T-Bird Anni Rides Again

I have no idea where today went.  I know I spent a lot of it trying to sort out stuff for camping, hampered by it not having been got out of the random nooks and crannies that it had been stuffed into by Duke.  Less said the better there.

The new laptop arrived.  it’s a Dell, it has a pink lid which alas is a sticker and I can see it getting tatty over time but actually, I don’t care.  It’s small, it’s fast, it has love hearts on it and it’s mine, all mine….. 

I know I spent a while trying to sort out where we are going.  Multimap wants me to follow round the Welsh coast which is a really long way round, I’m pretty certain that there is a better route but after an hour or so of head scratching I’ve given up, I’ll let TomTom take me which ever way he fancies and sort out better routes next time I can get hold of Uncle Curly who, being a walking atlas of Wales, will probably tell me a way easier road and mutter about daft bints who can’t read maps.  He’s right, I can’t. 

I couldn’t find the decent sized camp kettle so shot off to get one, the camping shop didn’t have one either (well, they had small ones, but I found the small one, it’s the one that can fill more than 2 mugs I couldn’t find)  but did have rather nice self inflate mats, so I got one of those, got it home,was greeted by Duke who was wearing surgical gloves and clutching the cat box telling me to phone the vet.  Just outside the back door was a cat that he thought was Whiskers which was very obviously very poorly.  So, I phoned the vet then went to help get cat into box to find that it wasn’t Whiskers at all, similar colour and markings but way bigger (well, it would have been if it had had a decent meal recently) but still, it was very sick and it was at our back door, so we scooped it into the box and whisked it away to the vet.  Unsurprisingly the vet said that the only humane thing to do was to put it down, it was very much past help and probably had been for quite some time, he thought it was probably a stray.  Aprilia was rather upset, I fear she was hoping to double our moggy quota.

But, back to the self inflate mat… once stray had been dealt with I tried it out, it didn’t self inflate….. Now, I could make crude jokes about it needing viagra at this point, but I shall pass, okay?  so, having chased Aprilia into Brownie uniform and dropping her off at Brownies, rushed back to shop, got it replaced, tested that one in the shop…. got home, went to pick up Aprilia, fed her (tea time got swallowed up in going to the vet, she insisted she was coming with us, I was all for sending Duke on his own…) then set to with the intention of packing the car but Duke wanted to use it to run an errand and to see if I was imagining the misfire (I’m not.) then when he got back he was on the phone for an hour (I was still waiting for the tent to be excavated and beginning to ponder taking the Outwell afterall….) so I packed the car at 10pm.  it’s very random.  There is almost certainly something missed.  But the tent, poles, pegs and bedding are all in.  Anything else is a bonus. I’ve not put the parafin lamps in, they would probably be useful but out of 10 of them, 9 leak making them not ideal to have in the car, and only 1 has a lot of wick left (obviously not the one that doesn’t leak) as I forgot to buy some more.  Ah well, I have a torch.

The one thing I’ve not done is got anything ready for next week’s Rainbows.  Adn we come home from Shell Island with only few hours to spare.  It’s going to be another of those seat of the pants meetings…….. ask me if I’m bovvered.  I’m oh holiday in not many more hours….. yipeeeeeeeeee

I do get bored of this one you know…. not least because it’s always the same check out operator at Asda that asks us, and then proceeds to ask us exactly the same follow up questions as before (who regulates you, where do you get your curriculum from, are you a teacher then, do you have to do exams, all the usual crap)  Ho Hum.

We had a slow morning yesterday, by which I mean, she woke up, decided she was still tired and went back to sleep until 10!  Meanwhile I sneaked out into the garden hammock with my CD player and a good audio book.  Bliss.

Shopping seemed to be a bit random and we ended up with a lot of clothing, stuff for camping and so on but I’m not sure about food…. really should learn to take a list.

Aprilia decided it was too hot to be outside so she Moshi Monstered and did various other edutainment activities and watched some TV.  Meanwhile I also edutained myself as a diversion from trying to sort out the car ready for the weekend   I think, if I can excavate it, we will take the Hobbit Hole even though I would really really like to use the Outwell at some point and justify the money we spent on it.  Trouble is, the Outwell is really just a weekender tent, it was bought on Duke’s specifications of "something smaller but I still want to be able to stand up in it" so it’s got limited living space and no space for the loo.  It’s a lot of money for something that will get very little use what with Duke rarely being with us on short trips and the little Sigma being perfectly acceptable for just A and me for weekending if catering is being sorted communally (wouldn’t fancy cooking in the Sigma….. I know I’m adventurous but I’m not actually qutie taht daft!)

It was Kung Fu in the evening which was a pleasant end to the day - a bit warm perhaps, but pleasant.  I’m enjoying the Thursday nights, it’s an almost decadent thing, doing something just for me, without a single child in sight….