mice and men (I think I’m a mouse)

Lots of changes of plan this week 😕

On Tuesday we met up at Gina’s, because S was ill so they didn’t want to travel. Our plans to get lots of work done were slightly thrown by S being uncertain whether he wanted to sleep or not, but we still ticked a few boxes and the children each wrote a poem based on the pattern of Baa baa black sheep – all pretty cool actually 🙂 After a quick lunch we headed off to violin, the first lesson in three weeks thanks to half term and then two lots of illness (the first ours, the second the teacher’s). It went well, though, and a good lesson always seems to give back a bit of impetus, so I’m hoping practices will be easier for a bit. Then back here for K to get changed and then off to gymnastics with him and back here for GCSE lesson – only one student this time as the other was ill, so she got an extra value lesson (group rate, individual tuition) and work to take for her partner. Meanwhile Bob was not quite getting dinner cooked before having to rush M and J to gym and pick K up, so the boys had to snatch a snack and then eat properly later…

Wednesday was to have been a craft session at a local nature reserve, but was cancelled at short notice, so we had a morning unexpectedly free to do normals. Lots of music practice, a little maths and some serious NaNoWriMo – none of them are looking likely to meet their targets, but they’re all enjoying the process anyway so I’m not worrying; we thought we’d have more time than we ended up having. Then J and I did the primary Maths Challenge paper (I finished first – phew! but was quite impressed with how well he sat and got on with it, even if he did need reminding that the ten minutes at the end would be better used checking his work than sitting back saying he’d finished!) before lunch and Baby Music. Back home for tea and then J and M had Cubs.

Thursday was Tots, as ever, but a very quiet session this time. Gina took J, J and M off to Multisport, while the rest of us finished up with the intention of following along to take petitions for anyone at multisport who wanted to sign. Unfortunately this plan was thwarted by a vicious attack on my person which left me, I suspect, mildly concussed (I was set upon by the metal rod designed to make the high level cistern of the church toilet flush; it flung itself at me from a great height and bounced on my head en route to the floor!) and distinctly unable to drive. Susan saved the day once we’d realised that K, K, E, L, A and both adults could all fit in our car so Susan could drive us straight to Gina’s where I could lie down for a bit while Dave then drove Susan (and A, they decided, so I could have a real rest 😉 ) back for her car. Meanwhile Gina picked up the boys from sport and then I took it easy for a bit while children all watched a film and then did Geography (seashore poem) and bits of music – thank you Gina and Susan :mexicanwave:
By about 6 o’clock (having bumped at about 12:30) I thought I felt well enough to get everybody home, but actually only made it a little more than halfway, through heavy traffic and bright lights, before deciding that having to concentrate that hard was Not a Good Thing and that discretion was the better part of valour. I pulled over and phoned Bob to come out in his little car and rescue us. By the time he got there I was feeling a lot better again so he took the big car and the children while I took his small car by myself and eventually we made it home.

Today’s plans? Well, they’re completely awry already! We were to have gone to Friday Club meeting and brought Z home with us so Sarah could get some more packing done, but I warned her yesterday that I might not feel up to it. We would have been late anyway, because at short notice we had a reminder that A had a 2 1/2 year check today – just as well they phoned as I hadn’t known about it! We did make it to that, and it was fine (HV spent more time chatting about HE and how nice my children were than anything else – always good to hear 😀 – and was intrigued about En Famille and how it works, then A jumped through all the hoops with a big grin :mrgreen: ) but our consolation for not going to Friday Club was to have been a trip to the playground on the way home and instead we trudged back through torrential rain and had to warm ourselves up with hot chocolate when we got here, by which time it was too late either for FC or to get to the other HE group history thing which had been our alternative possibility for today. Ho hum. Actually a quiet day at home is probably just what the doctor ordered for me (or would have been had I seen a doctor) if only the children would cooperate…. Music and NaNoWriMo… not sure *I* have the energy for maths, so it may be a day of videos after that… will look out for something vaguely edutainment online I think 😉

Music and bouncing, and a Big Switch

Saturday was music school (and a sling morning) then it was party time 🙂 Big hall, bouncy castle and lots of children – what could be better? Actually, J decided, as soon as the birthday girl let slip that the bouncy castle was officially for children 8 and under, that he shouldn’t go on it and so hid away in a back room doing NaNoWriMo (I need to get him to dictate some to me or he’s never going to reach his target – there just isn’t enough time, even when he snatches opportunities like that) while the others bounced and played. K was happy with the other K, A made friends with the other toddler S, L was happy to be with a small gaggle of small girls, including E and M just bounced. Lots 🙂
We came home and made Christmas cake (“Square or round?” I asked them. “Dome!” they said, “so we can make an igloo!” We’ll see how it turns out…), had tea and got everyone to bed.

