Josiah’s French teacher set them the task of making a clock this half term – and she offered a possibly edible prize for the best one. Madame Stewart is well known for dishing out sweets in return for learning French vocab etc., so this was enough to spur Joe into action. I did help him a little bit, I confess. Well, it was more interesting than my own work!

I’m not sure that Mme Stewart will thank Josiah for it being quite such a BIG clock, but hey ho, she didn’t specify size! Et maintenant, c’est l’heure du petit dejeuner

The children have been wanting to go ‘fun’ swimming for a while, and I’d said we could go over the holidays; today was so successful that we will more than likely repeat the trip I expect! We went down to Torquay’s Riviera Centre, which, believe it or not, is the nearest pool with a chute and wave machine. The children swam (on their own – hurrah for them all being over 8!) and I sat in the cafe drinking coffee.

When they finally got out we walked across to Torre Abbey (didn’t go in though, will save that for our next visit) and had a picnic, then followed it up by visiting Antony Gormley’s ‘Field for the British Isles’ exhibition in the Abbey’s Spanish Barn. Abbie reckons she might have made some of the figures, at the Craft Fair in Bovey Tracey back in June – I don’t know, it’s possible that figures made there were used here, but she couldn’t recognise hers among the crowds anyway The kids fancied playing mini-golf too but that’s something to save for another visit as well. I did a little geocache instead!

We came home after that and Anna baked white chocolate brownies – it’s good, this enthusiasm for cooking! Abbie’s banana bread from yesterday is still my favourite this week though.

Steve turned up at home too, having won his class at Mamhead today, so he was happy as well. Topped off the good results with Joe’s phonecall to his violin teacher!

Torbay Motor Club, who run the hillclimb events at Mamhead, have a now traditional hog roast on the Saturday night, so Steve and I went back out to that this evening. Any extra money raised from this is donated to the church of St. Thomas which is on the Mamhead estate, and tonight they’d opened it up for us to look around. Sadly I only had my iphone camera with me, so these will have to do – but it was fab. I love looking around church buildings anyway, I must admit. This was a tiny church really, quaint, and very pretty – especially with the amazing view over the Exe estuary as well. We were able to climb right up into the tower to see the bells and the view from the top – the stairs to get there were a bit hairy but it was worth it!

Left fairly promptly as I fancied watching the Proms tonight, as they’re playing lots of classic MGM musical film themes. Really enjoying the whole thing, but especially Kim Criswell (stunning!) and the big band style of the orchestra, it’s fabulous! Even more incredible when I read on the RT site that in fact the original MGM orchestrations were ‘lost’ at some point, so the conductor of the orchestra has actually re-written the music from the films. Wow. Anyway, a nice evening vegging out with Steve and Saturday night tv (perhaps with some added ice cream) is a perfect end to a lovely day

Joe brought this picture home from school the other day, after some time spent studying Monet’s Waterlilies, obviously! I really like it – might even be one of the rare pieces of schoolwork that we keep around here!

Today, thankfully, dawned bright and clear. We got up and left the boys in bed (or on Wii) and went down to Bovey Tracey for the Contemporary Craft Fair with Ruth, Caitlin and Riona. My girls had been with them before but I hadn’t; plenty to do and see there, they enjoyed making stuff in the children’s craft tent and I enjoyed looking around the various exhibitions. Managed not to spend too much money! Ruth took some nice photos of the girls there … not sure what was going on with the dog!

After lunch I abandoned the rest of them and went off caching; ever since getting to 197 finds last week I’ve been itching to get another three! Happily did that this afternoon, and then another two which were killers, on the coast again, down steep hills both times – I’m tired! My arms were already hurting from playing too much DK Jungle Beat on the Wii yesterday, now my legs hurt as well, and I got somewhat scratched and stung in the hunt for one elusive cache as well. Oh well, it was all good fun, and the sun shone. Absolutely MUST set one of my own soon.

Home for dinner, some tidying up and laundry sorting (much to everyone else’s disgust – yes it *does* need doing before Monday morning) and looking forward to the final of the Apprentice in a minute

Then after piano lessons and tae kwon do (yes Tuesdays are very busy!), tonight’s entertainment was a showing of Theatre Alibi’s Teapot round at the kids’ school. I think this is the third or fourth time we’ve seen a Theatre Alibi production and they are consistently high quality in every way possible. Great storytelling, stunningly creative use of props, sets, etc., and some incredibly talented performers. The play was accompanied by a single cellist, using various special effects as well, and she was excellent too.

One of the kids’ friends gave them all some sweets which they ate on the way home, then as we got back all hell broke loose. Turned out that Abbie had offered Josiah a love heart which said ‘Cheer Up’ on it, but then in order for him to cheer up, in her wisdom she decided that he ought to be miserable first, so she punched him So he retaliated, unsurprisingly! Daft children. It did make me laugh, even though I shouldn’t have! Thankfully they both managed to say sorry and make up before going to bed, all is now peaceful!

Yesterday we spent the day in town. Firstly we tried to take back a cello string that had snapped after a week. I was incredulous that the one music shop in town was closed, I mean, I know it’s a bank holiday but if it were my shop, I’d have kept it open. Anyway.

