Playtime
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Tuesday, June 26th, 2007I look at him. ‘Matthew, you look knackered. Take some time off. Put a week in the diary in June, the weather will be good and we’ll take the children to the beach and do some fun stuff.’
So he did. And now we have a week of rain stretching in front of us.
So yesterday, because the safari park or beach were out of the question, we searched desperately for rainy-day outings, eventually settling on the InTech Hands-On Science Centre in Winchester. The roads were flooded, the baby threw up and then cried the rest of the way, I felt in a vague shock-like, caffeine-deficient state from two nights of not getting to sleep before about 4.30am (due to the poorly baby), the main route was blocked with all the in-need-of-a-bath rock-lovers making their way back from the Glastonbury Festival, causing us to take a 40 minutes detour and so I grumbled pretty much all the way that the place had better be good. Because I’m that kind of good-time gal.
The centre was okay. The children were a little bit too young to really learn anything useful but they loved running around touching everything (so many germs to pick up! so little time!) and I was at least able to envisage a quiet journey home where they all slept from exhaustion and therefore I could too. The centre is obviously a good choice for a place for schools to take their students but it was like wandering amongst feral animals at a zoo: if they were learning anything I would have been amazed. There was pushing, shoving, shouting, rudeness and generally running about like they owned the place. Ben was knocked down by one child who didn’t even stop to apologise. There were two flights of stairs which Ben ran towards everytime he got bored and most of the displays were too high for him to touch without being lifted. That’s not my idea of a fun time.
Rainy weather + lack of sleep = grumpy mother.
Husband in London for work today on our holiday week + rainy weather + further lack of sleep = even grumpier mother.
Husband taking children off mother’s hands for an hour tomorrow? + new book to read = happier mother.
What are the chances do you think?
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Posted in Playtime, Daily Life
Dirty Dancing
Friday, February 23rd, 2007When Matthew and I got married our wedding could have come straight out of Four Weddings and a Funeral - country church, marquee in the garden, lots of toffs in morning suits, drunken speeches and degenerate behaviour - but we wanted to make our first dance a bit different so we sidestepped the cheesy lovesongs and chose an unusual track - ‘Via Con Me’ by Paolo Conte which features in the film French Kiss. It was wonderful and everytime I hear that song I can’t help but think of our wedding.
I wish we’d thought of doing something like this though. (Warning: high cheese or big romance factor depending on your level of cynicism over wedding related things.)
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Posted in Playtime
Fibre optic flower
Saturday, August 19th, 2006
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Posted in Playtime
Out here
Thursday, July 13th, 2006
I’m walking through the fields, ripe with wheat, each step feeling a little lighter as I leave the long day behind. The baby, his skin enraged by eczema, sleeps his exhausted sleep so I sneak out, the golden fields beckoning me. The dogs race ahead of me, behind me, startling birds and rabbits. The cool evening sun - just a bit too cool - quickens my pace and with it I feel a burst of energy.
Away from the house I look back, thinking of my family inside. I can think objectively out here, remembering how lucky I am, how much I wanted children, marriage, family life, how life is exactly how I wanted it. I can forget momentarily the concertina of tantrums thrown by the older two only a few minutes earlier. I can feel the weight of the baby lifting literally and figuratively from my shoulders with every step. I can put aside for a minute the long list of chores yet to be done.
Golden fields. Out here the world seems a little bit larger, a little more in perspective. And that can only be a good thing.
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Posted in Not Enough Children, Playtime
God and the little devils
Monday, July 10th, 2006
Yesterday we ventured to church for a family baptism. The church was full of children, pretty much all of whom were well behaved throughout the thirty minute service. Except the row in front of me where Trouble lurked behind every word the vicar said. And yes, my eldest two might have been involved.
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Posted in Playtime
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