Paddling pool

If you read yesterday's essay about the day and made it to the point where Ben and Steve were having a walkabout on the beach after our fish and chip supper, you may recall me saying I thought Ben was afraid of the birds and that's why he was cuddling in to his daddy. How I misread the situation!! Read Steve's account of the father-son moment, he's left a comment on yesterday's blip :) Ben is a constant source of amazement, he really is!!

Today has been another very busy day, keeping out of the house.

We went off to a pleasure park this morning - playground, mini train ride, picnic, open air paddling pool. Good times! Ben didn't want to get out of the paddling pool. He was also treating it like a toddler group - as in, all the toys and inflatables were just anybody's for playing with, and couldn't understand that he couldn't just take anything!! We came home with some random inflatable thing that we had to buy, and a bucket that ended up near us and nobody claimed and Ben ended up walking off with. I feel a bit bad about that. It came home with us rather than be left in the carpark.

Then off to a friend's house for a cup of tea, and then a long drive home where I used a bit of emotional bribery to get Ben to have a nap in the car. "We can't go and see such-a-body unless you have a sleep first. If you don't go to sleep, we won't go and see them." It worked! Two days in a row I've used that. I don't think it'd work a third day so it's probably a good thing we don't have to drive many places tomorrow.

Once Ben was asleep I went on a bit of a random drive. It's been a while since I just went for a drive. I ended up in Amberley, half-heartedly looking for the Amberley Working Museum but I got sidetracked by a little signpost saying "Pottery" and ended up getting lost in the back streets of Amberley Village. It's a very very cute little village (and thankfully not too hard to find your way out of again). Looks like there's a nice pub and nice tea rooms, but I didn't find whatever the "Pottery" sign was indicating.

Picked up the spare house keys on the way home, and arrived home to find the builders gone for the day, a steel beam up in place, the new floor down and not bouncy. Fantastic. They are working fast.

The kitchen is next on the list for attack, and the stairwell. The floor needs sorting out in the kitchen, and the stairwell needs a wall building to replace the bannisters.

And somehow I've got to find time to do a load of other things, one of which requires a kitchen, when I have no house to do them in...

I'm paying a heavy price for all this getting out of the house. It's like being on "holiday" - at least, the type of holiday that involves leaving your accommodation in the morning, staying out all day doing "things", and arriving home shattered in the evening before wondering what to have for dinner.

Being installed in friends' house tomorrow. Am so glad. Don't think I could cope with another full day like today. Be glad of a sofa to collapse onto and no bashing and crashing going on, and a kitchen to make breakfast in that's not covering in an inch of dust.

Insulin and bed now - desperate for my bed!!