One word? When seven would do…

First updates on serious stuff!

The chick not only survived the night it had sufficiently recovered to be reunited with the other chicks this morning despite our initial plan to keep in inside the house for a day or two. It is eating, drinking, scratching around, not getting picked on and appears to be pretty much okay. It does have a very nasty wound to the side of it’s head and it’s beak doesn’t fully close anymore which suggests some serious damage to it’s jaw but it appears to be functioning okay despite this. It will likely be in the same camp as Spatchcock and have to be a ‘keeper’ here regardless so hopefully it’s a hen and we’re not in the early stages of some disabled cockerels retreat home set up :lol:.

I’ve spoken to Julie tonight and she safely delivered a baby girl around 9pm yesterday. A very impressive 9lb1oz named Lorna Rose Goddard :). Very much looking forward to meeting her sometime this coming week. Julie and Lorna are fine, it was a very, very fast delivery with the midwife just about arriving in time and Jack and Maisie meeting their baby sister when she was just a few hours old. That brought back the wonder of introducing Davies to baby Scarlett when she was just a couple of hours old and he woke at about 4am as he was still in the habit of doing aged 2 only to discover we weren’t in bed where he normally found us but were downstairs with a brand new baby. He gazed in wonder at her for long moments before asking if he was allowed to open door number 6 on his Bob the Builder chocolate advent calendar! 😆

Back to the far more trivial business of blogging our days and we were off to Springwatch today. My Dad called over first thing to ask a favour of me which I did for him possibly against my better judgement but we’ll see whether it has repurcussions or not I guess…

We finally got going and were slightly later leaving than planned but still arrived before 11am and as parking was being charged for this year and all the ‘free’ parking at the university had been blocked off we had to pay a fiver but did benefit from parking very close this year. I did actually ponder getting there by public transport, partially to keep in the spirit of the whole event and partially because if we were paying for parking anyway I’d rather pay for transport and be green about it but I don’t think the four of us could have got there for under about four times what we paid for parking and it would have taken about four times the time too as we can drive there in about 20 minutes.

We learnt from previous years that the free activities get booked up pretty quick so we had a brisk walk round the whole thing and earmarked things to come back to and booked Davies and Scarlett in for a couple of workshops before going round again at a more leisurely pace. We did the usual tree leaf spotting Breathing Places thing where pictures of leaves are stuck around the place and we all got cotton bags. As our main food shop comes home delivery and I send the carriers back with the driver and I am getting better and better at remembering to take cotton bags with me to the shops or carrying things loose if at all possible the cotton bags will come in handy.

Davies and Scarlett took part in an underwater mural painting activity and were among the first to add to it – Scarlett did a couple of rainbow starfish and Davies did a starfish and a shark. When we passed it again later in the day it was looking fabulous with the collaborative works of many children painted brightly all over it – really made you smile to look at it :).

They made seahorse pencil toppers and cuttlefish finger puppets.

We all took part in a taste test of tap water versus bottled water and all four of us could easily tell the difference. Davies was the only one who prefers bottled water although his qualification of his preference was that it was colder rather than it tasting better. We got a teatowel and met Duncan Goodhew who was helping to man the stand with his medal. Ady later got a signed teatowel for Davies from Duncan and took the childrens’ picture with him too. I’ve promised to find them some video footage of just who he is and what he did 🙂

We stopped for our picnic at that point before moving on to the pot making stall. After being given lumps of clay both children confessed to the woman they’d rather make something other than pots which she was very laid back about and showed them some other clay techniques to fit in with what they made instead. Davies made an elephant and Scarlett made a duck, duckling, nest and eggs :). There was a popular sheep shearing demonstration which we have watched there before but having seen a very comprehensive sheep shearing session at Open Farm Sunday last week we skipped that and move to the Sussex Wildlife Trust session they were booked on instead. The meet and greet guide was very friendly and chatty which rather dangerously set the tone for Scarlett who for the rest of the session never quite grasped the put your hand up to speak and only speak about something relevant to what the guide is talking about idea which was of course utterly necessary for managing the group of 10 children but nevertheless something Scarlett would struggle with when completely prepared for it let alone given the idea that the guide wants to chatter about the colour of her dress, what stickers she’s been given and where from and other such trivia :lol:. They were handed spotter sheets and walked a small trail looking for signs of wildlife. It is no criticism of the way it is run but neither is it something I consider a failing or issue for D and S but this deliverance of information is something so alien to them that they never really respond that well to it. Simply having facts shoved at you is something I find hard to process as an adult and that way of talking where you leave gaps in what you’re saying every so often so children can put their hands up to fill in the gaps like a sort of junior Blankety Blank somehow feels really patronising to me, especially when done with a rather blatant disinterest in what the children might have to say. Anyway minirant aside it was good and they saw various skulls of various animals and were told about teeth on skulls giving away information about feeding habits, looked for clues such as droppings, feathers and footprints and finished up with a game where they were blindfolded and had to walk along a string tied round some trees using their other senses to compensate to show them how badgers operate with limited eyesight. They were then given small pieces of card with a sticky strip to attach interesting grasses and flowers to bring home. At the end, despite Scarlett having been a bit of a pain with her yelling out the answers and random anecdotes the leader did come over to chat to us and talk about their family activities and holiday clubs though.

We had time for a brief sit down before heading off again to the other activity Davies and Scarlett were booked in for which was making an underwater sea landscape. This was done in a shoe box with cut out lid and portholes with blue cellophane and was excellent. They used all sorts of materials from clay and chalk and sand to ribbons, raffia and pompoms to make their underwater worlds with loads of information and facts thrown in as they went along. I was asked on several of the activities if the many photos taken of Davies and Scarlett doing things would be ok to be used either by the people running the activities or on one occassion a freelance photographer so will have to watch out in any coverage of the event for their pics :).

Ady popped the shoeboxes back to the car and the children and I had ice lollies then we had a final walk round handing in spotter sheets, collecting clay and lastly watching the tail end of a bird of prey talk. We were home too late for the children to join us for roast dinner (wouldn’t have been cooked in time) and it was too hot for roast dinners anyway so I cooked the gammon in ham as planned and Ady and I had it later with jacket potatoes instead while the children voted for pancakes for their tea. They had a bath and I read a pile of books to them before they went to bed.

Another busy week about to start and then this time next week we’ll hopefully be off on holiday :).