Wednesday
On the day after Boxing Day, Wednesday, Daddy came to pick us up and take us to his house to stay for five nights! We were very excited. We haven’t been for two years, and although we’ve seen Jago, Ambrose and Willow reasonably recently we had been half expecting Oscar, the rabbit, and Otto, the frog, to be long gone. We were very surprised to find little blind Otto, the girl who Daddy and Kerri had named thinking she was a boy, and Oscar the albino still going!
We watched some telly and I showed Jago how to write “dog”, “cat”, and “pig”, using the letters he has learnt at school. He kept interrupting me and saying, ‘Let me sew oo some digraphs!’ which he had also recently been studying at the school 😉
Thursday
On Thursday, we went to the town centre to get me some pyjamas because we forgot to pack them. While Kerri, Willow, Jago, Ambrose and Tilly waited in Debenhams, Daddy and I looked in New Look, Next, and Topshop to find a pair. But sadly, what with the sales going on, they didn’t have any or only had a few chavvy ones saying stuff like ‘mermaid today, unicorn tomorrow, fairy the day after‘ or ‘Sleeping Beauty‘ or some other cheesy saying. Finally we looked in Peacocks and found a pair that were reasonable enough – they were red and fluffy and had a big penguin on the front and hearts on the back and trousers. They would have been perfect had the first letter of the saying sported above the penguin in little gold writing, ‘i heart hugs‘, been capitalised, and perhaps the middle word having been a formal verb. When we got back, Jago enjoyed learning how to write a new word with me, “dinosaur”, and loved his reward stickers! He also learnt how to write them in a grid all small and neat, which he was incredibly proud of. First I got him to write “dinosaur” all over the board in the biggest handwriting he wanted, and then to write it again inside the letters so it had to be smaller. Then I would rub out the bigger letters and get him to try and copy the word out again as small as the letters inside the first ones. Then I would draw a little grid with three sections, one for the middle of each letter, one for the stem leading upwards, and one for the stem leading downwards, like that of a “g” or “q”. I think he enjoyed it all very much, and I sincerely hope he didn’t just do it for the dinosaur stickers at the end!
Friday
On Friday, we had a bit of a staying-in day, watching all of three films! We watched Nanny McPhee, School of Rock, and Labyrinth (we had seen the first two before, and the last a very long time ago). We looked after Willow a lot too, giving her her bottle and holding her and rocking her to sleep (though she preferred to sleep in her swing, having got used to being in an incubator for a week at birth). I did try to get a little reading in, but that time was slightly disrupted by Jago asking me to pull the arms off all his toys or Ambrose thrusting a car at me, screaming when I took it, and running away again. However, I do enjoy the presence of the boys and the baby and am having a lot of fun on our mini holiday!
Saturday
On Saturday this week, Tilly and I went to the cinema with Daddy! We went to see the newly released Paddington 2. If anything, it’s even better than the original! There was one part that was very sad though. To put it simply, Paddington gets sent to jail for something he never did in the first place, and on Visiting Day the Browns are so busy trying to clear Paddington’s name that they miss it. The screen shows the Browns, and then Paddington, and the time ticking on, and then Paddington sniffing, and then the clock, and then the Browns, and then the clock, then the Browns, and finally Paddington in tears to the point that the whole audience all go ‘awwwww’! But it was a really super-good film. Although Jago and Ambrose are driving me crackers, it’s really fun to play with them!
Sunday –
Monday
On Monday, we went to the Abbey Gardens, where we looked at the aviary and had a walk round the grounds. Jago was desperate to go to the playground, but there were too many people, so instead we started walking to the shops to buy some sweeties and watch a film when we got back home. However, it started raining, and so Tilly, Jago, Ambrose, and Kerri (holding Willow) went home while Daddy and I got them. We also popped into Waterstones, where we got Jago some Pokemon cards, Tilly a novel titled ‘Book of Dust’ by Philip Pullman, and a movie sticker book for me. We had a very fun day and we were sad to have to go home that evening, although also quite excited to have our own beds back!
