Malbridge House

I thought we’d been ditched, but we hadn’t. The reporter has misquoted us a couple of times, but we’re really pleased with the article

In the actual paper they had a bit about what Eden had to say about it with a picture of it but that doesn’t seem to be included in the online article.

We’ve seen Mama Mia, I would thoroughly recommend it, I didn’t know what to expect, but we were laughing all the way through it, you’ve got to watch it just to say you’ve heard Pierce Brosnon sing! Or not sing! You decide!

This has brought a bit of an ABBA revival in our house, the children were going round singing the songs and we explained they were sung by ABBA first and gave then a bit of background, but the songs have made such an impression on them, so we looked up some ABBA songs on the computer and this evening we have sat and watched thirty videos of ABBA songs, the children dancing about and me saying " Oh I love this one" to just about all of them, Malc was telling us what sea he was under at the time of release as he was in the Navy on submarines. We could both remember all the words, I know I’m going to sound old but nowadays there aren’t many songs in the charts I can make out any words too! I know I sound like my Mother!

It was a lovely way to round off the day.

This morning we went over the backwaters armed with carriers and old marge tubs and we went blackberry picking, we had a couple of light showers but the children loved it, we found a couple of apple trees and Eden climbed up them, shook branches, the boys picked them off the floor, we filled five containers with blackberries and two carriers of apples.

The blackberries have been frozen as they are in their containers and Cal and I peeled all the apple and boiled them with some brown sugar, they’ve cooled and are also in the freezer.  We plan to go over the backwaters again sometime soon and pick some more.  Another blast from the past as I remember picking as a child, oh, I do love the gentle pursuits in life!!

Just soft tissue damage, although it’s Monday evening and he’s still limping.

We’ve been away in our caravan for the weekend, so I’m going to do a very long catch-up post

tomorrow.

Thanks everybody for the comments and well wishes.

I haven’t been around for a while, we had a lovely anniversary and then we all went away for the weekend in our caravan and had a lovely time. I’ll blog again soon with pics.

Unfortunately on Tuesday we had to have Burley put to sleep and then on Friday we had to have Gypsy put to sleep, we’ve lost three dogs in five weeks and we are all hurting. I will explain more when I next post but at the moment we need to take some time and heal the hurt we’re feeling.

We’ve had more problems with our neighbours and I feel like it’s never ending at the moment.

Thanks for sticking with us and I’ll post again soon.

Well it didn’t get off to a great start, I was washing up looking out of the kitchen window and I wondered why the two puppies were running round the rabbit run, they don’t usually do this, went out to look, the rabbit had only died!! At least he went munching on grass! Malc walked in the door from work just as I discovered it, so I let him deal with it whilst trying to keep the children in so they wouldn’t see it. They took it quite well, Soloman, with his three year old logic told me not to worry we could get another one!

Luckily we were so caught up with packing clothes and what books they wanted to take they didn’t have a lot of time to think about it.

We only went to my Mums, we were going to go to a site but we’ve not got round to booking anything, a change is as good as a rest they say!

We arrived about 3-30pm, had an early tea. Unfortunately I still had to take Callum to Beavers and Eden to book club, but when we all got back we sat in Mums garden on her garden swing supping wine, that’s the life!

Got up on Saturday and we went to a different garden centre than last weekend, took the flats and photos.

Eden looks so thrilled to be there doesn’t she?

Lord save me from stroppy young ladies!

We bought a rose called "Rhapsody in Blue, because the rabbit was a blue/grey colour. Mum bought a rose and an arch for it to climb up, when we got back Malc and Callum put it up.

We also went to see my sister whose birthday it was on Saturday, she also shares her birthday with Medina, our dog and Diesel, Medinas brother who is owned by my brother. Confused, come on keep up!

Arrived back at Mum and had chips from the chippie for tea, well it was Bank Holiday!

Sunday morning we had a lovely fried breakfast prepared by Mum and packed everything up, got home at dinnertime. We spent the rest of the day out in the garden, it was meant to be heavy rain, but it was glorious.

Today we woke to heavy rain, Mum decided she wanted more roses and another arch so we went back to the same garden centre ( shame they don’t do loyalty cards!) Mum bought another three roses and another arch. Callum can’t wait to dig a few holes for her roses and put her arch together for her.

This afternoon has been spent cake making, in fact I think I may have to sample a cheese scone in a minute!

We’re early to bed tonight, Soloman and Cody are already asleep, the other three will be going up soon and I won’t be far behind them. Malcs back at work tomorrow so it’s an early start again.

Been away for a few days, we’ve had a lot going on, we’ve had a dispute with our neighbours which has been very stressful, but it seems to be resolving, by that I mean other neighbours are backing us up and the neighbours that complained have asked the neighbourhood policelady to approach me for a reconcilliation, I haven’t spoken to them for about 20 months and I don’t intend to start, I want to see if they’re going to cancel their complaint, talking to Malc I think we’ve come up with we want to be left alone, let’s agree to just lives our lives and if they don’t hassle us we won’t take defensive action.

We’ve spent the last three days at my Mums splashing about in the paddling pool. I’ve got photos of flats lounging on the side of the pool which I will post tomorrow. Because of all the hassle we’ve had we forgot to send across our Sketch Tuesdays, which was a shame because they were lovely, so I’ll probably put them on tomorrows post so you can all admire them! Clark recieved his certificate today for coming 1st in the April SHE Forum April competition, he was chuffed, so thankyou Linda. We’ve still got to finish this months that we started at the end of last week, but I think we’re back on track again and the weather is meant to be grim for the next few days at least so we’ll get a bit of work done.

Callum has just lost a tooth by biting on a lollipop, so although not the healthiest of things to eat, they can be useful!

I’ve not been near my computer for about four days so I’ve got lots of blog reading to do, I’ll see if it’s my turn on any scrabble games, and then I’m off for an early night.

Thanks to a comment from Carol, I double checked the petrol prices in America, Somebody commented on how much their prices had gone up, in fact they have but they are still miles cheaper than us, and so is their postage!! Thankyou Carol, you are tonights winner of "Spot the deliberate mistake" Hehe!

