NotSheep

I’m waiting for the water to heat so I can have a shower before I get ready to leave the house in order to drive a ridiculously long distance to look at a car - so I thought I’d blog while I waited.

Those who’ve been around here a long time will remember the last time we faced the need to buy a vehicle - when Henry first arrived in September 2006, and we went from being a family of seven to being a family of eight, with one seven-seater. The options were similar then:
- buy something big - like a Volkswagen Shuttle or Caravelle - which would seat eight or nine people
- buy something small, which Scratchy could use for work, leaving the current vehicle for the kids and me
- buy a second seven-seater

The problem with big is the cost - both of the purchase and the insurance. The problem with small, we decided then, was that we’d have spent our savings, and since the seven-seater we had then was already ten years old, if anything happened to it, we’d have nothing big enough even for kids-plus-one-adult. So we went for the second seven-seater option and bought a Chrysler Voyager. That turned out to be a good move, given that our old seven-seater spontaneously combusted in the driveway in August 2007. Had we gone with the small runaround option, we’d have needed to find another seven-seater in a hurry. As it was - we already had one. And we’ve managed with that one ever since. However, with another baby arriving in July, we are back to where this whole blog-post started.

So. Small runaround option discounted, I think. We could get a five-year-old nine-seater Caravelle for about £12,000 - but we’d have to source it from England so would be buying without seeing first. Or we could get another seven-seater of the same age and spend about £4,000 less. The disadvantage of the latter option is that it would still not have enough seats for all of us at once - but then, it’s not often we travel long distances all together, so does it really justify spending an extra £4,000 to be able to do so? (Not to mention that the extra cost takes us from “uses most of our savings” to “overdrawn”.)

The supply of seven-seaters here is more limited than it is elsewhere in the UK, but there’s a Grand Voyager currently advertised at a price we can manage - and we like our Voyager, and the Grand version is a bit bigger (more length, not more seats), so it might be a good buy for us. It’s a very long way away though - literally the other side of the country - but if it’s as good as it sounds, it might be worth the journey. When we bought our Peugeot 806, we also drove a ridiculously long way to look at it - mainly because geography is not my strong point and I’d arranged to view it before I figured out where it was - but it turned out to be worthwhile - it was a great car for us.

So here I go. The kids and I are staying with friends tonight; they live much, much closer to where the car is located, and it will allow me to drive there today and back tomorrow. The boys are not exactly upset about going to stay over there - in fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen them washed and dressed quite so quickly. And you can expect me back here sometime tomorrow, either having agreed to buy a car, or having been disappointed in a car, or - quite possibly - still musing over cars.

YAWWWWWNNNNNNNNN

Sorry about that. I was out for more than twelve hours yesterday and drove well over 200 miles. Not the ideal thing to be doing at a time when driving three miles to spend five minutes in a small shop is usually enough to leave you tired - but for a good cause. Barney had the first portion of his French GCSE exam - the “speaking” component. We stopped by the home of friends who live (relatively) locally to the school first, where Barney had a snack and then he and I drove to the school. He was a little bit nervous, but okay. The teacher who has arranged all of this has been amazingly supportive - talking with Barney and telling him what he needed to work on, sending me text-messages to remind me of the date for the exam etc - and he greeted us in French and set about putting Barney at ease. He explained to both of us exactly what format the test would have, exactly how it would be conducted etc. Then Barney was given information about which role-play situation etc had been selected for him, and left for a few minutes to prepare.

Barney feels it all went well. There are three separate sections to the speaking test - a conversation on several topics, a role-play scenario, and a presentation on a subject of the candidate’s choice, which is followed by a discussion during which the examiner asks questions on the presentation material. Barney did his presentation on the book “Stormbreaker”; I’ve put up what he wrote and presented here - I think he hit all the requirements for using different tenses and a variety of sentence structures etc He felt he might have lost a mark or two because he hesitated once or twice in the conversation part - this would be his normal speaking-style, but could be interpreted by an examiner as due to uncertainty about French vocabulary or structure. But overall, he was happy with how he’d done, and glad to have it over.

So there’s another milestone: he’ll never have the first bit of his first GCSE exam ever again.

Since Barney was the final candidate of the day, the teacher chatted with us for a while afterwards - just general conversation, not about the exam itself or how Barney had done. I don’t think he’d have been allowed to give us any idea of how Barney had done anyway, and had mentioned to Barney that if the teacher didn’t offer any information about it, he shouldn’t ask. The examiners from the Board can always adjust marks anyway - the whole thing is recorded. We were planning to go pick up some fast food, then come back for my friends’ sons who are pupils at the school, but by the time we were ready to leave, it was only fifteen minutes before they were due to finish, so we thought we’d better just wait. The teacher, on hearing we were taking them home, offered to go and get them out early though, so he did that, and they didn’t object very strongly, and we all headed back to their house, where the boys played and talked for a few hours before we had to leave for home.

The next component is the “listening” bit, which consists of a tape-recording being played and the candidates writing the answers to the questions on the exam paper. I’m not at all concerned about this bit - Barney’s French is well above the standard required, and every time we’ve done a past-paper for this bit, he’s achieved full marks. We’ve a full month before that paper, so we’re going to take a break from studying for a few days now. After the listening component, we have another week, then two papers in one day: reading and writing. Reading is basically comprehension - they get a text in French and questions on the paper and they write the answers to the questions. The writing bit will be the challenge for Barney, because he writes very slowly, and also because it requires more organisation - he’ll need to go in, make a fast-but-good plan of what he’s going to write, and then get it all down on the paper in the time allowed.

There has been other stuff going on here in the last few days, of course - it’s just that the exam has been very much in our minds. On Saturday, we acquired a new set of bunk-beds from Freecycle - the kind with a double on the bottom and a single on the top. The idea was that Toby might sleep on the bottom - being wider, he’s less likely to fall off, plus if one of us ends up in with him, it won’t be so cramped. So far, that’s gone well: he’s started off in that bed on four nights and has stayed for the whole night twice. I’m not bothered about him coming in to us during the night at all, it’s just that when he insists on being in the middle of my bed (rather than in the bedside-cot), I do wonder if he’s going to flatten the new baby

Since that has replaced one of our sets of standard bunk-beds (i.e. two singles), I put them on Freecycle, and got a reply from someone I know through the home-ed group - very glad to hand them over to her!

On Monday we went to a birthday part for one of Jack’s best friends. It was very nice to be greeted at the door by this six-year-old spotting us and yelling “YES!” Barney stayed at home to revise, but the other boys all had a great time, and we arrived home hot and tired. Toby had slept in the car, so bounced about a bit longer than the others; I did laugh when Scratchy said to him, “Are you going to sleep or what!” and Toby replied, “What!”

And finally…for those who follow me on twitter and were wondering why I was chuckling at a billboard ad for the zoo - our local zoo has a monkey with a reputation for escaping. Their new billboard ads feature a big close-up of the monkey and the words, “Are you coming to see me, or do I have to go and see you?” Well it made me laugh. Maybe I don’t get out enough

Starting from Monday - only a four-day catch-up this time, so maybe it will be shorter than the sidebar for once

On Monday night, Freddy had ju-jitsu and Barney had Air Cadets. Freddy complained of a headache and feeling dizzy when he got home; apparently he’d been feeling unwell enough during the class that he sat out for part of it. I put him to bed in the hope that he wouldn’t fall prey to whatever it was that struck Barney last week, but he seemed better by Tuesday morning.

