One word? When seven would do…

Your IQ Is 115

Your Logical Intelligence is Above Average Your Verbal Intelligence is Genius Your Mathematical Intelligence is Genius Your General Knowledge is Average

Ady and I spent ages on the way home yesterday debating and discussing the trip to Off the Path in a couple of weeks time. We both want to go but have decided it is not really feasible. The kids will be horrid after two days running in the car for hours, Ady will be knackered spending his weekend driving when he does so much time behind the wheel all week and on reflection it just doesn’t seem such a good idea. Which is a bugger cos I was really looking forward to seeing Jasper and his parents and sisters, and indeed seeing those we said goodbye to yesterday again too 🙁

And then, as if that were not enough, in the pile of post waiting for us when we got home was a letter informing Ady that his wisdom teeth removal appointment at the hospital is for two days before The Portico party 🙁 He has to go in and have a general anasthetic and it says he *should hopefully* come home the same day. Fingers crossed it is straightforward, he feels up to the party and we still come (so I won’t cancel the hotel booking until the last minute) but it does mean I have had to cancel Karen, Steve and Emma coming back here for a couple of nights afterwards 🙁 If we do still manage to come it will be such a last minute decision that it will probably be made after they have set off for Reading anyway and if he is up to being sociable for a party he may well have used up all his quota and not be up to house guests afterwards – another time eh Karen? 🙁

So none of that helps with the post Kessingland, missing you already slump, coupled with Ady’s back to work tomorrow blues! 🙁

A good day today, over to Chris and Julie’s this afternoon for garden play for small people, tea and catch up chats for grown ups. Talked to them about tenting and Chris, who is Car Boot King reckons he can set us up with all the camping essentials dead cheap from car boots so that’ll be good 🙂 They are also up for getting a tent too, so it could mean we have tenting buddies to do weekends away with too!

We also had a very lively discussion about the whole Live 8 thing and Bob Geldof. I think Bob is utterly amazing, I know he gets slated for various reasons and perhaps he is often misguided, has a bit of a God complex and is a little naive in his belief that the world can be changed but in 100 years time he will be a figure of great power from the 21st century as a man who changed and made history, did in no small way make the world a better place and used his celebrity in probably the most positive way I think of as an example. Clearly I admire him for his whipping up a frenzy, making things happen, managerial abilities too 😉 He’d do well in marketing!

There were aspects of Live 8 which I found really quite sad and disturbing, mostly the coverage on TV of the whole thing which was far too much about egos, celebrity and individuals than it was about ‘the cause’. I don’t remember Live Aid in great detail but I do recall the overwhelming feeling being that everyone gave of their time and their talent because they truly believed and felt passionate about the reasons for it – this time I felt there was a huge value placed on the ‘being a part of history’ part of it. Frankly some of the interviews going on post performance were roughly translated ‘how much are you getting off on being part of this then?’ I’m not sure many of the people performing or indeed stood in the crowd wearing their white bands (and don’t even get me started on how you can now buy coloured bands with no affinity or money raising value at all as fashion accessories!!!) really knew what it was all about either. Live Aid was realised to be so monumental after it happened, Live 8 seemed more about ‘being part of the biggest concert ever’ than anything to do with the reasons why it was happening. And many of the musical geniuses given way too much stage time were cack anyway!

Home, more washing brought off the line to be replaced with more to dry taken out of the machine and replaced with more to get clean – seem to have barely made a dent despite being on at least the 6th wash – and several items have come out of the machine still firmly ingrained with puddle 🙁 Roast lamb smells are wafting upstairs and my body is craving a glass of very cold very dry white wine, I’ll be back later with some ideas for NicandAdyland camp 🙂

I’m back with stuff to say 😀

I did start doing a daily blog on word with a half hearted intention of uploading it all day by day when I got back but when I was still trying to finish Saturday’s entry on Wednesday night I realised this was not going to happen. Besides most people who read my blog were either with me, have just had a baby so probably not really up to reading a novel on my week at Kessingland, or wished they were there and are really only after the edited highlights (and bitches and rants too of course!). Coupled with that I was genuinely too busy to be blogging so rather than try and categorise my thoughts, feelings, account of the week etc into days it would seem more fitting to put them under other headings instead.

So, without further delay….

The Lows…
– socialisation 😉 Kessingland is one of the trips where the decision to static or to tent is not helped by the proportionately small difference in the two prices. The static was comfortable but tatty and certainly not really worth any more than the heavily discounted rate we paid. To be honest sleeping in very narrow, very hard beds, using a very tempremental shower, not having any plug points in the bedrooms and listening to every raindrop, seagull walking across the roof and being woken by the nightly exodus of folk returning to their statics from the onsite ‘entertainment’ could not be any less ‘roughing it’ than doing it in a tent with a hook up, blow up beds and a bucket to piss in at least surrounded by our friends. So while the static itself was not a ‘low’, being away from the epicentre of the group was. I was slightly torn between family and friends and ended up trying an unsatisfactory compromise most days, abandoning Ady and kids for a portion of early evening and then trekking back up to them just when the evening sessions of drinking wine were getting started. Would much rather have been able to combine both and have kids asleep in a tent while Ady and I both got to drink wine huddled 20 to a tent round a picnic table 🙂

Leading on from that was my kids’ behaviour which I don’t think was much helped by short bursts of intense being with the others on the tent bit. They tended to come down, go totally crazy, get yelled at by me and then get shipped off back to the caravan again. Davies particularly was quite trying. He was very tired, didn’t eat very well, spent too much time in the sun and was just totally overexcited to be with his friends. He had a definite touch of ringleader about him at various times and was told off by me and Ady far more than we would have liked, and even by a couple of other grown ups at various times. I just fear he was not at his most endearing last week 🙁 Jax did reassure me that he was simply being a four year old boy, and it’s true that tends to be when I struggle with him most 😉

The puddles. Despite making for a handful of ironic photos and some nice at our fingertips duck wildlife the ankle deep puddles bang in the middle of the tent area did hamper all sorts of activities really. 🙁 despite having suitable clothing for puddle dipping (well wellies borrowed from The Portico for Tarly til we got her some more the following day!) they still managed to get very muddy, very wet and very told off for not managing to keep out of the puddles at all. The weather on Thursday (it rained all afternoon, heavily) was also a downside from a getting on with anything point of view.

Sparkys. I had in my mind a very clear picture of what I thought this might be like. And I’ll be honest, it was worse! I had no great wish to introduce either of my two to the joys of such crud at all but on the last night, having had Ernest to our static for tea with our two I decided to take Davies along with him for an hour or so. Ernest and Davies always do this 11th hour friendship thing – they largely ignore each other all week and then with mere hours to go before parting they suddenly become best buddies (this did of course co-incide with the early departure of Ben 😉 ) so I wanted to foster that a bit too. Now I have no real objection to kids entertainment (although I am offended slightly by mis-spelling of words like ‘Krew’ ), indeed in my last paying job I did organise four on stage kids entertainment shows at the shopping mall we were sited at. We had a chessy presenter (my gay mate Dayve!), costume characters, booing and hissing, getting kids on stage to wrap each other up in toilet rolls, getting one side of the room to cheer louder than the other side and teaching everyone to dance to agadoo, so I can be the Mummy who gets dragged up by her offspring to dance to the Fast Food Rockers with the best of ’em. Would really rather it was hosted by people who are not still in their teens and would struggle to make it past the first round of that show Barrymore used to do in shopping malls around the country though. So we sat through the obligatory games with rules so tricky and complex they would be deemed too hard for the Krypton Factor let alone suitable for a gang of 5 year olds (Davies and Ernest gave these the wide berth they deserved and played their own game of musical statues instead 😉 ), I yelled support for ‘The Hoppers’, got up and danced to the Mexican Wave, smiled indulgently at Davies when he came racing over saying ‘ewww, ewww, ewww’ about people smoking but eventually the six kids lined up on stage with the 14 year old presenter in the middle clutching a stop watch and getting them to yell ‘spaaaaaaaaarkiiiiiiiiieeeeeees’ for as long as they could in to the microphone finished me off so I prised Davies away and we left. Ady was horrified that he stank of cigarette smoke (actually so was I but that’s a whole other rant!) and Davies pouted all the way back to the static about not having had a turn on stage. I explained that there was every chance that even if we’d gone every single night he might not have had a chance on stage and his response was ‘well that’s stupid then, why did you take me?!’ 🙂 I think perhaps I need to wait til he’s old enough to appreciate the whole Sparkys thing with an air of irony 😉

The plagues of stuff. Nits, mosquitos, sore throat lurgy, sunburn, heatrash, floods…..

