One word? When seven would do…

Was supposed to be seeing Ali and Jenny today. In the event we saw neither. On the way to Ali’s we called into the Wizard store for some playdough for WAG – they didn’t have any but I did get a couple of bits and pieces such as inflatable boats for the kids (bought them for a fiver each at the beach last summer and they were selling them for a quid), some cane stuff for £1 a bundle which I think could be suitable for basket weaving so am going to have a bash with, a three pack of tennis balls for Tarly (her choice, odd child!), a little car with changable wheels and a mini screwdriver and socket set to do it with for Davies (bargain at a quid!), and a couple of other bits and bobs. Heard on the radio that the main road to Ali’s was closed due to an accident so thought I’d take the coast road and cut up. Realised very quickly that this was not a good idea as it was equally snarled up but sat for nearly half an hour in it before reaching somewhere we could turn around (could have walked home quicker!), so rang Ali to say we would not be coming over after all. Hope Freya had a lovely day though 🙂

Jenny had left a very nasal message on the answerphone to say she wouldn’t be coming to group and cancelling going out for a beer and a plan hatching chat later too – hope you are feeling better honey, I didn’t call back as from the sound of your voice you would have taken to your bed – or at the very least the sofa and be lying moaning softly and drinking hot lemon drinks laced with drugs (Layla has a recipe for an excellent version of these!).

WAG this afternoon was the worst ever turn out with only three of us. But as it happens it was fine. We knew in advance about all but two of the usual families not coming (and indeed they may well have told me they wouldn’t be there today and I just hadn’t registered!) so it was me, Julie and the twins and Vickie, Andrew and her little twins. We had playdough I had made eventually to go with a fab ELC soft stuff farmyard thing Chris had got for 50p at a car boot sale (both mine loved that, must check if they still sell it and put it on one of their birthday lists) which had lots of moulds, shapes and stuff to make and arrange in the farmyard, we did butter churning (which was really good and educational although it was only really the adults who did it, but we did keep talking about what we were doing, opening the jar at each stage to look at it and taste it and talk about the process) which we then ate on fruit loaf and scones 🙂 We also had some farmyard dot to dots and some farming magazines which we cut pictures out of and then the children stuck on to paper to make a collage. The five children (not being breastfed or sitting in their car seats on account of only being a few months old!) then went up on the stage and did a show of sorts while we cleared up. Really enjoyed it actually as both Julie and Vickie are people I have independant friendships with outside of group so it was lovely to have some three ways chats with them both.

Came home and Davies continued the farming theme by drawing pictures of a cow, sheep and pig and then getting my help to write cow, sheep and pig. Minimal amount of help it has to be said which was all very reassuring, both that he wanted to do it, he did it of his own accord and he did it well 🙂 They had garlic bread for tea on the basis that wheat and garlic are both farmed crops 😉 and then both took *ages* to fall asleep.

Nearly fell asleep myself while laying on my bed reading a book waiting for Davies to go to sleep but have perked up a bit now after a bath. When I went in to check D was totally asleep I was thrilled to see his pillow littered with more of the Pocket Science books – he has really taken to them 🙂 Tomorrow I have promised to read him the ‘why is night dark?’ one which will no doubt help to tie in with various other chats we have had, and lead to further questions and knowledge. I think just reading one of those a day will really help with the educational stuff I have been fretting over, today being a really good example of the theme of farming leading him into independant activities. All is well once more – and guess what, in just three days Joyce will be here 🙂 (must change those sofa covers over!)

memory joggers, in the manner of those folk on TV shows where they challenge people to remember all sorts of odd information to be recalled again in order (anyone remember You Bet!).

So there is the one above and these:
Mother Visits Every Monday Just Stays Until Nine PM

the tights come down and the mites go up

And does anyone actually know how many days are in April without muttering the rhyme under their breath? Or spell receipt without doing the ‘i before e except after c’ in their head?

anyone got any more?

Today we have covered the following educational areas:

mass and volume of water and stones (digging up a gravel area and playing in a pool)
properties of liquids and solids (as above – some things are easier to pick up than others!)
role play with Bob the Builder construction machines (what they used to do so)
acting and role play (some sort of Sponge Bob Squarepants game)
trampolining (excellent exercise including working out how to clamber on and off!)
eating in a social environment and sharing (sandwiches, tortilla chips, strawberries and scones)
the properties of liquid when frozen, defrosted and refrozen
water confidence (ice lollies which had been a casualty of an open freezer door after purchase)
body condidence (i.e running around naked with others)
mixing with children older and younger of both genders
singing along to music (to keep Tarly awake on the way home)
time management (as in we are going home in five minutes and you need to be out of that pool, into dry clothes and have found your sandals by then!)
climbing, clambering, bouncing, swinging, splashing, running, jumping, yelling and laughing

While I sat and debated educational styles and ideals, parenting methods and other such lifestyle choices with a respected Home Educating peer and friend of mine.

For about half an hour!

I also sat and gossiped, enjoyed the sunshine, ate, chatted and laughed 🙂

Yep that’s right, we went to Ros’ house 🙂

This morning I started with all good intentions. A dreadful night with all the Goddards up and about at various points finishing with Davies and I waking up next to each other in bed meant an early start for us all (earlier still for Ady who was out by 7am and stuck in some sort of security alert induced traffic jam trying to get into central London before 9am). So my plan was to have a quick check of my emails and then make myself available to the children for the early part of the morning before heading off to Rachel’s and then coming home for further educational pursuits this afternoon.

Davies brought me an activity book and we sat and did that for a while – spot the difference, dot to dot etc all done with ease until we reached a connect the word to the picture bit. Now Davies *knows* pretty much all of his letters. He knows the names and the phonic sound, he knows a few blends too such as ‘th’ ‘ee’ and ‘sh’. So we started with ‘hen’ which along with ‘cat’, ‘dog’ etc is a lovely easy phonetic word. So there we sat ‘h….e….n’ we began – excellent, thought I, in all naivity thinking that if he could get that far he could manage the rest…

‘h…….e……..n’
‘h……e……..n’

‘pig?’

