I will fill you in on the details tomorrow, right now we’re off for some much needed sleep. Night, night.

Mum had come up, so she took Eden to bookclub for us, I took Callum to Beavers at 5pm, picked Eden up at 5-30pm with her friend, they both ran upstairs as soon as they got home to change for the Guide disco. My friend took them there with her daughter and friend, Malc went to pick callum up at 6-30pm. I had to wait until 8-30 pm to pick four giggling girls and return them all to their homes, all  I wanted to do was have a bath and put my PJ’s on, I was shattered.

Saturday we had a birthday party to go too, our friends little girl was 4 yrs old. We met at a swing park and the childen played for a while, then we all walked to the other end of the park and we all had an ice-cream, walked back again, met up at a chippy near their house and went back to their house to eat them. Followed by chocolate birthday cake. Yum !!

All the children played in the garden, threw balls over the nieghbours fences both sides with gay abandon!!

We had a fabulous time, and hope we didn’t disgrace ourselves and we get an invite next year!

Sunday morning Malc went to the local tip to dump some rubbish. Mum came up at dinnertime, Malc had mown the back garden and I had cleaned out two of my kitchen cupboards, as you do on a Sunday morning!

We decided to go to B & Q to get some oblelisks for our roses to grow up, I’ve taken a picture but not uploaded them yet, probably post them tomorrow.

We also bought some lillies which I’ll take a pic of when I’ve planted them.

Today, I did some cooking whilst the children did their Sketch Tuesdays, I bought them clipboards last week, so they were walking around the house counting things and writing them down, I know, they need to get out more!

After dinner we picked Mum up and looked around a few shops for some pillows, I’m fed up with having to take them all off our beds when we go away in our caravan, so I want to buy some that will stay in there. Less packing!

Mum came up for tea, we’ve been looking through the Argos catalogue, mentally spending thousands, well, what else do you do when you’ve not got a TV?

Then I’ve got a date with a hot bath and a lush soap!!  Ohh, I can’ wait!

Today we walked to the Co-op which is about 1 1/2 miles away, it just started to rain as we went in and was pouring down as we came out! We walked just up the road from the Co-op to my Mums, we spent the day there until 4pm.

The children had a great time, Clark unravelled loads of balls of wool for her, Callum spent the whole time crocheting and Eden did some sewing.

All our children have had the old type of nappies ( terry towelling) as blankies, we call them Babas in our house, a tradition started off by Eden. So Eden was cutting one of them into four and hemming them round, as Soloman tends to drag his around with him everywhere, so now he’s got a few the size of a flannel, which should be easier to carry round. He only has it when he’s tired or he’s hurt himself. It’s funny how they’ve all had them though. I think it’s because when they’re newborns I always put one over my shoulder whilst burping them so they’ve got use to the feel of them.

This evening I took the eldest three children and went and visited our old neighbour, she’s 81 today and a lovelier lady you couldn’t wish to meet, she’s a saint.

She’s wonderful with the children, her daughter was there too, she lives in another county and she’s not seen the children for about two years and couldn’t believe how much they’ve grown.

I’m off to try out another bar of Lush soap, I’m going to lock the door and read my book and ease my aching bones afer todays walking!

Yesterday we did a huge bake, Dorset Apple, Cold Tea cake, fruity buns, fruit scones and choc chip cookies, we’ve got a few left. I was thinking they’d be good for Malc sandwiches but I don’t think it’ll last more than a couple of days!

Today Eden went to Uncle Craigs, he of artist fame, he was doing a portrait of my Mum, so he was giving Eden art lessons at the same time, she thoroughly enjoyed it, she said she learnt a few things and she can’t wait to go again.

I wrote out some words for Callum to put in alphabetical order, he learnt this a couple of weeks ago, but I wanted to see if he remembered it, he did which was great, Clark had to fill in the missing letter in some CVC words with the picture above the word as a clue. All the boys put a blanket, sorry tent up in the lounge this afternoon and played whatever young boys play.

Yesterday I started reading "Peter Pan" to them, I didn’t read it today as Eden wasn’t here, hope to continue with chapter two tomorow.

My Mum has just taken her to Guides, she took her promise last week, so she’s now fully fledged.

I now have an apology to make, to the lovely Dawniy, who made a comment on my last post, for some reason I moderated the comment above hers and then marked hers as spam and I can’t get it back. That’s not a very nice way to treat your readers is it ? I’m going to try and retrieve it later, but just so you know Dawniy, it’s not because I thought your comment wasn’t worth moderating, it’s because I’m not computer literate!

Now I’m going to see if I can upload this weeks Sketch Tuesday without mishap.

This weeks subject was something in your garden.

Edens.

Clark did a bar-b-que with patio table.

Callum did a goldfish pond.

