Starting to get back to normal

… whatever that is.

Fortunately Katy is now better although very tired. Mostly this is due to the trip down to London to see the Terracotta Army. We were up an hour early and got the children up too, and the other K and his mum Susan came round, they all bundled into our car and then headed off. It was a good job that Katy had allowed lots of time, because the traffic was terrible, which meant they were later getting to London, which meant it was harder to find parking, and a delay on the tube didn’t help. They got there with 10 minutes to spare, originally thinking there would be about an hour spare. It was a timed visit, so being late would mean missing it. The bloke who was supposed to give a talk didn’t turn up and the museum staff didn’t know anything about it, and you couldn’t take photos in the exhibit proper, but otherwise it was good. (See some photos on Flickr.)

Meanwhile I was waiting in for the plumber, to replace three crucial non-boiler parts of the central heating. This went smoothly, so we now have a much healthier and quieter central heating system and less money.

Then today some local Home Ed. families came around to our house as usual for Katy to do Latin with all but the youngest, and the Beans doing some science which was floating and things today. When everyone had left it was time to get ready for the boys’ first proper gymnastics session about 15 minutes’ drive away. The other K has been doing this for a while, and J and K are in his class which is good. After Katy wrote a slightly eye-watering cheque and filled in some forms the boys went off and apparently enjoyed themselves. Afterwards K said it was a bit scary at one point but he got a bit more courage and it was OK then. I said that it will be like that occasionally – scary and/or hard until they practice enough to be good at it, and then move on to the next thing.

Tea for the boys in the car in the car park as there wasn’t really time to get home before the first Badgers of the year. Just for logistics fun, Katy dropped the boys off and came home, then later I went out and picked them up again. Then home and bed, and I’m off soon too. Tomorrow is Parents and Tots, although I don’t know if S will let Gina do piano lessons with the boys as usual (putting up with learner pianists’ tinklings is quite a lot to ask when you’re less than two weeks old). Gina might have a few other things on her mind too, like sleep.

Oh, and I managed to book a night for Katy and the children and the excellently-named Once Brewed Youth Hostel. Obviously, Twice Brewed is just down the road. It’s for when Katy does her first solo expedition to Melrose, to break the journey on the way up. It’s very handy for Vindolanda with the Raines and Beans, and then a short journey on to Melrose itself.