Barney wants to go to an Air Cadets camp in the summer. It’s quite a bit longer than he’s ever done with Scouts - nine days - and it’s in England (Shrewsbury, I think, although he’s not entirely sure of the location!) He’s the only Cadet from his squadron to volunteer, so he’d be going without knowing anyone else there at all. Scratchy wasn’t very happy with the idea of him going, and while I’m not entirely easy with it, I also don’t want to be the kind of parent who discourages her children from trying new and adventurous things - and I must admit, I’m proud of him for having the confidence to do so, especially when it’s a situation like this, when nobody else he knows is going. When we deregistered him from school (nearly seven years ago!) the head teacher (who had also been his class teacher the previous year) was supportive, but expressed concerns about his social skills - not the usual “but how will he learn to get along with other children?” that all home-educators are used to, but more “he’s not very socially confident, I think that’s something to keep an eye on”. He’d always been a very self-aware child, so her thoughts were no surprise to me - but within weeks of deregistering him, I noticed that he was less bothered about what other people thought, and was acting in a more relaxed way, more to please himself. And here we are, nearly seven years later, and he’s gone off to France on his own for months, and now he wants to head off to England on a boat with a bunch of other Cadets he’s never met, to a camp in a place he’s never been. We don’t know how strict it will be, how much it will differ from Scout camps he’s attended - and neither does he, but he wants to go anyway. I wouldn’t have had that confidence at 13; I’d have needed a mate holding my hand

So we all read as much as we could on-line about Air Cadet camps, and talked it over and decided he can go. The forms went in on Monday night, and Barney came home with a big bag full of the uniform bits he’ll need - and which he’ll have to learn to launder and iron and sew things onto…which means he’s no longer a probationer. I suppose he’ll need proper uniform shoes too - it’ll be the first time in years that he’s had dress-shoes!

Meanwhile we’ve been trying to come up with baby-names. Girls’ names are easy enough, although our list does seem substantially shorter than it has on previous occasions, for some unknown reason. But names for a boy…well, we’ve got five boys, each with three given names - which kind of means we’ve used up nearly everything we like. This could be the first child we’ve had who hasn’t had a name chosen before birth (or before he turns 18…)

On Wednesday, after a rough start to the day when it seemed everyone was bickering with everyone else, and after individual conversations with each of the older three pointing out that their behaviour was affecting each child younger than them, and as a whole it was affecting me, and that not only could they do something about it, but they were in the fortunate position of their doing something actually being much more effective than if their younger brothers did something (does that make sense? it did at the time) - things improved a bit. Barney spent a good portion of the day reviewing French vocabulary, practising his presentation etc. for next week’s speaking test.

George and Freddy finally made it to Cubs on Wednesday evening, and both came home with more badges to be sewn on. Between them, they now have 15 badges waiting to be sewn onto their uniforms. This is not going to be done by me - I’m still waking each morning with a left hand that feels like it’s twice its usual size (it isn’t, but it still feels that way), numbness in the tips of my fingers, and tingling in my hand and shooting pains up my arm each time I do something that involves any kind of repetitive small motor movement. Lotsa fun. Barney made it to Scouts too, and came home with news of yet another camp he wants to attend - only a weekend this time, and it’s quite likely Scratchy will go to this one too.

I was supposed to be running errands this morning, but what I was able to do was limited by the fact that Jack can only find one shoe. I hit the bank and post office, and Freddy ran into the library to return as many books as we could find, and Barney got his hair cut - going from the long-haired-hippy look to a semi-military cut (”I feel a bit cold now” ) - but at least it doesn’t take half an hour to dry after a shower anymore. Must take a photo of him when he lets me

Nothing to report here. Move along.

Well actually no, don’t move along. Not until after you’ve seen just how cool this two-year-old can be:

And this is George and Freddy doing history this morning - they’re learning about medieval castles. This is not a particularly surprising pose for the two of them; I often find them sharing the same space.

Not much else happening here. I got a Little Tykes house from Freecycle yesterday - we have one in Jack and Toby’s bedroom, but someone was giving away a couple that had been outside and I thought they’d have fun with one in the garden. So while everyone else charged about the street on bicycles, I went to collect that and we pressure-washered the algae off it. Toby likes playing outside; at one point yesterday, I heard the front door open and called, “Hello?” No reply. “Who’s there?” No reply. “Toby, is that you?” Toby, obviously figuring he’d been caught in the act of escaping, said “No!”

It’s been a quiet week. Ish. Because let’s face it, when you’ve five children, you don’t get much closer than ish to quiet without throwing them all out, and while I’ve sometimes been tempted, I haven’t really got the energy…

Mostly I’ve been parenting by remote control - that is, I’ve been sitting about and trying to keep tabs on what’s going on around the house without actually getting up and going to look. Freddy’s magnetic-rod episode resolved itself, to everyone’s relief (although I have to admit that a sizeable chunk of my relief was that my part of the process was over) - and that’s as much as I’m going to say on that subject. Toby realised that when counting to ten on his fingers, he didn’t have to take one hand at a time - that he could go right thumb, right pointer finger, left thumb, right middle finger, left pointer, etc. I love watching their faces as their minds figure these things out.

Before getting up on Wednesday, I sent various children to various rooms to ensure they were tidy. In some cases, I asked specific questions: Were there toys shoved in the corner between the two sofas in the living-room? Was there anything on the floor behind the door? - and so on. Assured that everything had been tidied, I emerged from upstairs, only to (re)discover that the children’s definition of “tidy” was very different to mine, and that “no” in response to “are there books under the table?” actually meant “yes, about 24 of them”. Hrm. We were expecting guests - them and us using the excuse that I needed a tiny bit of pink yarn for mice’s noses (and why on earth would I have any pink yarn here?) - so I felt obliged to at least provide a clear path from the front door to somewhere they could sit and have a cup of tea, so further orders were barked instructions were given. Shortly after receiving a text-message from the guests telling me they’d be here in about thirty minutes, I was informed by Barney that he’d been in the bathroom, throwing up. Lovely. He went on to spend most of the rest of the afternoon in the bathroom, repeating the performance. He did occasionally emerge - long enough to throw up on his bed, for example, and later, long enough to go into George and Freddy’s room and throw up in a corner there - and not say a word about it. I only discovered what had happened when I went into the room and thought “ew, it’s a bit whiffy in here”, headed for the window to open it and stood in something wet, which I am absolutely certain was only the spilled water from the cup he’d had (and the only reason I have for my certainty is that I want it, okay?) When asked why he hadn’t said anything, he told me that he thought that Freddy or George would tell me - they’d both been there at the time - but apparently neither of them had noticed a thing - either the act or the whiff

At one point I sent a text-message to twitter saying that Barney was sick - or rather, thanks to predictive phone-text, “pick” - and shortly received a twitter back from him telling me I meant “sick”. Not too sick to be pedantic then.

Despite the necessity for regular jaunts upstairs to check on Barney and the fact that I was already tired, I enjoyed seeing our guests - I hope they enjoyed it too. I realised, after they left at dinnertime, that they’d brought a bag containing food which I could have provided for them for dinner

By the time my own children had been fed, it was too late for Freddy and George to go to Cubs, and Barney was certainly in no fit state for Scouts, so they missed yet another week (they’ve missed the last few because we’ve been away). Not much we could do about it though.

On Thursday morning I took George for an appointment with an Occupational Therapist. The appointment was for a very specific reason, but of course, with the NHS operating the way it does, we had to waste an hour on a basic assessment of his motor skills - none of which has ever caused anyone concern. I could have told her this in the first ten seconds, of course, but that’s not the way the system works. I’ve come home with a “sensory questionnaire” to be completed and returned, which I will do, despite my lack of faith that we will actually get any help from that direction.

