I worked yesterday morning. I arrived early as I needed to nip to the collecting office at the post office to get a parcel that had been too big to delivery through our letterbox the day before, so had ten minutes in the staff room reading Heat magazine before I started work – real novelty! 🙂
I felt increasingly crap through the morning, just really spaced out and absent with my nose getting more and more blocked as phase two of my cold kicked in: when the snot comes in. I don’t think I could have managed a whole day but just about staggered through the morning. I came home to be cossetted with tea and cheese on toast from Ady and we opened and investigated the parcel which was our joining pack from the RSPB. I have to say I joined because it will actually be cheaper for us to be members and get in free for our monthly HE meet up at Pulborough as members than to pay for one adult and two children and because there looked to be a good programme of events there which were cheaper for members too, but actually even if you don’t live anywhere near a RSPB site it would be worth being members for the various other perks alone. We had the choice of a bird feeder or a British birds book as a joining gift and I chose the book (obviously, it’s a book!) which is lovely with fab illustrations and small enough to take out with you birdspotting. We’ve also got a couple of brochures to look through about all the various reserves around the country and other things to get involved with which I need to investigate further as some of them look very interesting.
The kids both got stationery sets with crayons, pencils, sketch book and stickers in. Davies got a Bird Life magazine which comes out every two months aimed at the older child, a folder with resuable nature stickers, a game which entertained them both yesterday afternoon for ages, a poster, a membership card (always attractive ;)) and a certificate. Scarlett got a folder aimed at the younger child with more cartoony stickers, a puppet theatre which we made there and then, a Wild Times magazine – again which will come every two months and the same stickers, poster and membership card. All very impressive 🙂 Davies totally floored Ady and I by quickly sharpening his pencils, getting out his sketch book and creating this drawing in about two minutes copied from a picture on an envelope:
he proclaimed it a ‘still life’ so we explained why it wasn’t.
Ady had chanced upon The Old Gardens Animal Rescue Centre near his office last week and bought some eggs there and been enthusing on it ever since so we headed over there in the afternoon to have a look. Scarlett completely fell in love with two tiny black kittens who were probably no more than a couple of weeks old and managed to lure them over to her so she could stroke them, sitting there for about 20 minutes talking softly to them – she hasn’t stopped talking about them since :). Davies, Ady and I looked at the resucued ex battery hens, the variety of large and small chickens wandering free range including some amazingly huge cockerels. We watched two cocks sparring, which kept being broken up by a peacock in a hilarious parody of a boxing match with an enthusiastic referee :lol:. There were sheep, geese, ducks, goats, a couple of dogs, loads of rabbits all on this smallish patch of land right in the middle of a fairly snooty area of Sussex. According to the website they also have pigs – fab place :).
We stopped for a look round Fishbourne Church where a friend of Ady’s is buried and started along a footpath walk which would have taken us round the harbour and quay but I was fading fast again by then and it was very cold yesterday so we came back and came home instead. The rest of the day is rather a blur – I know the kids watched Ratatouille again, I had a long bath but was left far from in peace, Ady cooked a lovely steak dinner and I fell asleep on the sofa again.