Half term half gone

Lovely weekend with the Rainedrops, including church on Sunday morning (and actually we just realised that M has still only been to a Catholic church – I think this week we must try to get him to Mass on Saturday and then to the Methodist church with us on Sunday so he can see what differences and similarities there are) and some game playing.
We had an uneventful trip back, thank goodness, but a very late night, having set off at children’s bedtime, and then a slow start to Monday, with music practice and not much else until the afternoon when the four older children were all booked into an activities roadshow in a park down the road. It was free, lasted 2 1/2 hours and seemed to cover a wide variety of fun sports and games – at £5 a head it would still have been great value so to get it free was fab 🙂 A and I stayed and played in the playground for an hour then popped home for a cup of tea before going back to pick them all up (and spend another half hour in the playground).

On Tuesday I was doing a sling morning so the children all came with me and worked or played in varying proportions while I talked six people (five families) through the why and how of sling use then we went to Gina’s for an afternoon of Geography, Maths, English and so on – an attempt to catch up a bit without the children feeling hard done by, so lots of playing as well – World of Goo is now on my “investigate” list 😉

Wednesday was Latinetc, with some great chemistry experiments involving substitution reactions, Latin, sewing (M was particularly pleased with the little cushion he made 🙂 ), parachute games in the field to make the most of the unseasonably warm weather and even a little French (but not for M!). No Baby Music or ‘cello this week meant we could go on longer than usual so there was plenty of time for play and chat too.

J should have had a swimming lesson each morning this week, but they were cancelled as not enough children had signed up. However a leisure centre relatively nearby was offering free lessons for children on Thurs and Fri as they had a training course for teachers and lifeguards so we decided to sign the boys up for both days and L for just Friday. On the basis of what Bob told them over the phone M was put into the most advanced group, which left him very tired and feeling slightly overwhelmed, so we have asked for him to be moved down a group tomorrow. J was a Beginner today and will try Post-beginner tomorrow, while K is a happy Beginner and L will join him there. That meant L and A came with me to Tots while M, J and K went with Bob to swimming and then came along to Tots afterwards, which in turn meant that not a great deal happened work-wise at Tots, although some rather lovely pumpkin paper plates were painted 🙂 M was so tired after a busy week and a very hard swimming lesson that piano lesson was put off (it is half-term after all!) and we came home to make popcorn, flop on the settee and watch videos. Oh, and roast a nice blue pumpkin for baking 🙂

In which the boys are very independent, Katy is stuck at the shop and Bob learns about oil and engines

On Thursday morning we went to Tots, sans K (who was busy watching a film with his homonym) and did usual Tots things (piano, French, playing a lot) but not recorders as Gina needing to do some child-dropping and -swapping and the necessity of an early finish for Multisport meant that time was very short. When we got to Multisport we found that Susan had brought the Ks there so that made reclaiming our own easy 🙂 J and M did sport, K, K, E and L watched and had fun with face paints we had brought to get L ready for her Hallowe’en Gym session (deferred from Monday). BB, A and S played and also face painted a bit, and the adults had a frustrating time trying to work through some of the politics of the local HE list and how to make it work better 😕
Home again and got L ready for gym, which Chris very kindly took her to as he was almost passing with SB… Sorted Suma stuff for him to collect, quick cup of tea and he was off to collect the girls again. Lots of violin practice, in anticipation of a weekend without, piano practice ditto then tea and an early night.

Friday was a day at home with lots of maths and music, playing outside while weather still good and a tutoring session mid-afternoon. We made chocolate truffles to give Nic and Ady as a thank you for ferrying the boys to the Rainedrops for us (all sorts of shapes and sizes, as all children joined in, including A – hope they were okay!) and made a quick cake while we were at it, then tea and all children into pyjamas, L ready for bed as soon as boys had left and boys ready for bed as soon as they had arrived! It was very odd to be in a house with only 2 children! Even once they would all have been asleep and quiet anyway the silence had a different quality to it somehow.

