ethical nightmare

If I had blogged last night about yesterday it would have been a moan about how I ended up with several large bags of shopping containing split bags of sugar, broken eggs and melted ice cream, after a fraught Lidl expedition, during which I suddenly realised at the busy check-out that I was supposed to be at the other side of Tod and also at home, having treble-booked myself. ("I'm just getting off the bus outside your house..."; "I'll be at the cafe, I'll wait..."). But I can laugh about it now, and it all turned out OK, with a surprise trip to the reptile house, and the final acquision of sand and gravel.

Anyway, today was a long day wandering round Hebden, taking in the latte and Piers and Tom busking as pirates, getting the wind in my ears, and visiting the Big Green Market, full of ethical consumerism (and free fruit!). I was quite wiped out by five and had to take a nap (full of disturbed dreams of a cynical nature) before heading of to Lud to cook for new friends.

younger than that now

Wednesday we went down the the centre, as usual, not because I expected anyone to come to the group, but because I had arranged to meet Dave and play with his helium balloons, that he is planning to create some sort of mass balloon event with. It was fun tying things to them so they float in mid air and blowing them around.
I had my usual grump about HE people in Hebden, when someone phoned me to asked me the phone number of the woman who runs the group in Halifax- as if I wouldn't know what time it was on, and as if there wasn't a weekly group in Hebden. Urm, I know she knows, as she has been in touch with someone I know recently, plus I have told her, plus I walk past her house every Wednesday at 12 o clock, under strict instructions never to call round...
So I went to the fleamarket and sat outsite drinking latte and grumping...
I had another reason for going to the centre: I had inadvertantly bought a turntable the night before, and I remembered that i had left some records there. But my haul turned out to be a very dissapointing selection of joke records, my record collection having been almost entirely replaced by the ones you would only want to use as a frisbee. Anyone got a record collection they don't want? hmm, universe???

Later I sneaked out to the Open Mic with the (big) boys, including Jimbob, who is evidently younger than that now, in that hoody...(watch out for the wobbly bit where I spill Guinness all over my jeans) . urm... did that work? ***ked if I know

the patio continues...

Ok- we have done some more to the patio this week: I got as many bags of sand as I could get in the car and laid the slabs back down.

First we had to remove the old cement from the back of the slabs, which the boys quite enjoyed doing. I managed the hard bits using two hammers as Jon hadn't been round with his coal chisel (until later when we were nearly finished).

They helped me rake out the sand, which was quite fun- like a playing in a giant sand pit- we need a sand pit. We had a sand pit- O yeah, it's a pond now ;-)

It was really hard work, actually- I always seem to choose the hottest days for doing these things...

And this is how it's remained since Tuesday. Well, at least this bit's flat. The decking slabs have to be laid properly, of course, I just put them down to see how they fit. There are now several bags of sand and gravel and cement sitting in a Land Rover somewhere in the Calder Valley...

recharging batteries

After that moan I'll show you some of the lovely things we did at the weekend. We spent most of it in Luddenden; Saturday with friends, and Sunday walking and generally taking it easy.

We found a fallen down tree over the river.

Course we had to climb up and sit on it, like pixies.

The cows were watching us.

This is where the troll lives.

We saw bluebells...

and wild garlic...
and pretty things.


Joy lolled and read books, recovering from the early morning riding sessions.
Later they watched some of a Narnia film and we saw a couple of episodes of Children of the Stones, which I am hooked on and must see the rest.

PMT

PMT=

Please Make Tea (made up by very considerate man-friend. Can he really be a man?)

Pink Mobile Telephone (o dear... what have I done? in a reaction to people telling me which gadget to get. Well, at least it does photo-blogging, which is the one feature I wanted, but I got so flustered with it I just said: That one! I want the pink one! The free one! This is honestly going to Save me money, honest, as for £20 a month I can make all the phonecalls and texts I could ever have time for (1100) and not have to use PAYG or my house phone; most of my friends are on mobile only, that's why.

Put Marmite on Toast. And don't forget the Floradix

Postpone Making Terrace (OK that means patio)
OK: Patio Making Temporarily on hold....?

It's only cos I got no sand yet- I saw George driving around in his delivery van but he didn't see me, and I think a visit to a builder's merchant's might be pushing it a bit today...all that testosterone and dangerous implements. No, maybe I should sit quietly and knit socks, or mend Freddie's jumper, which it somewhat unravelled...that boy... how does he do it? He had a load of toothpaste in the back of his hair all weekend till I could be bothered to bath him.
No, I've got a thumping headache and I've started tidying up "the side", which is the bit round the side of the house, by the side door, which was full of boxes of tiles and random stuff, all filled up with smelly rainwater. And the tiny under-stairs coal-hole/shed thingy. Lovely job ;-)

Well, at least I'm sincing with the moon...

the patio

Ok I've been working to the patio for two weeks, and though it's not finished, I thought I should show you the work in progress.