The Highs

Spending time in real life with people I really really like. 🙂 As ever it was lovely to see everyone. I do so enjoy drinking and bitching with Layla, it was nice to spend time with Helen and Kirsty a bit more than I managed at Melrose, nice to meet some new faces and always lovely to see the rest of the blogring, spouses and offspring. Missed Ros and Sarah lots and Davies missed their boys too 🙁 Being a bit out of it in the statics aside it was nice to be part of the group again in real life. Ady did a spot of bloke bonding here and there which he is keen to continue next time he gets the chance and look out for other big news on that front under ‘ironies’ later.

Basket weaving and rag weaving. Surprised myself and possibly others by really enjoying making baskets. Was also commended on my base making and I reckon a fair percentage of the baskets taken home by puddlers were started by me so feel all glowy about that. Clearly I have a leaning towards practical tasks which require no brain stimulation such as scoubidous, basketing and erm, painting my nails. There was a lovely moment on Friday when there was a large group of adults and children, sat around making baskets adding in all sorts of stuff like beads, ribbons, scoubis, wool and so on and coming up with some really lovely creative stuff. There was chatting, laughter, all ages interacting and the sun shining. Ady was running some sort of impromtu creche facility on the other side of the grass and the sound of ten children singing ‘the wheels on the bus’ drifted over to us. This was all shattered about three minutes later by Davies sitting in a puddle but it was lovely while it lasted 😉

Ady relaxed. This was a huge high as he has had a mad few months at work and was in dire need of a holiday. We fell into a bit of a pattern most days of having a cooked breakfast in the static, wandering over to the beach for an hour or so, playing with the waves, making stuff with the sand and pebbles, flying kites and generally just enjoying being the four of us away from home together. Ady did do all of the cooking (breakfasts, bread making (which I will have you all know was used to make two small loaves a day and well worth bringing!!!) and dinner) but he enjoys it anyway, he also took over and relished the whole tea, bath, bed routine with the kids which was heavenly for me not to have to do. I really enjoyed having some one to one time with each child in the mornings. Davies and I went ‘sploring’ a few times on the beach following the sand dune trails while Ady and Scarlett played with the kites which was lovely, and Scarlett and I had periods of being together while Ady was off with Davies too. In the afternoons I also enjoyed being really rather neglectful and leaving most of the parenting to Ady 😉 We only went on one trip (the wildlife park one, which was fab!) which was also a good thing as normally on holiday we tend to rush around trying to pack in as much as possible so we did no more than one trip into Lowestoft and a couple of outings to McDs. This also made it a (in Nic terms anyway) fairly cheap week 🙂

Stuff which entertained me in one way or another.

Janey – and people either being desperate to ask her about famous stuff or being desperate to avoid looking like they were star struck. Found that very fun to observe 🙂 Layla and I were introduced to her but misheard her name so were utterly unsycophantic and just said ‘hi’ then were really impressed with ourselves when we found out who she really was. Ady is a bit of a fan so was quietly thrilled to be quite a hit with her boys and utterly delighted at the praise she heaped upon his potato salad! 😉 I did chat to her quite a bit at The Barbecue and having been prepared to sit through lots of ‘when I had dinner with Elton he said this’ type stories and them not appearing I really like her – and not cos she’s on the radio so there!

Davies’ justification for getting sodden in pond scented mud for the nth time having been told very clearly to go nowhere near them ‘well I thought this was a muddypuddle camp so I was only joining in’

Davies having leapt on me one morning and covered me with kisses and been asked why ‘we’re in kissingland mummy’

Scarlett having one of her own old before her time moments following in her brothers footsteps after climbing back down from a challenging climbing frame ‘it’s a bit tricky for me Mummy. I am only two’

Davies having walked past giraffes, lions, rhinos, ostriches and other exotic African plain animals ‘look Mummy, they’ve got DUCK!’ at the wildlife park.

Chris not bringing the poles 😉

James falling across the chairs at Sparkys when Alison tried to tag him.

Katy’s Becca wearing eye shadow. It was given to her by the neighbouring tenters and Katy thought it was equally funny 🙂

Timing my only jaunt to the swimming pool with arriving half an hour before it closed!

The Ben and Davies reunion. This was touching and emotional 🙂 Davies spotted Ben’s tent from Hesfes and was very confused to not find Ben in it! He had been told they would arrive at 4pm the next day and spent all of the day asking if it was that time yet. When they did arrive they spent all their time joined together and this time Tarly got in on the act and they were a lovely little threesome 🙂

Alexia pitching her tent and only going back to it at the end of the week to take it back down again 🙂

The Rant.

I’ve cogitated on this all week. It is in two parts really, the first is the barbecue and the second is the general vibe of ‘new people’ of which I am one myself (although I and everyone else forgets that!). But they are sort of intertwined. So I’ll do the general rant first.

Now this was my first Kessingland. OK I met lots of you at Melrose and HESFes, I blog a lot, I’ve been on various other meet ups which have developed individual friendships further and I probably don’t really fit into the shy and retiring category very well (infact probably even less well than I’d fit into a size 10!) but I still only had my own ideas of what to expect from it. I read what was posted on the camps list and was very aware that it came with the disclaimer that ‘It is not an organised camp, it is a group of families holidaying together’. There were three seperate days out planned, there were people talking of bringing stuff to do (basket weaving, scoubidouing, hair braiding, sewing, crochet etc) all of which happened on the two week days when there was not a trip planned and weather permitted, everyone in a static had a Muddlepuddle poster to display in their static window, the tents were obvious from the MP flag at Merry’s to the descriptions of tents and cars on the database to the much photographed children running around the area many wearing HESFES branded clothing 🙂

Now I did wonder a few times whether we were hugely welcoming, if someone new did wonder over we all introduced ourselves and made the circle bigger to accomodate anyone bringing a chair up but I imagine if you are shy it would be daunting to put yourself into the middle of a large group. For me it is easy and obvious, you bring a chair, some alcohol, have an idea of who will be there and maybe even have semi arranged to chat to someone you feel you might get on with in real life (posted to the list about looking forward to meeting them and chatting in real life, searched them out and had a pre prepared list of conversation topics or something!), introduce yourself with some point of reference as to who you are and then join in. Quite honestly if you and your children do not like large groups of people, will struggle to integrate without the aid of a Buddy (more on that later) and can honestly think of no activity to bring along which will facilitate people coming over to you then what are you doing there anyway, this was always destined to be your idea of a living nightmare. In which case you might have been better knocking on one of the doors of the statics with MP folk in them and trying to build some one to one friendships instead.

I am always annoyed by this attitude on lists whereby people join, get the first flood of ‘welcome to the list’ replies then proceed to post asking for help on every single thing they can think of. Neediness is a pet hate of mine anyway and I am often astonished that some of these people manage to stop short of posting asking what gas mark they should put the oven on for their tea tonight or whether everyone on list thinks their bath temperature is ok! So to bring that to camp and try and put some obligation on others for them mixing, mingling and having a good time really pisses me off. I made a point of saying hello to anyone who looked remotely Home Educatorish as we walked around, asked specifically if people were having a good week when I saw them around and mentioned the various crafty stuff going on and told people to come down and join in so I feel I did my bit anyway.

If there is genuine need for a more organised camp next year then I do think that such a thing is very easy to co-ordinate in advance but it does rely on people taking responsibility for it and offering something in return. A timetabled workshop of activities is all well and good but not if the weather wrecks it, the same faces are the ones bringing everything and running it meaning they don’t spend any down time with their own families doing laid back beach, swimming pool and not having to mind every minute, some sort of telephone tree for communicating last minute changes would need to be in place so that there was no one person feeling obliged to run around trying to find everyone and certain terms such as ‘communal’ ‘skill swap’ and ‘give and take’ would need defining clearly!