Went to town this morning with Mum and Eden, looked around a few shops, it was nice not to be continually counting children to make sure I’d got them all! I looked around without interruption and it was fantastic, so thanks Mum! Came home with some little plug of Impatients and Petunias and Fushias, they’re in the greenhouse, I’ll wait until they get a bit bigger until I put them in the hanging baskets.

Got back about 11-30am, the boys had been doing wordsearches together, had lunch and then to much jumping up and down and screeching( and that was just me!) our first Flat arrived. I tell you petrol might be an extortionate price in America but their postage sure is cheaper! It cost us about £1-64 for each flat, the postage today on our recieved flat was $1-07 which is very roughly 60p/70p.

I was amazed, not that I’m moaning, the price is worth it, the children are so "into" this at the moment.

This afternoon, Clark drew a picture from "Jack and the Beanstalk" and Callum and Eden did a book review for the SHE April competition. They both hand wrote their reviews, I went over it with them and corrected a couple of spelling mistakes and then they typed them out as a post. Callum took absolutley ages, he’s not so use to the keyboard as Eden is, it was excrutiating watching him at times!

We’ve been making a smoothie each day this week, I keep forgetting to say, the children have been making up their own recipes, todays was, a lemon, a lime and pineapple juice, it was a bit sharp but better than I expected, it’s got the vote for the week so far. My favourites usually involve bananas and/or ice cream!

Malc and Clark made Chocolate Rice Krispie cakes which is about their level because it doesn’t involve actually cooking in an oven! were lovely, I can tell you that because they’ve already been sampled.

Callum read both of his Oxford Reading Tree books to me and then it was time for Beavers, where I ran round a hall with 20 boys, 6 to 8 years of age, sat on the floor, played Lego and tried to get up in a dignified manner befitting a 40 year old woman whose legs and backside hadn’t really gone numb!

Eden cooked Spagetti Bolognese for tea, under Malcs watchful eye, it was ready as we walked in the door and was delicious.

They have been doing their Sketch Tuesdays for this week, I’ve got two half finished so far, this week it’s "Something in your Closet!" Lordy me, I dread to think!!

We didn’t have a very good nights sleep last night, Clark was up about three times, I’m not sure if he was having bad dreams, but we got up about 7am and I definitely wanted to snuggle back down under the covers. Unfortunately, we had a workman coming to put a vent through the lounge wall, something to do with having an open fire and cavity wall insulation!

We did quite a bit of school work, the maps of the state of America were printed off and laminated, we looked up the town where our flats have been sent and put a sticker on the spot, we numbered the stickers and we’ve written an index with the right adress to correspond with the number on the sticker.

Then Clark did some handwriting practice, Callum did some Maths, revision mainly so I can see where he’s at, Eden did similles.

Through all of this the workman was banging a hole in the wall and giving the children progress reports every time he went through a layer, until we had a hole, he was very good with their questions, and not a word about them not being at school/doing schoolwork.

Mum came up and we had some lunch, she took Eden, Callum and Clark back with her and brought them home in time for tea. With Soloman and Cody asleep we had a really peaceful afternoon, and I did actually say to Malc, just think this is what it would be like if they were in school, I know, wash my mouth out with soap!

Mum stayed for tea, after we’d cleared everything up, she looked after the children and Malc and I took the dogs over the fields, it was bliss, I think we even held hands at one point! The relative peace of the afternoon and our walk on our own was just what was needed after the stressful first three days of the week.

Now, to round it all off Callum and I are going to read a book so that he can do a review of it for the SHE April competition. Today, I love my life again!!

Oh just thought I’d add, some people have a naughty step, well personally I don’t agree with them, why would I need one when we’ve got this!!

Whoopee, the van was fixed in time for us to go shopping today! At the end of our shop we went to queue at our favourite ladys till, even though there were shorther queues, I noticed two supervisors talking to each other and I could see they were saying about us not going to a shorter queue, so I approached one of them and explained the reason we go to this lady and would rather wait in a longer queue is because she’s so nice to our children, we have all five with us, she asks about our seedlings, Edens nails, the dogs, she’s wonderful, the lady whose usually next to her is lovely too and if we can’t get our "favourite" lady we will go to her as a close second. I also told them that there’s a lady down the other end, who I wouldn’t go to if there was nobody at her till and ten at every other till, she tuts, gives my children dirty looks, she’s like the child catcher in Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang.

Whereupon the lady asked us what was wrong with our children, I could have kissed her! Anyone who’s nice to my children is my friend. Now my children aren’t angels, but they’re not brats either, I like a certain standard of behaviour when we’re out, but saying that, I like them to ask questions, be sociable, confident and I’m sorry but if you can’t handle different types of people maybe you shouldn’t be working at Asdas.

So I told our "favourite" lady what I’d said because I’d seen her looking at us, and I’ve told her if she gets a payrise I want commission!

After having lunch, my fully qualified mechanic of a husband, not, went to my Mums because her car is a bit hit and miss on starting, the battery has been checked, probably with a lot of hissing through teeth! It was fine, so she was told to take her alternator up to be tested, so who would be the best person to disengage her alternator from the rest of the engine, Malc. He’s a dab hand at these now, practice make perfect and all that, so they took it to be tested and it’s fine, which is good, but also bad because we still don’t know what’s causing the fault.

Poor Malcs hands are covered in cuts and bruises, because he hasn’t got the right tools you know, my Hero! I mentioned that’s what real work hands look like.

Eden and Callum have spent a lot of time on the computer this afternoon, whilst I spent time in the kitchen ironing again, washed another three loads of clothes, dried two of them, so guess what? The ironing basket is as full as it was when I got up this morning. I love my life !! Well parts of it anyway!

We had an email from the "hosts" of Dorset Apple cake,with an attached photo, it’s sitting in the bucket of a digger, their flat should arrive in a couple of days, let’s hope it’s not scared of dogs!!

Malc has printed off some copies of America with all the states and he’s laminated them so Eden, Callum and Clark can have one each in their Geography folders, they’re going to put stickers on the states that each of our flats visit. We’re thinking of doing another one each to put stickers on the states of the flats that we host, but I’m not sure if it’ll all get too confusing for them, have to have a think.

