my mum came and did various things with F while I got a bit of work done. They did a kit - in fact we've been doing kits lots every day since tidying them up a bit and seeing what we've got. Mum and F did a kit where you paint these ceramic eggs and they have seeds in with messages on - bit of a mixture of ideas going on, hmm. Also F spent a lot of time trying to teach her grandma how to play Animal Crossing on the Wii and we all played Mario Party.
My poor mum missed her train back though, as taxi got stuck in traffic.
Thursday
F's friend E came down for a few hours. They got off to a bad start - not with each other but with me! I had to do warning that I was going to shout and then shouting and describing a potential consequence sternly. Which left me in a bad mood - for some people shouting gets something out of their system so they can cheerfully go on, for me it tends to eff up my whole day on some level.
However, once we had got through that, they had a really lovely time and did a bit of pony stuff, some filming (including film of them 'being' E's parents and other members of her family), and then went kit-crazy, painting a 'decorate your own' pony together (they did so well - they come to arty/crafty stuff from completely different approaches and anything where you join forces on something like that is such a test of friendship in many ways - they were remarkably pragmatic and tolerant of their different abilities/intentions and mistakes!), and then doing glass-painting - each painting a couple of glass objects.
C stayed for a cuppa when she came to pick E up, which was nice as we just about managed a catch-up chat in short gasps between various child-led interactions! Baby D astonished us all by letting go of something he was propping himself up by and staying stood standing for a good 2 seconds before flopsing down. Very exciting!
On Friday
I had lots of work to finish and had been up all night, but I finished about half 2ish in the afternoon and after a brief delay when my glasses broke (boo and arrgghhh), we went up to Spring Barn again to meet C and co. again, this time with K. It was lovely up there - unfortunately we missed that afternoon's trailer ride (but decided that F and I would definitely come back for the after-dark version on Hallowe'en, the next day), but F still had time to go on the zip wire and hang out with E and do a 5-minute rush-around version of the quizzes, plus we all sat and ate lovely food and the children got to play with the witch's slime whilst waiting to be served.
They were going on to Lewes Library to an 'Out of this World' event, which F had dismissed, when I'd offered it to her. So we set off home, waving to them as they passed. About halfway home, F decided that she'd like to go to the Library event after all, so we carried straight on past our turning and arrived at the library after a rather invigorating walk during which we'd discussed all sorts of things I can't remember (*tuts at self*).
The evening at the library was really good: a talk with slides, which F just about stayed paying attention to in between sneaking looks to see what baby D was up to; a chance to look through telescopes outside (unfortunately a bit cloudy); alien face painting; space/alien themed cakes!; draw an alien sheets and alien puppet-making; plus an excellent mechanical solar system simulator thing, showing all the planets and moving them at their relative speeds around the sun. I liked the children's interest in the fact that Mars bumped into the Earth a lot due to blu-tac having been used for repairs at some stage. Also lots of posters and books around on the theme.
And all Free!
Hallowe'en Saturday
I decided to go into Btn to get my glasses fixed, which proved a waste of time really. Not sure what I will do next about them. I guess I need to decide whether to shift to same optician we've taken F to, in Lewes, or not, and go through all the sight test stuff again - will all take ages and I definitely need to do a bodge in the meantime, whatever happens. Am using my contact lenses, but I don't like having to put them in first thing.
Just remembered why journey into Brighton wasn't a total waste of time - we got off the bus and were immediately engulfed by a crowd of about 200 zombies in fab costumes and make-up for the 2009 Brighton Zombie March! They were going our way so we joined them and then watched as they stumbled on to their destination - filming a scene for a film apparently called 'Zombies!' (I'm assuming it has an exclamation mark). An actress was winched up by a crane and then filmed as she 'fell' towards the horde with their arms upraised, some brandishing half-eaten limbs, etc.
Which was nice.
Disappointing, despite lengthy, visit to the optician's ensued, then HMV to buy Monsters Vs Aliens DVD and decided to get the 3-DVD Scooby Doo box set.
Back home, J re-greened F's face as I had removed the library green to take her into Btn. And she wore a black top of mine, which I think she might now have adopted, black leggings, witch's hat and some pumpkin and skeleton lights.
We set off into a lovely moonlit night to walk up to Spring Barn. Up there we generally larked around a bit, F took part in the Fancy Dress business - was called a 'parade' but didn't really parade in a processing fashion, more of a line-up and be judged. Prizes seemed to go mainly to those with bought costumes, which is always a bit wrong. F didn't mind at all but would have liked a bit of parading.
The scary tractor-trailer ride was the undoubted highlight of the evening. We'd done it on Monday in the daytime and this was their extra-scary version for older kids in the dark. It was fab. The scarecrow attacked the trailer several times appearing out of the rustling maize, they had introduced a leaf-blower attacker with chainsaw sound effect, which was excellent, and Bones the skeleton once more got his bones back, with a bit of help from us. The woman opposite us screamed 3 times, it was that good!
After that, we shared a portion of chips and chatted to 2 of the Spring Barn workers who we sort of know, who were both at the tail end of 12-hour shifts and looking forward to a break.
We walked back again in the moonlight - the pumpkin and skeleton lights finally died on us, they've been the best 'Hallowe'en tat' we ever had. We do miss Woolworths. Will check the online one at some point.
Back home F stayed up and we watched Monsters Vs Aliens - love it, even without the 3D.
Sunday
I mainly worked and did some other laptop stuff and J and F made a TechnoRobot kit, which was very fiddly and J was about three times as patient with, as I would have been. We watched the first of the Scooby Doo box set, which was an OK evening watch.
Today
is a hanging out, watching films kind of day, and next I'm having a nice relaxing bath.
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