just another morning here

Since the last post I seem to have spent rather a lot of time in the car. I drove some people to Heathrow very early on Friday morning, which was a very easy drive. Then I did about 16 caches on a walk that took me about three hours – some of them were really tricky. After that I drove home, taking a couple more caches in en route, but got stuck on the M4 and M5 for hours, not such fun.

While I spent all day doing that, the kids had a good day with Steve; he took them swimming – something I *never* thought he’d do! In the evening we cracked open a bottle of fizzy wine and spent our mealtime making toasts to various little things – sometimes it’s good to celebrate the small things too After that, we watched Slumdog Millionaire, the start of a good weekend for films.

Saturday was orchestra as usual (though Anna took her bassoon as well as the spare cello which she doesn’t like!), and jobs as usual – cleaning out the guinea pigs, hoovering, etc. The girls had friends round again, too. Steve went back to work, as that was infinitely preferable to helping with housework, apparently After dinner we watched My Sister’s Keeper, and I blubbed all the way through. Thought it was very good though, and a reasonably close adaptation of the book – different ending but I still thought the film kept to the feel of the book despite the alternate ending.

Today Josiah and I drove down to South Devon to meet some new friends that we’ve got to know through our Suzuki Group – Joe and their little boy hit it off instantly over Pokemon cards, as you do. The mum is a piano teacher, so we arranged for her to accompany Josiah at the upcoming festival, so we needed to get together to practise for that. I *think* it went well, it certainly helps to focus on the things that need polishing between now and then. Very wowed by their house, which was beautiful, including purpose built music studio! Had to drag Josiah away as well.

Meanwhile at home Anna and Abbie spent most of the morning sorting out stuff for Anna’s new school, and doing some last minute bits of work, tidying etc. Anna then disappeared off with Aunty Emma at the last minute, to help look after Robyn and Lola during Em’s rehearsal. Steve has been out with a customer on a camper van – I never know if him being a long time is a good sign or not. When he’s home I think we’ll be watching the last film of the weekend, Seven Pounds.

Then I suppose I ought to think about what I’m teaching tomorrow ….

After dropping Joe off for the last day of Laser Camp, we headed out to a little mid-Devon village for some geocaching (my payback for the shopping day yesterday!). The sun shone, and we had a lovely morning driving through the lanes then eventually walking around the last few caches which also took us to a fab little pub, the New Inn at Coleford, complete with its own parrot! Food was good too Didn’t find the last cache, which was annoying, but we’ll pop back one day.

Came home and spent hours solving a word puzzle for another cache, based on letter frequency, it took me ages! Picked up Josiah, then came home to move the music room into its new home. That took a long time as well, so it was late before we had tea, and we’d promised the kids we’d watch a film tonight, so despite the lateness, we sat down to watch The Game Plan – quite enjoyed it, in a cheesy Disney sort of a way!

This week has been largely dominated by the Showstoppers Holiday Club that our church has been running. Anna and I were helping out running teams and activities, while Abbie and Josiah enjoyed taking part in it all. It was loosely based around a theatre theme, so all the workshops were creative – Anna helped out with the music one which Abbie took part in, while Joe opted to do the photography workshop and he really enjoyed it.

I uploaded a bunch of photos that I found on my camera, which Joe had borrowed, then told him that I thought they were really good, and then he told me that he didn’t take all of them! We think that the good ones must belong to Harry who helped run the group, and who I think is also an art student, so that explains it!

We had various other activities going on during the mornings; games, art, drama, singing (generally mad songs with lots of jumping around and actions) team challenges, quizzes, etc. All good fun but very exhausting! I’m glad to be at the end of the week; we have a BBQ on Sunday for all the families – loads of them are coming, I just hope it doesn’t rain!

During the afternoons we hung out at home mainly; my parents and brother have been around so on one wet afternoon we took Ben with us to see Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, which entertained us for a while. Otherwise the children have just enjoyed having downtime; the girls have both done a bit of baking on different days (this means I have eaten way too much but hey ho), Abbie and Joe played a long imaginary game one afternoon, they’ve played on the Wii, all the sorts of things they don’t usually have time for during term time

Before we get to the manic concert afternoon, a quick catch up:

Friday evening was surprisingly pleasant. Anna went out to a BBQ with a school friend and then when she was reminded about her show rehearsal, dashed over to that as well. The other two children decided not to go to their usual kids’ club as they were too tired, so we popped some popcorn and settled down to watch Pete’s Dragon instead. I’m not sure I’ve ever watched it all the way through!
I got some much-procrastinated-over ironing done, and Steve had a nap And then we waited up for Anna to come home (this is becoming a common occurrence, at 12 yrs old!) Guess I will give up on waiting up after a while, but I always think it’s nice for her to have a little chat with us when she comes in, even if it is only quick!

Had to use my time well on Saturday but I did manage to get everything done. Essential shopping beforehand, then on to orchestra where I was on duty. Josiah joined in with a junk drumming workshop on at the same time as orchestra, which he really enjoyed. He was due to be re-joining orchestra in September and is now prevaricating over whether to join in with percussion rather than playing his violin!

My sister and brother in law popped in to see us on their way down to Cornwall for a holiday (lucky them) so we stopped for a cup of tea with them, but otherwise the afternoon was taken up with cleaning out the guinea pigs and fish, some music practice with Joe, trying to help Abbie with her end of year project (that ended in tears, will have to try again), and Anna did her music practice then sat around looking relaxed, without any homework to do, which annoyed Abbie even more – honestly, I think Y7 has been a doss!

Anna went out to Caitlin’s birthday bash, and after tea the rest of us went out for a walk and found a new local cache, which was much nicer than just slobbing around doing nothing – I like after dinner walks

On to today, which started early with someone coming to look at something we’d advertised in the paper. Thought if I made an early appointment that it would get us up and moving! (sold it, now we just have to take it to pieces and get it downstairs!)
Spent the rest of the morning sorting out a leaving present for the orchestra leader, Hannah’s (messages from the orchestra members framed around a photo montage) and then we had lunch.

Josiah’s concert was first this afternoon. I have grown to love the Suzuki thing over the past four years, and we’ve now known most of these kids for most of that time, so it is really nice to see how they’ve all grown up both in themselves and in their playing. Some of the older ones are *very* impressive these days!

I had tried to encourage Joe to practice a bit this morning because his piece hadn’t been sounding very good over the past few days, but he refused, on the basis that he knew he could do it. I despair, but didn’t want a fight! Steve upheld his refusal and he sat and watched Prince Caspian instead – and then played his piece beautifully. Could do with being louder in the loud bits but the dynamics are there …

During the tea break Steve dashed to drop the girls off at their concert venue, then back in time for the second half, which was all the group performances – enjoyable to listen to although they lost marks for hiding behind music stands, even on the pieces they were playing from memory! Very proud of Joe through all of it, he did really well

The Suzuki concert finished just before 5pm, and the girls’ orchestra concert started at 6pm – couldn’t have packed them in much more closely, but we managed a quick cuppa with Steve’s parents inbetween. Because I knew I’d potentially be fairly rushed, I hadn’t volunteered to help with anything this time, so it was nice not to have to get there early but just to sit and watch Grandma wins lots of grandma points for making it to both concerts; Grandpa joined us for the orchestra one as well.

Stopped to pick up fish & chips on the way home, which was a lovely end to the day. Hustled children to bed rather quickly, caught up on Top Gear (samey) and the news, and that’s about it!