Category: Uncategorized

New year, new term

New Year’s Eve – lovely party, which we left rather later than planned having been seduced by the promise of sky lanterns at the time we should have been going home 🙂 They were worth it though! Thanks for a lovely time Em 🙂
We listened out for the seven pips at midnight (leap second!) but disappointingly Radio 4 (which we had thought our best hope of getting pips) elected to play the usual chimes of Big Ben instead 🙁 Lots of fireworks to watch as we drove along the quiet A14 though 🙂

We spent New Year’s Day with Rebecca and family, back from the States for a visit. As usual, a little time is not enough, but it’s good to have the chance to catch up a bit. Perhaps we’ll make it out there one day. Or maybe the University will come through with a fantastic job for Benedict 😉

I was preaching on Sunday 4th, so it was handy on Sat 3rd that there was a children’s Christmas party at the local Methodist church to which Bob was able to take J, K, L and A while I worked on the service. (Incidentally, I’m thinking I might start putting services in here, maybe tucked away a bit or something…) It was all age worship, so lots of props and activity. Seemed to go well, I think 😕

Monday 5th was CHEF sport, the first session of the year. The only way I managed to get the children up was by pointing out that there was snow (!) and that we could go and play in the park after the sports session if they wished. In the end the traffic was so bad that we missed half of K’s session, L decided that she’s not yet big enough to do sports (fair enough; she’ll do it when she’s five and stops Mummy milk, she said – one thing ending and another beginning 🙂 ) and J enjoyed his session until almost the end when the teacher (who treats the older group rather like Army recruits at times) made the losing team in some contest or other do burpees. J was so tired he stumbled out and burst into tears 🙁
We went to the park with a few other families and the children enjoyed playing in the snow, once we had established a few ground rules for all, including the boy who looked at me as though I was mad when I told him off for putting snow down BB’s back (really shoving it down inside her T-shirt!) – apparently that’s how they play with snow in his family, as his mum pointed out when I mentioned it to her. He was a bit put out when asked not to throw snowballs in people’s faces at point blank range too; a useful lesson in not taking family rules for granted, I guess.
Bob was giving blood in the evening, but somehow we hadn’t made an appointment for me (usually they get made together so one of us can go while the other childminds, then we switch over – the mobile donation unit comes to an industrial area 5 minutes’ walk from the house) and apparently you can’t make appointments on the day or donate without an appointment. The alternative date I was offered I can’t do, so I guess I’m going to miss out this time 😕

On Tuesday Big Alice came for the day and we had a nice day of not much. There was no CHEF swimming so we had thought about going to the local pool, but Alice was late and we had dental appointments in the afternoon so the children took Alice to the park instead, while I got an hour or so of assorted housework done. Dentist was fine. J needs to clean his teeth better (which we’ve been telling him for a while, but maybe he’ll listen to the dentist!) and the others are all great 🙂

Wednesday was Latin etc – the first one with added Puddle girls. It went very well, and J, K and L all agreed at the end that it had been more fun with the extra girls than without them, so that was good. There may be a little shaking down of groups, I think, as we now have a fast Latin group (F, J, J) and a rather slower group (M, A, C, SB and K) but the slower group is fairly spread… We’ll see! Merry brought lovely soft toy sewing stuff, which the younger ones enjoyed while the older ones were doing Science, and they were all very excited to make a spirometer and find out their lung capacity. We did pencil case contents in French and the non-fast Latin, non-younger science girls also did some interesting-sounding work with Gina and some handbells 🙂 It was quite hard to drag ourselves away at 1:30 to get to Baby Music. I’m looking forward to the sessions when we don’t have to but can fit in some afternoon fun too – maybe Art and French, or some playing in the field…
Baby Music was fun, but K was desperate to see what we were doing so asked the teacher if he could watch too and was instead invited to sit in the circle with us, which meant he could not help himself but just had to join in with great gusto!
No gymnastics yet, and no cubs, so an unusually leisurely Wednesday evening 🙂

