Brief Catch up…

So you know that I haven’t been repossessed and the children posted up on ebay more than because I’ve got anything much to say.

Loads of stuff going on in cyberworld at the moment, none of which I am going to get involved in. Aside from not being emailable I am no mail on all lists anyway and will probably remain that way for a while. I know I was heavily involved in the beginning of all the crap but I am removing myself from any further part of it. I love blogging and will carry on doing so but as someone said to me recently we all have lessons to be learnt from what has gone on and mine is to stick with the friends I know and quietly withdraw from the rest. While all the playground stuff continues I have a real life to be leading, with real life grown up problems to deal with, real life family to be spending time with and real life friends to be socialising with. I am all the more aware of how ridiculous it all is given the real life traumas and problems I know several of my close friends to be going through currently. I am very aware of what a life crisis really is and what it quite clearly isn’t.This is not directed at anyone, if I have a problem with someone then they know about it directly and without audience so please no one get paranoid about anything I have put above, I just wanted to issue a general bulletin about my stance on the whole thing as I imagine somehow somewhere my name is still being trailed through the mud and it does not deserve to be. I never did do anything wrong and I still have not.

So, the laptop. Well another lesson learnt there really. Well two actually – one for me being Do Not Leave Your Laptop Balanced On The Arm Of The Sofa. Tarly’s lesson being Do Not Loll About On The Sofa When Stuff Is Balanced On The Arm Of It!

I shouted, she cried and was very very sorry (and yes it was partially her fault, although it shouldn’t have been there I had just specifically told her NOT to get on the sofa because in a moment of premonition I realised what would happen if she pulled her usual trick of leaping into my chair the moment I exited it!).

So down it fell, landing on its side. The side with the wireless network card sticking out, which very quickly was sticking out no more. The laptop itself seems fine although the card is not working and when I tried to wiggle it about the screen went all funny and it turned itself off 🙁 It is covered on the house insurance and a man is coming to collect it shortly. He has told me hopefully the connection is bent and can either be straightened out or a different method of wireless connection sorted, but worst case scenario something inside is damaged irrepairably. As I say the house insurance does cover it – although there will be an excess to pay which we can ill afford at the moment 🙁

So yesterday was a fairly crappy day really. We were home all day but instead of the delightful happy family day I had been planning we went far from that trail . We did build the city but with lots of infighting between the architect and the surveyor. I withdrew and tidied up the playroom – we cannot find the main adaptor / charger for our portable dvd player which is driving Ady insane. Did get rid of one bag for the charity shop and one bag of rubbish from there though which was good (not sure how really, we’ve not bought anything new since the last time I sorted it out so why did I not see fit to lose that stuff before?) and also uncovered at least four things for each child which have either been given as pressies before and forgotten about in the excess of previous Christmasses and a couple of things which I had bought and stashed without actually ‘giving’ to them (a really nice art set each which I think I bought before we went on holiday once and decided at the last minute to not take) so they have been put aside to wrap for Christmas 🙂 – to quote Heather environmentally friendly and economically frugal 🙂 Win, win!

Mum came over late afternoon and went through the Argos catalogue and the ELC website and I showed her the bits and pieces I had been planning to get for Tarly’s birthday and Christmas (we’d already got most of Davies’ pressies already for some reason) and she is going to get them from her instead. Not ideal as of course they won’t be ‘from us’ but at least she’ll get them and that’s what really matters.

Still going to London tomorrow although that is proving something of a headache too. I’d downloaded loads of stories to read today to Davies about Dreamieland but they are all on the illfate laptop – so we’ve had to improvise and chat about it all instead. He currently insists he’s not going to talk to the TV people anyway although he does want to go and is looking forward to it! Ady was supposed to be working from home to look after Tarly and now he probably can’t which means yet another favour asked of my Dad to be here tomorrow (taking money off him and preventing him from going out to earn it in the first place – such a great daughter! 🙁 ) and I havn’t even considered what to wear yet!

We’ve been to Tumble Tots for Tarly this morning where she did really well and we’re home for lunch, laptop collection and Dad coming over to sub me money for the train tomorrow (which I will get back at least!) and then we’ll be heading back out to Gym Bobs for Davies. The sun is shining and I am feeling positive again after a crappy day yesterday. Which of course means the TV is bound to blow up just as we settle down to watch Lost later 😉

It never rains…

Will blog properly tomorrow but for information, due to a mishap with the laptop I don’t have email access atm. I can access my blog and probably will do again in the morning but any emails sent to me after about midday won’t be read until the laptop is back up and running -hopefully by the end of the week.

Didn’t know what I wanted to be…

I seem to be doing a big old life shake up at the moment. Brought on by the whole finances thing I have decided that a policy of honesty and doing what is right for me, Ady and the children is my top priority. Not sure it’s ever been anything different really but I have been a bit dragged under by real or imagined obligations which needed shaking off.

