just another morning here

On the gardening front, we sowed various seeds a couple of weeks ago - sweetcorn, runner beans, and peppers.

First two are doing well but no sign of the peppers yet.

Over the weekend, after watching the run on Sunday, we basically did not a lot at home. The girls did (yet another :roll:) big room tidy. One day they will learn that if they pick things up every day then they won’t have to do mega-tidies at weekends. Then again I sometimes prefer the ‘do nothing for ages then give it a blast’ approach too, so I shouldn’t complain too much I suppose. Meanwhile Joe and Steve worked on this meccano type metal kit, which kept them occupied for a while.

Steve watched too much snooker, and has traumatised me by shaving off his beard yesterday. Changes like that shouldn’t be allowed. I started a new ac:ww town and moved my (almost completed catalogue) character over there so that took up far too much time over the weekend as well.

We did have a nice walk up on Haldon yesterday with various friends. Abbie and Josiah took bikes, while Anna decided not to take hers because she wanted to help look after baby Josh.

Today has been hard work, I really don’t like bank holidays, they lull you into a false sense of holiday and then you have to snap back into normal work mode, not only that but I always spend all week thinking it’s a day earlier than it is! Might not feel so bad if I hadn’t been kept up by a certain snooker match last night

We had Robyn this morning so got some stuff done first thing and then took her out to Crealy as it’s ten times easier than staying at home! Had to bribe Joe with a muffin to get him to help look after her in the play areas but then he did an admirable job.

Home for lunch, said goodbye to Robyn, now having a lull (I needed one) before the girls come home from school.

Apologies for the absolutely rubbish photos (must have had a setting wrong somewhere) but here’s Joe picking a squash from our garden to take into school for the Harvest Festival today, and Abbie reading a poem in the KS2 assembly this morning.

Note Abigail’s hanging-out t-shirt, everyone else looked so smart, but I don’t really care
I’m home in the break between the two assemblies, about to head back for the KS1 version … oh joy!

How do I know when a butternut squash is actually ripe? I have two that look pretty big and ripe but they’re not as orange in colour as the ones I have in my veg box, more yellow … should I leave them a bit longer?

Got up relatively early (for a Saturday ) and headed down to my extremely local garden centre marquee. Sainsbury’s have this tent up in part of the car park at the moment with garden centre basics, which is pretty cool imo, as it means I don’t have to trek any further. The children all wanted sunglasses (£2 each so not too bad, Anna inherited a nice pair which were found in a car!) and we needed bread and milk etc.

So anyway, bought a *huge* planter for the avocado tree which now seems tiny, but it should give it plenty of space to grow a bit more. The one that I saw at the Eden Project was taller than me, so I’m expecting it to grow just a little bit more, although granted my conservatory is a far cry from the Eden Project!! I am very proud of that avocado tree, or of having kept it alive for three years now, pretty good for someone with my track record with plants
Photos are from April 04, July 04, July 05, and the last two from today.

The children got inspired and started planting flower seeds in pots, I wasn’t really watching what they were doing so we’ll see what happens in those. I said I’d pay them to weed the driveway as well, but they got half way through then gave up!

It’s a beautiful morning and they played out for most of it, then came inside, at which point I insisted that they put their bikes back in the garage before coming in, and they’ve gone outside and started playing again! Plans for the rest of the day include lunch, baking, piano lessons, a friend coming round for tea, Dr Who, and I don’t know what else. I purposely haven’t looked at the state of their rooms, there’s always another day for tidying …

Having had yesterday in the office pretty much all day, then cello lessons and MSG in the evening (yes I’m *still* doing it!), and knowing that the following couple of days I’ll be needed at work as well, I declared today a housework day, meaning I got to stay at home and work. It’s been beautiful weather for it, too, warm and sunny and perfect for drying floors and washing! The kids helped by making a good effort in their rooms before going off to do their thing

Determined to make the most of it I left the computer upstairs for all of, ooh, 40 minutes before bringing it down to start blogging

Hung washing out and cleaned the kitchen while listening to a really ancient Amy Grant CD. So ancient that I remember which side of the cassette the tracks were on I love listening to CDs that I know really well every so often. Those that you are pretty much word perfect on, not to mention being able to sing the introduction to the next song in the right key, you’ve listened to it so much. Or is that just me Anyway, housework generally has to be done to that sort of CD as far as I’m concerned. Went from Amy Grant to Madonna’s Immaculate Collection, to another really old MWS album, then on to Green Day … no comments, please!