We made pizzas for tea and pulled up two lettuces from the garden to go in our salad, tomotoes are still green, so we’re going to have to wait a bit longer for them! We’ve also got 11 cucumbers, so hopefully if we can pick them all at the same time we can put together our own salad before the end of the summer.

We went to our local park fete in the afternoon. Being the highly organised,educated home educaters that we are we forgot to take the camera and the flats! The police helicopter was there, neighbourhood police and fire brigade, always a chance to pull my stomach in and put my chest out as we walk by them!! We were there a couple of hours and had a lovely time.

In the evening I went to a neighbours house for an Ann Summers party, what a laugh, I was one of the oldest there, I’m up for a laugh and joined in the games. Then the lady went through the catalogue and showed us some scraps of lace! Most of them had big holes in, no idea why!

Then we came onto, well shall I say the items that need batteries!! Now I think I’m quite broadminded but WOW. The lady next to me seems to have everyone in her bedside table and every time one was passed round the room she told me how good/bad they were and gave me a score out of 10. I couldn’t stop laughing! It would seem that I’ve still got a lot to learn, well they say life begins at 40!

Today we got up latish, did some housework and then went to a bar-b-que that at 9-30 this morning I really didn’t think was going to happen as it was absolutely pouring down. Again we had a lovely time, lots of scrummy food, even more alcohol, about 60 people there including my sister, her partner and my little nephew.  I sat feeding and cuddling a 5 week old baby girl for about 2 hours. The children played nicely with the other children, the older ones went upstairs to watch DVD’s.

Now we’re onto baths and bedtimes, Malcs sandwiches for tomorrow, back down to earth with a bump!

A domestic is brewing, Malc thought the MOT ran out on the 15th, when he looked at the paperwork on the 1st, it said the 4th. So he to hurriedly book it in, usually we book it about 7 days before so if it fails we can run around and get parts under the old MOT.  Probably not technically PC I know, but you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do!

Malc buses to work, I’m the one that has to cart 5 children around, get shopping, I’m not amused I can tell you! Anyone on my side here?

 Still I suppose the walking will do us all good. I can hear those of you who don’t have cars snorting as I type!

The children have all done quite a bit of HE today, they’ve all done their Sketch Tuesdays’ I’ll post them next week. Eden did about an hour of Maths, rounding 1,000’s to the nearest 100, timesing 1000’s by taking off the naughts and adding them on again at the end.

Callum had to fill in the missing words in a sentence and Clark had to write CVC words with "O" in the middle and then draw pictures of the words he’d thought of.

Mum came up and was on hand whilst I dyed my hair to get rid of the grey   thought I would completely change my hair colour and go a bit darker!

Callum went to Beavers this evening. He will only be going to Beavers for a couple of weeks in Spetember and he should go up to Cubs.

One of the men that Malc works with, wife works at Lush, he brought in some free samples of soap today so I’m off to bathe in the nicest smelling one.

We spent the weekend in Mums back garden. Friday we went to the Bakers Arms for a meal. The children were pretty well behaved, it was lovely, Mum came with us, I had my cider, because I’m a Dorset girl after all.

On Saturday we woke about 9ish and spent the day mowing Mums front lawn and strimming round the back and clipping all the ivy along her back fence, it’s quite a big garden so it was quite a big job, even the children helped.

Mum went out with a friend on Saturday evening so we sat in her house until 10ish, having baths and watching TV, went into the caravan and Malc and I were up until 1am watching TV. You can see why I won’t have one now can’t you?

I also have a confession to make, it’s a bit like an AA confession. I feel dirty and sleazy, but here it comes. I watched Big Brother!! There it feels so much better to get that off my chest. When we had a TV I use to be glued to this programme, I can honestly say that I don’t feel I’m missing anything.

Sunday we got up late again, we had a bar-b-que at dinnertime, and lazed about in the front garden and then it was teatime, watched a bit of TV in the caravan and had an early night, all this doing nothing is quite exhausting!!

Had to go to the bank first thing this morning, all weekend we’ve been trying to transfer money from one account to another and they wouldn’t let us do it for security reasons, get to the bank and they don’t know why we were told that. That’s what happens when you customer call centre is in another country, say no more!!

We had lunch at Mums and packed up the caravan, none of us wanted to come home. We’ve had a smashing relaxing weekend, just what the Dr. ordered.

Malc has cut our back lawn and I’ve done some cooking. Early night all round I think!

Thursday night was awful, we’ve had problems with Gypsy our Yorkie for a while, she couldn’t jump onto the sofa and use to stand and whine until somebody picked her up, then she started doing it at night until you picked her up and put her on the bed. We did this about eight times until 4am, we could bear it no more and we sat downstairs with her, she led on the sofa and just whined and whined and we didn’t know what was wrong with her.

Friday morning we made an appointment at the vets.

