just another morning here

Well, actually, the couple in question have only been planning their wedding for 6 months, but I’ve been waiting for them to get married for about 7 years!!! We have known Julian for ages, and Maria since Josiah was a tiny baby (think she introduced herself to me by coming and asking for a cuddle with him, he was quite cute in those days), and long thought they’d be great together - they took a little longer to come round to the idea

We had a fantastic but very busy day. I got up early to fit in a quick trip to Pets at Home (ran out of woodshavings) so that I could clean out the guinea pigs before everything else, then it was time to get ready.

We all scrubbed up pretty nicely today I think, although Steve had to get instructions on tying his tie, and then look at the Moss Bros website to make sure he’d got it right! Hoping that one of the family photos that the official photographer took will come out nicely, but I took this one as the kids were practising their piece for the evening.

I had the honour of being chauffeur so we had ribbons on the car … dropped Steve & kids at the church then got to drive around town being stared at! Maria also had her photo taken by some random Japanese tourists who’d arrived at the Georgian Tearooms just as she was leaving so that was amusing! Really enjoyed the driving bit, even if I was a bit disorganised and had to get fuel between the wedding and the reception - but even that was funny as at Sainsbury’s petrol station we bumped into someone who vaguely knew Maria and had to come and say hello!

Can’t really do the day justice in one short blog post, but suffice to say it was beautiful in every way possible. Everyone looked gorgeous, Maria especially was simply glowing. The service itself was meaningful and reflected the God-centredness and thoughtfulness that personifies Julian and Maria together.

The reception - both the coffee and cake bit after the service, and the meal later at the Tumbling Weir - was lovely, all the food was great, and the general atmosphere was one of family celebration, just as it should be. Maria had thought to put together goody bags for all the kids, so my three were thrilled to find those on their chairs, and the colouring etc. kept them happy for ages, so it worked! (2yo Josh’s playdoh amused everyone on our table, too!)

The speeches deserve a mention, as Julian’s speech was far and away the most moving I have ever heard, public declarations of love like that don’t come around all that often - definitely had me blubbing!!

Also worthy of mention was that Rich, the best man, made it to the wedding at all - he’d spent the previous week in and out of hospital, and Steve had to hold him up at various points until we found him a stick to walk with, but he made it and everyone was really pleased about that (we sent him home early though!).

The evening part of the reception was really fun, as there wasn’t a band or disco - instead all the guests had been invited to perform if they wanted to. So there was an eclectic mix of items from poetry to all different sorts of music, including a last minute blues jam including Julian himself which was amazing (I must also admit to being pleased with the hymn that snuck in here, as we didn’t have any proper hymns during the service!).

Anna, Abbie & Joe wanted to do something and had prepared a little trio version of Eleanor Rigby together - which went really well except that the girls only repeated the verse twice instead of three times, which Josiah got a bit upset about (watch the very end of the vid!) but at least he stopped as well!!

Got home late and knackered, dumped everything and went to bed. Then woke up at 4.30am for the Grand Prix

Quite a long video - and this was only the violin section of the concert! There was a cello playdown, a flute group, and two soloists who performed as well. Just to explain what I mean by playdown: at the concert, if you are graduating from level 4 (for example), you would be on stage to play your graduation piece, and then all the pieces from the levels below, hence a build up of children performing, as by the end they were all on stage.

Joe was graduating from book 2, so can be spotted about 4/5 of the way through the video, if you know where to look. Still very proud of him

Josiah has every right to feel proud of himself and utterly exhausted this weekend. In fact I think he’s so tired that he can’t manage to admit he’s pleased with himself yet, but I hope he will, tomorrow perhaps!

We had a really busy weekend full of musical stuff, and a night with friends on top! First came the strings workshop at orchestra, which this week was fine, Joe just joined in with no problems, and seemed to really enjoy himself this time, thank goodness. Simply a case of knowing what something is going to be like, and he’s ok. After sticking around on duty while EYO had their rehearsal as well, we got home around 1.30pm, and only had an hour for lunch before we needed to turn around and leave for Josiah’s Suzuki Group lesson.

