Ahem

Only a few weeks to catch up 😳

October 18th – 24th included school films week, which we tried to take advantage of as much as possible, given other constraints. Monday was BF course, so no time for a film, but Tuesday strings group was early enough to let us go on to Kirikou et la Sorciere afterwards, which turned out, rather disappointingly, to be in English rather than the promised French but was nevertheless very enjoyable (utterly mad, but enjoyable!) and Wednesday’s Historyetc included a trip to see Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, which was excellent. Thursday Tots precluded a cinema trip, but we made it to art in the afternoon. All Friday’s films were fully booked, so we had part of the day at home to catch up a bit and then headed up to the Rainedrops for B’s birthday party 😀 Absolutely ace time with friends, doing lots of experiments and fun science as well as learning to levitate Maltesers and then staying up far too late.

Mon 25th and Tues 26th the boys had Bikeability, which they loved – great for K to gain some confidence in cycling and for J to build on what he did in France 🙂 Wednesday was Latinetc (cheating – sorry!) and since half-term and no cello we went off with HH and Zoe afterwards to see if we could find a geocache which had been troubling them for some time. Success spurred us on to look for another… Good fun – really should do this more often, and we talked of doing a Latinetc cache, which could be very cross-curricular 😉 Dashed back just in time to wolf down tea and go to an astronomy open evening (gave in to K’s pleading!) which was okay but tbh probably not worth the effort it cost us that evening. Ho hum.

The problem with blogging so long after the event is that I can’t remember what we did, unless it’s in the calendar – at least that makes it brief, I guess, but also frustrating as I’m sure there was more…

Mon 1st Nov we went to a Hallowe’en party with friends, including a treasure hunt, a candy hunt, pumpkin carving and large amounts of pizza, including one we ended up taking with us to eat in the car on the way to BF course 🙂 Standard Monday after that (which at this point meant BF course, then drop L at gym before going on to teach with children in tow, back just in time to teach again while children given tea by Bob, who had picked L up on way back from work, gulp down enough tea to keep going and off out to babysit in return for promise of future ceilidh band favours, while Bob took children to judo – phew!) including late nights all round, then early morning Tuesday for strings group… yawn – late night followed by early morning, not a good idea really! Tues morning at Gina’s then off to Djembe for our first session, to see if we liked it. The teacher is excellent, very encouraging and able to get everybody going but also to keep order without anybody feeling told off. A found it a bit loud so only lasted half the session, but that was fine as there’s a separate room for reading/playing/escaping 😉 Had to leave early to get L and A to violin though, which meant dragging the others away in the middle of a song. Back home for Rainbows for L, then gym for boys.

Wed 31st should have been a trip to Burghley House but we had been told we couldn’t go with under 5’s so a day off instead, apart from ‘cello which was uncancelled. Annoyingly it turned out to have been an excellent trip and we could almost certainly have taken younger children and just mooched around with them while older ones on trip 🙁 Ah well, will just have to organise an outing there ourselves when all old enough to go 😉

I was preaching on Sunday, so spent a fair bit of time getting that ready, which meant benign neglect for children (as well as Tots, Music School, trombone, ballet…) and then we were into another hectic week, this time with added Bikeability on Tuesday (Chris giving the boys a lift most of the way back for me so L could still get to violin) and a trip to the Royal Albert Hall on Wed 10th for the preview of the Celebrating Remembrance exhibition. Bob came along as well, which was lovely as we so often end up doing trips like that without him, and we met up with my uncle and aunt there too 😀 It was exciting to see our piece up in a frame and with beautiful lighting to bring out the colours (having been stuck back together in places by RAH staff – and they went out and collected some more conkers to go with it too 🙂 ) as well as looking at all the other artwork. There was an excellent piece about HE too, and why the RAH support it. We watched a presentation by a WWI re-enactor, about life in the trenches, met some Chelsea pensioners and listened to them talking about their experiences in war, then had a tour of the Albert Hall, including the Queen’s private entrance and box, which was great but unfortunately meant that we missed the re-enactor doing his Home Front presentation. I think I need to ask for his contact details, as he was truly excellent and would be well worth booking for HE group if at all possible. Once the preview was over we walked through Hyde Park admiring Anish Kapoor‘s World Turned Upside Down and had lunch in front of C-curve on our way to the Diana Memorial Playground. This was our first visit there and we were very favourably impressed, although it was bitterly cold. The children desperately want to go back in summer so that they can play in the fountains.

Thursday was Tots and then a dash across the country to art, which was great as ever, but meant that by Friday we were ready for a day of R and R! Saturday music school, trombone and ballet, Sunday Remembrance parade, this year for three of our four, and then lots of finishing off work ready for the BF course final hand-in on Monday 15th. Usual Monday, Bikeability Tuesday, Latinetc Wednesday (should have been History but was swapped with last week, when we were at RAH) – thank goodness for friends who are better bloggers than I 😉 😆 Thursday was Tots and Friday we stayed in for a Suma delivery which didn’t come – annoying as we had other things we would have liked to have been doing! Big Alice came to visit though, which made up for a lot 🙂

Saturday 20th was a big day for J, with assessments at a school he would rather like to go to, if not HE. We won’t know until March whether or not they have a place for him and tbh even if they do it’s going to be incredibly hard to get him there each day and very disruptive to everything else so… we’ll see… Meanwhile K and L had music school, and then L and A ballet, then I spent a peaceful evening babysitting.

Sunday found us welcoming F, my sister-daughter from Kentwell, come to stay for a few days of peace, work and playing with children. I think we managed the playing with children at least 😉

Bob has been spending lots of time working in London, which meant longer days than usual and some reshuffling of evenings/activities at times, but otoh had the bonus of getting him out of longer trips further afield. Tiring though, and made me very glad he normally works so near to home and with flexibility to bring stuff home rather than having to stay late often.

BF course now finished and one tuition session cancelled so a standard Monday but a little easier, especially with F around to do odd bits of childcare/ferrying when Bob not around 🙂 Standard Tuesday too but minus strings because we all overslept and with added ‘cello to free up Wed afternoon, then a shortened Latinetc on Wed to allow for a trip to the Botanic gardens, with organised activities for children over 7 and a wander round the gardens for the rest of us, before decamping to the cafe to warm up and chat 🙂 I should have been at a LP meeting in the evening, but forgot 😳 – frustrating as I found out later I missed some important discussions 🙁 Plus I’m leading the next one so really should have been at this one!

Thursday was a busy day for K, as after Tots and CHEF sport he went home with his alter ego K for a sleepover and was brought back to us after having been to an art session the next day. Our car was at the garage having suspension sorted so we had a day at home baking for HE camp. Usual music and dance-filled Saturday and then on Sunday we set off for Okehampton, leaving Bob behind, with yet more trips to London in the offing.

Pause for a cup of tea… Will try to come back to this later, but don’t hold your breath! (Sorry Michelle!)