Which brings me to the barbecue. I think I may have been part of pushing this into a group thing really, there had been chat about doing something group-y and during one of the daytime sitting around Chris and Helen’s table we sort of decided Wednesday would be a good night as Helen would be around. I had debated with a few people as to whether we should all chip in and send one or two of us off to Morrisons or indeed whether I should try and compile some sort of who’s bringing what type list but it quickly became apparant that given the large group present and the different eating habits of everything, non carb, non meat, vegan, no dairy, no wheat, no fat, nothing except breastmilk, and so on that it would be better if people just brought their own and sat around together eating it. It did make sense for static dwellers to maybe bring salad stuff as they could make and store that easier, for disposable barbecues to be brought to cook on down there but it was basically a bring your own. I told everyone I met about it and was very specific in that it would be 6-6.30 start, at the tents, bring your own food and we’ll cook and eat it together. It was very much a hear this and pass it on type communication which of course is not particularly all encompassing but the best we could do really.

We were out all day Wednesday so missed the whole on again, off again bit about it but as I walked down to the tents with Tarly, Ady due to follow with the car, potato salad, beer and wine, 18 sausages, buttered and ketchuped rolls, paper plates, two disposable barbecues, chopped onions and Davies I certainly felt we brought all we could eat and more! Simon and Raymond did sterling work cooking everything, some people did bring crisps, salad, alcohol etc but a rather large amount of people brought sod all, sat on the chair belonging to others, drank and ate and then buggered off again. They didn’t bring food or drink, they didn’t bring chairs or tables, they didn’t offer any contributions, they didn’t help set up or clear up and they didn’t even trouble themselves to find out who to thanks for the expense and effort put in. Given that one of the best things about Melrose for me was the communal eating, the glow of cooking something which was enjoyed by many and thanked profusely for this was a bit of a shock to me. Frankly whether it was badly communicated or not (and we’re back to the above rant on that one), whether they thought it was some sort of laid on treat for them by the invisible Muddlepuddle elves or whether they are just poor and needy and thought it would be okay given the amount of food and drink laid on to not even say thank you was just fucking rude. Liggers!

Right, I’ve spent ages on this and am about to get dressed to go out so don’t have time to read it back to check whether it’s repetitive or coherant. My overwhelming feeling on the whole week was that it was fab. I love being with that group of people (that group being probably the ones who are reading this!), it was a genuine holiday for us as a family, we’ve all come back looking browner and rested, thank you so much to Merry for doing what she does to make it happen and I leave you with the shock news that after everything I have ever said next time we will be joining you all on the field in a TENT! 🙂

we’re back, but D is still awake and putting on ‘a show’ in his bedroom (and I only ever took him to sparkys for about an hour!), parents are here and a takeaway is due any moment.

Will be back tomorrow if not later with full details of the week. But in the meantime photos are on my flickr page – you know where to go 😉

but not nearly enough of it for my liking!

A mixed old day today really, up and out early (Tarly did a through the night til 5.30am ish which is a definite improvement – god in what alternate universe did that suddenly seem cause to celebrate then?!) to collect Mum to go into town.

She was on top form, had brought some clothes for Tarly with her, bought me a top while we were out, paid for a pressie in The Works each for the kids, paid for lunch and paid for ice creams 🙂 🙂 So I got a new top courtesy of Mum and then went into my fave clothes shop the Worthing branch of which was closing down and had bargains galore! Bought four tops in there (yes, I know finance blog is being very neglected and with good reason 😉 ) but we are going to a very posh new company launch (details of that after Kessingland!) so will be needing something suitable for Belgravia party!

Davies was totally horrid all day – found myself grabbing him roughly by the arm, putting my face very close to his and yelling at him about his behaviour being appaulling and him needing to sort himself out. Cue much tutting and looking from all around but hey…

TT2 was good if very very very unbearably hot. It was nice to have Mum witness Davies being so confident, social and ringleadering with all his little mates there – and to see how Tarly joined in and he looked out for her among the crowd too.

Back to their house for tea and Ady came there too, the threatened thunderstorms finally rolled in but were nowhere near as impressive as I was hoping for. Davies and I stood on the doorstep watching and muttering to each other about how if we were at home we’d have gone out to play in the rain but we knew that Granny and Grandad would not have let us back in the house if we were all wet!

Home and bed for the small people, I very lethargically packed (over packed big time actually which is what comes of having too many clothes anyway, not being sure of the weather, having people carrier with only 4 passengers so loads of extra space to chuck stuff in and just being Nic generally!), drank lots of wine, ordered a delivery kebab (first one I’ve ever had without being drunk on the verge of passing out and having come out of a nightclub – and this side of midnight!) so decided actually they are yuck! Ady ate all his though!

Planning to leave as soon as possible in the morning – 9am is the plan, 10am probably more likely. Need to stop at Cosco at Lakeside for wholesale supplies of wine, bottled water and chocolate croissants and aim to be there for 1pm ish. Know we can’t access out static til 4pm but can at least be supportive of people with tents, explore a bit and generally get in the holiday vibe – oh and do a food shop too 🙂

See you tomorrow! 🙂

Well quite a few of you anyway (sob, to those who won’t be there 🙁 )!

Had full intentions of blogging my list of stuff to do for (erk) tomorrow but ended up switching the ‘puter off and going to bed instead.

So:

Home:
cancel milk
check through fridge for food to be chucked as it will grow strange new cultures if left unattended for a full week while we’re away and we’ll return to a Dr Who style massacre in the kitchen
change cat litter tray and place new litter supply in obvious place for Dad’s cat sitting duties
ensure sufficient food and biscuit supplies for above also
tell other neighbours (already told one set) we’re away so they keep an eye on the place
go no mail on all lists
change beds for nice homecomming sleep

To buy
(probably on route now or even once arrived when nearest supermarket located)
tea
sugar (for guests)
milk
peanut butter
ketchup marmite
tins
pasta
meals for first couple of nights
wine
beer
ribena
bananas
apples
strawberries
cereal
crisps
bread mix
any other essentials we deem necessary when stood infront of them in the shop 😉

To pack:
for the caravan
potty
wipes
bread maker
coffee machine
phone chargers
laptop and charger and photo card reader
dvds
books
kids toys etc
blankets / fleeces
tissues
loo roll
bleach
kitchen spray
air freshner
washing up liquid
tea towels
cloths
variety of abrasive cleaning products for removing whatever make up and art stuff we bring from the soft furnishings in the caravan after Tarly redecorates!

To pack – for Davies
clothes and underwear and pjs for 7 days/nights
swimming stuff and sun suits
bedtime teddies / sheep / peter pan / snuggly jumper

To pack – for Tarly
clothes and underwear and pjs for 7 dayss / nights
swimming stuff and sun suit
dummies and Dora toys

To pack – for Ady and Me
Clothes and underwear for 7 days / nights
swimming stuff
towels

toothbrush, toothpaste, shampoo & conditioner, shower gel, deodrant, make up, nail varnish (!), my attractive headscarf ;-), razor, variety of hair ‘things’ including brush and dry shampoo, travel clock, contact lens stuff, eye drops

baby monitor

booking paperwork and route finder

sheet of who’s who from MPcamps database so I can identify new people I would like to make acquaintance with and blog about 😉

Birthday pressie for Emma (which I must also wrap up!)

crochet hook and some wool / whatever you crochet with (scoubies? 😉 ) to get ‘teeched’ to do it by one of you talented homecrafty folk

and anything else we can conceivably squash in the car (which I must fill up with petrol today also)

but don’t get used to it, it’s sooo not my style 😉

Another crap night’s sleep, stomach cramps gone (decided that having finally allowed my body to perform it’s actual function in baby making preparation naturally I am suffering the consequences and other erm, symptoms having been noted I have decided it was ovulation I was suffering from!), this morning we were out by 10am to the bank to move money about, to Tescos for picnic lunch, to Julie’s to sit and laze about while children slipped naked and ran around a garden for five hours 🙂

They did paddling pool, sandpit, chasing each other with the hose, painting outside. highland dancing (once taught by me, which I am sure would have been hilarious if caught on camera 🙂 ) and had a thoroughly lovely day.