Got up this morning and  did the housework, hung two lots of washing out ( more ironing!)

Mum brought Eden back about midday and we had some fruit bread that I’d made in the breadmaker. Mum took Malc to get the alternator, that took about 1 1/2 hours, during the time they were gone I completely cleaned off the crud dried in weetabix off the high chair, I’ve been meaning to do it for ages a little while. That took me nearly an hour, the next time Cody flings weetabix anywhere, he’s in big trouble I will clean it off straight away.

Malc put the alternator on pretty quickly, for him anyway as he’s a complete amateur at mechanics

Unfortunately the car didn’t start, so he called a friend! He put his special equipment on the battery, slowly sucked in air through his teeth, all mechanics have to pass a test on this before they qualify, and said something along the lines of:- Your battery is no longer holding a charge.

Only not nearly as elequently put !

So he proceeded to put some charge into it, went over the road to talk to one of his mates for 40 minutes, came back and the mini-bus still wouldn’t start. Meanwhile sitting in our trailer out the front is the battery Malc took of five months ago, you remember the one the first AA man told us wasn’t any good anymore. Malc idling time away, something he’s rather good at! put special equipment on it only to find it was still holding quite a high amount of charge, so when the mini-bus hadn’t started he suggested putting that one back on just to see if it would work, lo and behold we have a working mini-bus, it started first time.

 Now I kid you not, this battery has been out in that trailer, open to the elements, rain, frost, snow, it’s even sat in about four inches of water for weeks, until my nagging gentle reminders prompted Malc to empty it out.

So the flat battery’s going back tomorrow because it has a two year warranty and it’s only five months old, Malc has taken and picked up Eden from Guides tonight and it’s started every time,( proof that crossing your fingers may be a superstition but it does actually work)

I now have to go, Eden wants to do her blog, she’s made some rather fetching things at Guides this evening, if you are a closet Blue Peter fan, pop on over there. Give her a while she’s got to write it all and upload photos yet. She should be done about 10 ish, because I want to go to bed all 10 year olds should be in bed by then.

Malc spent the morning ringing round for price and availability of alternators, they’re double the price we thought they would be! Surprise, surprise!

I spent the morning with the boys in their room being ruthless with broken toys, we bought storage drawers on Saturday because I’m fed up with their toys being everywhere and today we packed everything away in them, they also have two big ottamens in their room, they have so many toys, and of course the younger they are the bigger they seem to be!

So their room is now tidy, the dogs shouldn’t be able to chew anything, I shouldn’t step on anything in the middle of the night and we’ll all be a happier, jollier family!!            Well it’s a start!   

I walked to the post office with the four eldest, Cody was asleep and Malc was still ringing round, the children rode their scooters and we posted off two of our flats, apparently they take about four days to get to America and then it depends on what the American post is like, not sure quite what the lady meant but I don’t think she was saying it in a positive way.

Had lunch, I did some ironing (again) as fast as I iron more washing is drying and going on top of the pile I’ve just done a bit of! I must stop washing, that’ll stop the ironing pile getting bigger  

Malc has got a price by now but here’s the ludricous thing, you have to take your part off and exchange it with the new one, but if we take it off we can’t get to go and pick up the new one! Anyway, he’s going to borrow my Mums car and hopefully get it tomorrow,  then he should be able to put it back on, he actually managed to get it off pretty quickly which is a first because there’s usually some nut that’s really awkward to undo.

Mum came up to pick Eden up, she’s going to stay there the night, before she went she made us a lovely salad for tea, complete with herbs from the garden, which was delicious, she’ll have to take my word for it because she’s having tea at Mums!

Unfortunately Ellie had to go back to my Sister today, Burley and Tula and her have had a couple of skirmishes over the last week, the last one being on Wednesday and I really thought they had begun to settle down but today they had an almighty fight in the middle of the lounge and I had to pull Soloman and Cody out of the way, it wasn’t really Ellies fault, but my dogs don’t usually fight so I don’t think she was fitting in and it also isn’t fair to her to have the other two gang up on her, so I feel a decision had to be made.

I’ve scalped Malc with the hair clippers, if you shave it close you don’t notice the bald patch coming on the top. HeHe!       Did I say that?

Eden and Callum did their Sketch Tuesdays about a week ago but I only remembered this evening to take pictures of them and send them in so they can go into the slide show. Here they are.

The theme this week was Leaves. Here’s Edens.

Here’s Callums, we seem to have cut the bottom off a bit! Oops!

Sometimes I think I could write a book instead of a blog about my life!

Soloman had a lovely birthday, we had dinner in town,went to Toys R Us so he could spend his birthday money, and Clark could spend his, as he hadn’t spent it yet.

All Soloman wanted was a little wheelbarrow, £4-99, he wheeled it all around the shop with his little watering can and lego helicopter in, with Malc and I running behind him apologising every time he got the back of somebodys ankles! Clark bought a lego fire truck, a game and a bell for his bike, which will be shoved where the sun don’t shine which we will put up for him as it seems to ring all by itself!

We stayed at Mums in our caravan, we were treated to another roast dinner and lovely pudding, percolated coffee and cream, no wonder I don’t lose weight. Birthday cake.

Then the eldest three children stayed in Grandmas house for a treat whilst Malc and I go into the caravan, they come into the caravan about 10pm, I think I’ve said before we love going to the caravan because we can watch TV, under Mums TV licence, unfortunately Malc and I seem to be a bit starved of TV because we stayed up until 1-30 am watching it!

Why? I really don’t know, we really don’t miss it at home.

Anyway, got up this morning, yummy bacon sandwiches, packed up and went to start the van, wouldn’t start again, if you’ve been reading for a while you’ll remember we had this on Clarks birthday when we stayed at our caravan for the evening, that and a sickness bug! I’m beginning to think we’re jinxed staying at Mums. We borrowed a neighbours battery, ( same one as last time) only the car still didn’t start, so we ended up calling out the AA, he arrived very quickly, although I’d rather have waited longer for a jolly one! He said at first that the battery was gone and then changed it to the alternator, now about four months  ago when we had this problem the AA man told us that the alternator was fine and the battery had gone, so we bought a new battery. So guess what Malc is doing tomorrow, we’ve got the battery on charge, because in theory the car should start and last a little while so we can get the part needed, but knowing the way things go here, that could be a subject for tomorrows post!

