just another morning here

Got home to find a letter for Josiah on the side; it was from Boden - he got all excited as they’d all entered some competition or other a while back, to design a t-shirt with ’something beginning with B’ on it. Joe had done a really good picture of a bumblebee which turned out looking slightly Lauren Child-esque. On closer inspection his letter was a runner’s up prize just saying well done and there were some special stickers that came with it. He was pleased to have been congratulated on his efforts, anyway

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!

Plus a fish, an audition, and some nice meals out with friends, but they didn’t begin with C so couldn’t fit them into the title!

So, this weekend Steve upped and left us all at 5am on Saturday; he has spent the weekend on one of his hill climb jaunts - but some of the rest of us had things on and couldn’t be bothered to be to-ing and fro-ing from Cornwall so we didn’t go. He’s still not home as I write this, I imagine he will be exhausted, having towed his Subaru and slept in the back of the Audi, never mind the motor racing itself, so I may have to update this later if there are any photos or anything worthy of mention!

Saturday was really chilled and lovely here. Anna has been working on a project all weekend - one she was given at half term I think, but it’s due in on Monday and she’d hardly done any of it before now! So that’s been bubbling away in the background all weekend; Abbie and I have helped her with a few little bits of it, too.

We went to Tesco and Pets at Home first thing to pick up a few necessary bits - ended up with some unnecessary ones as well when Josiah decided to spend his birthday money on a new fish tank and another fish to keep Digger company. Came home and started re-arranging the kitchen to accommodate said fish tank, although I might yet move it, as I’m not sure the fish will like being on top of the sideboard directly above the washing machine. On top of the fridge is probably better, but we’ll see. I’ve done all the washing this weekend already in any case!

Josiah was picked up by some friends for a playdate at their house, and we arranged to meet up later on for a walk and geocache hunt … always like to introduce more of my friends to caching as Steve and I don’t ever seem to have the time (or the inclination when we have the time!). Thought it was a bit trickier than the description suggested, especially as the GPS pointed us to the wrong side of the river to start with! Found it eventually though - an empty box! Perfectly big enough for some swaps but there was nothing there, so we put a few little bits and bobs into it for the next visitors to find

Came home from there and after another hour’s project work for Anna, we headed down to Rog & Ruth’s for a BBQ with them and some other friends, so that was really nice. Staggered home and caught up with Saturday night tv

On Sunday we started early with the China project again. It annoyed me in the end, as there was so much that they were supposed to include that it was a sketchy overview, rather than a detailed study of any particular bit - I would have preferred her to be able to choose a particular focus rather than try to cover everything. Ho hum. I helped a fair bit to get it finished so that we still had a little bit of weekend left!

We didn’t make it to church because we were taking Anna down to some auditions, for the Northcott Theatre pantomime children’s chorus. Not sure what the standard is or whether she stands a chance of getting in, I guess time will tell! They have said they will let us know this week. While she was there we walked along the river for a geocache

Some friends invited us for lunch which was fab, we enjoyed our time with them, and the delicious roast dinner Steve is probably going to come home starving but I’m not cooking anything later!

We came home and have tidied up, put washing away, sorted out, and are now lazing around watching tv and waiting for Steve to get back.

And so another week rushes by. Lots of coughs and sneezes here this week as well as our fair share of sore throats. Oh, and a near-death experience of flu for the man among us, obviously a mere cold isn’t good enough for him

On Tuesday Abigail had a special trip up to an event at the University; from what I gather it was a Devon County event for schools to do with generally being green and environmental issues. [yes, I am informed - a Travelwise Schools' Event.] She and three other friends from their school Environmental Group got to go - lunch was laid on, so that was a treat. She enjoyed herself so much that she forgot to come home after school and visited the book fair instead, spending someone else’s money in the process!

Needless to say, Come Straight Home Unless We Have Arranged Otherwise has been added to the ever evolving list of after school ‘guidelines’ for the kids, along with Don’t Light Candles Unless An Adult Is There, and Raiding Of The Snack Box Prohibited Until Mummy Gets Home. I have been somewhat surprised at the mischief that can happen in the 10 minutes between when they get home and when I get home!

All of this week Anna has been madly doing last minute rehearsals for her Year 6 Play - Roger Ravenbeard, Scourge of the Oceans. Performances began with dress rehearsals in front of other classes on Wednesday, then they had two real performances on Thursday, and the final one on Friday night. Anna was playing Mrs Ravenbeard, Roger’s mother, and was on stage almost all the time. She did really well and we enjoyed watching the final performance, not to mention the takeaway with Grandma and Grandpa afterwards.

Not much to report on Josiah I don’t think … still working hard on music exam stuff, and he received multiple compliments from his accompanist at our rehearsal on Wednesday, so that was encouraging.
Steve and I not up to much other than work either; he’s been working on Gran Turismo racing and not improving all that much.
I’ve been trying to keep up with housework (constant battle! think I’ve caught up a bit tis week but it won’t last long!), and attempting to fit the odd cache in here and there.

Or not so brief, this post looks quite long now that I’ve finished it!
Catching up … highlights of life here recently:

The weekend was nice; going to the opening of the Apple Store on Saturday was fun, Anna had orchestra; the other two dragged their Aunty Esther to the cinema, and then having her around for the rest of the day was pleasant too. Sunday was church and not a lot besides; for some reason we were all tired, so we didn’t do much else.

Anna’s been working hard this week with Stage by Stage, with rehearsals at the beginning of the week and performances (High School Musical) at the end of the week. We saw the show last night.

I’ve helped out at school with a couple of things, transport mainly! But providing transport means you get to stay for whatever it is you were transporting children to, so on Tuesday I walked Abbie’s class up to the High School for some sports activities, and on Wednesday I went with Anna and her after-school dance club to a different High School for a dance event.

