Scarlett did indeed continue to have a rough nights sleep and ended up in bed with me while Ady decamped to her bed. Not at all sure what that was about and she’s been slightly wobbly today too.
I was up earlier than normal as I registered in my half asleep mind that it was later than it should be to still hear Ady around in the house so got up to check why he was still here and stayed up. Which meant I was early up enough to have a fit of efficiency in housekeeping and Home Ed and did some washing, packed a picnic and was on my second cup of tea by 9am suggesting we have a real proper look at the geology loan box.
There’s about 15 fossils and rocks and minerals in there all in little labelled bags with a print out describing each one, a time line about periods and how long ago they were (cretaceous, jurassic, triassic and so on), a page all about things like lustre, cleavage and streaks (in relation to rocks, not just generally ;)). We went through every single one, opening it, passing it around, smelling it (one of the rocks was iron pyrite (or fools gold) which has a smell about it and the sheet said to smell it) and generally exploring it. I have to confess to getting bored about half way through. I did chivy them along a bit but tried not to let my own lack of interest show too much as they were both very enthused, particularly Davies. As I said later to Davies, it’s the first time one of them has had a real interest that I just don’t share at all.
I had time for another cup of tea and they did some DSing before it was time to leave to go to Highdown Gardens to meet up with Julie, Jack, Maisie and Lorna. The weather looked a bit iffy but it didn’t rain and we had a really nice couple of of hours wandering round chatting and playing and generally catching up with each other. I did feel a bit uneasy at one point as the gardens are ornamental and seem to have ever more signs up every time we visit about all the things you aren’t allowed to do. The latest include ‘Do not let your children go to the toilet in the gardens, there are toilets at the entrance’, ‘Do not pick the flowers’ and ‘No ball games’. I’m not sure if they are because there are huge amounts of people coming and abusing the gardens or whether they’ve got a new laminator and gone sign crazy but it did feel a bit oppressive and I was conscious of the children running and playing and kept feeling the urge to shush them and get them to walk in an orderly fashion whenever we walked past anyone else.
Julie hadn’t brought a picnic and they needed to get back as they had friends coming round after school so we headed for home. We debated going somewhere else but none of us could come up with anything so we came home. The kids both did some drawing / painting and I threaded up and wove a rag rug ready for selling in shades of pink. It’s more large doormat size than the bigger sizes I’ve done before but it only took a couple of hours and I reckon I’m better having a few different sizes to offer with a view to taking commissions if people are after something more specific and bespoke.
Davies did a fab picture of rocks and fossils with charcoal and pencils – will get a photo of it in daylight. He then decided to label it so using a mixture of looking at the print out from the loan box, some help from me and his own spelling he did that too.
Ady came home and the kids both spent some time in the cupboard under the stairs trying to find our laminator. They did but the cupboard then needed a major tidying up from Ady to put it all back together again :rolls:
Scarlett and I went round to Rainbows. She decided she needed me to stay again after all despite being fine last week. She then got upset because another girl came to join the game she was trying to play with me (tossing hoops over cones) so she went off to get more cones and then the leaders said everthing needed tidying up. They did some planting of bulbs (mothers day gifts, assume they are making decorative pots next week for them) and then some skipping but Scarlett’s heart wasn’t in it and she ended up sat next to me wanting to cuddle. I suggested we might as well go home really than sit in a hall cuddling and she agreed so we left! It was only about 15 minutes early and I wasn’t really expecting her to agree but it seemed a bit pointless sitting there.
Back home to drop Tarly off and I nipped back out to get some mushrooms for Ady’s pizza then came back to help tidy up, make pizza, have a bath and watch Comic Relief. Scarlett went to bed / sleep pretty early, Davies stayed up until the viewing got too inappropriate (just before 11ish I think), we donated online and now despite feeling tempted to stay up and watch the last hour or so I really need to go to bed as I’m working in the morning.