FFS!!!!!! 🙁

In the middle of all this the phone rang and it was Rachel to say she had to cancel as she needed to dash over to Brighton to collect a birthday gift for Elliot which couldn’t be delivered in time. Which left us with a day empty spread out yawningly infront of us 🙁 And this before 9am….

Gave up on the activity book and got out a ‘what I believe’ book (Usborne I think, got it from the Book People, can’t be arsed to find a link 😉 ) to read to Davies. Had realised that I can’t actually remember the last time I sat and read a book with either of them which is dreadful. Regardless of HE that is such an enjoyed activity by me and them that I can’t believe I let it slip 🙁 We read that for quite a while and it was going well – Tarly was playing with her Dora house and happily occupied having decided that learning about religions was something she would happily pass on 😉

The phone rang again – not sure who now but it was sufficient distraction to decide Davies that he would rather ‘play’ with Tarly than sit with me… play quickly degenerated into Diego beating up Boots with Dora and Swiper forming a two man (well pre schooler and talking fox) rescue team at high volume and deciding that both my sanity and their physical well being was at great risk by not seeing other people today I texted Ros to see if her comments box invite from last night still stood. Happily it did 🙂

Loaded kids, some of yesterday’s shopping and myself in the car and hot footed it over there pronto 🙂

The children had about fifteen minutes (slightly longer for Tarly but not much) clingy whingy adjusting time (we’ve only been there once before and it was full of people for Buzz’ birthday that time) before they became one with Ros’ tribe allowing us to sit around with occassional feeding and sun-blocking duties. Ros fed me bacon sandwiches (oh, the hospitality! When she came here last week she had to go to the shop and buy bread 😉 ), was coerced into eating scones and cream and strawberries and tbh only the prospect of her taking her offspring to dancing lessons and me having to drive myself and offspring home stopped us from breaking open the alcohol 😉

We rang Joyce at work (which of course necessitated saying rude words to her to see if she could keep a straight face at her desk – but she had taken her phone outside, spoilsport 😉 ) to arrange schedules for next week (we left out LI but I think she has that covered 😉 ) and I got just the straight talking, kick in the bum I needed from someone to get me back on track from Ros (thanks Mate :-D).

We finally left nanoseconds before they did – hope you go to tap on time!- and almost kept Tarly awake all the way home. She had a ten minute nap which kept her going until nearly 9pm (normal bedtime 7pm, that 10 minutes did a lot of damage 🙁 ). I put Davies to bed and we raided his bookshelf for ‘something interesting’. It is packed full of Book People package bundle deals all bought with ‘the future’ in mind. We got out the Pocket Science series and I said he could choose two, not realising quite how information packed they are! He chose ‘What’s under the ground?’ and ‘where does rubbish go?’ so we did the under the ground one. He sat enthralled and commented at least four times about ‘how interesting’ it was and even said ‘you are finding it interesting too Mummy as well as me aren’t you?’. He amazed me as always with the little gems of information he has retained from various conversations. He knew about nocturnal animals and was able to tell me some examples and explain what it meant, gave me a near perfect definition of hibernation and some animals who do it (throwing in the hedgehog we found in the garden story for good measure), he was able to identify which dinosaur was pictured in the fossils bit and tell me that he was a herbivore too and possibly more that my wine fuddled brain has forgotten. But anyway, I think my point was that he as always reminded me that he is doing just fine and actually, whether or not he can put together h, e and n to make hen is largely irrelevant at this stage 🙂

Have cooked one of my four speciality dinners tonight, tacos and tortilla wraps with onion, avocado and mayonnaise sauce, stuffed with seasoned chicken and sprinkled with grated cheese, all washed down with copious volumes of wine so am feeling at one with the world and happy ;-).

So I think my crisis in the making eductation wise was put to rest today but also a slight wake up call that I do need to be investing more time and mental presence in the children at the moment. It is an easy trap to fall into to be in the house but sat behind a computer for the biggest proportion of the day. There is nothing wrong with learning through play but I need to be guiding and directing that play towards the many resources we have in the house and away from putting the toothbrushes in the toilet brush container and swirling them round in the neat bleach mix at the bottom! I have been guilty of using autonomy as an excuse for simply being a lazy bint and that ends here!

So a lovely day, spent with good friends and on the upside the late night for Tarly must make some difference to her having a crap night’s sleep.

Tomorrow we are popping to Ali’s to dispatch a gift for Freya – 4 tomorrow, Happy Birthday Freya! and then we have WAG group in the afternoon, more boxes to be ticked there I am sure 🙂

Odd really that the accusation most oft lobbed at us HEers is the socialisation one. Yet if I was to read through previous blog entries (not that I’m going to you understand, blimey I write so much it would be a full time job to read back through them!) it is probably the one aspect of our life that I give least headspace to. The children had a wide variety of friends of different ages, both HE and schooled, they carry out these friendships in various venues and social circumstances and I certainly do not feel isolated, lonely or even particularly unusual in my day to day life and our choices. Indeed, HE has been instrumental in introducing me to some of the people I consider my closest friends nowadays. 🙂

Conversely I seem to have totally neglected any sort of educational activities of late. Not beating myself up over this or even considering it particularly an issue but I am vaguely aware (well ok very aware!) that as Davies would be starting school in September we will be slightly more under the spotlight (be it imagined, a possible or a real danger) and that I am possibly doing the children something of a disservice by not at least attempting to guide them toward slightly more academic pursuits.

I do still favour the autonomous approach. I still read the accounts and blogs of those who are workbooky, following curriculums or otherwise structured approached and know that it would not work for us. But that said I think I have slipped slightly into apathy and a little more focus on ticking some boxes and feeling like we are at least on some sort of path however far from it we may have wandered would do us all a favour.