On a more positive note, we have two replies for our flat travellers, so Christmas Tree is off to Missouri tomorrow and we made another flat this afternoon, Flat Christmas Tree and Joyce Children is going to California, well I figured I’d get rid of the children even if it is only the flat version for a week or two, the lady has six children, so they’re be in good company!

We’re going to google earth them later, the children have been really excited over this, on Saturday we bought two laminated Maps of the World, the first one just shows the countries and their capitals and the second one shows all the states, the children have been scrutinising them to find where our flats are going, we got a laminated map of Britain and Ireland too, I would love our flats to go to every county in Britain and Ireland, but looking at the flat traveler site I don’t think there’s a member from every county, so I’m a woman on a mission!

We also bought some Letts books for Callum and Eden, mainly for revision, if they can do the books themsleves I know that I’ve covered everything in their Keystages already and we can move on and expand a bit, if there are things they’re not sure of we can brush up on them, so then I’ll know a bit better where we are, Clark’s still in foundation and doing really well, I also want to start Soloman on simple things, even if it’s just designing faces or constructing things. At the moment Eden anbd Callum are putting together Clarks and Solomans lego, that’s the trouble in this house, sometimes the younger ones don’t get a look in because the older ones take over.

I’m off to address our flat traveller envelopes and put in our little bits of imformation, then we’re off for a google tour, thankfully we don’t have to rely on our mini-bus to get us there!

Happy 3rd Birthday Soloman

I should retitle this post," How to Survive on Hardly any Sleep!" Clark was up every hour from 11pm until 4am, then he came in our bed and just cried for nearly an hour until the Calpol kicked in, Malc got into Codys bed so that he could get some sleep, then he got up with the little ones so that I could lay-in and catch up on some sleep, it worked really well. Hopefully we should catch up tonight.

Clark still wasn’t right this morning so he stayed in his PJ’s and we did the unthinkable, the children curled up on the sofa under a blanket and watched a video, Cody has been screaming crying for most of the day, I think his back teeth are coming through, he did not want to be put down, so either Malc or I have had to hold him.

I made some cheese scones yesterday, there are ten in a batch and they lasted all our an hour, so I made a double batch this morning, honestly, my lot are going to look like cheese scones soon! I also made some of these.

And I finished off this.

Mum came up and had some lunch with us, Malc went to the post office to send of our flat, I did want us all to walk down there and have a leaving ceremony, but there were too many grizzling children to even think about it!

We spent the afternoon making Solomans birthday cards for tomorrow whilst he had his afternoon nap.

Then I took Callum to Beavers, Eden to Bookclub, chose a couple of library books, went to pick Callum back up and then went back to get Eden.

I’ve spent this evening wrapping presents, catching up on emails, I’m waiting for anybody to contact me saying they want us to host their flat, nothing yet! I’ll keep you posted.

How bad is this?  Saw this in this evenings Echo and just had to say something about it. If they’re doing this for school catchment areas how soon will they be doing it to Home Educators?

This morning we did some cooking, made Solomans birthday cake, it’s his birthday on Saturday. Eden, in one of her airy, fairy moods wasn’t concentrating on what she was doing, knocked the mixing bowl on the floor, so we had cake mixture all over it, Lovely!

The boys chopped more wood, nearly done now, they were watched by their younger brothers!

Had lunch, the children have been doing their Sketch Tuesday drawings, I haven’t taken photos yet, so I’ll try and do them for tomorrow.

Malc went to help a friend with some fence panels, he delivered them for her and then he dropped Clark off at Grandmas as he’s going to stay the night.

My seeds are doing really well, the Nasturtiums are doing really well, and the lettuce seem to have survived their ordeal, runner beans and dwarf beans are coming on a treat.

Well, I’ve just disappeared for half an hour, did you notice? I had to go and pick Clark up, he rang me to say Goodnight and started crying, which is unusual because he’s stayed there before, honestly what do you do with them?

Anyway, that’s all my chickens in their own beds tonight.

Took this photo earlier, I thought it was cute.

Puppy Love

Well, I thought it was funny, our flats are off tomorrow, well one of them is, I posted on http://groups.yahoo.com/group/flat_travelers_homeschool/ and we’ve recieved a reply from The Fitzgeralds, who live in Tennessee, they’re going to let me know whether they want Dorset Apple cake or Christmas Tree. We’re all very excited and we’re going to google earth them later/tomorrow to see if we can find where they are.

We all went over the fields today with the dogs for a bit of exercise, it was so sunny, got to make the most of it while we can.

Did our weekly shop, I was going to take a picture of all the bags on my kitchen floor before we packed them away, but the camera hasn’t got panaramic view!!

Callum and Clark stayed down Grandmas to help her pack away some shopping, and they planted a rose bush and some bulbs (Iris)

She bought them back at tea-time and stayed for tea herself.

I tried to teach Eden how to work out 10% of something, but we were being constantly interrupted, the baby was crying, so we’ve shelved it for another day. It’s not something you can teach with so much going on around you, I’ll try and find some quiet time for us to do it together, she’s now doing science crosswords again, she loves doing them, she’s got about six left and wants to try and finish the book tonight.

I did find time to glue her some new nails on though, she took the other ones off and her nails have grown so much underneath, she’s been so helpful this past week doing jobs for me that I said I’d treat her.  If it helps her to stop biting her nails so much the better

Sometimes I wonder how I manage to fit sleep into the 24 hours of my day! Got up, did housework, washed all the floors through downstairs, we have wooden floors throughout downstairs which is fantastic, for spills, muddy paw/footprints, but because of these same things I’m forever mopping the floors.