In the evening, Jack and Toby decided to settle the argument of who should get out of the bathtub first by playing rock-paper-scissors. They managed to get an extra ten minutes in the tub by doing this, as it was just too cute for any parent to have the heart to drag one of them out

Barney finally pulled out the molar that has been loose and annoying him for the last week or two, then mentioned that he’d a collection of teeth, all of which he was planning to leave under his pillow in order to make a small fortune from the tooth fairy last night…er, yeah, sure.

As for me…I’ve been making children of all ages happy (although admittedly none of them are my own). I’ve been knitting hats with skulls and crossbones for a friend who fell for those I’ve made my own children - two of the three she requested are now complete, and I should be able to get some orange yarn tomorrow for the third, so she should have them next week. And the biggest kid I’ve made happy this week was C, friend of Barney, son of my friend K, whose Pokemon website crashed in January and who has not been able to figure out what the problem was or how to fix it. It was a fairly straightforward fix - a corrupt portion of a database, but of course as with all such things, you have to be able to diagnose the problem first, and the host had disabled the tools which might have provided a button saying “fix this”, so it had to be done with text commands, which isn’t difficult, but you do need to know what the commands are! - and it took probably ten or fifteen minutes of my time to get it all up and running again - and he is now very happy. I’ve said I’ll put a shout-out to his site here, so those of you who have any interest in Pokemon (i.e. not me ) - please click on the image below to take you to his site - leave a comment and you’ll make him even happier.

I’m trying to think of what has happened in the past week, as this blog has been populated almost entirely by twitter updates (I usually have them set so they’re not visible on the front page, but since I’ve been away from the internet so much recently, I changed it on a temporary basis), but for some reason I’m having trouble remembering anything that happened prior to Friday night. Odd, that…

Okay, so let’s resort to the tweets again to aid my failing memory. Monday was spent catching up on things which needed done - like phone-calls to the mortgage people (I can’t believe we’ve been here three years already) and organising mobile phone contract cashback documents. George started to sew on Freddy’s new ju-jitsu badge - why the heck do they need to be so gigantic? They really are unreasonably huge. George wimped out part-way around it and someone else finished - I’m assuming Scratchy, since Barney doesn’t sew unless sat on, and my hands were much too numb to be poking needles through ju-jitsu gis with them. We had Toby’s last speech therapy appointment for a while - the therapist is now off on maternity leave, and in traditional NHS fashion, no replacement has been arranged. She’s pleased with Toby’s progress, however, so he’s down for review in August or September when she returns - although how long it will take her to catch up is anyone’s guess.

In the evening Barney went to Air Cadets and came home with a camp permission form with no dates. I’m told it’s sometime in the summer. Freddy went to ju-jitsu, did his grading, and came home with a brand new shiny green belt - although he did hide it and try to fake me out that he hadn’t qualified, but just as I was about to commiserate and say he’d do better next time, his serious look fell apart

Tuesday - ah, now that I read my tweets for last Tuesday, it all comes flooding back in glorious detail. I’d a slow start, with my body not particularly keen to cooperate with my head’s intentions, but we did manage to pack for the caravan and make it out of the house around lunchtime, when Scratchy brought the car back from work. I left him back, then went to the library to return books, but found the library closed until 2 p.m. - since it was only about noon, I wasn’t waiting. Then I went to the bank, only to discover that the most convenient branch had closed - or, as they euphemistically put it, “transferred”. But I don’t think it counts as a “transfer” when the branch it has transferred to already existed, and I had no intention of fighting the horrendous parking situation around that branch. My next errand involved dropping off a letter which had been delivered to me instead of to the person who needs to deal with it, except that I couldn’t remember her address and couldn’t get hold of her on her mobile. Thwarted again. I stopped to buy fuel for the car, and carefully made my way in beside the pump on a small, busy forecourt - bear in mind that I had four bicycles attached to the back of my car by way of a carrier designed for three - got out of the car to find a sticker over the pump saying it was out of order.

Briefly considered going home and back to bed, but decided to press on. I’d hoped to arrive at the caravan in time for a late lunch, but having wasted so much time on unsuccessful errands, it was clear that wasn’t going to happen, so I decided to buy lunch on the way. That, however, required cash - of which I had none (having not been to the bank yet…) so I needed both a cash machine and a food outlet. I found the cash machine and asked George to do something, only for him to say in a rather pathetic voice, “I can’t, I’ve thrown up all over myself.” This led to an exchange on twitter between me and several other parents who were somewhat incredulous that he had not said anything and that I had not noticed. As I pointed out, he was two rows behind me and the only person beside him was Freddy, who was immersed in DS-play so might well have missed the entire episode.

I got George stripped and cleaned up as much as possible by the side of the road, found a clean tee-shirt in his bag and got him back in the car wearing that and nothing else. He was adamant that he was hungry, but it was clear that lunch was going to be a drive-through experience - fast food restaurants might not be very formal, but they’re a little more formal than tee-shirts with naked boy-bits hanging out below them. So drive-through it was.

We made it to the big town near the caravan without further incident and I stopped to buy food supplies for the next few days - and also bought new tee-shirts for me, as none of my old ones cover my bump. I asked where the men’s tee-shirts were and a staff member took me there and tried to help - asking what colour I preferred etc, but frankly the only thing I was bothered about was that they were the largest size available. I spent £8 on four tees - living it up, as usual and then we drove the few miles to the caravan, where I put George in the shower (once I remembered how to turn on the water) and told him to get clean underwear and socks from his bag. “I can’t, I didn’t pack any.”

Deep breath. Several hours earlier, I had stood on the landing, looked George in the eye and said, “Do you have clean underpants and socks in your bag?” - and I’d asked at least three times, because, you see, I know George. And each time, George had replied in a very definite and here-I-am-being-sensible-for-once voice, “Yes.”

So there was George, sockless and commando for the next few days - and wearing the same denim dungarees for the next few days too, as he’d only packed one extra pair of trousers. About five sweaters, but only one pair of trousers…

Why do I do it? Well, here’s a view from the road approaching the village where the caravan lives. See that gorgeous blue sky? See that thin dark blue stripe at the bottom of it? That’s the ocean.

And here’s a view of part of the beach - the busy end. Admit it, you can see the attraction.

The boys spent the rest of the day scooting about the site on their bicycles, playing in the playground, etc - all of which left them very ready to go to sleep when bedtime arrived (and I can’t say I wasn’t grateful!) Mostly. Barney took Toby to my bed to cuddle him to sleep, as he often does in the caravan. Ten minutes later, Toby came trotting back to me at the other end of the van. Investigation showed that Barney was fast asleep. Toby, however, kept bouncing about for another hour…

They didn’t even wake up early on Wednesday morning - it was about 8.30 before anyone started to emerge. It didn’t take Barney long, however, to start being annoyingly pedantic (I can’t think where he gets that from…) so I thought of something we needed from the shop in the village and sent him to get it. I offered him the choice of cycling on his own, or walking with Toby - he chose the latter and the two of them had a lovely outing together. Meanwhile I fixed the sweater I was knitting for the baby (the sleeves weren’t wide enough when it was made according to the pattern), and added a hat to match:

We went down to the beach in the afternoon, well wrapped up in coats and hats, but it was a tad windy down there so we didn’t stay long. Back at the van we had hot chocolate to warm up. The difference in wind-strength between the beach and the van was quite amazing, given what a very short distance it is and that there’s really only one row of buildings between them!

