Conservation and music

Last week being our busy week, it was Conservation on Friday. Unfortunately two of the main organising families weren’t there, which left us with not really enough adults to go out and do the work we had planned. Instead I supervised cooking while a small team of older children collected and sawed firewood so that we have plenty for the next couple of sessions and only need to top up. Meanwhile the new younger group got going with some craft activities, mostly making conker creatures and teasel hedgehogs, which looked such fun that several of the older ones went and joined them… The weather was gorgeous and they were all unhappy about being dragged away, but placated by the promise of time in the library if we got away on time (as opposed to an hour working in the car if we didn’t 😉 ).
Having dropped off the boys the girls and I went on to Lfish’s violin lesson. She’s starting to feel more at home with Simon, and is getting the hang of deciding for herself what they’ll cover, so this time she asked him to go over a scale with her and then help with some purple patches in one of her exam pieces. The lessons always seem to whizz by before they’ve done much, though; I think there’s a lot of “try this here and then apply it everywhere else for yourself” type learning going on. I hope so anyway! Afish did some Maths with me during the lesson and then we went to a nearby school to meet up with Z, who had invited her round to watch Frozen. This involved a ride on a tagalong, which she found rather daunting but managed and I think may even have enjoyed in the end 😉
I walked Lfish to choir and then went to find J and L and take them to their music session, leaving K in the library with his friend A to walk themselves to choir at the right time. I’ve no idea what they really do in music – it’s very much a drop them and come back later session – but they seem to be getting enough out of it to think it worthwhile so we’ll do it for this term and then see if J wants to carry on. L will probably not be here for enough sessions next term to merit doing it, but we’ll see how it goes and how flexible they are.
Lfish and I have been clashing a fair bit lately so I walked back via M&S and picked up some cream cakes for us to share, forgetting that her friend (A’s sister and also A) would be there too – as it happens she doesn’t like cream cakes (what!) so Lfish’s offer to share hers was appreciated but not taken up. K and A got carried away in the comics section and only just arrived in time – dashing through the door just as we were trying to ring them and ask where they were and then legging it up the aisle as the choir master was starting the warm-up.
K and A had been asked to stay behind after choir and help with the recording of an exam piece composed by one of the chamber choir girls, but when Sam saw that A and Lfish were still there too he asked if they’d like to help too, which they were very happy to do. It sounded lovely – a really good piece, for which I hope she will do well. Then the A’s dad arrived to collect them, bringing with him our A, and it was time to go home 🙂 Bob collected the boys from music so that we’d have some time to get back and make tea as well as giving me a little extra time for service preparation and that worked well; I think I might ask him to do that again 😉