The children and I went to Mums with, Med, Tula and Gypsy, had a lovely morning pottering around in the garden. I picked Malc up from work at dinnertime. Mum had the children whilst Malc and I went to the vets, he said she was old and going a bit senile and recommended putting her to sleep, which is what we did. Malc was devastated, Gypsy was his puppy and use to snuggle in bed with him during the day because he worked nights. I use to search the house for her to take her for a walk and there she’d be in his arms under the duvet. Malc also use to have a "parka" and before she had her injections and she was allowed on the ground we use to walk the dogs with Gypsy in the hood of the parka.

It was the same vet that had put my Mums dogs to sleep and he was lovely. He remembered my Mum and the dogs. He asked why they were all going and we said that we bought them all as puppies within six months of each other, that’s why the were all  going at the same time, they were all quite old. In a way it’s fitting, they all ran around as puppies together and we’ve had some fabulous times with them, now they can all run around where-ever they are together again.

Onto today because I’m starting to well-up.

We didn’t do a lot of school work last week nobody really felt like it, but yesterday and today the children have done an hour of workbooks to get them back into the swing of things.

Some old friends visited my Mum yesterday in the afternoon so we went to see them.

They did some more work this morning and then this afternoon we went to Mums to cut her front lawn, my brother and his girlfriend were there so it was lovely to see them.

The children have done their Sketch Tuesdays.

Eden did two, this week they had to draw something sweet.

Callums

His was a jar of sweets and Clarks was a bar of chocolate.

Tomorrow is shopping and apparently it’s going to be a hot one, so more frolics in the garden I would imagine.

Thursday was our 13th wedding anniversary, true to their word the children got up at 5am, washed up and swept through, hung up their home made decorations and bought us up tea and toast for 5-50am, just before Malc usually gets up. So we ate and drank and opened presents and cards with bleary eyes!

Malc went to work and we pottered around for a bit, went to pick up my Mum and went to our favourite garden centre and picked out a rose as a present from her. It’s called "Wildfire" and it’s beautiful.

When I got back these had arrived for me.

Thursday evening Mum babysat for us and Malc and I went to a carvery for a lovely meal.

Friday Malc only works in the morning so I packed all our clothes for a weekend away in our caravan.

We went to a lovely site, the owners were smashing, we set up and played Swingball, took the dogs for a walk along the dirt path that runs alongside the campsite and found this, our dream house.

It was set in loads of lawn and at the bottom of the garden was a lovely pond absolutely covered with lillies.

Eden fell in love with it and whenever we walked the dogs we had to go this way so that she could look at the pond again.

On Saturday we walked for 5 hours in Ringwood Forest, back to Verwood and had a look around a couple of shops, we had lovely weather

We were all exhausted when we got back, had tea and a few games of cards and we were all asleep by 8-30pm. Not before laughing at the poor people in the tents in the field above us standing round their bar-b-que with umbrellas over it so it wouldn’t go out!! We’ve been there, in the days before the caravan. Of course we took the flats with us.

Bit of a reflection in that one!

Packed up on Sunday morning and came home.

My children don’t play ball in the garden, if the ball goes over next door we don’t get it back, the children smuggled the ball out of the caravan and whilst I was unpacking they were playing ball in the garden and sure enough it went over. Later Eden saw the man next door and asked politely if we could have our ball back and was told "to go forth and multiply" only not so politely. I called the police and they came out 32 hours later, the neighbour has denied it all, luckily I took a picture of the ball over in their garden because they denied having it until the police told them we’ve got a picture of it.

I can’t believe it’s resorted to this, I’ve told the children any balls over there again and it’s lost, so all balls are banned from the house, which is sad but necessary .

Malc had Monday off so we pottered around in the garden and did a few jobs around the house.

Callum and I took the dogs over the field in the evening which ended in chaos because Burley turned on a Spaniel and had him by the neck, he’s done this before but to Rimini and Ellie, my sisters dog , not really outside, he’s broken two collars where he’s tried to pull so hard to get to another dog, the bloke was quite angry and rightly so, I offered to pay any vets bills, but none have been forthcoming as yet.

On Tuesday morning Tula and Burley were booked in to be spayed and neutered, but after talkng to the vet we made the decision to have Burley put to sleep. He just seemed to flip if he saw another dog and as he was only 8 months old and doing this we didn’t want to know how strong he’d be when he was older doing it, we did discuss rehoming, but I really couldn’t pass him on knowing what he was like.

The vet was lovely and although we made the decision he said afterwards that he agreed with us, sometimes you get dogs like this.

So Tula was spayed and Burley is no longer with us.

On Wednesday morning,  my Mum had already made an appointment at the vets for her 2 fifteen year old dogs, Windsor, a Golden Retriever and Gemma , a Border Collie, they were both getting old and we feared the worst, and that’s what the vet suggested. Eden went with Mum because I couldn’t go with her with all  the children and Mum said she was brilliant, really helpful and strong and supportive.

So that takes us to Wednesday, tomorrow I might continue with the tales of our eventful week, I’ll see what I feel like.

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.