Saturday was my shop morning, which should have ended at 1:30 ready for a quick dash across to Derby to collect some more Trofast and then up to Sheffield, aiming to arrive by 4:30 or 5 (3 hours from Cambridge according to googlemaps). While I was working Bob took the girls to one of the Festival of Ideas events, where they had a great time making sculptures of big and small things and then came back to the shop at 1:15 ready for a quick getaway as soon as the afternoon shift person arrived. At 1:45 I tried ringing the shop owner to see what was happening, but got no answer to her mobile. Eventually I managed to get hold of her home number and phoned there at 2 to say that we really had to go. She sent her husband to take over but said I could leave the Back in 5 minutes sign up and just go as soon as we were ready. Bob put children in car, I locked things which needed locking, found the sign etc and we finally left rather nearer to 2:30 than 1:30 🙁
Bob had checked the oil whilst waiting and found it was low, so decided it would be a good idea to pop home and put more in, since it’s only a 2 or 3 minute detour and meant we could pick up more food and bits for journey too. Unfortunately he was rather generous with the oil and as we set off from home clouds of billowing white smoke followed us 🙁 After a couple of minutes they still weren’t clearing so I stopped the car and Bob phoned my dad for advice, the gist of which was that the oil had been enormously overfilled and we needed to get some out either using the sump plug or a pipette. I ran home for the baster the children play with in the bath, only to find that the engine layout is such that you can’t get at the oil once it’s in. The sump plug was still too scary a proposition, especially as it’s so far under the car and the front is so low that we would have had to reach for it blindly, so we decided to call out our breakdown cover (handily provided by our bank account) – only to find that Bob had moved the info card to his new car. So we then had to phone the bank to get the details so that we could phone the breakdown people *sigh*
When he finally arrived (it took over an hour) the breakdown man was very nice and said that although he would normally have then towed us to his workshop he would try to do the job on the road for us so we could get on. Since he couldn’t reach the sump plug either (which made us feel slightly better!) we had to drive the car up onto the kerb one side and a wedge of wood the other so that both front wheels were lifted enough for him to get underneath and drain the oil. What he removed was still quiet clean so he poured it into a spare empty oil container and gave it to us to use next time (and the time after that, and probably the next couple of times too – yes Bob did overdo it a bit!) then checked the level and told us to rev the engine for a bit to clear the system and we were good to go 🙂 Only 4 hours late!
Fortunately the shelves people were happy for us to go late, but it meant we didn’t get to the Rainedrops until evening and so missed seeing Nic and Ady and co 🙁 The boys didn’t seem to have noticed us not being there as they were far too busy having fun together with lego and DSs (and had had a whale of a time in the morning at LaserQuest) and we did get some leftover party food, including yummy cheese and courgette scones 😉

Quick Round up

Monday – Tower of London Despite poorly overhead cables and consequent delayed trains (I was very glad I had printed multiple copies of this before we left as it kept the children occupied for just the right amount of time!) and late start we managed to see everything on our list, which was based on the three hour list but without the yeoman Warder tour and with the addition of the Henry VIII display in the White Tower, a walk past Traitors Gate, a look at the scaffold site and a visit to the Fusiliers Museum. We also followed the Irish guards (buttons in sets of four) as they marched to collect the Word 🙂
Tube trouble delayed us on the way home but K still managed to make it to Beavers, just a little late and not in uniform.

Tuesday – Laura’s Star at our local cinema. Nice and gentle, lovely music, much enjoyed by all 🙂 Then home for a quick work blitz before violin, which started and ended late thanks to traffic holding the teacher up, leaving us with just enough time to get K dressed up and to Gymnastics for their Hallowe’en session. J and M also dressed up for their session, but turned out to be the only ones who had. M decided not to dress up after all, which left J’s way clear to win the best costume prize 😉

