The Mummy on the Bus says ‘Never again!’ (by sarah)

People have been being horrified that I wait until Al is free to go shopping rather than taking Jean on the bus - now I know full well that getting up the hill to the bus stop with the pushchair is a bit of a no-no. Al struggles to get the pushchair up the other side of our valley which is a lot shallower and due to the narrowness of the lanes if a vechile does come along - in some places you have to pretty much scale the sides to get out of the way - also something I feel I can not physically cope with.

But Tuesday I had people to meet and shopping to get and Als time was already pressed so he gave me a lift in and I said I'd get the bus back with the shopping. Now I recalled there was a reason that we had only taken the pushchair with us once on the bus when Jean was really tiny but that reason had escaped my mind.

I had shopping, I had torrential rain, I had a soggy baby and a pushchair I never collapse becuase it hurts my wrists to do so. I put Jean on the bus and gave her her now soggy blanket (bus was late and there were a lot of people waiting for it. I struggled with folding the pushchair up and then discovered that it was an awkard fit even when it was folded - then I remembered 'Oh yes I couldn't get onto these buses easily with the crutches becuase of how narrow and steppy there are.' A lady on the bus helped me get Jean past the urine smelling old guy who had his shopping trolly in the ilse taking up more space than the pushchiar would have, muttering to himself and occasionally shouting - whilst I wrsteled with the shopping and pushchair. On the seat I lift Jean sending my poor arm into spasm enough to grit teeth, so then I'm worried that the nice lady who's just helped me is going to think I'm mad or rude or something.

The next bit was fine as Jean was entranced by the 'Oh dear water! Wet! Floor water!' though one of the men on the bus was commenting loudly that 'no wonder the buses never run on time' as my attempts to get one the bus had obviously taken some time. Jean happily played peek-a-boo with school girl behind us (with the nice lady who helped), this was up until she founf the yummy! some nice person had shoved their sandwitch down the side of the seat which of course Jean found and being two wanted to eat. So then I have a disgrunteled child who does not understand why mummy wont let her eat the perfectly good yummy - and I think why hadnt I noticed it when I sat down, coming to the conclusion that as the bus started to move before I'd sat down I was a little pre-occupied!

Annoyed with not being allowed to eat yummy or stand on the seat Jean decides to get off of the seat and as I try to stop her my spasming arm decides to get worse meaning that I could not stop her flying off the seat at the bus suddenly stopped - fortunatly she landed on the shopping which was all soft stuff. After two more escape attempts she was imprisioned on my lap with my good arm holding the wrist of the bad arm as I had very little use of it. Miffed Jean wriggled as best she could to escape though eventually she gave that up.

The to the next fun bit - getting off of the bus. Fortunatley urine smelling man had gone taking his shopping cart thing with him but that still left me with Jean, shopping and a folded up buggy and a bus stop next to the A46 and I mean RIGHT next to it - no pavement or stuff. An old lady retrieved Bob the duck who Jean had hurled for me and I managed to stop her just before she dived off the bus whithout me. I then had to make sure I had a grip on her with one hand as she wanted to look at the 'doot doot cars!' whilst I wrested the pushchair off the bus, over the shopping I'd had to put down becuase I jsut could not physically do anything else.

I grabbed the shopping retrieved the pushchair from the mud (where the shopping had to take its place) reinstated the pushchiar pulling a muscle in my back as this is a proceedure you really need both hands for and a chin just really doesnt cut it! Child now thouraly soaked as it was still tipping it down - rammed into pushchair with soggy shopping half squashed uncermoniously dumped into the basket underneith bag on back I headed across the road into the pub where they dried the blanket for me and made extra hot hot chocolate for me whilst I waited for Al as we needed to be somewhere else in an hour.

Jean thought it was a great day out.

I think bus journeys are out intill she is no longer in a pushchair - the journeys fine on my own but not with a pushchiar. It is probably doable with two people but not on my own! Oh and did I mention the fact that the driver didn't have any change so the trip cost me £3 instead of the 2.50(60) it should have 🙁

The shopping was fortunatly all still usable at the end of all this which was a relief though I did discover that I'd forgotten the urgent nick-nocks (pull up nappy-nicker things) for Jean!

Jeans’s Sit Down! No Mummy’s Sit Down! (by sarah)

For saftey reasons Jean's car seat has had to be moved from the middle seat of the van into my seat. This has cuased great indignation and much wailing on Jeans part. She calls seats and chairs 'sit-downs' so we now have her wailing 'Nonononono Jean's sit-down, no mummy's sit-down!' followed by the hurlling of her wackwack (bob the duck), once she has realised that Bob is now out of reach we get, 'MY wack wack, My wack wack, wrong sit down!' Wail.

