I officially like Mrs MT

Had a lovely afternoon over at the MonsterTeeny abode yesterday - it takes me a long time to decide whether I like someone, as Mrs MT knows. We first met in so-called real life just under a year ago and it's now official - I like her. As is known to quite a few people reading this we are very different in some areas of life. She's a Tory, I'm down in the 'left of the Dalai Lama and libertarian with it' section of those political compass thingies. She's a total and utter carnivore, barely tolerating a vegetable waved in her proximity and I'm a (nearly) vegan. But we seem to work quite well together, with these differences and others absorbed by our mutual love of a good laugh and enjoyment of words and other similarities - one thing we have in common is that we will happily digress from pretty much any serious conversation down some entirely surreal and ridiculous side-track entirely for the purpose of making ourselves and each other laugh, which is something I look for and find in most of my best friends.

So, yesterday, the day started with Disney Little Mermaid Feltastic (Yes, Disney put their copyright stamp on every single piece of felt! - these people are obsessed, aren't they? I heard about their refusal to allow nurseries and hospitals to paint murals of their much-loved characters a few years back too - ridiculous corporate arses!) and then F and I set off, after some kind of strop when she kept refusing to do things like put socks on and shoes etc.

Even after we set off she still kept stopping in her tracks (not the 'looking at something with the wonder of a child' or even the 'poking a woodlouse' kind of stopping, just literally stopping, apparently to be annoying) and I had to make 2 fake phone-calls to Nic in the park shouting 'No I don't think we're coming, F doesn't want to, she keeps stopping!' etc. Eventually, we sped up with much chivvying and got to the station and straight onto a train, from which point our journey got a lot smoother.

At Brighton, I was bored waiting for the train to start and so made Dozy Mog look out of the window and see a lovely shiny train and decide to fall in love with it and get married because they were both elephants (Dozy Mog, who is of course, really a cat, is prone to this kind of fantasy/mistake when I get bored). This led to a long journey game of spotting all sorts of zoo animals from the train and Dozy Mog making friends with them, also continuing when we were walking to N's from the station. Made the walk go easier for her as these games do - Dani and Allie, I think you commented about these. A good game like this can really make a difference to F walking somewhere, she will make the game last all day if possible! We arrived having somehow made really good time - guess the train connections were on our side for once.

After a few complaints from various of the children they all settled down and really did play pretty well for most of the time, with the odd timely offering of snacks to distract them when they got whingey. At some point, they came and did a 'show' for us, with Davies on background music and F doing something complicated with an evil and good Gromit and the world. Although it was impossible to follow, it certainly had a very clear start and finish and she seemed to know what she was doing in between, even if we didn't. Other than that they played in various combinations, S felt a bit left out at one point but later she and F went into her room in girly mode, so overall they all did fine I think.

Mrs MT and I got onto clothes talk and went upstairs to stroke her goth/hippy velvet clothes, which are gorgeous, just my kind of thing. We also talked about a couple of occasions when our children have been misunderstood and how hard that is to deal with, when it results in unjust criticism. All in all it was a lovely afternoon. I felt comfortable enough to root in the kitchen cupboards for dishes, etc. when snacks were required - I'm not someone who rushes to do that kind of thing in other people's houses, for various reasons - largely that it feels intrusive or something.

Eventually the children got to that point where only a film will do and settled down to watch Madagascar. However, I needed to leave in time to get curry from the local shop on the way back, so I promised F she could watch the remaining half at home and N drove us back to the station. The rest of the journey home continued with the zoo/jungle animal game. Apparently Lancing is a zoo and Lewes is a jungle.

Back home she watched the end of Madagascar and ate something and had lots of cuddles with her dad (J had been working at home). I got the curry sorted into the oven and when I went up for a bedtime cuddle she was actually saying 'I do feel quite tired'. However she then appeared 5 times in the next 90 minutes, although generally in a good humour and not for long each time.

Today, so far, has been sunny and spring/summerish - we ate a sandwichy lunch and some melon out at the patio table. She is out in the garden enjoying herself, practising her new swinging techniques and watching our neighbours start some building work and giving us a loud commentary on that 'I think they are building a fence', 'they're measuring things now', etc. Wonder if they realize that when they have finished building they're garage roof terrace she will probably do the same for whatever they do there - 'They're drinking now', 'they're chatting', 'they're talking about why they shouldn't have spent the money on the garage roof terrace', 'they're hitting each other', 'they're vomiting', etc. Not that our neighbours are known for doing any of the above, but maybe the new space will affect their lifestyle in an entertaining manner.

Have just done the footprint quiz at Earth Day and found that if everyone lived like me we would need 'one planet'. Yeah, nice to know and all that, but not really very useful to most people, is it? I can't really see people seriously changing their lifestyles - I tend to accept that the planet is going to get a lot worse before/if it is ever going to get better. Also I was surprised that it didn't ask how much power we use (numbers of computers and other such items, time used and left on standby etc.) as I know that would be an area where our consumption is relatively high.