I had a really long lie in this morning. I think I was catching up on all sorts of early starts (including last Monday’s pre-dawn morning) aswell as resting my body from yesterdays swim. I was surprised not to be at all achey today though. I could not have managed twice the swim in the time allowed of 3 hours regardless of whether I was up for the same again (which I certainly didn’t feel I was) but the fairly quick recovery time suggests to me it could be something to aim for – not sure whether I want to or whether I can tick off ‘swimming for charity and doing pretty well’ as done and therefore not needed to be repeated. Might try and increase my pace over coming weeks and see what I think, will be interesting to be back in the water again on Tuesday while kids have their lessons and see how I do in my hour…(just checked my speed of 75 lengths in 97.5 minutes and it’s 1.3 and to do 150 lengths in 180 minutes I’d need to be at 1.2 so not actually that far off given I’d done no real training. Clearly a speed and stamina issue but my 50 lengths in an hour is all I’d need to maintain across 3 hours…hmmmm).
Ady, Davies and Scarlett were in the garage doing clearing it out ready for summer type stuff. The camping things that live in the garage will be in an out fairly regularly over the next few months so they needed to be near the front. I knew they were doing it as Scarlett kept coming upstairs to me bringing various things from the garage such as a MANAGER badge from Clinton Cards, a very old passport of Ady’s and a tin containing stuff that has meant something to me at various points.
I got up, had a cup of tea and went out to join them. In the tin were various odd things including a valentines day card (the only one I ever got anonymously, all others were from actual partners on valentines day), a pressed flower from a bouquet from my first boyfriend, various photobooth pictures of me at different ages, two sets of false eyelashes complete with glue, a diary from 1989 and a little box of firecrackers I’d bought in Italy. I’d bought several boxes thinking they were all ones you chuck hard at the ground to explode them but this box actually had tiny fuses which needed lighting. They delighted Davies and Scarlett who went through most of a box of matches and most of the box of fireworks making very loud bangs and attaching them to daisies to see how they singed them as they exploded. We bagged up a load of baby clothes for the charity shop, a load of cassette tapes for the same destination, several boxes of old paperwork for the recycling and a car load of stuff for the tip.
We have a Range store opened just along from us (this weekend I think) on the way to the tip which I’d been keen to go and look at so we all went. I’ve been wanting a camp kitchen for ages (I think Ady spreads our kitchen area out way too much and it looks scruffy) and they had a really nice one with a large top for the cooker and food prep, a side shelf, an underneath shelf, then another large surface with a two shelf zip up larder underneath, all very compact to fold down but really spacious when up. It was just £39.99 which is loads less than I’ve seen far less nice ones for so we bought it. They had a £10 off if you spent £50 opening offer too so it made sense to find something for a tenner to effectively get it free. We do have a single burner ring which attaches direct to small gas bottles but it’s very wobbly so we found a flat single ring stove and bought that and some bottles to make up the money. The idea is to bring that along for short camping overnights when we only want to boil a kettle / one pan for pasta or something rather than full on cooking. They also had a cafetiere in a mug which I think will be brilliant for Ady when camping as he seems to break a glass one every year but we forgot to pick that up so he’ll go back and get one of those for making real coffee in fields.
Back home again we both needed petrol in our cars so I went off to Sainsburys first to get fuel and some veg for dinner, then Ady went off to get fuel and take another load of rubbish to the tip. A conversation at the tip earlier about how you can’t just throw things ‘away’ when there is not really an ‘away’ and just what landfill means had hopefully sunk in rather more with Ady who was lectured by Scarlett about putting cardboard into the landfill pile. I love the kids passion about these things, they infect me and give me a conscience and fingers crossed they will be the voices that nag generations above and practise what they preach aswell.
I got dinner going – roast pork, while the kids watched some Simpsons videos and Ady mowed the lawn. Then I did some more sowing seeds and planting on of things (mentioned in more detail over self-suffish-ient blog for anyone interested). We ate dinner while watching Britains Got Talent and agreeing that a lot of the time we don’t have much talent at all 😆
My parents had rung earlier and left a message and they rang again and I spoke to them both. They are having a really good time, have met some nice people on the same tour and made friends. Mum was in very high spirits – it was midnight there and they had just come back from the bar to go to bed. The earthquakes there are really quite far away and they had heard about the volcanic ash cloud disruption and have been warned it may affect their getting home in 2 weeks time but seem fairly unworried about it for now. I messaged Frazer who had contacted me yesterday a bit worried about them as we’d not heard anything. Last time they were away they were in Thailand when earthquakes created a worry of a second tsunami and we’d tracked their hotel down and rung them, waking them in the night and told them to turn on the news. Frazer is quite a worrier and won’t be dealing well with being alone in their big house for 3 weeks for all his bravado. He’s coming over here for dinner on Wednesday so that will be good. 🙂
Ady washed up while I finished reading ‘I was a rat’ which we all enjoyed. Davies and Scarlett went to bed, we had baths. The coming week doesn’t have as many early starts or quite such physical exertions as the week just gone but it’s looking pretty busy just the same.