I woke this morning with a real feeling of being lucky to have slept in a bed last night. Which of course meant my next thought was ‘so why the bloody hell am I giving it up then?’ 😆 Plenty to ponder on there but I guess the other blog is the place to explore that.
Everyone got dressed and tidied up and poppied and as we left the house the rain started. I wasn’t sure whether I’d be wanted to be with the Badgers or not as I am not a uniformed SJA member but I wore all black and looked smart incase I was wanted. It turned out I was, which I was pleased about actually, both to have done it with Davies and Scarlett and to have actually participated in the parade.
It rained for the duration of the 2 hours we were out of the car; walking to the meeting place, walking to assemble, waiting for other groups to assemble, listening to the band, the silence, the service, the laying of the wreaths, the hymns and for the march around the block past the mayor, past the town hall and the town memorial.
I don’t recall a parade that hasn’t had rain or bitter cold or wind, or indeed all three actually. I guess that is the likelihood in November ;), but it always feels quite appropriate. In the same way as I think it should always rain at funerals, like the skies are crying too. And it hides the few tears I always shed.
Back home we had lunch, hot drinks and the kids had a bath to warm up. Then Davies and I went and did his bedroom while Ady cooked dinner and did a visit to the tip and Scarlett bounced between us all at various points. It was fairly straightforward with no real tricky decisions for Davies (once we’d got over the furniture going last night) and we have fitted all of the stuff the kids want to keep into our loft. He now has a couple of boxes of toys which will either also fit in the loft or go to Mum & Dad’s, his bed, his bookcase and piles of clothes which will of course be coming with us or being got rid of before we go. It’s so funny, I think the kids bedrooms look fab, all spacious and clean and tidy, yet they hate it! 😆
Ady had cooked a lovely dinner, there was some debate about what to watch on TV while we ate but compromises were reached and we watched Jimmy’s Food Factory which we’d caught some of earlier in the week so were able to watch the whole programme. Scarlett went to bed, Davies and I watched X Factor and then he went to bed.
It’s felt like weekends and family time generally has been rather compromised and over shadowed by plans for next year and much as we are all happy to do so because we all want the end result I am aware that to children something we started talking about 6 months ago has become something we’ve been going to do ‘forever…’ and 3 months time, particularly when that has holidays and birthdays and Christmas and all of winter to go beforehand isn’t quite a quick enough payoff for difficult half hours now. Again, stuff for the other blog really (I’m crap at keeping them seperate). Anyway, where I was going with it was we are coming to the end of the tough stuff, have plenty of nice stuff ahead and I’m looking forward to a few treats we have lined up for Davies and Scarlett this week :).