Wednesday – The Crimson Wing Mystery – a film about flamingos, which we nearly missed thanks to yet more traffic problems, but when we arrived and asked if it was too late the cinema staff seemed very happy to let us in. The children and I crept into the cinema, with me whispering dire warnings to them about not disturbing anybody and just quickly finding a place to sit even if we weren’t all together… to find that there were two other families there – 5 people in all, all of whom we knew – so we actually more than doubled the audience numbers! It’s a shame it was so poorly attended, because it was really an excellent film. Left me feeling a bit homesick though, quite unexpectedly, and rather concerned for the future of a species who rely entirely on the formation of a seasonal island in the middle of one lake for their nesting place. It was really well done, and even my sensitive little flowers made it through without being scared or upset, despite the fact that death was not skirted around.
We then picked up a freecycled coffee table (that was fun to fit in the car, with cello too!) and popped into Bouncearound for the first time in months if not years 🙂 Lunch on the run and then out to cello and Baby Music, picked up the cello and handed over the child for a sleepover, came home and did music practices but not Maths (half-hearted attempts made during BM were to have been followed up, but I ran out of steam) and then it was time for J and M to go to Cubs, while L and A played in the bath. It feels odd to be back to 4 children again, even if it is only for one night.

Music, marquees, history and sea

I really ought to be in bed, so I’ll try to make this quick. Previous attempts at this kind of thing suggest I’ll be up for a while…

Yesterday was music school for the big 4 and a lie-in for Katy. After dropping them off I took A to pick up a huge parcel from the local DHL depot, then read to her at the music school while waiting for the others to finish. Back home, lunch, then I mowed the front lawn (before the strimmer cable ran out, and re-doing it is a simple but lengthy job, so I put the back lawn off for another day) and gunged sealant around a gutter / downpipe joint that was leaking.

I then took M to mass in an inter-denominational primary school near where I work. It was relaxed and friendly, but didn’t have a separate children’s liturgy, so I don’t know if M will prefer that or the other church he’s tried. Good homily too – the priest knew his stuff, obviously cared about his congregation and loved God too 🙂 . Then I had to dash to a last supper 😉 . A colleague of mine R who, like me, has kept his job throws occasional excellent parties, and he wanted to have the work gang together one last time before people started getting established in new jobs. Some people who had left several months previously also came back, which was great. It was in one of the marquees that R and his housemate own (for their amazing parties) and very nice indeed. I had to leave earlier than many as today was going to be busy.

Today had a slower start than we’d planned, then we headed off to near Norwich to visit the shop owned by Katy’s uncle and aunt. So M and they got to meet each other, but it was a flying visit en route for further Norfolk adventures.

We went to a stately home with a moat that had lots of historical re-enactors (who’d have thought it, eh?). It was a multi-period fair, with Romans and Anglo-saxons up to WW2. We were in time to see some falconry, and then some people playing with a big trebuchet. While we were watching it, Tadcu met up with us, and we saw the trebuchet mis-fire backwards. Fortunately it wouldn’t have hit any spectators, because some lovely WW2 vehicles were in the way, but a brave / foolish re-enactor saved the vehicles by catching the rock which was about the size of two bags of sugar. His fingers survived, and the re-enactors continued playing but we wandered off.

There were lots of other very nice things. A good but slightly scary story-teller, a lady with WW2 bits and pieces like sweetheart badges and ration books, which kept the boys interested for a long time, Tadcu bought a cloak, we bought some ginger honey, I bought a longbow and associated bits from these people (the magic words “I’m a re-enactor” got a discount, which was great.) I just need to learn how to use it properly 😉 .

While I was spending lots of money, Katy and the children wandered into the house, which had WW2 people letting people try on their gask masks, someone talking about tea – with some blocks of pressed leaves, how expensive it used to be etc. A barber said some interesting things about his strop. “Throwing a strop” comes from literally throwing your strop at someone.

After a bit of hunting, we tracked down the NAAFI canteen and got to speak to one of the ladies running it. She’s an education officer with the Poppy Line, and so might do an evacuee day event for home educators near us (quite far away, but sounds very good).

At closing time, K and M got into Tadcu’s Morris Minor Traveller (at their request) and we all headed off to see Poppa in his new nursing home. He seems better than he was when we last saw him in hospital, which was good to see.

