I feel like this holiday could go on another 2 weeks quite happily. We all seem in such good spirits; the house feels fresh and tidy, the children are happy, everyone is getting on well. Shame Max has to go back to work tomorrow really 🙁 Ah well, not long till Centerparcs 🙂
Started the day with lots of prancing about to Classic FM and a huge amount of role play going on to the various types of music. Very much enjoyed earwigging on that.
Fran and i went out to town, to spend her christmas money on castle figures and to attempt to buy shoes. Have fallen, for the first signficant time, into the “we only sell black school shoes for anyone larger than a size 10” thing and hugely annoying it was too. All we were offered was ridiculous sparky slippers which the Clarke’s assistant assured me were “outdoor shoes, look at the heel” (I THINK NOT!) or boots designed to make 8 year olds look like Hookers. I actually offered her 3 of the best of these but she turned them down on the basis that she isn’t grown up enough for them 😆 She is a 13 1/2F which is either a supremely rare size or the one that every other girl in pboro is currently wearing. Hurumph.
We did have a lovely girly shop though, buying marked down tights, an oven dish (nice orange range, can’t remember name but normally expensive) that was half price and ended up at Tesco Extra where we failed to get anything but it took us 45 minutes to get out of the carpark! Our major success of the day was a Leapster Princess game for £4 in Boots which i bought with my Boots points, hurrah 🙂
Maddy has been gorgeous all day – i suspect she is about to grow again as well, she’s got stocky 🙂 I think she’ll possibly overtake Fran this year, she is less than an inch shorter atm. She has been dancing, doing sit ups and generally being lovely. Amelie itched all night but seems a bit happier today. They are all grouped around the castle at the moment, winning the “hearts and minds” of the ladies-in-waiting with heroic deeds by soppy looking squires 🙂 Plenty of play value being got from that!
Fran and i had a long conversation about love on the way home and what it feels like if you love someone who doesn’t love you. Funny to be talking about things like that with her. We also talked about the possibility that her surgeon will want to do an operation this year and she cried. Her gap is special and she doesn’t want it fixed. I feel we may have oversold it as a birth defect somewhat 🙁 I did try to point out that if she falls in love and wants to snog, she won’t want the possibility of snot suddenly dropping into her mouth. She didn’t seem to be too convinced by my argument. 🙂
She’s been curled up reading the Stories of the World book for the last little while, so now i’m off to read to them before i get replaced for good.
Le Creuset? We’re planning to buy some new pans soon as an anniversary present to ourselves, would love some of those but yeah, they are normally expensive!
So kwym about the shoes although we managed to avoid Clarks today, it was heaving!
Heaving and pants. One shoe assistant was amazingly rude to a customer while i was there, my mouth sagged open. So did her superior’s, who heard her 😉
Those are the ones though. Very nice pot thing 🙂 Must go to IKEA though for a big pasta cooker thing like Alison has – i REALLY want one of those (just in case anyone happens to pass IKEA and feels the random urge to bring me one 🙂 )
I think the snot argument not amazingly convincing!
i think the you will always be special line, and lets see what the surgeon says is probably not as yukky!!! He/she must be very used to children not being so keen on operations as they grow for a varity of reasons.
i like le creuset, but bloody heavy to lift.
sounds like a great day
Ew! to the snot thing. Wish I’d known about the pasta thing before I made my run to IKEA the other night, think Jan was muttering about going back soon though 😉
Dreading shoe shopping, we need to do it very soon as well.
try piggy’s in stamford. they are our favorite shoe shop and usually have a good selection of non black shoes.
We ended up with black patent (with little roses on) shoes last time. I usually have better luck in Brantano but they let me down this time 🙁
Oh, and ew to the snot thing!
I never have problems finding shoes! But then I never set foot in Clarkes LOL!
Snot a good thing, my girls are always highly amused at the story about a chap I was dating who kissed like a slug….he didn’t last long!
Might be off to IKEA in a day or so.
Where do you go then Ros? I don’t know if i can face Stamford with all 4 of them, but may have to try further afield i think. Poor child wanted the cheerful pink and purple suede ones but they only went up to 10 🙁
PS – how do you know he kissed like a slug???? My sisters best friend once ate a slug. Mind you, in these days of “I’m a celebrity”, that story probably fails to gross out anymore.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/GORGEOUS-BLACK-PATENT-LEATHER-GIRLS-SHOES-SIZE-13-5-F_W0QQitemZ6833158191QQcategoryZ85793QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
any good?