On Sunday Bob had a list of jobs to do at home, but we also had free tickets to go and see storytellers at the city library, so we all went to our local Methodist church, came home for lunch and then those who wanted to go into the city (M, K, L, A) came with me while J stayed with Bob to do jobs. The storytellers were fab, as ever 🙂 and we then spent a few minutes reading in the children’s library before heading out to catch the parade and see the Christmas lights being turned on. It was slightly less frenzied and nowhere near as crowded as I remember it from a couple of years ago when we last went, thank goodness (1 adult and 4 children in a big crowd is not fun!) although we may have just been lucky in where we ended up (a cordoned off area near the stage) and the children all enjoyed the big build-up and countdown then the sudden brightness of the lights 🙂 As we were walking back to the car we saw a couple of men with a ladder quickly turning on the few lights which had somehow failed to come on with the magical Big Switch…

Today began with music and then a quick trip into town, livened up by a nosebleed from L (her first). By the time we made it back we had just time to put together a quick picnic before Z arrived for the afternoon. We took him (and lunch) to a HE park meet nearby, in the park we went to when M first arrived, which was fun, but cold and muddy. Temperature and wind chill notwithstanding we managed to stay there for a good couple of hours while the children ran around, flew a kite, played on exercise equipment and got progressively muddier and then took Z and L to gymnastics – L having washed in the sink at gym and wearing a pair of A’s leggings as hers were irredeemably muddy! Noodles for tea, then K went to Beavers, L to bed and M to the bath to try to get rid of some mud! Oh and somewhere in there we watched the Classic Buskers via Michelle’s blog – thank you 🙂

It never rains…

On Saturday the children had music school and I was working in the morning. J decided to opt out of ensemble and do NaNoWriMo instead – I think we need to slim down on options next term as M is doing singing he’d prefer not to do and J says he finds the ensemble too noisy and disorganised so would rather not do that. It seems silly to pay for them to do things they aren’t enjoying, especially now that they’ve given it a fair go. L and K are still keen to do everything, so it will also mean that first M and then J get an hour with Bob (and A) which could be quite useful if we think about how to make the most of it.
The boys are all signed up for Holiday Orchestra now too, and all doing Gamelan (J advanced and M beginner) so music isn’t going to be lacking 😉

Sunday was fine and warm (considering) for the Remembrance parade, which I think Bob has talked about already. All the children wore an extra jumper underneath their uniform and were then fine without coats 🙂

Monday was a morning of normals, with lots of fractions. I realised, after some miscommunications, that M really had not done fractions before (when we worked through some bits on Friday he got very distressed but it wasn’t clear that it was fractions completely which were the problem rather than just those exercises!) so we went worksheet crazy and printed off lots of useful maths stuff to give him a crash course 😉 He’s now just about caught up with J, although still rather shaky when we change types of sum – once he’s in the groove it works, then we switch to a slightly different problem and it all comes crashing down again 😕 Soo, it’s been a whole week of fractions, really – even K and L have started on them as they were interested in what we were doing 🙂 And A just enjoyed all the sharing out practicals :mrgreen:
In the afternoon one of my old schoolfriends (also L’s godmother) came to stay, shortly followed by another old schoolfriend (aso J’s godmother) who lives locally and just popped in for a cup of tea after picking up her boys from school. The children all pootled, while we chatted and ate cake 🙂 until it was time to whizz L off to gymnastics, then a quick tea for K before Beavers and a rather more protracted tea for the rest of us, with much chatting and catching up – oh and lots of stories for A, ever appreciative of a new story reader 😉

On Tuesday morning we made the most of our guest, with more stories and games, then got back to normals, with extra music practice since violin was cancelled. Gymnastics took up most of the afternoon and evening.