Malc went to put my Mums battery back on her car for her as he put it on charge for her last night, we were just going to start schoolwork when a neighbour came round, her children were all at school and she was on her own so she thought she’d come round, she came bearing empty loo rolls and shredded paper for the rabbit, so I had to show willing, but I do get annoyed. Her children were at school, mine aren’t, we are constantly being interrupted here, the phone, the door, my Mum tells me to not answer the door/phone, but I worry somebody’s trying to get hold of me because of an emergency and I just can’t not answer it. When I open the door, I just can’t say, sorry we’re doing school work, please go away, I’m too polite. To make matters worse,she kept asking Eden if she’d done fractions/angles/decimal points yet, her daughter’s a year younger and she’s done them all. I find myself getting defensive and then getting angry with myself for getting defensive.

This neighbour use to take Eden to Brownies with her daughter and I use to pick them up and she was forever asking Eden sums and spellings, it use to drive me mad, thankfully Eden’s now in Guides, so we’ve got a year off before her daughter joins.

I can say all this because she’ll never read this, she doesn’t know I’ve got a blog.

I don’t want to be mean and most of this is my own fault for not being strong enough to say something to her.

Anyway, she eventually left, we had some lunch and I thought I would bath the next two dogs, so today it was Ellies and Gypsys turn.

Good job our bathroom’s a decent size because it was very much a family affair, even Cody was watching, Eden dried them, I decided not to walk them today, because if I only took two, the other two would go mad and I didn’t want to take the two that had been bathed because I didn’t want them to get too cold before they were dry. I’m all heart me!

We’ve got a couple of flower beds out the front that I’m forever having to weed, so I took off some of the topsoil and spread bark over it all, so in theory there should be no more weeds.

The children broke up some more wood that we’ve been given for our coal fire ( although we never use coal, only wood)

My herbs have gone berserk, I put four in a big pot, the coriander and the flat leafed parsley have quadrupled in size, so the poor chives and ordinary parsley were being overtaken, so I put them into separate pots, hopefully they will continue to thrive.

Had tea, took Eden to Guides, called in to see my Mum because she’a not feeling too good today, got home and did some ironing for 45 minutes until it was time to pick Eden up, she said the girls at Guides weren’t very friendly, we’ve heard this from a couple of people whose daughters have left, but she’s going to give it a couple of weeks before she makes any decisions, she’s a very confident friendly girl so I think she’ll be OK.  Overhearing that’s it’s not a friendly group has given her a bad opinion of the group before she started, so I’ve tried to explain she has to go in with an open mind.

Then Callum and Clark wanted me to help them check their emails and reply to them, all the children know that I have to check incoming and outgoing emails, anyone breaking this rule will not be allowed to use their email accounts. They are all good, even Edens blog is proof-read and checked by me before she publishes it and any comments she makes on other blogs, it’s sad that we have to do this, but it’s the world we live in unfortunately.

So I didn’t get to start this post until 10pm, I’ve got to pack away the ironing I did earlier, have a shower, then I shall collapse into my bed, read about a paragraph of my book and fall asleep, ready to do the whole lot again tomorrow!

My BIL rang this morning and asked if Malc could give him a lift to get some car parts,  brake cylinders gone! So off he went, I did some school work with the children, Eden did some English and then about three science crosswords, Callum did some Maths and Clark did a workbook of addition and subtraction up to ten. My Mum came round and did some drawing with Soloman and Cody.

Malc came back, so Eden and I took the dogs over the field, Lordy me, I thought it was cold yesterday, there was a biting wind today.

Then I decided the dogs needed a bath, so Tula and Burley got theirs today, Tula was fine, but my big, butch, barking Burley sat in the bath and shook the whole way through! Bless!

I made a lasagne for tea and then we popped down to my Mums as she had some firends down who we love. My Dad use to work with the man and I have really fond memories of us going to each others houses when we were children for Sunday tea, they sort of lost touch and when they found out that my Dad was really ill they all got together again, and since my Dad has died they have been really lovely visiting my Mum, because at first I think she was quite lonely. I have all the time in the world for them and they have a open invitation to any of my childrens christenings. I think they’ve been to all five!

Came home and had tea, Cody’s asleep, unfortunately Soloman feel asleep quite late, so I don’t think he’s going to sleep any time soon!

Callum has just read his book to me and Eden’s just done her blog, she’s in the bath where she should be washing her hair! She wants it long but doesn’t like to wash it because it tangles! Give me a boy anyday, No2 clipper all over!

Clark’s just done phonics with me, he’s impatient to read but he’s not quite there yet, he’s got 21 out of 26 phonics,  so he’s going to be there soon, I don’t really want to go to CVC words until he can do all the phonics.

Now I have an announcement to make * trumpet sounds*

We have aquired another dog, her name is Ellie and she use to belong to my sister, they were finding it difficult because their door doesn’t open straight to their garden, so she was having a few accidents, there were a few things which together add up, so we had a chat and we decided to see if she’d fit in here, we had a couple of scuffles yesterday, Burley thinks he’s got his own private harem and he can dominate them all, which Ellie just wasn’t having, but I think we now have a bit of respect on both sides, and they seemed to have settled down. We bought her home Saturday, but I didn’t want to announce it to the world, well the ten people who read my blog until I was fairly certain she was staying.

She’s 4 yrs old, she’s a Scottish Terrier X Jack Russell, we went  with my sister and BIL when they went to choose her, to advise on what to look for in a puppy! So we’ve known her forever!

So now you’ve stopped laughing, here’s a picture of her.

She’s a tad overweight! So she’s on short rations at the moment, but with all the running round the garden and walks over the field I think she’ll lose it, wish I could say the same for me!!

This morning my MIL woke us at 7am to tell us she had snow, she did this because she knows I love it , she always rings to tell me and I usually get her to make me a snowman and take a picture of it to send to me.  So I chatted for what I felt was a polite time, put down the phone and snuggled back under the duvet, only to have the phone ring again about 20 minutes later, my Mum telling me we had snow!

So then as I was awake I rang back MIL and told her not to bother with a snowman, we’ll build our own!!

Asked Eden to take a picture of it, ideal blog photo, she got the camera only to find out that it hadn’t been charged since Friday, so I asked her to take one with her camera… er…. no batteries Mum.

It was a blizzard this morning, it lasted for about 20 minutes, but then the sun came out and away it went.