We didn’t stay long, and then a short drive later we were in Sheringham for sea and chips. We stayed there until it was nearly dark and then home. Tomorrow is work for me and the train to the Tower of London for everyone else.

Up!

Friday was the first of the free films we had booked through nsfw so we started by looking at some of the literature about it and talking about what kind of film it was likely to be given the poster, the director and the outline. Then we went to the cinema, where we met up with Susan and K plus a whole bunch of other HE families we know and sat on the back row of the cinema for the first time in my life 🙂
Before the film started we had a talk by the Disney Pixar marketing manager for the UK and a chance to ask a few questions. Nothing scintillating, but nice to see them making an effort 😉 Then a trailer for the new Disney version of A Christmas Carol which was in 3-D and so scary that A was literally shaking on my lap 🙁
Up itself was very good. We all wore our 3-D specs, although A just looked through them while I held them in place for her and I had to perch mine on the end of my nose to avoid the headache I usually get from sunglasses. It was a bit loud (I find the cinema generally is) and the baddy was a bit badder and scarier than I’d expected, which caused problems for both L and A, while his main side kick was a dog, and we’ve just been working hard on helping A to overcome the sudden fear of dogs she developed without apparent cause a few weeks ago, so that wasn’t great. One of the goodies is a dog as well, so we’ve just had to dwell lots on that 😉 The boys, including M, loved it unreservedly and they all brought their 3-D specs carefully home as souvenirs.
We came home via mooching in shops (notably an extended stay and much playing in Hawkin’s Bazaar) and a huge traffic jam due to a broken down lorry on our favourite road *sigh* then settled down to make our own posters for a film similar to Up but to be Down, or In – or Sideways, if you’re K 😉
Music practice happened too, but Maths was unanimously voted to be delayed, unless you count Tutpup.

Nene Valley Railway Rail Mail Day

On Monday. It was a fantastic day, perhaps best summed up by this video.

Highlights of the day included addressing, stamping, posting and franking letters, then travelling with them on the old post train, seeing how the mail bag exchanges used to be done (until 1971) on the track side, then collecting and sorting the mail and finally receiving back the letters we had posted in the first place. Activities were set up slightly differently for readers and non-readers to make sure everybody had a chance to join in at their own level and all my children voted the sorting to be the best part of the day and would happily have done it for twice as long 🙂 In between all that there were engines (including the original Thomas the Tank Engine – but with no face as that is now TM 🙁 ) and carriages to see, bridges and platforms to explore, a playground for letting off steam, a gift shop and a cafe to visit… and we still got back in time for L’s gymnastics and K’s Beavers 🙂

Not surprisingly then Tuesday morning was normals and catching up, then violin and gymnastics.

Wednesday was another Latinetc day, as last week’s had been a delayed one. Helen had brought a nice array of poisonous chemicals for the children to play with :mrgreen: and they made invisible ink in different ways to see which method would be best for spies to use 🙂 Latin happened too, with both groups coming together to make up little doctor/patient plays which they performed at snack time. Music, both theory and practical, and French were squeezed in too, but we all agreed that we missed Merry’s craft as a keep-’em-busy time filler for those odd children in gaps between activities. Then almost before we knew it it was time to head over to cello and Baby Music and then back for a little more play with J, E and S as Gina wasn’t teaching until later. A quick tea for our Cubs as they had an early start to the meeting this week, with torches needed as they were to walk across the fields to the next village, where they were able to go into the church and ring the bells 🙂 an early night for K and L so that they at least wouldn’t be too tired today (but a late one for A who had napped after Baby Music) and an evening of Suma ordering and whittling for me.