Home via my parents to drop off Dad’s belated Fathers day gift (a Clinton Ford cd – mean anything to anyone???) to discover the three chrysallis I had been debating what to do with in light of Kessingland had all popped to make beautiful butterflies 🙂 🙂 🙂 Think I might well be more amazed and in awe of the whole miraculous transformation and process than the kids who are quite matter of fact about it, but we have done lots of drawings of them, picked flowers and fruit to put in with them, watched their wings dry to show the beauty of the colours and decided that we will let them go on Saturday morning before we go. Definitely going to do that again next year – have plans for the whole educational side of it like measuring the caterpillars each day, drawing and taking photos of each stage of the life cycle etc but have loved doing it just the same.

Ha, failed the five minute challenge, I’m back after dinner 😉

Kessingland list about to be done so will be back with a further blog shortly after reading everyone elses. Will Chris be coming to Kessingland? What is going on with Bead Merrily? Has The Portico party got a logo yet? Has Ali blogged about my day with her on Monday yet? Ros is excused as I know where she is today (hope it went well Babe x), did Sarah sell that car?

Ady has just asked if he’s been good today?(he knew I was blogging and likes to ensure he is getting good press!) I reckon the answer to that one is (as always!) a categoric YES but of course if he’d just get at least his first ever blog up on his photo blog he would be so much more part of the community 😉

Have I shouted today or have I shouted today? 🙁 And really it’s been way too hot for such high stress levels too.

Went into Littlehampton (local Chav town with lots of cheapo clothes shops – I go there when the need for retail therapy overcomes me and I know I can get a bagfull of clothes for about 20 quid! Also have lots of charity shops which are always packed with kids books for about 10p each, I always assume this is cos people there can’t read!). Got a few cheapie summer clothes for next week and had a really stressy time with the kids. We only actually went into four shops, it was under an hour altogether and although I did try stuff on in two of the shops and they are tired (another dreadful night with the minx last night) and it was hot, it was still inexcusably bad behaviour which they do know much better than 🙁 Fortunately Littlehampton is full of mothers smoking over their pushchairs, smacking their kids round the ears and calling them ‘yer little fucker’ so I still came across as a relatively mild mannered mother with my ‘will you just behave before I get very very very cross with you both’ being hissed at them. 😉

Home again and I made lunch which they didn’t eat, Scarlett kept either crying and apologising for doing something naughty, or going and finding something else naughty to do and Davies just kept getting caught up in it all. Jenny rang to say she wouldn’t be coming (I think her day was on a similar vein to mine – hope it panned out ok honey) and neither would another family, an email arrived from another group member to say she wouldn’t be coming so I went thinking it could well just be me and Julie at group today.

As it turned out it was me, Julie, two new families (both of whom are lovely and have 4 kids each but only one old enough to be at school), Anne who is a regular and has about 7 kids (5 with her normally) who run amok but were the most well behaved, docile, polite and helpful children there today, proving the pack mentality can effect even the most confirmed little angels and turn them to satans imps after all 😉 and Vickie who has a boy who goes to TT2 with Davies so he was happy. So it was a really nice little group today. We had three sets of twins, two Scarletts and mainly pre school or infant school age children who lapped up the paper plate weather charts made with split pins, windmills, rainbow and cloud collages with tissue paper and cotton wool and some general colouring. They spent a while outside where they played junior versions of run around yelling which is somehow slightly less offensive than the 9 and 10 year olds version while the six mothers chatted, breastfed (at one point three out of the six of us were doing that!) and took it in turns to sit outside semi-supervising the kids. I was being crippled with really bad stomach cramps / stitch type pains (unexplainable, very painful and if not gone in the morning will be taken to the docs) so did little more than sit quietly really, but it was another nice group. Themes are really working well and we sat talking about the theme for the week after Kessingland which is Egypt and they were all coming up with great ideas and volunteering to bring various bits and pieces to do, so that was lovely.

Arranged to go and see Julie tomorrow taking kids swimsuits with us for a day in their garden / paddling pool so that should be a nice relaxing one too 🙂

Got home and had a further horrid hour with the kids before Ady arrived, took one look at me and sent me to lie down while he took over. I read my book lying on the bed for a while and was on the verge of planning to get up and help him get them to bed when I must have fallen asleep as next thing I knew it was 8pm. Have brought in dry washing, pegged out the wet, Ady is in the garden cleaning out the car in preparation for Kessingland and has dinner all under control so I said I’d come in and blog about how wonderful he is – which he is, so here it is 🙂

Have done no Kessingland prep but for some reason am feeling I don’t really need to! Will aim to get some basic packing done tomorrow night and finished off on Friday night so we can get away early on Saturday morning before the day – and the car -heats up too much. Can’t wait to see everyone 🙂

Can’t believe I forgot to blog the main news of the day 😉

Whilst checking out details of the local theatres summer production for Home ed group what did I spy with my little eye lurking in the side bar of the website?

Yep that’s right folks, in the career lull before he took his rightful crown in ‘Hit me baby one more time’ Shakin ‘Shaky’ Stevens had booked a UK tour taking in the salubrious location of The Assembly Rooms in Worthing!!!

Frankly I feel it is fate that has led us to this destiny. Little did I imagine when I kissed my life sized Shaky poster goodnight every night as a small girl (went a bit overboard on that actually – it got all icky around the nose/mouth bit of the poster and he looked quite deformed eventually) that he would be such a big part of my future blog, that he would enjoy a career comeback and that our paths will cross here in my home town some 20 odd years later.

Having passed down the crown of Shaky-mania to my eldest born it is only right that he accompanies me to this musical feast so donning our best denim jeans and jackets combos, possibly wearing white shoes and blue tinted sunglasses, and singing our hearts out to such classic as ‘Oh Julie’ ‘You drive me crayayayayzeee’ and of course, ‘This ole house’ me and Davies will be there, later this year (just before Christmas actually) – better get busy with my scoubidous to make some sort of ‘we love you shaky’ banner for me and the boy to wave on the night 😉

After the disappointment of not coming to see Will Young or Michael Buble with me I think he is possibly more excited about this than me. But maybe only possibly 😉

so won’t waste any further brain time trying to 😉

A not a lot sort of day today really, this morning was taken up with chatting to Karen on the phone for nearly an hour 😉 while the kids played with Polly pocket, brio and ate about half a packet of shredded wheat. Davies can climb, via a stool onto the worktops in the kitchen and so access pretty much anything in the cupboards. This is a good thing as he can help himself to stuff which means I don’t have to get up 😉

I then spent ages and ages doing a logo for our home eg group – nothing fantastic but it just took forever because I was trying to do it in photoshop using the brush tool using my mouse pad on the laptop – Oh I do like to make life more difficult than it has to be 🙂 I then did some group organising stuff – wrote a newsletter to hand out tomorrow detailing all the themes for July, all the various other activities I’ve planned throughout August and got details for various trips and started to ask about group discounts (stuff like Drusillas and the local summer holiday musical show at the local theatre as a group matinee booking). I think we’ve got a lot on offer actually to keep continuity so that friendships can be maintained through the summer. Chris and Julie are hosting a barbecue at their house, we’ve got a beach picnic, a sports day event, the theatre trip and a wildfowl and wetland trip with pond dipping. Hopefully it will be well recieved and we’ll get good attendance. 🙂 Also sent the details to the Sussex newsletter early as I’ll be away next week and am trying to be organised 😉

Mum arrived in the midst of me doing this and went up to Davies’ bedroom where both kids were playing and joined in! Then I called them all down for lunch and made some playdough for them.

Ady arrived home early so Mum and I collected Dad and went over to see Granny in hospital. She looked really well and the op was a success. She should be home Thursday and we’ll go and see her when we get back from Kessingland. It was quite a nice couple of hours actually, I don’t remember the last time I was with Mum and Dad without the kids and it was very relaxing to be the daughter instead of the mother for a couple of hours 🙂 Dropped them home and arranged to see Mum on Friday for a last minute Kessingland bits trip into town and for lunch before TT2 (which as we won’t be doing TT1 anymore could now be refered to as simply TT).

Bath, dinner, catch up on emails and here I sit.

Tomorrow it is HE group and the theme is weather. I have a few half formed ideas which I need to work on in the morning and at the moment I still have Thursday free although we usually see Julie so if she is not busy I am inclined to think we might still end up lazing in her garden!