Other stuff I managed to achieve today:
• popped into town to pick up that game I’ve been lusting after since the weekend. As a result have had to be very self controlled but I haven’t even got it out of the box yet! That’s tonight’s treat
• mended a hairband - superglue + 3 clothes pegs made short work of that
• washed and dried another two loads of washing
• finished unpacking bags from the weekend
• hoovered the house and cleaned what needed cleaning along the way - funniest part was Josiah’s bed, which was just a huge pile of books - I’d roll my eyes only I’m really proud of him for being such a star when it comes to reading so I can’t complain! On a small reading tangent for a minute, actually they’re all three doing brilliantly with their reading at the moment - they’re not into classics or anything but all three are *enjoying* the reading they’re doing, which is a state I sometimes wondered if they’d ever get to! Anna’s been reading Harry Potter and finished number 4 last night I think. Abbie’s in a Rainbow Magic phase, we’ve done rainbow fairies, pet fairies, and are now on weather fairies - Merry, if we were sensible here we’d arrange swaps of the different series! and Joe’s just reading whatever he fancies, from picture books to the Rainbow fairies as well!
• swept and washed the kitchen floor (well, I knew Robyn was coming over!)
• stopped at 11.30 for a coffee then decided to have lunch at the same time, cheese & spicy mango chutney sandwich if anyone’s interested
• chatted to Steve when he came home for lunch
• weeded and dug over the veggie bed in the garden, spurred on by the great Butternut Squash Seedling Giveaway at the weekend - I needed something to jolt me into action in the garden
• attacked the grass with the lawnmower - Steve helped. Most of the grass is cut, and the rest of it is at least flattened a bit
• planted some seeds. Better late than never! Not sure they will be any good though as they’ve been hanging around in the shed since last year, so I might have to go and investigate that garden centre marquee thing they’ve put up in the Sainsbury’s car park! I need a bigger pot for my avocado tree, too, I’m sure it’s stopped growing because it’s outgrown its current one.
• Attacked a few bushes with the clippers, everything is somewhat overgrown as usual!
• Texted Steve’s sister first thing to see if she wanted to pop over sometime during the day and she was doing similar domestic stuff so came over for a cuppa with Robyn this afternoon. Finally gave Robyn her birthday present! Nice to see them as usual
• Brought in the washing, folded it, added to the already huge ironing pile. Aiming to do the ironing in front of the Apprentice this evening.
• Remembered to go and pick the kids up from school! And there ends the housewife bit for the day, the rest is just normal spending time with them/cooking tea stuff. Feels like it’s been a productive day though

Since being home Anna’s been playing the piano (Music of the Night in every sound the keyboard can offer Wish she’d learn another piece!) and the other two are playing outside with Mollie. Later on Anna has Stage by Stage and Josiah has his violin lesson so it’s feeling pretty busy here

Got up early this morning to make the most of our one half-day in the week of being together, had croissants for breakfast (well, they all did, I had a banana & strawberry smoothie ), and got up to Dartmoor by about 10am.

I still don’t see the attraction of Dartmoor, I must confess. It is beautiful in a strange sort of way, I suppose, but it just seems a bit bare, to me. The children absolutely loved it though, went running from rock to rock and generally had a brilliant time, I can see it becoming a habit - especially when we can easily go back to the van for soup & rolls (and the obligatory toilet break) rather than coming home. Carrot & Almond today again - one of our faves, will post the recipe later for you, Emma

Of course this term we are still coming back for Anna’s Stagecoach - if nothing else I’m glad she’s changing stage-school things because of the awkward timing of this one! She went off to that for the afternoon, Abbie did some piano practise then went off to play with Joe and Mollie, and Steve & I attacked the two-foot high mess that was our lawn … now looking neat and tidy, hopefully that will be it for the winter.

Rog & Ruth and their girls popped round for the rest of the afternoon - we chatted, children played, Anna came home, and we had dinner together which was unexpected but really nice.

Since they’ve gone we’ve done violin practise and baths, now Anna and Steve are improvising together on the piano which is really nice to listen to

Now completely and utterly knackered - but about to go out to a Home Ed friend’s cocktail party!

So pleased to have finally got rid of the archway to nowhere (which now is in the veggie patch ready for next year’s beans to climb up. Now, what can we do with that lovely (not) fountain thing?!!!