Today was Tots and Philosophy. K was initially not very keen, as he said they had been repeating lots of things last time, but after being persuaded to give it another try he came out happily saying that they had moved on this week and it had been great again 😀 M seemed to cope, L loved it and J was happy enough. Despite traffic we managed an early start and fitted K and M piano and J/J French in before Tots started, while L, S and A had fun with large amounts of newly-arrived MegaBloks and the play-dough and laminated mats from last week. We had a few new families this week, which is lovely, but always seems to make for more chat and less work, leaving us with a few boxes unticked at the end of the day. Normally this wouldn’t matter at all, but we seem to be in the middle of an incredibly busy period just now and we’re struggling to get any sensible amount of work done at all. Free films this week and next will take up more time, and lots of visits seem to have been planned all at once too. I’ve already declared next week to be half-term and warned the children that we will use the break from activities offered by actual half-term to catch up on normals. Such a slave-driver I am 😉

Anyhoo, after Philosophy Gina grabbed various people and did recorders then we sat and talked poetry while we ate lunch. A bit more French (persuading K’s friend K [why must both my boys have friends with the same initial??] to have a go too) – playing games with knife, fork and spoon then looking at food vocab – and lots of play and it was time to leave. Maths just had to happen when we got home, although it was only finishing off yesterday’s work really. Ah well, tomorrow is another day – and we’ll be spending a fair bit of it at the cinema…

Days off

Friday was a day of much-needed rest 🙂 The car was in for its MOT so we couldn’t have gone out if we’d wanted to and after a busy week and with a busy weekend ahead we didn’t really want to anyway. So we stayed in and did normals, with lots of computer time (mangahigh when tutpup played up) and general pottering. In the afternoon I had a student here so the children obligingly took themselves off to the annexe to make birthday cards, then we had tea and an early night 🙂

On Saturday I had a day off from children, or at least from my own children 😉 It should have been a morning at work while Bob took them to Music School and then we were to have met up for lunch and to go to an afternoon party and then straight from there to C’s swimming party. In the course of the morning, however, the woman who was to have taken over from me in the shop phoned to say that she was ill, so I ended up offering to stay all day and cover her shift, which left Bob on birthday party duty by himself. I suspect I may have got the better end of the bargain, since I got to chat about slings, nappies, maternity clothes, babies and births with old friends and new customers, while he got to organise children into party mode, chat to old friends whilst keeping an eye on children high on chocolate and sugar and then round them all up again to come and collect me for the swimming party.

Swimming party was great (many thanks to Michelle and Marcus for having us, and happy birthday again to C 🙂 ) and it was lovely to see so many friends and have the chance to stay and chat for a while (rather longer than intended, actually) even if it did make us late back (rather later than intended). A few memorable moments include watching Bob trying (and failing) to get onto the floating obstacle course to help Small, A waiting patiently for her turn on said floating obstacle course, which she was sure would come if she just followed somebody onto the floats, and the oldest Rainedrop standing shivering under the shower, complaining that it was freezing and that wasn’t fair as ours were all warm. “Well, it does have a sign saying “Cold Shower”!” said at least two of the other girls (proving HE children can read 😉 ) and SB gleefully offered to swap as she prefers cold showers, apparently…

Sooo, Saturday ended far too late and Sunday started far too early, for me at least. I left the house at 8 to get to a Baby Show by 8:30 where I was to help Lisa on a sling stand, leaving Bob to take the children to church, supervise music practice and generally child-wrangle. A was very upset at my going (two days in a row without Mummy is just too much, it seems) and I had to get Bob up to look after her, which I suspect had not been part of his plan. The show was fun, though, and it was lovely to work with all my favourite slings and to feel free to suggest other things as well, as Lisa has no qualms about sending people off to buy second-hand or from somebody else if that’s what will work for them. My weighted doll’s leg, mended with elastic bands, stayed on 🙂 and although we didn’t make many sales at the time there were several people who wanted things in different colourways and will hopefully order online in the next few days. If nothing else at least lots of people got to see, touch and try slings they might not have thought of using 😉

What the children did Bob will have to blog…

Bittersweet

Today the consultation process into the proposed redundancies at work formally ended. The redundancies will go ahead, so on Monday the normal programming work in the office will basically stop – all that the people being made redundant will need to do on Monday is receive the formal letters, hand in company property, collect their belongings, and leave.