Ooh, I know what I meant to blog! Davies has a new ‘thing’ – Jesus! Not at all sure where it really came from or whether I am dealing with it in the best way actually. Although I have no belief in God or other religious ideas I am very interested in religion as a concept and I do want the children to be aware of others beliefs, practise respect and tolerance of them and indeed leave the door open for God to come in if they so wish 😉 So I have always referred to God, Allah etc as ‘what some people believe’. We have discussed Christianity probably a bit more than other religions mainly because there are so many more points of reference which crop up in day to day life. At Christmas and Easter we have chatted about the relevance in various customs and so on. Just recently he was asking about the cross so I explained about how Jesus died on one so now he is a cross spotter. The other day we were driving somewhere and seemingly out of nowhere he came out with ‘Mummy we live quite close to Jesus don’t we?’ those who know me and my beliefs well will understand why I nearly crashed the car 😉 turns out he was talking about the church around the corner from our house! I have got various books on world religions including one I got from the book people fairly recently called ‘what I believe’ which I must dig out and look at with him. Much as he shocks me with his worldly questions I do enjoy trying to work out what the ‘right’ answer is for him. Odd tantrums and challenging behaviour aside how tragic would it be for this little boy to try and take such questions and world observations to school in three months time?

But I refuse to complain about the heat as I *am* enjoying the lovely days out in the garden with the kids recreating all my halcyon memories of long hot summers of my childhood in paddling pools and sandpits living in swimsuits and eating food with sand in it – just wish the nights would be cooler.

Tarly was awake for HOURS last night – pretty much from 11pm til 4am. Poor Ady was up at 6.30am for work – I at least had a lie in (!) til 8. So the heat and the tiredness have given me a spacey looking at the world from a distance type feeling all day.

This morning I caught up on the blogs, deleted all the spam emails from yesterday while Davies played on the pc and Tarly did some bead threading (again!). As usual the morning went into some sort of black hole and we were an hour late getting to Ali’s..Fortunately she is just like me and dashes around getting the house ready to ‘recieve visitors’ with seconds to spare before they are due so had enjoyed sitting down waiting for us 😉 Due to my tiredness, Ali’s doped up on piriton-ness and the heat effecting the three children and making them mainly docile and apathetic we had a calm and low key time with them. I really like spending time at Ali’s, the kids seem to mainly slot in around each other, finding stuff to do upstairs, downstairs or in the garden leaving Ali and I to gradually tell our life stories to each other – all very pleasant 🙂

Left there and came home via Matalan where I picked up some beach towels and some cropped trouers for Ady who is desperate for clothes for next week. Arrived home only about ten minutes before he did and let the kids loose in the garden for an hour or so. Ady showered them and we put them to bed then I went back to Matalan to return the trousers as they didn’t fit and had a mooch round Asda for an hour buying some food bits for the week and looking for some cheap skirts but refraining from actually buying one – felt quite virtuous 😉

Tomorrow is my Granny’s birthday. She is actually in hospital having a routine knee op, she had it done on Saturday and should be out on Thursday. Mum and I had originally planned to go over there tomorrow lunchtime but I have since decided that as it is not anything life threatening it is probably a bad idea to drag the kids over. Their attention span will be all of about ten minutes before they start running amok and disturbing the rest of the ward and getting told off by me. So we are going over when Ady gets in from work and Dad is coming too. I had planned a Drusillas trip without realising what day her birthday and the planned trip was and it was only when Mum mentioned she had got the afternoon off work at the weekend that I realised – oops!

Tomorrow morning I have this vague plan to get organised for Kessingland and also sort my wardrobe out to get summery stuff to the front and winter stuff to the back. I would also like to get the sofa covers washed and dried and maybe even get the kids wardrobes sorted out too. Possible organising list appearing on this blog sometime tomorrow alert!

Still here – and contrary to what some of you might have been thinking it was not an absence based on anniversary celebrations 😉

So what have we been up to since the Friday morning blog then?

Friday was TT1 and TT2, finally made a decision about what to do re them as the fees for both were due and it totals £140. Have decided to knock TT1 on the head as of now. I just don’t think the kids are getting that much out of it, come September Davies will quite clearly be too old and as his TT2 class changes time and day anyway in September the Friday routine I had going will cease naturally. So my plan for September is to have Tarly’s TT2 class first thing, then home for a couple of hours, then back out to HE group before going straight back to TT2 for Davies’ class all on a Wednesday. That does sound quite pacled but bearing in mind that while Tarly does her TT2 Davies sits and looks at books or does colouring and while he does TT2 me and Tarly sit and play together it is only actually two things each they will be doing. What is nice about that is it will mean there is only one day we have tied down committments which will free us up to do other stuff. I’m also going to look into Badgers and swimming lessons for Davies in September, providing they are at times which mean I don’t have to hawk Tarly along too.

Friday night Ady and I went out to a work’s barbecue. It was an end of the season party for the foreign temp staff who work for them all season so there were not actually that many ‘real’ staff there. Added to that Ady only actually spends about one hour a week in the office anyway so he really doesn’t know that many people very well and it was a bit tricky trying to be sociable when no one really knew who we were! While I was getting ready Miranda had rung my mobile so when we were settled in with food and drink I text her to let her know where we were (background info – Ady and I both worked for Miranda until her business folded. Ady now works for her father’s company. Although he is well into his 70s and now takes a real back seat with the company run by an MD and board of directors he is still the owner so Miranda is still the ‘boss’s daughter!’). She rang me straight back to bitch about all the people who work there (and were standing nearby me while I was on the phone!) and she doesn’t like 😉 She was in a restaurant with her husband as it was the 10 year anniversary of them getting engaged. Told them it was also our 12 year anniversary so that was all very coincidental 🙂

Came home earlyish (10.30pm) with the intention of having a few drinks, catching up on BB and maybe enjoying other anniversary type pursuits but got home to find Tarly sat up wide awake with my Mum 🙁 She had woken at about 8.30pm just as Davies went to sleep so Mum had had a challenging evening and we ended up sitting with her til midnight at which point we both just fell straight asleep!

Saturday

I had my hair cut first thing which I always really enjoy. A child free couple of hours being pampered by having my hair shampooed and cut and blow dried (love having my hair played with), having flicky straight, just stepped out of a salon type hair for all of two hours til the heat curled it back up again and getting a fix of youth of today values and issues from the 20 year old hairdresser 🙂 Nikki still lives at home and has a boyfriend who she is either madly in love with or on the verge of finishing with. Yesterday it was break up planning as he had not replied to a text she’d sent! So I listened, sympathised, agreed with her all men are bastards rant (although I do know this not to be true 😉 ) and made tough decisions about my fringe and how much to have cut off the length!

Home for lunch and then over to Chris and Julie’s for the afternoon. It was Chris’ birthday so I’d made him a trifle – his favourite but as Julie doesn’t like it, he doesn’t often get to have it! He had got his marquee up in the garden (he used to work in the marquee business and still has a couple of small ones), the paddling pool, the sandpit and other various assorted kids heaven type toys so four naked children played very happily all afternoon while the grown ups lazed in the sun chatting, planning themes for WAG and drinking tea 🙂 Bliss.

Got home slightly too late to see the start of Dr Who so chose to watch the later showing which meant I couldn’t use the laptop incase I somehow found out the ending on a list or a blog – which is why I didn’t blog last night 😉 Spent my time instead scoubidouing – I’ve started sewing loads of them together to make a thong for the coffee table book. At last a purpose for all the multi coloured sprials and plaits and weavings which have littered the house for the last month 😉

Davies and I made another two trifles for today – one fruit and one chocolate orange before packing him off to bed, having pizza for tea and then finally watching Dr Who at 10.50pm.

Today

Happy Fathers Day 🙂

Up at 6am with the kids and we finished writing in cards for Ady and Dad, Davies drew Dad a picture as his pressie from Amazon has not arrived yet and Scarlett sat threading beads onto scoubidous (her current favourite past time). We gave Ady a lovely long lie in before taking him up coffee, cards and his pressies. He got a new barbecue this week
so his pressies were just a couple of books and a Yorkie bar (Davies loves the fact that they have the no ladies allowed sign on them, as this is his current thing – he draws all sorts of things we are not allowed to do, then puts a circle with a cross round them and posts them all around the house!). Kids got dressed into their swimming suits for the day 😉
Then busied myself sorting out food – finished the trifles, chopped carrots, peppers, celery etc, made potato salad and pesto pasta and a really nice fruit punch while Ady sorted the garden out with gazebo, paddling pool, tables, chairs and the barbecue. before my parents and brother arrived for the day.

