?’

We were well into the evening – and the alcohol when someone asked if our oldest would be going back to school next week so with a deep breath I explained why he wouldn’t and that opened drunken debate on Home Education for an hour or so – very interesting and amicable but I bet at least two of the people present went home muttering about what weirdos we must be 😆 As responsible parents with babysitters at home most of the party started to drift away not long after 11pm so I rang my Dad to come along and join us for a while and the last few of us sat chatting and laughing with Dad there too until we left around 12.30.

Home for hot chocolate and bed sometime way after 2am.

Which meant Tarly waking before 6am this morning with it being my turn to get up did not see me leaping out of bed with enthusiasm, vim and vigour, eager to start the day 😳 Instead I sat very quietly with her drinking tea very slowly and watching TV. Once Davies was up too and they were both engrossed in playing with lego I headed back off to bed for a couple of hours.

Today we’ve done industrious stuff like digging out all the winter coats and woolly jumpers as although a last minute revival of the summer is possible I reckon it’s fairly unlikely. I made a pin the bow tie on Wallace game for the party, we watched a load of old home videos including when I was pregnant with Tarly and when she was a tiny baby, some of Davies at about six months old crawling about the place and various holidays and weekends away. Then I sat and photographed and listed two massive black sacks full of outrgown clothes on ebay. A couple of last week’s items have ended now but earlier I had 46 items for sale 🙂 – various coats from both children which should hopefully go for more than their 99p starting bids, so that should prove worth the hours it took to do it. I have almost the same amount again with a bagful I’ve already cleared from Tarly’s wardrobe along with what I’m sure lurks in Davies’ room too which I aim to clear this week.

And now, after a hot bath, a single glass of wine to top up the excesses of yesterday with our roast gammon followed by an early night.

Despite being up from 7am we had a fairly lazy morning. The children played with geomags and I spent lots of time on the internet doing things like booking film week films and reserving an Xbox for collection at Argos. I finally went upstairs to get dressed at about 10.30am and Tarly came to join me and rifle through my make up. There was a ring on the doorbell which Davies answered and Lucy, Rebecca and Richard had arrived which somewhat sped up our getting dressed 😳

We all had a good play with the geomags, with Davies taking Rebecca and Lucy step-by-step through various creations (Wallace for Rebecca and a two balls joined together spinning thing for Lucy) and Richard very quickly grasping the whole joining together idea. We ate banana cakes and then our guests headed off shortly before my Mum arrived, shortly followed by Ady. We all had lunch and then Mum and I headed off to Asda. Every year during their Tickled Pink campaign I buy at least one garment. It supports breast cancer charities, gets me a nice item of clothing and allows me to shop – win:win. I lost an Aunt to Breast Cancer and Ady’s sister died shortly before she would have been 40 nearly 6 years ago, leaving 3 young children, so it is a cause which resonates strongly with us. They are not launching the clothing until 11th September though so we planned to go back then, and in a twist of fate smiling on Nic my Mum offered to take me out for a Chinese meal that evening and make an evening of it by going to the Asda at Brighton Marina instead. We then went to Matalan where I finally got Tarly some nighties (which she far prefers to pjs) that will not show her bum when she stretches. She’s been wearing 2-3 years ones for nearly 2 years so now she has some 4-5 years ones to do the same with. 😆 and Argos to get the Xbox. It has been paid for one quarter by my brother for Davies’ birthday, one quarter by my parents as their additional birthday present for Davies (they buy both children premium bonds for every birthday and Christmas present) and half by funds raised by us selling stuff on ebay which makes it mostly a ‘family’ X box rather than Davies’. It came with 4 free games, two of which are car racing ones so we’ll keep one and the other racing one and two other 16+ games can go straight on ebay to raise funds for Christmas xbox games presents.

Home again where the others were half heartedly watching Nanny McPhee and all disappeared into the garden as soon as we got home. Mum had to dash off to the vets with her cat so I sat and did the susumama order. I’ll let orderers know when I am likely to get it. I then headed off to Sainsburys to get various bits and pieces, make a start on party food and get the basic bits and pieces ready for making Davies’ birthday cake like cake boards and ready to roll icing while Ady bathed the children. I was home in time to brush Tarly’s hair 🙄

Busy weekend planned – of course 😉 – back when I am.

So yesterday morning Ady and Davies headed off to work together leaving Tarly and I to our own devices. I offered baking, reading books, doing jigsaws, going to the library for storytime and she wanted ‘everything except going to the library’.

