Sounds like fun

This morning we were super efficient. We had to catch the 839am train from Lancing to Victoria so were all up at 730am, kids were breakfasted and dressed and had their Badger uniforms packed in a bag, I was dressed, tea’d and had a picnic for all packed and we were out of the door at 810am. We parked at the library and had 20 minutes to get some money out and buy our tickets (one side of the station) before getting onto the platform for our train (other side of the station). Except all of the cashpoints wouldn’t give me any money (this service is temporarily unavailable). We were running out of time and I only had £10 in my pocket and the station ticket office doesn’t take visa electron. So on a brainwave we dashed into CoOp with moments to spare, grabbed some tissues (we are all snotty today with a cold) and got cashback. I knew there was money in the account so no idea what the unavailable nonsense was.

Into the ticket office which thankfully, and unusually had no queue,tickets purchased (£17.70 for one day travelcards for the 3 of us, bargain!), back across the train tracks and onto the correct platform with about 5 minutes to spare. Precision timing, loads of luck and something we could never in a million years pull off more than once in a blue moon let alone every single morning! 😆

The train was direct to Victoria which is 1 hour 20 minutes and we found seats easily and sat and chatted. We had a very surreal conversation about a black fox that Scarlett said she’d heard on tv had been spotted in a graveyard. We were coming up with as many reasons as we could why a fox would be black instead of red. I think my favourites were that it was figure conscious and had heard black was slimming and that he was feeling his age so had resorted to Just for Men to touch up his roots. 😆

We then stopped at Hassocks for a scheduled stop for 5 minutes so discussed why Hassocks was a holding bay and whether we’d meet certain (crazily made up on the spot) criteria for being allowed out of Hassocks to continue our journey. The children and I were in fits of laughter but I do sometimes worry about whether people are observing us and wondering quite why they are not in school and whether I really should be in charge of them on my own! 😆

We played a game which Davies called ‘handy’ where you have to use your hands to represent things (animals, buildings etc.) and the others have to guess what it is. We also played ‘on Monday I went to the supermarket and I bought one x…’ but themed it first to halloween and then to Christmas. Cue further hilarity. You really do get some odd people on public transport 😉

At Victoria we headed for the underground via a quick peep in the Lush shop, I promised the children we’d call back in if we got back to Victoria in time. The tube was super speedy – just one stop, infact we spent longer on the very steep escalators than we did on the actual train. I’d rather stupidly assumed the RI would be signposted from the tube as so many attractions seem to be in London. It wasn’t.

We stopped in a shop doorway to regroup and make a plan when a woman and boy accosted us and asked if we were Home Educators looking for the RI?! She introduced herself as Sue and her son as Travis (although I heard Tardis instead and think that is a far more suitable HE name) so we sort of walked along with them a bit. I’m assuming it was just our lost air, our proximity to an event that HEors were invited to and the fact the children looked of school age rather than because we have reached that level of screaming our HE status just by looking at us…

We were warmly welcomed in and told they were about to open the theatre so we went straight up. I peeked in the door and asked the man inside if we were supposed to come in yet and he said he didn’t know but we probably should come in anyway. He turned out to be the man running the show and did a couple of optical illusion tricks with D and S while the rest of the hall filled up. There were a fair few HE folk, probably about a third and the rest school trips. We had sat at the front and it was during that last 10 minutes before the show started we realised we were in the morning session and Em, Katy and Chris & Helen were all booked in the afternoon. I don’t know why it hadn’t occured to me to check. I’d booked our session ages ago before it had been mentioned as a possible group thing and at the time booked to ensure we’d get back for Badgers. D’oh!

As it went it was fine. Davies really enjoyed it, got loads out of it, learnt loads and is very keen to go to more of the events. Scarlett did well considering she’d been sat on a train for 1.5 hours, sat still for a whole half hour before the event started and then sat through another hour of the talk. She was a bit droopy on me every now and again but still picked up quite a few nuggets of information from it.

We left there and headed to Green Park to meet up with the others. I’d totally failed to notice the park itself (although we had come out on the other side of the main road from the tube station and had been looking for RI rather than parks) but quickly found them all and enjoyed an all too brief, but lovely nonetheless chat and play including a communal huddle under the trees when a sudden downpour of rain appeared.

We’d planned to go and visit the Museum of Mankind which presumably given there were signpost signs for it was pretty local but the sudden rain and the knowledge that we would only have a couple of hours before needing to dash about on packed trains meant Davies and Scarlett chose to head for home instead. It did feel odd having only been there for 2 hours but was far nicer than the potentially chaotic and stressy journey home at 5ish.

We got back to Victoria and as promised we had a quick look in the Lush shop and I bought them one thing each – they chose a bath bomb each. I abstained :). There was a train already at the platform which went past Lancing without stopping but we decided to get on it and go as close as possible to home (just one station away) and then get another train from there rather than wait at Victoria for a direct one.

The journey home was as uneventful really, we had a 9 minute wait at Shoreham for a train to get to Lancing and then walked back to the car. The water bottle in my bag had leaked which meant the whole of the back of my jeans was soaked where it had been resting and the bath bombs had both started to fizz in my bag! 😆

We got home and Davies and I watched Waterhorse while Tarly went off and played DS. I rethreaded my peg loom and made a good start on my latest rug. They had dinner and we went to Badgers. I read in the car for a while and then Ady arrived and we went off for a walk together as usual on a Wednesday. We talked through a flippant remark that my Dad had made about me yesterday and had been playing on my mind since and I felt better about that for talking to Ady about it. I adore my parents but they are never without agenda and it’s so amazing to have in Ady someone who is always on my side, always sees the good in me and wants the best for me and to make me happy rather than someone who is after scoring points or making themselves feel better by putting me down. We are very, very lucky. 🙂

Home for a couple of chapters of George before bed for the children. We had baths, Ady cooked dinner, I ragrugged and sneezed. Tomorrow I’m working all day and I aim to spend Friday at home, probaby hugging a mug of soup if I continue feeling like this.