Tuesday 6th January 2009

What a wonderful day....definitely another diamond. At lunch on Sunday Romy recommended an outing to Horsham (about 30 mins drive) to visit the Springboard Project - this is basically a community based charity focusing on the needs of disabled and special needs children....over weekends the Springboard House is closed to the general public and used for workshops and activities for these kids, but from Monday to Friday it is open to all in an effort to raise money to keep the project going.

The project is housed in an old Victorian style home and each room has been dedicated to a different activity (the entrepreneur in me sighs longingly). The rooms include the "adventure" room where toddlers can enjoy a fully fitted soft-play area with a large ball pool, trampoline and musical hopscotch pad, "Pudseys Playroom" where daily arts and craft sessions are organised, the Jubilee Garden providing a large outdoor area with picnic benches, swings, slides, a play house, sandpit and football area, and the room where we spent all our time today, the "Sensory" room.

This amazing room features a glowing ball pool, bubble tubes, optic fibres, a swinging hammock and a variety of other sensory equipment…and let me tell you it was awesome, we spent about 3 hours in there and all 4 babies were as happy as can be, they lay watching the lights and enjoying the ball pond. Real good old fashioned quality time!!!!!

This afternoon the big children and I did our shopping at Sainsburys and I am now totally convinced that, despite all the advertising to the contrary, overall they are cheaper than Tescos.....Tescos may be a couple of pence cheaper on some products but the amazing "BOGOF" (buy one get one free) specials run by Sainsburys especially on their meat outweighs this across a big shop and since I have been back at Sainsburys my 120 pound weekly shop is back down to between 80 and 90 pounds, not an inconsiderable saving. Prawn Paella for dinner which has become a favourite since we have been here at 3 pounds for 500g it is cheaper than chicken lol.

Tomorrow I am off to my first Kindermusiek class with Hilary and her son George. The class is being run by my friend Kerry which is great as it means I also get to spend an extra hour a week with her which is always lovely.....as I have said before, having Nic has helped me to settle tremendously and has turned out to be a fantastic way for me to make friends.