We’ve had a lovely day really, Mum, Dad and Frazer all got to sit around and do not an awful lot; Ady got to play host and use his new toy, kids got to play in the pool all day: and I sat and did more of my thong! .
In between all this we did do some educational stuff too – I decided that Fathers Day was the ideal rite of passage day for Ady to teach Davies how to burn stuff using the sun and a magnifying glass so they spent ages out in the garden doing that 🙂 We also planted some runner beans – without canes and possibly too late but it was more about the playing with the compost and pots I think! Then Ady got out the crazy flower thing which you attach to the hose and it goes all wild and splashy – that was fun (and refreshing!) . We cooked some more sausages for the kids’ tea and then after a shower packed them off to bed, then we sat in the darkening garden and had more food on the barbie for dinner (pork chops, steak, jersey royals and pepper sauce for those interested!). Lovely 🙂

It’s been a really nice – if hectic – weekend, so nice infact I almost havn’t missed blogging 😉 back to twice a day tomorrow I suspect though!

It’s our twelth anniversary today. That’s the anniversary of the first time we, erm, enjoyed LI (sorry!). We’ve known each other for about 15 years but when we first met he was with someone else – I went to their engagement party actually, bloody good bash 😉 and I was going out with Will, who lived in the same rented house as Ady and his then girlfriend Dionne..

This photo is from a night we all had while we were still with the original partners – I would have been 17 and Ady would have been 27.

We got together shortly after he and Dionne split up (although I think it’s safe to say now it wasn’ t just a rebound relationship 😉 ) – I had just finished with the boyfriend who had moved back to Weymouth (you might remember him from the being sick inside my jeans in a nightclub toilet story earlier this year!) and Will (the ex from earlier) had moved in with Ady when Dionne moved out. He was getting fed up with him moping around and stopping him from having a good time pulling birds in nightclubs by being all morose and sitting staring into his pint muttering about being nearly 30 so he asked me to take him out and get him pissed one night to give him a break! (Will and I had remained on friendly terms, eventually, and infact as I recall we were going through one of our really very friendly periods at the time 😉 so I was happy to do him a favour).

So I took Ady out to Brighton for the night and we had a really good evening. We started going out most nights and after about 2 weeks he started to go all gooey on me and tell me he loved me and had always liked me even when he was with Dionne. I was 19 and planning to go to university the following year, had just finished this messy relationship with Weymouth bloke, was casually seeing Will and really rather enjoying being single. I was very clear to him that I was not interested, loved him as a mate but was certainly not in the market for a proper grown up relationship which was what he was wanting.

Anyway, as When Harry Met Sally taught us men and women do indeed struggle to be ‘just friends’ particularly when alcohol, late nights, and naughty intentions on at least one half of the couples part come into play. Hence the occasion we celebrate today!

Fast forward six months and we had bought the house we live in today, so somewhere along the line he convinced me otherwise on the whole going to uni, not getting serious, not ready to be a grown up thing 🙂

There was quite an outcry when we ‘went public’. We both worked at the same B&Q where I was known as the party girl out for a good time and he was known as the more mature, nice guy who had already had his heart broken by Dionne and really really should not be mixing with the likes of me. Infact one of the older women who worked there (and fancied herself as something of a surrogate mother to Ady on account of his not having one of his own!) even spoke to my Mum about it to ask her to ask me to be gentle with him!!! Everyone said it would never last, if I’m honest I probably didn’t even expect it to last myself.

Today, by pure coincidence Ady is at the same B&Q store we were working in back then. He is going to sit in that same staff room where our relationship was discussed and debated and judged later today and he intends to tell everyone – including the woman who spoke to my mum and still works there – that it is 12 years ago now, a marriage, two children and many, many happy memories and – Chris’ impending doom theory aside – we fully intend for it to carry on working, carry on being right and carry on being wonderful.

Here’s the sheep. At the moment he is called James (Davies’ middle name) although I suspect that could change 😉

He is not the most photogenic of sheep, and I’m no Chris with the camera anyway, but here he is:

Here’s a couple of Home Ed group this week:

And finally the pipe cleaner man Davies made to cheer me up when I was ‘grumpy’ the other day 🙂

Early morning – up before 7am but was still sat on the sofa in my nightie at 10! Managed to scramble round within half an hour to get me and both kids dressed, wash up breakfast dishes and hoover up breakfast crumbs before friend Lucy arrived at 10.30am to follow us to Soft Play meet up though 😉 I do work well under pressure!

The soft play meet up with a real life crossover session. It was an Activeo (the localish very big membership only HE group I belong to but rarely attend any events for), which Julie is also a member of so she was there too and I took Lucy along to show her the soft play and introduce her to some HE folk (she is a wavering and considering possible recruit. Infact I think that by getting back in touch with me again she is becomming quite a strong possible!). My two have been there a fair few times before so off they ran as soon as I de-shoe-d them. Scarlett was looking very ‘Hesfes’ today – she’d gotten hold of my hair wax this morning and plastered her hair with it so it was all dreadlocky, she had spilt ribena all down her top on the way over in the car (she was also wearing a mini kaftan and cropped trousers combo) and had on a beaded bracelet of mine reading ‘mummy nic mummy nic mummy nic’ just to set the outfit off nicely! So she blended right in!

I struggled to mix and mingle as much as I’d like today, actually, too many different cross sections there. I wanted to catch up with Julie on a conversation we’d started yesterday and not finished, I felt quite responsible for Lucy who is self confessedly very shy and nervous around people she doesn’t know, and I also wanted to catch up with some Activeo friends I’d not seen for ages for a post Hesfes post mortem and so on. Maybe this is what it’s like to be popular 😉

I was sitting trying to combine two of the three groups and laughing at this American guy who has the funniest life philosophies but is at least open to being ribbed about them when Davies came over to tell me there was an ‘merchunsee’ and that Tarly who had already taken off her socks and abandoned them somewhere (totally against Soft play law!!) had now removed her trousers AND NAPPY and was using her new spiderman type naked skin grip to climb UP THE SLIDE!!! Ah yes, my Tarly, the perfect example of a disciplined HE toddler (and Alison, you are soallowed to laugh as you recall my posts to UKPP when Davies was about her age! 😉 ) retrieved her and joked about the upside being her promising career in the circus before re-dressing her and going to order some lunch.

Kids had a whale of a time there as usual and actually both briefly fell asleep on the way home listening to Peter and the Wolf. I detoured past my parents old house (we lived there til I was 4) on a different route home only to note it was up for sale. Have spoken to my parents tonight and we’re going to arrange a viewing (which I know is probably cruel to those hopeful vendors but wow what a trippy trip down memory lane that will be to walk round the house my parents came home to after they got married and brought both their new born children home to after before leaving 25 years ago with my parents!)

Davies is still wearing a mental black armband about not being bought the sheep at the South of England Show at the weekend so I promised him I’d make him a cuddly sheep, so when Ady got home Davies and I whizzed into town to the fabric shop together and spent a very happy half hour in there. I had told him you used to be able to buy sewing kits of all sorts of cuddly creatures when I was a girl so he marched me up to the counter to ask the lady about them. They don’t stock them so off we went to choose white woolly material, black material for the face and legs, some stuffing, some eyes, some thread and some ribbon as ‘his’ sheep had a farmers blue tag through it’s ear which he wants recreated :-D. He chatted to the lady about the cutting of the material, told her what we would be making, talked her through all our purchases and then discussed with her the best variations of bagging up our purchases and they decided on two seperate bags both of which he carried to the car. He said thank you and goodbye to the lady and as we left I heard her and the other woman there cooing over what a lovely child he was *glow, pride, glow* 🙂

Ady took over feeding and bathing while I made a start on the sheep construction which I then took up to his bedroom and sat on his floor finishing it off and having a text conversation with Ros. He fell asleep so I tucked the finished sheep into his arms and he will wake to find it in the morning 🙂

In all, a lovely day 🙂

Tomorrow is TT1 and TT2 with yet another cross over of one of our HE group also going to TT2, and then straight into yet another manic weekend.

