We were geared up for another at home day today but a text message from Lucy at 9am to see if we were free and wanted to get together was very welcome and after some debate as to what to do when we were both broke we ended up heading round there for the day with options of the beach or the park if needs be. On the way there we had further chats about creation vs evolution which has really captured Davies’ imagination atm, I did a very brief summary of Genesis for him with a promise to dig out a bible (which I’m not at all sure we even have a copy of here actually) and read him some of it to explain it all a bit better. I know we have got various bible story books here but we might have to have a trip to the library for a childrens’ bible I think, or even a standard one actually!
Usually Rebecca is fairly shy around us even though we’ve been meeting up for a year and as they are more usual to come to us than us to them she is frequently wrong footed by being in Davies and Scarlett’s home and finding it more tricky to break into their sometimes inpenetrable games.
Today though the three of them found plenty to play and were off pretty much the whole time as a trio, with Richard toddling behind while Lucy and I managed some really lengthy conversations about all sorts of things which was lovely. One of the nicest things about Lucy is she knows my parents so well, and has known me since we were 17 so is easily the oldest friend I am still in touch with, despite a massive 10 year plus gap in the middle so loads of background stuff you would normally need to cover in such deep life chats is not required as she already knows it all. 🙂
Colin and her and the children had a fab time last week and left with a really positive image of Home Ed (despite Colin still not being fully aware that it was a Home Ed camp :lol:) and were of course privy to some of the chats and opinions I missed out on so that was interesting 😉 and I was able to explain some of the in jokes to her too, which she found reassuring that we don’t just sit round talking about people who are not there :roll:…
We did have a brief jaunt to the local park but in a huge departure from the self entertainment of last week’s gang of children when I certainly saw very little of mine and had to wrestle them in to the tent to get dressed / eat / go to bed they were all four of them wanting to be pushed on the swing, held hands with round the balancing bit / sit on someone’s lap, so we ended up taking them home again where they happily played in the garden with some pretend food and a jug of water. 🙄 kids eh!
We finally left there around 4pm with a plan to try and meet weekly from now on as Lucy is where I was two years ago and feeling that she really needs to set out her and the childrens’ social lives in order to answer people’s socialising questions about HE and to convince herself it is the right decision as she is still wavering at the moment. I also told her that she doesn’t need to only see Julie when I’m around as they get on well and Rebecca and Maisie are very similar children who get on well and would probably bond even more without my two around. She is keen to start a blog and get more into the MP ‘gang’ too so expect to start hearing about the pursuits of Lucy and gang sometime soon :-).
The children and I had a very protracted putting away the toy animals and dinosaurs session where we announced what each creature was and what noise it made before putting it back into the box, made up songs about them as we went and were generally silly, which was fun. I sang ‘Mud, mud, glorious mud’ to them which they’d never heard before and I told them about how John (who died last year) used to sing it to me and Frazer when we were little.
They went off to bed at about 8pm after a bath and were both asleep by 9pm so that continues to be working well :-). Tomorrow if the weather is good I’ve promised we’ll take a picnic and walk to the beach / the pleasure park place next to the beach and Ady can come and meet us after work and bring us home. If we scout round loose change round the house I reckon we can rustle up enough for ice cream, a ride on the train or the pedal boats and maybe even chips for tea for them before we come home. And I think I might just slip a book into my bag so I can do some sitting around reading too. 🙂