Trying

No chance of catching up with all the weeks I’ve missed – I can’t remember what we did, although I should have kept records because I’m sure some of it was important, fun or useful!
Last Friday should have been a choir workshop, for which we had cancelled Friday Club, but unfortunately the teacher was ill 🙁 Since the room was booked anyway and we had planned to have lunch afterwards and do goodbyes for Susan and K, Gina suggested that we lead a singing session anyway, so she did piano and boomwhackers (not at the same time!) and I did singing and it was fun, if not exactly the workshop we had hoped for. The children made rice shakers too (ingeniously out of toilet roll tubes stapled shut at one end, then half filled, rotated through 90 degrees and stapled at the other end) and we used Gina’s wrap and mine for them to sit on so that we could do rounds with it being obvious where the split was 🙂 I need to sing more, I think; my voice is shamefully rusty 🙁
Afterwards we stayed and played for much of the afternoon 🙂

Saturday had lots of things we could have done and somehow we ended up not doing anything much. I went to Body Combat, we didn’t go to Strawberry Fair, we gave the Cirque Surreal a miss, the waste treatment centre open day appealed but not enough to tempt us out… I got a bit of sewing done and we pottered generally, ready for a busy day on Sunday (as blogged by Bob).

Monday was another pottering kind of day, which should have been a chance to get the house straight but actually just meant lots of washing (making the most of a good drying day) and then an afternoon in the garden, where the children made water squirters with their yoghurt tubes and generally had fun – pics and videos on flickr 😀 We also read some Asterix in French; we’re working our way through La Rose et le Glaive. I’ve been buying lots of French resources recently – I think Latin is going to take a break for a bit (it hasn’t happened for a while anyway for one reason or another) and then start again in September and in the meantime I’m going to work on getting the French going a bit more, hopefully setting up two distinct groups even if they end up working together some of the time. There are a couple of older boys who are interested and may be at Tots fortnightly so I think we’ll try a gentle pre-GCSE class with them and the Js on those weeks and see how it goes.

Tuesday was swimming, with a new teacher. She was there last week and K liked her, but J didn’t go in as he was still poorly/recovering so this was the first “normal” week with her. She got in the water with them, which I much prefer. K really likes her; she pushes them more than the last teacher (already) and he’s happy with this, but predictably J complained about her. He tried to get away with half-heartedly doing things, as he used to, and she called him on it – he was not impressed! I think it will do him good 🙂 Aware that it was Susan and K’s last session for a while we all went in, although A was a bit hungry and grumpy (she fell asleep in the car on the way and had to be woken to go in) so didn’t get as much out of it as I’d hoped. We were early as we’d tried to go to coffee morning at church on the way, only to find it wasn’t on this week 🙁 so had eaten lunch in the church car park (instead of the nice cheese scones we’d been anticipating) which meant we didn’t have any lunch for after swimming. So we went shopping instead. Headed off a couple of tantrums (bad idea to go shopping when hungry) and got nice things for then and also for next week, including “waking-up biscuits” for those early mornings when the only way to get your children out of sleeping bags and into costume is to dangle a chocolate biscuit in front of them 😆

Wednesday was, erm, today 😀
We went to B-a-R for our termly catch-up visit 🙂 and we picked K up on the way and took him with us so Susan could get a few things done and he and K could spend a bit of time together before their long break. It was good 🙂 We parked in the newly revamped car park and got the lift to the newly revamped shopping centre and it was all bright and shiny and disorientating! And expensive! Worth it for the shorter walk with so many children in tow though 😉
We got back with just enough time for them to go and play in the garden without feeling cheated before gymnastics – and this time K knew his mum wasn’t going to be there at the beginning so he went in happily 🙂 A was clingy but L played Cooking Mama on the DS and I managed to get a second napron made (still have tapes to sew on, but it’s all edged and hemmed 🙂 ) for L without stabbing A with the needle more than once, so I guess that’s good too. Rushed back to find Bob not cooking tea because he was sure there was no Cubs due to trip on Sat. I hope he’s right, because J missed last week through illness and will be missing next week for Kentwell and they get shirty if you miss three in a row…