Sorry have not replied before but I was waiting until I could do a sandwich of the news 🙂

That chrysallis was the only one of five caterpillars which had made it to that state. It had taken nearly 6 weeks to get to it instead of the suggested 7-14 days while the other 4 inmates in his cup had passed away at various stages of caterpillarism. To be honest I don’t think he was going to go any further anyway….

so he didn’t 🙁 Today I released him back into the wild still within his (now very wrinkled and crusty cocoon) via the playroom window. Please don’t blame yourselves for this, I know you are vegans and avoid animal cruelty at all costs. I sincerely believe this had nothing to do with any impact he was subjected to having fallen – enclosed in his pop up butterfly garden – from the curtain pole….

So two weeks ago we took delivery of a new pot of caterpillars. Instead of putting them on the fireplace in the lounge (decided as the cause of the last pot’s collective demise due to direct sunlight, warm conditions and two small children shaking the pot about fourteen times daily) they were relocated to the shadier, safer and largely out of sight, out of mind environment of Davies’ bedroom. As per the guarantee (they promise 3 out of the five will make it to cocoon state) two fell back, shrivelled up and were no more but this morning we have three, healthy looking cocoons hanging waiting to be carefully and lovingly transferred into the pop up butterfly garden.

As an aside we wondered whether the caterpillars were aware of the 3 out of the 5 statistic and indeed whether there is a sort of Big Brother house type atmosphere in the caterpillar cup. As the first and then second one dies do the others work out their odds and start celebrating. What process is the death penalty worked out on? Do they self sacrifice? Is there weekly nominations put to some sort of outside vote? Do they kill the weaker one to improve their chances?

Anyway, please worry no more, lose no further sleep on the matter and go about your daily business safe in the knowledge that there are three brand new ones preparing their wings to soar free and beautiful in the memory of those who went before them and stumbled before their true beauty was exposed.

Or he’s got his Mummy back – not sure really, but whatever we had the promised Good Day today 🙂

Huge thanks have to go out to Jenny and Karen. Jenny rang me first thing and after a very interesting and potentially exciting chat about which we need to ruminate further without children around and then a really good HE group today it was so nice to have a local friend who I can really share a good empathise with 🙂 Spoke to Karen twice today – once for a chat and once to celebrate good news. Also provisionally arranged a get together in the summer which will be fab. Prior to the kids I never really did having girl friends and tbh it is probably only the last year or so that I have understood the value of – and indeed found some – having female friends, both online and in real life with certain crossovers and I’m revelling in it 🙂

So after my earlier blog I did indeed shut the computer down and the the phone calls took over. I then was in the playroom for a bit printing off some enchanted learning stuff for today’s group and getting various other bits and pieces together. Davies called me in the lounge having snuck off with some coloured pipe cleaners I’d brought him. He’d made a big collage of himself on the floor (reminiscent of a chalk outline of a dead body at a murder scene actually) with them on the lounge floor ‘to cheer you up Mummy’ 🙂 I did take a photo which I might upload later… Then while I was doing geomags with Tarly and paying no attention to him he had got crayons and paper and suddenly piped up with ‘a big E Mummy, that’s a straight line down with a line at the top, middle and bottom isn’t it?’ ‘yes’ said I and after a couple of moments he showed me a page he had drawn with lots of big Es and little es perfectly formed on it. He annouced it as his ‘E collection’ and he had also drawn an elephant and an egg on it 🙂 Totally unprompted, totally child led and autonomous and totally imaginative and correctly formed 🙂

We had lunch which both of them ate all of (sounds like a small thing but one of the really irritating things they’ve been doing of late is not finishing any meals even when I serve up what they asked for), Tarly did a poo on the actual toilet 🙂 , we made some playdough and then we headed off to HE group.

Another couple of new faces today and loads of really good activities. I dressed Tarly in a kilt (again I do have a photo for later) and we had playdough, lego, making cut and stick pictures of Nessie, junk modelling of Nessie, colouring of the Scottish flag and maps of Scotland, eating of shortbread and running around in the garden 😉 Both my two did the playdough and the cutting and sticking and then partook of the running around in the garden. Davies finally realised that little Andrew is the same child he sees weekly at TT2 and they played together all afternoon which was lovely and pleased me and his mum no end 🙂 I’ve checked with everyone that no one has any objections to me changing the times from September to accomodate Davies’ TT2 class so that’s good and it was lovely to stand surveying the group Jenny and I created in action, just as we envisaged it 🙂

On the way home we played Davies’ current favourite in car game – movie quotes. We take it in turns to quote a line from a film and the other one has to guess what the film was and who said it. OK so we are mainly doing Disney Pixar films but it’s still quite fun 🙂

Scarlett fell asleep sitting up next to me on the sofa but Davies took ages to get to sleep tonight – he kept coming back downstairs and making me and Ady laugh until about 9pm. He’s been lovable, loving, made me proud, made me laugh and given me cuddles and courage today. Had lovely chats with Ady about how well we think HE is going and what a success it is proving for Davies (and indeed how the whole socialisation thing is actually quite a joke!) particularly. Tarly had been challenging and shouted at a fair bit today but only in a being two kinda way and totally balanced out with cuddles and love and sorrys so all quite managable.

Tomorrow we have a HE meet up at a local soft play. Julie and the twins will be there and my longlost friend Lucy is coming along to meet some HE folk (she is considering it) and continue getting to know Davies and Scarlett for her Rebecca so that will be nice. Davies is still mourning not being bought the sheep at Ardingly on Saturday so I have promised him we will fashion a soft toy type sheep out of something tomorrow, so I expect that will be the other big event of the day.

Urgh, just read back yesterdays post and realised it was horribly whingy and self indulgent so will put that behind me and pull myself together again.

Really tired after going to bed at 11 for an early night but getting woken at 4am by Tarly and not really getting back to sleep but today will be a Good Day.

We’ve got Home Ed group later and the theme is Scotland. I have a couple of very weak ideas for actvities and plan to dress Tarly in a kilt but above and beyond that I don’t have much else inspirational to offer! Will take lots of colouring materials and get them to design their own tartan or something 🙂 After next week (theme weather so loads of mileage there) we’ve only got 2 sessions booked at the hall – the following week I’ve cancelled as both Jenny and I are at Kessingland and there is no one prepared to take responsibility for running it, collecting money and having the key (well there might be if I really pushed but I’d rather not be worrying about whether it’s all OK while I’m away so I think they’re meeting at soft play instead!) then three sessions during July before the hall gets used for something else through the summer holidays. The group has finally started to get somewhere so I hope the break doesn’t wreck all our good work. We still intend to try and meet weekly at other locations and I’m planning some sort of sports day type event for the first week out of the hall.

The kids are eating yoghurts and playing with Lego and watching Fifi the flowertots (can’t see the attraction other than a very annoyingly catchy theme tune myself but they seem captivated) so I’m off to get dressed, turn the computer off and Do Something Constructive with them for the rest of the morning. They need to do Ady’s Fathers Day cards anyway so that will be a good start.

The rest of it? I think a holiday is long overdue really. This last four months have been what Ady’s work call ‘The Season’ – the manic period of the year, so he has been working long hours, we have been filling every weekend with something and we’re both just worn out. We’re really looking forward to Kessingland as the chance to relax a bit, spend some time with friends, enjoy watching the children with their friends and get a bit of time to ourselves without family thinking that if we are not working then we should be spending time with them.

Hopefully once we get back Ady’s work will slow down and I can spend a bit of time getting some of the stuff like writing an Ed Phil, planning the structure of our week a bit for September and maybe even doing something about my own dreams.

Back later to report what a splendid day we have had 😉

Yep, they’re both very very trying. To be fair this might be more about my state of mind than anything specific they’ve done wrong but they have driven me quietly (well quite noisily actually) insane today 🙁

This morning they played with duplo, Bob the Builder toys, jigsaw puzzles, watched Mary Poppins and joined in with the songs and dances and were generally quite self entertaining.

