I caught up on the WW blog this morning, helped Davies with a couple of rows of knitting. He’s mastered knitting pretty quick although is finding purl tricky. He needs to do stocking stitch for what he wants to make but I am thinking maybe I could do the alternate every other row of purl for him which would speed it up for him and make it less of a challenge.
Scarlett gathered her new selection of books and sat looking at them, asking the odd question and for some bits to be read to her. I wanted to take a couple of things back to the library and collect a couple more that I’d had email notification had arrived for me so we decided to walk there. I want to get more active, rely less on the car and try and spend time outside in the coming weeks. I know we have the ‘last visit’ rounds to start sometime soon but suspect finances and lack of actual stuff to really do out and about will mean we spend lots of time at home so walking from home to places when possible would be a good way of acheiving this.
We decided to have lunch first so ate and watched some science type programme and then wrapped up warm. It had gotten really dark and was bitterly cold when I went to chop some logs so I really thought it might snow but actually when we stepped outside it was drizzling with rain. A quick vote and we decided to walk anyway.
I like the conversations we have driving or walking, always really interesting and often utterly apropos of nothing. We talked about our litter walk, Davies put forward some radical ideas for getting people to clear up after their dogs, we talked about why we put a certain name first when talking about two people – eg Davies & Scarlett, Nic & Ady and tried to come up with patterns and reasons – oldest first, male first, person we knew first etc. We couldn’t spot one other than in all the couples with a Chris we knew we tended to put the Chris first (which only later on this evening I pledged to amend on my phone address book as it’s a right pain scrolling through them all to ring Julie). Oh and just what would happen if you stood on a pavement crack – apparently my Mum said to them while out walking you mustn’t stand on the cracks or it will break your mother’s back. I’d always said as a child that if you stood on the cracks the ‘bears would get you’. I backed this up a bit further on when we saw a huge lump of dog poo and I speculated it was actually probably from a bear instead 😆
At the library I thought my heavy bag carrying was at an end when I handed over a load of books we’d returned but I’d forgotten Scarlett and her book grabbing ways so I ended up carrying even more home again. The kids admired my Cavemen Stories display (and selected a book from it) and Scarlett sorted a book that was mis-shelved that had her most indignant!
We got home and about five minutes later the drizzle turned to really heavy rain so our timing was pretty good. The house was cold as I have turned the heating down, both because I don’t want a huge end bill from the gas company and because I do think we have the house on the hot side, so I debated lighting the fire (trying not to do that til it gets dark, want to eke the logs out until we leave), putting the heating back on or getting some socks. In the end Tarly declared it cold and she lit the fire 😆 I did get some socks out and put them on the radiator to warm up (once the heating had also been put on) but they are still hanging on the radiator now.
I made the kids some tea, managed to set the smoke alarms off by catching the sausages while trying to wash up at the same time and then the phone rang. It was the woman from yesterday calling to see if I could find the paperwork from our loft conversion as the council had told her they had no record of it. Argh! Fortunately I know it was 100% approved by the planning dept. and signed off by the building regs dept. but our copy of the paperwork is tucked upstairs in the loft in a box pushed right to the back. I’m not at all sure it would be worth the couple of hours it would take to get to it. I tried to ring the council myself but got no reply so I’ll have another go tomorrow. She did sound quite doubtful and then said she had found online where planning permission had been turned down in 2005 (when we applied for a further extension and it was refused). Sigh. A minor hassle but I imagine that will be several phonecalls and chasing around I could just do without.
That prompted me to sort out our paperwork folder though which was on my list of things to deal with, on the offchance it was in there rather than in that box in the loft. It wasn’t but I have now pared it all down to a small folder that we’ll leave with my parents incase of emergencies. Am now getting all anxious waiting for the phone to ring – need to hand my notice in by 20th January and Ady by 28th January which doesn’t give us much time to have a tennant lined up really.
Ady arrived home and we did our good, bad, learnt today lists:
Davies Bad – plasticine character got broken, Good – done well with knitting, Learnt – about why you can’t smell your own farts (from one of those Science museum books, why eating bogeys are good for you etc.)
Scarlett – Bad: that I put the fire out (she put too much paper on it once it was going), Good: paracord bracelet whistle catches arrived in the post, Learnt: reticulated pythons are the largest snakes in the world at up to 10 metres long.
Ady – Bad: been told I have an appraisal at work next week, Good: Bought birthday presents for Nic within budget, Learnt: about consumer rights on goods fit for purpose.
Nic – Bad: lost paperwork for house build, Good: jump, jump, jump it’s my birthday tomorrow, learnt- how free range chicken farmers keep up their egg production through the winter.
I talked to my friend Rose who has just come back from celebrating New Year in New York and then my Mum to arrange to go out for dinner with them tomorrow.
I wanted to see my birthday in but not be too late to bed. I think I’ve more or less managed that :).