Reality check. The clothed edition.... in Summertime, and the living is easy... 2015

WHERE: sitting on the sofa in the living room, the sofa that only eats small things but not the one that eats people because I’m a person who doesn’t like to be digested by DFS’s finest - and DFS don’t have finest; in my experience they make Crap!

WEARING: well, this is a break from tradition. Given that it’s August in the northern hemisphere, I’m wearing jeans, bright pink polo shirt, big old baggy white hoody and thermal socks (one pink and one green).

FITNESS UPDATE: read yesterday! I can run six miles :-) today the girls and I spent two hours at the swimming pool. It’s one in a nearby town which has diving boards. Talaia loves using them. Lila and I stay in shallow end because, although she’s a good swimmer, I don’t think she’s strong enough to swim in the 10ft deep area. I swiped my goggles back from Talaia (who ‘borrowed’ them last summer) and swum under the water at the deep end. I love water so much, I have huge respect for it but, at the same time, it calls me deeper, always deeper and further out.

IN THE NEWS: hmmm… The news… There was the radio dj in the south who dissed breastfeeding women and only dug himself in deeper when he tried to back peddle by saying “it’s only fat, chavvy women that I don’t like to see.” Well, most of you know my stance on breastfeeding… I emailed a long, polite email to the radio station and shared a petition to get him removed, as did many others. I didn’t actually think he would be sacked but made to apologise. He has apologised and is currently not on air bit I’m sure he’ll be back. It also turns out he’s related to Jim Davidson… Say no more!!

Other things? Labour leader, Labour leader, Labour leader…

READING: having read Christ Stewart’s series about life in Andalucía and am more awaiting Sue Grafton’s X, I’ve picked up Peter Kerr’s Snowball Oranges. It’s about a Scottish dairy farmer, based in Aberdeenshire, who buys a citrus farm in Majorca. The books don’t have the gorgeous language of Chris Stewart but are great to read… although I’ve never read the last one, the one in which they move back to Scotland. I don’t know, I just can’t quite make myself read the one in which the dream ends… Maybe I should bite the bullet and read the dang thing!

ACTIVITIES TODAY: it has been a busy day. Apart from the lie in… the day started with the of us in bed, me in the middle with a child on either side, ask of us staring at screens! My bladder, finally, begged for freedom so I took the easy route, sliding downwards, under the duvet and off the end of the bed…

After shower and a big bowl of chocolate porridge (oats, milk, cocoa powder, honey and essence of my choosing. Yesterday was Orange and today was vanilla… Okay, this is getting dull!! Moving on, we’re going to Green Man festival next week and I really can’t survive on pot noodles all week, which Rich assumes us normal camping food. The girls and I parked in town, in the rain, and got wet because we’re rebels without coats on! It wasn’t far to our wonderful whole foods shop where I bought some yummy looking alternatives and the BIGGEST tub of peanut butter EVER!

And after Rich dropped the fact that festival trolleys won’t be available for hire on the day we arrive at Green Man (these are trolleys that you have to mortgage your house to hire so you can transport camping things from the car to the camp site) so we also visited Go Outdoors and bought one!

After lunch we went swimming, but I’ve already mentioned that!

We played sharks and dived for diving balls. We played piggy in the middle and surfed on floats!

Back at home the girls played HAMA beads while I vegged on the sofa to write this ‘ere entry. Now, the HAMA beads, well… I’ve never bought any for the girls because I didn’t think they’d be interested but… On Monday a friend of mine told me that her 18 year old daughter was sorting out her cupboard and found her old HAMA sets. She had boxes and boxes and boxes of different coloured beads, loads of mats and instructions. And the girls have been busy with them, Lila’s busy creating a while school of children, Talaia has made rainbow coasters plus other things :-)

I made pizza for dinner and we ate it watching Mrs Doubtfire. Rich is on his way back from Reading where he met up with a friend of his for drinks.

Now I’m watching NCSI reruns. Oh, I live NCSI.

THINKING ABOUT: what we will need to take to Green Man and how in the heck we’ll fit it ask in the car…

PLANNING: how to charge up phones at Green Man, order more internet data and figure out how Lila can have a night light because she can’t sleep in the dark unless she’s snuggled with me.