One word? When seven would do…

We now have two definite crowers aka Sunday dinners here. Still holding out hope that Freddie is a hen though and doing daily egg searches. Punzel (who is on the most borrowed time) did a bit of a runner today – the children chased him over the low wall and onto the grass verge outside our house. I went flying out there, followed by Lucy and all four children and ended up herding him into the next door neighbours garden before finally coaxing him to jump back over the wall. We had traffic stopped to watch and it nearly caused an accident with someone not looking where they were going, but I guess two women, four children and a runaway cockerel beside a normal suburban street probably was something of a spectacle really :lol:.

I had a small list of stuff to do this morning, with the aim of getting back home for lunch time and a planned visit from Lucy and The Rs in the afternoon. My car was desperate for petrol. Actually it’s been desperate for petrol since about last Tuesday but I didn’t get paid til yesterday. I was not even sure it would make it a mile along the road to where there is a supermarket, petrol station and retail park, it was that low. Both the children needed winter shoes and we needed a few bits of food shopping. Perfectly planned to do altogether. I got several loads of washing washed and we headed off about 11am. First of all the petrol station was shut, for refurbishment 🙁 then there were no shoes even remotely suitable for either child :(. They are both in big enough sizes to only have a selection of black school shoes to choose from and neither of them want black shoes. In Scarlett’s case there is the alternative of glittery party type shoes which are equally unsuitable for day to day wear given their shiny, skinny soles and stiff, heel rubbing egdes – plenty of time for her to suffer pain for the sake of gorgeous shoes when she’s older if that’s what she’s inclined to do.

So, stopping to bung a tenners worth of petrol in the very overpriced little garage we headed off to the next retail park along where M&S nestles side by side with Tescos and McDonalds. No shoes in Tesco (only more sparkles or black boots with heels for S and a selection of trainers with either Spiderman or The Simpsons on for D :roll:), no shoes in M&S and last I checked McDs aren’t giving away shoes with Happy Meals. So we decided to pop into town instead.

Davies found a pair of really quite nice, velcro fastening brown boots which look good and only cost £7.99 in the first shop we tried but we didn’t find anything for Scarlett at all :(. I think boots are the best option for her as they go with skirts or trousers and negate the need for socks or tights, both of which she loathes. She’s had boots for the last two winters and they seem to be the most sensible footwear for her. She does have a yearning for something red though. I’d buy her DMs but I’m not spending 30 odd quid on shoes she could grow out of in a couple of weeks. We’ll go and look at Asda and Matalan tomorrow and hopefully find some. Whilst in town we got some cakes from the bakery for lunch. We came home via the CoOp which has both a shoeshop and a clothing shop concession in it and had no further luck with shoes but did get them both socks and super snuggly pjs that they were both in need of (Scarlett reckons she’ll ‘try’ and wear socks but at the very least does need them for soft play places and trying on shoes :lol:). They both love to snuggle into fleecy pjs even in warm weather and all last years winter pjs were actually from the winter before so at 2 pairs for £6 it was a good deal to get them a couple of pairs each.

We came home and I hung all the washing out and the children spent ages in the back garden on ‘a nature hunt’ together while we waited for Lucy and The Rs to arrive. The children all went out into the garden and aside from the chicken rescue incident seemed to get on well, having all missed each other after a week apart. Lucy and I chatted and then bit the bullet and cut her many years worth of growth plait off. Pictures on flickr. 🙂 The plait went from being part of Lucy to a lump of dead hair very quickly and we both felt a bit squeamish towards it, although the children thought it was hilarious. Ady came home and noticed it straight away (bless him, he is so well trained 😉 ).

Davies and I went to his swimming lesson. On the way we talked about Beavers last night and he wanted to know why I thought some of the boys were unruly, once he’d satisfied himself with my definition of unruly. I shared with him my theory that after being dictated to what to learn and sitting at a desk for six hours most of them were probably fed up of being told what to do and just wanted to run around and shout. He agreed and I explained that my strong feelings against curriculums and prescribed learning were one of my chief motivators for Home Education. I tend not to say too much anti-school to him but clearly I don’t big it up any either. I do talk about my own school days, mostly in a positive light as part of a recalling childhood context to them but obviously they have friends who do go to school so they have developed their own ideas of what it might be like. Davies had grasped the whole sitting down bit already and seemed pretty amazed at the very notion but tonight was the first time he realised that the stuff children learn at school isn’t what they have shown an interest in themselves, it’s what someone else has decided they should know. He was horrified and thought it was no wonder the rest of the beavers didn’t want to listen to any more educational stuff and that they are probably sat down with pens and paper at a table and not allowed to draw whatever the mood takes them to draw. I guess the very concept of formal learning to someone who has never experienced anything like it would be very very strange. He did say that at Badgers and Beavers they sometimes sit down and learn stuff but that he always found that ‘really interesting, but that must be because me and Scarlett do all our running around and and being crazy at home in the day when everyone else is at school!’ :lol:.

Swimming went really well. He seems to be getting better each week and still he is really enjoying it. The instructor praised him for really trying and I can see that he really is putting his all into it and it is starting to pay off. 🙂 A marked improvement even from last week. On the way to the swimming pool it had started raining heavily having been threatening it for hours. I remarked to Davies about the smell of wet pavements and we stood inhaling that scent for a while. I love the smell of wet pavements. 🙂

I dropped Davies home and popped out for the food supplies we never did manage to get earlier. Then when I got home Ady popped out for some drink supplies ;). He has his screen test at QVC tomorrow morning so has been practising his schpiel all evening with me firing questions at him like a pretend caller. He’s wearing blue just like Joan (Rivers) told him too and I’m sure he’ll be ace at it.