Our Tuesdays always seem to be busy and this one promised to be even more so when the lady who freecycled the CD/cassette player we collected last week apologised that her son had given us the wrong one and asked if we could swap it for the correct one today. Sooo, we had a huge detour to do on the way to swimming 
Anyhoo, I managed to get lunch ready while children were still having breakfast, then J and L did some of the violin work they should have been doing all summer (oops!) while K and M did some drawing and writing. Piano came into it somewhere too, I think, and then we were off to swimming, via CD player swop. The swimming pool staff seemed unsure as to whether or not we would have a lesson, or a teacher, or anything really, but it all sorted itself out when the teacher arrived, by which time A had begged and pleaded enough to persuade me to go in as well. Actually, it was just as well that I had, as there was no lifeguard in the middle pool so my plan of letting the boys swim in the unused half of the pool while L had her lesson would not have worked anyway and I actually ended up with an extra tagalong child as it was. The water was pretty cold though, so when I suggested to A that we should get out as soon as L’s lesson was over she was happy to agree, which at least meant that we had a running start at getting changed in time for the violin lesson dash. The lessons looked good as far as I could tell, with M not so far ahead of the others that he couldn’t get anything out of the lesson, which had been my fear. I did feel bad rushing them out of the water with no time to chat or play, but the violin lessons we have fit into a tight slot and if it’s to work we have to stick to schedule! As it was we were nicely on time and pulled up just before the teacher 
L went first and seemed to enjoy herself, despite not having done much violin at all over the summer – Kentwell brought us to a bit of a full stop and it was very hard to get going again after that. She has now promised the teacher that she will do some every day, so we’ll see… M went next and did really well for a first lesson (I think covering about as much as K and L did in their first 2 lessons) but then complained of a sore arm afterwards – we need to watch that he doesn’t tense up apparently. I haven’t had a chance yet to have a big chat with him about it and find out whether he wants to carry on or not but will try to fit that in tomorrow somewhere. J went last, and despite starting later and doing even less over the summer than L has just managed to overtake her in the book (only by one page though). He was not quite as willing to promise daily violin as L though, so we’ll see whether he can stay ahead 
The next pupil was late, so we stayed and chatted for a bit, by which time we had only a few minutes at home before needing to take K to gymnastics. J and M decided that they wanted to stay at home while I did the drop-off, so I left them with phone numbers and some maths and they seem to have been fine – no need to phone and some maths done
Quick snack for J and M and then they were off with Bob to collect K and see if there was room in J’s class for M. Meanwhile I expanded the snack for the rest of us. Apparently M’s face lit up when he saw the gym, so it was very lucky that there was a place for him, although only on a week by week basis for the moment. And now they’ve just got in again, and need feeding again…