Wednesday was a HE group trip to Denny Abbey, which was fab. Sadly, I forgot the camera and we ended up in a group not with camera-toting friends, but the children completed pictures of the abbey buildings, made stained glass windows, decorated manuscripts and shaped and patterned clay tiles, so we have plenty to show for the day all the same 🙂 Before the last session had finished Gina took A and S off to Baby Music, along with E who was not feeling too good and we arranged to meet up again back at our house so that we could swap children back! Nearly didn’t make it, as the car kept cutting out and becoming more and more unhappy about starting again, then when we did poor E was really not very well and ended up borrowing a bowl and a hot Pudsey bear to get her safely home 🙁
In the evening J and M had Cubs, where they handed in their 20ps earned (for charity) over the last couple of weeks by doing jobs at home, got certificates to show they had attended the parade on Sunday and had a talk from members of the Armed Forces. There was a quiz, with prizes taken from a box of 24 hour rations – J came home with a block of oatmeal!

Thursday should have been a nice long catch-up Tots, with added Philosophy Club, but the car definitely had other plans and stranded us near a roundabout less than halfway there 🙁 I phoned Bob and he came out from work in his (little) car so I could take the keys and three children to Tots and leave him with two and the car to sort out breakdown services etc. It seemed most helpful to leave A with Bob, as she didn’t have Philosophy,and then J volunteered to stay and help look after her as he says the others like it more than he does and he wanted to get some NaNoWriMo done (he then left all his work in the car and so couldn’t get any done at all *sigh* but apparently did such a good job of amusing A that Bob was able to get some work done, so I guess I can’t complain too much really!). As we were leaving a police car was pulling up…
Even with a working car it was not all plain sailing, as the traffic was so bad it took us twice as long as usual to get into town and we ended up arriving an hour later than we had hoped and almost half an hour after the first philosophy session should have started. The day could have been saved, as it happened, because one of the church stewards was in and had already let a couple of Tots mums in, but since Gina and others who had come by car did not know this they had waited outside in the car park while the Tots mums wandered around inside the hall wondering where we all were – a bit of a comedy of errors really! Anyway, things had been more or less resolved by the time we got there and philosophy was underway so my three rushed downstairs to join in while I had a much need cup of tea and a quiet sob in the kitchen!
Both Philosophy sessions ran slightly short, to make up time, so we still finished at the usual time, but somehow the hall seemed extra noisy and disorganised and everything just wasn’t quite right, for no apparent reason. Lots of worrying and politics type stuff going on about forthcoming local HE group planning meeting/AGM didn’t help with general unhappy feeling, I think, and nor did my having arrived so late that we hadn’t got properly set up. We did some French, nonetheless, including colouring some flags and then playing a colours guessing game, and M had a bit of a piano lesson. Recorders didn’t happen though, as S was tired and grumpy and Gina had other things to do later which really required him to sleep. In the end Gina went home and we just packed away and walked to the library to meet up with the W-Ss. On the way I realised that we haven’t yet had a chance to do the touristy bits of the city for M – we really should try! – so we did some potted history. At the library the children all played very cooperatively on one computer (they had to as we only had one library card between us with which to sign in!) and then made friends with a slightly older boy who showed them how to get internet on the information point computer by going via google (oops! but a useful piece of info, I guess!) once their allotted pc time was up. Emily and I had a nice unhurried chat 🙂
Got home to A, who was very pleased to see me! J had had a good day avoiding work *sigh* and Bob had managed to get some work done, despite having forgotten to bring his laptop home *sigh* so not too bad all round really. Baths and early nights for all children. Yet another early night for me – I just don’t seem to be able to shake off a general under-the-weather-ness I’ve had for weeks now 🙁

Today’s plans, given that we are carless, the children are currently enthusiastic about libraries and our local(ish) library has finally been reopened had been to do normals and then walk into town to the farmers’ market, the library and maybe the museum. Torrential rain has scuppered that 🙁 Lots of music practice was easy, but normals somewhat harder as all still in car which is still at garage. More fractions worksheets therefore printed off 😉 Then a fairly riotous game happened, which I think I’d rather not know all about 😯 and lunch, followed by letting the children loose with a new science kit. Of course they went straight to the water experiments so now it’s nearly as wet inside the house as outside…

