One word? When seven would do…

Go one, someone tell me it should be une or bonne or something! 🙂

Today it mostly rained. It rained in the morning, it rained in the afternoon and it rained in the evening. Our reclaimed palletwood ark would be coming along nicely if only it would stop raining for long enough to get out there and work on it. Scarlett, (as I predicted she might – she often does when her and I have had a falling out during the day as it plays on her mind and gives her nightmares) woke at about 530am and came into bed with me where she curled up in my arms, insisted she was ‘Mumma’s baby’ and went back to sleep. Ady went off to work, the children got up and watched Doctor Who while I lazed in bed with my book and chatted to them as they popped upstairs every so often.

Once we were all up properly and dressed they did some drawing and colouring while I did some editing of Davies latest film and then I put on the First Fun with French dvd I got from work. I put it on really casually expecting them to either ignore it or ask me to turn it off but they both stopped what they were doing to listen to the song (Frere Jacques) and Davies said ‘this isn’t in English – what it it? French?’. They sort of half watched it while they carried on colouring and then both got really engrossed in it. Scarlett hadn’t properly computed that there are other languages which people actually speak, although Davies was aware so we talked about that for a while. I distinctly remember saying to my Mum when I was a little girl ‘why doesn’t everyone just speak English then? Because we talk a proper language and all the others are just versions of English anyway’ somehow the idea of translation to English had got me confused that everyone really spoke English everywhere, it’s just that they translated it onto their language first! They asked me a few words not on the video in French and I was able to either tell them or look them up and I explained that I’d learnt a bit of French at school and been to France a few times on school trips. I then told them that Chris & Alison had just come back from visiting France and that if we got Davies’ passport sorted out we could go over for a day trip or even a couple of days soon, but we’d need to know a few words in French so we could talk to people there. They really liked this idea and the dvd was put on again while they ate dinner and then twice more this evening with them answering ‘oui’ and ‘non’ to everything we asked them and bidding us ‘Bon Soir’ when they went to bed. 🙂 I told them that I can count to 10 in five different languages ; English, French, German, Welsh and Japanese so they asked for demonstrations of that and I explained how I learnt each. From only getting the dvd cos I was fretting that it could be a potential gap in our autonomous approach to the vast amounts of chatting about languages and indeed in different languages today I guess I can confidently cross that one off as firmly introduced and run with as an idea. Facilitation complete ;).

By then it was time for lunch so I went and made sandwiches while D&S tidied up, then after lunch Davies put on a show. It had a few magic tricks, inlcuding lots of ‘volunteers from the audience’, some joke telling and some general entertainment. I tried to explain again to them about how a ‘joke’ works including deconstructing the knock knock genre but I’m not at all sure it is a) possible to take something as abstract as what is funny down to that level and b) certainly not to small children when actually the word ‘poo’ is hilarious. Guess sophisication in their sense of humour may or may not develop 😆 It was about 130pm by then, I’d made several phone calls, replied to various emails and done everything I needed to get done myself today which meant I gave the children the option of popcorn and movies or getting dressed up in waterproofs and heading to the beach. I was sort of expecting the beach to the the favourite and indeed it was. 🙂 A definite retail need in waterproof trousers for all three of us as both of their pairs of dungarees were too short and I think Scarlett’s will even be too short for Davies, and I don’t have any at all, but we donned what we did have and headed off to the beach.

We parked in the deserted car park which should be heaving and charging £1.50 per car on the first day of the school summer holidays but was empty with the kiosk padlocked shut and tumbleweeds blowing across the puddle ridden tarmac, climbed over the very lush verdant green (which is normally sun bleached and yellowing by this time of year) and down onto the pebbles. It was high tide, which was a shame as some sand and rock pools would have been nice but it was about 6 foot from highest tide so we followed the line of washed up cuttlefish and seaweed and did a spot of beachcombing and rock clambering.

We walked for about an hour along the sea, watched some kite surfing lessons, played with a very friendly chocolate labrador who wanted us to throw stones for it to fetch, chatted about all sorts of things, spotted shells, driftwood, seaweed and all manner of other washed up things, got wet and generally just enjoyed being outside for a while. Davies told me he wanted to be someone who cleaned up beaches when he grows up, then said actually he wants to be a film maker when he grows up but he might clean up beaches in his spare time. Both of them were really shocked and annoyed by the amount of crap either washed up or just dumped on the beach, broken glass, plastic lids, empty packets, a patio chair :shock:, it’s really sad to see the disregard that people have for the world really. 🙁 Scarlett said she’s going to stay with me and come to work at the library too when she grows up – possibly still a little fragile bless her :lol:. We were all getting pretty tired by then and had stopped for a rest to sit on the rocks and look at the sky darkening over Brighton so we decided to go back up to the path and walk back to the car, stop at the shop for squirty cream on the way home and then make hot chocolate. The path back is above sea level and the road levelf for a while so we had a good clear view up to the downs where it looked a bit clearer, and into the airport where small planes were landing and taking off – people’s litter aside we do have a lot of nice scenery where we live. 🙂 We also walked past the caravan site where a 15 year old boy was recently murdered and saw the static all boarded up and loads of flowers laid on the ground. I explained to the children what had happened and what little I knew about the case – the local paper had mentioned drinking and drugs use leading to an argument that got out of hand so we talked about that for a bit before cheering up and talking about how lovely it would be to live in one of the big houses with the massive gardens that back onto the beach.

When we reached the car Davies asked if he could pop into the shop to get the squirty cream. It’s a little local Co Op that you can park right outside of with one door in and out so I said he could. We parked outside, I explained that it would be in a fridge near the milk but he might have to ask for help if it was on a too high shelf and sent him in with a five pound note. He came out giggling ages later (I could see his shoes under the window posters from the car) having been chatting to the lad who works there and is a bit of a comedian. So first foray into independance of shopping totally successful. 🙂 The thing I have utter confidence about in Davies would be his ability to remain pretty calm in a crisis, work out the best course of action and go about doing it, he would always be able to ask someone for help and give them any information they needed and he is not at all scared of talking to anyone. This is of course tricky when it comes to giving him the right information about stranger danger but I guess that is something I don’t need to fret about just yet all the while I’m around watching from a distance.

Home for the promised hot chocolate, with cream, and sprinkles and marshmallows. 🙂 Then I set about trying to book NicCamps only to hit a brick wall when I discovered that they have just had all their hostels re-evaluated for room sizes and loads of them have been made less beds – including the previously 69 bed one we wanted to book and is now only 46 beds :roll:. Several rather lengthy conversations later with YHA, with their website still saying 69 beds but me getting absolute clarification that it is only 46 but is still at the same price we’ll have to make a decision about which hostel to go for by the end of the week but as I’m away tomorrow until late Wednesday there is nothing I can do until Thursday now. Grrr. The children made Doctor Who characters from geomags including an excellent tardis and K9, oh and as a result of an argument about who got to make / be K9 they created K10 as a new character 😆

I cooked their tea and Ady came home so I dashed off to Tescos to put petrol in my car as Ady is using it for work tomorrow so I can take his, get another single airbed as we’ve decided the children are better off with airbeds and sleeping bags for camping and some bits for dinner tonight. I packed everything ready to load in the car tomorrow, curry for dinner and we watched The Devil Wears Prada which was predictable fluff but easy enough to watch. Back on Wednesday 🙂