So we got dressed and headed out to the Wizard store to buy bits and bobs for Davies’ party next week – things like paper plates, cups, tableclothes etc. It’s suddenly dawned on me that it is NEXT WEEK and that I still have loads to sort out and will have a houseful of people from Friday leaving no space at all for last minute anythings – Ady is taking everyone who is here on Saturday morning to the park for a couple of hours otherwise there will be no food to eat – the house just isn’t big enough to have about 20 people in it while I fill all available surfaces with sandwiches and rice crispie cakes and have about 12 children asking if they can have one now cos they are hungry! 😆

We came home again and made some banana cakes with the addition of a few chocolate chips. Tarly put all the fairy cake cases in the baking trays, mashed the banana, chopped the chocolate, did lots of stirring and licked the spoon 🙂

Meanwhile Davies and Ady had gone to McDonalds for breakfast and headed off to various B&Q stores, via charity shops and gaming retailers on the way.

Where Davies learnt about what Daddy does at work – goes round inspecting all the various merchandised displays of his company’s product (mainly bedding plants), taking photos, checking the condition of the stock and talking to the staff about any problems with the product. Davies’ observation was that ‘every one of these B&Q stores look the same inside’. 😆

Back at home, Lucy, Rebecca and Richard arrived for lunch bearing pizza. Tarly and Rebecca played – once Tarly allowed Rebecca to :roll:, did each others’ make-up, played with the polly pockets and veered between wanting Richard to come and play with them so he could be the ‘Richard Monster’ for them to run screaming from and not wanting him to play because he was trampling through their games. Richard was fine with either idea and played with the toy cars quite happily during his moments of banishment! Lucy and I discussed the school place form that Rebecca would also be expecting and how the group dynamics work between Lucy’s, Julie’s and my children.

They headed off after a couple of hours leaving Tarly and I to ourselves for the afternoon.

Meanwhile Ady and Davies were back at McDonalds, this time slightly further along the coast having lunch:
The Happy Meal toy (oh joy) is a bit of plastic you can clip on your clothing which plays ‘I like to move it, move it’. Nice. 🙄

Tarly and I continued with our baking, this time making a malteser cake. Tarly did the greasing the pans, the sieving the flour and cocoa and lots of mixing. Oh and the spoon licking. 🙂

While it was cooking we had a speakerphone call with Ady and Davies which mainly involved the children shrieking each others’ names and laughing. Loudly. 😆 Oh and Davies playing his plastic toy down the phone to us.

I showed Tarly how to check if cakes are cooked so she was doing that. I am a firm believer in the giving children chances to try stuff like opening oven doors, stirring hot food, using sharp knives etc, with proper supervision. We were never allowed to do anything like that so consequently you tend to try nad do stuff sneakily and have no respect for stuff that can hurt you either. Also let’s face it a child like Tarly is going to do it anyway so I’d rather she knew how to do it properly than try furtively and hurt herself seriously. So we set the cake to cool and went to do some jigsaws. We’d done some fairy ones in the morning but Scarlett got out Davies’ really long space one with all the planets and we did that, then she got out some really old wooden ones. One is a train with numbers 0-9 on the carriages which you match up to groups of 1-9 animals. I remember teaching Davies numbers and counting with it when we was about 2 but I think Tarly has missed out on some of that sort of thing by being the littlest. She did it my way for a while, putting the carriages is number order and then counting the animals and counting the carriages to match them up, then she suddenly said ‘But we could just match the colours Mummy couldn’t we?’ as in classic preschool child toy style the animals colour matches the numbered carriage so actually there is no need to look at the numbers at all. Grr! Another obvious difference in my two childrens’ learning styles there then. 😆 We also did an alphabet puzzle.

By then it was time to decorate the cake so we made icing and I spead that and then Tarly had free rein with the maltesers, she was so proud of her efforts that she demanded she take a photo of it! You can see the cake and her picture here
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We then finished our day together by me sitting on the floor with her climbing all over me and a very rough and lengthy chorus of row, row, row your boat. And we did some writing on a picture of a butterfly she’s coloured in to send to Maisie. She wrote ‘to Maisie, Scarlett’ very nicely with lots of guidance.

Davies and Ady had finished their day in Dover and work done they spent a while looking at the white cliffs and out to sea. Ady assures me they had very educational chats about things including the channel tunnel (lol – like I’d worry! ;-)).

