TV Addicts

I had the boys Thursday to Saturday;

January is a long month; paid a couple of days before Christmas, there's a long time to last on wages, so inevitably there's a struggle in the last few days of January. So there's nothing in the budget for entertainment (not that there ever is...!)

So a low key morning; school run, then Alex and I went to the supermarket on the bike and bought a load of reduced to clear pork and chicken, then came back and cooked the pork (pork and cider casserole; pork goulash) and froze the chicken.

Then off up to school to collect Tom, and home for soup, sandwich, fruit. The other difficulty with late January / no money is the weather is invariably rubbish. So not only do you have no money, but the park, skate park etc are too cold or wet to be of any use to you. The exception is the Botanic Gardens but helpfully we weren't left a bike or scooter....

So we went to play on the harbour. The forecast was wet, windy, wild - but we got out and there's no rain, so....

We wandered, looked at birdlife, threw stones into the water, looked down the pipes and proto sewerage systems. We pretended we were lorries on the built but never used roads, we went round the water feature and played on the bridges, we dropped pebbles down drains. In short we did nothing you would recognise as a child activity, but actually is essential for boys; just the exploring, finding, talking, running, asking, seeing.

We had a fab 2 hours and on the way back staged the TV / sofa shot and then meandered the last 5 minutes home as the first spits and spots of rain started.

Friday after a long week always sees my boys tired and it was onto the sofa and out with the Daffy Duck dvd.

Fajitas, bath. Alex was shattered and grumbled all through dinner so went straight from the table to bath and was asleep in bed before 7.

Tom and I sat in pjs and watched Madagascar 3 until just after 8, then he too sneaked off to bed.

A glass of frascati and a long phone call with her, short phone call with Maw and I too was asleep by 11