On Thursday morning the making of my breakfast (by Barney) was rudely interrupted when the gas ran out - I tried to move the thingy to a different cylinder, but wasn’t sure it was properly connected (it can be quite difficult to connect at the best of times, and having hands that couldn’t feel much of anything wasn’t helping) or if the second cylinder was also empty. Having checked the forecast before leaving the internet home, I knew that this was to be the dullest part of the week, with the possibility of showers, so had planned to go into the big town. I finally found a bank to go to, and we topped up our supplies (bread and milk - and smoothies, to make up for the fact that I really don’t do fruit) and went to the library, where the boys had a great time exploring a new-to-them library, and borrowed every Doctor Who book they could find, as well as a fair few others.

Back to the caravan for lunch, followed by hunting around the caravan park for the bloke who maintains it - he’s a very pleasant, helpful man (and, according to Barney, looks like Bruce Willis) and when I explained the problem he came straight over to check. Both cylinders were indeed empty, and he put one of them in his white van and went to get me a new one, then attached the new one for me.

At about 4.30, I was feeling a bit shaky, so I asked Barney to watch Toby and went to lie down for a little while. I woke an hour later. This unplanned nap led to a bit of a burst of energy after dinner, and after hearing the weather forecast for the next 24 hours (cold overnight, windy with showers for Friday), I decided to drive home on Thursday night rather than wait until Friday (and have to pack and load the car, including bicycles, with even-number-than-usual-because-it’s-early-in-the-day hands). Barney helped me clear the caravan out, and when the others returned on their bikes, they all helped get everything into the car and get the bikes on the back - I was very impressed that within 45 minutes of the decision being made, we were driving away. Most of the children fell asleep on the way home, although not until after Jack had thoroughly discussed infinity with anyone who’d listen to him - except that he kept calling it “insanity”.

Friday was largely uneventful until 8.33 p.m. when I had what at first appeared to be the world’s strongest Braxton-Hicks contraction but which rapidly turned into sweating, fainting and feeling at least as bad as I did a few years ago when I had septicemia. That whole story is already on the blog, a few posts down from this one (or one post down, if I’ve altered the twitter-feed settings again), so enough said. I spent the weekend taking it easy, peeing on sticks and encouraging Barney in his efforts to polish his presentation for his French GCSE aural. I finished my fingerless gloves, and having been nagged throughout their production by Toby - “Dees too big for me! You make me gloves now?” - I also made him a pair of mittens, shaped like little mice - except that I haven’t a scrap of pink yarn in the house with which to make the knots for the noses, so they’re not quite finished. On Sunday morning I was playing a Mika CD in the living-room when Jack came in looking angry and said, “Can you turn that off, because it’s annoying me!” Erm…hang on, isn’t it supposed to be the parents who say that to the kids?

Early in the evening my neighbour K (the one who was so helpful on Friday night) came in to see how I was; about ten minutes after she arrived, George came into the room to tell me Freddy had swallowed a magnetic rod. He’s supposedly the sensible one… in accordance with advice from the children’s hospital, we’re still waiting for it to re-appear…

Today, I’ve been very tired. I can’t think why…

Friday night, I’m sitting on my bed finishing up a phone-call. And I feel really strong tightening across my lower abdomen - really strong. And I’m thinking, “Phew, this is a heck of a Braxton-Hicks!” And it gets stronger, and stronger, until it’s really painful. This isn’t right. I call Barney and ask him to go fetch Scratchy, who helps me to the bathroom. Moving hurts, but then so does staying still. So I sit on the loo, and then I realise things are going black, so I lie down on the floor. I don’t realise I’ve actually passed out until I hear Scratchy calling me and saying so, and telling me I was shaking and breathing oddly while I was out. I’m feeling dizzy and sick. I ask for a cold wet cloth, and put it on my forehead, on my neck. I get back on the loo, then feel dizzy again and lie down again. I pass out again. I get a drink of water and get back to bed. I’m drenched in sweat. I can’t get my words together, my thoughts together. The abdominal pain is still really bad. I’m feeling absolutely dreadful. I phone the maternity hospital but I can’t talk properly - feeling too ill. They tell me to go in. Scratchy says he’ll drive, but I’m not happy about that idea - and I’m still in so much pain that I’m thinking an ambulance will have entonox on-board - so I phone an ambulance. I get as far as saying “ambulance please” before I have to hand the phone to Scratchy and pass out again.

Ambulance arrives, paramedics try to get me out of bed to get me downstairs. I manage to get up with help, but immediately feel I’m going to faint again, so lie on the floor. Paramedics saying “you need to stay with us”, I’m trying to tell them I’m going to pass out. They decide to put me in a chair and carry me down the stairs; I’m only vaguely aware of what’s going on. Barney has been sent next door to ask neighbour K to come in and sit with kids.

In the ambulance they tell me we’re going to hospital M, I say no, no SCBU there and if I’m having a 29-week gestation baby, we’ll need one. Hospital R has excellent SCBU and is only a minute further away, I convince them to take me there and paramedic spends time on phone convincing dispatchers to let him do it. Blood pressure low, even for me. Blood sugar fine. Pulse fast. Pain in abdomen subsiding but now coming in waves and more involvement of upper uterus. Paramedic convinced I’m in labour and clearly worried that he’s about to catch a 29-week baby but also clearly reassured that having had five babies before, I at least have a clue about what I’m doing…

Get to hospital. By now I’m feeling more with it, my brain function and speech more restored. Onto monitor. Regular contractions, enough to distract me but not very strong. Abdominal pain less. Baby’s heart on the fast side, but going up and down with contractions as it’s meant to. Things much calmer now.

Trace on monitor looks like early labour, but exam shows cervix closed. Swab taken. Protein in urine - was clear a few hours ago. Baby’s heart-rate normal - still going up and down with contractions but no longer on high side. Doctor insists on ultrasound to check baby’s position - I can’t see why that’s relevant since it’s clear I’m not in labour, but agree to very fast one - she takes much longer than I’m happy with, but everything looks fine. Baby is “breech” - again, not relevant unless I’m in labour. Doctor says if baby breech and I’m in labour they will “have to” do a c-section. I think “that’s an argument we’ll save until I’m actually in labour”.

Hospital wants me to be admitted and to have steroid injections to mature baby’s lungs. I’m not keen - I don’t feel the baby’s coming soon. The contractions are regular but don’t feel productive, I’m not dilated at all. Talk it over with Scratchy and suggest we decline steroids, go home, get a night’s sleep and I get community midwife out to review in morning. Hospital doctor not very happy with this, but will see midwife in only ten or twelve hours and can return to hospital then if necessary - and if contractions start getting somewhere before that, we can be back in under 30 minutes.

No car at hospital - Scratchy came in ambulance at my request, though he couldn’t have followed us anyway since the ambulance didn’t know where it was going until half-way there! So Scratchy phones K (neighbour) and asks if she would mind coming to pick us up.

Hospital gets me to sign AMA form (to say I’m leaving against their advice), then kicks me out of exam room as fast as they can…

Saturday morning: home shortly after midnight, had a reasonable night’s sleep. No more abdominal pain. Can feel uterine tightenings if I pay attention, but not enough to distract me from anything else. Phoned midwives’ office at 9 and left a message, midwife showed up at door less than an hour later, not having received my message yet, but having had a phone-call from the hospital. All looks fine this morning. She suspects UTI with very fast onset, suggests getting antibiotics to have in house in case things start again (UTI can cause pre-term labour). Baby active and well. Me too. She thinks we did the right thing in choosing to come home.

