NotSheep

The washing machine has been revived. When Scratchy had a look, he says the door almost came off in his hands, so he has… er… shoved it back on, I think Anyway, another load of washing has been done (nappies! LOL) and it didn’t leak again, so we’ll just keep an eye on it for now, and have a think about watching out for a good deal on a newer one. I’d really like one of those ones that takes a ginormous load, but I expect that would be more expensive that I can justify - probably cheaper to buy two normal-sized ones! Less electricity usage though… *ponders*

Apart from the minor flood on the garage floor - and it really was minor, it was only a couple of millimetres deep at its deepest, and only spread out a few feet, and there’s nothing on the garage floor that would suffer from getting wet anyway - and we’ve done the major-flood thing before (for “minor flood”, read “lake”), and believe me, after that, it takes a lot of water to scare me! - where was I? oh yeah, apart from the minor flood on the garage floor, today was busy and productive. The boys did a bit of work in the morning - we’re just finishing up a few bits and pieces so we can put them away, then we headed out to do some errands. As I mentioned in the previous post, everything will be closed from late afternoon tomorrow until Friday - some things will be open on Thursday, but not much, and anyway, Scratchy will be leaving for the airport then - so I wanted to stock up on easy-to-prepare meals etc. I had to get the huge bags of charity-shop stuff out of the car before I could fit in groceries though! So the first stop was the Barnardo’s shop in town, where I double-parked and struggled in with my donations - about five trips into the shop! After that Barney ran into the library to leave off a book that someone had requested, and I took money from one bank and put it into another. That makes us sound like we actually have money Then we went to a third bank where the kids have their accounts, and put in their pocket-money. We’ve decided they’ll be getting their pocket-money monthly, as usual, but they’ll get some in cash each week too. Over the summer the cash will be minimal, but it will be more from September - the catch is that they’re going to have to pay their own Scout subs, jujitsu fees, etc out of it. Barney will be expected to budget for his own clothes etc too - that won’t be a major bother for him, I suspect, since as long as what he’s wearing is comfortable, he doesn’t care if it’s old or new, clean or dirty, fits or doesn’t

I bought some groceries after that, though not much since I didn’t get as far as the big grocery-store. I’d a choice between trying to get around that with five children in half an hour or so, or taking said five children to the playground so they could let off some of the energy that had built up all day in the car. The latter option won, and Scratchy did the big shop while they were at jujitsu in the evening

It was the last night of jujitsu before the summer break, so they had a games night. Freddy was thrilled to have won the knockout thingy they do each week. He’s definitely the sportiest one of the boys so far.

We also stopped at Argos during the afternoon to buy another cheap mp3 player Freddy wanted one of his own, so I made him an offer: I’d put £5 towards it if he paid the other £10. Barney got a similar offer: if he gave me £10, “our” mp3 player would become “his”. They both went for it, so there was much putting-of-mp3s-on-players last night. It is so funny how their tastes in music reflect their personalities. Barney is into Abba and Bohemian Rhapsody. George - the one with style, flair and presence - chose Mick Jagger and Robbie Williams (and wandered about singing “come on rock your body” LOL). Freddy - the self-described “utterly mad” child, and definitely the loud one! - went for Lordi (”Hard Rock Hallelujah”, remember? LOL) and Billy Idol

Scratchy has finally booked his flights - he’d reserved them yesterday, but today he actually paid for them. He’ll be leaving for the airport on Thursday afternoon - about a 2.5 hour train journey, a bit longer by bus (I’m not sure what way he’s doing that bit), because flights from the more local airports were a lot more expensive. He’ll be hanging out in the airport during the night, because he has to check in so early it’s not worth going somewhere to find a bed - but he can catch up on sleep on the plane, and at least it’s a direct flight. He’ll arrive on Friday, there’s a wake on Sunday and the funeral will be Monday, then he flies back on Tuesday - assuming he doesn’t decide that being young, free and single in the Big Apple is more appealing than an office job and five kids on the Emerald Isle!