One word? When seven would do…

Well actually it was Good, well actually it was pretty bloody great but I do think we are just too into labelling things; kids, days, food etc. Let’s face it you give something a positive label and it might get too laid back about it all, might not strive any higher and who wants to be happy and content with just ‘good’. On the other hand you must be clear not to aim too low, give something a negative or less than chipper label and it might become a self fulfilling prophecy and who wants that sort of behaviour from a day. Have we learnt nothing, NOTHING people from Ruby Tuesday? 🙂

Anyhoo, today was one of the good ones 🙂

Pox count is well into the 30s and has reached down to ankles and wrists and up to inside ears 🙁 None as yet on his face but I guess it’s just a matter of time. No sign on Tarly which is probably to be expected. She will of course wait until full quarantine is over without the smallest pox and then two days later go down with it having caught it from a random child on the other side of the road, or from a library book or by stroking a dog who was previously stroked by the grandmother of a small child who sits next to someone at school who has the pox. Or something.

This morning after a nights sleep (hurrah, woo hoo, she did it, she did it, she did it, yeah etc!) I was on a bit of a housewifey trip and did a very good job of cleaning and decluttering the bathroom, dusted my desk, found the bottom of my in tray and got as far as carrying the duster and polish upstairs ready to do our bedroom tomorrow. Then Granny arrived.

Now you may recall my Granny from previous postings. Infact I am now certain that one of you has been talking to her. For not only was she actually quite a pleasure to have around; brought appropriate confectionary for the children packed in small bags with cuddly easter bunnies (pink for Tarly, blue for Davies) and managed to look after them for two five minute periods while I hung washing on the line; she also did not once mention my weight. Yes that’s right folks, there was no reference whatsover for nearly three whole hours to my figure. At all. Clearly you don’t get to nearly 80, go through 2 marriages, have two children, four grandchildren, two great grandchildren, go through your entire life totally devoid of tact and suddenly discover it down the side of the sofa. So someone must have been talking to her and mentioned that the fact she hassles me about how much I weigh is going to be her ultimate downfall and she should stop. Now. So come on, who was it?

I was so thrilled by this unexpected turn of events that I let her stay for lunch 🙂 And as I had planned to make butter with the kids to spread on the hot cross buns for lunch she got to witness Home Education In Action too 🙂 I had been meaning to do it for ages, I’ve had the screw top tupperware in the cupboard for weeks, one lot of cream has been eaten instead of shaken and one has actually been chucked as they neared and passed their BB dates but motivated by Alison’s HE group today I had boiled some marbles for agitation and was ready to shake! We did two lots, one for Tarly and one for Davies. Of course what happened was I did them both 🙂 So first we got whipped cream – opened the jar, all had a taste and a feel and talked about texture etc (also all had a shake and could not hear the marble or the liquid swishing any more), then it seperated into butter and milk (or curds and whey or whatever it seperates into!) so we all gathered round as I strained it through muslin into a jug, Tarly drank the strained milk (although everyone had a taste) and we all ate the (delicious) butter on our hot cross buns 🙂 See when I do do HE, I can do it properly 🙂 Much discussion about properties of the milk through the various stages, what we did, where we get milk from, what other products we make from it (would love to have a bash at making cheese, must look into how feasible that would be), taste, smell, look, texture etc of the milk / cream / butter etc as it went through it’s changes. And what a fab example of how we do HE for Granny to be a part of too 🙂

The kids spent the morning playing with the pretend food, which also impressed her as they know all the names of the exotic fruit and vegetables even though they don’t necessarily eat them. Scarlett identifying things like broccoli, asparagus, celery, avocado etc was quite impressive I guess 😀 They also had the till and money, cheque book, calculator and the number scales out and Davies was doing a very good job of knowing all his numbers, sort of grasping the idea of 2 + 8 being the same as 10 and so on. He also understood what the + sign meant – so small steps but steps just the same 🙂