Scarlett and I read a couple of books and then they were home. We all malteser cake and caught up on each others’ days. The children were delighted to see each other and spent ages dashing round like loons. They played with the move it move it thingy and got all the instruments out to accompany it with and then showed us their new favourite game of Davies giving Scarlett ‘horsey rides’ which I forsee ending badly when they try to take it to extreme levels going downstairs or underwater or something.

We finally got them to bed, I cooked dinner and we sat down to watch The Terminal on dvd. It had actually been one of my choices but it was a bit slow and I ended up dozing through most if it and falling asleep at the end completely.

It was a lovely day actually. It made me realise all the small things that Tarly has missed out on by being the youngest and always having had Davies around. I don’t think she has suffered from it and has certainly had way more positives in having Davies as a playmate than she has missed out on by not having one-to-one with me but there are definite gaps. It made me realise how just having one child around is so much easier in terms of the lack of craziness and being able to manage everything so easily – she was a dream to take round the shops, good company and helpful whilst cooking (in complete contrast to the shoving and worrying about who had most goes at stirring that is baking with two children) and thrived on being able to choose what to do next and in what order to do things her way. But also how one child is so much harder in that they are far more demanding of your time, less likely to head off for an hour or more and play (this is probably specific to a child who is normally used to having a constant playmate on tap than one child generally or course). Tarly is the one who probably gets more time on her own with me anyway as she often follows me upstairs or into the kitchen when Davies is playing something and she is far more likely to sidle up to me with a story book and ask me to read it but it was quite intense to have a whole day dedicated to her. And I did miss Davies lots. I’m sure Ady never considered what we’re doing when he’s at work but I spent the whole time with low level worries about them having a car crash.

Anyway, we’re planning to do it again soon, next time Tarly is going off with Ady which will be a bit experimental as she is more of a handful for him to try and work with but will be nice for me and Davies – and I somehow doubt we’ll spend much time doing baking!:lol:

Our (one remaining) cat has always had behaviour problems, particularly with where she chooses to make her toilet but she’s taken it to a whole new level since Malice got poorly.

Whilst googling to find some ideas for stopping it I happened across this site. We seem to have had some success in sorting her out, but we have not gone down this particular route at the moment!

Just had the post and in it is the pack for ‘The Attention of the parent of guardian of Scarlett Deborah Goddard’ containing all the information about her school place in September 2007 with the form to return for her school place.

I had Davies’ two years ago and ignored it, I got a reminder which I also ignored and I never heard any more. Hopefully the same will happen for Tarly.

See the thing about a rollercoaster is that although you might have that dread before you get on, that trepidation as it makes that first s l o w climb and then scream your way all the way round yelling ‘oh my fucking goddddddd’ (well that’s what I did anyway, although I tempered the language and blasphemy slightly when I was riding with Anna 🙂 ) by the time it pulls back into the start again you are laughing, exhilarated and ready to queue up to go round again.

Anyway today was the start of one of the climbs back up again, a bit slow and not without the odd jerk here and there but totally back in love with my children again by the end of it. 🙂

This morning they played with geomags and watched LSOH (again :roll:, you know a film has made it onto Davies’ A list when it starts to get abbreviated on the blog!) with them both singing along. I did stuff like put clean clothes away, get a chilli cooking for batch freezing that I wanted to nick a bit of as pizza topping for tonight’s dinner, get a wash on and return some emails.

Lucy, Rebecca and Richard arrived then and Lucy and I managed to chat inbetween parenting. Davies had a bit of a talking to for boisterousness beyond what I consider acceptable with his toys but other than that they all played nicely with the toy cars.

Then we headed to a local park to meet up with Julie, Jack and Maisie. It was not our usual venue and although it’s a park attached to a leisure centre that we drive past most days I’ve never taken the children there. It has just had rather a lot of money invested in a new top of the range playground which is just groaning with all sorts of really interesting looking play equipment from these people. The old playground with it’s oh so retro see-saws and slides is still in situ behind the new one offering a cool mix of old and new contrasts. We set ourselves up inbetween the two and the children had a good old explore of the equipment it was possible to get on due to massive overcrowding from school summer holidays refugees. Can’t wait til they all go back to school and we get to play there on our own :lol:.

