One word? When seven would do…

Saturday morning Scarlett awoke and announced she had a cold. I love her self-diagnosing of things, she does it often and is frequently correct. She did look pretty rough and was sniffling and snuffling and doing that hot and cold thing. I was off to work and Ady and the children were off to Lakeside Costco to return a sleeping bag.

Ady had bought two new sleeping bags on Friday. We’ve not long had ours and they were posh Vango ones but they are mummy sleeping bags and neither of us can get on with that design. I sleep on my side with one leg up and the bag simply doesn’t allow that. So although I am cosy and warm I often woke last week with pins and needles in various limbs from being restricted and possibly tensing in my sleep. Also although they can be zipped together we thought that would be even worse for that claustrophobic feeling. The children have cheapo sleeping bags and piles of fleeces though so they can now have the mummy bags which won’t be so restricting for them anyway and will last them and we’ve bought new ones. These are huge, kingsize and two zipped together are indeed the size of a king size quilt. They have a removable fleece inner which will be perfect for sitting outside the tent in of an evening and then getting into the sleeping bag in and they are lovely and weighty like a proper winter duvet. Unfortunately I was a little heavy handed with the zip when trying to work out how to put them together and one broke so Ady was returning it for a swap over.

I had a nice morning at work, fairly quiet; I did some work on a display and then ripped it all down again because I wasn’t happy with it and then spent some time on the enquiry desk. I got home a full ten minutes before Ady and the children but got caught outside chatting to David the Thank you Neighbour for at least five of them so only really had time to put the kettle on in unaccustomed silence before the others arrived home again. It does feel very odd being in the house all alone.

We had lunch and I was shown Big Brain Academy which the children had a joint gift (bargain at £16 in Asda). It’s proved an instant hit with both of them able to play it alone and doing lots of playing together on it too. I’ve had a go and it is pretty good. 🙂

Ady and the children harvested some salad potatoes they’d grown from QVC featured kits and had an impressive crop from just a couple of seed potatoes each 🙂

yes she is clutching a soft toy under her arm, she has no favourite or loyalty to any of them but is usually to be found with one of some sort about herself. Rabbit today, monkey tomorrow, panda a week on Saturday!

No he is not attached to the washing line, no I do not hang him out damp in the hope he’ll stretch like a heavy wool jumper!

Scarlett had peaked for a while but was feeling rough again and had gone back to bed when Kirsty, James,Marcus and Alex arrived :). We didn’t see the children at all, they all got on really well in various combinations. They watched Doctor Who which inspired a game with all Davies’ characters and seemed to join in with the lego and cars they were already playing with. There was some Xboxing and some running around the garden. Oh and some chicken mingling too. We sat outside and chatted until it got cold then Kirsty and I sat on the stairs (there isn’t any other place quite like it) while Ady cooked and James chatted to him. The kids had pizza and we had a very late (and very large) curry while listening to songs from the 90s and marvelling at some of them being nearly 20 years ago 😯

It was lovely to see them all and when they left the children went to bed, Ady and I sat and chatted for a while and then when he’d gone to bed I watched Doctor Who on iplayer as I just knew Davies would want to chat about it in the morning.

Sunday I woke up feeling intolerant and impatient. Scarlett and I had a falling out about her sniffing and refusing to blow her nose. Davies is quite possibly also coming down with the cold and was also very tired so a bit floppy and pathetic. Ady was setting up his new toy – a dvd recorder with hard disc that does all sorts of fancy media centre type stuff including pausing live telly like sky plus does. Another Asda bargain at £60. He got his annual bonus on Friday – can you tell? 😉

Once we’d all had breakfast despite Ady being happy to play with that and the children being tired and wanting a quiet day at home I insisted we go out as the sun was shining and I hate ‘wasted’ weekends where we don’t do anything. We decided to go to Asda (another pattern!) to get the little tents we’ve been talking about so finally got out the house and drove there to buy them. We were then driving past Fishbourne Roman Palace on the way home and Ady has never been. My season ticket is about to run out so it made sense to go and only pay for him to get in. The woman on the counter was lovely and suggested I sign his season ticket so I can use it rather than him as I am more likely to go again with the children in the next year so it didn’t even cost that over the year :).

Davies and Scarlett showed Ady round, surprising how much they have absorbed over our various visits there. This time Davies was interested in the hydocaust underfloor heating so we chatted about that. We then got rounded up to go and see the little film about how the site was uncovered in 1960 and what they think it would have looked like in Roman times. Ady and Scarlett didn’t manage the whole film as she started to cough so he took her out but Davies and I watched it and Davies recounted it to Ady afterwards.

Once we’d walked all around the gardens I sat in the interactive bit with the children while Ady had a more leisurely look at all the mosaics. Davies built a roman villa with some blocks and then spent ages with various camera settings of black and white and sepia to make it look ‘like the olden days’, self timer so he could be in the shot and so on.

Scarlett did some coin rubbings and some mosaic pictures.

We went into the store room museum part too where Davies wrote in the visitor book – it’s his new thing whenever we go somewhere that has one. Today he wrote ‘cool’ in the comments 😆

We got home and I made up the tents which are going to be just perfect for what we want – might still look out for a small tent big enough to take the four of us but don’t want to pay much for it as it won’t be something we use that often.

The children had a bath (they were filthy :oops:) and Ady cooked a lovely roast dinner. We ended up all watching Doctor Who again at 8pm so it wasn’t the early night for the children we’d planned and they both faffed about even when it was bedtime so I think a quiet day is in order tomorrow.