Smile like you mean it

A frantic morning today. Yesterday at Sainsburys I let Ady, Davies and Scarlett choose two breakfast cereals of their choice each – normally I buy own brand rice crispies, coco pops and honey nut cornflakes but there was lots of offers on the cereals so we went crazy! Which means we now have a cereal mountain of choice on top of the microwave which led to a five minute very tricky decision about which one to have this morning with lots of ‘I’m going to have to hurry you’ ‘the clock is ticking’ and ‘I really do need to press you for an answer between sugar coated cereal fortified with vitamins and minerals which you won’t be eating round the table darling!’ 😉 Davies also had a picture he wanted to draw for Ros too so he did that while eating his breakfast and Scarlett and I argued about her getting dressed while she ate hers. Davies wrote ‘To’ ‘love’ and ‘Davies’ totally on his own and just clarified the spelling of ‘Ros’ at which point Scarlett piped up with ‘Ros is a bit like Rose isn’t it?’ and we talked about how magic e made all the difference to the sound the o made. Ah, education everywhere :). I made a picnic, hung a load of washing out and then we were off.

We had to go to the bank first so I could pay the mortgage money in, some of which I needed to draw out of the cashpoint first. Our bank is just off the seafront road in a disabled and loading only parking area but you can park right outside if you’re lucky and this morning I was. So I leapt out of the car only to find the cashpoint not working – I ran back to the car to tell D&S I was dashing round the corner to the nearest cashpoint and wouldn’t be a moment. Did that, ran off with my card leaving my money still spewing out of the machine 🙄 which fortunately the bloke behind hadn’t made off with before I realised and dashed back. Dashed into Superdrug to get some sun cream having realised all of the many bottles I have bought already this summer in vain hope I might need are either in Ady’s car, packed with the camping stuff or still in the back garden of my hostess from last week. Dashed back to check D&S were alright and then finally into the bank to pay the money in.

Then to get petrol. The petrol station is one of these all singing all dancing do your whole weeks food shop and get coffee, frappucios and freshly baked morning goods too while you refuel your car and keep 27 people behind you in the queue waiting while you check all your lottery tickets too places, so that took forever too.

Finally we were off. I had got Ady’s satnav to use and although when I checked the Science Centre website it did say not to use their postcode with GPS systems as it would take you to the wrong entrance I decided it was my best hope of finding the place and would surely have a sign on the door of the wrong entrance explaining how to find the right one. We were already about 6 minutes late according to the satnav by now and when we hit the traffic built up all along the A27 round Lewes where there is major road works going on I sat and watched it readjusting itself to about 27 minutes late :(. Finally having taken us down some very minor country roads we did indeed end up at very much the wrong entrance but fortunately despite there not being any helpful signs to find the right entrance I was able to work out if we went left, left, left and left we were likely to find outselves on the other side of the place and we picked up brown signs for it. We met up with Ros and one third of her children, Steve and Sarah and all three thirds of theirs.

The Science Centre isn’t a cheap day out, and if the weather wasn’t so lovely it would have all but halved the things to do as lots of the cool stuff is outside, but actually I think it was good value for money with loads of educational stuff presented really well, totally interactive and at the level the children could experiment and play with things to learn stuff even if they weren’t interested in the explanatory signs. We wandered round, then sat and had lunch before hearing a science show about to start advertised over their loudspeaker system so heading off to go and watch that. There was a tent set up with some bridge building activity which we never actually made it to but of course the Clarke’s don’t need that anyway, with their superior knowledge of how bridges work 😉 (as seen on TV). The show was bubbles, bicarb and vinegar volcano explosions and some tornado stuff with real fire. Oh and an egg floating better in salty water solution than in plain water. Laughed lots at Adam’s answers to ‘where do you float better, in the sea or in a swimming pool?’ Adam replied with great confidence ‘in the sea’ and then to the why?question answered straightaway with ‘because there’s more room!’. Scarlett was very busy pulling the legs off a moth she’d captured, singing while she did it in a merry little voice :roll:. We sat outside for a while and the children played with the water activities outside, Scarlett got soaked 😆 then The Clarke’s left us and Ros and I took Adam, Davies and Scarlett into the ‘Zany Zone’ which we paid a quid each for them to do. It didn’t quite live up to being particularly zany but there was helicopters and jumping beans to make, cornflour gloop to play with, a bottle to increase pressure with, balloon and bottle lungs to make, circuits to test and magic tricks with ordinary paperclips and ordinary paper which amused and entertained us 😆

We had one last laze around outside while the boys ran around and Scarlett ate Ros’ biscuits before the sun went in and we called it a day. We had a much better run home, Scarlett had a nap in the car while Davies and I sang along to music. Once home they had tea, Ady came home and they all went into the garden while I ticked off about five jobs from my neverending job list including finally getting NicCamps booked, doing various bits of paperwork including the booking form for Davies’ party, some invitations I couldn’t email, the customer feedback questionnaire for Kessingland and cutting out some photos to send off for our Drusillas membership cards. The children came in for a bath and then bed, I spent ages pmsl at the chickens who have worked out how to fly onto the lounge windowsill and peck at the window to get my attention before putting them away for the night. I made a rhubarb crumble for pudding and spent some time looking at campsites online for our holiday next week. I have a couple of more little things to get organised tomorrow and I am starting to feel like I’m back on top of everything I need to be again, which is good. 🙂