So, the afternoon was pretty much filled up with that (3 - 5pm). Joe enjoys these lessons as well, they’re really fun, but he works hard during them too - lots of practice for the next day’s concert.

Home for a quick tea, a very brief catchup with Uncle Marky who appeared to stay the night in our house while we were away, having brought my sister back to university - still sorry we couldn’t see more of him but hey ho. We got to the Portico around 9pm and had a lovely evening catching up.

This morning some of us went out to walk Dylan (and find caches ) while others of us lazed around the house. It was a beautiful morning for a walk … and the kids enjoyed just hanging around together too, an added bonus in an otherwise fairly manic weekend! We left there late morning and dropped Anna with another friend in Reading, then drove into London for Josiah’s graduation concert. Typically Steve managed to find a free parking space just around the corner from the concert hall!

The Suzuki system doesn’t have exams, instead you ‘graduate‘ from a book/level when you are ready, and this involves making a recording of a particular piece which is sent off for adjudication, then comments are sent back to the teacher.

Joe did this recording back in the summer, so would have graduated anyway, the concert was just an ‘icing on the cake’ thing, and we decided to go and take part this time round. We’d been to watch something similar a couple of years ago, so had an idea of what to expect, but it was still fairly nerve-racking for Josiah. His jitters got the better of him during the rehearsal, but he did manage to go and stand up on the edge of the stage with his teacher, behind a curtain so no-one could see him! After that though (and an ice cream break ), he knew what the expectations were, and was absolutely fine and happy to go and sit with the rest of his group for the proper performance.

The concert itself was good, and needless to say I was exceedingly proud of Josiah for managing to take part Video may follow tomorrow but it’s too late to faff around with it now.

Drove out of London appreciating lots of nice houses - the benefit of not being on the underground! Picked Anna up and carried on to Cribb’s Causeway before stopping for dinner, and then got home really late, and everyone went straight to bed. Another suzuki friend here told me they weren’t going because it was too much of a late night on a Sunday (having been in previous years) and I can see why, I imagine it will have a knock on effect tomorrow, but hey ho, you only live once.

I haven’t been, but this morning I am … nothing at all to do with having smashed some tetris scores

Not much to report really, hence the silence here. Everyone is just getting on with life and enjoying it mainly I think.

Josiah’s having a bit of a stress over violin - but this is nothing new The boy can’t make his mind up, one minute it’s the worst thing ever and anyone who suggests any practice is evil so a tantrum must be thrown, and the next minute he realises he’s grown out of his quarter size violin and could really have a half size, actually he’d really like one and he doesn’t want to give up after all.

Orchestra was a bit of a problem this week because there was not just one, but three changes during the section rehearsal (new tutor, different and bigger group of children, different room) and he just doesn’t do change well at all, so that was a tough one to get through. I am absolutely worried stiff about his Suzuki graduation concert next weekend as I’m really not sure how best to prepare him. It’s never ever the actual violin playing that is the problem, put it like that.

Joe’s really enjoying his new Tae Kwon Do classes though. These have (thankfully) stayed with the same teacher, in the same room, with a small group of children!

Abbie is fabulous She cleaned out the guinea pigs on her own yesterday (well, Joe was meant to be helping but I’m not sure he did really!), and is generally just good at getting on with things. She’s really happy with her new teacher this year which is great as I suspect she might end up with the same teacher next year as well.

Anna, meanwhile, seems to think that high school is the ticket to everything … and naturally, that means that she can act like a 16 year old even though she is still only 11! Hmm. She joined the choir at school this week which I think was a good move, she’ll enjoy that. She’s also planning to stay on at the primary school choir as their accompanist which will be good for her as well, but that doesn’t start up again until after half term.
Homework etc. doesn’t seem to have been too strenuous yet, neither have the lessons themselves. They spent one whole day last week doing Cognitive Ability Tests (as if they didn’t test the Y6s enough last term!), quite what the purpose of that was, I don’t know, as Anna says they’re already in groups for subjects, but there we go.
Apart from school, Anna’s particularly enjoying the church youth group which she started going to a couple of weeks ago.