Davies was chatting to an older woman for a while so I called him over to find out what was being said. She was asking him his name and how old he was and he’d been pointing out Scarlett, Jack and Maisie and telling her they were his sister and cousins and how old they all were too. She was clearly completely harmless and was in there with a woman who was probably her daughter and a couple of lads who must have been her grandsons but it occured to me that although we’ve talked fairly abstractly about ‘baddies’ who might try and hurt or take children I’ve never really mentioned that actually you need to exercise caution with pretty much every stranger you meet. Davies tends to be very chatty with adults generally and would readily offer all sorts of personal information about himself and the rest of us in conversation if led that way. I have an additional reason to exercise caution particularly in regard to older ladies in that Ady’s mother lives local-ish and is still very much in contact with Chris and Julie despite Ady not having had contact with her for years and I know that she pumps them for information about us and the children, is aware of their names and dates of birth etc and could easily find out where we might be on a certain day from Julie in general chat. She is not dangerous but is desperate and I would really rather not have the children accosted by some mad woman telling then she is their granny. A short time after having a very brief chat to him about how you shouldn’t necessarily tell people all sorts of things about you just because they ask when you don’t know them he was chatting to a group of teens on one of the climbing frames and then we heard a small boy calling him across the playground ‘Davies, Davies, come over here!’ 😆 Davies, a friend to all today!

Predictably it wasn’t long before the playground ceased to hold Davies, Scarlett, Jack, Maisie and Rebecca and they wandered further and further afield staying just in vision. After a while we couldn’t see Scarlett and Jack so Lucy and Julie walked over to check their whereabouts while I stayed and guarded the picnic stuff. They came back to report they had strayed a little further to a circular path round some trees which led back on itself and suggested we all go over for a walk round it. Davies and Jack had gone on ahead and I popped to my car as we walked past the carpark to drop off our rug so I’d not seen Davies for about 15 minutes although the other’s had seen him shortly before. But when we got to the path Jack was there alone saying he didn’t know where Davies was and he couldn’t find him anywhere.

I started to call him getting more and more anxious as he didn’t reply and as I walked further into the path I realised it didn’t go back on itself at all it veered off in various different directions including the other car park, the road, a whole load of allotments, a field which led to the downs and another path to more woodland. My calling started to get ever more frantic as I went further into the woods, I told Tarly to go back to the others as she was echoing my calls and would have drowned out Davies if he’d replied to me. I’m sure it was no more than a couple of minutes but all sorts of scenarios went through my mind with me wondering how soon I could call the police for help when Julie appeared calling me to say they’d found him. Cue a classic lost child reunion with him tearstained and me close to it, both hugging each other as though we’d been parted for months and dramatic recountation to each other of what had happened from our side. He’d realised he’d lost Jack and double backed to where he’d last seen me, I had of course long gone from there so he’d cried and when a couple of old ladies had approached him he’d stayed with them until they caught sight of Lucy who had started to walk back to where we’d last been. Made me realise that we need to have a strategy for getting seperated and we definitely need to have that chat about who is a ‘safe stranger’ or at least your best bet on one. By his age I was going to the local shop on my own and riding round the block on my bike. I don’t think we live in any more dangerous times now than when I was a child really and I refuse to deny my children any freedom at all on the basis there just might be a pedophille round every corner. He is a sensible child who if he knows what he is supposed to do in a situation is more than capable of doing so, so I need to better inform him so we prevent future dramas like that one.

Once reunited we all walked up into the field leading to the downs where we sat down and enjoyed the view of the sea and town below afforded us once high enough while the children ran around together. I thought it was important for both of us that Davies did some wandering off again but this time with a clear plan of who would be where and that they would stay there to ease both our minds. We eventually walked back with Julie heading off to the carpark she’d parked in and Lucy and I standing chatting for a further half hour while the children sat in a circle playing with some stones made from sand and cement. They were even joined by another little boy and they all sat there discussing the properties of the sand they were making by crumbling the stone and whether it would build sandcastles etc.

We got home and there was more geomag play accompanied by LSOH while I sorted their tea out and made pizza dough before Ady got home to hear the story of Davies getting lost with added dramatic effects ;-).

Tomorrow I am Davies-less as Ady is taking him to work with him. It’s something we’ve been planning for a very long time for them to do every so often when Ady is just going round garden centres for the day. Scarlett is too unpredictable to be let loose and would either fall asleep or get grumpy being in the car all day but Davies will actually be good company for Ady, they can do some valuable bonding stuff, it will have heaps of educational value, give me a break and allow me and Scarlett do to the equivalent on our own. Not sure what we’ll do yet, it depends on her frame of mind in the morning really. We have an invitation to join Lucy at the library and back to hers for the day which might be interesting to see what the dynamic between Tarly and Rebecca is like without Davies around, or we might just do some reading, drawing, jigsaw puzzles etc.