Plan: prescription for antibiotics arranged, will collect them this afternoon but not start them. Will continue to check urine for protein and leucocytes; if anything suspicious or any more contractions, will start antibiotics. If contractions feeling productive or anything else happening that’s slightly worrying, will phone midwife on-call, or head to hospital, depending on how worrying it is. Otherwise, help Barney work on his French GCSE presentation, relax and knit.

Ending up at hospital on two of three weekends was not in the game-plan. And nobody but nobody ever expected me to be suspected of pre-term labour. Ain’t life a blast?

…that’s what happens when you spend most of the week in an internet-less place. When we’re away at the caravan, twitter is my only contact with the outside world

So in the last week - well, last weekend was not fun, as I’ve said before. Once Jack’s breathing eased, he was more his usual self - posing when a camera was pointed his way, for example:

On Sunday we brought Jack home from the hospital and spent the rest of the day lying around and playing. On Monday morning, Toby had speech therapy, and rather than spend the afternoon at home and falling asleep (and consequently being unable to sleep on Monday night), we went to visit friends, one of whom is one of Jack’s best friends. He spent the afternoon running about like a mad thing, showing absolutely no sign that he’d been hospitalised less than 48 hours earlier. So we felt it was safe to head back to the caravan on Tuesday - making sure to pack Jack’s inhaler and spacer, but fortunately he hasn’t needed them.

I spent the next few days watching children in the playground, or as they cycled around the site. A couple of weeks ago when I was twittering about the wild wind and rain, Merry wondered why we were there - well, here’s part of the answer:

Barney sleeps in the living-room in the caravan - it’s not a very big caravan and he has far more room there than anywhere else - so rather than have him stay up late and be grumpy next day, I often get him to go to bed with Toby in my bed, then I wake him to move him when I’m going to bed. Neither Toby nor Barney seems to mind at all:

And then, when I get up in the morning, this is what I find:

When the weather is bad, you stay inside and play games and knit. Hats, among other things:

And if you’ve any sense, you don’t teach your 13-year-old to knit, because he’ll get addicted and want to stay up late doing it, and nothing will ever get done until he’s finished his row…

Like Jack, Toby also often poses when a camera is aimed his way - but in his case, his intention is often to be cheeky and wind me up. But I can sometimes still manage to get a good photo when he’s busy laughing at himself for the previous one:

We drove home on Friday, taking the coast road, which is longer than the inland route, but much prettier. We had all kinds of weather during the drive, but when it was sunny and bright, we stopped to buy lunch at a chip van and ate it by the sea:

A fitful night last night for several of us, I think. Certainly I didn’t sleep well, and I suspect Barney - on the other side of Toby, who was beside me - didn’t either. I did wake him to try to get him to move to his own bed before I went to bed, but he was a bit sleep-stupid and looked at me as if he didn’t know who I was, so I left him. I wished later that I’d made him move though, as he kept stealing all the duvet - we were using one that wasn’t big enough for the bed, because Jack had thrown up on the big one earlier. So every time I woke and stole the duvet back, Barney woke too, and grumbled under his breath. Scratchy, sleeping in a recliner chair beside a hospital bed, certainly didn’t get a peaceful night, and Jack didn’t go to sleep until 10.30, then was woken twice to give him a nebuliser treatment - or to try, as he’d decided he was having nothing to do with it. His oxygen levels remained good throughout the night though, so they decided not to force the issue, and this morning he was up and cheerful by 8 a.m.

I headed into the hospital soon after 8, stopping on the way to pick up breakfast for Scratchy (who I figured wouldn’t have been fed) and me (who I knew hadn’t eaten) and Jack (who I figured would be put out if I brought breakfast for everyone except him ) I wanted to get there early to see Jack, of course, but I also wanted to be there before the consultant did his rounds, as I wanted to ask about the oral steroids and antibiotics, and I know better than to expect Scratchy to get the whole story. Hearing that Jack had had a good night oxygen-wise made me optimistic that we’d be able to bring him home, so I took clothes for him, but just in case, I also went prepared with books and toys, as well as my knitting, and arranged with a friend for her to take the other boys later in the day if Jack was kept in for longer.

I arrived to find Jack eating his fourth slice of toast - but he still perked up and said “Thanks Mum!” when he spotted the pancakes I’d brought him. That was about all I got out of him, however, as he was much too busy watching the Cartoon Network to be bothered about things like talking to parents. Shortly after I arrived, a nurse came over with two syringes of meds - steroids and antibiotics, so I asked her about them and then, when her only real reply was that the doctor had ordered them, I asked if they could wait until after rounds, so that we knew more about what was going on. She was fine with that, and we didn’t have long to wait for the consultant. He examined Jack and asked us all the same questions everybody else had asked in the last 24 hours. I questioned the oral steroids and was told they hardly ever gave IV steroids on the ward - so Jack could have had the IV line out last night, but anyway…I also asked about the antibiotics, and the consultant looked a bit at a loss, and asked the junior doctor on rounds about it. She said that she had felt they were unnecessary, but the other doctor who’d been on duty last night had ordered them. That was the same doctor who’d told me, an hour or so earlier, that it was almost certainly viral - so much for avoiding the overuse of antibiotics! The consultant agreed that they really didn’t seem necessary, so at least Jack avoided the second dose of those. He did get a second dose of oral steroids though, and we got to hear the words we’d been waiting for: “I think he can go home today.”

It took a while to pry Jack from the television screen in order to give him the final (we hope) dose of steroids, teach him how to use an inhaler and spacer, remove his IV line and get him dressed, but we were out of the hospital by about 10 o’clock. Jack didn’t stop talking the whole way home in the car, so we were reassured that he was on the mend! He’s to use the inhaler for the next couple of days and then play things by ear. He seems much, much better now though, and has spent the day full of energy as usual - I thought he might sleep this afternoon after missing so much sleep last night, but there was no chance.

It’s incredibly stressful having a child in hospital - not just because you’re worried about the child, but also because of all the extra arrangements that have to be made for who will be where when and what will happen with the other children. The two girls who were on Jack’s ward had both been in for weeks - I really don’t know how parents manage that or longer stays. Most of the staff were very pleasant - one of the reasons I usually head for the Children’s Hospital rather than the nearest Casualty is that you know you’ll find staff who’ve chosen to work with children rather than those who just tolerate them as a necessary part of the job. We really only encountered one nurse who was unwilling to do everything she could to help us, and one doctor who was less than communicative (the one who saw Jack on the ward last night). The consultant, when I told him I’d be questioning everything, said “That’s the right way to do it!” - which is an attitude I’ve noticed is usually found in doctors who are good at what they do and confident about their abilities - the ones who aren’t so great at their jobs are more defensive, in my experience. I did find it frustrating that most staff just did things without notice or explanation though - I know sometimes there isn’t a lot of time, but just a few extra seconds can make a big difference, and sometimes the explanation could even be given while they’re doing whatever it is - for example, when the nurse was putting anaesthetic cream on the backs of Jack’s hands while we were in Casualty, she didn’t tell us what it was or why it was being done - I knew what it was and figured out what it was for, but she wasn’t to know that, and it wouldn’t have taken three seconds to explain while she smeared it on and covered it - and knowing allowed me to prepare Jack for what was going to happen. Small things like that can make a big difference to patients and their parents. When Freddy was not much more than a year old, he fell onto some broken glass and split his forehead open - there was masses of blood, pouring down through his eyes and through all the layers of clothing on both of us - and when the bleeding had subsided in Casualty, the doctor said he’d be going for a skull x-ray. I spent the next two hours thinking they thought he might have a fractured skull, when in fact all they were doing was checking for fragments of glass in the wound. A second to add “…that will show up any glass that’s left in the wound” would have saved me those two hours of worry.