This is coupled with a couple of possibilities of work for me which have come along and would require rather more discipline of my own time. I think I need to work a little on that Ed Phil, have some sort of written approach for me to be aiming toward and have a clearer idea in my mind as to what direction I want to take if and when I am contacted about a visit. I know that ‘well he plays a lot with his two year old sister’ will not quieten any concerns about his age and ability education being met at home and at the moment it seems to be the best I can manage.

A shake up of myself is in order and I feel the consequence for the rest of the household will be positive too.

Just got back from Sainsburys with the children having done a big food shop. I suspect there is even now a poster of me and my devil offspring being printed and laminated and displayed in prominant positions around the staff areas with WARNING written all over them. Perhaps we have also been made known to the security personnel and the trolley boys and next time we pull up in the car park we will be met as we try to choose a trolley and asked to kindly purchase our food provisions at one of their competitors ‘and here’s 500 Tesco clubcard points to help you on your way!’

I forgot to blog yesterday that I accidentally stole petrol from Sainsburys so clearly this is my retribution! Ady put £30 worth of petrol in and then pulled into the queue for the carwash while I went in to pay for the petrol and get a voucher for the carwash. It was really busy in the kiosk with two harrassed cashiers working. I glanced behind me at the forecourt and realised I didn’t know which number we had been parked at anymore so I mumbled to the cashier ‘erm, he’s pulled away to the car wash but it was £30’ she said ‘oh it must have been 14 then and rang that up and I then further confused her by asking for a car wash voucher and some tic tacs’ while she was telling me how to operate the car wash I was entering my pin number on the chip and pin machine and only registered when I got back in the car that I had paid £20 something for everything. The carwash thing was in the middle of breaking down with one person having to do a mid cycle dash out of his car and into the kiosk and we were third in the queue for that when the same woman (all the more harrassed by now) came out, pushed some buttons and then came along and told us all it was broken and we needed to come in for a refund. Back in the kiosk there was a very long queue and clearly my paying for someone else’s petrol had created all sorts of mayhem for the one remaining cashier. My cashier practically chucked the cash refund (although I’d paid by card) for the car wash at me and I said ‘er, I think I’ve paid for someone else’s petrol’ she said ‘you said £20 didn’t you?’ ‘erm no, I said £30’ said I feeling eyes from the whole queue and the other cashier burning into me. ‘well there’s no outstanding pumps to pay to that’s fine. It’s right’ she said glaring at me and just challenging me to try, just try and pay us another tenner… the other cashier half heartedly started to mutter something but she also got silenced by a killer stare so I turned, in a manner similar to the walk of shame off of the Weakest Link passed by the entire queue of customers with my head down, got into the car and yelled ‘go, go, go!!’ in the manner of a bank raider to the driver and off we sped! Ady has been fretting about it ever since saying that it will all be on CCTV and they will track down the registration number and I will get arrested 😉 but in light of today’s excursion to the supermarket I don’t think we’ll be going back there anyway!

So it all started well, we were on track to get round, get a weeks shopping and get home again in time for picnic lunch in the garden. They had both promised, promised to be good and I had crammed them both into one of those twin toddler trolleys so they were sat close together with no arm room resembling siamese twins or two people going to weightwatchers in a smart car or aGulliver and his wife hitching a ride in a Lilliputian carriage (or indeed two children both independantly too big to be in a trolley let alone squashed into one together!).

We started off just fine round the fruit and veg but by fresh pasta and eastern ready meals we were already in trouble. Davies was copying everything Scarlett said which made her talk in an ever more whingy fashion about Davies annoying her which he then copied in an over exagerrated tone which made her even more cross and vocal.

By cooked meats they were both on threat of going straight to their rooms for the afternoon as soon as we got home. By packet rice, pasta, curry sauce and tortilla wraps we had simmered down a little and they were back to being semi-acceptable in their behaviour. This continued all around soups, tinned beans and pasta and the wines, beers and spirits.

They became restless again at the cereal aisle, in the bakery I resorted to bribery and the trolley got rather loaden with cakes, pastries and assorted morning goods.

At the ice cream and frozen peas while I chose some choc ices Scarlett emptied everything from the trolley within her reach into the frozen sweetcorn chiller. I lost it and was heard to shriek (much to the amusement of a middle aged man) ‘Right, that’s it! As soon as we get home you are both going on ebay!’

It got worse throughout the cat food and by washing up liquid, kitchen and bathroom spray cleansers I was explaining in a rather strained tone exactly what ‘regret’ meant to Davies.

In the crisp aisle I returned again to the short term success of bribery and three multipacks of crisps were balanced atop the precarious grocery tower in our trolley. I was overheard to say to my children about how lovely I was in comparison to the children who were awful and horrid. Davies disagreed so I told him to ask anyone in there and they would tell him. Ask anyone who was most lovely and they would say me I assured him. He did want to ask a man filling up the dry roast peanut display but when I pushed the trolley over so he could do so he chickened out 😉

In the very last aisle which coincidentally is chocolate and sweets we came across the man who’d overheard the ebay comment. ‘Still selling them on ebay then love? That’s the way to go eh!’ he said with a cheery grin just as Tarly leant out of the trolley and swiped four bars of green and blacks chocolate ‘oh yes’ I assured him ‘a matching pair of children, pre trained in shoplifting, I reckon I’ll make a killing!’ 😉

And so to the checkouts.

