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.

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

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!

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

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 …

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!

In the next three weeks, between us we have two music exams, two orchestra concerts, two ‘teacher’ concerts, a choral event for which the kids are singing extra stuff and I have now been asked to accompany. Oh, and Anna’s got the panto performance which is terribly music heavy and she is practicing *all* the time. We need another piano so that I can practice too!

Not to mention parents evenings (theirs), school fete (mine; we have to attend as one of our work days), and panto auditions (for some reason they are doing these, against my better judgment!). Of course Russ is on holiday during the next two weeks so Steve has next to no flexibility. And my work is more stressy than usual at the moment due to all our children’s reviews mucking up timetables and creating staffing issues. Argh!

Oh well, a bit of pressure never hurt anyone. It will all stop at the end of term, and then the next lot of stress can start – decorating

This weekend has been pleasant though. Saturday was orchestra with added committee meeting, then an afternoon with friends and an evening with more friends. It was Ruth’s 40th party down at the Turf, and a lovely opportunity to catch up with people I haven’t seen for ages.

Steve was off racing, and managed to win the class as well as break the class hill record too. Not bad considering that all his direct competitors have raced the hill before, and it was his first time there. It is kind of frustrating that he’s turning out to be so good at this darned racing lark!

This morning we decided to have a slow start followed by some homework time – Abbie’s got a ‘Britain in the 1960s’ project to do, so she made a start on that, while Anna had various bits and bobs of work to get done, and Josiah did a nice long music practice.

Got the first concert out of the way this afternoon; their cello/piano teacher’s pupil concert. For the grandparents, me to look back on, and anyone else who’s interested and wants to waste 6 minutes (there are worse ways to waste time but not many!), here are videos:

Came home for a bit more sorting out (laundry, argh, bane of my life, still haven’t finished it!), tea, and then we watched The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. Don’t want to leave spoilers for anyone who’s not seen it or read the book, but it is recommended by all of us here, but it *will* make you cry.

Finally, for the record. My iPhone lives in my pocket, usually, therefore I am never frightened of losing it, I love it so much that I keep very good track of it. Also, as it would always be in my pocket, I wouldn’t ever have to grab it on the way out of a burning house! Anna’s cello is worth far less than Joe’s violin and also she’d be getting a full size one before too long in any case. So that clears up that little matter, and the rest of the questions were incidental, really – I had trouble making up my own mind which one to mark as ‘correct’ in most places!

We chose Inkheart, which the children are very much enjoying; I’m sitting in front of it doing my own thing as per usual, and Steve is asleep. Also as per usual. Oh well, at least we’re all on the same sofa. I’m blog fiddling; have upgraded WordPress to 2.8 … I do like the way you can search the plugin and theme directories from your own blog now, that’s quite nice

Those of us left behind did orchestra, housework, some homework, had a visit from my sister, then congratulated Steve in the five minutes between him getting home and falling asleep. The girls went out to a friend’s birthday party and Anna had a sleepover afterwards.

Today has been slightly more interesting … we video gamed for the first part of the morning (mainly Pikmin 2), then went over to Steve’s parents’ for lunch.

After that we had the treat of watching a rehearsal for a performance of Verdi’s Requiem. It was organised by the primary school music teacher as a ‘here’s a trip you’re invited to but I’m not really organising anything’ so ended up being just a few families having an afternoon out together! Grandma came with us as well Just like a concert, only with added breaks and the bonus of being free! The Musical Director of the Devon Guild of Singers also founded a Youth Orchestra in Ealing, and tonight’s concert is part of the orchestra’s 50th anniversary tour.

Not sure what the kids made of it really but they all sat and listened well – good for them to hear and appreciate some different music for a change, even if they didn’t like the particular style. They definitely enjoyed watching the orchestra. Probably should have thought to print out a translation of the Latin for them or an explanation of the different parts for them to follow but there we go. I loved it.

Had to laugh as our bugbear about posture came to the fore again; one violinist on the front row had *awful* posture, and made us laugh out loud when he yawned during the performance and used his violin to cover his mouth. Don’t think he was actually playing at the time, but still!

Back to the grandparents’ afterwards for tea and general veg out time before going home. Steve came second today but one of his friends rolled his car so that eclipsed the afternoon’s racing for him I think.

Now we are being subjected to Dadnapped, argh. Suppose I have watched films with less stars than that before now; if nothing else it’s a chance for an early evening nap

Still no plans for tomorrow although ideas are coming in, now I just have to work out how to keep everyone happy with whatever we end up doing …

* When you’re an opera star, with a large repertoire, how do you please the crowd? Sing Verdi very loud!
(Beethoven’s Wig, music and lyrics permanently engraved in family lore here, not sure if this is good or bad!)

