Mud what more can I say



We headed out to a local Christmas market, but decided to walk the dogs first. The very start of the outing was not very promising, with a half hour trek back up the motorway when we realised that the dogs leads had been left hanging on their peg in the house. This was undertaken with a very large chorus of moaning from the kids.

However things then got a little more annoying when we arrived and found that due to no parking they were struggling to find spaces for all the cars, and we would have to take a shuttle bus up to the market after we walked the dogs. This may seem like a mild inconvenience, but with three kids, a baby, all the associated accessories and a buggy I never hugely enjoy trying to get all of us onto any form of bus.

 



Once we were parked and in the woodland things started to pick up. The kids did'nt have their crabbing lines, but they headed out onto the pontoon and had a good look ( and I suspect that Aidan may have tried fishing with his hands, based on how wet his gloves seemed to be).

Then they practiced their favourite hobby of tree climbing, most of the poor trees suffered the indignity of having the three monsters attempting to climb up them.

All was going well, and I even managed to get a nice photo, when I say all was going well that was until........

The oldest two decided to ignore my instructions to stay off the mud in the river bed. You know those times when you look away for two seconds, and then kick yourself when they do something either amazingly stupid or down right dangerous.

Well I looked back and saw Alex slowly sinking above boot level into some very stinky and very deep river bed mud with Aidan besides her also slightly stuck. Poor Elliot was in the sling at the time and was almost thrown at his dad while I ran down to assist them.

They were well and truly stuck and I had to jump in to drag them out. The only option with Alex was to lift her out of her boots and to hold her aloft while I fished for her wellies with the other hand, she is a skinny thing, but sure weighs a ton when held up by one arm. I managed to get both of them towards the bank, but now was severely stuck myself, so had to drag myself out, covering my jeans and hands in the process.

Nearly on the bank Aidan lost his welly and fell forward absolutely caking his trousers and coat in the foul smelling stench. Lets just say that my anger was very apparent once we were back on the bank. Both of them were very sorry and immediately promised to never do it again. You can tell when Aidan feels very bad and ashamed about something, as he usually very politely asks not to talk about it anymore.

Typically we got back to the car to find the toilets closed for the winter, so I had to do my best with two packets of wipes and strict instructions not to put their hands in their mouths. Needless to say we had to give up on the market plans and the kids had to be undressed before getting in the car. I use big blue ikea bags as a welly carrier, so luckily the bag was able to hold all the foul outcomes of their little adventure.

At home the only option was to dump it all in the bath, and to keep hosing it down. The wellies then went into the airing cupboard, while the clothes then had to be washed three times to get rid of the majority of the fetid mouldy mud smell

Me and my girls

This morning we had a lovely short walk around our local field.

It did not start out well with my oldest girl having a melt down as we were heading out of the door. I have to admit that I am the least patient person in the universe when it comes to moaning and whinging.

After a little screaming and well more screaming we eventually headed down the very slippery path. Its no easy job to walk on a ice covered path, with two beagles straining at their leads, and two girls alternating between holding hands and running off. Running off that is to a chorus of me hollering don't run or you will fall on your butt. I am an excessively load voice, so you really would not want to be one of my neighbours.

It was lovely to be out with just us girls ( sorry Kelvin I know you are a boy dog, but for the purpose of this walk you can be a temporary girl).

We let the dogs off in the field, and the darlings behaved really well for a change. Although I did have to play a game of hunt the poo when Abby decided to poop a fair distance away from me. I know in some area they tried spray painting turds rather than cleaning up,  to show the scale of the problem and I guess to shame the culprits into scooping the poop.

I wonder if I could feed the dogs the spray paint, so their poo comes out brightly coloured and easy to find and identify. There is very little more horrid than hunting the poo, thinking you have a successful find, and then being tricked into picking up another dogs ice cold old stool, yuk!

The field has a little park and the girls spent a while pushing Reg in the swing. Reg is one of Santa's Reindeers, he has come to stay for the month so the kids can teach him to be good, and if he achieves this goal he will be awarded the honour of pulling the big man's sleigh.

At the end of the walk we headed into the shop to get some sweets to sneek into the theatre later, ummm yummy revels. I am planning on a diet in the new year, so hopefully I won't explode from excessive junk consumption before then.

More poorly kid news

Sorry this blog sucks big time at the moment.

We have gone from Elliot having a chest infection last week, being given the all clear on Thursday, and then rapidly heading back down hill to spike a temperature of 40 yesterday and to get a diagnosis of an ear infection late last night from the on call docs.

So very little going outside for decent walks until Elliot is recovered.

Babasling rocks

As you know Elliot has been poorly, so getting out and about has been a bit of a challenge, especially as he can't breath when he lies down or when the cold air or wind hits him.