I’m going through a bit of a tricky parenting phase just now. Enough to make us seriously question Home Ed as an option moving forward although both Ady and I and the children want to Home Ed we don’t want it to be at the compromise of other relationships. As it goes it is not Home Education that is the issue, it is the whole 24/7 nature of facilitating it. I adore Davies and Scarlett, I imagine that goes without saying but we seem to be trapped in a vicious circle of bad behaviour and bad parenting right now which is not alleviated any by spending all day every day together.

So Ady and I have been discussing ways of me getting a bit more ‘time off’ which will hopefully result in some ‘good behaviour’. He’s had some stern words with the children and I am determined that we go back up again from here, adamant that I change my tactics a bit and hope that results are forthcoming soon. He is also planning to take Davies out to work with him once a week while his job is a bit more flexible. I think Davies is going into his next ‘phase’ right now and as I have felt before at times I fail him in not providing all his needs at home. The gulf between him and Tarly has widened again but rather than acting up to his standard he is bringing himself down to hers and acting like he’s a three year too. I recall from infant school that boys of six seem to feel the need to be silly, laugh at toilet humour and be very boisterous and I really struggle to accomodate that or provide an outlet for it in any other way. Scarlett is being very assertive – which I have often celebrated about her before and still do at the same time as struggling to deal with her when she is asserting herself against one of my requests to do something reasonable.

In an effort to get organised for Davies’ party and to do something creative together we made some posters of various Wallace and Gromit characters to decorate the walls of the venue with. We kept going until we ran out of paper. This morning Davies had been playing with his newly revived wooden traintrack which rarely sees the light of day and been counting straight and curved bits and working out how many he would need to constuct various things, so education happens even in a warzone I guess. 😉

When Ady got home I headed out for an hour to go walking. As part of my aim to lose some weight, get a bit fitter and also have some clear head space I’m planning to do that twice a week when Ady gets home from work until the nights draw in too much to make it feasible as I’m not confident that tramping around in the dark is the best idea but I reckon I have a good couple of months yet before that happens. So I enjoyed a massive circuit down the seafront, along the coast, through the local town centre and back past the park home again. My legs certainly knew I’d done it, as did my feet which are a bit blistered from me wearing boots without socks – must dig about in the wardrobe and see if I have any trainers still in there, I used to have at least two pairs.

So there you have it, tricky right now but hopefully getting better soon.

Had a lovely lie in this morning and woke to find the rest of the family watching Little Shop of Horrors for the third time. As recommended by at least two friends (Merry and Sarah have definitely mentioned it as one Davies might like) we got it from Tesco DVD rental and sure enough he fell in love straight away. 🙂 I got dinner cooking and sorted out the various shopping I’d got yesterday, finally completed our tax credits form ready to send back right on the deadline and we headed off to the beach.

A testing day today with the children; lack of sleep and uspet about Malice generally are making us all fairly unpleasant to be around and Tarly has had me questioning my anti-smacking policy while Davies has had me questioning whether our relationship is worth the compromise of 24 hours a day contact that Home Education offers. Sure it will pass, but I’m being utterly selfish in my own mourning and not making any allowances for anyone else. Fortunately Ady is being excellent (probably terrified 😉 ) and doing lots of backing me up, spiriting the children away and entertaining them and generally being lovely. 🙂

We wandered round the market for a while before heading up to the beach. I had a complete crisis about Beachwatch which involves rallying a team of volunteers to clean the beach as it is already very clean, which is of course A Good Thing but makes a slightly daunting task. Scarlett and I struggled to collect any nice pebbles for Malice’s grave while Davies sat adventurously on a very close to the sea rock while the waves crashed around him and Ady took lots of pictures. Some on flickr – can’t be bothered to insert them into this post.

Then we headed over to Chris and Julie’s for a couple of hours this afternoon. The children played really nicely although Maisie was feeling ill so she spent most of the time snuggled on the sofa. McDonalds with internet survey luncheon vouchers for the children on the way home and then Barbie Swan Lake on dvd before bed for them.

Tomorrow Ady is back to work and we have nothing planned, actually with the exception of Lucy, Julie and I getting together on Wednesday we have nothing else planned all week so I might just get some of the various tasks I’ve been mentally compiling lists about completed.