My Granny (the one who previously always mentioned my weight but now doesn’t do that anymore and is instead a huge champion of my parenting style and the whole HE thing – turnaround or what?!) came over for a couple of hours and the kids cuddled up to her on the sofa while she looked through photos of HESFES, various ones from the last couple of weekends and commented again on how much we do with the children and how great she thinks it all is. Makes me feel quite glowy to get that sort of praise actually 🙂 Then she looked at the photos with our trip to the Dogs over Ady’s birthday which brought on Davies getting out the megablocks and constructing his dog racing track and dogs again. He had remembered all the phrases (‘ladies and gentlemen we have two minutes, two minutes to the off’, ‘the hare is moving’ and his personal favourite ‘it’s a photo finish’ – hilariously when he was running around with one of his mates at TT2 he taught him to say ‘it’s a photo when they drew in their races and the little mate says it every week with everyone wandering what he is on about and me choosing to keep quiet rather than explain my 4 year old is using terminology from a race track!) and even collected money off us as bets which he redistributed according to whose dog won 🙂 As my grandfather (her ex husband) had some pretty big gambling habits at the dogs and indeed my own Dad has been quite a gambler in his day my Mum and Granny are not so keen on the dogs or gambling in general so it could have been icky but she was so impressed with his recall abilities that she let it pass 🙂

She left and we headed out with no particular place to go so ended up spending money on some more scoubidous and some craft bits and pieces before coming home and letting them loose in the garden for a bit.

Ady arrived home fairly early so I escaped to the library and left him to feed them and wind them down a bit. As a teen I spent many many happy hours sitting in the peace and quiet of the library. I relish calm and silence. In my parents house there was always slammed doors, shouty voices and if there was silence it was a heavy angry one. I always swore when I had my own house it would not have that sort of atmosphere and indeed it does not, but I do struggle sometimes with the chatter and general ongoing noise that two children bring. Ady loves music and TV noise (his childhood was the opposite in terms of noise association and he finds comfort in background chatter) so total quiet is a hard thing to find in my house. So I took a pile of books off the shelf on handicrafts and sat upstairs in the reference area totally alone and relaxed for half an hour before returning to the fray!

I fear I am turning into a bit of a Joyce wannabee (trust me that is in a complimentary way!) although there are various others among you who are knitting / crochet / cross stitch queens so maybe it’s just the company I’m keeping 🙂 But I have really enjoyed getting the hand of the various scoubidou knots. I do find it a bit pointless though- my keys have keyrings, mine and Scarlett’s arms are full of bracelets and I have done various little figures for Davies and now my bag and the house is just cluttered with little plaits of various colours and designs. I quite like sitting fiddling with something, it is very theraputic but I sort of feel it would be nice to be doing something a little more constructive with something more usable at the end of it. I don’t think I am a knitter – aside from anything else I quite like that a scoubi can be done and dusted in a short while – and is easily put down and picked up and not too wreckable if Tarly gets hold of it. I have brought home a pile of books on stuff like basket weaving and working with raffia which might be a similar sort of skill so I will have a further look at that. I also have in mind that it might be nice to make something which would be suitable as a gift or even to sell and make a bit of cash from.

Feeling a bit down about Miranda today. She has sold her first ‘how to run a grotto manual’ which is basically a pulling together of all the various documents I wrote over the couple of years I worked for her and we ran two Christmas Grottos. She has been asking me to email across various things which I have done and she rang me today to ask if I would proof read what she’s done and add anything else to it for her. Now I know I could bill her for the couple of hours work it has taken me to find the stuff she wants – and to read it but that’s sort of not the point. I am feeling really wobbly about the fact that if I could make money out of one single thing through choice it would be writing and now it looks like Miranda is going to be doing just that – making money out of my writing. This is not about resenting her or being upset with her more about being upset that I fail to manage it really. I tried to talk it through with Ady but he only made me feel worse by giving me the cruel to be kind speech about how I could have made a lot of money on various skills by now if I could only apply myself and see through what I start. Which is actually fair enough, my road to hell is paved with good intentions. Oh I don’t know, I just feel sad about it in some way. I am a crap self- manager, what I need is someone telling me what to write about and paying me for the finished product but the market just doesn’t work that way 🙁 In much the same way I feel I keep sitting down to blog only to find that another day has passed where I didn’t work with Davies on letters or numbers and I didn’t start challenging Tarly more – I do worry that HE will end up as one of those things I started with all good intentions to do regularly but never quite got round to. D’you know the only thing I have ever managed to keep to is diary writing as a teen and blogging the last couple of years – and that is a totally selfish act as I enjoy doing it and it doesn’t feel like a chore. There is no expectation on me – if I didn’t do it ever again no one would nag me, no one would be chasing my tail over it so there is no pressure… it’s also something I couldn’t do better at really. I sit down, type it out and press send. I don’t edit it or even read it before it goes, I don’t plan it and it very often wanders far away from what I first had in mind when I started the title but it’s hugely theraputic and I do get withdrawal symptoms of needing to tell strangers my innermost thoughts in the supermarket if I can’t get to my computer to do it 🙂

it’s the new two!

Davies is being very testing at the moment. I could put it down to all sorts of things really; he’s tired (I *hate* hearing parents use that reason to justify bad behaviour but he genuinely is, he is going to sleep really late and waking really early, I think it’s the long daylight hours messing with his head or something); reading back over the last month or so’s blogs we have been really very busy of late; there is that theory of a big testosterone rush at about his age in boys; he is phyching himself up for starting school in three months although he won’t actually be doing so; the heat is getting to him; he has an evil cow of a mother who is constantly nagging him – oh I don’t know! But anyway he is a challenge at the moment.

It’s always slightly harder to swallow bad behaviour from Davies given his previously good track record. If I hadn’t been ‘blessed’ with the minx that is Scarlett two years after having him I could well be on my way to my fourth child rearing the Nic way for success self help parenting manual with a spin off TV series on BBC3, such was my smugness at my child who didn’t do tantrums, went to bed on time, was polite and well mannered and constantly being a credit to me. Of course I now know this had little or nothing to do with me 😉 but I still find myself only just stopping short of telling him to ‘stop acting like a child’ and reminding myself he is *only* 4 when he cries for the slightest thing, acts in a way he knows is likely to get him told off, or simply does not apply the logic and intelligence I know he has in large amounts before he does something silly.

So today he was already on at least his 17th ‘I’m warning you for the last time’ by the time we loaded into the car (late!) to go to Ali’s. When we got there the kids headed straight through her house and into the back garden allowing me and Ali to drink tea and catch up a bit. Then we went to their local park for a picnic lunch where he continued to rampage being cheeky to me, horrid to Tarly and irritating to Freya. 🙁

Back to Ali’s for a quick cup of tea before we came home and Scarlett and Freya tussled a bit over some crayons just to round off the acting up stakes. Just as well we’ve all met before and didn’t need to be on best behaviours so we wouldn’t come away thinking each other had horrid children 😉

We got home about ten minutes before Ady who then went back out again to collect his new barbecue – expect this piece of machinery to play a big part in the rest of our summer! – leaving me to feed the kids in the garden. I caught Davies sprinkling handfuls of grass over Tarly’s tea so sent him back in the house in disgrace just as Ady came home again. Decided I’d had enough of everyone so buggered off to Tescos (and wandered round M&S which is next door to it, trying on and buying a couple of new bras 🙂 ) just getting home in time to kiss and make up with Davies before he went to sleep.

Finally put away the clean washing mountain which actually had remnants of the post Hesfes washing I’d done it’d been sat there that long, and changed our bedding, had a bath and cooked dinner before finally sitting down at about 10pm 🙁

Still ruminating on all sorts of things, trying to plan various jaunts around and about over the summer and whether we can indeed do all the things I’d like to do. Would also love to be hospitable down here if anyone would like to rough it near the seaside for a stay (not huge amounts of space but Ady cooks well and I am generous with alcohol 😉 ) – and there’s no weeding to be done 😉

Anyway, I *think* my granny is coming over tomorrow at some point, I’d like to make a trip to the library and I think Davies might benefit from some sort of structured task like activity particularly if I can distract Tarly with something else and spend a bit of time with him myself. I think we both need him to enjoy some praise and me being proud of him over something to balance out today a bit. I’ve also got at least 10 emails I need to either get sent or reply to, I *need* to get my head round something on my online course before I get struck off it, I owe Joyce an email to explain why I’ve not emailed (!), I need to sort out some activities for HE group and Miranda is on my tail again hassling me for various things which I should probably detail and send her an invoice for aswell…