Since this morning we’ve had about four flurries, but every time, I’d just manage to get the camera out to the garden and it had stopped!  So like I said we had snow, but you’ll just have to believe me, I’ve got no proof!

We spent the morning hoovering and dusting upatairs, cleaning the bathroom, all exciting stuff.

Eden and I walk the dogs over the field between snow flurries, and boy was it cold over there.

We went to my Mums for tea, roast dinner and fruit cocktail and cream, yummy, thanks Mum. Doesn’t food always taste nicer when you don’t have to cook it yourself?

We arrived home about 8pm, all the children have been bathed, the top three have decided they want to do some painting!

My old school friend has just rung me, she’s not recycled her veg peelings for ages and today decided she was going to start again, so she went to put the peelings in a plastic box that she has by her front door only to find a parcel in it, she had a look and it’s got our name and address on it, and she’s wondering why we’ve sent her a parcel, no birthdays this month, she opens it to find two presents wrapped in christmas paper, and the stamp on the front says 18th December, yes it was only her two sons Xmas presents, so I told her they were for next Christmas sent early, not for last christmas!

We were laughing so much, they’ve been in that box for nearly four months, I said it’s a good job it wasn’t something edible!

I’m now going to sit in front of our open fire and have a nice cup of tea, it’s an action packed life I lead isn’t it?

We haven’t stopped today, I left Malc cutting the back lawn this morning and took the children to my sisters, we’ve not been to her new flat since she moved in. They have done so much to it, the garden is unrecognisable, they’ve decked out some of it, fenced it in, it’s got a lovely big gate on the fence. They’ve also found a home for everything, their bedroom looks lovely, I think they’ve done more in the few weeks they’ve been moved in than we’ve done in two years.

Whilst we were there they mentioned getting a guinea pig for my nephew, so we looked in the local Freeads and there were quite a few about, rang a couple for imformation.

They were going to have a talk about it and ring me if they needed advice on hutches and stuff.

So we went home, had some lunch, my Mum turned up for a cuppa, my sister rang, we arranged to meet at our local "Pets At Home", we advised on a hutch and how much sawdust she’d need, took the hutch home for her as we had more room in her mini-bus and then came home again.

I made a stew for tea, did some ironing, since then the phone hasn’t stop ringing, I was even on the house phone and my mobile started ringing as well, good job I’ve got two ears!!

The children have decided to do some school work, Eden’s doing a science crossword, Cals doing fullstops, question marks and exclaimation marks, Clarks doing "what’s the highest/lowest number?"

So they’re interrupting me every two minutes asking questions, so I’d better go.

I can’t wait for today to end, like I said really busy but not a lot done, absolutely nothing to show for it!

My friend and I always try to set aside one day per school holiday to get together, her three boys go to school, they are all roughly around the same age as my top three and they have always got on really well, so we picked them up in our mini-bus this morning. 

We went to Avon Heath, one of my favourite places, we have been there together before but not for a few years.

The children chose a nature trail to do, it was 1.6 miles long, although my legs think the sign could have been wrong and it was really 10.6 miles!!

The children had to identify animal footprints, draw the footprints and then put the name of the animal down.

We sat on a pile of logs and had our picnic. It was a glorious day and my face has gone a bit red!

This log came most of the way round with us, there was mutterings of it coming back in the mini-bus with us!

Cody walked some of the way, we’ve always walked a lot, mainly walking the dogs, so the children have always been quite good walkers, so his big brother, Soloman held his hand and off they went, until Cody started walking round quite confidently picking up every fir cone he could find!!

When we’d finished the trail the children played with a ball on the field and in the play area until about 3-45pm, when we decided to come home and beat everyone coming home from work, only to remember, it’s Friday and a lot of places finish early, so the main road was quite congested coming home.

Malc went to my Mums this morning and mowed her front lawn for her and put up a bed that needed constructing, he then came home and mowed our front lawn, which looks lovely and smells delicious! I love the smell of cut grass!

Eden and Callum have helped me make our weekly batch of Cheese scones, Cold Tea cake, a Victoria Sandwich and the famous Dorset Apple cake.

I’m going to have an early night, my poor weary bones needs to be horizontal to recover from todays exercise! 

Today we went out to town and got the children new shoes, the lady took 1 hour and 10 minutes to fit them all, we were served by the lady who usually "does" us and she’s lovely, she showed Eden how to fit shoes and what you had to look for, she couldn’t believe how much Cody had grown, she always makes it a nice experience for us, because believe me, five kids, all measured and all trying about three pairs of shoes each to get the best fit isn’t fun!

If Burley gets hold of any of these I’ll  throttle him gently reprimand him!! All the children have had a lecture about putting them up.

We finished making out "flats" today, and their "suitcases"  Malc has laminated them and we’re just about ready to go, I’ve got to put a request on the site to see if somebody will "host" our flat, I only hope we get some replies!

In yesterdays comments Lisa said one of her friends used to do this and was taking photos of it at the zoo, we were talking about this yesterday, we thought we could take a picture of it sitting on our local lifting bridge which is well known in this area, mainly for causing tailbacks when it’s up in the summer.

I thought we could take a picture of it "playing" on the floor with the dogs, or riding on one of the dogs backs, I even thought I could take a picture of it with just a leg hanging out of Burleys mouth, but unfortunately not everybody has the same sense of humour as me and we might be banned from the site for not taking enough care of our visiting "flat"!!

Some pictures to make you smile!

Tattoo of the Year

The Ass Family

Boy Genius

 My Mum rang me first thing this morning to let me know that Clark was fine, he’d slept well, she got up at 7-30am to let out her dogs to find him, washed, fully dressed, sitting with his legs crossed and his arms folded, he was sitting in his bedroom doorway, most indignant that she wasn’t awake when he was, and he’d been waiting for her to wake up !! He’s so funny!

We had the weekly battle shop round Asda this morning, ohh roll on next Wednesday, how I love shopping day.

We had a discussion today on our flat traveller project, we’ve been sent some downloads on how to get started, and one of them says you don’t have to do a man or woman, one lady has a "my little pony" one has " flat bratz"  so we wondered what we could do that was different and we’ve come up with "Flat Christmas Tree" mainly because it spends all year in our loft, it’s over 10 years old and could probably do with a bit of adventure before it goes to the tip Christmas Tree heaven!