The dogs were going to explode in a mess of dog guts if I didn't get out and walk them, so we headed out with the sling. Elliot is a bit of a big lad now, so I only tend to use the sling for the school run and shorter walks.

I put Elliot in his sling, stuffed a bottle into his mouth and luckily he quickly fell asleep.

Trudging through the mud in my wellies was a bit dodgy at times, and a few times I thought I might slip and squash Elliot into a little baby pancake. However I managed to stay upright, and walking through the deep mud and water must have done the world of good for my thigh muscles.

Nearly two hours later we headed back to the car with a sleeping Elliot, two tired dogs and only a very slight ache in my shoulder from carrying him for so long.

Of course it had to go pear shaped at the last minute. Kelvin decided that it would be fun to run across the very busy road several times, leaving me having a panic, and waiting for the sound and sight of a car smashing into him. Luckily he eventually came back, had a good telling off and was quickly shut into the crate in the car.

No going out for us at the moment

We are seriously housebound at the moment. Sadly Elliot has a bad chest infection and the doc is worried that it may turn into pneumonia, so he is one seriously poorly baby.

Every time we set outside into the gale that has been raging for 3 days, it triggers a massive coughing attack, and the poor little man can hardly catch his breath.

Today I even had to call in some favours and get a couple of mums to pick the bigger kids up from school.

So no great stories from me for a few days, unless you want to hear about coughing, grumpy not walked dogs and lack of sleep!

Do not try this at home - getting lost in the woods

Today we had a late start, and proceeded to get very lost in the woods. Covered in mud and exhausted, this was not a good walk!

The afternoon walk started out well, with the kids coming almost willingly, and only a very small amount of "can we go yet" the second we stepped out of the car.

The kids really enjoyed catching and throwing beanbags at each other, although I am not sure the poor beanbags will survive being so covered in mud.

I was well prepared, in that I knew it would be cold and muddy, so the kids had nice warm coats, and we had even gone to Sainsburys to buy new wellies for the girls after I realised they had gapping holes in their old ones.

 

 

 

Elliot is 1 next week and he is a bit of a challenge now, as he can't walk yet, but hates being in the buggy for too long. I would have put him in the sling, but felt a little lazy after being a bit ill this morning, so he had to travel in the slightly lightweight buggy we currently have.

 

 

I think it all went wrong on the return leg, we managed to go down the wrong path, and ended up having to walk for a very long time down a very muddy and wet track. At first it seemed ok, but then we got to that point where we were all too tired to turn back, and we just kept following the straight path hoping and wishing that it would soon turn ( which it didn't!).

 

 

Imagine us with 3 exhausted kids, two bonkers filthy dogs, a buggy that was so mud soaked that the wheels would no longer turn ( and so baby and buggy had to be carried over most of the big sections of mud), and a path that clearly was a disaster choice........

 

In the end we found a road where the kids and I waited while Ali went in hunt of the car, roll on 20 minutes or so later and I was soooo glad to see the car coming along the road, phew!





Portsmouth and Southsea

 

We had some Tesco club card vouchers that needed using up before they went out of date, so we headed to Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth for the day. I would have cried if we didn't have the vouchers as the admission seemed very expensive, but maybe I am just getting tight with money in my old age.

 

On entering the tower we were grabbed to have a photo taken against a blue screen. I love photos of us all together, but I hate paying a small fortune for them, so later in the day we quickly skipped past the photo desk, I really am turning into an old grump

 

The lift whizzed us up to the first floor and the kids loved taking their shoes off to go on the glass floor, I was brave and walked over it a few times, but their dad stayed a safe distance away. Cat is a little bit mental and decided it was great, especially trying to jump through it, and laying down on it, that child definitely has a few screws loose.

The café was expensive, very slow, and lacking in room, so I would not choose to take kids in there again. However they did enjoy the top floor. Although it was annoying that no one had told us that we couldn't get the lift up there and we were not allowed to leave the buggy unattended, so we had to take it in turns taking the kids up.

It was actually much better than I expected, but at that price its definitely a one off.

After the tower we headed into Southsea just a few minutes down the road. As usual it was cold and the kids made a beeline for the shingle beach. Elliot was asleep in the sling, so we stopped for a while as the kids decided they simply had to play on this freezing cold beach.

Caitlin set about burying a bucket, and the other two started world war three with the sea, building a shingle wall, hiding behind it and firing stones into the sea. Its always brings so much joy just watching them playing, but I find this is more frequently tinged with sadness nowadays, knowing that Aidan will soon be too old for the make believe world that he currently loves. Arghh why can't they stay kids forever.

I did ask them all to stop having birthdays and to stop growing, but they refused, although Alex did offer to stop when she gets to 9, so thats very kind of her. Do any of us really take the time and enjoy this precious limited time with them as much as we should!