After Granny left we whizzed over to Tescos. Having started with the whole winter clothes clear out thing I was keen to get Davies sorted with shorts and T shirts ready before shops sell out of everything (I know some of you were bemoaning swimsuits only being available from January to March and woolly jumpers only on sale in August recently. It is true and having worked in clothing retail I am also aware that if you don’t buy it out of season you have no hope of buying it when the season kicks in). Got him kitted out with shorts, T shirts, 3/4 length trousers etc at bargain prices 🙂

Once home we read some of our Life Story book and the page at the end talking about Eric Maddern’s other books got me on amazon buying up a further three of them (with a Dr Seuss to make up free delivery 🙂 ). There is one called Death in a nut which looks ideal for Davies in explaining death as a concept he will grasp. Not something we have dealt with IRL yet but I will try and get the book so we are ready when we come across it. Also bought tickets to go and see Michael Buble when he comes to Brighton later this year. I guess that officially makes me a housewife really. I have not seen him marketed as such but given his Parky heralding and radio 2 airplay I would guess he qualifies as a ‘housewives favourite’ 🙂 Don’t care, I like going to see stuff like this and it justifies getting Mum and Dad to babysit in a way that a meal at the local steakhouse for me and Ady never quite seems to 🙂

And then shock, surprise, can’t quite believe it myself after all the 7pm arrivals the last couple of weeks Ady arrived home at 4pm just as I was gearing up to start shouting at the kids. Spur of the moment we packed the kids into the car and drove down the road to the local park. It used to be a lovely place when I was a kid as it has a massive lake which used to have motor or pedal boats on it, donkey rides and fairground stuff in the summer and so on. Now it is a bit depleted (and the lake is full of toxic weeds so the boats are a thing of the past for fear of small children falling in and being stripped to the bone with acid burns) but it does have trampolines, rocks to clamber on, pitch and putt golf, go-karts, a mini train and sea views 🙂 One of those things you only realise how lucky you are to have on your doorstep (at grown up pace you could walk it in ten minutes) when you hear someone enthusing about how great it is. Kids were surprisingly shorts of ‘I want’ s so we walked around, did some clambering on rocks and some running (kids obviously, not grown ups!), some holding hands (quite cutely the kids did this with each other quite a bit and me and Ady did some too (although possibly not so cute to the independant observer!)). Davies got his much wanted / needed one to one with me and entirely at his instigation we ‘played’ Zoombinis on the rocks – they were the allergic cliffs and decided whether we could cross depending on what we were wearing – Davies got sneezed off for having chickenpox and I got sneezed off for my green top 🙂 Which meant I had to take the upper path – all irrelevant if you have not enjoyed Zoombinis yourself but amazing considering how much I had thought he had taken in from it compared to how much he actually demonstrated he had learnt from it today.

A short play in the playground – Scarlett as ever clambering up things only a seasoned mountaineer with a foil blanket, a rucksack and a good supply of kendal mintcake would attempt in the way of climbing frames, Davies watching in wonderment at his smaller, younger sister doing so, shaking his head like a grandad at her foolish youth 🙂 Davies did well with rope ladders – his new skill and spent ages on the swings telling me about how he might bump his head on the moon and that he was swinging so high he could see Africa with tigers and elephants and Australia with koalas and kangeroos 🙂 Gotta love that random conversation reinforcing that some educational content has gone in style ed eh?!

Despite Ady’s obvious horror I decided ice creams were acceptable as tea and that’s what they had (they had both eaten good breakfasts, homemade buttered hot x buns, apples and bananas). Whilst Scarlett was still demolishing hers Davies asked me to go with him on ‘An adventure’ so leaving Ady and Tarly there off we went. Not far, just round a corner walking alongside the end of the lake, round the corner and back again. It was where Ady and I once sat many years ago when we were a very new couple and talked about where we thought we’d end up. So very odd – to be walking there with the answer to that question about 13 years later! I told Davies this and instead of being in awe by this information he asked if we could pretend to be me and Daddy and be married and walk along together (much to the amusement of a couple who were sitting on the bench, probably having their own similar conversation!). Then we rejoined Ady and Scarlett and came home.

Kids were bathed, three Dr Seuss stories were read to Davies (2 by Ady, 1 by me, apparantly I do it better 😉 ) and lasagne and wine consumed 🙂 A very Good Friday indeed 🙂