Maths without sums, violins with strings

Katy was in the shop on Friday, to cover for someone else. This was fine in the morning, but in the afternoon it clashed with an activity organised by the people who run a very nice toyshop (who we know through the local HE group). So I took the afternoon off and took the children to a local community centre where it was happening. J, JBiff and M were in an over-8s room, and the others were with me in an under-8s room. Both rooms had loads of toys, games and puzzles that helped with maths skills – J really liked Hive (the pieces are lovely, like hexagonal pebbles) and Tipover. Plus there were books to read (so A was happy) and an enclosed play area (so they could all give their brains a rest). It was very nice, and then we finally made it to a violin repair place in the village nearby.

J’s violin that we got fairly cheaply off eBay had trouble staying in tune, so Katy found an advert for a local repair place. I found the place, which was a lovely thatched cottage which looked gorgeous inside, but had a tiny workshop squeezed into a room about 12 feet by 5 feet. It had violins hanging up all over the place, a row of cellos and some double basses, and a workbench with all the bits and pieces you’d expect. The lady makes from scratch as well as repairing, and was very good with the children (she said she was one of five).

Fortunately the children were all very well behaved (and I was holding A) as standing in the middle with a bow you could damage tens of thousands of pounds worth of instrument just by turning around. One bass was from the 17th century but unfortunately run over in the 21st century and still in lots of pieces. Another had been flown from South Africa unaccompanied to be repaired! Yet she was very down to earth, explained to the children what she was doing and happy to do a quick, cheap repair to J’s violin. (The holes that the pegs go into were oval rather than round, so she filed them into shape.) She approved of K playing the cello, as she was a professional cellist from the age of 15 (and so still has one side of her back stronger than the other). Also, she’s French, and so had a quick chat to M in French. A home ed. trip in itself – for instance violin makers use rabbit glue so that it can be undone with heat. (Photos on Flickr.)

Back to the shop to meet up with Katy a bit late. The shop owners had dropped off the Stompa mattress they’d promised to us a while ago, but we had the big car full of children, and the little car was err… little. Katy did her excellent packing and managed to squeeze the mattress into the little car with it being just about safe to drive (in the dark and rain, along the A14 in rush hour – nice).

On Saturday Music School resumed, and that was its usual good self. In the afternoon J and M helped me to get some of the rolls of loft insulation up into the loft, and I spent some of Saturday and Sunday laying them out. It’s amazing stuff – a foil and plastic bag containing fibrous stuff made from recycled glass. When rolled up it’s about 3cm thick, but it expands to 20cm thick. The bags make it a doddle to handle, plus the fibrous stuff is nowhere near as itchy as the old stuff (that I suffered from in our last two houses).

Today the boys were all on Remembrance Day parade. Fortunately the weather was good – not too cold and no rain, and the boys put extra jumpers on under their uniform to keep warm. This all went well – we got to the rendezvous place on time, the march to the war memorial went OK, and the police stopped the traffic apart from during the hymns. During the 2 minutes’ silence an ambulance went by – it had lights and siren on and then when it got to the stream of stopped traffic it turned them off but kept going. Respectful and appropriate, I thought. It was better than last year, when the cars kept going nearly all the time.

L, K and M helped chop vegetables for a lunch that turned into tea, and then after lunch there was some playing while I was up in the loft. I took the children apart from J to the bottle bank and then feed the ducks on the way back, which we managed just as it was getting dark. A lovely tea (cauliflower and brocoli cheese, followed by apple and blackcurrant pie – I love autumn and I love my wife’s cooking skills) and then bed.

Those were the days my friend

I got a big letter in the post at the weekend from my college. Most of it was a yearbook of sorts, showing the matriculation (joining the college as a 1st year) photo – the big one where the whole year sat in rows in suits and gowns. We all looked so young and fresh-faced, but then it was over half my life ago. Then inside was a collection of the “what I’m doing now” for everyone. Mine was very out of date – no wife, no children, and two companies ago.