It was quiet at the tills. Well I say quiet, it was quiet in that there was no one infront of me in the queue (which I don’t like, I much prefer to arrange my goods, Generation Game style, on the conveyer belt in the same order I want to pack them, so usually my checkout of choice would have someone’s shopping mid way through being processed. A couple infront is ideal as you know they will have packed and cleared all their stuff by the time they have paid so there won’t be that horrible overlap period of your stuff crashing down into their while they are still faffing about putting their nectar card away) but still busy enough for a large audience as Davies and Scarlett revved up to their grand finale. I was taken pity upon by a Sainsburys lady who came and packed all my shopping (very very badly it has to be said!) while I loaded it on while the children reached new levels of decibels in their hullabalooing. As I started to pay they took a swing at each other and were both howling with tears running down their cheeks as I said loudly ‘I have respect for your command of your audience. You have made your points and registered your dissatisfaction at being here today with me in a blatant and effective manner” to them. She spirited them away to the coffee shop bit and gave them a small tetrapack thingy of milk each (which they both opened and spilt down themselves) while I paid – and debated with the cashier as to whether she thought I stood a chance if I made a run for it now while she was distracted with them. The bribery shopping meant I had spent a scary £158 but frankly even leaving that amount of shopping there would have been a small sacrifice for not having to bother with the photographing, listing and working out P&P for them on ebay later 😉

She returned with them before I could finalise this plan however, carried the two bags which would not fit back in the trolley to my car with me. With a final bow, a few hurried autographs on the back of till receipts and leaflets for home insurance requested by people who had enjoyed our oscar winning performance and having collected up our floral tributes thrown to us we were off.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Goddards have left the supermarket.

Ady told me that he had frozen the excess milk we had in the fridge. I asked what he had decanted it into as of course it would expand (and I’m not even sure you can freeze glass bottles) and he looked at me in horror 😉

It had shades of going very wrong at times. Very inverse managerial discipline technique going on actually – a big wobble at the beginning followed by a lovely afternoon and evening finished off with further irritation, but in all a nice time.

Yesterday morning was one of those rare occassions when everyone slept in (which was mainly because Ady and I had been up with Scarlett for hours in the night, then we persuaded Davies to come into bed with us and watch Peter Pan with the headphones on for an hour) so it was gone 9am before we got started really. On that basis we decided to go out for late breakfast / early lunch as none of us would be having a proper dinner anyway. We went to Sainsburys where the children were quite far from your model restaurant companions but I think we just about held it together. We all ate loads though and it was over half an hour in coming so I am prepared to concede hunger as an excuse for them being rowdy!

Came home and did some jigsaws altogether then Ady went off to get ready to go. With about an hour before my parents were due to arrive I went to grab the tickets from the pin board (we have booked tickets to about 6 various things over the rest of this year so as they arrive I shove them in an envelope, write the day of the event and who it is on the front and then shove them up on the pin board) to discover they weren’t there. Cue frantic emptying of various drawers, looking under sofas, asking everyone including the cats if they had moved them and generally raising stress levels 🙁 Ady tried to ring my parents to tell them not to come over for babysitting and I started trawling through emails to try and find the confirmation of the booking. This turned up several pieces of information – the first being that the tickets would not be sent out until 7 days before the event – which made me realise that infact they had just never arrived and for some reason I had not noticed their absense, the second that it was a picnic event and the final one being that there was absolutely no contact phone number for the company I’d bought the tickets from (lastminute.com) with an ever sinking heart I started googling to try and find a phone number and just turned up loads of references on various forum about what a crap company they are, how people had never had tickets arrive, had no reply to emails and so on.

My parents arrived and Ady kept them out in the garden so as not to further incite my rage (he told me later when I had calmed down that I had been terrifying!) while as a last ditch attempt to sort it out I rang Leeds Castle, I confess now possibly more to see if there was a chance of buying more tickets on the gate and trying to sort out a refund for the missing ones later. The woman was totally unfazed, told me the event organiser had a box office on site opening at 4pm and to come bringing evidence of my booking, some ID and the credit card I’d paid with.

By now my parents had come in the house, I was yelling at everyone to stop hassling me (she decided she wanted to talk them to the beach which necessitated sun cream, shoes, finding juice for them to take, sorting them out with a spare key to get back in, finding nappies and wipes for them to take with them and getting the pushchair out of the car – grrrr!!!!), Ady in his nervousness at me managed to misplace all the sets of keys to house and cars, I forgot to bring my sunglasses and sun hat and didn’t have time to get changed 🙁

Parents and offspring set off for the park with me hanging out of the window as they walked down the road yelling at my Mum to have Davies walking on the inside of her and the pavement, not right alongside the road 🙁 and me and Ady looking at each other in horror at the thought of our two most precious things being in the care of such pillocks for the rest of the afternoon and evening (yes, I know, but we so rarely don’t have them with us and are so crap at letting them be with anyone else that we tend to worry more about the kids and what they are doing than enjoy some time without them 🙁 ). Finally got in the car and set off with no hope of a picnic in sight!

Arrived at the castle in excellent time, slightly calmed down but ready for a fight at the box office just the same. The gates opened at 5pm with the concert starting at 7.30pm. We arrived shortly after 4pm and found several thousand people already there queuing. At the box office I was about to launch into my composed rant but she just asked who I booked through and my name and address and there were my tickets, in an envelope with my address on – WTF?! I assume that if I’d realised the tickets hadn’t arrived I would have contacted them and been informed that they were actually to be collected but as I’d paid nearly a fiver for postage and they had my address, email and two phone numbers for me I would have expected them to let ME know… and to think we nearly didn’t go and the tickets would have been sat there waiting for us…. will be emailing later to rant and at least get my postage charge refunded!