Thursday 8th Tots and Nots should have been a Book Club week, but the older group organiser was ill, so it was actually quite a quiet session. Rebecca and co came along, which was lovely (Tots is where we met so it feels right to have them there!) but very hard to say goodbye at the end, knowing that we won’t see them for at least another 6 months 😥 We stayed very late in the end, getting useful things done. I like T & N sessions where we feel we’ve done okay by the families who come along for a toddler group but also managed to fit plenty in for the older children and added a bit of straightforward box ticking work for our own children too 😀

On Friday we had intended to go and see R and co, but they were busy so we postponed until 16th and had a catching up day at home instead. We got out all the crates of books and decided which workbooks the children will use this term and where we’re going to try to get to in them. Susan dropped Joy off (we’re dog-sitting for a week) in the middle of all this, so there was also lots of playing in the garden 🙂

Writing thank you letters has made me realise that while K is very willing his writing is still very unformed. We have done work on letter formation but not recently and he doesn’t seem to have translated that skill to actual writing. His preferred way of writing is to have the words written down for him first so that he can copy them, but watching him closely I realised that he is copying the letters almost like pictograms, so that they look right but they are produced in a fairly random way. The big goal for this term, therefore, is to be letter formation for K and L, because he needs to revise it before bad habits become too ingrained and she needs to learn it all anyway. J, meanwhile, is going to work on getting his cursive script going properly, because just a little work on it made him realise that it is not only neater but also faster 🙂
On Saturday I wrote out a plan for the week and we got cracking 🙂 We’re a bit behind on Singapore Maths, so the aim is to do 10 ex. in the course of the week, with a big catch up on Saturday if needed, ready to start a fresh week on Sunday. English will mostly revolve around letter formation/cursive. We looked at the week and where we can fit work sessions in (not many places) and when might be good times for Bed Ed instead, curling up to read SotW or similar because we’ve been out all morning and are too tired for anything else, for example. I’m determined that the automatic telly-turning-on that the children seem to have fallen into will stop!

Monday 12th was a busy day (not good for our work schedule!) with an animation workshop for the boys and a Police dog handlers talk for the girls (not gender specific, it just worked out that way!). We picked up J and E on the way (from a school where their parents were busy doing Plough Monday stuff) and then went to S’s house with assorted Lego bits. S’s dad had stepped into the breech when the planned animation workshop leader was unable to do it 🙂 Small groups worked with him and Lego doing storyboards and then lots of photos to be run into animation while the rest of the animators worked with magnetic pictures on a board (again taking photos to play in sequence), flick books and zoetropes. The littler ones just played and parents chatted or helped out until it was time to head off for the police dogs talk in a church hall in town.
We arrived at the same time as the policemen, which was great as the children got to see the dogs in their vans and to chat to the handlers a bit first. The session itself started with a quick run down of what the policeman was wearing and why. One of the mums asked how heavy it all was and was given the vest and accoutrements to wear so she could see for herself – general answer = a lot! We met two different dogs, the first a general purpose German shepherd, who was asked to attack the policeman who was not his handler (through a large padded sleeve, but it still looked slightly scary) and the second a completely soppy Labrador trained to sniff out explosives, who demonstrated his skills by finding test-tubes containing blotting paper which had been wrapped around plastic explosives. They’re trained not to touch what they find (thanks to the number of dogs killed by IRA booby-traps) but to sit and stare at it until the handler comes to investigate. This particular dog loves to play so has been trained using a ball, which he believes comes out of the wall near to the smell- the trainer was very careful not to let him see the ball before it bounced off the wall above his head! Afterwards the children queued up to pet the sniffer dog (but not the attack dog!) which he put up with very nobly for a while, before retreating under a table.
Back across town to pick up the boys, then we dropped J and E off at a different school (still Plough Monday stuff) and came home.