There were loooooads of people doing something in the city, generic important-but-boring-sounding law, or management consultancy and unsurprisingly quite a few academics. A handful had got married to each other. Two stood out as quite hard to beat in the Reunion Top Trumps stakes: one has been doing legal stuff for the UN in Cambodia – human rights abuses and so on. The other is presenting Newsnight. Our paths crossed at college so little (i.e. not at all) that I had not even been aware of her until I read the yearbook. I managed to imagine back from how she is to how she was and pick her out in the photo.

I dropped out from that year and restarted in the year below. I’ve lost touch with most people, but I know one is now deputy ambassador to Jordan (the country, not Peter Andre’s ex). Here’s a recent newspaper article and photo, for all you Arabic fans.

la la la laaa la-laa, la la la laaa la-laa …

Whizz go another few days!

On Sunday we took M along with us to our nearest Methodist church (his first time in a non-Catholic church since being here, although I’m not sure he had realised that). The children went out for Sunday school and Bob took A to the creche and ended up staying with her, not because she was unhappy to be left so much as because there were other little ones there who were unhappy and it seemed unfair to leave the staff with so many on their hands. That left me in church with a good preacher, nice sermon and no children 🙂 I was asked afterwards to consider going on church council. I think I might (because I just don’t have enough other things to do!) but haven’t yet given an answer because I don’t want to commit to something I then can’t do properly.
Sunday afternoon was a pootly kind of time, especially for me as I was not feeling too good and was developing an incredibly sore throat (lovely fungal infection I get when under par/overtired) and then we had a Latinetc planning meeting in the evening. Lots of timetable mapping out and some pooling of ideas – and lots of chocolate truffles courtesy of Dave 🙂

Monday was to have been a hard-working catching up kind of day, but in the end the children and I just about managed a keeping up kind of day. Normals happened, including music practices of various sorts, but we only just remembered in time that L needed to get to gymnastics and just about got K to Beavers. On the basis that we had only just managed a day at home with minimal activities I cancelled violin for Tuesday and we had a very lazy day until K’s gymnastics time. In fact, I had a particularly lazy day, as J brought me breakfast in bed (undercooked porridge and warm tea, so I had to sneak downstairs to nuke them both, but the thought was there 😉 ) and then asked what I needed him to do. I said him and M getting maths done would be the most helpful thing, as we’re rather behind our plan there, and then came down later to find J and all the younger ones sitting round the table doing maths together 🙂 M was upstairs (possibly writing a letter; more likely on the DS – which is now hidden away again after a couple of days like that 🙁 ) but came down and joined in the maths session when called (not by me – I had no voice!) so it turned into a relatively productive morning after all 🙂 J got a fair way into NaNoWriMo work too, although all the others have yet to start really (but all are signed up, as far as I remember J for 3000 words (!), M for 1000, K for 2000 and L for 300). All boys did gymnastics, pumpkin scones and savoury flapjack were made, the front room was tidied and I had my first tutoring session with a pair of GCSE students – lots of fun 🙂

Wednesday was Latinetc, without Michelle and C (A was very disappointed and kept asking for Michelle) but with some exciting burning experiments (seeing what colour flame different chemicals produce) which linked in nicely with Bonfire night and fireworks. The new timetable (written up, colour coded and laminated!) seemed to work well and at least meant that at the end of the morning if anything hadn’t been done it was by choice rather than by accident 😉 Doing French stories with a sofa full of younger ones right at the beginning worked well as a settler, I think, and S was happy to stay with me to read, which meant Gina could do flute and music theory sessions without him – definitely easier!
Usual dash from Latinetc to ‘cello and then Baby Music, then back here for a reviving cup of tea and a chance to recover before Cubs for M and J 🙂

