just another morning here

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I’ve spent the day with 100 or so lovely children at Crealy today, after the first rehearsal of the term yesterday. ECO were playing for our annual ‘Season Opener and Fun Day’, which is always a fairly relaxed concert with plenty of breaks for the Crealy attractions. We were a bit squashed in to a fairly noisy area of the park, but we soon drowned out the noise, and I think everyone had a good time. Particularly pleased with this pic of Josiah

In other news, Oliver! is happening, so Anna has been rushed off her feet playing bassoon for that; she’s really enjoying the experience, her first time playing in a professional band.

Luckily for her, the girls had a brief reprieve with two days off school on Friday and then tomorrow – the fire alarm system at their school is broken so they’re at home until it’s fixed! I gave them housework to do on Friday and school have set them work for tomorrow so they won’t have too much time to kill.

Josiah sang his first service of the year this morning before joining us at Crealy; he’s changed sides in the choir again which will no doubt confuse me when I make it in for evensong later in the week.

My first week with children at school was a bit of a whirlwind but I think everything went ok. This term I’m teaching two days in the Early Years class and then three days in my Key Stage 4 class so I have lots to juggle but I think I’m going to enjoy it. I’ve been going into work very early each day and then not working at home in the evenings which seems to work well for us all round. Steve is here to sort things out and do the morning school run, and then I don’t feel guilty about ignoring the kids because I’m here for them in the evenings. So far so good, anyway.

And so another summer holiday comes to an end. The children celebrated by picking the penultimate day of the holidays to work collaboratively on a junk ‘den’ in the garden, which kept them busy for most of the day yesterday, and they slept in it overnight! Shame they didn’t do it earlier in the summer break really, they could have had more nights out there!

Anna came home from Greenbelt having had a great time as ever, and yet again I’m saying ‘next year’, in a lazy fashion … really MUST go again as a family next year! Well, obviously if we did, Anna would want to disown us and go off on her own, but that would be ok

Last night we had the first of our SWMS mentor sessions. Enjoyed meeting Caroline Diffley and chatting through Anna’s music together – not quite sure where it’s all going to go yet, obviously, and the challenge to practise was the resounding theme of the discussions! We’ve booked tickets to see the SWMS Graduates’ Showcase next week so it will be interesting to hear them perform and see where SWMS has taken them. Anna’s induction day is Sunday; as usual she has to rush off to get to another rehearsal afterwards as she’s playing in the band for Oliver! the week following.

We’re all trying to psych ourselves up for being back at school tomorrow but not really managing – instead ending up just eking out the last few hours of laziness! I have grand goals of how to manage my time better this year, but I’m just slightly daunted by the prospect of having a new class two days in the week, who I don’t know at all. Things are changing dramatically at work for Steve, plus his dad’s going on holiday at the end of the month so it’s going to be a roller coaster half term at least. I need to plan a New Year getaway to look forward to …

Everyone is home now, although they do keep trying to escape for the odd night here and there. If one kid is away, another one usually fills the space with a friend. We’re enjoying just being at home and having lots of time to chill. Steve and I are working a bit but not *too* much

They all had a wonderful time in their respective places: Abbie and Joe chattered incessantly all the way home from Mill on the Brue, and clearly loved every minute of it. Likewise Anna has been full of her Romania experiences. I can’t persuade any of them to actually write it down for me though

Suzie quite likes having them home, and has transferred her affections to the girls and is sleeping in their room at night, much to Steve’s disgust. She’s getting bigger, hungrier, and more adventurous; we lost her out of the first floor window yesterday, onto the conservatory roof – no-one knew until we spotted muddy footprints on the windowsill after the event! We’ve been letting her out into the garden when one of us is there and she loves it – not sure the guinea pigs love it quite as much though.

We’ve done the horrible back to school shoe shop and topped up on a bit of stationery, so that’s out of the way. I’ve even done some mending; just a couple of new nametapes to sew on. Joe got some new strings on his violin and was impressed with the sound. Suzie tends to stop and stare at whoever is playing music in this house, then dashes off to hide somewhere. I do wonder how it sounds to her?

We all love her to bits, and we’re taking photos at a vast rate of knots, as if she were as interesting as a new baby! Sad but true. Anyway, she is being spoilt rotten at the moment, with people to play with her and give in to her every whim. Poor kitten won’t know what to do with herself when we all go back to school.