NotSheep

By the time I got out of my bed this morning, Freddy had already discovered his tyre was flat again - argh! How annoying! I decided to take his bike home with me tomorrow, to the little bike shop in town (we’re home for the day because Toby has a speech therapy appointment) but our plans changed and we came home this evening instead of tomorrow morning - partly because it would mean less of a rushed morning on Monday, and partly because a full-sized bathtub full of water the temperature of lava was calling me…the caravan does have a bath, but it’s just one of those half-sized ones - fine for kids, fine for a shower, but not the kind of thing an achy pregnant woman needs. So I am writing this at home (unlike the previous few posts, which were written at the caravan and saved for posting when I got home - gotta love WordPress’s fake-the-date feature

The weather this morning was gloriously sunny, so everyone was out and about bright and early. They all went down to the beach again this morning, where they played noughts and crosses (tic tac toe) in the sand. Barney didn’t go with them at first, but when another kid came looking for everyone, I sent him off in search of Barney (who was riding around the park on his bike) and they decided to go down there together. The afternoon’s weather was changeable, so when it was dry, everyone went out to play, and when it was raining, they came in and I read Michael Morpurgo’s Alone on a Wide Wide Sea to them - very good, by the way, highly recommended George had a meltdown in the playground when some other boys took his “cool stick”; later Barney and Jack had an argument over another stick - I will never understand the appeal that sticks hold for boys. At one point I twittered that it was raining and everyone had come in except for Barney, and that I was mostly twittering this fact because it would go through to his mobile phone and annoy him - and he twittered back, “Am I bo-ther-ed?” George and Freddy found a “secret base” and declined to tell me where it was, but they did tell Barney, which was probably not a very clever thing to do, as he promptly told me

After dinner we sorted clothes into two piles - clean and laundry - and packed up the car to leave. We put Freddy’s bike on the back, as well as Jack’s, since I think everyone is about to move up a bike - except for Barney, who’s staying on his green one - but we have a red-and-white one in the garage that is about the same size as it, and which will, I hope, fit George well. We’ll have to try it out first thing in the morning to make sure, and then if we can get Freddy’s tyre fixed, that bicycle can become Jack’s. Toby, having slept most of the afternoon, stayed awake for the whole journey and spent the next hour or two bouncing around the house, but Jack fell asleep twenty minutes into the journey, barely woke up to stagger into the house, and never stirred when undressed and put to bed.

Tomorrow morning: see midwife to get blood taken (I don’t think the B12 is working - or rather that it’s sticking - I think it’s pushing my levels up but then something is depleting them again); see the speech therapist with Toby (she’s only got three weeks before she goes on maternity leave, so we didn’t want to miss any of the appointments); check out the bike we hope will work for George; attempt to get Freddy/Jack’s tyre/tube fixed properly; check the yarn-shop to see if they’ve had a delivery of black wool yet; put the dry (I hope) laundry in the car and drive back up the coast. See ya