We started by sinking a pond as I thought it was urgently needed to find a home for some tadpoles, which will hopefully turn into frogs. I know it should really be in the back garden from a permaculture point of view, so the frogs can eat the slugs around the veg, etc, but seeing as I only have potatoes and blackcurrants at the moment, and there are already frogs there, that it wasn't as important as the fengshui. And, anyway, the old sandpit was there, having a failed freecycle collection, and there it wanted to stay. It was just sitting there, filling with water. It just was crying out to be a pond. The boys loved dipping sticks in it, etc.


Anyway, you've probably seen this one before. It was increasingly hot throughout this project by the way, so digging a hole in a day was quite a feat.


Once I had the sand pit in the hole I stuck a few random plants in round the edges before I filled in the gaps.

Then we prettified it with some painted pebbles the boys found round the back of the house. I think that lavender's dead now, but I bought some new ones today from LIDL for £2.49- woops! I spent something.

And then I lifted all the flagstones and levelled the earth. I had to put these big stones in round the pond as it is lower than the level of the bit next to the house.

here is the level part next to the house. My rake broke, but I managed to use up all the soil that I had dug out to make the hole, fortunately, as the wheelbarrow won't go round the tiny path round to the back garden.

And here's what it has looked like for the last few days. It is level and covered in old carpet that I found in the back garden. It is waiting for some sand, that I might go and get tomorrow, if owner of landrover, that I have inadvertantly become a named driver of, is willing. Otherwise I will have to get Meg's boyfriend's dad, who conveniently works at local builder's merchants, to deliver me some, (free delivery, nudge nudge, say no more).
I went with a list of things to the builder place, hoping to buy enough for free delivery, although it's only a fiver. But the washing line posts were far to industrially large for my refined pretensions, although probably needed in this household. I did dubiously buy a hosepipe connector for the outside tap, having measured it to be an inch and the connector saying it did 1/2 inch and 3/4 inch taps, and it fitted. The man said it was worth a try though as the measurements never make any sense. So that has enhanced the quality of out lives no end, as not only can we now use a hosepipe (now it's raining) and water the grass seeds, potatoes, and half-dead willow, the water doesn't spray all over the place from the outside tap, which just had half a spout on it, with a screw thread. Hmmm... i did achieve something small but worthwhile today.

black cloud

We were just having our lunch and heard a few loud bangs outside. I had heard a few alarmy kind of noises out the back before but just shut the window so I couldn't hear it. When I looked out of the kitchen door I saw a big black cloud of smoke (a bit like the black cloud I saw in my dream this morning, but then I always seem to have premonitions of fires). We abandoned our toast and ran upstairs to the attic to get a better view and it looked like there was a house on fire, in fact it looked like it could be Mel's house, so I quickly called her mobile as we charged up the back garden.
As we left the back gate there were already people watching the spectacle of a burning car and the fire engine arrived.


We stood out of the way and watched as the "firebrigaders" ran out with their hose and put the fire out. There was loads of black smoke and some people were trapped in their houses, which were very close to the car. There is no fire station in Hebden any more; it used to be about 5 minutes walk from her, but now the nearest is in Todmorden, the Mytholmroyd one was not on call, so it took 15 to 20 minutes for them to come. Meanwhile people were cowering inside their back-to-backs, where windows were cracking.

We went round the back way to Mel's; she was a bit further away and only had to get her washing in. The boys wandered up and down for a bit while I had a cup of tea. I had been struggling to get going this morning and I really should be going shopping to get food and sand for the patio.

me time

I Had my last weekend off from the kids for a month or so- it's gonna be full-on from now. So I spent it doing lots of walking,
...etc... ("no it's not cold...really"), and generally relaxing.

I met up with the kids on Sunday afternoon at Graeme's leaving party. There were lots of other kids for them to play with in their old haunts, where we used to live...

one potato

Friday we went to Tod for foodshopping, ate lunch at the fabulous Seventytwo cafe and played in the park.

Fergus went on the zip wire for the first time, and so did I! Freddie didn't dare.

Later on we planted some potatoes...

and grass seeds.

