well I couldn’t be accused of wallowing!

Woke after a dreadful night during which every single person I have ever met – and some I haven’t including a wide array of fictional characters – came to visit me in my dreams. Which were somewhat squashed by virtue of the fact I think I only slept for about half an hour between waking to wipe / blow my runny nose, cough pathetically, shiver from being too hot or snuggle deeper into the duvet from being too cold. Oh and at one point I woke to find Davies in bed with us too – which I had thought was a surreal part of my dreams but clarified as fact with him this morning. I staggered downstairs at about 6.30am where Ady was washing up and Davies was Xboxing because I could hear Scarlett wailing quietly ‘Mummy, Mummy’ through the baby monitor. Told Ady I felt shite and stumbled back to bed. He came up about 7.30am with a cup of tea, a glass of water and a side helping of Daynurse drugs. I believe I have blogged before about cold and flu medication and how I consider it evil and mind altering. It has the same effect as cocaine on me, makes me go all hyper, glittery eyed and chattering with the belief I am invincible and should start climbing mountains with imediate effect. But I took it cos I feel so crap.

It kicked in and had me and the children whirlwinded into being dressed and ready with picnic packed way before Lucy arrived with a frantic gleam in my eye, my pockets filled with tissues and a ‘I can take you on, I can take you ALL on’ attitude. We set off to meet Julie, via services on the way where we collected Lucy’s friend Sam in convoy with her son A. We arrived slightly ahead of Julie so set off into the woods at a slow pace to allow them to catch us up. Julie arrived with Jack and Maisie and her Mum and Mum’s boyfriend Gunther so we were quite a crowd. We had a walk round with Davies and Scarlett running ahead, mostly joined by Jack and Maisie with occassional helpings of Recbecca and Richard. I managed a bit of walking alongside Sam, Julie and Lucy in turns which was nice and made for a wide variety of conversations – some more amusing and entertaining than others – with special mention to Sam telling me she is really into the idea of Home Ed and is qualified to teach her son until he is 8 – this made me laugh lots as I stood, highly ‘unqualified’ and slighty high on cold and flu relief while my six year old who should have been sitting in a classroom full of other six year olds that he has spent the last two years closeted away with at 11.45 on a Tuesday morning was climbing a tree, entering into a wild and riotous role play game with his sister and cousins, talking about dead trees being lighter than live ones and how they rotted away and identifying holly, acorns, oak trees etc. Shame I’m not qualified eh? 😉

We went back to the car park and had a picnic lunch which was lovely with lots of sharing of picnic food before Sam headed off (she had already disturbed her routine with a 15 minute late penalty for lunch so naptime was at huge risk of being disrupted :lol:) and the rest of us re-entered the woods for The Walk Part II – This Time It’s Personal!

Davies and Scarlett were having a whale of a time with loads to see and investigate, lots of open air to fill with noise and laughter and plenty of props for their ongoing games. Jack and Maisie were mostly happy followers and when we rounded a corner and discovered a teepee type structure made from branches it was not long before Richard and Rebecca got stuck in too. They children clambered about in it, found sticks and branches to add to it and generally enjoyed it. At which point we should have turned back the way we’d come and headed back to the car. But we didn’t.

Instead we allowed Davies to lead us, confident in the knowlegde that all paths round there are cyclic, if they children were already so far ahead and enjoying themselves then it would be silly to pull them back and personally I was in phase three of cold and flu tablet induced energy buzz I could have walked for miles! Some hour and a half later with six children none of whom wanted to walk another step, a complete come down from my medication leading to a full on relapse and that slightly other dimension type feeling you can get when you start to fully believe you may never see home again I got a phonecall with good enough news to buoy us up for the last leg of the journey. I reckon we must have walked a good 4 or 5 miles today – Davies walked all but the whole way, Tarly had a brief spell of piggybacking – which tipped the balance between a slight twinge in my neck / shoulder / back related to cold and glands into full on can’t look over my own shoulder let alone turn my head quickly or raise my arms above shoulder height.

We were all mighty glad to fall upon the car park again and with a small bar of chocolate each to sustain us we headed for home. Tarly, Richard and Rebecca all fell asleep with Davies coming pretty close too. Lucy came in for a drink and a chat before heading off just before I got a text from my mate Dayve to say he was about to arrive at Lancing station.

We hopped back in the car to collect him and brought him home, where he instantly made friends with the children by bringing them a cool array of gifts including a notepad with a cover made from recycled car types, a bandana with a skull and crossbones and a rubberwood stamp with a tree / sun / flower on it for Davies and a cuddly cat wearing a dinner jacket, a notebook made from bananas and a small wooden container with lovely colouring pencils for Tarly. Oh and a bottle of red wine for me which came in a really cool shaped bottle with a very pretty label which I am shallow enough about packaging to appreciate and I consider did make the wine taste better! 😆

Pizza for tea, enough wine to top up the drugs still clearly in my system, a sleepover for Davies and Scarlett who decided they *really* love Dayve for that and a few happy hours of reminscing of our lives in Manchester complete with home video footage of the setting up of Dreamieland and lots of ‘do you remember when?’ stories from those early days.

Dayve – who can’t hold his drink was slurring words and staggering on his feet and has to catch a very early train in the morning, Ady has been driving lots and I am in bed blogging and wondering where I can find a dealer to supply me with Beechams and cut price costs 😉