Swimming on Tuesday 13th was momentous enough to have a post of its own!

Wednesday was Latin etc again, this time with added smoking! Joy spent the morning in the garden, with occasional visits from children wanting to play with her. Had to dash off again to Baby Music, then back for Gymnastics, then a quick tea for J before Cubs – busy Wednesdays back with a vengeance!

Thursday 15th was Space Day at Tots and Nots 😀 One of our regular parents worked on the Phoenix mission and this was a follow-up talk to one he did a while ago about it. I think it went well (I was with the Tots so missed the talk itself) and apparently there were lots of interesting questions, like why didn’t they use windscreen wipers to keep the dust off the windscreen so they could see? There were some fun activities too, which kept the children busy, but again we managed to fit in some normals, so Gina and I were happy 🙂 I think this Tots and Nots might just work out 😉

On Friday 16th we finally managed to get down to Horsham to see friends we’ve somehow failed to meet up with multiple times. By the time we’d exercised the hound and everybody had got ready we were rather later leaving than we’d hoped, but that didn’t seem to matter when we got there and we were able to stay late enough to see all the children as they got in from school 😀 The Dartford toll has gone up though, which took us by surprise and meant we had enough change to get there but had to borrow from our friends to get back! Oh, and the headlights didn’t do anything when I turned them on, so we had to drive home on full beam 😯 Fortunately the car has a control which adjusts the full beam to be high or low so I managed to dip them enough not to dazzle everybody, I think. We didn’t see any accidents anyway…

A musical interlude

Bob took lots of time off over Christmas and New Year, with the intention that we could see family and friends, have a relaxed couple of weeks and also get lots of house and workshop sorting done. Oh and some planning for this year. Instead the girls and I all ended up with very unpleasant flu which laid us out for a couple of weeks and meant that we missed out on seeing some (but fortunately not all) of the friends and family we had hoped to spend time with, spent lots of time resting but without really feeling rested at the end of it, got hardly any house/workshop sorting done and failed pretty much completely on the planning front. Ah well, c’est la vie!

J had a good time at Holiday Orchestra, however, and is now enthused about recorder. We’ve promised him (erm, actually, I may not yet have discussed this fully with Bob 😳 ) that when he has the triple whammy of Grade One in theory (tick) recorder (working on it) and piano (lots more practice needed, hence the discussion) then we will buy him the instrument of his choice to move on to, with the proviso that we can afford it, of course 😉 He’s extremely eager to learn trombone or trumpet so hopefully this will give him the shove he needs to get back into regular practice habits 🙂
In the meantime one of my not yet done jobs is to set him up to try out a few brass instruments, hire one for a few months and find a teacher we can afford to get him started – no point buying an instrument we’re not sure he’ll stick at
K is asking for the same offer to apply to him, which is good because he was not so keen on the idea of theory, as it involves more reading and writing than he currently feels comfortable about (confidence in literacy is one of our things to work on with K for this term, I think). He’s really enjoying recorder and desperate to go to Holiday Orchestra when he’s finally old enough (next time!) so he can have a go at Gamelan like J 🙂
L has just started pootling on the piano and veers between enjoying it and bursting into tears at the very thought 🙁 so I think that’s one we need to take gently. She certainly doesn’t have the bouncy enthusiasm both boys had when they started but I haven’t yet worked out why 😕 She is doing recorder too, despite Gina’s qualms about teaching children under year 2, and seems to be managing okay there. Pairing up with BB is fun for her 🙂
A is doing Baby Music and has just started to really get into it, which is just as well given that the classes are a) expensive and b) badly timed so that we have to cut our Latin etc sessions short on Wednesdays. The smile on her face when we’re singing or playing instruments in the sessions makes it worth it (she’s singing “goodbye Kate” behind me as I type 😆 ) for now though – and L loves to sit in (the others sit in the next room and play quiet games or do book work) which means we’re getting better value for money as she’s picking lots up too 😉

Now we just need to find a choir for the older ones (or I need to find one for me so I can get my confidence back and organise one for the children myself) and make some use of the cello we have sitting on top of the piano. L wants to start cello but it’s the right size for K or J… K and L still want to do violin too, but J is now sold on the idea of brass. I think we need a music grant!

