Monday and the last day of the kids half-term holiday. Woke to beautiful blue skies and sunshine and thought lets go into town with Lara! Madness must have overtaken me in the night. Usually I go to town, whizz in and out of the shops I need and back on the bus within 2 hours.....but with Lara......ah well, lifes an adventure isn't it. By the way - wohoooo me, my 200th deliberation and people are still reading it LOL. Today's photo intermissions are just a few from the 100's I took at the Thames Festival in September 2009.
colourful Hari Krishna's
So manage to get Lara to get dressed and we head off to the bus stop around 10am. Arrive in town twenty minutes later and straight away she says, "can we either have breakfast or can you treat me to lunch"......."we'll see, lets just get what we need first".
man playing a flute in a giant bubble on the Thames - of course!
Lara has a school kilt for uniform but girls can wear trousers if they like and as the weather is changing, I thought I'd get her some......easier said than done!!!! Why do shops think that parents only have to buy uniform once a year.....before September...we scoured the shops but everywhere had condensed their stock to fit in the Christmas stuff. Only place that had them in navy was BHS and I had to bribe her to try them on with a McDonald's later!
the Thames beach - I didn't go anywhere near that LOL
OK the length was good but the elasticated waist was still far too big - why can't they make all kids trousers and skirts adjustable! Never mind, a quick bit of sewing will fix that. Next, Jack has been told he can wear plain navy joggers and sweatshirt for his PE GCSE course during the winter..no logo's gotta be plain.....well the only place that had that was Primarni (OK Primark) and they only had a sweatshirt but no joggers. Still did manage to get Sean two pairs of fleece gloves, Lara a new hat and weird gloves (she just had to have) and the sweatshirt for a little over £10....as the advert says "bargain".
just some of the yummy food on offer.
So it was into McDonalds and I bought Lara her happy meal with a bottle of water and I had a hamburger and bottle of water. OK OK I admit I pinched a few of her chips too! We sat and ate in the funky new bright chair area - they look like the big brother diary room chairs and I felt a bit like Alice in Wonderland sitting on it....when she has shrunk LOL. Having got all the necessary items we needed, I decided to go back and grab the boys a couple of burgers before we got the bus back, they won't care if they are luke warm or not. So four chicken mayo's and two more bottles of water later.....we head to the bus stop, bus pulls in a minute or so later and within the two hours, we were back inside our house.
feast on Southwark Bridge - really good atmosphere!
I tackle the washing up left from Sunday (ick) and then get all the uniform out and iron it ready for Tuesday, when Sean finally remembers my sister had rung about going out for coffee. I ring Sharon up and have 20mins to reapply lip gloss and a quick squirt of perfume before she is outside tooting and we head off to Costa Coffee. My sister hasn't eaten so orders a cheese & ham pannini and I had some lovely belgian choccy cake with biscuit pieces and raisins in with a skinny latte - yes there was a reason (Indie)...I don't like the taste of full fat milk, makes me queasy and it does keep the clever dumb balance on an even keel! It was gorgeous and we sat and chatted and laughed for a good hour and a half before heading home.
florist by Borough Market
Once home I "Henry'd" the lounge as Ollie had manage to destroy another rope toy all over the place before Tony got home. I notice the post had been and there was a big envelope with DO NOT BEND printed on it. Hmmmmmmm whats that.......it was my certificate for the NVQ I was doing via a distance learning course. Level 3 Diploma in Pre-school Practice, I finally qualify two months after retiring from the job I was doing! I was quite surprised at the overall grade - a C, not fabulous but in the context of things, I was about to start my last unit when I was diagnosed with the brain tumour at the beginning of December and rushed to get through it before Surgery at the end of January as I had no idea if a - I would survive the brain surgery and b - what state I'd be in if I did survive. My head was NOT in a good place and my tutor told me as much, my last piece of work started out well but seemed to run out of steam (hmmm wonder why) I was on a strong B overall at this point but I scored an E in my last assignment and she told me that it would drag my coursework down to a D......oh well my boss was just overjoyed I finished it and passed. So you see.....a C was flipping great for me!
part of the Tower of London in the late afternoon sun.
I cooked some pasta for Sean and Tony as they were heading off to Ilford to train with the instructors of the association their club belongs to and as we had all eaten quite well during day (kids have so many halloween sweets left) I made toasted cheese sarnies with Worcestershire Sauce for Jack, Lara and myself. Lara finished some homework off on her netbook and I printed it out, we watched some TV and I sat and altered her new school trousers.
taken whilst walking over Tower Bridge
Tony and Sean got home around 9.40pm and I could tell they had been through a fairly hard class tonight, even Sean had worked up a sweat....so after telling me all about it and having a quick bath each it was time for bed sleepyheads. I think I managed quite a lot today and yes "full service" has been resumed in the poop department!
one of the installations in the Fire Garden in front of the Tate Modern.
Thought for today
Oh, my friend, it's not what they take away from you that counts - it's what you do with what you have left.
Hubert Humphrey
