The week so far…

It’s only Tuesday but so far the week has been quite packed! On Saturday night the hubster and I decided that we should rope in some grandparents to take over the nutty bedtime routine for us while we escaped to Prezzo for a yummy meal together – our first in goodness knows how long. It was good to be able to get out and interact without a small child demanding toast/his bottom wiped/juice/the purchase of a football (or just random, unexplained screaming) at any given moment, although the hubster did his best imitation (only kidding 😉 ).

We both opted for the spaghetti carbonara after a smorgasboard of garlic & pesto laden breads and then I was treated to a yummy amaretto gelato. So far so good.

When we returned, expecting to find the house, potentially, razed to the ground, in reality? Everything was fine. The two-year-old was tucked up in his cot (albeit awake) and the four-year-old was up (as normal) with two grandparents tutting and laughing about the fact that he was insisting he was allowed honey on toast before bed (he is, ahem! In my defence I reckon honey is a superfood – see this article).

On Sunday I went to work for four hours overtime, my day beginning at 5.30am. I realise that this is normal getting up time for some poor parents, but ours (probably because they stay up so bloomin’ late!) are 8am boys so this was “trés tôt pour moi”! (Get me – finally figured out how to put French accents on typed letters – such an important life skill…)

When I returned we jumped in the car and drove over to the folks for a delicious Sunday roast – my mum excelling herself as always with beef and yorkies and yummy home made gravy (it has to be home-made – says she who has never made gravy before in her life!). Later on we took the boys up to the local rec so they could run off some energy (and longingly ogle the skate park as always!).

On Monday, once again I was up and out for work early, but I only work mornings on Mondays and the hubster is on holiday so on my return, after taking JJ for a quick trip to the local swings whilst his brother napped (which involved me purchasing his latest fad from the ubiquitous ice cream van – blue ice lollies – yuk!) we all piled in to the car and took a trip over to our local Costco. Why has no-one ever told us about Costco before??? It’s bloody brilliant! The kids were all over the giant teddy bears and made best friends with the ladies giving away free samples of sweet pancakes and chicken pies (I’m not sure what exactly constitutes a ‘fair’ helping of free samples but I’m pretty sure we exceeded it…). I loved the cheap Marlborough wines and the big bottles of vanilla extract and the hubster was quite taken with the enormous multi-packs of Tassimo latte! We stopped at the cafe on the way out for more chicken pie (no one mention chicken and bacon pie to me for at least a week please), and a big hot dog for JJ. We managed to get away with only three medium sized drink spillages – yay!

Today (Tuesday) is the day I am off work and the munchkins were in with our lovely childminders. As the hubster is off on annual leave this week we decided to make the most of the opportunity for a day out – sans enfants – and I put my cooking and cleaning on hold. We decided on a visit to Arundel castle in West Sussex. It took us about an hour to get there but it was a lovely scenic drive down through the South Downs National Park. It’s a lovely part of the world and the castle is well worth a visit (although we opted for ‘silver’ tickets which allowed us access to the grounds, chapels and the castle Keep for about £11 a head and didn’t see the full insides of the castle proper).

I guess I must be a ‘Horrible Histories’ kind of girl because the things that struck me were:

• Garderobes – a ‘rudimental’ toilet – basically just a hole hanging over the side of a steep Keep wall, meaning that everything would have stunk like a skunk in high summer!
• Tombs with the effigy of the dead person on top. Why portray the body quite clearly dead and shrivelled? Why not portray them as they were in life? Weird ancients.
• Posed life-sized ‘guard’ models – particularly one by a portcullis who appeard to be having a good cough. Nice.

I do love a good castle!

On the way home we stopped off for a very tasty pub lunch before stopping into Petworth House – a National Trust property with extensive parkland attached. We really were in a bit of a rush by this point as we were on a countdown to get back in time to pick the kids up at 4. One whistle-stop tour of the house, (wondering what on earth was going on in some of those sculptures) was all we could manage but no worries as we are NT members so no money changed hands!

I now have two full work days ahead whilst the hubster has big plans for the boys (and even the girl) before we re-assess our idea to have a family day trip down to Brighton (my old univeristy stomping grounds) on Friday.

Gotta love a bit of staycationing!