Car boot sale this morning which was one of our more successful ones. I managed to get Tarly a gorgeous full length winter coat, which is just *so* Tarly in sheepskin a-like purple with pink fluffy trim for the bargain price of £2.50 – she loved it so much she wore it all round the rest of the car boot sale in the blazing sun! Also a skirt for 50pence. She got a heart shaped box containing two Barbie board books for 20p – that girl is just so into Barbie 🙄 a beanie baby each for the children for 20 pence each and some wetsuit shoes for Davies for 20pence. Bargains a-go-go! 🙂

I dropped Ady and the children off at my parents and went up to Sainsburys to do the month’s food shop which came in at under £150 – and I’m sure you can imagine how much meat a month’s worth of Goddard family food shop contains so I was pretty pleased with that.

Came home and unloaded it all and then went back to my parents for lunch. A fairly pleasant couple of hours there and then home for tea. I’ve managed to list a few bits on ebay – and bid on various xbox games for a quid or so each so hopefully some of them are winners to add to the pile of pressies for Davies’ birthday.

Cooked a lovely roast beef dinner, have had a nice IM chat with Ali and am now ready for bed really.

Tomorrow we’ve planned to go to the seafront where there is always a bank holiday Monday market, I want to gather some nice stones from the beach (I know, sshhh! 😉 ) which I plan to decorate for Malice’s grave and we need to mark out and measure our plot of beach for Beachwatch, which I will be talking about more later this week. Must sort out my family tax credits return form tomorrow too and try and get some more stuff listed on ebay. I’ve gone through Tarly’s clothes and sorted out stuff ready for Autumn and Winter collecting an outgrown pile and I need to do the same for Davies really although he appears to have still not grown since last winter, which means he is either stunted in which case I am being very neglectful in not getting him looked at, about to have a mammoth growth spurt which will mean all of his clothes don’t fit any more or he’d just short generally. Which is probably more likely ;-).

Yesterday, obviously was dominated by Malice. We took her to the vets at 8.30am and all four of us went. We said goodbye to her knowing we may not see her again. Having been told the vet would ring us at 11am we were left with a couple of hours to fill so we went to a massive car boot sale to kill some time. I’m really into car boot sales now for all sorts of reasons, the biggest being the opportunity for people watching and amusing myself with their quirks and oddities. The vast range of people you get there, both buying and selling is amazing.

There are several types of sellers – the classic people who have just chucked every single thing from their loft / basement / garage and want to go home with nothing. They will punt it out at bargain prices on the basis that anything they don’t sell will be going to the tip / charity shop on the way home. Then you get the ones who have brought along their children who’s outgrown possessions they are trying to sell. This is always a bit of a weird one and often their stuff is overprices because they are placing sentimental value on their second hand sticklebricks rather than the 50p price tag they deserve. There are the ‘tradespeople’ the ones who make a living from car boot sales and probably also sell stuff on ebay. You don’t get bargains from them, they are totally clued up on the market value of everything on their stall – which is probably four times whatever they paid for it from some unsuspecting seller from the first category at a car boot sale the week before. Finally you have the people who seem to think that they are managing a fine gift shop stocked with designer toys and clothing which should reach premium prices due it’s nearly new status rather than hawking their second hand tat onto a muddy field on a Sunday morning and appealing to the unwashed masses who have a maximum spend of a quid per item. These are the people who have brushed the Barbie doll’s hairs, matched their outfits and placed them all in individual plastic bags and are convinced that actually they should probably go for more than the new ones in the shops as they must be ‘collectable’ or ‘antique’ by now. They lay out their wares with precision and categorisation and tsk loudly if anyone actually handles anything.

We got various videos from a sensibly priced 3 for a quid seller including Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, 101 Dalmations, Lady and the Tramp and two of the dreadful Barbie ones (Swan Lake and Rapunzel) which have kept Tarly entranced ever since. Davies got yet another Gromit cuddly toy – which brings our collection to a level which if sold on ebay would pay for his university education but has probably cost less than a tenner and has led me to finally put my foot down about any more Gromit cuddlies entering our home even if they are being sold for just 30pence.

We’d left home without breakfast so we had cakes from the bakers and then we headed home to await the vet’s phonecall. That came so I was upset first with everyone comforting me, Davies drew a picture to bury with Malice, my parents came over and Ady went to collect her. We were really touched that the vet waived the £170 odd charge for the last couple of days of treatment and medication saying that there was no way he was going to take any more money from us and how sad he was that she had not made it and he had gotten attached to her over the last couple of months too. Lovely man. We all said a last goodbye and buried her in the garden.

