We had plans to meet up with Julie, Jack, Maisie and Lorna this morning but Julie had other things to be doing. I could easily get irritated about this (and sometimes briefly do) as she does it fairly often – she doesn’t cancel she just decides to do something else instead and assumes others will fall in with her. It is done with just enough charm to get away with it though ;). We were not up for going and watching her muck out a stable instead of a walk round a lake though and I was conscious of my car’s reliability in dodgey weather. We re-arranged to meet after lunch instead depending on the weather.
So this morning I spent some time blogging about my grandmothers while Davies did some secret santa stuff and Scarlett created mazes and pictures of characters from Harry Potter and How to train your dragon. More watching of the dvd too, both of them can now recite the bulk of the dialogue along with the characters 😆
Julie rang just before lunch to say it was pouring with rain over her way so we ‘took a rain check’ and rearranged to get together next week. We had lunch and although it was pissing down with rain I decided we had spent far too much time indoors this week and would all benefit from being outside for a while. We had a vote on beach or downs and both Davies and Scarlett went for downs so we got wellies and coats on and jumped in the car and drove up to where the allotments are. I love that we have the sea and the downs so very close, both all but visible from our windows but the roads around us are boring and dull so it’s always worth a two minute drive to eat up that mile or so for an interesting walk.
We walked alongside the alllotments to check our old plot out. It has obviously been taken over but nothing has been done other than a small area being covered with black plastic and the pond drained. We walked up the very steep hill slipping and sliding in the mud and turned round, breathless near the top to look at the view of the sea. Scarlett had this huge grin on her face and took my hand and said ‘oh, I do love it here.’ 🙂 No matter where we travel I guess this will be a spot they return to in their future and maybe bring their children to stand and admire the view and share memories of their childhood with :).
Davies and Scarlett were keen to share some of the places they used to come to when I was at the allotment and they used to roam so we had a lovely hour or so with them showing me various precious places to them. I saw ‘chalk cliff’, camps, secret paths, heard anecdotes about times they had spent there. I watched them scramble up steep slopes, clamber up trees, splash in puddles and slip in the mud :). We looked out at the sea and across the downs, enjoyed the views of the A27 with snakes of cars with their headlights on, the grey clouds over Lancing college and the sheep (who had a ram in tupping – biology tick!) in the next field.
As we walked back we discovered a stream of puddles running down the hill which they decided to dam so we spent another 10 minutes or so of Scarlett gathering materials and Davies damming the flow.
” alt=”” />
We walked back through the woods to the car and I enjoyed listening to them telling me stories about the various trees and houses, I recall a small wooded area opposite my Grandma’s flat that Frazer and I would go and play in when we were about their age and make up similar stories about.
Back home they were very muddy so they got in the bath while I chopped some firewood and got all the muddy clothes in the wash. I lit the fire and got them some tea along with getting our dinner sorted for later. My Mum popped round to deliver a cloak for Davies. It had come into her shop a few weeks ago and she’d rung me to say she knew we were getting rid of stuff but would he like a HP cloak? I said yes and she had put it by to give him on Tarly’s birthday but I’d rung her to say he’d like it for the film tomorrow so she brought it over to give him early. She stayed for a while and was still here when Ady got home.
Mum left, the kids got ready for bed and I read them a couple of Ladybird classic stories that Ady had picked up in a charity shop and I had as a child – Dick Whittington and The Big Pancake.
I finished off the dinner and had a bath, we watched Autumnwatch and thought of Marcus, Michelle and Chloe and our fab holiday in the summer seeing dolphins and what a magical moment the first sight of them was (dolphins, not MM&C!) which had me all emotional about missing them (MM&C, not the dolphins!).
Aw. Miss you too xxxxx
Comment by Michelle — 19 November 2010 @ 6:53 pm