So, the weekend was a washout, Saturday rain! our plans to go out to a toy store (The new Smyth’s in Exeter) went downhill as soon as the kids saw the river of water going past our house down the road.

The visit was so we could get an idea of what they wanted for Christmas, we spend all year turning our ears off to every advert on T.V. because all we get is the same requests…….Daddy “I want that” to our programmed response “yes OK let’s wait for Christmas” (I’m sure ASOB once asked for Cillit bang because he loved the advert) well Christmas is knocking on the door and we both are completely blanked on what they want, from the near 11-year-old who hates reading but would watch anything on T.V. (we tested him once, last year we put on question time from the BBC I player and he sat and watched it! although he couldn’t relay anything that was said) to our 5-year-old who thinks she is 16 and needs a laptop because mummy has one.

In between we have the bookworm and the magpie (or ASOB as he is often referred too) Tibbius will spend all day reading, Harry Potter at the moment, he seems to be in a companion with his girlfriend who can finish the books first and for an 8-year-old he is going for it, and then the magpie, named because if he likes something of his siblings it will somehow end up in his room hidden until it is spotted and then the screams of “HOW DID THAT GET IN THERE?”

So our clever rouse to get the Santa list sorted fell at the Door on Saturday, well we said, “how about Sunday” we could go first thing, Rugby for the kids had been canceled due to the gallons of water which had flooded all the pitches locally, we got “Swimming!!!!! Swimming, Swimming” so off we went to our local pool knowing that the kids will be so disappointed as our Pool is nothing like the pool we had on our villa in Spain, for one the rules were a little relaxed and as long as there was an adult present the pool was a free for all.

Now our local lifeguarded pool is designed for swimming (yes they do a Saturday inflatable assault course session but adults are not allowed which in my mind is discrimination to over 16’s) so 3 lines of Swimmers and the rest of the pool full of parents and children trying not to get the Lifeguard to blow his whistle for wrongdoing (and what is petting? in this day and age cant, we write on the poster “no getting off! no fumbling under the water and no running into the shower cubicle for a bit of slap & tickle as we witnessed “allegedly” one young couple but they could have just been scrubbing each other’s back but to keep ASBO silent we quickly moved to the changing room” )

after 20 minutes the kids go very bored, that boerd (because unless you want to swim there is nothing much to do) they asked to get out! so what a waste of £18 but since then they have never asked to go swimming again…