I guess I do get a fair bit done, it just never feels like it til I sit and write it all down at the end of each day.
First thing this morning I did some work on the laundry pile – putting away clean stuff. The washing machine has been out of action for 36 hours (it’s working again now, Ady did something to it using a tool and now it works – wahey, my own personal handyman! 😉 ) so there is a huge pile of dirty washing big enough to have it’s own postcode sitting in the bathroom but I was excused from worrying about that today. The children had breakfast – Davies had dry cereal because there was no milk and no skippy for his toast, Scarlett had a toasted bagel that was kicking around from Friday night’s dinner and only edible toasted. She only ate half actually as Candle licked some of the butter off the second half, so she ended up feeding that to the chickens – a real community caring sharing feel to breakfast time here today! I had tea with cream cos we had no milk. Tea with cream is disgusting. I either need to learn to drink my tea black or start to like coffee I assume is more acceptable with cream than tea is. Tea with cream is disgusting, I may have mentioned that. So no bread, no skippy, no milk… once I realised we had run out of loo roll too it became obvious we’d need to go shopping this morning :lol:.
On the way to Tescos we talked about bus routes – Davies had spotted the bus we were behind had a number 7 on it and we talked about routes and destinations and how the bus does a certain route repeatedly and at different frequencies. If I hadn’t also been about to run out of petrol we might have followed the number 7. But we didn’t because that would be a) a really unecologically sound way of using public transport b) a bit mad c) really annoying cos you’d keep getting caught behind it at every stop and even if you were following it and therefore wanted to pull in behind it each time there is a certain period of being behind a bus after which you simply cannot tolerate it stopping every few 100 yards and d) we barely had sufficient petrol to get to Tescos. Might get an all day travel ticket one day and show the children the routes though, or pick up a couple of timetables from work to show them.
We got our various essential bits at Tesco and a few other items including paper cups and plates for Davies’ party, some cake decorating bits and then came home. They’d been squabbling in the car on the way home so I’d told them to sit quietly and watch a film without arguing for an hour while I did some dalek making (making the skirt stronger and fretting about the dome and the plunger). I’d picked up a value frisbe at Tescos for 46 pence as the children had been looking longingly at the whizee noised frisbe our camping neighbours had in Swanage so I’d planned to get them one next time I saw some. They decided to play with that rather than watch a film but worked really hard to get on with each other on threatening of not going to the circus from me if they disturbed me. They then decided they wanted a water pistol that The Thank you Neighbours had brought over for them and we’d shoved in the garage (did I mention that David apologised for seeing me in my nightie the other morning and then made it all worse again by telling me how lovely I’d looked in it! :shock:). So they got the garage door key down from the high shelf in the kitchen (would have required clambering but I’m not thinking about that) then walked round the house to try and unlock the garage which they couldn’t do because there is a real knack to it that I only learnt when I was about 28 and had sat a NVQ level 2 in locksmithing 😆
I came in and we had lunch and they watched some Cat in the Hat while I had some pc time, whereupon I discovered that B&Q sell sink plungers for £1.28 so we shot up to B&Q to purchase one. I thought we’d managed to sneak through without being spotted by anyone we know but got caught at the tills by Gwen who has been there for years and wanted to chat. She asked me how long it was since I’d left (that store, it was 12 years ago) and said that for years after I left customers would ask after me and say I was the only one there who seemed to know what she was doing! A fine accolade indeed to have been championed as the best part time checkout operator B&Q Worthing had ever known! 😆 If only my Dad could have been there to hear that I know he would finally have been proud of my accomplishments and be prepared to overlook all my crapness with money and failure to send my children to school. 😆 She asked what I was doing now and I explained that I work part time in the library and spend the rest of the time at home with the children, which led onto her asking if they were at school yet and me explaining they ‘should’ be as they are school age, but aren’t because they learn at home. She wanted to know all about that then and how I ‘make them learn’ 🙄 I did a quick sketch of how they are still very young yet and so far are very motivated without giving her the full overhead projector, case study and illustrated with a dance routine, a jingle and costume characters production on autonomy because we were running late for getting to the circus. Which made me smile to myself as having torn ourselves away from making a life size dalek to buy a sink plunger whilst on our way to the circus pretty much sums our life up really and makes me think being the best checkout chick in B&Q 12 years ago was probably pretty good grounding for something 😆
Freds Flying Circus is playing at the local laked park for a bargain £2 per person admission. We’ve actually ‘met’ them before as they were holding the circus skills workshops at Sompting Festival. Lucy and The Rs were already there with excellent seats so we squished in next to them and enjoyed the show. Davies sat enthralled for the whole thing, Scarlett lost interest slightly towards the end and wanted to sit on my lap. They are running free workshops at 1230 each day so we’ll go down tomorrow so Davies can have a go. He’s been asking to learn circus skills for a while and I’ve been very slack in sorting it out so I might have a word with them there tomorrow as they are clearly local-ish and if Davies is genuinely interested maybe I can arrange something or at least get some contacts from them. We chatted on the way home about our favourite bits and they came straight into the garden and set up a circus act while I started inserting my sink plunger into my dalek.
Lucy and The Rs came back to ours, having detoured home to collect Rebecca’s space hopper which she’s very kindly lent me for a couple of days to form the shape of the domed bit of the dalek. So I carried on making that while chatting to Lucy and the children occassionally played and mostly argued – Davies and Scarlett continuing to do that thing of wanting to play with each other and not being able to just leave each other alone, but irritating each other and then arguing. 🙄 Lucy and The Rs left, I finished the bit of dalek I was on and then a huge grey cloud looked certain to burst so with the children’s help I got the dalek inside in to the playroom. They suddenly clicked into a game they could play without arguing so we had half an hours peace before we decided to do the baking I’d planned to get done before the apples and blackberries spoiled that we picked last week. They both had a go at peeling apples and deemed it too tricky, so I gave Scarlett pastry ingredients in a bowl and got her to rub them in and gave Davies crumble topping ingredients in a bowl and got him to rub them in. I peeled and chopped the apples and then Davies put apples, blackberries and crumble topping in his bowl and was very proud to have almost entirely made it himself :). Scarlett greased the pans for me while I rolled out the pastry and made little individual tarts, they put blackberries into the pastry bottoms while I cooked down some of the apples with some sugar and then made criss cross tops for them. By then they’d got bored so wandered off to play while I made an apple bread and butter pudding style creation and then finally cooked their tea. Ady arrived home and was very pleased to find the kitchen smelling of apple and cinnamon. 🙂
Doctor Who came on followed by Doctor Who Confidential while they were finishing their tea so they got to watch that while I popped to Sainsburys (forgot cat food :roll:), then bath and dinner for us. Tomorrow I have further dalek construction planned and a visit to the library for the children to finish the BWR and back for the circus skills workshop. It’s all go here. 🙂