Veronica
Abbie has eaten worms before now 😉
Now… why doesn’t that surprise me!!!
The first boy I kissed was like a slug, or like I would imagine a slug to be.
I don’t need to go to Ikea soon. Our flatpack had all the right bits in. 🙂
Don’t start me on Clarke’s (the shoe shop not the Sarah LOL)! Every time I go in there no shoes ever fit Emma. You look longingly at the lovely shoes then they say ‘oh they only have those in her size’ pointing to all the horrible black (and not very wintery in my opinion) shoes in the corner. They say it in such a way as to tell you that you have to have them. I ALWAYS say (which totally shocks them looking at their facial expressions) ‘they are the most hideous shoes I have ever seen, I wouldn’t wear them so why should my daughter?’ Then they have the cheek to say ‘well she will need black for school’ Of course it adds insult to injury when I nonchalently throw in well my daughter isn’t going to school so why would she need those disgusting shoes?’LOL Rudeness doesn’t stop at children’s shoes either. Once a young lad tried to sell me the standard shoe protector. When I said No he looked at the shoes I had on and said ‘oh but if you don’t want them to end up like those you have on you will need it’. I said ‘These are Clarke’s shoes and I did use the protector on them so they didn’t do much good did they?’ Mouth open and chin on floor just about sums him up.
..Tell fran Christopher felt the very same way about his special gap before his surgery…. he is 14 now and is glad that he had it done… he possibly has to have jaw surgery in the next couple of years because a cleft kiddos bottom jaw sometimes grows but not the upper… he just said he really likes who he is… sounds like Fran is the same way….when the time comes if it does this year… let me know and Christopehr and I will shoot her a note from the states :0
Well I have eaten worms and slugs and other such delights!
It was more that his tongue felt like a slug sliding down my throat- completely gross 🙂
Their boots this winter came from Woolies and Next. I don’t go in for this measuring crap as they aren’t in their shoes all day everyday. ( My mum used to make Clarkes shoes 🙂 )I love foriegn shoes so used to always stock up when we went to Spain but as that hasn’t been for two years I have had to go searching. Summer is easy as they all wear flipflops or Jesus sandles.
Yes, i tend to avoid winter shoes and they have doodles and trainers – but Fran has grown (darn her!) and she is too big for doodles now i think 🙁
I might go searching online – i have a friend who makes shoes but she hasn’t got any in her size – wah 🙁
Veronica – FAB!
Lea – thanks for that 🙂
Nah, P had Doodles in a 1, so you might scrape into them this summer!
Department stores often have more choice in shoes – John Lewis here carry several brands, not all particularly expensive. Buckle My Shoe make lovely shoes, but they *are* more pricey, lol. Got P&M’s boots in Ravel and Priceless this year – had wanted to avoid Priceless really (being snobby here, which is ridiculous seeing the amount of shoes we’ve had from Lidl!), but it turned out that the pair M liked fitted her wide feet absolutely perfectly 🙂
If Fran’s an F, that’s average, isn’t it, so most non-width-fitted stuff should fit her anyway 🙂 It’s not that blooming hard to see if a shoe fits either!
We buy shoes for P’s extremely narrow feet at http://www.youngexplorers.co.uk/. Depends what you’re looking for, but they have proper walking boots and teva sandals for kids, which is what she needs, really.
No idea about shoes, I’m afraid – I still have tiny-feet children.
But I do like Le Creuset, we have some dark blue pans that are just the best ever for making soup.
I have about 6 bits of green Le Creuset, which don’t go at all with my pink kitchen, and although I love them, I find myself frowning at them and willing them to turn cream … They do a cerise but it doesn’t look like it’d go … oooh, just looked and they have 3 special edition bits in lavender – they are *lush* 🙂
ebay the green – buy the lavender!
Oh, I couldn’t get rid of them, we might move! (Cue slightly hysterical laughter 😉 ) And they don’t have enough lavender either to properly replace them. They’re so expansive though, aren’t they? All my bits are from sales, or special offers or presents – never thought of ebay though … off to have a look now 😉
deliciously expansive 😉
:-P~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~