catch up

Sorry for the delay in blogging.

Thursday after lunch we went for a drive. In a search for a tripod, Bob looked up camera stores and we picked one to check out, in the town of Halesworth. They didn't have ball-head mounts, so we went to the toy store across the street and bought the boys plastic swords. Then we walked down the street to the parish church, which was very nice. It's listed in the Doomsday book, and has a sundial over the door (my "English Country Churches" book tells me some churches had "mass clocks" that were used to tell service times, and that complete ones are very rare now, but I don't know if this one is an old rare one or not). I bought 2 cookbooks and a "facts and fallacies" book off the used book table in the church.
Inside the church, Bob decided he'd rather have a good monopod than nothing, so we went back to the camera shop and got one. I also spotted a basket of interesting wall calanders outside a shop, so stopped there and got one for 75p.

Seeing that Halesworth is not far from the sea, we went a little farther East to the town of Southwold. They have a pier with shops and entertainments on it, but the first order of business (well, after the toilet stop) was the beach. The tide was coming in and everyone got excited about the "big" waves. Bob took pictures and the children threw rocks into the waves. There was a nice sandcastle on the beach, and as soon as the boys saw it they ran up and started kicking it down. We stopped them quickly, and later we saw it fall to the tide.
By the time we were all quite cold and hungry we went up onto the pier and looked around. There was a clock/water fountain with a sign that said it gave a show every hour on the hour. Noting we had 15 minutes til 6, we walked on down to the end of the pier and checked out the telescope. We got back to the clock right at 6, and the 'show' began - two metal men figures dropped their metal pants and squirted water into the central bucket. So we headed back toward town to find some dinner.
We found a parking spot between a fish 'n' chips place and a pub. The fish 'n' chips was cheaper, so we went in, but the boys needed a toilet, which they wouldn't provide, and then I saw a sign about 'cash only' and we were done. Bob had 14GBP, but that would get us two plates and leave us very hungry. So we went to the pub. After 20 minutes in the toilets we got a table and went to study the menu. The people were nice, but slow. I had lasagne, Bob had plaice, Taryn had a burger, Riah had fried scampi, and the others shared a pizza. It was quite late by the time we were done, and the children all napped on the way home.

Friday was the homeschool field day, and that was fun. I didn't have time to make anything for the potluck lunch afterwards, so we went to the BXtra to eat, and then toured 'toyland.' Bob got hiccups at lunch and was nearly sick by the time we finished at the store, so we decided to go home and save the grocery shopping. The babies napped and I made dinner. (The hiccups stopped when a horse truck nearly ran us off the road.)

Saturday we went to the "holiday bazaar" on Lakenheath. We bought some potpouri and a used book. We also had lunch there, but right as we were finished I remembered the commissary was giving away hot dogs. Oh, well. So then Bob dropped me and 3 children off at the commissary for the case lot sale. I bought cases of laundry detergent, body wash, cereal, soup, canned tomatoes, green beans, and corn, toilet paper, baby wipes, and water. I also got a few things from the regular store. $260. The checkout is set up so the customer has to load the groceries onto the belt, so I was busy working and not able to keep my eyes on the cashier. When I got home and looked at my reciept I found that I'd been cheated out of more than $5. It's irritating, and I have resolved to get over it, but it's slow going.
So we got home about 3, and the boys went to play outside and the babies took naps.

And now it's Sunday morning and the children are eating and Bob is sleeping in (he didn't sleep well last night). I guess I should have breakfast, too.