Spring is here! Spring is here! Ebony and I breathed out a huge collective sigh of relief when the sun appeared last week. We spent whole afternoons in the garden, we had a barbecue (a bit premature perhaps, it was cold by the time we were eating), and we stopped wearing our coats. Well, I did, Ebony has never been a big fan of outer wear.
We were hoping to go for an adventure last weekend, but alas, weddings, hangovers, drinking and work got in the way. The downside of my life is that I do spend a fair amount of each weekend hunched over my laptop, working, but it’s worth it to spend each weekday with Ebony. Or it is when she’s in a nice mood, anyway.
We went to a local playgroup yesterday. It’s not the greatest group in the world. There’s a very strong LOVE JESUS theme running throughout the session, and it’s usually quite manic. The children run riot, fights break out, and Ebony usually ends up getting run over by a crazy-eyed toddler suffering a bad case of road rage behind the wheel of a red and yellow car. It’s not my favourite group, but it’s local and cheap, so we go when we’re ready on time. By on time, I mean 45 minutes late, because there is no way in hell I could spend 90 minutes at that group.
Ebony made a crown at playgroup yesterday. A crown, I kid you not, TO SHOW YOU HOW MUCH GOD LOVES YOU. The group is run by a woman who can associate anything (crowns, boxes, row row row your boat) with God’s unrelenting love. Ebony was very proud of her crown, probably because it had stickers on, but possibly because it signified God’s devotion to her.
She wore the crown most of the way home. It was a slow journey. She walked most of the way in a side-step, and occasionally ran very fast in the wrong direction. I was carrying no fewer than four big jigsaws, so this was not a fun journey. Eventually, after three “Hehe, looks like it’ll take you a while to get home!” comments from amused strangers, we reached the fields. I decided to cut my losses, and give up using jigsaw boxes to stop Ebony running into oncoming traffic, and instead suggested we walk through the fields.
Ebony misheard and thought I said, “Let’s lean against a fence and refuse to move for five whole minutes.” But once we’d cleared up that misunderstanding, we were on our way. I saw a ladybird walking on the path in front of us, and called Ebony over to see. She immediately thrust her crotch towards it while shouting “Ladybird!” Once, I am told, a ladybird walked under her legs when she was out with Laurie, but when she does this stance, it looks like she is aggressively referring to her privates as her ladybird. I thought we should move the ladybird from the path, so we coaxed it onto a leaf and placed it on the grass.
Ebony charged on, desperately trying to find more ladybirds. We ran across the field together, stopped to look at flowers and sticks along the way. At the end of the field are some steps, Ebony climbed most of the way herself before stopping.
Ebony: Dog poo, mummy!
Me: Oh dear, yes. Let’s go round it.
Ebony: Move it, mummy!
Me: Me? Oh no, I think the council are in charge of moving dog poo.
Ebony: Ok. Wait council.
Me: Come on then.
Ebony: No, wait council. Ebony wait.
Me: But the council are really slow...and may not even know about the poo.
Ebony while rolling eyes, shaking head and tutting: Bloody council.
After that Ebony found some fallen seeds to inspect, lots of daffodils to smell, and another field to speed across. Then we had a quick stop off at the park. I say park, it’s one swing situated on a depressing expanse of concrete. There are marks where other park equipment should be. A little girl, who was politely waiting for her go on the one swing, told me that the other equipment was removed by the council because older boys stuck chewing gum on it. Bloody council.
Have you been on any adventures this week?
Find out more about our great adventures here.
