Rhyme Time, Time Team, Time Lords

Friday Work day for me. I’d wrongly assumed as it was half term there would be no Baby Rhyme Time as it is term time only but the session had been advertised and we actually had a good turn out. As we were singing wheels on the bus an older man walked past the junior area and glared in at us with such a look of disgust on his face. The mother next to me noticed and whispered to me about it and I whispered back that I’d seen it and we should sing louder! So we did 😆 I had everyone, parents/ carers included issued with instruments and on the count of 3 had them shaking them as loud as they could. We then sang rousing choruses of London’s Burning! I hear Thunder and The Grand old Duke of York at the very tops of our voices ;). Apparently Yvonne took a phonecall from another library and had to tell them to ring back later as she couldn’t hear them over the singing. Yep, that was the result we were after. See how I lead parents and carers and their under 18 month old charges in acts of small rebellion and anarchy to the soundtrack of Incy Wincy Spider clutching tambourines from the Early Learning Centre.

Quiet? In the library? I think not.

It was otherwise fairly glum there actually. The news that the council is looking to cut £150,000 off library staff costs resulting in loss of hours has hit everyone hard. No idea quite what the impact will be on me personally or the rest of my colleagues at Lancing and I’m not going to speculate or assume worst case scenarios as it’s not productive or useful. I will simply see what happens and decide what action, if any, to take from a position of knowledge rather than sumising.

We had quite a laugh in the afternoon taking funny book titles and trying to weave them into conversation. We found ‘For the love of trains’ and ‘Think like your horse’ on the trolley of shelving to go upstairs to non-fiction which entertained us for a while. We decided thinking like a horse would mainly consist of ‘neigh’, ‘got any carrots?’ and ‘mmm, nice polos’.

I developed a headache during the course of the day which drinking lots of water failed to shift. I very rarely get headaches and try really hard not to take painkillers for anything after a dramatic incident in my teens involving rather too many for period pains (plus I think I abuse my liver enough in other ways really ;)). I really should have come home to bed but Ady rang just as I finished work to see if I wanted to join him and the kids at McDonalds for their tea and having missed them all day I agreed so they came and collected me from home and I’m guessing McDonalds on a half term Friday teatime isn’t the best place to nurse a headache really.

We bumped into some friends and had a nice catch up chat with them though which I’d have missed if I’d not been there I guess.

Ady had taken Davies and Scarlett off to work with him for the day, we’ve managed to avoid all childcare this week which has been good for the kids who were struggling with my Mum last week. He was on the road doing price surveys at supermarkets and garden centres so they actually helped him with his cover (it’s like mystery shopping) and it being half term he was happier to be out and about with them without gaining too much attention. They all had a nice day together. 🙂

I finished reading the last couple of chapters of the Humphrey book we were on, had dinner and was in bed not long after 11pm, which doesn’t sound it but believe me is a really early night for me.

Todaywas Davies’ first session with the local Young Archaeologists Club (YAC). We didn’t really know what to expect and I’d agreed to stay with him this time – they say in their literature that parents are welcome to stay as long as they remember it is a young archaeologists club and the events are for the children. They expanded on that today at the session and I get the impression they have had pushy parents who’ve not let their children speak for themselves or get on with the activities. I was actually the only parent there and have already agreed with Davies that he’ll be fine on his own next time. The leader did say they are always looking for proper volunteers to actually help if parents are interested but quite aside from not always being available on a Saturday morning as I often will be working them anyway I have neither knowledge nor particular interest in archaeology :oops:.

There were 12 children – 8 boys and 4 girls, 3 leaders and a helper (who I think was the main leader’s wife) and Davies was by far the youngest. I reckon there were several 15/16 year olds and probably noone else under 10 even allowing for Davies being little he was by far the smallest there. The kids were very much of a ‘type’, quite earnest, a bit geeky but seemed nice kids and certainly very well looked after and managed by the leaders. I’d be quite happy for Davies to be there without me.

Today’s session was indoors, most are not but Feburary weather dictates they plan indoors. They spent the first half an hour or so talking about shoes and footwear through the ages and handed round various things including some leather that had been found in bogs, some that hadn’t been preserved and some that had been restored, a shoe found in a stream and believed to be 1930s, some cobblers tools from 100 or so years ago and some hobnails from 1800-2000 years ago. Which had Davies mouthing ‘WOW’ at me across the room as he held them :). The main leader works at London Museum as a conservator so has accesss to all sorts of cool stuff to bring along.

They then had some fruit juice and flapjacks (Davies asked for water :lol:) – which Davies very amusingly described to Ady when telling him what they’d done as ‘a break for refreshments’ – his own words 😆

Next one of the older lads talked about the cobblers stuff he had bought off someone as a collection and then handed out some paper templates and some felt to everyone. The felt was to be used instead of leather which was what shoes would have been made from. They all cut out the paper templates, traced round them onto the felt and then cut that out. They had 3 pieces to sew together to form a shoe.

Davies isn’t particularly good with scissors but did fine and was then helped by a woman with the start of his sewing. I overheard her asking him ‘Have you done sewing at school?’ and him answering ‘Well I don’t go to school, but I do know how to sew!’ 😆 I helped him a bit by holding the pieces together for him while he did the sewing and he did an ace job 🙂 Then eyelets were put in and I cut him out a lace from a scrap of felt to thread in. It looked really good and was actually one of the best 🙂 Amazing how so many of the kids had never done any sewing before and got in a right old mess with it.

Next time it’s an outside mini dig on the seafront and as I’m working Davies will be at that one on his own although Ady and Scarlett will probably go for a walk fairly close by. He really enjoyed it and thanked me several times for finding out about it and taking him :). It’s great when I feel like I’ve really managed to find something that is SO Davies or SO Scarlett (like the art display at the library for Davies, or Tarly’s keeper for the day) :).

We met back up with Ady and Scarlett and took a circuitous route to kill time to Ali’s. We had a quick look at an orchid nursery and a pop into Tesco for a couple of bits for dinner tonight and then arrived at Ali’s. It was a Doctor Who fest and the kids had all picked their favourite episodes for us to watch as many as possible of.

We had snacks, ice cream, tea, wine and lots of David Tennant :). We watched 5 episodes although Scarlett wandered in and out, Freya joined her after a while and Davies didn’t finish watching the last one with us, which was probably as well as Ali and I were well into the wine by then and laughing at silly things and of course I cried at the end of the last one when Rose gets taken back to Bad Wolf Bay and Donna gets taken home with her mind wiped.

It was a fab afternoon though, thanks Ali and J 🙂 xxx

Back home to put chickens away, feed the children (despite offers of food and indeed plenty of partaking of sandwiches, crisps and ice creams at Ali’s) and have a bath (me).

I have now undone any good I did by going to bed while it was still Friday on Friday, so will take myself off to bed on Saturday even though it is now Sunday.