Joined the queue and was staggered at the fact that far from being the oldest people there I was probably one of the youngest – not sure whether I am happier being old before my time or whether I prefered feeling like an overgrown teenager really 😉 I assume it was more about the atmosphere of the event – in castle grounds, picnic all afternoon then watch the concert where you sat (there were some seats which were an extra tenner each and I think I preferred the space and freedom of being in the field really) which appealed more to couples and various other stereotypical groups of people. (we had the gay men couples in their low rise trousers cut to show off their snakey hips, permatanned and with pierced nipples peeping through their fluorescent vests, we had groups of women in home made ‘we love you will’ t shirts – funniest one was a group of four who had ‘W’ ‘I’ ‘L’ and ‘L’ on their backs – we amused ourselves for ages thinking about them losing the ‘W’ woman in the crowd :-), some sort of middle aged divorced and formerly repressed group of women, lots of ‘beautiful people’ couples who clearly shopped in Waitrose with their wicker picnic baskets crammed with strawberries, champagne and things like cous-cous and some gangs of hen night style women who had dance routines co-ordinated for the songs!). We bemoaned the fact we had not realised it was a picnic stylee thing and failed to bring our cool boxes, picnic rugs, parasol, folding chairs, citronella candle on a stake and so on like so many others had but in the end we were glad as it was a right trek from the car park to the actual grounds and we would have been even unhappier about carting them all back again in the dark at 11pm like everyone else had to 🙂 So we enjoyed having beer, wine and alcopops out of plastic glasses, chicken curry in pitta bread with indian snacks and crepes from all the overpriced refreshment stands. Also bought a glittery cowboy hat each to give to the children 😉

So the grounds were beautiful, a perfect setting for a summer afternoon and evening picnic, the weather was perfect, a hot air balloon took off into the sunset against the backdrop of the castle just as Will came on stage and he was excellent.

The trek back to the car was longer than remembered (as we had waited twice in queues on the way in it had broken it up) and then there was complete chaos in the car parks trying to get out. People were being complete tossers and ignoring the marshalls who were trying their best to co-ordinate it and having sat for nearly an hour we suddenly realised we were among the last few cars left in the field depsite being some of the first people back to our car 🙁 Eventually we got directed out of a different field and round a big diversion to rejoin the motorway all of which added lots of our journey time 🙁

Got home around 1am to veyr subdued parents (I think they were wiped out actually!) very reticient about the afternoon so have been pumping the kids all morning for information about what they all got up to 😉

Not sure what we’re doing today. We were going over to Ali’s but she rang last night to cancel, we need to do some food shopping, the kids want to go to Paradise Park but I’m not really in the mood for it so I am planning a food shop buying picnic type lunch and persuading them to eat and play in the garden. I have water toys and I also have painting as an outdoor activity to bribe with so I may be successful 🙂

Do not expect anyone to get those really, but tomorrow we are going to see Will Young in concert at Leeds Castle (which bizarely is in Kent and no where near Leeds!). I know not many of you (okay any of you!) are likely to be desperate to see Will Young and I know that Ady is very likely to be the oldest person there tomorrow with me the second oldest. But I like that music, I think Will has a lovely voice and I can think of few nicer ways to spend a Sunday evening than in the company of the man I love, listening to music which makes me feel happy, watching the sun set over castle grounds… Life is all about memories and I anticipate tomorrow being one of the good ones to add to my catalogue 🙂

Today was such a day also. We were out early and over to a camping shop within a garden centre – there is a shop there also which was previously called Formative Fun – and looking at the merchanise was I imagine an outlet for the company Sarah has worked with. It is now called ‘Confident Kids’ and stocks all sorts of educational stuff, outdoor toys and various other innovative but I suspect overpriced cool stuff. Enjoyed browsing though and got a few ideas for Davies’ birthday coming up in September.

Then to the camping store which is an outdoor area with about 50 tent permanently pitched to look round and an indoor shop with all the various paraphenalia. We got to have a sit on the chemical loos, a bounce on the air beds and a giggle at the fluorescent trousers which I told Ady he *has* to wear if we go camping 🙂 possibly we left none the wiser really but I think we have enough idea of what we sort of think we might want to at least make a start at deciding… maybe!

Then over to Chris and Julie’s for a nice afternoon in their garden. Hardly worth blogging really as it was akin to what we spent an afternoon pretty much every weekend over there doing, drinking tea and chatting while the kids run around playing. Nice though 🙂

Had a lenthly debate with Ady while driving back and forwards about war, terrorism, countries intervening in other countries and so on. Made me feel a bit ignorant really that I used to have such strong views on things AND the knowledge and understanding to back my arguments and reasons for my views up. Now I tend to throw wild statements into the mix and spend time almost arguing with myself on my views… not sure what to do with that little nugget of self discovery as I am not really of a mind to develop extreme viewpoints but having been reading of late about anarchy, non coersion and various other life philosophies in regard to parenting it is tricky not to apply the same discipline to the rest of the world. I’d like to try and understand the world a little better in order to form some clearer opinions but I worry that would be an almost impossible task given the political stance and sway of most reporting and accounts of world events. I think I may be going through some sort of delayed philisophical phase which would have taken place during university years if I’d gone 🙂

Good song on the radio, takes me straight back to my teenage very pink bedroom sitting rewinding and replaying each line so I could learn all the lyrics…. was that really me?

somehow feel I am on the cusp of yet more big self discoveries at the moment. Having previously read a little on TCS and dismissed it as something I would completely not be into I came home from evangelishing about HE and parenting in general at Vickie’s house and sort of stumbled across the TCS site again. This time I stayed a bit longer and read some stuff which made sense. I think it is still against a lot of my nature to go with any one specific route but I have opened my mind to some new ideas once again and found them really quite thought provoking and helpful if only in a reinforcing what I am already doing manner. More on this to come I suspect…

Spent this morning mainly lazing after a rough night with Tarly last night – Ady tried to manage it but she was adamant she wanted Mummy (hard for him that, as she is normally a Daddy’s girl and he had not seen her for 48 hours so was expecting her to be thrilled with him appearing at 1am when she woke instead of which he got ‘I don’t want you, I don’t like you, I want MUMMMEEEEEE’ pretty crap for me too actually, I’d far rather have been sleeping 😉 ), so I got to lay in ’til 8am which still felt spookily like about 5,30am 🙁