Epiphany!

It was the first swimming lesson of term this week and J was doing his usual half-hearted dip the chin in when the teacher encouraged them to swim with faces in the water. I pointed out to him that swimming chocolate (fast becoming an institution) depends on them working hard at something new or challenging each week, not just taking part in the lesson, and suggested that his challenge for this week should be to put his face in the water flat, turn his head to the side (as if breathing whilst doing front crawl) and then put it back into the water. He hesitated, procrastinated, dipped his chin in, then his nose and then finally gave it a go properly and surfaced completely delighted with himself 😀
After the lesson he came into the toddler pool as usual while K had his lesson – and spent most of the next hour (including begging me for extra time) with his face at least three inches under the water, pulling himself along the bottom of the pool with his hands, or pushing with his feet, tickling people’s knees and only surfacing when he was either out of breath or his goggles were full of water. I think we may have a had a breakthrough 😀

Not content with that, on Thursday J helped me to prepare a pomegranate for Tots. He did one last week as well, so knows what to do now, but whereas last week he looked horrified at the idea of actually eating the thing, this week he asked if the seeds were okay to eat and on being assured that they were popped one in his mouth… and then another… and another. We have another fruit to add to our repertoire 😀

It may take a while, but I think we’ll get there 😉

busy week

quick resume to fill in later:

Monday – shadows show and workshop; Wed planning
Tuesday – swimming, shopping, odd jobs and errands
Wednesday – hearts, Latin, French, Z; CHEF planning
Thursday – Tots, book clubs, science, recorders, present-making, christingles
Friday – odds and ends and music
Saturday – UEA lectures and family visits

Frenchcamp?

All the way back from Niccamp (apart from when engrossed in Robots) the boys were asking if we can do a “Frenchcamp” next year so I’ve been researching a bit and have a few ideas to get down partly so we can see if anyone else might be interested and partly so I don’t just add them to my long list of bookmarks I never look at again…

According to P&O website, ferry looks like being £50 – £60 for a return, using May as an example; the site was so slow I can’t face doing it again for June and September just now!

Camping le Brevedent – just over 1 hour from Calais; 1h 30 from Parc Asterix; works out at 30 euros/night for us (basic pitch, 2 adults, 2 over 7, 2 under 7) if we go in May, June or September. I like the sound of the orchard camping or the conservatory if we had a group to fit together 🙂 Pools, mini golf, children’s and toddlers’ play areas and baby baths in shower blocks all sound good too 🙂 Oh, and on Wednesdays there’s a coach to Paris, apparently, while on Saturdays there are concerts and on Sunday evening the owner opens her salon to visitors wishing to hear her family history…

Similar price, but rather nearer to Calais (and correspondingly further from Parc Asterix, which appears to come high on Bob’s list of things to do, never mind the boys’ 😆 ) is Chateau du Gandspette
 which has heated pools, games room, sports field and tennis courts but looks more traditional in layout as far as I can tell from pictures (ie individual pitches with hedges between).

La Paille-Haute is the other side of Arras (so about an hour and 20 minutes from Calais) and looks to have more open areas for pitching, but comes across as being more basic. There is still a swimming pool, though, and it’s a bit cheaper – 21 Euros 50 for 4 people (plus 2 Euros for each extra child under 7 so 25E50 for us) per night. There’s a playground, a children’s games room and apparently also a bouncy castle, although I’m not sure if that would be there out of season. They’re very proud of their family parties and soirees dansantes too – hmmmm 😕

Anyhoo, just putting down a few ideas for now 😀 Of course there’s always the option we used to go for pre-children, of getting the ferry, driving until we find a nice-looking town and then stopping at the camping municipal until we’re bored, at which point we pack up, find the mairie to pay our 5 euros or whatever and move on to the next town. Definitely the cheap option, but somehow less appealing with four small children in tow!

