In other news – I didn’t get shortlisted for a job that I really wanted. Perfectly happy where I am though so no worries really, just marginally disappointing and very annoying to not even get an interview. Kids all fine; Anna went out busking with school/choir tonight and had a nice time, Abbie is planning birthday events despite the fact that she’s had a birthday treat already, Josiah’s just chugging along with choir and school. Steve’s thinking of new ways to make a million, as usual … and Suzie is enjoying having a new catflap to the big wide world outside. She still comes to give me a cuddle every morning though – and hasn’t brought me any special gifts yet thank goodness!

I played the piano for my school’s tree decorating assembly today which was fun as ever, and we went out for a team Christmas meal this evening; I love Christmas, I really do. People think I’m mean for not really doing decorating at home, or presents at home, but I don’t think my children are going to suffer that much, honestly

Came home supposedly to plan lessons for tomorrow and have ended up falling asleep in front of the computer. Early morning instead I think …

He really wanted to go out to the woods, build a den, and sleep in it – but this was a little outside of Steve and my comfort zone! Instead we found this National Trust Wild Tribe event going on which was about as close as we could get, so we booked places for two carfuls of boys!

They had a wonderful time in the woods, once they stopped being over-excited and actually managed to get on with building a den. Their shelter turned out rather well, complete with bracken waterproofing on roof and walls. They managed to get all seven of them plus an extra friend that they made on the day into the den for lunch

Anyway, after that fantastic day, we headed back towards home to Pizza Hut for tea, meeting the girls there so that they could join us for something to eat. The boys were very excitable all the way through the meal which made it marginally stressful but the waiter was very good with them and didn’t seem to mind too much.

Anyway I’ve let him have an easy day today; he just has his toes strapped together rather than a plastercast of any sort, luckily for him the break was nearer the toes than further up the foot. He insisted on walking round Sainsbury’s with me though, he was getting bored of sitting around!

Annoyingly I may have to re-think my plans for the weekend; we’d been planning to re-visit a cache in a coastal cave that we visited a year ago just after Joe had broken his wrist and he couldn’t climb up to it as a result. He’d asked to go back and do it again – but I think he’d be quite cross if we went there and he still couldn’t climb up to the cave!

He bought Lego Harry Potter on Wii with the rest of his money, and that’s it until Christmas

We had a final meeting for those going on the Russia trip with the Exeter Children’s Orchestra. Over the past few weeks the magnitude of this undertaking has begun to sink in with me, and I am feeling rather anxious about being ‘in charge’ (not totally, thank goodness, but almost), I am beginning to pray daily that everything goes according to plan and no-one is sick, loses their passport, etc. etc.

The girls and I pootled around town while Josiah sang in the Cathedral on Saturday. We bought Steve a shirt for Father’s Day which amazingly he likes and it fits nicely (at least until I wash it), so that was a result

On Saturday night Josiah had a friend round for his birthday treat. We went up to do a nightcache (named RIP Nightcache) in Taunton. Had dinner en route, which was nice. Of course, being practically midsummer, it didn’t get dark at all until after 10pm so we managed a couple of extra caches before the night cache. The boys enjoyed finding it – Joe had new ‘nightvision’ goggles as a present from his friend – but as nightcaches go it’s not the best one we’ve done, since the trail was very short, only two markers. One of these days we will get round to setting a nightcache ourselves.

Later on Josiah went out to sing evensong, and I got a bit of food ready – after evensong was the annual Dec vs Can cricket match and choristers’ party. Annual, though apparently it has been rained off over the past few years. Dec and Can are the names of the two sides that the choir sit on (Decani is the side of the cathedral where the Dean sits, and Cantoris is the side where the Cantor sits. I still get muddled up even after a year and never know which is which), so it’s a competitive game. Apparently Can have won the last few times but today Dec definitely had the victory – both in the boys’ cricket match and the girls’ rounders match. It was a lovely afternoon for it, so we enjoyed sitting out in the sun watching them play and chatting. The girls came too – Abbie went over to watch the rounders and played with a rather gorgeous puppy who was there, while Anna mainly helped look after the toddler belonging to the family cooking the BBQ. So, lots of food afterwards, then home for an early night before Monday morning comes round again, sigh.

Yesterday Josiah went to play with a friend, and just before I collected him he tripped over in their garden and put his hand out as he fell, landing mainly on his wrist. He did complain that it hurt a bit yesterday but being the sympathetic kind of parents that we are, we just sent him to bed and told him that it would feel much better after a good night’s sleep.

Well, this morning it was still painful, he couldn’t use a knife to cut pancakes at breakfast time (and they’re not exactly hard to cut), or play the piano. When he was sick during violin practice (I was only asking him to do vibrato exercises as well, I wasn’t making him use his right hand, otherwise I’d have felt really awful!) I began to think that perhaps there was something more serious wrong! So I took him off to the hospital to get it checked out. After two hours we were seen for an x-ray, and sure enough it showed a fracture on his radius, right near his wrist. Glad we checked!

Another hour later we emerged, Josiah proudly sporting a bright red cast. He chose red just because he liked it – it will clash terribly with school uniform but at least it will match his cassock! It was a simple fracture so he’s only got a soft cast, which I can take off myself in three weeks without needing to go back to the fracture clinic (you should have seen my face light up when given that option!). There’s a fair bit of flexibility in the cast around his hand, and again at the top near his elbow, but the section around his wrist is rigid. I guess it will just make him (and his friends!) take care of it while it heals. Suppose I ought to get some Calpol just in case he needs it over the next few days though …

This photo was taken during the practice for Josiah’s chorister installation. He’s got a white pinny over his dress now as well

I spent the week on a very steep learning curve at work; my new job is basically that of a cover supervisor, taking classes while the regular teacher is on their planning time, covering classes if the teacher takes time out for subject development, that sort of thing. Loads to learn, as in my school each class does things differently and has their own little routines etc. It’s a completely new post in the school so it’s not only new to me and the other person doing the same thing, it’s new to everyone involved. And of course there’s never enough time to keep up with paperwork. But hey ho, it will probably get easier.

Meanwhile the other big news in our family is that Josiah had a successful voice trial at the Cathedral just over a week ago. We’d had it fixed for months and it finally came round; Steve and I had sort of prepared ourselves for him being turned down but in fact the result was overwhelmingly positive and the long and short of it is that he was offered a choristership, and as we don’t believe in wasting time, after a good taster day on Friday, he will be starting at the Cathedral school on Monday. He’s really pleased and excited; we are too, but still feel slightly astounded about the whole thing. It’s a huge commitment which feels pretty scary, but at the same time, it’s an opportunity for Josiah that neither he nor we wanted to turn down, so we are going for it!

So, lots of new things to get used to. Stress on! But it really is all good and underneath all the anxiety we’re pretty happy about it all