Last night I sat planning what to take to Home Ed group with the same Sunday night, back to school in the morning dread I thought I’d left behind years ago. This morning I woke up and realised that I don’t have to go to group, we don’t have to stick it out til the end of the year at all if we don’t want to. So I rang Julie to pre-warn her what I was about to do and headed off to group to tell them that it would be our (as in me, Davies and Scarlett’s) last week. As I sat there trying to pluck up the courage to say it Vickie whispered to me that her and her husband had been talking and felt it was pointless just running for the rest of the year eating into the small kitty which remains to pay for a hall which no one comes to so I told her what I was about to announce and when I did Hayley imediately said ‘well let’s just call it a day today then’. So that’s that. I started the group and I finished it 🙂

We all agreed that it would be sad to lose touch and not give the children the chance to continue the friendships so we’ve made an informal plan to meet at the local soft play every other week and maybe various other free or very cheap locations on an ‘if you’re there, you’re there’ type basis. Feel very relieved 🙂

The group, thanks to Hayley, was the best one we’ve had in a while an excellent craft idea. She’d loosely based it on Diwali and using the sticky side of self adhesive vinyl floor tiles we put a coloured card border round and then used coloured rice to create pictures. The rice was just uncooked rice with food colouring shaken in it and left to dry and we made some lovely pictues with really bright colours. Might try it at home, particularly liked the idea of the self adhesive tiles – no mess sticking is always a winner for me! 🙂 Hayley also baked some scones with the older children (Davies included) which we then ate with butter and jam and the smaller ones played with various stuff including our parachute which I bought way back last year and had never taken out of the box before. Not sure when it will have another outing out of the box really, but it went down really well with all the children and has excellent arm workour potential 😉

Back home the children have pretty much been left to their own devices this afternoon while I went through various paperwork and made some phonecalls. They dragged out a box of random toys this morning which included some rod and shapes snap together toys, the sticklebricks, some cuisenaire rods and some threading cards and they have found sufficient in there to entertain them all day.

Tomorrow I have just planned with Davies that we’re going to build a city. We’re going to use the wooden train track, the various blocks and lego to build houses and stuff, the toy cars, the plastic animals and no doubt various other stuff as we think of it. I also really really want to sort the playroom out (again!) as I know there is stuff which could go over to my parents for spare toys over there, there is stuff which could be ebayed / charity shopped and new stuff which has probably not been looked at since it was presented to them last Christmas!

The weekend

Which was kind of nothing like the last one. On account of not having any parties or houseguests and only the two of us for Ady to produce a roast dinner for tonight!

We’ve spent both days at my parents house as Mum was off yesterday and so was Frazer. So we’ve been fed lovely lunches, Ady’s got to sit and watch Sky Sports with two other people who do give a damn about football results, the kids have enjoyed having additional playmates in the shape of Mum, Dad and Frazer and played the toys over there to pieces. There is a selection of stuff which we didn’t have room to keep over here and some of mine and Frazer’s old toys (playmobile, Fisher Price play people, duplo etc) and loads and loads of space to run around and put on shows and stuff over there so they’ve been in their elements.

I’ve spent most of the two days in the kitchen, drinking endless tea, enjoying the peace of not seeing the children for hours and just administering occassional cuddles when they come and demand them. I’ve been a little vague about it but we are in the middle of a bit of a financial crisis which has been a long while coming really. I won’t say any more only that hopefully it is in hand and my parents are being very helpful so a lot of this weekend has been ‘crisis talks’.

Yesterday Davies and I snuggled up with the computer for a while and I showed him some websites about Bonfire Night and the Gunpowder Plot – which ended up encompassing various other conversations including Catholics and Protestants, Parliament and cellars! Later at my parents I tried to show off and get him to re-tell them what he’d learnt. I asked him what the man had been called and he said ‘James’. No not James said I, Yes actually Mummy, King James – that was who Guy Fawkes wanted to blow up! :-). Ady and Davies spent about an hour in the garden last night watching fireworks and this morning he made loads of pictures and drawings of them and then him and Scarlett did some lego creations too. So plenty of learning through play and general chit-chat ed too.

This week is looking fairly quiet – we’ve got the ill fated WAG tomorrow – I’ve totally decided I’ve had enough and will not be continuing after Christmas – we’ve got an evening meeting on Wednesday night where I will tell the others and I would imagine that will spell the end for it really. I know Julie won’t bother anymore which only leaves 3 of them. Vickie I will arrange to see fortnightly or similar as I really like her and Davies and Scarlett really like her little boy Andrew and the other two I will stay in touch with and maybe try and set up a monthly soft play date or something. That will make our only committment Tumble Tots on a Wednesday which leaves the rest of the week free for various get togethers with friends (Ros, Ali, Vickie, Julie, Lucy, Rachel, Mel) and more time at home doing stuff which I have a bit of a hankering for at the moment anyway and certainly through the winter I think the children will enjoy. They are both showing signs of being ready for something more than unstructured play and I think some more crafts and stuff would be ideal – first project will be handmade Christmas gifts for everyone! 😉

Aside from Tumble Tots the only other thing planned for this week is a trip to London on Thursday for me and Davies. We are going to TV studios for a new Sky channel called Sky Baby to be part of an interview Miranda is doing about nightnight.com. We have to pretend to be one of the first subscribers to the stories and Davies will do his little bit about how much he loves all the characters etc. I’ve not told him yet just incase it is cancelled last minute (as these things so often seem to be with Miranda) but if we go it should be a nice little adventure and great to have a day just him and I. Miranda has also said she’ll buy us lunch which is never something to turn down 😉 and of course if the website really takes off there is always the chance of work for me too 🙂