Kids played with lego and were totally engrossed in some sort of space game – I do love watching them as each others’ playmates, it does give me such a warm glowy feeling 🙂 I finally roused myself to get dressed at about 10.30am and they followed me upstairs. I put into practise some TCS style parenting when Davies asked to do various things today and we taked through why we couldn’t – he asked to go to Paradise Park but I explained that we were due at TT2 in a couple of hours and as we’ve already paid for that and it is expensive, not to mention something he enjoys we didn’t really have a choice to not go there. He worked out for himself that we didn’t have time to get to paradise Park and TT2 as they are too far away from each other. He then asked to play with playdough (which I confess I had no intention of doing!) and instead of saying No I asked him why we couldn’t go straight downstairs and do so. He correctly explained that the lego was everywhere and there was no room for playdough, that the lego and the playdough are not complementary toys to have out together and that I also needed to actually make some playdough before they could play with any. We discussed how he could go downstairs and start to tidy up the lego which would give us time to get playdough out before having lunch and going to TT2, we discussed why I couldn’t come straight down and help him tidy (I was getting dressed and would need to be dressed to go out later to TT2) and in the end – reluctantly – he chose not to tidy up the lego by himself which therefore meant he didn’t get to play with playdough. He was not thrilled but it *was* his choice and his thought process – I reckon I took him seriously 🙂

Had lunch and set off to TT2, were running slightly late and the venue is opposite the local Islamic centre which was the target of a racist arson attack earlier this year. It had briefly crossed my mind earlier so I was not entirely surprised to find several police officers lurking outside – it just so happens that 1pm on a Friday is a time when there is a lot of activity there anyway (start of their sabbath? not sure, really should look that up as I’m surprised the kids have not asked me already) so it is always swarming with Muslims. Today there appeared to be various other religious folks there from other denominations, not sure if perhaps there was some sort of service of local tolerance there going on. Fortunately we were able to park and in we ran..

Tarly did really well actually today. She doesn’t really like the format of TT2 and simply wants to demostrate her ability on the equipment, not fanny about pretending to be an animal, get a sticker or sing about the wheels on the bus 😉 But we had a small chat about it and she held it together well, she is very agile and hugely independant about not being held on the balance bars and so on. She had one small moment so I removed her from her audience, held her very tight and spoke to her calmly and quietly about being a good girl and making me proud, doing what she had promised to do and gettting on with it. She listened, said ‘sorry Mummy’ and came back with me and finished the circuit 😉 another victory for talking something through and remaining calm I thought. She then staggered me by not only staying for the sitting back in a circle and singing a song but waiting for and being proud of having a sticker too – the shallow bint 😉

Vickie, Andrew and twins arrived while we were waiting for Davies’ class to start and it was very odd to watch Davies running around ring leading his little possee of five others (including Tarly) while Andrew stood on the sidelines – that was Davies a year ago…. Had a small chat with him about trying to help others join the group and he made a very heart-touching effort to introduce him into the game and help him join in.

Sat and chatted to Vickie while Scarlett did a great impression of a neglected and free range child drawing on herself with felt tips, spitting water about the place and looking grubby 🙂

Ady was already home when we got back, I sat and played with Tarly while Davies played in the garden with Ady and then I read to them both for a while and had some tickle fights. Both asleep very early, Ady cooked me corn on the cob dripping with butter, followed by steak and new potatoes, onion rings and pepper sauce with garlic bread all washed down with copious amounts of wine. Lovely.

I so have stuff I want to blog about educational musings but I will get round to it, I need to be in the right frame of mind for it. Tomorrow we are over at Chris and Julie’s and may go there via the big local tent shop to go and ogle camping stuff…

Not sure how I feel about the events of today really. On the one hand of course it is dreadful and scary and an atrocity. On the other we really have become quite desensitised to it. I have deliberately not talked to the children about it. I will, certainly with Davies anyway but in context as an example of extreme behaviour, beliefs and so on rather than in a sensationalist ‘see how this bus is ripped apart like a sardine can’ way it has been reported in. I think it is important that as soon as a child is able to deal with comprehending the dark side of life, illness, accidents, war and the terrible way humans can treat each other they are taught about it and not sheltered from it, but similarly I don’t want nightmares for weeks and him terrified by something which although a real threat is a remote one when related to the people he knows, which is how he is likely to dwell on it.

I read an article once about a female IRA bomber and how she justified her actions to herself and others. I cannot for one second condone any such behaviour, particularly when it is so random, brutal and non-specifically targetted, I am anti-violence and would be anti-war in general too but the passion with which these fanatics carry out their foul deeds is terrifying. This article demonstrated that as the woman likened her passion for her ’cause’ to the love a mother has for her child – and certainly I would die for my children… oh the world is mad.

Which makes me feel a bit odd continuing with a fairly selfish and then we had lunch style round up of our day but whilst one of the great horrors of such dreadful times is that the world keeps turning nonetheless I guess it is also a resilliance of us that we won’t be beaten or submit.

We’ve had an otherwise nice day today, I did get to spend some time chatting to Vickie while Davies, Scarlett and Andrew played. Apparantly Andrew has been telling everyone that he has a best friend called Davies – ah bless 🙂 Vickie’s Mum had one of the twins so there was only one baby around for most of the morning so we did the whole run down potted life story exchange, the why we HE stories and so on. Also chatted on siblings and effects on older children, she complimented me profusley on various attributes of my offspring (always a good way to make friends with me 😉 ) and we discovered that she spent two years at the same school as me (the year above me though so clearly we would not have noticed each other!) . She is slightly newer to the concepts of HE than me, slightly more nervy about justifying herself and her choices and slightly less confident in the whole path to follow. Found myself doing the patented ‘trust the process’ propaganda and as ever during a serious debate about HE getting very excited about it all and rediscovering my passion and belief in the whole thing. Not that I ever particularly dispute or disbelieve in it but quite nice to get fired up about it just the same 🙂 We alos talked a bit about parenting style, socialisation, support for HE parents (expect to meet Vickie soon virtually via MP!) and all sorts of life philiosophies too. Very enjoyable 😉

Once home I was all inspired about HE and started reading articles on TCS – which I think I finally ‘get’ but that’s another blog for another time. Slightly hysterically I was sat reading about it on my laptop while yelling at the kids to tidy up 😉

Have now drunk too much again, wish we were somewhere else tonight – I have several possible wish locations one of which I have shared with the people concerned – so I think bed with my returned beloved is the very best option given the whole day’s events quite frankly.