Work for Steve and me just plodding along I think. Steve is sort of waiting for the ‘credit crunch’ thing to hit the garage but so far, other than actual car prices going down significantly, business itself doesn’t seem to have been too badly affected. Only time will tell.

My school had parents’ evenings this week which I opted to stay for because I am so nosey. No, seriously, it helps you to be able to support the children better if you have an idea of their family life, not to mention what it is that their parents want for them. All the children come to school on county transport, so we never get to meet the parents otherwise! I enjoyed taking my class out to Gym Club in the week too, and another highlight was spending an afternoon in a different class, just helping out as we had less children than usual and they were a member of staff down.

Still umming and aahing over this blog. A couple of blog-friends have stopped recently and I guess I have sympathy with the reasons for stopping a public blog, so watch this space. I might write more behind the safety of a password!

So it’s back to school, and back to sporadic blog posts! Had to hit the ground running when we got home from France last week, so we’ve been busy …

Since last weekend I have managed to do all the holiday washing, not only the clothes but all the sheets and sleeping bags from the caravan as well. I must admit that this was helped by coming home to empty washing baskets rather than the half-full ones I had left, that was one of the benefits of having my parents staying in our house while we were away, thank you Lorraine!

Last Saturday we didn’t manage to get much sorting out done - instead we all went out to visit Grandma, and Steve and Josiah went into town and then out looking at cars to buy for the garage. The girls and I enjoyed our friend Maria’s hen party - Anna and Abbie came to the afternoon ‘tea party’ and then I dropped them home before going out in the evening as well.

On Sunday Steve had to work as he had invoices that had to be done before the end of the month, so we dropped him (and our bikes) down to the workshop for the day. My day was spent organising - menu and food shopping, and tidying up all the debris left in the hallway from the holiday!

Monday was my last full day off before going back to work. I had thought that I’d need to do the last minute school shoe buying with the kids but then Steve offered to do that on Tuesday when a friend got in touch suggesting a day geocaching up and down the canal. That sounded infinitely preferable to me, and a nice way to end my holidays Anna arranged to go out for the day as she had a birthday party to go to, so Abbie, Josiah and I ended up doing 12 miles on our bikes, stopping for caches along the way.

Actually some of the caches were on the ‘not cyclable’ side of the canal, so we had to walk that part, pushing bikes through shoulder-height undergrowth - hard work! I was not allowed to moan and groan about all the bruises and nettle stings when I got home though, apparently ‘extreme terrain geocaching’ is an extreme sport undertaken at my own peril. Thankfully the kids had opted to stay on the proper cycle path side of the canal, they would never have made it!

Still, it was a fun day. We had drinks at pubs/cafes at both ends, and Steve helpfully picked our bikes up for us later on when he picked Anna up from Lush where she’d been for this party. Did you know Lush did birthday parties? I didn’t, and not sure what it cost per head - but it sounded fun and she came home with lots of goodies.

Tuesday was my first day back at school - no children until Thursday though. Had some time in the classroom and then some training on visual impairments which was interesting. So Steve had the kids and managed to survive Clarks shoe shop far better than I would have, emerging victorious with sensible school footwear all round. We realised that Anna had one more day off, so quickly arranged a day with Grandma for her on Wednesday. Piano lessons started after school, with a new piano teacher as our old one is having a baby soon, so we decided to make a change at the beginning of the term. Actually the teacher is not entirely new to us, she’s Anna’s cello teacher as well - all seemed to go well with lessons and best of all she forgot to bring the bill, so I have a reprieve on that!

The other two were back at school on Wednesday - now both in Key Stage 2 so that felt more grown up for Joe; waiting in the playground rather than going straight to his classroom, and lots of new things to boot. Josiah was a bit nervous about the changes, as he *really* hates not knowing what is going to happen, but he had a good day by all accounts, and now that he knows what to expect he’ll be fine. Both of them were happy to be back seeing friends and seem excited about the year ahead in their new classes.