The number of people who, like me, have got new jobs with the company (in the same office) has gone up a bit, but still about three quarters of the people at risk will go. There were some other people who have never been at risk (the people running the data centre, and technical support) but not many.

When the UK company I used to work for was bought by the US company I currently work for, there was an interesting interplay of influences. Both companies had a billing product, but aimed at overlapping rather than identical markets. The US had a few mega-customers, the UK had many small customers. The US had, for several reasons, a get-it-out-the-door-fix-it-later approach, and the UK (also for several reasons) had a get-it-right-first-time approach.

What happened was the US product was pensioned off, and the UK product adopted as pretty much the only show in town but needing lots of work to cope with mega-customers. The two approaches were combined – officially it was the UK approach, but it never got the whole way to adoption (for several reasons 😉 ). The UK high-ups gradually all left or were made redundant, so the official clout of the UK was reduced, but the slight change in culture and complete change in code had already become permanent. An Indian outpost was set up, to take advantage of the large pool of talented cheap labour.

And now, the UK development group has stopped. All work previously done by the UK is supposed to be done by India (with the US continuing as before). Whether or not India is up to the job is uncertain.

Those like me who are left are supposedly doing new jobs – proper research e.g. investigating new technologies and new markets, and also consulting with customers over things that don’t fit easily with the development sausage machine view of the world. Whether or not we will actually be pulled back to help India is uncertain. We will all be huddling together in one bit of the office – this means a change of floor for me, and also a change of boss – so that half the office can keep its lights off.

Every Friday for about a couple of years there has been something called Happy Hour (cakes etc, starting at 4 p.m.) so that people can mingle, particularly aimed at building a community between our building and the local sales office across the car park. This week one of my long-standing colleagues, who worked in the sales office and was a prime mover behind Happy Hour, died suddenly after a long illness. She was a lovely woman – always smiling and enthusiastic in a nice kind of way.

Anyway, today our section went to the pub for lunch, and then back to the office for an especially extended Happy Hour. The pub was great – lovely surroundings, no sign of gallows humour or unhappiness, just friends enjoying themselves together. A colleague on maternity leave brought in her very cute baby. And there was a very nice pub cat.

Happy Hour was bittersweet. I tried not to think too often that I wouldn’t see most of the people after Monday. I wouldn’t say that I got on hugely with everyone, but there was no-one that I actively disliked, and I knew pretty much everyone and trusted the judgment of most that I knew. Many had worked together for 5 years, and quite a few for 10 or more – we were a team, who had achieved a lot. But no more. My new job does sound like it could be very good, but there’s a lot of ways I can see it not going well, so I’m not fully happy or sad or anything at the moment.

I still have a job that pays the bills, I have a home (at least, the bank has 😉 ), a lovely wife and four children who are smashers, so in the proper way of looking at things I am richly blessed.

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday – it’s all rushing past!

Tuesday morning was spent playing catch-up after a long day out on Monday. J and M did lots of long multiplication 🙂
The afternoon passed by in a haze of violin lessons and gymnastics, with many complimentary remarks from Christina about the improvement they have all made over the last two weeks 😀 It’s always nice when you can see the results of hard work and practice 😉 She’s also started talking about a tiny violin and 2 minute lessons for A, who loves to watch the others having their lessons. I think we’ll see whether Father Christmas has access to anything suitable…

Wednesday was a Latinetc day at last 😀 so the children and I had a speedy tidy-up , floor sweep etc session first thing – we’ve been far too busy to keep on top of things recently – and then laminated some playdough mats from sparklebox to go with the large quantities of smelly playdough we made the other week. Helen did some experiments with both older and younger groups, working out what different substances were by seeing which properties they had. I did Latin with two different groups and then acted as Helen’s lab assistant instead of teaching French because Merry was doing such fab fimo-ing that my students were all busy 🙂 It was really nice to see what they were up to 😉 Michelle cooked vast quantities of pasta for lunch and Gina grabbed any spare children to do practical music theory work which sounded like great fun from where I was. All good stuff then 😀
Cello and Baby Music after that, then back for tea and J and M had Cubs, which was a session on making smoothies and mocktails. They came back full of interesting mixtures of juice and yoghurt and with a packet of sweets their group had won for inventing the best smoothie 🙂