While I was hanging the washing out this morning my landline and mobile had both been called from my parents house. I phoned back when I came in but there was no reply.

Went to our friends house and was vaguely half aware of some news report talking about transport disruption in London but it was drowned out by three children running around and two babies crying while we tried to chat.

It was only when Ady rang me to say he would be very delayed trying to get out of Coventry because of the explosions and then told us to turn on the TV that we realised something was going on 🙁

Realised very quickly afterwards that my Mum was going to London this morning to see a west end show. Cue frantic ringing round of her phone, their house and finally my brother’s phone.

He answered all pissed off sounding and my heart sank. Turns out she didn’t go cos she’d heard there was a power cut and he was pissed off cos he’d just been pulled over for not wearing a seatbelt and had a rough time with the policeman about a conviction for some minor crime when he was 18.

Very relieved (although I have still not actually got hold of my mum myself), very sad that many people making similar frantic phonecalls will not be feeling that relief and a horrid premonition of a phone call that me and Frazer are likely to have at some point in the future regarding a parent….

Got really rather drunken last night in the virtual company of The Portico and Joyce, all very pleasant and with no incriminating photographic evidence either 😉

Decided at about half twelve that everyone else had either gone to bed or was continuing somewhere else without me so stumbled upstairs myself. As I got to the top of the stairs Davies woke up crying about a bad dream 🙁 Got him settled (only took a moment), fell into bed and then Tarly cried out 🙁 Back downstairs and a swift cuddle from me got her back to sleep too. On reflection maybe they were both rendered unconscious by alcohol fumes from me, but we all slept through and Tarly woke me at 6am by calling me to come downstairs. Quite remarkable kids aren’t they – both of them called for me when they woke in the night and Tarly was at the foot of the stairs calling ‘Mummy, Mummy come down here the cat’s been sick’ when it is normally Ady who gets up in the morning and often him they call for in the night too – easy come, easy go 😉

So faced with 6am cat sick partially ‘cleared up’ by a two year old armed with baby wipes I dealt with that (thank God I did the washing up last night!), sorted out some washing and was drinking tea while Tarly drank milk when my gaze fell out of the window to all the bin bags piled up across the road…..BIN DAY! Ady normally handles this task too 🙁 So out I went in my nightie and a cardi and my flip flops to drag all the bin bags and blue box recycling out (as witnessed by the school age paper boy on his bike, several mature folk walking dogs or on their way to the shop for a paper and most embarassingly the dustcart full of dustbin men who pulled round the corner as I was bending over and possibly now know me as intimately as only a midwife should! No doubt the police will be round later to caution me on some sort of indecent exposure charge 😉

Spoken to Ady several times already this morning and had a video message of his hotel room to my phone in exchange for the ones I sent him of the kids waving and yelling ‘goodnight Daddy we love you!!!’ last night. He’ll be home later but is unlikely to get to the pre-op appointment he has later today for his wisdom teeth removal so I will need to change that for him.

We’re off round a friends house for a ‘playdate’ (don’t you just hate that term? I was trying it out experimentally to see if it make me shudder when I typed it the same as it does when I hear people say it and yep, it does). The one who is at Home Ed group and TT2 with us. She’s called Vickie and has a son the same age as Davies and 3 month old identical twin boys too. Although we see each other twice a week we never seem to have much of a chance to chat so hopefully we’ll be able to do that today while the kids play.

I had a plan to do a bit of an educational round up type thing last night but I got too drunk and sweary to do it properly so I might have a bash at that in a minute but need to sort out some breakfast for me and Tarly first – Davies is on the pc playing having eaten some frosties and strewn the rest around the place – what is it with kids and cereal?

Following firmly in her brother’s footsteps….

overheard while kids were playing in our bed this morning while I was in the bathroom putting make up on:

There was some sort of maritime adventure going on involving storms at sea and shipwrecking.

D: Scarlett, Scarlett, hold on to the rigging, the storm is getting worse
S: Okay Davies (well actually she says Day-diss but that’s what she means!)
D: Scarlett, Scarlett, where are we Scarlett?
(clearly asking for some sort of co-ordinates from their on board map or for the child to look at the compass)
S: Inside our imagination Davies….

Ady is in Manchester today and has just rung to say he won’t be making it home tonight as he has to go to Coventry tomorrow 🙁 He’s booked into a hotel about 3 miles from where we used to live and although he has been up since 5am so is unlikely to do any more than collapse into bed after an early dinner I really wish I was there to go and be all nostalgic about that period in our lives which was so nice…and of course I miss my bloke too 🙁

Today has been slightly lower key than yesterday but a nice day just the same. First thing we nipped round to my friend Rachel’s house (mother of E, Davies’ tormenter of last year, now safely in a school!) who’s birthday it was today. Took her round a card and stood chatting on her doorstep for about 20 minutes while the kids waved at us and yelled ‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WHERE’S YOUR CAKE?’ at us from inside the car 🙂 Arranged to go round for coffee one morning next week for a proper catch up. Not seen her for weeks and weeks and have not seen E since about January. It was getting a bit awkward finding conversation topics which were mutually interesting and not offensive about lifestyle choices but as she is looking at other schools locally for E as she is unhappy with the one he is at I think we might just have a bit more to talk about next week even if it’s just school-bashing!

Then to Tescos where I got my favourite dinner that Ady doesn’t like (tagliatelli with cheese sauce and chopped bacon and garlic bread) to cheer myself up for being alone to eat it and some loo rolls for mummy making for group.