Partially to inject a bit of normality back into the day, partially because spending money makes me feel better – even if just on essentials and partially because the weather has changed to such a degree that Tarly’s only shoes being doodles means she is getting wet feet a lot we went shoe shopping for the children. Our local Brantano shoe shack place has just started selling Clarks shoes and properly fitting kids shoes so we headed up there. Having chatted to the lady there at length about the need for Clarks shoes and width fittings once children are past a certain age and not actually wearing them for 8 hours a day anyway we got a pair of boots and a pair of trainers for Tarly from their own range. There were only very expensive (as in £38 which I wouldn’t pay even if we could afford it for shoes he could grow out of in a matter of weeks) shoes or horrid black back to school shoes in Davies’ size so he got a new pair of trainers which are ok to double as shoes for now and we’ll need to get him some more shoes as and when.

We came home again and I went upstairs for an hour or so to have some time on my own, which I don’t often get and really, really needed. The children had tea and we anticipated an early night for them. Scarlett went off to sleep, she says she’s upset about Malice and she did love her but she’s not going to cry – tough little girl that one. Davies however had been very strong all day and kept trying to comfort me but was suddenly hit by it all at about 8.30pm having already been in bed for an hour. He was inconsolable for a while which was very hard to deal with and finally calmed down but ended up staying up with us while we had our dinner. This of course dictated TV viewing so we watched Brainiac for ages which led to all sorts of conversations and explanations. He finally went to bed about 10.30pm, followed shortly by Ady while I drank a bottle of wine and then fell asleep on the sofa. 😳

Today we had planned to go to Em’s no more nappy party but given the late night for Davies and my own slightly wobbly state we’ve revised that plan to go and see my parents for a couple of hours and otherwise stay close to home. Hope the party goes well Em 🙂

I guess in many ways its been inevitable for weeks but Malice won’t be waking up from her sedation this time. She simply has too little hope of recovery from yet another setback so the vet and I have concluded that it’s time to let her go now.

To Malice, who lived all of her nine lives with grace. My dear friend for over 12 years almost to the day (we got her at the August Bank Holiday weekend). There will remain a Malice shaped gap on the sofa, on my lap and in my heart.

Me and Ady are watching some obscure music channel with a ‘Pop Heaven’ show and having a competition to guess the tracks first. Ah the fun we have chez Goddard on a wild n crazy Friday nite! 😆

This morning I took Davies to Toysrus to peruse the shelves for birthday present inspiration. We’ve got the Xbox sorted – we’ve raised half the funds on ebay and my Mum, Dad and brother are chipping in for the other half as Davies’ birthday gift so that doesn’t feel like ‘real money’ when it’s coming out of paypal really. Obviously he’s having his party too but I still want him to have some gifts too. So he and I walked the store twice with him allowed to look at whatever he wanted, not be chivvied along and just able to run to whatever grabbed his attention. I can’t decide whether his quiet and unarguing acceptance that we can’t afford *whatever* he wants is something to be proud of or desperately sad about really…

He liked a k’nex remote control kit – he’s got a bit of k’nex so I’d be quite happy to add to that and he does love a remote control gizmo. He was after another remote control car (he got Herbie for Christmas and wanted Lightening McQueen too – I said he already had one and he said that it would be good for when Lije came and they could play together! :lol:). He also liked a Wallace and Gromit puzzle which I said we could maybe frame if he got it and then hang on his wall – we have various framed jigsaws that I’ve done over the years around the house, mostly of places we’ve been surrounded by photos and other momentos of the place e.g. Las Vegas, New York etc so that might be nice for his bedroom. He quite likes Oidz from the TV ads so we looked at those and then he saw Cube World. I am utterly ignorant about all things gaming but we had thought if we were going to go ahead with an Xbox then an additional portable game would be good for him to have in the car or otherwise out and about. Obviously gameboy etc is out of the question so I’d thought of some other handheld type thing. Cube World appears to cut it really – he hasn’t stopped mentioning it since, apparently he’s seen a tv ad for it and lo and behold when we came home he found it in the Brightminds catalogue that had arrived this morning too, so it must be educational ;-). I’ve tracked down a W&G game on ebay for Xbox and told him he can have the other one if he gets birthday money from his Great Granny, if not then he can wait til Christmas and I’ve spotted a couple of science experiments that I would quite like to get him and know he’ll enjoy even if they wouldn’t be something he’d choose off a shelf himself. So feeling quite happy that his birthday is in hand again.

On the way home we stopped at a big Sainsburys. He’s generally run down and has a coldsore on his lip, a scab on his chin, a twitch in one eye and is getting lots of nosebleeds. The camping last week coupled with excitement about his birthday and the stress about Malice (he’s really quite distraught at the idea of her dying) had really got to him. Sainsburys had all their summer kids clothes at half price or less so we got about six items each for them – all tops – for next Summer for just over £30.

