just another morning here

Bang goes the third weekend of the holidays!

Friday night was fab, because Steve came home from a trip to the accountants in a good mood, and took us out for dinner Nice to know that all his hard work has paid off, this year at least.

On Saturday the girls took part in a singing workshop with the Panto people – great fun by all accounts. Josiah and I pootled around all day getting little jobs done – sorting out pets etc.

Today we spent lunchtime at Steve’s parents’ house for a BBQ, celebrating Steve’s Grandad’s and Mum’s birthdays, so that was nice. Sadly his Grandad wasn’t really up to taking part in his own birthday party though

Other than that, we’ve been packing. And giving the house a ritual pre- holiday tidy and clean (which everyone else moans about but I see as essential!). Also watching Moscow webcams and waiting for updates – the smog is clearing and apparently the airport is fully functional tonight so things are looking good for our flight next week. We’re all excited, if a bit nervous as well, but it should be an experience of a lifetime!

So tonight we visited a little pub which Steve has been to many times, but I’d never been there before! Steve finished work really late, and I’d had a stressful afternoon due to trying to work at home and failing (it’s just never going to work), so I fed the kids at home, then when Steve finally finished we went out for dinner at The Hour Glass. Fabulous little pub; food was great, and it was definitely good to spend a bit of time together without the distractions of home (there are plenty!).

After that we went on to see the launch of Girl Friday‘s EP at a tiny cocktail bar in town – plenty of atmosphere and fantastic to see what Steve’s sister has been spending all her time working on recently. Can’t link to the new video yet as I don’t think it’s online so will have to post this one instead

Huge congrats to the girls for the music exams that they took this term: Anna scored 130, scraping a distinction in her Grade 5 Bassoon. Strangely enough she also scored 130 in Grade 5 piano and cello when she took them a while back!
Abbie took Grade 3 flute and scored a respectable 126, giving her a merit, and her best music exam result so far. She got full marks for her aural!

Josiah hasn’t taken any music exams this term, but he is still pleased to hold the family record for points

The first weekend of the school holidays is almost over, only five more to go! We’ve been busy as usual though with different things going on …

On Friday night we went to Exmouth, along with some other families, for an end of term BBQ. Well, we didn’t BBQ as that would have meant being organised; we had chips on the seafront instead. Everyone else was far more civilised than us, of course. Miss White even joined us for some of the time, which was lovely- possibly the last time we see her! The kids had a ball, and it was very chilled for us grownups as well

Yesterday Steve took all his employees on a jolly down to Haynes Race Track, so muggins here covered at the garage. It was very quiet although I did see one genuine customer – but a quiet day suited me as I had some time to think about planning for next year – not that I actually managed to get any work done, but still. The children spent a pleasant day with Grandma We were meant to go to Exmouth again with different friends but I made an executive decision that I was too tired so called an early night all round.

Today the girls went off to panto for the day, while Steve, Josiah and I went into town, then out to Wiscombe as spectators for a couple of hours – a novelty for Steve! Since he blew his gearbox up yesterday he had little choice

Anyway, back to the girls – over the past few weeks they’ve been involved with a mini-production of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang by the ‘Juniors’ of the Pinhoe Panto Society. Well, we thought it was a mini-production but actually it was pretty major! Considering how little time they’d had to rehearse it was an amazing show, with all the kids involved, some great singing and dancing too – and they all had such fun doing it, which was obvious in their enjoyment of the performance.

Afterwards all the panto families went and sat in the park and chatted while the kids played, lovely