Tots and Nots was Gina-less today, as J was not well, but Chris brought BB and SB 🙂 Only one other family came, so we actually had a rather nice quiet session, where lots of painting happened (using red and yellow paint and scrumpled tissue paper to make simple bonfire pictures) and a few word games were played (how many words from “The Gunpowder Plot”?) then we cleared away early (thanks Chris!) did a short songtime (all my voice could sustain), had lunch in the car and got J and M to multisport just a few minutes late. Apparently it was good (certainly it was tiring and both boys claimed to be dead or dying by the end!) but I have to admit I spent most of the time drinking tea and chatting while A and L did a French puzzle game and K watched the sports. I should probably have got them to do some work, but I knew we were about to go to Gina’s and S-sit for an hour or so while she took E and J to an appointment, so we’d have time to do something there 😉 That meant a chance to go over the maths (fractions) that J and M had given up on at Tots (lots of little circles of paper and a pair of scissors later I think improper fractions were making sense for M; J seemed to be able to visualise them without) and for L to write (with me scribing but her inventing) a rap about herself while K did some more pages from the excellent book Susan gave us, which he loves because he gets to choose a subject and do as many pages as he likes 🙂 Meanwhile A and S played – S kept bringing things through to show me, then abandoning them to see if there was something else which could tempt me away form the big boys 😉 When Gina and co got back there was just time for piano lessons for M and J (and a little one for L) while the others had a quick turn on the Wii and then we rushed home to bolt down some dinner before Bob took the bigger 4 out to the fireworks just down the road. A and I stayed in the warm 😉

Spooky Saturday

Saturday started with Astronomy for those who were up to it (M and J; K opted out) and then a supposedly quick trip to the DIY shop for Bob to buy lots of insulation (special offer, and we need lots!) which turned into a mammoth trek through horrible traffic and left me here with the wrong car… In the end I couldn’t wait any longer but had to just go with the children I had in the car I had, knowing that there would not be room for the children I had to pick up but hoping that I could either collect them from Astronomy and leave them somewhere safe while I dropped the others off at a nearby friends’ house or that somebody else would have spaces to ferry them to said friends’ house. I was late, but friends had waited (thank you!) and had spaces (thank you again!) so we all made it to our next stop, a Hallowe’en party at nearby friends’ house, where Bob later joined us with the right car!
The children carved pumpkins, ate pizza, cookies and pumpkin pie brownie, painted their faces, hunted for candy, built huge towers with Wedgits, ran like loons round the garden, played basketball and generally had a great time enjoying all the fun bits of Hallowe’en with none of the nasties 🙂 Then we came home for an early night!

Freebie Friday!

Friday morning was the second day of free swimming lessons and this time all four older children were doing them – except that L somehow managed to leave her swimming costume at home *sigh* so missed the first 15 or 20 minutes while Gina dashed home and fetched an E spare for her (thank you Gina!).
M had moved down and J up and groups had been consolidated and reduced so they ended up in the same group but effectively each with a personal teacher as the adult to child ratios were so high 🙂 K and E were very happy sharing a teacher and L shared a teacher with a child we didn’t know. All had a great time, except JH who got poked in the eye somehow and came out early to sit with a cold pack 🙁
Meanwhile Gina, A, S and I sat in the foyer and read stories, chatted etc.

After swimming we had a brief stop at home for lunch and a rest, then were off out again to our second activities roadshow of the week, also free. It was a little further away from home this time, so A and I went shopping rather than coming back here. Our intention had been to go to Lidl and get Christmas goodies, but the road was closed off by police so we ended up going round and round the one way system instead, eventually giving up and going charity shopping and finally making it to Lidl once road reopened with just enough time to grab Lebkuchen and not much else. While we were out plans for the evening had changed to include tea at the Manorborns, and since we were already 1/4 of the way there it seemed silly to come back home first as long as nobody minded being a bit scruffy. Only L and I minded, but I had just managed to find a nice charity shop skirt, L had spare jeans and Michelle was happy for us to use her bath so that was okay 😉

So, lovely tea and chat (thank you!) and then we all went to an excellent Unicorn ceilidh, where Bob and I were looking after little Biffs and we all had lots of fun trying to coach small people in the right steps for some quite tricky dances. The Grand Chain was great when we got it working, stripping the willow was a challenge, but I think we all enjoyed it anyway – except perhaps Bob, who spent a little too long walking the streets with a grumpy S, not realising there would be an interval when he could have watched a Morris group and Gina could have fed S. M was very taken with the large sticks and rather macho style of the morris – I think we may need to try to get to some of the displays in the new year! Bob having come straight from work in his own car we were able to split up and get those who wanted to do Astronomy on Sat home at a moderately reasonable time, but K begged to stay so he and I spent the rest of the evening dancing, with S on my back. K is totally smitten with C again and wants to do lots of dancing, whenever possible, but especially if she’ll be there!