Today was Tots and Nots, which started early so M could get a good piano lesson in and finished late because there was no sport to dash off to this week. Alongside the usual Tots stuff (and lots of playdoughing using the new mats) we also did piano, recorders, French, maths (long division this time) and some parachute games with the enormous CHEF parachute we didn’t know was going to be coming our way until it arrived unexpectedly 🙂 S very nearly fell asleep on me while Gina was doing recorders, revived to eat lunch, but was then happy to come with us when Gina popped off to teach another pupil. He fell asleep in the car while we did Freecycle errands, stopped briefly at a playground and then drove to Gina’s, where he continued to sleep while we did the Geography/poetry things we hadn’t done at Tots because parachute games happened instead. Lots of reading, writing and acting happened, followed by lots of playing and a very little bit of wii-ing and before we knew it it was time to head home again for tea and bed. New sheets for M again (not much of a problem as he changes them himself and washing them is easy; it’s only drying that’s ever a pain). I think I’m seeing the pattern though – it’s always either Tues after a busy gymnastics session, lots of water to top up, late tea and bed or Wed after Cubs, second tea and late night. This week it was both. Now I’ve seen the connection I just need to think of a solution…

Tomorrow is an enforced (and much needed!) day at home as the car is in for its MOT (fingers crossed please!) – a good chance for some R and R before a stupidly busy weekend :frog:

Mini beasts, dens and running around in the woods!

Autumn fun day at NT property nearby, with lots of other HE families 🙂
We started with a long walk to the new nature area on the edge of the fens, where we should have been doing pond dipping, but the ponds had had to be drained for maintenance so we did mini beast hunting instead. They provided trowels, tubs, magnifying glasses, microscopes, laminated sheets with beasts to identify and similar useful equipment, showed the way to the den building area and then left us to it. The children split themselves into groups and started off digging under logs and collecting things to investigate, then gradually the older ones drifted away towards the den building area…
We manage to coax them back for lunch and then they were off again! Meanwhile those who were so inclined had apple bobbing to try and crafts to do, making walnut shell cribs with bean babies in them, leaf rubbing books and so forth. Oh and conkers to skewer, string and challenge to duels!
Five hours passed very quickly and then it was time to get back for L’s gymnastics session. Recorder practice happened in the car – I would never have imagined that I could ever be as tolerant of recorder noise as I am! Managed to head off four simultaneous but different practices by suggesting they take it in turns to choose tunes for all of them to play – phew!
Big Alice came to pick up K for Beavers and the remaining children took it in turns to do piano and violin, then were sent off for an early night. K was late back after a bat evening (heard but not seen, as put off by over-enthusiastic Beavers with torches, apparently) but able to make the time up by sleeping late this morning 🙂
One slightly sour note: a phone call from another mum who had been there to say that she had been concerned by the rather rough games (boys v girls) that the children had been playing 🙁 This led to another chat today about being extra gentle when playing, even when other children seem to want to play rough games, and a reminder that they, particularly J and M, are the big ones in many of the groups we go to and need to remember to be thoughtful of everybody else…

Today was a restful day, with lots of long multiplication for J and M, Singapore Maths for K and L, a little English, today’s Latin word (actually a reminder of what first person singular, plural etc mean) and then violin lessons for J, L and M. Quick dash back for chocolate biscuits and the aforementioned chat and then off to gymnastics with K, piano for M, recorder for J, swap gymnastics children, make tea, take delivery of new car (!), collect J and M and hand over large cheque for gymnastics, more tea, cello for K, new DS game (Millionheir) for J and M and bed all round.

And then a frustrating evening of exchanging messages with an ebay seller over an item not as described when I could have been getting frustrated about insurance quotes for Bob’s new car instead *sigh*