We are also going to do a "Flat Dorset Apple cake", as this rarely leaves Dorset and would probably like to see a bit of the world.

I did suggest sending Burley for some travels, but the children pointed out that he wasn’t flat, I replied "could be arranged!" " Of course he isn’t, silly me!"

You can put a little journal in so that the "hosting " family can write a few things about your "flats" journey. ( See I’ve got the terminology already)

You can also put in souvenirs although this isn’t obligatory, but we thought we could put in a photo of us, one of the dogs, a postcard of our harbour, it’s the second largest natural harbour in the world.

I could put in a recipe of Dorset Apple cake because that’s a local thing, so we’ve got a file for puting our bits in and when we recieve a flat we can take one of each out of the folder and put in their envelope, and we also need to make up some journals to send out with our flats when they go away.

We’ve spent all day discussing what we can send that’s light, not expensive, that was indigenous to our area, the children keep coming up to me with ideas, some too big and some quite expensive ( Dr Who’s Tardis, Mummy) Very exclusive to the South West!

If you can think of anything let me know, what would you like to recieve?

Malc has tried printing of a picture of our tree and Dorset Apple cake  but they’re not coming out very well, we’re going to print them onto card and laminate them, we’re hoping to be ready to send and host after the weekend.

I pity the people we host first, with all the things we’ll be sending back about the area we live in they’ll have imformation overload!

I would quite like our flat to go to somebody in England first, it’s nice to know about other countries, but I’d like to learn more about ours first.

Eden’s staying at Grandmas tonight, hopefully it’ll be my turn soon!!

I checked the greenhouse earlier and we’ve got some germination going on! My Mum gave me a load more seeds yesterday, but we’re busy over the next few days so I’m hoping to pot some more up over the weekend, I could do with another couple of greenhouses I think!

The lighter evening are really lovely, we’ve discussed going out every night with the dogs as a family, as opposed to me rushing out over the field in between doing other things, sometimes with a child or two in tow, looking at my watch and thinking of all the things that I’ve still got to do!!

I think today qualifies as being one of the most stressful days I’ve had in about 6 months, it involved a bank, a company taking money out that’s not due out for another two weeks and charges. Apparently it takes seconds for somebody to take money out of your account, but 48 hours for them to get it back, we’ve incurred charges because it caused us to go overdrawn, the bank have offered us an overdraft to pay those charges with, otherwise we would have an unauthorised overdraft and have to pay more charges.

Malc was on the phone for OVER AN HOUR on hold, he’s far more patient than me, although I think they kept putting me to the back of the queue every time I shouted an obscenity down to the phone to their awful music!

It’s taken all day and it’s still not sorted, we’ve got to get letters and send complaints off, it makes me wonder if the money in my account is actually mine. The bank tells you where you can get it from, how much you can get out a day,oohh where have the days gone when you recieved a brown envelope at the end of the week, with proper money in it, with a proper payslip. You couldn’t spend more than you had in your hand, you had to give it over, it definitely made you more aware of how much you were spending, it dwindled in front of your eyes. Instead, now we sign a piece of paper, we don’t realise how much we’re signing away, if we had it in our hands I think we would be more careful with it.

We were in control of it, not a computer, last night Malc went to get petrol, gave them his card and it was refused, luckily we’ve been going to the same garage for over 10 years, he had to sign a piece of paper with his name, address and car reg. and go back and pay within 24 hours. He rang the bank when he got back, oh yes there was money in the account, but the card dept had problems this morning and couldn’t update all the cards, it will be updated within 24 hours.

So we’ve had two mistakes with 24 hours. Should I change my bank? Not really, I think they’re all the same, what really annoys me is that employers don’t pay cash anymore, you have to have your money paid into a bank, if you want to spread the cost of things over a year, you have to have a direct debit, you can’t go and pay it to them once a month, unless you want to pay an admin charge!

I’d written half this post out and one of the children pulled the plug out of the socket, so I’ve had to do it again! I’ll be glad when this day’s over.

Saying that today we all had our hair cut and it was Cody’s first haircut, he was such a good boy sitting still on my lap, I’ve saved some of his hair to go in his baby book.

You know, no matter how many children you have , all those firsts, bath, steps, haircut, they’re still really special.

Lord, this is how stressed I am, for the first time tonight Clark has gone to stay the night at Grandmas, I said I would ring at 9pm, I’ve just rung about three times, the line’s engaged, then I realised I’m ringing my own number, not hers!!

Roll on tomorrow, thankfully these days don’t happen too often.

We joined flat_travelers_homeschool@yahoogroups.com so I’m going to have a look at their site this evening and see what we actually have to do to get started. I’m quite looking forward to it, I didn’t do a lot of Geography at school, it certainly wasn’t one of my best subjects, so I should probably learn something alongside the children.

Today we had a day of, we’ve done no work at all, aren’t we awful?

We had a lovely time out with some of our friends, we met at a local park ( not yesterdays, another one)  It was extremely muddy in places, but hey, that’s what wellies are for!

We walked for about an hour, unfortunately it started to rain, so as I have good knowledge of this park I though we could go and sit under a covered pagoda, getting there only to find it was already occupied. We did think of loitering around menacingly, hopefully they’d get the message and move on.

But we were brought up correctly so we moved on and decided to come back to our house, put a blanket on the floor and the children could have their picnic there instead. There’s nothing like a proper cup of tea either, as opposed to one out of a flask!

Our friends stayed until the middle of the afternoon, which was longer than we expected (pleasantly so.) Hopefully we can do it again, we get so bogged down with things, we’re always on the go, sometimes it’s nice to make the effort to meet with people and relax. (I just have to book it about two weeks in advance!)

Callum didn’t feel to good this morning when he woke and has slept most of the afternoon on the sofa, so I’ve dosed him with Calpol and hopefully things should run their course and he’ll feel better soon. I was only thinking a couple of days ago, apart from the sickness we had at the caravan, we’ve not been ill for months, I obviously spoke too soon!

