One word? When seven would do…

I totally overslept this morning, which I obviously needed but meant we didn’t get going until nearly 11am. Davies and Scarlett stayed in the car while I dashed into Tescos for lunchtime supplies and then we arrived at Fishbourne Roman palace. We went a couple of times last year – once with The Beans and once with The ScreamTeam and had a good time both times – with Chris and Helen there was nothing particularly laid on but the company and the novelty of it being our first visit meant it was a good day out. With Ros and co. we had a really good day working through the various tasks set to train the children to Roman Soldier standards, getting their first day’s wage of a Roman coin at the end. This week they have been advertising their Family Fun Day everywhere so as entry covers you for a year we went back today to see what it was all about.

There was plenty going on but it was *really* busy so we bypassed various displays including Roman beauty products (crushed flies mixed with bear fat instead of mascara, ground chalk as face powder!) and just had a quick glance at the Roman remedies of herbs and flowers. Scarlett inhaled a little too deeply when sniffing the lavendar and sneezed most it back out of the bowl :roll:. They both had a go at weaving and the woman running that was very interesting and explained it really well, talking about various patterns and how the stripes on Davies’ top would have been woven. She really listened to their questions and answered them properly.

There was an archaeologist sat at a table with various dug up artefacts from the palace but he was pitching his chat at a rather higher level so we didn’t linger there too long. In the mosaic bit of the main palace were various clay based activities including making pots on a potters wheel, making coil pots and making oil burning lamps – there were huge queues for all of those and Davies and Scarlett both decided not to bother queuing saying we can do clay stuff at home. They declined the chance to dress up in Roman clothes.

They had various activities going on in the additional buildings on the site which haven’t normally been open and they were quieter and rather more interesting. There was wax tablets to write on with stylus and the lad running that (they use volunteers from local schools / colleges for these events) was really interested in it too. Then they did some writing with pens and ink pots – Scarlett just wrote Scarlett but Davies used the roman letters key to write his in Roman

They tried some Roman food – predictably Scarlett liked the honey sweetened wine, they both liked the spelt bread and the chickpea fritters (traitors ;)) so we picked up a recipe sheet for that. Then into the last building where there was arch building to do. We had a go and then a volunteer came over and showed us what to do then asked me to answer some questionnaire questions while we had another go and did it this time. Very proud of ourselves 🙂

and yes Davies is hamming it up for the camera 😆

We sat in the car and had lunch and then as promised because we were over that way we went off to find the animal resuce place we’d been to at the weekend again so Tarly could see the kittens again. On the way back from there we’d seen a sign advertising a ‘wild bird hospital’ which I assumed was it so we tracked the sign down and followed it. We ended up at the wild bird hospital which we hadn’t known existed and was not it at all! So as it looked interesting we parked and had a wander round there too. There were quails who’d been too ill to migrate to Italy, gulls who’d been injured and rather hilariously had two other gulls landed on their roof who we decided were visiting the sick, various ducks and pigeons and most excitingly of all some owls. They had a 7 year old Eagle owl, a 37 year old Tawny owl, a snowy owl, which Davies knowledgably informed me was a snowy owl and must be a female as it had black markings and females have that to camouflage them on their nests and a smaller owl I couldn’t identify. Amazing 🙂

We were accompanied round by a very enthusiastic member of staff who wanted to point out all sorts of things to us. 🙂

We left there and more by luck than any idea of where we were we found the animal place again. We parked up, saw the kittens, Scarlett asked if she could go in and pet them but was told no :(, looked at the chickens, peacocks, ducks, sheep and goats and were then sidetracked by three puppies newly arrived there. Davies and Scarlett spent ages with them and then spent some time with the big rottweiller who lives there and you wouldn’t catch me going anywhere near. I could just about manage to talk to the puppies through their cage bars :oops:. On the way out we were most amused by the goat easily clearing his fence, the pig who came over to greet us and we bought six duck eggs and six large free range eggs from the birds there too.

We popped into Littlehampton on the way home as I am looking out for a proper really warm coat for myself. I have a vast selection of cardigans, jackets and other outerwear including a posh wool ‘funeral’ full length coat but nothing remotely suitable for wandering round Pulborough Brooks, sitting in Pavillion Gardens eating lunch or other such pursuits that I seem to have been shivering at these last few weeks. Didn’t find anything so the search continues for that one.

In the car we had all manner of interesting conversations including a lengthy one about environmental issues. We discussed roads, traffic, fuels, fires, greener energy, cutting down travel, ignorance and education and responsibilities. Interesting stuff :). We also listened to lots of Kaiser Chiefs very loudly. Oh and Davies made me laugh lots when we talked about the Roman Palace by asking if they only open in the school holidays? I explained that no, they are open all year but only run events in the school holidays which he proclaimed ‘rubbish timing – it will always be busy then!’ 😆 There speaks a true HE child pissed off with people everywhere in school holidays 😆

Davies had been telling me about an advert he’d seen for a new Dr Seuss film about an elephant – the one who hatches the egg – and how he hears voices. I said that must be Horton hears a who and that we have the book at home. He didn’t remember but when we got home managed to track the book down so we sat and read that. He is right, there is indeed a film coming out of it. I just adore Dr Seuss, the more you read his stories the more messages seem to come across from them. Some of the books from amazon marketplace arriving from the US had arrived today so we sat and read them too – Born with a bang and Tree of life. Both were good although I think I still prefer Earth Story and Life Story. I did like the style of writing in Born with a bang though and the illustrations were gorgeous. We have mammals who morph already and are waiting for the middle book before reading that – hopefully it will arrive tomorrow. For a bedtime story we had half of Dear Max which I happened to have handed back into me at work the day after Jax mentioned it on her blog so decided was something we were meant to read. Very good -cries of ‘oh-oh’ when I said I wasn’t going to finish reading the whole thing to them tonight, must order the next couple of Max books tomorrow ready.

Tomorrow I’m working all day – it’s Baby Rhyme Time and I have the rest of my annual review scheduled in. Ady is home with D and S and has some preparation for his next QVC appearance next weekend to do so he has brought the product home with play with with the kids to familiarise himself with it properly.