the adlards

It’s been a balmy 28 degrees C today. It’ll be down to 26 tomorrow and then up at 28 for Sunday, so the beeb tells me. That makes it a barbeque weekend, which means there won’t be an organic lamb chop to be had for love or money in any supermarket by 10am tomorrow. I knew the weather was going to be good when I was shopping at Morrisons this morning and some poor sod was dragging a towering pallet of “easy light real lumpwood charcoal” to a specially cleared shelf in the middle of the store. Reminiscent of the famous air conditioner shortage of the summer of ’03.

Josie was at Sebastien’s house for the day and had a great time at the park, in the paddling pool and generally tearing about. Michelle and I, as a result, had a quiet day together (with sporadic interruptions from Sophie). These days come around once every six to eight months. We painted the new bathroom at last, and had lunch together at Wagamamas. Sophie very politely slept through lunch.

We found a brilliant play school for Josie today. She can’t start until early next year because they start at 2yrs 9mnths, so we’ll keep looking for something for an afternoon a week in the interim. This little school was terrific. The children were all relaxed, happy and, most importantly, having fun (except for one who was very calmly having an ice pack applied to his eye, which I particularly appreciated). The staff were all confident and looked me in the eye while showing me around and explaining what they do. Basically they let the children play and learn stuff as they go along, which makes sense to me. They’ve also paid obvious attention to detail in helping kids build confidence and identity – everything from having aprons little kids can put on by themselves to having clearly delimited, but accessible, themed play areas. I liked it – and I’m enormously relieved.

I think we decided today to take the plunge and have a conservatory built onto the house – a decision we’ve put off for a couple of months waiting for Sophie and to ensure we don’t rush in. Far from rushing in, we’ve waited long enough for the salesmen we got quotes from to stop phoning us. I say, “I think we decided” because any decision at the moment is at least as much emotional as it is rational. The alternate plan for a deck with a hot tub holds some appeal, but doesn’t make as useful a kids’ play area. I’ll let you know tomorrow whether we’re still decided.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 17th, 2005 at 9:51 pm by james and is filed under Food, House, Josie, School. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.