I don’t mean to complain - the hospital staff were very good and caring, and I’ve no complaints about the treatment apart from the unnecessary antibiotics. I’m just getting it all off my chest really. It’s been a very stressful weekend for all of us; I’m glad it’s over and hope we never have to repeat it or anything like it.

I woke up this morning still trying to decide whether to go to the caravan today or wait until Tuesday (Toby has another speech therapy appointment on Monday, so no point in going tomorrow). As it turned out, the universe had plans to take that decision out of my hands.

Jack was a bit off-colour and waily at bedtime last night, but he gets that way when he’s not well - he tends to get miserable for a few hours, sleep for a couple of hours, then wake up bouncy and full of life again. He also tends to breathe quite heavily when he’s ill, but it never lasts long. Today was different. He was normal-sick (for him) in the morning, and I decided to go to Ikea and pick up a few things for the caravan. When I got home at lunchtime though, he’d thrown up and his breathing was very laboured. It was somehow not the same as it usually is when he’s unwell. I decided I was worried enough to take him to Casualty.

He went in pyjamas with a fleece blanket around him, and insisted on being carried in (not an easy task to carry a six-year-old when you’ve a bump the size of mine). When we got into the waiting-room, I sat him on a chair and he promptly threw up on the floor. I talked to the receptionist, who sent us through to triage. They weighed him and took his temperature, then sent us through to a treatment room. The doctor couldn’t hear any breathing sounds in his lungs, but his oxygen levels were pretty good (97%). It was obvious he was working hard to breathe though. Two nebuliser treatments later, they said his lungs were quite rattly. They took blood, put an IV line in the back of his hand, and gave him a dose of intravenous steroids. A chest x-ray was ordered, and he sat with an oxygen mask for the next few hours. Eventually it was decided he should be admitted for observation - just for a few hours, possibly overnight but maybe going home at bedtime. By the time he was taken to the ward though, it was after 6 p.m., so there was no going home tonight. I asked him who he wanted to stay with him - me or Scratchy - he chose Scratchy. To be honest, I was too relieved to be offended - the thought of facing a night in a chair by the bed wasn’t thrilling me or my pelvis.

On the ward he was taken off the oxygen mask but his oxygen levels remained good. Another doctor came and examined him, and he got to see his chest x-ray, which showed quite a lot of trapped air around the edges of his lungs. The doctor said it was probably viral and ordered another nebuliser treatment; by the time that was given it was nearly 8 p.m. After the treatment, I left him on his own for a while so I could drive home and get Scratchy. I took Scratchy to the hospital and came home, glad to get a chance to eat something and lie down.

They said there’d probably be more nebuliser treatments overnight, but it was hoped he wouldn’t need more IV steroids. However Scratchy has texted to say Jack has had oral steroids - I don’t understand why, as that was the whole point of the IV line, and it’s still in place. He’s also been given oral antibiotics - again, I don’t understand why, when they were fairly certain it was viral - and I can’t say I’m pleased, as he’s never had antibiotics before and I’d have preferred to keep it that way if they weren’t actually necessary.

In fact he’s never had any kind of medication before - not so much as a children’s paracetamol. He’s never spent a night in hospital in his life - none of my children has, except for Barney, who spent the first two nights of his life in hospital because I was daft enough to give birth to him in one. I don’t think Jack has ever even been on a hospital ward to visit anybody before. So all this has been a bit of a shock.

I hope he’ll be home tomorrow, but was warned by one of the nurses that it could be a few days. Before he was admitted, I asked if he could come home this evening with a nebuliser, but apparently it’s not possible to arrange a nebuliser on the weekend

When it comes to blogging every few days, all I can say is, “Thank goodness for Twitter”. Because my memory is, uh, what was I saying?

Monday morning was spent running from one errand to another, including stopping to see the midwives and get blood taken to check my B12 level - and proving, once again, that I have horrible veins. Neither the midwife nor the student midwife was able to get a cooperative vein, and in the end they called a nurse from the treatment room to have a go. She managed to get blood - and only poked me once with the needle, which is good, but left a great big bruise, which isn’t so good. By the time we were through, I was late for Toby’s speech therapy, but the therapist being in late pregnancy herself, she was understanding. I also took the bicycle with the puncture (the one that was Freddy’s but was about to be given to Jack) to the bike repair shop, but they weren’t able to fix it until Tuesday, which wasn’t a lot of use since we were planning on leaving straight from there for the caravan. So I went back home and collected yet another bicycle - Toby’s smaller one - just in case we weren’t able to get it repaired. We did get it sorted out though, in the same shop that fixed it on Saturday, and they didn’t even charge for fitting the new tube or tyre (because of the running back and forth we’d had to do).

We got to the caravan and spent the afternoon outdoors, as it was sunny and reasonably warm - not tee-shirt weather, but certainly pleasant. On starting dinner, I realised we were out of bread, and then I realised I was out of cash, so I couldn’t even send Barney to the shop - so cheese toasties were out. I also realised we’d left the toothbrushes at home - there’s always something. So Tuesday morning found us driving into the big town, because although there is a chemist’s shop in the village, it’s not exactly large or well-stocked (they didn’t have Band-Aids when I went looking for those). I went armed with a meal-plan for the week and bought everything we needed. Back to the caravan for lunch, then the boys spent the afternoon in and out, as the weather allowed. They made friends with E, a boy about Freddy’s age whose family also have a caravan, and he ended up staying for dinner - he was kind of left hovering on our deck when I called my own children in for food, so I guesstimated how much spag bol there was and figured I’d feed him too, if he wanted. The dinner-time conversation was quite amusing - many home-educators find that people quiz their children to see what they’re learning, but my kids turned the tables and quizzed E instead: things like, “What’s the name for a number multiplied by itself?”

E stayed after dinner too, while they watched the rest of their movie (Spiderman 3 - really, really bad - I was almost praying for it to end!) and finally left about 9.30. I must have twittered quite a bit about the wind and rain, because when I said I thought there was only one other family there, Merry messaged me to ask where we were and ask if it was purgatory I think the answer to that is provided in the replies I got from the boys this morning when I asked when they wanted to go back to the caravan. Toby yelled “Yes!”, two voices said “Soon!” and the remaining two said “As soon as possible!” - so now we’re trying to make plans for the weekend and next week…

I woke on Wednesday morning to a very strange sound: silence. No rain beating on the windows, no blasts of wind…the silence didn’t last long when children started to wake though, especially with George, who was in chittering mode. Not chattering - chittering has a whole extra element of irritating. Never was I more grateful for getting-them-outside weather! I tried and failed to put my watch on - it’s usually quite loose as I wear it quite far up my wrist, but it was too tight, and when I looked at my hands, I realised how swollen they were. I’ve also got tingly fingertips, and I’m hoping it’s not the knitting that’s doing it, because I’m really enjoying knitting again

During the day on Wednesday the staff from the caravan park removed the caravan opposite ours, using a "big digger truck", as Toby put it, and thus provided great entertainment for small boys. We also spent a while down on the beach with bicycles - which Chris disapproved of because of the potential damage to gears and chains, but really, if you had the opportunity to cycle in and out of the Atlantic, wouldn’t you? In the afternoon, Barney asked to be taught to knit - he’s not usually the good-with-his-hands kid, but surprised me in how quickly he picked it up and got quite good at it. He proclaimed it “pretty fun”, and at bedtime was disappointed to be sent to bed because he wanted to stay up and knit (”it’s kind of addictive”).

