Just Dance and Bonfire night

My October pay was the first time I'd had money to actually spend in serious amounts for months. This year had 3 really rubbish months money-wise, plus a lot of money gone on travelling back and forth and helping mum out, plus a horrendous tax bill (paying for a good year out of a bad year). So come October I finally had a bit of money and I spent it in 4 waves. My first spend was on craft kits, having lusted after a particular brand for ages. My 2nd spend was, more practically, on clothes for F, kitting her up for winter, complete with boots and warm jacket. The 3rd wave was presents for Quige, whose birthday is in November before I get paid. And the final smaller wave was on DS and Wii games and a DVD. And now I'm skint! Of course! All of which tells us that I don't do financial planning or priorities terribly well. And that when I have money these days I consume unapologetically. 

So F had been playing on the DS game for a week, nearly (which isn't really a game - Art Academy - see post below and she is now going back and redoing previous lessons to improve, much to my astonishment and admiration! edited to add she's just done her first original picture on DSi  using the techniques - taking a photo with DSi, then using it as the basis for a painting, hope she will get into doing more of that). 

In the meantime, the Wii games I got had been sitting uninvestigated on a shelf since their arrival a week before, so on Friday, having finished my week's work in the morning, F and I were able to have a look at them. One of them is a riding game, which F got quite into later and seemed to get through a lot of lessons very quickly, but I found a bit hard to control my horse and got a bit frustrated with (I think she's starting to overtake me in maturity). 

The other is Just Dance 2, which we opened first and spent nearly 2 hours non-stop dancing with, before F's watch alarm went off to tell us we had to do chores. It was really fun. Although the Wii only knows about your right hand (not so good for F), it was just fun to copy the dance moves anyway, especially the duet ones, which we spent most of the time doing. I am crap at registering what a dance move is when I see one and knowing how to duplicate it myself, but even I slowly improved. And there's a good mix of tracks, many different styles of music and dance, really liked it. It just has a fun feel to it, in choice of songs, a touch of silliness in the dances, etc. It was great for me to actually get some exercise as I'm really fretting about how sedentary I'm getting lately. Don't get me wrong, me and sedentary are old friends and it's my default setting, but I can tell my body is not thriving on it, more and more.

After F's alarm went off to tell us it was 4pm, we did chores. I did hoovering and she did washing-up. Then we looked at the riding game, I got distracted but F carried on with that until J came home. The early part of the evening was really stressful, with various issues and worries and all sorts, ranging from 'what time will the sausage rolls be ready?' to money/future worries and everything in between. The plan was to go out to watch the processions about half seven, meeting JH, our guest for the night, up there. But he was coming down from London and had to go to Brighton and get another train from there and so there was ongoing phone calls, missed calls, texting and plan-changing mixed in with questions about what time various things happened and the sausage rolls taking longer than expected, etc. etc. Hopefully you get the picture. I started off all serene and relaxed after dancing and hoovering, and by half seven when the sausage rolls still weren't quite done I was repeatedly banging the bloody. Oven. Door. Shut. AND. SWEARING! Despite a half a glass of ginger wine.

Finally they were done and J shoved most of them in a box to take, distributed 2 amongst us to eat on way up the hill, put some ginger wine in a flask and we got out of the house.

Only to have door lock issues. Our front door hasn't locked properly for the last week or so, and although I knew that, I was just going out and leaving it. I thought J was doing the same, unlikely as it seemed as he is much more security conscious than me. I was more worried at night, with it not being locked while we were asleep. Anyway, when J realized it wasn't locked, he couldn't leave it, so we spent 40 minutes trying all sorts of combinations of handle up, handle down, lock from inside, from outside, bang it hard, close it carefully, try this, try that, etc. Like some sort of horrible problem-solving workshop on a team-building weekend. I couldn't see any reason why it wasn't locking and in the end F and I set off leaving J with a determined look and a hammer. We had only got over the bridge when my phone went and he said he had got it to lock but now couldn't unlock it!

Back we went, poor F quite distraught that we would never get up to the Processions or see her friend E now and also that her parents would be climbing up ladders to break windows and fall off and break themselves, etc. I tried the thing that used to work with the lock to open it and sure enough it worked. J had taken a component of the lock plate out and then put it back differently and it now locked and could be opened too, so we could all set off again together!

Fortunately the rest of the evening was a great improvement! For the first half hour my stress levels from everything earlier were just exacerbated on a physiological level, somewhat predictably, by the presence of lots of fire and loud noises in narrow crowded streets. But after that I started to relax and enjoy it all as usual. It was a shame we were too late to stand with C and family, or with JH, but had phone contact with both and managed to catch up after the Procession had passed. F had a few mins with her friend E, I was really sorry she hadn't been able to share the whole thing, and it was hard on her. C and family headed off and J, JH and F went off to Southover Bonfire Society. I popped home to have a wee and a tea and sit down for 10 mins, which did me the world of good, think I still needed a bit of a stress-recovery time. 

Setting out for the second time made me feel much better and I eventually found J and co. in plenty of time before the bonfire was lit. 

Sat with F on my fleece watching as the fire grew very slowly at first, then the Procession arrived into the dark field, shadowy figures with torches, still drumming and throwing bangers around. Was very atmospheric watching them when they seemed less of a showy street Procession and something a little more ancient and dark. 

I really noticed a difference in being with F this year. Every year since we started going I have had problems with her wanderingness and my worries about getting lost. This year, whenever I asked her to come back, stay close or whatever, she did, and she was brilliant company too. Had lots of good chats with her about the atmosphere and the fireworks and fire.

The fireworks at our site started after some others had already got going. Some of the time there were 3 different displays that we could see. Really enjoyed them all, some beautiful colours and spectacular 'walls of light' effects.

J's photos of Procession, Bonfire and Fireworks are here. Sorry non-FB people, will put some somewhere else at some point I hope.

We made our way out, amongst the many, audience and Bonfire Society members alike. The road back up led through several short tunnels under road and railway, was glad that we weren't under there when people let off bangers, really don't like them in tight spaces like that. We got home about 11ish I think, then had very late curry, F had picky bits and we looked at some of J's photos and chatted with more ginger wine. 

F carried on with Art Academy, occasionally joining in conversation and watching QI, and eventually went to bed at 1:30! The growner-ups stayed up till 3, watched Big Bang Theory and chatted. Was a lovely evening after an unpromising start.

Saturday morning started late but good and JH stayed till early afternoon. We all had cooked breakfast and looked at photos again, chatted about anything and everything. F went out on scooter.

Now having leisurely Saturday afternoon, F doing more Art Academy and I will probably have a bath and hope to manage some NaNoWriMo later.