A day of this and that

Well, after a ridiculously bad night, today came good!

The pictures are mainly of the park - the toilet building has this fantastic mural painted on the side, and there are some gorgeous tree stumps that the kids (and their grandma's, evidently) can climb all over as well. The other bit is of the lanterns that mum hung out in the garden this evening! We may have missed the hot weather for them but they still looked pretty.


Last night - well, after going to bed pretty easily, Ben woke up at 11pm just as I was getting ready for bed and I ended up having to take him upstairs with me while I went to the loo and did my teeth etc. He wouldn't settle when we got back to our beds, tossing and turning, never quite going to sleep, not letting me go, whimpering, crying out, really bad. He insisted there was nothing wrong. He didn't have an ouch anywhere, he didn't need another wee (he did one when we were upstairs), he didn't want special doggy to cuddle, he didn't want the duvet on, he just wanted mummy cuddles. Eventually at 3am - yes, that's right - we had to sit up and have a cuddle and a chat and it turned out he was cold. I could have told him that. I had to explain that was what duvets were for!! To keep us warm when we are cold at night. He finally agreed to having the duvet over him and praise the Lord by 3.30am he was finally asleep. At which point I realised I was reeeeally hungry and needed a wee.... but didn't dare get up again in case he woke up AGAIN crying.

And of course typically he chose this morning to be wide awake and wanting breakfast by 7am.

I went back to bed straight after breakfast and was gifted three hours of rest while Ben played with Grandma which was absolutely wonderful. Felt SO much better after that! And although Ben was difficult over lunch (combination of me still waking up and him wanting biscuits for his lunch and me not being in much of a mood to compromise) he let me go to shops all by myself afterwards. In fact he actually shushed me away when I went to give him a kiss to say see you later!!

I was only going to the shop to feed my grapefruit habit (having eaten a whole grapefruit on Monday and today I had none left for tomorrow) but still, I was Out.

And on the way back I suddenly realised it was Autumn, all of a sudden like.

And it was the most perfect Autumn day as well. Dappled skies, sunshine, a little bit of a breeze, crisp fresh air, dry and crunchy underfoot. Just perfect. How Autumn is in memories of it!

I got back and declared as such, and so we got all enthused and headed off to the park (by car of course) for a run around in the fresh air. Ben loved it. He climbed the climbing frame and the tree stumps, and rode his bike all over the place. He needed a wee of course, and of course today the toilets would have to be closed so we had to find a tree for him to pee up against. He's not yet quite got the hang of peeing standing up. There was a fair bit of dribble. I was glad to wash my hands when we got home..... But it was a lovely escape out for us all!

Home to hot chocolate and tea and coffee, and a slice of cake and a dollop of yoghurt, and then it seemed as if everybody decided it was time to shut eyes for a bit. Ben curled up on my lap and went to sleep, and Maisy (the cat) curled up on mum's knee and they both fell asleep for a bit. That was very pleasant :)

Mum hung the lanterns out while she was making dinner. They've had 3 days of charging now! So they looked pretty while we ate.

Dinner was probably our last gourmet meal for quite a few days, as tomorrow dinner will be at some motorway service station and then we're at the House of Dust and I've no idea what we'll be eating in the evenings. We had minted lamb shanks with lovely vegetables. Of course Ben decided he would like beans, and he did pretty well with them. I don't mind. He's including more and more things into his diet and surprising me enough for me to not be worried that he's not often eating the same things as us at mealtimes.

After dinner we went outside to look at the lanterns in the dark, and had a play with our cameras. Ben discovered he could reach at least one of the lanterns, and as they were hung on the washing line he discovered if he shook the pole they all wobbled! Mum and I spent half an hour looking at the pictures we'd taken while Ben watched a final bit of Kodo, and then once we'd been outside for one last time to put all the lanterns away (Ben helped to blow the candles out in the candle lanterns and take the solar lanterns down off the washing line) he was happy to put pyjamas on and get teeth cleaned and go to bed.


So today did come good.


Now I'm just waiting on my nightly skype call to hubby now, and then I will be off to bed and hopefully we'll have a much better night's sleep tonight!!

Bit excited to be seeing sweetdustybones tomorrow before we head off home to Worthing :D