Civillised!

Well, what a day! Very dusty, very exciting, and I also retain my sanity :)

I must say before I go on any further that I'm sorry for the lack of commenting on any of my regular reading! Chaos and tiredness reign - and it's not likely to get much less chaotic for another few weeks. Thankyou to those who do comment, it's lovely to know I'm not forgotten!

PS In case you missed it yesterday, here's a quick clip of Ben drumming rather fabulously yesterday. (With no nappy on, of course.) Of course I might be quite biased but I think he's AMAZING!!!

The builders arrived at 8am. By 8.30am I could smell brick dust and dashed out to gather in the laundry that I thought I'd have at least another half-hour before having to bring in off the landing! At least it was all dry, that's a relief. By 9am the wall between the two front reception rooms had started to come down. The acrow-props were up, the dust was thick, and Ben and I still weren't dressed. We needed to get dressed and out quick.

By some fabulousness though Steve had managed to leave his phone at home - a perfect excuse to get out of the house and go for a drive to deliver it! We drove to Steyning and had a lovely day there. First to see Daddy and give him his phone, then to the Tea Rooms to join the Steyning gentlefolk (well, more likely the tourists) and have a pot of tea and a scone. Or in Ben's case, a pot of apple juice and a cupcake, of which he only ate the icing from the top. Of course. Then to the playpark for a little while, and then back to Daddy's work to pick him up to go off to another playpark for lunch together!

Ben managed to fall splat off a swing at this other playpark :( he was on the big boy swings, going pretty high, holding on brilliantly, loving it - and then the wind tried to take his hat off and he let go of the chains to grab his hat ... and of course flew off the swing and landed splat on his front and face. He has a tiny cut on his lip :( it didn't bleed though and I think it was more the shock of having come off the swing more than anything. He had a cuddle as we walked back towards work as Daddy had to go back anyway but as we passed the kiddie swings (which are for some reason a long way away from the main playpark area) Ben announced that he was all better now!

Daddy still had to go to work but there were lots of cuddles and "I love you"s between the two of them, as Ben decided that Mummy was to stay and push Ben on the swings for a while longer but Daddy had to go back to work. We stayed and played for a long while until I Ben was yawning in the swing. Back to the car, past the toilets for a relief break for me and a nappy change for Ben. We chatted for a while as Ben drank his drink, and decided what we might do that afternoon. Ben was persuaded to have a sleep and had his eyes shut tight as we left the carpark - and five minutes down the road I had to pull over to tip his seat back as he'd fallen fast asleep and was slumping over in his chair!!

In the end after driving around for a bit I ended up driving home anyway. It was 4pm by the time we arrived home and as I turned the engine off Ben woke up and was very concerned that we'd come home without daddy. All was ok though with the revelation that I'd sneakily bought some toys from the petrol station on the way home ;) which we took straight into the garden through the building site to play with!

By this time the whole wall had come down, and most of the floorboards were up in the front room as well. Some good news re the floor - the joists aren't rotten as we feared they might be - there appears to have been a bit of subsidence (only slight, and only in that part of the house, right in the centre of the room, possibly from decades of the ground drying out from a stream being diverted. The kitchen floor is tanked with slate and render to protect it from damp!) causing the floorboards to not be resting properly on the joists so the builder reckons that because they don't all need replacing we've probably saved over £1000!!! That's good news. So with that saving we're getting them to do something else which the Building Inspector requires we do anyway, and replace the bannisters up the stairs with a proper wall. Which we would have done anyway eventually.

However the WHOLE house is dusty now (as expected) and the kitchen is too dusty to cook in really. I've cleaned enough to be able to make sandwiches but that's it - so once Steve came home and the builder came back to chat over decisions etc, we headed off to the beach for a fish and chip supper. Found a great place to park with a view of the sea, ate our supper in the car, and Ben and Steve went out for a wander.

Some really really special moments. I am kinda glad I didn't have the camera with me as I'd've been too busy taking pictures to just sit and watch the two of them. (The only reason I didn't take the camera was because I already had my blip and didn't want to be agonising over more choices!!!) They sat on the beach playing with the pebbles, then Ben wanted to go and climb on the wall. But there were seagulls and crows on the wall and it looked like Ben was a little afraid of them so he put his arm around Steve and Steve put his arm around Ben and they stayed there like that for a little while. It was so beautiful, so tender. A real daddy-son moment. I think Steve must have persuaded Ben that the birds would move if Ben went towards them - so Ben tried it, and they did indeed fly off! This made Ben VERY brave and he ran along the wall scattering birds everywhere.

Home again soon after that and Ben decided that he was tired and wanted to go to bed. Stripped him off, got him to do a wee on the potty before getting his pyjamas on, washed his face and hands (he's filthy from all the dust! Don't see the point in bathing him fully though until we're staying elsewhere, but hands and face were a necessity). Shook out as much dust as possible from the bedsheets, read a story and snuggled with him in his bed until he was asleep.

All in all, despite the dust, a very lovely day and remarkably stress-free.

And now, now it's time for me to wash this morning's dust out of my hair! Steve is busy pulling wires in to get the rewire in the front room done as much as possible while the floor is up, as the builders hope to get the floor back down tomorrow. And then I suspect a quick bath for him, and then bed - we'll all be exhausted!

And now: copy my blip entry to the clipboard BEFORE hitting "preview".... ;o)
Yep - that was the RIGHT thing to do!!