There's tears and everything but mostly it has the unfortunate effect of wanting to make me laugh :/

She's had to be moved even though it means I now have to climb over the drivers seat to get in, becuase her legs are now long enough that she can and does put her foot on the gear stick!

She also becomes indignant if her dinner place is not set out right and if adults have more cultery than she does!

There has been a marked difference in her playing from before the flood - before the flood it was all water and cars now she likes playing with cuddly toys and even dolls which she puts to bed and feds and things. Also the nursery tell me that she loves playing 'hair dresser' which makes scense as we have a little brush for her as she was always nicking mine and Als brushes! She is still obsessed with anything machanical though which is cool 🙂

Filters (by sarah)

Finially filters have been fitted on the Mills water supply which being fed from a spring through cracked pipes just happens to be full of stuff like e-coli. There is now a partical filter and a UV tube for killing off the bugs. The UV tube will have to be replaced about once a year I don't know how often the partical filter will need to be changed - but still this now means the waters safe to drink 🙂

This is a great relief when dealing with a two year old who loves water 🙂 They made sure especiallly that the bathrooms water supply was after the filter too.

Re the wriggly monsters I found in the cats water (you can read about that here it turns out Barbara gets the cats water from the water butt outside so no wonder it was full of mosquito lavea!

Stephen Hawking and Lucy Hawking (by sarah)

We really enjoyed this talk though in hind sight we wished we had perhapse taken the cubs and scouts as it was about the childrens book they've writen together - although it was for children even Alaric learnt something new (or rather understands something more now - namely how stuff Can escape blackwholes). Lucy is a very good and engaging talker too which was cool.

I have to say I didn't enjoy this as much as the Pratchett talk but I think this was due to two things - firstly the theatre was freezing and due to verious happenings I had upset my pelvis again so it was aching fourciously. I was actually shivering! Secondly when Stephen Hawking was talking I had a bit of a problem understanding - now I think most people would not have had this problem as it is due to the fact that as a small child around the point where you really start to get the hang of spoken language, I was almost completely deaf and had to have several operations to sort it out. (ok look it was server glue ear and I had several lots of gromets put in but I had other stuff done at the same time so was put under full anaesthetic). This means that I really struggly understanding people if I can't see their lips move, if I can't see that then all I get is a jumble of noise with just the odd word coming out distinctly.

Of course Stephen Hawking talks with a synthacizer so I had no lips to read (I used Als monical whilst Lucy was talking). Would would have been good for me would have been the transcript up on the great big display screen they had in there. I know that public talks can be hard to write down in a corherrent form normally but that restriction does not apply here. Obviously I do not expet things to be altered for just the small fraction of the population that has these kinds of problems but it did ruin the talk for me a bit.

Jean’s Autum Joy (by sarah)

Jean loves autum as soon as the leaves started falling she was collecting them up carefully - one of each type and giving them to me to sto in the pushchairs basket! Then there was the fun of kicking the leaves, picking up handfuls of them and watching them twerl about in the wind and then to her emmense joy there were conkers!

'Corcon! Corcon!' she cries as she collects one for each person physically there with her. She loves putting them in pockets and gets destressed when she drops them into irretivablity!

She also likes kuggles! Which she calls for mostly when she wants to be carried somewhere. But the little outstretched arms and pleas of 'Cuggle! Mummy Cuggle!' are very endering - she will also kiss 'ouchies' on other people and stroke your arm in an endering manor (reguardless of how bruised the area of ouchy is!).

Other cute things that she's doing at the moment are singing along to the childrens rhymes and songs - so for The Wheels on the Bus we get disjointed doot doot for the horn beeping with the hand action of the whipers going followed by 'all day...' somehow she misses the long off the end!

Woaw woaw = row row your boat which she will play with 'My Bear' on her own 🙂

Rouw Rouw = Round and round the garden - this rhyme actully goes:

Round and Round the garden like a teddy bear (you run your index finger around the palm of her hand) One step, two step (your fingers walk up the arm) And tickly under there! (you tickle either under the arm or on the kneck)

Jean will do this rhyme to you though it goes (with actions bar the tickling which she doesnt yet get how to do - thank goodness!):

Rouw, rouw Bear Stair! giggle

This is really endering as is the fact she puts everything to bed carefully tucking in her beaker with an enverlope etc... 🙂