Nipped home to collect more stuff for group and went really early to set it all up. The kids played on the stage (normally it is The Law that no kids are allowed on the stage!) and I got some of the crash mats that are in the hall out for them to practise forward rolls on so they were happy 🙂 Other people arrived – we had seven families and it finally seems to have sunk in that everyone needs to bring activities so we had a huge array of stuff. I did pyramids with sandpaper (the stuff you line budgie cages with – 12 huge sheets for under a quid which made 24 pyramids 🙂 ), and we had hieroglyph writing, matchstick mummies in gold card tombs, collages with cut out stuff from Egypt travel brochures, textured dessert pictures with camels, palm trees, pyramids and sand sprinkles instead of glitter, some further sand art, egyptian mask making and while most of the mums tidied up at the end we sent all the kids outside to make each other into mummies with loo rolls. Typically the one week that a)I forgot to take my camera! b) neither of my two wanted to do any of the fab stuff on offer and chose to run around outside for over and hour deciding just as we were about to clear up that they did want to make stuff after all and c) I spent about half the time taking four phone calls on my mobile about various things.

Next week is farming so I’m doing butter churning, Julie’s got some farm machinery collages in mind, someone else is bringing animal related stuff, junk modelling tractors and I’m going to do some cress seed sowing too. The week after is Red Indians and we have loads of stuff planned for that too, so I’m really pleased that we seem to be ending the ‘school’ year on a real high. Our age group seems to have shifted slightly away from the older ones with various people moving away so the more crafty stuff is working well and we have several new families who are really into the idea of how Jenny and I want to run the group with equal participation from all, managed activities and sharing skills within the group – it’s nice 🙂

Kids are now being yelled at to get tidying up so I can get them to bed early. I’m planning wine, bath, my lovely dinner, possibly further blogging, at least three emails I know I need to get done (Jax can I email Tim via you, I don’t have his addy!?) Big Brother and an early night as the kids are just bound to play up through the night…. may well be back later!

Today we have had friends for lunch, friends for tea and family just arrived for dinner, and us without so much as a matching set of crockery let alone a dining room!

This morning the kids played with Bob the Builder toys and watched Green Eggs and Ham while I sat around in my nightie reading the blogring for an hour or so, but that was the calm before the storm!

Ros and I had arranged to do ‘something’ today so when I got an email from her at 9.30am ish to say it was raining her end of Sussex and looking out of the window it was doing the same my end and were we up to lunch guests, I happily fired off directions, a time for a couple of hours later to arrive and thought I’d better get dressed. Got myself and the kids dressed and whizzed up to Boots to get stuff for my Mother’s birthday arriving home shortly after the arranged time to suddenly realise that ROS WAS COMING TO MY HOUSE FOR THE FIRST TIME ANY SECOND NOW!!! Ros, queen of clean, second only to Joyce in terms of her distain for dirt and there was me with grubby skirting boards 🙂

I always make a bit of an effort the first time someone new comes to the house anyway and while it is more on the ‘comfy family home’ side of clutterless I do at least try to have it clean if not tidy. But for Ros I had always imagined the first time she came to visit would be after at least two weeks preparation for the event including redecoration of the entire downstairs, professional deep clean of the carpets, new or at the very least clean on soft covers to the sofas (maybe even with some of those doily type arm rests!), a bleached sink, shake and vac’d flooring throughout and the scent of lemon and pine wafting through each room! I was attempting to sweep the lounge carpet with a dustpan and brush to get up the kids’ Frosties from breakfast when the phone rang to say she was having a blonde moment and was lost (my house from Ros’ is straight over every roundabout, straight through every traffic light and one simple turn left followed by another one shortly afterwards and your’e here! 🙂 ) which bought me enough time to get the hoover out instead 😉 Managed the house being scented with coffee and bread instead and moved the potty into the bathroom 😉 Already fretting about Joyce’s trip and as the house opposite us is up for sale and empty I am considering asking to view it, getting a copy of the key from the estate agents, moving a select amount of our least tatty stuff into it and hosting their visit there instead 😉 so Joyce if you peep in the bedrooms and find we don’t have any furniture you will know why!

Allowed the five kids the run of the house, they all went off in opposite directions while we tested the thong for fit and comfort rating, I showed Pea how to scoubidou, Davies and Buzz played some bizzare game involving crawling in and out of my built in wardrobes, Tarly got naked and at about 2pm we remembered we really should feed them 🙂 Ros went off to the shop for bread and cakes while the kids all did a boot camp style tidy up operation, we ate, talked some more and bid them a teary farewell. Lovely to have you Ros and as ever lovely to spend time with someone with equally dodgy spending habits 😉

Then a fifteen minute interval of pushing the hoover round again before my friend Mel arrived with Liam and Lily 🙂

Again, kids scattered around the house, me sat on sofa chatting and even better Ady arrived home early and cooked tea for all the kids and brought me and Mel more tea and coffee so we could carry on with the chatting. 🙂

They left and met my mum and dad coming up the garden path so while Ady was hoovering for the final time today I bathed the kids (Scarlett had rubbed most of a tub of vaseline into her hair – nice – think that might take a few washes before all traces are gone 🙁 ), one fell asleep straight away and the other is my excuse for sitting upstairs instead of being hostessy and cooking dinner while I sit with laptop on his bedroom floor. About to go and drink wine and start cooking and tonight’s viewing is planned to be the video of Fathers Day and Kessingland.

Tomorrow is Home Ed group and the theme is Egypt so tomorrow morning will be spent preparing pyramid making craft and buying some Tesco value loo rolls to make each other into Mummies with. I also plan to print off some hyroglyphs off a good site I found so the children can all write their names in them.

See that’s the trouble with this home ed lark, you just struggle to give your kids all that mixing and mingling and friendships that they would get at school 😉

Mine and Ali’s 🙂

Well actually its a bit on the roomy side so a few minor adjustments are in order, but the waistband is perfect and will be attached in time for photoshoot.

And I know her shaving habits too 😉