One word? When seven would do…

This morning I finally did my first lookering stint. I’ve been waiting since the beginning of December last year and this weekend when a plea went out for some last minute availability for lookering I stuck my name down for this morning. It was rather shortsighted and reckless really (so typical me!) as I’d been meaning to get on the ‘refresher session’ list first or visit for the first time with another experienced lookerer as quite apart from not entirely recalling just what I had to do when I was at the site I was also not at all sure just where the site was! There are about 6 sites they have been grazing sheep on and not being local to the Brighton area really I didn’t actually ‘know’ any of them but figured I’d find them and know it’s only about a 15 minute drive to that part of Brighton when it’s not rush hour.

So last night I was frantically googling press releases of the whole lookering scheme and peering at pdf maps with faded street names then google mapping the street names. We headed over there this morning with a loose idea of where the sheep might be and the knowledge that on every area with Brighton & Hove sheep grazing there would be signage explaining the grazing scheme and details of the shepherds contact details so I’d know when I’d found them. We drove up and down the same street three times, found one field with cow in it which I knew couldn’t also contain sheep (the whole point is there are there to graze to prevent mowing so cows wouldn’t also be there) and then Scarlett spotted sheep but we couldn’t work out how to get to the field. Finally we saw a sign on a narrow patch of ground between two houses which led up to where the sheep were, so we parked and trudged up the hill and sure enough there were the sheep and the grazing information sign I’d been looking for :).

The fence was not an electric one so there was no need to check the voltage which is one of the possible duties of lookering but we did walk the perimeter to ensure there was no damage anywhere on the fence. We checked the sheep had clean and full water supplies and got all of them to get up and walk before doing a head count of nine and then heading back down the hill again. I couldn’t remember whether we had to text to say if everything was ok or whether we only texted when things were not okay so thought I’d err on the side of caution. I also wasn’t entirely sure how many sheep should be grazing so went with a ‘nine sheep at Bevendean all fine’ message hoping I’d not get a reply of ‘What???!! there should be 22’ or similar but got one back to say ‘ok, thanks’ from the shepherd and we felt quite pleased with ourselves :).

We were only ten minutes late to Tasha’s too which was pretty impressive given we’re normally at least that late when we’re coming from home, let alone when we have been driving around for ages looking for sheep ;).

We loaded everyone into the car and drove over to Chichester. Tasha and I wanted to look at The Eternal Maker which I’d heard people talking about and raving about and planned to stop somewhere on the way home again for the kids to have a play / run around / stop for a picnic. We were in there for a while but didn’t find anything to tempt us although I got lots of ideas. Scarlett has suddenly got into the idea of making stuff too and the woman there talked to us about some ‘mother / daughter’ classes they are running in the summer which might be interesting. I said I thought I was on their mailing list as I’d emailed them yesterday so she checked and sure enough I was. She has emailed me this afternoon with details of all their classes, some of which sound really interesting so I’m glad we went even if we didn’t buy anything.

After some debate about who wanted to go where on the way home – we had votes for fields to run around in, proper play parks with equipment, woods to go adventuring in and so on, we ended up in Burpham which had both fields and playpark and while Tasha and I ate our food the children visited us to eat sometimes and played in the park and the fields too. Davies came and sat with us for a while and was most bemused by Tasha and I telling him our full repertoire of ‘what do you call a man…’ jokes (my faves are still the two with punchlines ‘Eileen’ and ‘Bob’ :lol:).

Eventually everyone had hit points where they were too hot, needed a wee or had simply had enough so we loaded ourselves back into the car again and headed for home. Back at Tasha’s the children played inside while Tasha and I sat on her back door step and drank tea and chatted. Then they had to leave for Circus Skills and we had to leave for swimming so we drove back towards town. We had a spare hour so parked up and visited the fabric store for the plastic coated fabric I wanted for my next sewing project. I got that, along with some offcuts and three old swatch books which will be fab for patchwork projects all for a bargain price, particularly when they chucked in the third swatch book for free :). My parents know the old owners of the store and it turned out to be their son who now runs it who served us. I am fairly sure we played together as youngsters but will need to check with my Mum when she gets home from China :).

Then back to the swimming pool. Having decided to have a go at training a bit to see if the 5km is within my reach for next year I really need to crack front crawl and getting my face wet. Step one of that was getting a pair of googles so I can put my face underwater. I wear contact lenses so keeping my eyes open is just not an option and I need to be able to see Davies and Scarlett so not wearing my lenses is also not an option. I’ve never had goggles before but was prepared to try. I also invested in a nose clip as the thing I recall most about swimming as a child when I did used to leap in the water was the dreadful sinus headache I’d get afterwards.

We were about 15 minutes early for lessons so Davies and Scarlett had a play while I tried some lengths. I did really well with face in the water and have conquered that issue already and the nose clip did help me not to suck up loads of water through my nose but I have quite a task to crack my breathing I think. I’ve been googling and need to do some proper research I think to get my head around what I should be doing when as I quickly realised today that the extra effort and speed that putting my face in the water allows me to get means I am exercising to a level that puts me out of breath which of course means I need to gasp and having my nose closed doesn’t help. I’m sure it’s achievable so that’s my next thing to work on.

I did about 40 lengths fairly easily but kept losing count as I was trying to do breaststroke and front crawl with my face underwater. There were lots of people in the lane swimming area lurking at one end or the other which really annoys me and makes it hard to push off from a wall when there is people stood all along it so when I started to get cross with them and bored of losing count I went into the main pool and found Scarlett to play with who was delighted to see me :). We did some touching the bottom, sitting down and floating stuff, all a big novelty for me who doesn’t usually get my face wet and that was all fine so I was pleased at my progress there :).

Back home Ady arrived not long after us and was feeling much better today, which is good as he’d been worried he had flu yesterday but an early night seems to have seen off whatever it was. The kids had tea and we read another couple of chapters of The Scarecrow and the servant while Ady watered the various plants in the garden, must get to the allotment tomorrow, if only for watering duties although we do have a day planned up there on Friday too.

Dinner, some children finally asleep, others not. Didn’t get round to sewing but there is always tomorrow.