We wandered down through town, doing a bit of shopping in various places, and ended up at the Cathedral Green in time for a re-enactment of the Crucifixion. We hadn’t quite been spiritual enough to follow the whole Easter story as it had been acted out in various locations in town but it was good to be part of the finale. It was absolutely freezing; Anna commented that the guys up on the crosses next to Jesus really didn’t have to act much to look like they were in pain, and she was right!

From there we went down to Ivonne‘s birthday party where we had some delicious cake and a Wii bowling game to celebrate. The kids were starting to get a bit hyper and annoying by this point, Steve was selling cars so he was late arriving and we left pretty much as soon as he got there!

Invited more friends over for a roast dinner and a showing of La Vie en Rose in the evening, and that was great – the food and the film, not to mention the company

Today has been fairly boring really; we went into town and got a new cello string, popped in to Sainsbury’s, did some music practices, some jobs around the house, Anna went to play with a friend who lives a half hour drive away so that took an hour out of the morning, the other two made a nice looking Easter cake, and they all did some Easter crafty stuff.

Joe had a friend to play in the afternoon, supposedly to practice a short drama they are doing at church tomorrow, but also just to play. Billy came bearing tadpoles for us which was very exciting (for me!). Sorted out guinea pigs both here and at friends’ while they’re away, dropped Billy off, picked Steve up, came home and cooked some dinner. Anna was dropped home and they all got into pyjamas to snuggle in front of Saturday night tv, which is nice, even if we have ended up in front of 2 different programmes!

On Saturday the girls had Orchestra as usual. While they were there Josiah and I went to a little art cafe in town for an Easter Egg making workshop which was great. The cafe itself was lovely (although I can imagine if I start going too much it could get very expensive, especially if the girls were there!), and the workshop was good too, as was the time spent with friends

We planned to stop at Cribbs Causeway on the way home, having failed to remember that this would add about two hours to the journey just sitting in the queue to get in! Still, I found some shoes for work (like these except black – boring I know but practical!) and Josiah found some new tracksuit bottoms. We couldn’t decide on sheets (the other thing we’d been looking for) so have put that off until another time. Left fairly soon after that as we really can’t stand being aimless in shopping malls, and it was really busy and noisy. Give me Princesshay any day, so much nicer for being outside. And having the Apple Store

Home by 4pm so time for some tea, sorting out stuff for tomorrow, and all that general Sunday night stuff. Like blogging, and scrabulous

Have had a really full week myself; my parents were in town on Monday as they completed the purchase of a student house here, mainly for my sister to live in next academic year, so I was helping them out for most of Monday. I took on the job of filling it with tenants for the interim six months, so Steve and I have been busy with finishing off the conversion of one room from a lounge into a bedroom and filling it with the appropriate furniture and fittings, to sorting out various other little bits and pieces, answering calls, showing people around, etc. Hopefully by tonight we should have the full complement of rooms let so I feel I’ve done well! Just the broadband to sort out next week. We’ve done the usual work at the garage and at home alongside all that, hence the very busy feeling!

At home things are just ticking over nicely; Anna has had auditions for the Y6 play this week so she’s also in suspense waiting for the casting of that. They’re all happy and enjoying school, with the exception of the odd morning when they’d rather not get up and go out so early, but don’t we all have those?!

Started a new idea with Joe and his violin practice (which can be an area of difficulty in the day) which seems to be going well so far – I make him a tick box list for each day with a few things to practice, and he can tick them off then when they’re done, he’s finished and can do what he likes. This means that however much time he wastes along the way, he still has to play the required things the set number of times. It also means that I can’t put my perfectionism onto him too much by changing the goalposts during the practice session! He likes seeing the goals laid out for him like that, and he seems to be enjoying working through it and colouring in the tick boxes as he goes.

Might try it for the girls as well, actually, as often they whip through their ‘practice’ and I don’t think things are getting practiced enough! The difference is that I attend Joe’s lessons (as is the suzuki expectation) so I know exactly what he should be doing, whereas it’s not quite the same with the girls’ lessons. At some point I really would hope that he would take responsibility for his own practice but we’re not at that stage yet. At least he does really enjoy his lessons when he’s well prepared for them, and feels pleased with himself when his teacher congratulates him on having practiced well during the week, so it *is* paying off and he can see the results of his own hard work.

I splashed out on a Bead Merrily order which arrived on Wednesday and the kids were all absolutely thrilled with the contents. The girls have been beading madly (hence my lucky earrings!), while Joe was over the moon with his treasure digging game (what a mess that made though!) and a paper aeroplane set which is still to be fully explored. I should have kept the parcel until a special occasion really, but hey, sometimes you just want to give your kids gifts for no reason at all other than that you love them. And I do, so I did

Abbie finished a beaded photo frame that she’s been making over the past week or so; it looks really nice. She’s put a photo in it and is ready to give it to the lucky recipient. She’s also set up her art stuff on her desk and is painting loads of lovely pictures.
Also today she took her own money into Claire’s and, completely unprompted, came out with nothing for herself because she ran out of money buying a present for Anna to say well done for going to Chamber Orchestra

I particularly liked this painting