On Thursday morning I’d a call from a midwife to tell me my B12 was now normal - which leaves me searching for some other explanation for my fatigue We walked to the shop in the morning - which usually takes just a few minutes, but took forever because my pelvis was so sore, and left me exhausted. We expected our friends K & J to be using the caravan from Friday, so planned to leave then, but I decided to leave Friday rather than have to pack up the car in the rain forecast for Friday morning. I spent the rest of the morning tidying and packing what I could, in preparation for leaving in the afternoon, while the boys cycled, skateboarded and playgrounded. I got the bicycles onto the car at about 2.30 - with difficulty, given that I have a big bump in the way of lifting them and that the carrier is designed to carry three bicycles and I had five… The boys played for another hour or so before we left, and Barney knit on the way home in the car. We arrived home at about 5.30 and the first thing I did was put on the water-heater - and oh did that hot bath ever feel good! Shortly after I went to bed, I got a text-message from J to say they weren’t going to be at the caravan this weekend after all - and I’d left the power, water and gas on…probably not a big problem, although the milk I left in the fridge might not be so good by the middle of next week. We could end up back there over the weekend, when the forecast is snow - now that could be an adventure…I promise I’ll take some photos this time if we do.

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

Last night was windy again, though not nearly as bad as the previous one, and a few more people arrived this morning. An early night last night, however, meant an early start this morning - by 6.40 a.m., Toby was snuggled inside Barney’s sleeping bag in the living-room (with Barney still in there too), “helping” Barney with a book of logic puzzles. At about 7.30 I sent Barney off to the shop on his bicycle to refresh our supply of milk and washing-up liquid, both having been largely used up by the hot chocolate the previous evening. By 9, all were fed and dressed and out racing on their bicycles - Freddy borrowing wheels as and when he could - and I was wondering why energy seems to easy to find when you’re a kid…

Having checked the forecast yesterday evening, I knew to expect rain later today, so sent them all (including Scratchy, who arrived last night) off to the beach in the late morning. Well, I say “all”, but I don’t really mean it. George had decided he was too delicate for such capers and decided to stay here with me and practise his knitting - but didn’t wash his hands, so the scarf he is knitting for his beanie-teddy now consists of stripes of off-white and very-off-white. And about 45 minutes after the others had left, one of the bedroom doors opened and Barney emerged - I’d thought he was on the beach! “Did you know we didn’t know you were in there?” I asked, and he replied, “I kinda thought so!”

After lunch Scratchy took everyone but Barney into the big town to look for a bicycle-repair shop, and a new inner tube was purchased and fitted. Barney stayed here with me and did some French - something he wasn’t very pleased about, but he didn’t want to go to town either, and he needs to keep at the revising if he’s to do well in the GCSE. (Actually that’s probably not really true - even if he did nothing from now until June, he’d probably do well anyway, but if he’s to do the best he can, he needs to revise.) Given my lack of energy and the fact that my pubic bone feels ready to split into pieces at any minute, I spent most of the day trying to get into a comfortable seating position and knitting. I finished my lacy socks and the baby-hat I was making, and made a hat with a skull and crossbones motif for George - all the boys want one of these, but they all want different colours, and George’s was the only one I had all the colours for. I cast on at lunchtime and he was wearing it by 4 p.m., which muchly impressed one of my neighbours I was going to start another hat with dancing skeletons on it for Jack next, but discovered I hadn’t printed out the pattern to bring with me, so had to revert to my current mindless project - a very soft wool/soy mixture scarf for me. I like the yarn so much that I ordered more of it this week; I’m hoping the postman didn’t leave it sitting at the front door in the wind and rain…

Freddy and Toby were the only ones here when dinner was ready, so I asked Freddy to call his brothers. “Barney, George and Freddy!” he yelled at the door, before turning and realising he’d just called himself in At least when I mix up their names I don’t include my own Jack came in anyway, and asked of the pizza, “Is that home…home…caravan-made or bought?”

Yesterday afternoon’s sunny weather was promising, but never fulfilled that promise. The weather changed overnight: we had thunder and lightning, heavy rain and wild winds all night long. I didn’t know you could get sea-sick in a static caravan Several times I thought someone had climbed onto my bed, only to realise it wasn’t the bed that was moving, but the whole van. Slightly worrying! We made it through the night, however, and into the morning. I considered waiting for the weather to brighten before walking to the shop in the town, but when it got wild again, I decided to leave the boys here while I took the car. Since it was such a cold, wet and windy morning, they spent the morning studying - I’m a horrible mother, me. When the weather improved slightly (i.e. the rain stopped, though there were still gales blowing) and I told them to put the books away, I was still a horrible mother, because I made them go out to play - although their resentment didn’t last long when they met up with other children who had been turfed out of their respective caravans by their respective fed-up parents. We discovered that Freddy’s bicycle tyre was flat again, so I’ve had to promise to take him into the big town tomorrow to get a new inner tube. In the meantime, he’s been riding George’s bicycle, which looks like it fits him better than his own, and George has been riding Barney’s, which seems to fit him better than his own…and I’ve realised that Jack fits better on Freddy’s than on his, so it seems we’re ready for the trading-bicycles game again.

I twittered how quiet it was while the boys were at the playground (their voices were only faintly audible over the wind), but spoke too soon, for within minutes Jack had arrived back covered in mud. He got changed into his clean sweater (hah! I told them they needed to pack two sweaters each!) and went back out. A few minutes after that, George came in - to say he was “covered” in mud doesn’t really accurately describe the situation, because it suggests the mud was all on the outside, when in fact it was through every layer right to his skin (and in fact he said later, “I think I even sniffed some mud!” LOL) So he got stripped and re-dressed from his underwear out, and he too went back outside. I know he got muddy falling off the Flying Fox, but I’m not really sure what happened to Jack. Whatever it was, he didn’t learn - he arrived back muddy again, saying “This time only my trousers got muddy, but I’m okay with that”. Right.

Jack’s second sweater was soon muckier than his first, and he couldn’t find his first, so he borrowed one of Freddy’s, with Freddy’s permission - which was okay until Freddy got his own sweater wet and muddy and spent twenty minutes chasing Jack around the park (Freddy on foot, Jack on a bike, so fairly pointless!) yelling, “I want my sweater back!”

The park started to busy up a bit as the afternoon progressed, with the arrival of people who presumably have jobs to go to during the week, though it didn’t get particularly busy. I suspect last night’s gales have put a few people off! By the evening, my lot were more than ready to come in for cups of hot chocolate before bedtime.

Toby woke me at 3 a.m. to tell me “Daddy’s head broke!”. Uh-huh. Go back to sleep. It was a dream. Cue scrunched-up face and questioning: “A dream?” “”"Yes, a dream. It’s like pictures in your head when you’re asleep. It’s not real, it’s like playing, but once you wake up, it all goes away.”

In the morning, Toby stood at a safe distance to check out Scratchy’s head, and appeared confused that it appeared to be intact. That was not the last I heard about it however; I was repeatedly told, “Daddy’s head broke in my dream!” throughout the day.