An exciting weekend

This was the weekend of the messy party part 1, but with bonus excitement and fun beforehand. The fun was a trip to the school fair of the primary school round the corner, where some friends of J and K go. We only caught the last half an hour, and I had limited cash on me. But we came fourth in the challenge to build a tall self-supporting structure out of marshmallows and (uncooked) spaghetti. It’s surprisingly hard because most structures were too wobbly. J finally settled on the idea of lots of triangle-based pyramids with stuff on top. And the very nice man running the inflatable assault course and slide thing let them have an extra go round each, so the last of money spent on that paid for more fun than I was expecting.

There was a bit of getting the house straight, then more this morning. While I was washing up I heard a very loud bang from in front of the house and a Renault Clio drove past on the pavement and then stopped. I went out and the people living in the houses opposite were all out of their houses, no other cars around, and it turned out that the car had come off the road, banged into the first house, scraped across it and the next two houses and then stopped. On the way it cracked a front door step, knocked out a section of plastic drain pipe and cut two plastic gas pipes. The driver has a few scratches, very much in shock, but otherwise OK. Gas and emergency services were phoned – the gas people said we shouldn’t attempt to block up the pipes, even though they were making ominous gas-rushing-out noises.

The driver got taken in by one family, we got passers-by to cross onto the other side and made sure no-one was smoking. The police arrived and we started turning cars away. The fire brigade arrived and coned off the road, milled around for a bit, then finally put some temporary bunging stuff on the pipes. The gas people arrived in a van, which even though it had orange lights on the top couldn’t compete with any of the fire engines or police cars, although was probably better than the fire incident commander’s car. The gas bloke had a bent coat hanger looking thing to sniff out gas, and went into the houses and apparently checked the drains (because gas is heavier than air it could sink down through drains and grates and risk a later explosion). Altogether there were 3 fire engines, 4 police cars and a police van and 3 gas vans at one point or another.

Fortunately that was all sorted in less than an hour, because we were all asked to leave our houses, and we could get back in and finish off getting ready. Guests arrived in shifts, and the first shift managed to turn the stuff-out-in-paddling-pools phase into a full-on messy fight before the second shift arrived! There was the normal sand pit with fresh sand, a paddling pool of green cornflour and water, a paddling pool of cornflakes, a paddling pool of whipped up soap and water, a paddling pool of pink cooked spaghetti, and a paddling pool of silly string and shaving foam.

We did jam doughnuts hanging on strings, eaten hands-free and blindfolded, and then those who wanted cleared off to the field at the back of our house for the promised water fight. The arms race was definitely won by the other J’s water surface-to-air missile launcher, which had a fantastic capacity but needed pumping up fairly often.

Nice food and chatting, quieter playing indoors, and occasional changing into clean and dry clothes, warming up and so on for the combatants. The garden looks like a disaster zone, but much fun was had. We might be cleared up in time for the next go! Photos on Flickr soon.

Indecisive? Us?

So….. 27/28th September looks better for some people; 4th/5th October for others (possibly more?). We don’t mind, but we’d like to see as many people as possible and have as much fun as possible, so we’re going to do it twice! We have floor/bed/tent space available, as ever, and no set plans for either weekend (or, indeed, the Fridays before and Mondays after afaik) so you’re welcome to come early and/or stay late – but please bear in mind that that may involve helping out with getting ready or clearing away 😉 If you want to come to both and stay for the week in between, I’m sure that could also be arranged – and our children would be overjoyed! 😀
Messy activities welcome – and we have a distinct lack of paddling pools, baby baths, cement mixing trays and other suitable containers so those would also be welcome. We do, however, have a football table 😉
Food, drink and similar contributions also welcome 😀