Tuesday 28th August 07

Another fairly late lie-in til 9, a lazy morning including TV and some 'bundling', our name for child/father wrestling or play-fighting. However the bundling got a bit intense and our 10 yr old got angry and ran away after he had cut one of my fingers with his toe-nail, by accident. He returned and was persuaded to have his toe-nails cut, which I did as usual with my Swiss Army Knife scissors.

Had lunch in the caravan and then went on the little train to Wells to do some shopping, starting with worming tablets, then food and posting cards. Went to look for books for Linda's birthday present, she would like a book of plants showing good images as she's got a commission to draw some pictures of dye plants for a forthcoming book. So Gill found her a small book with good drawings in a cheap bookshop. But later, in another shop (owned by the same people, apparently) she found two large volumes of 'botanically correct' photos and descriptions of many species, with photos by Roger Phillips, one of my favourite photographers. Originally £50 each, these 'seconds' were just £15 each, a bargain, so I suggested she get them both for Linda. I found a couple of Roger Phillips books, one called Herbs (with Nicky Foy) and another called Trees in Britain, Europe and North America. I also found something fun, Energy Flash by Simon Reynolds, about 'Rave Music and Dance Culture', which I've been on the edge of since it's inception, although never been really involved with, and I've never taken 'E' so cannot really know what it's all about. But I have really good memories of brilliant raves in the 1990's, mainly in Leeds whilst I was an Environmental Health student. The children got some books too, we spent well over £50 on books today!

Then went to the grocers, and found an outlet for 'The Norfolk Cider Co' which was good, as cider is my favourite drink, so got two bottles. With all this stuff, got the train back to the caravan site.

I made a nutloaf from some dead bread, couscous, peanut butter, onion, carrot, etc, and prepared some samphire I found yesterday, steamed with broccoli. Gill made a chocolate sponge in the microwave, and we had a lovely meal.

However the boys started getting boisterous and hitting each other, so when they didn't respond to my asking them to stop, then telling them to stop, I sat between them. This made the elder sibling very angry and he ran out of the caravan. The younger one followed him, ignoring my telling him to come back. I didn't follow or chase them, as they would only play hide and seek around the caravans. When the 8 yr old came back, he got a single smack on the hand for disobeying me. When the older one came in I told him off for running away and he started shouting at me at the top of his voice, stuff like 'I'm going to kill you', so I told him that it wasn't acceptable to say that sort of thing. He tried to attack me, so I held his arms to stop him, and told him I'd hold him like that until he stopped behaving in the unacceptable way. We had a difficult half hour... I told him I was going to let go of his wrists on several occasions but when I let go, he started hitting me again, so I held him again. But finally he realised I wasn't going to give up, so he calmed down and I was able to let go. His wrists were red, I felt really bad.

A few minutes after this, he came to me and told me he was very sorry, told me he loved me and Mum, and them Gill read to them both before they went to sleep. An eventul day!