Well, we don’t get the best nights sleep in this house on any night, so losing an hour doesn’t help. I forgot the clocks went forward until 11-15pm, which then made it 12-15am, so I got upstairs pretty quickly.

Took the dogs for a walk to our local park, as the weather was nice it was quite busy, we’re very lucky here, there are lots of beaches and parks and woods.

Our local park has an enclosed swing park, lots of grassy area and also a sandy beach, with beach-huts, so the dogs love nothing more than to swim out, usually to join another dog that’s already out there. They all run back in to us, covered in rather smelly water, seaweed and sand. You have to try and avoid being shaken all over. There’s nothing quite like the smell of damp, seaweedy dog is there?

We got home and I decided to tackle the seeds, I repotted the runner beans and dwarf beans, nasturtiums, but I can’t find the lettuce seeds anywhere, they are rather small and black which doesn’t help. So I’m going to have lettuces growing up within all the other veg! I potted up some more lettuces and some carrots, Eden took some pictures for me.

Mum came to tea, I’ve got a fruit loaf in my breadmaker and I’ve made some choc chip muffins, we’re hoping to go on a picnic tomorrow if the weather’s ok.

I’m not sure what’s happened to Eden’s blog, this morning the playlist was there and working, but this afternoon it appears to have disappeared behind her Header, that’s tonights job then!

Callum read one of his new books, he’s really enjoying reading them to us and he’s very enthusiastic, which is great.

Malc has bathed the three youngest so I’m off to wash all the sand out of the bottom of it!!

 One of Edens new friends made her up a playlist and last night we tried to fit it into her sidebar, unfortunately everything else in it disappeared, including the playlist, we tried making it smaller, but it was still too big, at the moment it’s in her Header and although it doesn’t look too bad, she would still prefer to put it in her sidebar, we’ve suggested getting another header, but she likes the one she’s got. That’s my girl! No compromise in her at all!

Has anybody got any suggestions?

See you later

Are you doing it? I’m sitting at the computer with a lamp on, the children are in their rooms with just lamps on, Eden’s on her computer, I’ve got our radio on and that’s about it, the heating’s on, but I’ve put it down by three degrees.

Malc did offer to share a bath with me a while ago to save water! I declined, I shared it with two men instead, Ian Rankin and Inspector Rebus!

We’ve had some good discussions today about saving energy and harvesting energy from the Earths natural resources, wind turbines etc.. I wanted to make sure the children knew why we were turning everything off tonight.

Eden did some work she’s been given from Bookclub, she’s keeping it all in a folder, funny how Bookclub work isn’t the same as the work I set her!!

Callum read the two books that he read yesterday, I like him to read them twice to make sure he’s got all the words, so we’ve got the next two out, which are actually in the next stage, so he’s chuffed!

They’ve all played games on the computer this afternoon, well it is Saturday!

Callum and Clark helped me to peel the veg for tea, Mum came up to eat with us.

My seeds are in a pot on my kitchen windowsill, the soil is in a pot outside getting very waterlogged, because to coin a really lovely phrase from Ruth, it’s hoying down, I love that expression, much nicer than any of the ones I would normally say!!

We did manage to pick out a lot of the seeds, hopefully to repot when it’s drier, my greenhouse in now anchored with about 8 housebricks on the bottom shelf!

A gust of wind has made my greenhouse topple over, all the seeds and soil were on the floor, honestly I could have cried. Eden very patiently picked up all the seeds and put them on a bowl and swept up the soil and put that in a pot, when the rain stops and it has all dried out a bit we’ll see what we can salvage.Some are still OK, I’m going to have to repot the others.

A lot of craft was done again this morning, even Cody sat at the table with a piece of paper and a crayon. Unfortunately I didn’t think to take a photo of him.

A vase of flowers by Clark.

Callum has read two Oxford Reading Tree books to me, we’ve been neglectling reading aloud, because he can read I sort of leave them to it, but after reading what a lot of other people do, I thought we would go back to it, I think he really enjoyed it, if only because it gave him amd me time together without the others. So, I think we’ll try and do this a bit more.

Eden’s reading is well above her age, so I tend to let her get on with it, I do look at what she’s reading sometimes and sigh, I would like her to read something with a bit more substance to it.

Talking of reading, apparently this year, is The Year of Reading, and there’s even a website to prove it, www.yearofreading.org.uk  They are going to do different themes each month and they’ve got competitions and things, I’ve not been through the whole website but there’s difinitely some things we could do there.

Another website to check out is this one, www.earthour.org  We signed up to this today, as we are a large family we are very aware of the carbon footprint that we would be leaving behind, we recycle, rubbish, clothes get passed down, especially the boys, I’m not too proud to accept clothes from friends who pass their childrens onto me.

We also compost all our veg peelings, tea-bags and the like. We turn off lights and try to save water, so I feel we try to  do our bit, and the children are aware of pollution and saving energy.

So tomorrow evening we’re going to make an extra effort to turn off everything we’re not using ( computer will still be on then!!) appliances and lights and we will look up the results of how much energy this has saved, we’re being asked to do it at 8pm. If you remember, give it a go.

This evening Eden went to the library for Bookclub, I took Callum with me and we sat and did some Maths from a workbook, for just over an hour, again I think he enjoyed the one-to-one, so I’m going to try and do it again with either him or Clark, the beauty of it is that we don’t get interrupted by, people, phones, emergencies, fighting and the like.

I’m even thinking of sitting in the mini-bus outside to avoid being interrupted, but I suspect somebody would knock on the window!

Every time we go to Beavers or bookclub, Eden and Callum sit in the front of the mini-bus waving to people, it’s so funny to see the look on peoples faces, you can see them thinking, you know me, you’re waving, so I’ll wave back even though the look on my face says I can’t remember who you are.

The children think this is brilliant and cheer every time somebody waves back to them, we sat at the traffic lights and got about four waves!

I am obviously cracking up laughing asking them to stop.

So if you see a big , white, mini-bus coming towards you, and the children in it are waving at you, please wave back, it’s such a little thing, but it absolutely makes their day!

One of my friends fifteen year old son will breathe on the car window and write "Help" in the condensation if they are in a queue anywhere, don’t you just love them?