I did some more interesting training yesterday, on the Optimusic system - we have a relatively basic system in school, on a trolley so that it can go to different rooms - just with a couple of light beams - but still plenty of possibilities. Some great programming uses for more able children as well as the easy switch operation making it accessible for children with additional needs. I liked it a lot, could see a lot of potential in it, but unfortunately I can’t see me ever really having time to use it properly so I’ll probably end up forgetting how to do it!

So today was the big day. Not only did I have children in my class, but Anna went off to high school. No big deal, she was all ready and had arranged to meet a friend half-way there to walk together.

Seems like it all went fine, she’s happy anyway, and that’s about all I’ve heard so far! Well, apparently she won a pen in English, for being the only person to remember a long list of something or other. Took her to her cello lesson afterwards and had to pay the dreaded bill - still at least there will only be one pupil concert to attend!

This week has been spent at a leisurely pace, with the children doing different things on different days. They each had an activity day at the Sports Centre; Josiah did football, Anna did trampolining, and Abbie did tennis/archery. These all seemed to go down really well, and it was quite nice to be without a different child on the days they were out, too!

At home there has been plenty of reading, some Wii playing, board games, lots of music (both practice and also murdering of various songs from musicals - but Anna is getting the hang of playing using guitar chords and melody line as a basis so I shouldn’t complain as I’ve been trying to teach her a bit more improvisation recently, not that I’m particularly good at it - she will soon outstrip me on that front too I’m sure), colouring and drawing, baking, seeing friends (mine not theirs, for once!) and plenty of other nice things too.

Weather has been rubbish for most of the week; on the worst night Anna was sleeping over at a friend’s house in a tent! Have managed to get most of the pre-holiday washing done though.

Steve has been working hard, and our evenings have been full too, with poker, miscarriage support group, some geocaching, etc. I’ve been trying to get the house sorted before we go on holiday, too - I always regret letting people stay here while we’re away, but then I forget not to do it again! I jest - it’s a bit of extra work but it’s good really!

We’re almost ready, the last few bits will get done tomorrow night after we’ve packed everything up. Still just hoping that the bike/trailer combination will work out ok, we haven’t had time to test it so it’s a case of ‘fingers crossed’, and if it doesn’t work we’ll just take the kids’ bikes. Not really sure why we are taking bikes at all, there is no way we’ll be keeping up with the cycle-riding pace of the Adamses! Still, we have a couple of weeks on our own after our time with them, and we’re looking forward to some good family bike rides

After Joe’s violin lesson today I can confirm music exam results this term: Anna passed Grade 3 piano with merit (125), Abbie passed Grade 2 piano (113), and Josiah passed Grade 2 violin with merit (124). Abbie and Anna both chose things from the Fat Face sale as rewards for their effort, and Joe got some Ben 10 toys. The mini-contest between them about who got the most marks for sight reading was won by Anna, but Josiah scored higher than her in other areas!

Everyone apart from me has had pre-holiday haircuts, if I cared enough I’d feel left out … but I don’t Now just bimbling around at home - I’m cleaning and starting to pack while they, of course, are making more mess Popping over to Steve’s parents’ house later to deliver birthday presents so that will be nice.

And then holiday! We’re off very early on Sunday morning for almost three weeks so unless I find some internet in France, this will be the last post until the end of the month! Hope all those going to J&Js have a good weekend, one year we will get there too!

Just got embroiled in upgrading to WP2.6, which took far too long and broke too many plugins for my liking. Still, they are all fixed now, but I have a chronic headache, not helped by the events of the night.

We had a pleasant enough evening at Jools Holland - well, Jools was great, and 4/5 of us really enjoyed it. Abbie had decided she felt ill so was hiding under a blanket. We ignored her thinking she was making a mountain out of a molehill but then she spent the night throwing up so perhaps she wasn’t just making a fuss after all

Anyway here are some photos mainly from before Abbie started feeling dodgy.

Think we are going to be taking it very easy today - she’s still being sick and the rest of us were all awake throughout the night so feeling kind of rough as well