Had a pleasant final weekend of the holidays involving the Food Festival in town, geocaching on Dartmoor, and plenty of sunshine

And now back to school which is nice all round I think. Josiah’s happy to get back to friends and routine. Didn’t mention his and Abbie’s school reports which came home at the end of last term, generally glowing and wonderful so that was all good.
Abbie went off to a residential at Grenville House this week, haven’t heard anything so I’m sure that means she’s having a fantastic time.
Anna’s spent most of her first week back rehearsing for tonight’s Performing Arts evening, which was an enjoyable mix of art, drama, creative writing and music. Anna is a total show off but somehow gets away with it by virtue of being blonde and dizzy, as well as fairly entertaining and good at what she does, in the main I’m quite proud of her really, she played a cello solo nicely this evening (cockups probably only noticeable to those who’ve heard the piece every day for the past six weeks ) as well as singing in the choir. And then there was the ensemble. The music teacher put this piece together involving as many people as possible, some of whom are real beginners … clearly building on comedy value here, had Anna running between instruments in the course of the piece … it made us laugh

Finally, if anyone is looking for a good film to watch, Steve and I both really enjoyed The Diving Bell and the Butterfly this week. Bit odd, French, serious subject matter, but if you can get past all that, excellent film. I was going to do a ‘week of weird films’ post but we only made it as far as Tuesday so I’ll just recommend the one We have The Karate Kid arriving for the weekend; apparently Joe’s TKD teacher keeps making reference to it and Josiah’s never watched it so we’re planning to remedy that and enjoy some nostalgia at the same time

The beginning of last week was taken up with music; I had the day off work on Monday to accompany Anna and Josiah to the strings day of the Devon Performing Arts Festival. We’d bumped Anna up into the G6 class which she promptly won, so felt very proud of herself for that – and Joe came joint 2nd in his G3 class too, he played beautifully, the best he’s ever played his piece. And as we pointed out later, coming 1st out of 4 was marginally less impressive than coming 2nd out of 7!!

The ultimate best thing, though, was Joe’s admission later in the day that perhaps I’d been right to say he should carry on practicing his violin, as he would like it when he was older. He didn’t quite admit that he liked practicing (does anyone?) but it was excellent to see him get a glimpse of the POINT of it all! Lovely to hear some of the other kids we know performing as well – and I *really* enjoyed having a day off with Anna and Josiah Have said that next year we’ll have to do a woodwind day as well, then Abbie can have a turn, and Anna can play that jolly bassoon of hers!!

Josiah sat his G1 piano exam on Tuesday lunchtime, no results as yet though. Then on Wednesday night we had the primary school Music Extravaganza, where everyone who does any music at school gets to stand up and do their bit. Abbie played her flute duets with Riona, and all three kids sang in the choir, with Anna’s accompaniment on the piano for a couple of the songs. Oh, and my three had learnt a descant for one piece at the last minute, which they sang well, too

The choir has got huge recently, with a lot of very little ones – on the way home I commented that perhaps they should have a KS1 choir and a KS2 choir, then the very next day a letter came home from school announcing the very same thing. They’re also inviting more hangers on (like Anna!) but while I’d quite like to be part of it alongside the kids, that is the half hour in my week which is mine, all mine. Not sure I can give it up! Lots of other great music opportunities from the school next term but I’ll write about those when we get to them.

Spent Thursday and Friday suffering from what felt like extreme exhaustion, to the point that Steve wondered afterwards if I’d had some sort of virus. Felt worse than just a late night after he got home from Glasgow late on Wednesday. Not clever when trying to make decisions about things. Survived, anyway – and immediately felt better after Josiah’s violin lesson on Friday night, which was such an odd time to suddenly recover that I thought perhaps Steve was right (he is, occasionally)!

Anna came home with an extra cello on Thursday – one that she’s been given, it had been sitting in the school cupboard for years and years. We took it to our strings experts in town to see if it was worth restoring properly but as suspected, it’s not. Steve and Anna are still going to try and get it to a playable state, as cheaply as possible, but then I think they’re actually intending to paint it and hang it on the wall rather than anything else! Still, it will be an original and interesting piece of artwork!

The weekend has been uneventful. Orchestra, housework, I spent some time catching up on jobs at the garage, and Steve entertained the children by burning stuff that needed shredding (shredder has given up the ghost) in an old saucepan on the patio!
On Sunday, Abbie, Joe and I went to church then did lunch at Tescos, then more housework/homework/lego while Steve took Anna out for a Subaru meet on the moors.

I opted for one of the newly opened Drake’s Trail walks on Dartmoor, near Burrator Reservoir These walks even have podcasts that go with them, so I added those to all the ipods for extra interest, and they were really well done, interesting and dare I say it, educational! I would definitely do the other walks in the series, even without any caches near them. This walk, however, just *happened* to be near a good 10 caches

Walking on Dartmoor is always lovely – especially beautiful on a sunny spring day like today … I think the rest of the family got bored with the caching but at least they were all easy finds and as it was Mother’s Day they weren’t allowed to moan! Poor Abbie struggled with her boots too, she only remembered half way round that they are too small for her now – she spent half the time walking along the Plymouth & Dartmoor railway in her socks! At least it wasn’t wet on the ground!

Got home and had cups of tea, baths, a bit of music practice, and I’m going to have to fold some laundry later.
For now, we’re finishing off the day by watching Casino Royale together, in anticipation of the release of Quantum of Solace this week – none of us have seen it yet and I’m going to buy it, nothing like a bit more Daniel Craig on the shelf