I had a lie in this morning to fully justify being off sick. I have quite some sleep deficit to catch up on thanks to some truly dreadful nights over the last week or so and now the itching has properly stopped I am sleeping very well again. I woke and finally looked more like me again rather than one of those computer generated age enhanced images of Nic Goddard in the year 2025 which is what I’ve felt I looked like for the last ten days.
Scarlett spent lots of time outside with the ducklings today, Davies is In The Zone on a Harry Potter xbox game so is spending lots of time on that and rampaging through the levels, doing lots of along the way reading, reasoning, logic, exercising his fingers, honing his hand-eye coordination and demonstrating that left to their own devices Home Educated children really do do nothing but play computer games :lol:. He and I also watched Doctor Who from the weekend so we’re caught up again. Of course we’re not home yet again on a Saturday evening tomorrow so we’ll be catching up on that episode sometime next week yet again…
I’ve done stuff like book a campsite for tomorrow evening (very exciting micro-camping weekend, more about that when we return), booked Wickstead and pondered lots on some hopes and dreams that I’m hoping to record in a blogpost sometime soon. I sorted out a mobile phone for Scarlett – she’s had one for a while but not active with a sim. I really don’t think seven year olds need mobiles BUT she does like to roam when we’re up at the allotment / camping in familiar areas and I’d rather she had the freedom to roam with the security of being able to stay in touch. We have a very comprehensive stash of old phones from free contract upgrades and the sim was free. I’ve stuck a tenner on it (I did that for Davies back last August for Badger camp and he still has over £5 left on it) and showed her how to use it to answer and make calls. She is very happy with the novelty and the idea of freedom it offers. 🙂
I did some laundry and then my Dad arrived. I suspected he might having had a brief chat with him on the phone last night and realised he missed Davies and Scarlett – he’s so much more attached to them than my Mum is and really seems to miss then when he’s not seen them for a week or so. He stayed for lunch and a catch up chat, familiarised himself with the duckling set- up for bird-sitting over the weekend and left just as Ay appeared home for some lunch between store visits.
Davies, Scarlett and I nipped up to the allotment and they went off in the woods to their ‘hideout’ while I watered. We really need to spend a few hours up there next week to do some chopping down of tall weeds and getting some more stuff in. I was there for about 45 minutes then rang Scarlett to get them to meet me back at the car. Without a phone or walkie talkie they simply wouldn’t be able to go out of sight / hearing like they do. I remember hanging out with other kids after school and making camps and hideouts, creating secret clubs and I love that that is part of their childhood too :).
Back home again Scarlett went back outside, Davies did more Xboxing and I made some jam with the strawberries from yesterday. I made 4 jars of strawberry and chilli and another 3 of strawberry and lavender using lavender from the garden and chillis from the freezer that we’d grown last year here at home. Scarlett came and tasted them and brought me lavender then sat next to Davies and did some drawing and pencil sharpening. I got all misty eyed in the kitchen as I stood there hulling strawberries to make jam that I’d picked with the children yesterday while Tarly kept coming to gather more strawberries to share with Davies, I chucked the leaves and tops out the back door to the chickens who had gathered there for that very purpose and thought about how very perfect life is when you can pick strawberries in the sunshine one day and be making them into jam, sharing the fruit with your wonderful children and the waste with your chickens while the sun shines in the kitchen door. Soppy!
Ady arrived home and cooked steak for Davies as he’d promised last night (A and I had steak for dinner yesterday and it is Davies’ favourite dinner), Ady watered the garden and I read some stories to the children. Davies and I measured how many litres of water our kitchen sink holds after me pahing at an advert for dishwashers that 49 litres of water is used for handwashing. Our sink holds 13 litres and we only fill it twice a day most days for washing up (we don’t have a dishwasher). The water is heated by our very efficient (and spanking new) boiler as needed. We don’t have room or funds for a dishwasher anyway but I’m not at all convinced it would be the greener option for us regardless. The 13 litres was then taken out of the sink to water the garden and top up the chickens and ducks water. Ady has been using our grey water (bath) to water the garden recently too which makes me feel better about our rather extravagent habit of bathing every day (we do share bathwater but it is a *very* big bath :oops:). We all gathered clothes to pack up for camping, the kids went to bed, I had a bath and made dinner and we sat down very late indeed.
Back on Sunday :).