I Think You’re Bonkers

I have a very proud Beaver here. Last Friday he went of to the local theatre with Beavers and apparently was helpful and well behaved.

Excellent, I was pleased enough with that. So was he.

Then at Beavers last night he was grinning from ear to ear while the Beaver leader praised him for being the ONLY one there who offered to help pick up the sweet wrappers the others had dropped. He was so proud, and he got Beaver of the Week. 

Well done Dino.  

Hmm, and those trainers are incredibly tatty, in fact falling to bits would be more accurate. Ah well, we need to go shopping and Tesco had some trainers for a fiver….

What do you mean the size 4’s are tight?? Oh, they are, and that toe is really very close to the end isn’t it. Try the 5’s? BLOODY HELL! I have a son in big size 5 trainers. Clarks measured him as 3.5 at the end of November. I think he’s actually more like a 4.5 but trainers are always better a bit bigger for him. But a 5? I’m only a 6!! No fair. Mimi’s in 12’s.

Found a fighting fantasy book in a charity shop today too, was in a BOGOF so I grabbed a book for me too. Hoping the interaction of the FF will engage Dino in the reading a bit more. He’s capable but lacks confidence and really isn’t that willing, but he needs to practice. Also found a replacement for my missing Harry Potter, and it’s not so battered.

Dino’s got 2 more badges for Beavers - Animal lover and Explorer, and he went off on his own last Friday. Well, with Beavers but not with me and Mimi. Big boost for him and he had a great time.

Oh and I found some workbooks that should just stretch Dino a little bit. Got them in the post office, one maths and one english. Should be ineteresting!

Up early, forgot to collect bag of veg from round the corner. Got an email around 10.30 and wandered round to collect it. Then into town to meet up with a friend who runs a cloth nappy coffee morning and is usually so quiet she appreciates the company - it was heaving and we barely got time to say Hello! Great to see her so busy, and bulging with pregnancy too. Kids got to spend time in the library and we had lunch there too.

A quick dash home to retrieve the address and directions for this afternoons playdate where R was expecting to be bored stiff as it’s a little girl that M has befriended. But he was presented with a comfy sofa and a playstation just for him while the girls do their stuff. He was in heaven! Barely saw M.

Had to rush home to cook and eat in time to get R out to the theatre with Beavers - his first trip out without me. He’ll love every second! Got to go get him in about 20 mins, a very late night for them both. Lie in tomorrow I think.

Whatever higher power or deity you happen to have faith in, someone was looking after us today!

The car is back and instead of a financially crippling head gasket, just about bearable thermostat or kind of ok fan or switch, it was an air lock. Radiator drained, all parts thereof checked, and refilled for a tenner.  Ripley Renault feeling much more sociable now.

Way back in 2002 (I think, round about then as I was working for Royal Mail but only had Dino) I won a raffle at work and the prize was a DVD player. I already had a DVD player so I took it into Comet and swapped it for our first digibox - the DVD was about £100 so I got a cheaper digibox and used the rest for 3 years warranty.

Almost 3 years later I was very very glad I’d done it that way as the digibox died. But digiboxes had dropped in price, so again, I got a cheaper one and a new 3 year warranty, and the remainder, about a tenner I think, went on a comet gift card.

Yesterday I cursed as the digibox died again. So I dug out the warranty. It was in date so after dropping the car off to be fixed we trundled into town on the bus to swap it, again.

Hey, guess what? digiboxes are down in price again! So, we now have a very small £45 digibox (in the sale for £35) with a new 3 year warranty (should have been £19.99 but as the box was under £40 it was only £9.99) And a gift card with £20 on it to spend another day.

Thank you Bargantia! 

Dino has decided that he prefers Richard Harris as Albus Dumbledore, rather than Michael Gambon. We’ve got as far as The Prisoner of Azkaban in the films. He’s really getting into the story and I’m fed up of explaining so I’m taking the line that if he tried to read the books he’d work it out as there’s so much more in there than in the films.

Oh, and anyone interested in my little writing sideline might be interested in this news. 

It’s not possible, they can’t…..

Can they?

No more Scrabulous. 

What will I do with my evenings. I’ll actually have to work, or chat, or read a book, or wash up or something. 

I dragged them reluctantly into town today as we had loads to do. So after the normal tantrums and "I don’t want to!" over getting shoes on and coats etc, I was expecting apalling behaviour.

They chatted quiety together in the bank while I stood in line for the only working cashpoint.

Then they took themselves off to sit and quietly play Eye Spy in the rent office.

Finally they wandered off in the post office - as far as the display table where they tidied and rearranged the leaflets and apparently Dino told Mimi a story, quietly. So quietly in fact that the guy dealing with my parcels asked where they were.  "Oh, they’re over there." I said, looking over to see quiet, lovely playing.

It didn’t stop there. They were pretty good in Tesco too apart from while choosing squash, when Mimi decided that the trolley she’d chosen to sit in (I have tired legs now…) was suddenly uncomfy. Daft child, she stayed in and the shopping got done.

They’ve been brilliant all afternoon, I’m very impressed and they know it! 

We’re back to work here, have been for a week or so now. Dino reads a page in his book on his own and I’m not insisting that he reads to me as such or that he reads aloud if he doesn’t want to. But if he chooses to read in his head he has to be able to tell me what the page was about. It seems to be working for him for now. He’s still reluctant and still doesn’t want to do it and we still fight over it but I am determined he will read with some confidence. I suspect that he will never read for pleasure like I do, and always have from a very young age. Mimi seems to have gone off the reading thing she was doing, I wonder if I need to kick start that again. Anyway, he’s doing his reading every day and his negotiation and evasion skills are becoming challenging. I suppose that is a good thing though, shows his intelligence and progression from Mr Angry a year or so ago. He actually stops to think of ways to avoid things now instead of just lashing out.

Mimi is writing loads, mostly just marks that only she can read by there are letters emerging now and she fills little notebooks all the time. She calls them her secret diaries.

We’re all suffering with an extended nasty cold. I have a head full of snot, a hot nose and a sore throat. I’m coughing, got a headache and a slight temperature. Mimi had it last week and has been left with lingering snot and a cough so she’s not sleeping well at all. Neither am I so that’s 2 grumpy females in the house and that doesn’t make for a calm atmosphere here. Oh well, it’ll pass soon enough I hope.

What doesn’t help is that the car is broke. It’s just a little bit broke but Ripley Renault also has a temperature! She did a drastic overheating thing while driving at about 50mph, in outside temps of 3 or 4 - shouldn’t have been hot! This was on the way to drop the kids at Daddy’s. So, he brought them home and the car has been sat until I could talk to the garage this morning. Bearing in mind that any time we’ve got stuck in traffic and got a bit hot I can hear the fan doing its whizzy thing, when we stopped at Daddy’s house the fan was blatantly NOT whizzing. Apparently this is actually a good sign! If the water is fine and the fan is fine then it’s probably the head gasket. Fingers crossed it’s the fan as suspected.

They can’t even look at her til Monday 21st.  Til then it’s short and essential trips only. So, town, tesco, beavers and home ed group only this week. Oh well, it’ll do us good to be home for a while. I might even get my OU thing done and orders filled, might even get started on the work for the next book.

Last night my friend and I were sitting in the living room and I said to her, ‘I never want to live in a vegetative state, dependent on some machine and fluids from a bottle to keep me alive. That would be no quality of life at all, If that ever happens, just pull the plug.’

So she got up, unplugged the computer, and threw out my wine.