Got home to find Tarly painting which she’s not done for a while so Davies got his paints out too and painted an excellent picture of Wallace. Jack and Maisie had posted Davies and Scarlett a picture each that they’d coloured in so Davies had drawn a tractor and written ‘to Jack Love Davies’ on it. Tarly wanted to send Maisie a butterfly so got Davies to draw it for her and she coloured it in 🙂 like that girl’s delegation ;-).

Then my Mum arrived and we took Malice to the vets.

And that about brings us to tonight. Which is including wine, bagels with chicken, bacon and home made chips.

Back to the vets with Malice again today. She’s going in first thing tomorrow morning for a full X ray and investigation for the head vet to determine whether he thinks that she is likely to recover from yet another operation and go on to be fine other than blind, or whether we are just prolonging her life for her to suffer through countless operations (and further costs!).

This is good in that it was sort of be someone else’s -medically based – decision, rather than one made from sentiment.

If he decides she has used up her last life he will not bring her round from sedation but I’ve arranged to collect her body to bring home as the children want to bury her with various drawings etc. If he thinks it is worth just one more go at fixing her then he will remove the gammy eye, re-sew the already removed one which is gaping open again and then we wait to see if she starts to recover or not.

The vet we saw today is lovely, he is the one who performed most of the early surgery on Malice and is clearly first and foremost an animal lover. He is compassionate and caring and I am very pleased that Malice’s fate rests with his decision making tomorrow. Now we wait…

Yesterday was a bit of a blur really. I was very tired from the stresses of the day before, had a headache and the children are going through a real sibling squabbling phase this week which is generally unpleasant to be around.

We went to the park for an hour or so and met up with Lucy and Julie, both of whom are on very healthy diets which they spent lots of time talking about which I confess to zoning out. We’d taken the childrens’ bikes – Tarly decided she didn’t want to ride hers anyway and Davies informed me he can’t pedal on grass as it hurts his legs, so he pushed it all across the green and cycled round inside the tarmacked playground bit instead. Tarly had two of her ‘moments’ – one because I wouldn’t push her on one of those infant trikes with a parents pushing handle which are designed for one year olds but Julie pushes Jack round on and one because Davies was playing a game and said she was the ‘Scarlett Monster’ and she didn’t want to be the Scarlett Monster.

Do I sound weary? I feel it…

We came home and had a continued noisy afternoon.

This morning we gathered together library books and I read a couple to them, got the dinner cooking, refereed a couple more squabbles and ended up telling them that if they couldn’t live together peacefully then Daddy would have to move out and take one of them with him and the other would stay with me. They surprised me by saying which parent they’d go / stay with 😯 – both at their choice and that they took me seriously and then both wailed and clutched each other saying how much they loved each other and didn’t want to not live together. 🙄 Another great example of sensible parenting eh!

Round to Lucy’s where we parked and then walked together to the library for storytime. Davies insisted he’d heard the story before so we sat in the corner and read another book together. Actually storytime is not really much of a thing for D & S really – the librarian reads a couple of stories (without much passion it has to be said) and they sing some songs – and I confess right here, right now to loathing children’s action songs / nursery rhymes such as wind the bobbin up (see, told you I was cheery!), which for my children somehow actually seem a bit patronising and something they ‘grew out of’ years ago really, and then do some colouring. Chose some more books and then went back to Lucy’s for a play and a chat and some lunch.

Lucy and I managed to chat, D & S behaved fairly well and R was having a bad day of irritating Lucy and not behaving terribly well, which selfishly always makes you feel better somehow, or at the very least demonstrates that actually all children are like that sometimes and it is always worse through a mothers’ eyes than anyone elses.

We came home and Davies and I looked at various coins from his money box and talked about how they are worth different amounts and how some add together to make the same value as just one etc.

After lengthy discussions about birthday presents, X boxes and so on with Davies we have a plan. He and I are heading off to Toys R Us tomorrow to look at potential gifts while Tarly stays with Ady who is WFH. In the afternoon Mum and I are taking Malice to the vets.

I’ve got a susumama order to coordinate – so if anyone else does want anything please do let me know asap, I need to sort out Beachwatch properly, I’ve got further birthday party planning to organise and I got a reminder letter about tax credits which I’ve not even looked at yet this morning.

Oh and I plan to be a bit sunnier 🙂