We are going out for curry with friends tonight which should be good, and then tomorrow Steve is going up to Wales for the now traditional trip to the WRC Rally with Mr Portico, leaving the rest of us to enjoy another weekend following Anna around to various musical and theatrical activities, and I suspect we will all crash on Sunday.

The children have got rather into the idea of Mother’s Day here (although I’ve realised tonight - too late - that I’ve completely failed to do anything for either of mine or Steve’s mums :oops:) and brought me breakfast in bed today. The tray was beautifully laid out with glasses of flowers that they’d cut from the garden and arranged nicely, and more flowers decorating the plate too. Only trouble was that I’d just got out of bed and jumped into the shower when they appeared with it!
So I had the cup of tea in the shower and Abbie ate the rest We have also been given tickets to a special Mother’s Day concert tomorrow afternoon and there has been a lot of secrecy surrounding that (not much practicing though!!), so I’m looking forward to it.

The rest of the day has been fairly much taken over with Anna’s dance school’s show. She did one performance last night, today they had two - one at lunchtime and one in the evening. We all went along and watched the lunchtime one. It was a very impressive show and we all enjoyed it, even though it was looooong! The dancers performed beautifully, costumes were fantastic, attention to details in the production was good, etc. Spotted a couple of other children who we knew so had fun watching them as well. The only disappointment for me was that Anna didn’t get to see it.

Oh, and I just remembered. My blog is now 4 years old. Which is almost as scary as dancers who look grown up yet are only a couple of years older than Anna.

Despite Ros’s reassurances, I definitely felt like a clueless mother this morning when (a) trying to do a bun ‘with twisty bits going back’ in Anna’s hair, and (b) sewing ribbons on ballet shoes.

Now, doing a bun is hard enough normally, never mind keeping strands of hair out of it, to twist them up, to add them in later, and still have it all slick and neat. It took at least 4 attempts and I still thought it was messy (although I did see some other girls’ buns later and didn’t feel so bad after all).

Next came the ribbons on the shoes. Now, how is a person supposed to know where to put them or what angle to sew them on at?! Thankfully, as I had left it far too late to let Anna ask someone/take photos of someone else’s shoes to see what they were like, the internet came to my rescue and I found some guides and then muddled my way through. With minutes to spare!

And all this was just for the rehearsal. Two rehearsals, to be precise, as we had to go in and out to the theatre twice for rehearsing the first bit and then the finale. [as an aside, Merry, does your niece do dancing too, spotted their car when we were driving round town twice today and wondered if it was more than a coincidence?]

So while Anna’s activities took over the day, the rest of us pottered around - Steve fixed a broken arm rest in the van; Joe practiced riding his bike in the close - particularly starting and stopping, as I think if he can get those skills sorted he will be confident enough (finally) to go it alone. He was doing very well with it today

Abbie painted, played in the close a bit, then went down to Riona’s house and played there too. I sorted laundry, and did some more of Abbie’s jigsaw (she’s long since given up!).

This evening we had friends round for another viewing of Little Miss Sunshine, which was just as good (if not better) the second time around.

Life going on at relatively high speed here - well, Anna’s is, at least. This week she has had a dress rehearsal for Vigo the Viking (that was after a weekend sleepover at which I don’t think much sleep was had!), two days of school - tomorrow she has her Grade 2 piano exam (which if she passes I will be amazed), school in the middle, and then the first performance of Vigo, then two more days of school (and a ballet lesson) before another performance of Vigo and another sleepover. Honestly, she is going to need the Christmas holidays, if she makes it there in one piece! Cello lessons are carrying on but she really hasn’t had time or energy for much practice recently - must slow her down a bit next term I think. We had a little altercation yesterday over a b flat, in one of her piano exam pieces no less - she’s been playing a b natural - nightmare to try and fix that with only two days to go! Trouble is she does actually *want* to do all this stuff!

Abbie is taking life at a much more sane pace, just pootling along with school, swimming & music lessons and the appropriate practice inbetween. Likewise Josiah is really happy at home - I think he ought to be getting bored but he doesn’t seem to be! We’re doing some MEP maths and some reading/writing each day, and then just taking things as they come. Oh, and the music theory stuff is ongoing as well, he’s been doing about time signatures recently - just 2/4, 3/4 and 4/4 so far, but he’s got the hang of those pretty well I think. Lots of gaming going on as well, as usual.

Think I’ve almost done the Christmas shopping pretty much online (damn but I love the internet), just the tricky people to finish off now Hmm, actually looking at the list there are a few too many tricky people on there!

Cards - I really object to Christmas cards. In particular I object to sending them to people that I keep in regular contact with, as it just seems pointless - pointless to buy them in the first place, supporting the card economy which is hardly environmentally friendly, even if they do get recycled afterwards, which isn’t a given. Pointless to spend huge amounts of time making or writing them when they only get chucked out afterwards! [Please don't tell me there is anyone out there who *keeps* them for anything other than making next year's tags with?] And pointless to send news to people who know it anyway!

So if you’re reading this, don’t expect a Christmas card from us! There are a few people with whom a card/letter at Christmas is the main way of keeping in touch, so rather than writing hundreds of pointless ‘just-saying-happy-christmas-and-here’s-a-blanket-round-robin-newsletter’ cards I’ve decided I’d rather write 20 meaningful cards with a more personal letter in them. I suppose, if you’re reading this and you desperately want a card to clutter up your house with, then you can ask, but you still might not get one Likewise, please don’t send me one!! I’m just as happy with Merry Christmas wishes in my comments box at some point over the festive period