We saw some Canada goslings down at Dawn's boat. We went after school time to play with Ro. Well I gotta get em away from WoW somehow ;-)

We also had our home ed meeting without quite managing it as far as the arts centre. We were sat outside the ducky/latte place and bumped into a new home-edding mum and child and went off to the little park, the big one in Hebden being closed for refurbishment. Just what I needed for a bit of new enthusiasm for HE.

the day we went to school

Tuesday we went to look round a school (shock, horror, hold the front page...). I don't know if I mentioned it before, but I've been thinking about this for quite some time and I seem to have been spending a lot of time around people who think that I'm mad for not sending them to school. i have been a bit down recently and felt like I've been struggling with everything really: the house, the kids, myself, life, etc. I thought maybe it would be an idea, at least to look and then think about it some more.

So anyway, this is what I dragged them away from: lunch in the treehouse on a lovely sunny day in the garden.

By the time I was halfway there I was far from convinced that I could do this every day: this road's ok when you're walking to the pub, but all that traffic, it's highly unpleasant during the day with children.
The staff were all really friendly and we got stickers! I don't think the boys were very impressed though.

We found a better route on the way back, past the canal. There are nearer schools but both the infant ones are full already for September and Fergus would be at junior. This one is J&I with mixed ages, small year groups, smaller and more flexible and friendy I think. The Head was really nice and talked to us in her office.
So, anyway, they really still don't want to go to school and I don't really want them to either. I suppose I had to go and visit to help me to stop thinking about it. I thought they should see it so they could know what they were missing. I'm feeling a lot more positive about life now, after seeing the homeopath and the sun coming out, so maybe that's all I needed. Anyway, it gave us something to do for a bit.

Mayday Monday

We went for a lovely long walk on the moors in the hazy sunshine. Freddie screamed "I want to go home" for the first fifteen minutes and then got into it.
Joy did her usual riding thing
We dug a hole for the frog pond

Me and Jimbob trying to learn a song.

a rock and a muty place

Well, I'm sure you're dying to know what I've been up to as I haven't blogged much, but I can't possibly catch up now- one thing at a time. I'm still getting used to Windows Vista, which is a bit weird.

So, today we went out for a rainy walk to the Muty place (being the name of the dogg that we sometimes borrow, 'cept this time we borrowed Winston the poodle.


We just did the usual circuit, taking in the enchanted allotment, which is sprouting all over the place, and a heron on the river.
Freddie found a stone that was too big for his pocket, but it was magical and had to be brought home to add to the bed-stone collection...

I liked the patterns the rain was making on the trees. (No, I'm not on that sort of medication, just the homeopathic kind. Mind you...)

The rest of the day was just blurrr rainy day inside... I fantasised about what I will do with the house when Meg moves out, and tidied my bedroom a bit. Joy made some peppermint ponies, which I don't think I have been allowed to see. Fergus did WoW (I do so hate those fighting noises). then i spent the whole evening in anticipation of a visit from at least one or more people, but now it's nearly midnight I think I'll just go to bed and try to get up tomorrow.

new laptop, new life

Hi. I'm back. And all excited because I got my new laptop today. Sorry no pics yet. It's still a bit early for me on a Thursday, well it was when the man came-Freddie answered the door... "no I'm not the postman"... and I'm sure someone said "it's a bill..." I almost didn't answer the door- wasn't expecting it yet. Only ordered it a few days ago. Anyway, it's so cool I just havent quite got used to the idea yet. O, and my brain isn't working yet, due to open mic night being on a Wednesday. I was all blurry eyed when I had to sign for it and open the box. It was like Christmas, only better, because this one I bought for myself!
So, of course it has Windows Vista on it (which doesn't have anything wrong with it, contrary to popular belief), it has an integral webcam, (which I am currently engaged in an extended video call with the back of the local computer shop, just cos I CAN. O dear I think I just got Nick into trouble again).
So why did I get such a fancy super dooper laptop? Well, I just decided I might as well get one that WORKS, ie, does what it says on the tin and all that. And So far so good. Hopefully this will help me change my life. Well having my own computer at all is a luxury I have not had for nearly a year, since my life fell apart. OK, I dismantled it because I didn't like it. (That's the life, not the laptop.) I've got a feeling things are going to get a bit easier from now on.
Now I can organise my photos. You know how much I like taking photo's, right? Well I've hardly taken any recently, because nowhere to put 'em. Same with music... I now have an amp and speakers and an IPOD, so i should be able to listen to music soon. And, of course, I will never get bored again! I can spend many an hour or three quite easily pottering about on myface/blogland. Yippee!
Mad thing is I have an appointment with the Homeopath this afternoon as I thought I was going a bit mad again, well, I was...OK you can't solve everything with a new laptop but it helps, hopefully...Anyway I think I'd better join the real world as I've been pinned to the sofa since I got up.
OK, you know you really wanna watch this to see what my LT is like... that is if you are a geek.