the crash -one week on

So, this time last week we were sitting in Frimley Park hospital having been seen and discharged. We still have no news on my car, apart from the fact that Tony has left a Levellers cd in the cd player.
I have learnt quite a lot. Make sure when you take out car insurance you only have to report the accident once. We have reported it twice! It does not seen to have affected the kids. When tony took Isaac to pick up all the stuff, Isaac climbed into the back me the car and found the crisps he was eating at the time of the crash.
I am still not sure what happened, but it has made me a more carefully driver, although that might be because the loan car I have had less than 500 miles on the clock!!!

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I wonder

I wonder.....


Why the broadband is so slow in my parents house. The router keeps needing to be rebooted and the signal is very poor on either mine or hubbys laptop (He isn't even here)


I also wonder why my parents seem so naive sometimes. My dad is a good example. Over new year when we were watching the news about the VAT rise he said


'it's only 2.5% it won't make any difference'


Actually it does. We are feeling the pinch even more now and don't even get me started on fuel and train fares etc etc. Almost in the same breath he accused the elderly of being the problem as they voted for the conservatives. Hello, I voted Tory as a LibDem vote would have been a waste in Crawley.


I was watching the news today about how the middle classes do not realise the scale of the budget deficit and I think that it is not just the middle classes but the middle aged as well. Sure my Dad knows that when he chooses to retire he may suffer an income shock and so he plans to keep on working, but does he realise the mess that the country is in. 


People might say that 'you don't remember what it was like under Thatcher' 


No, I don't, but I lived through 14 years of a labour government and where did that get us. Tuition fees for students, an illegal war in Iraq, heightened terror alerts, the banking crash and subsequent financial meltdown.


No doubt when mini hayllar and bigger Hayllar are old enough to vote I shall say to them, ahh you don't remember what it was like under Blair and Brown, but you must live for the moment - Not look to the future and plan unsustainable things and not reflect on how things were so much better in the past. You can't predict the future, you can't change the past, You must live in the present and do what is right for the here and now and so I have and I shall continue too.


Peace Out

Folk Music, Festivals and Kids

Last year we took the kids to a music festival. Not just any music festival , in my opinion one of the best festivals in the UK.
We went to Beautiful Days at Escot Park in Devon. It was amazing. Isaac loved all the music, dancing, mud and performers. Imogen was amazed by it all, the colours and sounds and general lovelyness of it all. 


What has sparked this??


I have been tweeting this evening about the Radio 2 Folk Awards - Bellowhead, The Levellers, Port Isaacs Fishermans Friends, Eliza Mccarthy, and then I checked Facebook. Most of my FB friends are updating about loosing X amount of weight, or watching one born every minute or some other nonsensical thing and I started to wonder whether these people know what they are missing?


Live music in a field with kids rocks. Most people thought that we were mad when we decided to take the kids to a festival - How will you wash them? What will you feed them? (Easy for Imogen she was 51/2 months and so breastfeeding is kind of easy in a field, tent, anywhere really), How will they sleep?

It turned out to be one of the easiest holidays we have ever had. No pressure, no need to be in a certain place at a certain time, no peer group to entertain. The only slight hiccup we encountered was a puncture in the pushchair tyre and Imogen deciding the grass looked tasty. We lost one of Isaacs wellies and managed to find it again.

I wish we had done it earlier. I thought about going when Isaac was 8 weeks old. He would have been really portable and it would have been dead easy. Then 2009, yeah I would have been pregnant, but I would still have been able to have fun. Maybe I could have fainted and got backstage :)

But we did it & took the DUCK's and I will do it all again this year and forever, although it will start to get expensive

Sleeping children

I have been musing on sleeping children as last night I got both of mine asleep in their own beds before 8pm. This was mostly due to a paddy by my third child (AKA husband)
It was relatively easy to get them both down in their own beds. 2 Thomas the Tank Engine Stories, feeding mini hayllar while larger one stroked my tummy and I sat next to him, then light off and rocking of little one some more.


Why then did they feel the urge to wake early - Littlest one at 5.39am and Larger one at 6.15ish (this is not so firmly etched on my mind as he comes to me and I just have to lift him into bed with me.


Littlest Hayllar should then be fed and go back to sleep, job done, larger one equally crawls around slightly then goes back to sleep.


When they finally wake up ( and I never wake sleeping children) they are awake fully and we can start our day. Although this is normally not before 08.30 for breakfast, depending on the cbeebies schedule.


But daytime naps are even more confusing. Mini hayllar should nap in the morning and the afternoon, but so far today she has not napped and hopefully will crash out for a couple of hours later on. Larger hayllar doesn't nap during the day unless ill or in the car. If he does you can guarantee that he will not be asleep before 10pm and I like my evenings. 

Climbing

I seem to have created monsters rather than children. 


As a type littlest hayllar is copying her brother climbing into the book box (obviously easier to read sitting on the books and surrounded by them). She has just stepped off the side of the box and is now currently sitting on my lap startled.


Not content with that type of climbing she can do stairs (at 10.5 months I ask you), into laundry baskets (empty or full she isn't fussy).


Yesterday, however was the piece de resistance. 


Isaac and Imogen decided that the carpet in the living room was not nearly colourful enough. They emptied 6 shelves of DVD's and spread them all over the carpet. Isaac realised that he could build towers with them and made a series of steps up so that Imogen could help him out and she looked very pleased with herself.


There is a cautionary tale here as well. During lunch I did what I often have to do and loaded the dishwasher, I can see the table when I come back through and I happened to see my daughter had climbed out of her highchair (she had been strapped in) and was helping herself to grapes from Isaacs box.


Climbing children,  the bane of my life. Now off to purchase a new stairgate for the bottom of the steps

Some Bargains in the Sales and ebaying

So, today we sort of didn't MMM, instead we spent like we had no limits. Although we are talking about birthday presents for little Hayllar.


We went to Wilkinsons, and managed to pick up a play kitchen reduced from £60, to £35 to ticketed half price, so I thought £17.50, until we got to the til....£12.50 I was so happy I could have wept, especially as my SIL had spent over £100 on one for my nephew for christmas. That seems like a lot of money for a TOY.


However we do have some progress on the MMM front. I managed to finally get my phone back on so have been texting for a survey I completed to MMM and on the first thing I ever decided to sell on ebay, has a watcher.


Although this might be premature as I have watched multiple things to get an idea of the price they go for and so given people false hope, but it is a start.

2011 - The year to make more money (MMM)

So 11 days into 2011 and I have decided that this is the year that I need to MMM (Make More Money). This would be nice if it was for some selfish reason - you know like new shoes or a new handbag or a really expensive skein of wool. But there is a more altruistic reason for MMM in 2011. Things like ensuring that we can have a nice holiday and afford to go to Beautiful Days, and just to pay for all those little treats. 
I started at the start of the week by signing up to lots of on-line survey sites some of which promise cash, some of which give you points and entries into prize draws and others which offer vouchers. All of which will help in the MMM 2011. 
The other thing I shall be doing is selling stuff - ebay-ing things, using CEX to convert unwanted electrical items into cash.
I am a definite novice at all of this so shall see what happens and keep you posted!!