The boys’ things had all been packed last night, so that just left me getting my own bag organised and gathering some books to take with us. We left the house shortly after 9, which I thought was a good start, but after leaving Scratchy at work and doubling back to go to buy yarn (I’m back knitting, can’t go to the caravan without yarn and the internet!) Barney realised he didn’t have his Hogwarts bag with him - the one containing his mobile phone and all the GameBoy power-packs. The thought of no GameBoys at the caravan didn’t warm my heart, because in their absence, it would have been a YuGiOh fest, and at least GBA is usually quiet and doesn’t spread itself across the entire room, so we went back home again. Barney disappeared inside and re-emerged a few minutes later to say he couldn’t find the bag. He was sure he’d left it in the hall. I knew I hadn’t put it in the car. But I wasn’t prepared to stay for the time it would take to hunt through all the places it could be, so we left anyway.

We drove up in lovely sunshine, a calm, warm day, and everyone helped unpack the car - including the Hogwarts bag I’m always surprised when we arrive - we take everything inside, fill the entire living-space with bags and backpacks and various other things, and it looks like we’ll never all fit in. And then we start putting things away, and I realise how much a caravan is like a Tardis: bigger on the inside. All except the refrigerator, that is, which is quite the opposite. We always spend our first couple of days eating the things that didn’t fit in the refrigerator.

Freddy’s bicycle had a flat tyre; we knew this before we left home, but unable to find a bicycle pump in the garage, we had to hope we’d be able to borrow one from someone when we arrived. No luck, however, until the guy who looks after the park arrived to do some woodwork around one of the caravans near us (building the slatted base that most people install so they can store things underneath their caravans). He had a compressor in his van, and very willingly inflated the tyre, so we just hoped it was a flat rather than an actual puncture. The boys scooted around the park through most of the evening; I think the little corner of the site where we stay is just the perfect spot for a family. The playground is within sight (and hearing) of the caravan, and it’s in a little loop which doesn’t go anywhere, so there’s very little traffic, which is nearly all considerate of the fact that there are children around, so moves very slowly and carefully. Toby’s the only one of mine without the sense to move out of the way of cars; he does a sort-of standoff on his tricycle in front of them: “Nope, I’m going this way, you move!”

When it got colder and darker, everyone came in and we realised we hadn’t brought any DVDs, but there are a few here, so one was chosen (Spiderman 2 - again) and everyone settled down to watch before bed

A week since I last blogged. You know what that means, of course: missing chunks - though on this occasion there wasn’t much to remember, and much of what I do remember I’d rather forget, so we’ll just gloss over those bits…

I know we went to the Transport Museum on Friday. It wasn’t that I particularly wanted to go - I’d much rather have lazed about the house - but it was the last day of our membership, and since I don’t really expect to be feeling like traipsing around large outdoor museums (the Folk Museum bit) or large indoor museums (the Transport Museum bit) for the next while, I’m going to wait a few months before renewing it. I posted about us going on the local home-ed list at the last minute, having thought about doing so for a couple of days but not actually having made it around to it, so it wasn’t very surprising that there wasn’t a huge crowd. One other family did come though, and it was nice to see them. I took my little camera and let Barney run amok with it, which led to some, er, interesting pics. (I also realised, when uploading these, just how much better photos from my big camera are, so I think I might be handing the small one off to Barney more often in future.)

Toby was fascinated by the model horses attached to the carriages and some of the trams etc - “Mum! Look! Animals!” - as usual - although he was initially a bit wary of standing next to them to have his photo taken. I tried to explain that they weren’t real, that they were like big toys, but in the end I had to agree with his assertion that “Hoss dead!” - well, it wasn’t moving…

After the museum, we went off in search of lunch - initially intending to eat at the Ikea café (nearby and cheap) but I decided that I’d rather do a drive-through to save the energy it would take to get out of the car. (Yes, I do know how pathetic that sounds.) It took ages to find a bank machine and then a drive-through, but it was worth it when, after passing fast-food back to everyone behind me, I was thanked in four different languages (English, French, Japanese and German)!

When we got home I decided to do my fourth B12 injection (still not looking as it pierces the skin!) but I’d have been better to sit down with a cup of tea first, as all the energy expended throughout the day had taken its toll, and immediately after the injection, I felt faint. I lay down on the dining-room floor for a minute, having learned from experience that when feeling that way, it’s better to place myself on the floor than to find myself on the floor. Barney brought me a glass of water and once I was sure I wouldn’t pass out, I disposed of the needles etc and went and fell asleep on the sofa.

On Saturday, I got up and decided to go and buy paint. We’ve been in this house for nearly three years(!) and I’ve never liked the colour of the hall, stairs and landing - it’s a sort of orangey-rust, which I wouldn’t like even if it wasn’t too dark for that area, which it is. Not to mention that with five children and two dogs in the house, it wasn’t exactly clean… I still haven’t decided on a colour, but figured that a first coat of white would help cover up both the dark paint and the dirt, as well as being cheap, so that’s what I bought. I thought maybe I’d get the hall done on Saturday, then tackle the stairs and landing next weekend…but I reckoned without The Team. No sooner had I started than I had a queue of children beside me asking to help - so I phoned Scratchy (who was out doing errands) and told him to bring back more small rollers. I did big-roller bits up as far as I could reach, and various children came behind me filling in the bits around the edges (lots of edges: door-frames, stairway, chair-rail…)

Since we were getting on so well, I kept going - and despite taking a break for an hour or so when a friend came by in the afternoon, we managed to finish everything except the top bit of the wall by the stairs - which I thought best done when there were no small children around, as it required a step-ladder on the stairs themselves…

So now the hall is white(ish) and I need to get on with choosing a final colour. I’m thinking along the taupe spectrum, but things could still change.

And I managed to do it again this morning - second B12 shot, still a bit nervous and feeling sick beforehand, but not nearly as bad as Friday. A midwife came out to sit with me while I did it this morning, but from now on I’m on my own - which I think will actually make it easier, as I’ll have nobody watching me, plus I’ll be able to do it first thing in the morning so I won’t have the waiting-for-someone-to-arrive bit to handle. Up, cup of tea, inject, forget about it until the next one’s due.

Apart from my attempts to puncture myself… The boys have been continuing with their usual work, getting through quite a bit. George had a very good couple of days towards the end of last week, even making it through two entire days without any kind of meltdown - but a late night on Friday, followed by waking early on Saturday, with a 3 a.m. conversation with Freddy in between, resulted in a very shaky weekend for him. This morning didn’t start well when he went into wobbly mode before he got out of his room, but I managed to pull him back from the brink, and while there was still lots of room for improvement, it’s been a better day than the last two. I have to admit to a smile when I heard him getting mad at Barney around lunchtime; Barney was allegedly winding him up, but George’s response to his denial of this was “Barney, I can see the smile playing on your lips!”

Barney had his own tantrum on Thursday evening, storming out of the house and slamming the door behind him. Well, actually, he slammed the door in front of him, because he didn’t like the idea of being out in the dark on his own, so he stayed inside, locked the door, pocketed the key and went and hid in his room. He fooled us too! We gave him a few minutes to cool off, then Scratchy went to find him, while I phoned his mobile to see where he was (assuming he had it with him). When I heard it ringing in his room, I hung up - only to find him standing in front of me seconds later demanding, “What are you ringing me for?!!”

Barney and Scratchy went to a St John Ambulance competition on Saturday morning, leaving me at home with the others. A man came to service our boiler - at no charge. He’d posted on our local Freecycle list about two weeks ago asking for help with getting a website uploaded, and I’d offered to provide that help. He said that if I got it sorted for him, he’d service our boiler for nothing - that’s his business. It turned out his site was written in MS Publisher and it was easier to rewrite it in a different program than to fix the errors, so I did that. It probably took a couple of hours