So, marks out of ten…

Off to work this morning for me. Ady is away which meant it was even earlier to rise to ensure everything was sorted before we were off. Today was Davies and Scarlett’s last day at Archie and Elliots as they have got tenants for their house, bought their camper van and are off WWOOFing for the summer before heading off half way round the world in the autumn on their Great Big Adventure. It has been a brief but meaningful for all of us relationship which I think will continue despite what life chucks at us. When I met Caz and Bid earlier this year I felt a real connection with them and albeit brief Ady’s meeting with them was the same. The children have bonded in a way I’ve never known D and S to do with other children and although life paths are taking our families geographically away from each other I suspect we will come back together sometime…

All of which is lovely and sentimental but doesn’t change the fact that with Julie about to have her baby we are back to zero childcare again. I can’t quite bring myself to worry about it really. I have sufficient reliability and goodwill ‘in the bank’ at work to be honest if we hit a shift when I can’t work, Ady is able to be fairly flexible and my parents are in a helpful phase. ‘Proper’ childcare isn’t really an option -financially and on all sorts of other levels so I guess we continue to muddle through until we reach a point where I am being unreliable at work and need to hand in my notice as a result. Hopefully it won’t come to that but if it does I guess we’ll have done well to have winged it for as long as we have!

So a dash to drop D and S off at Caz & Bid’s with us listening to a cd I borrowed from work with various songs on it including I wish I was a punk rocker with flowers in my hair which always, every single time I hear it makes me cry. Hence I have only listened to it about 4 times with Scarlett with me for perhaps one of them – so there she was on her second hearing with her claiming to not recall the first anyway singing along by the end – def. sorting out a choir thing for that girl :).

Work was good – they were interviewing 7 candidates, 4 of whom came in during our morning shift. The first was very elderly looking, the second was very bossy – during the walk round the library with Yvonne she appeared to be showing Yvonne round rather than the other way round. The third looked like Margaret from The Apprentice and when I went to tell Yvonne she had arrived and hissed ‘she looks like Margaret from The Apprentice’ at her it threw her and she put out her hand with ‘Hello Margaret, I’m Yvonne,pleased to meet you’ which she recovered well from but had the rest of us doing the equivalent of Enid Blyton’s stuffing hankies in our mouths during midnight feasts to stop from laughing! The fourth we say was the most promising as she had cool fimo brooches on her jacket but the others agreed that my fimo bracelet is arty and acceptable but one hippy library woman is enough thankyou very much. I do fear for the calibre of the applicants :lol:. I also found myself hankering after the days when I was conducting interviews which was interesting as it’s not often there are elements of previous jobs I miss.

I went to collect the children and found them all semi naked and collecting frog spawn. As usual I had a glowing report of what wonderful children I have from Caz and Bid and indeed they did look great examples of HE and childhood all muddy, wet and at one with nature. Caz told me what an amazing imagination Davies has and what strength of character and ‘go my own way-ness’ Scarlett has, which is possibly what I would consider their greatest qualities too so that was nice :).

We came home and they played in the garden while I did hanging out washing, getting pizza dough on, clearing up a bit and general chicken maintenance. The cockerel’s fate seems rather sealed now with a home found for him. He has elicited his first ‘complaint’ from a neighbour although she was most indignant at Ady’s response that we’d get rid of him and said ‘don’t you DARE!’ but realistically in amoung our chicks there will be at least one cockerel so at some point in the next few months we will have a replacement anyway.

Both children were filthy and as the only real time each week they need to look half decent is Badgers I chucked them in a big bubble bath to clean up a bit. Davies and I watched Mr Magoriums Magic Emporium which I’d been looking forward to and enjoyed while Scarlett had a prolonged bathtime with fizzers and diving tricks and mermaid impressions :).

They had pizza for tea and then it was off to Badgers. I dropped them off and had a lovely 3/4 hour along the beach at low tide with some moments of running which inspired me to dig out my sports bra ready for next week. It was blissful nonetheless. I think having had children who were not happy to go just anywhere and be left for many years has made it all the sweeter to know that they are happy and content somewhere like Badgers finally – it is a mere hour a week but for me the freedom is in knowing they are not just used to being dropped off somewhere they are actively choosing to be there and getting loads outo of it which allows me to enjoy that hour a week all the more. I didn’t take my camera as I sort of feel snaps of my lone shadow and the sun reflected on the sand probably don’t mean a great deal to anyone but me but I have the pictures in my memory anyway :). I had an equally enjoyable half hour back at the car with the latest Marion Keyes book and several blackcurrant and liquorice sweets :).

Home for yet more fun and games with the chickens for me, some watering the garden, hoovering, sorting my own dinner, running a bath and because we couldn’t find out latest Famous Five book starting the first two chapters of Indian in the cupboard. The children fairly instantly engaged with it in the same way I recalled doing as a child so perhaps we’re ready to say goodbye to Julian, George et al. 🙂 They begged for the second chapter which meant a very speedy bath for me in order to be out for the start of The Apprentice.

Davies reappeared downstairs as the firing was done claiming to be too hot – last night he was too cold :rolls: so he phoned Ady to say goodnight, listened in horror to me recounting Beans’ twitters about poor SB and insisted on creating something to send her so made a paint picture and supervised me emailing it across.

I have a siblings post in draft which I am keen to post but need to not be too tired to do properly.