Ady woke me this morning before he left to say two chicks had hatched. We’ve had 11 eggs in the incbubator – six were from a farm we went to on Open Farm Sunday and are lovely little golden pekin bantams, the other five were from our own hens, a mix of speckedly and brown ones so the brown ones should be an interesting cross between our speckledy cockerel and brown hens.
We transfered the first two chicks to the brooder once they’d fluffed up and saw that several more eggs had pipped. All of this along with dealing with laundry and packing a picnic meant we were late to meet Tasha, Toby and Vinnie. Fortunately they were also late and we actually all pitched up at the same time 🙂 Hurrah for equally tardy friends!
Brooklands, which is the large laked park right on the seafront near us is having rather a face lift at the moment. There is already a train, bouncy castle, trampolines, pony rides, boats, pitch and putt and go-karts and they have just put in a paddling pool and are doing further work to improve it. I think the stuff is all rather overpriced and even the car park is NCP and very pricey so we either walk (it is only 15 minutes but it’s along a boring, straight, main road) or park two roads down on the road where it’s free.
Today we drove and situated ourselves at the paddling pool and there we stayed for over 3 hours :).For a while it did feel like Tasha and I were constantly calling out to the kids to stop them doing stuff as we were both really mindful that Davies, Scarlett and Toby looked liked giants among all the little toddlers there and I do feel a bit like it is their domain in school hours having been the parent of those teenies once myself and felt all protective of them around bigger kids. That said, our kids also have every right to be there and aslong as they are being mindful of the smaller ones around we didnt want to curtail their fun too much. Part of the fun of being in a paddling pool in the sunshine is splashing really! They all had a fab time; Scarlett teamed up with another little girl and they spent ages pulling each other round in her inflatable boat and they all got involved in a big splashing fight with loads of other kids which all seemed very fun and amicable.
We got an ice cream as we left and came home at about 4pm to write some words to go with the pictures Ady was printing off at work for the kids’ library display of their litter walk. It was a fairly stressy half an hour as I have no patience and they are reluctant, which as all three of us agreed is why autonomy works for us and if we had to do writing every day they’d be far better off in school. What’s ironic is that both of them happily write a fair bit most days on their own artwork but the idea of sitting down and writing something for the display which was fairly boring text just didn’t inspire them.
We got that done and then they had their tea which I transferred more chicks to the brooder. We have six healthy chicks and one which is still fighting it’s way out of the egg but I am not overly hopeful about as it’s taking rather too long. The other 5 eggs with no signs of pips can stay in the ‘bator til Wednesday before being disposed of. Obviously I’m hoping the seventh will make it but six out of eleven is still a good hatch rate, especially all healthy birds.
Ady came home with the pictures so the children and I headed off to the library to put the display up. It was a simple one this time with a header of ‘Litter Walk’ cut out from red paper by Davies and the words ‘Last week we walked from our house to the library collecting litter. It is only one mile but we collected four sacks of rubbish. Over 50 cans, more than 10 bottles and loads of crisp packets and wrapper. By Davies and Scarlett Goddard’ and a load of photos of them on their walk and with the litter afterwards.
I dropped them back home and headed off to the alllotment on my bike to do some watering. While I was gone it emerged that Davies had caught the sun quite a lot on his legs despite two applications of sun cream. They are red and a bit stingy and as a sunburn veteran I know it is very minor but it’s his first experience and he is prone to drama so he is acting like he needs a wheelchair! I suspect it will have faded away entirely by morning but I think we both will be even more diligent about suncream in future :(.
I read the end of the Mr Gum we are re-reading and in theory the children went to bed. I say in theory as Davies is back sitting beside me on the sofa again now (grrr).
library display looks fab!