just another morning here

It’s meant to be screen-free Sunday but we caved in today and watched a film this afternoon. Also I wanted to look at the photos we’d taken this afternoon so I picked up the computer and it’s gone downhill from there!

Anyway, a nice weekend, after an extraordinarily busy week. Of course I’m not allowed to say what Ofsted’s judgement was, but it will be published in due course I was ready to be observed but thankfully I escaped – an inspector came in as we were getting ready for lunch but surprisingly he turned down my invitation to stay! I’m not quite sure why, there is plenty of learning that happens in my class over lunchtime too – but it can get a bit messy and noisy at times

As a result of a stressful week, Friday was spent generally spaced out, both at school and at home! Anna went out to FNX and Steve was out somewhere too, but the rest of us snuggled in my bed and watched tv which was a nice way to relax

Saturday was choir/orchestra as usual, then we had the addition of a strings workshop all afternoon for Anna. Josiah was back at the cathedral for an outreach concert; I came home and got a bit of work done before dashing out to pick them all up again (as well as to drop Abbie off for a birthday party). More vegging in front of the tv in the evening. Steve and I cracked open our Gentleman Jack that we’d brought home from the JD distillery

Today has been chilled too – Joe had services to sing this morning and I went to church too, while the girls caught up on homework and cleaned out the guinea pigs, Steve did the hoovering, but then we all went out for lunch together at the Swan in Lympstone, which was lovely. HUGE dinners!

We were meant to be going for a nice walk afterwards but we all felt very lazy, so came home and broke the screen ban for a film! Before that though, I insisted on a photoshoot as I often do around my birthday – it’s rare to get a decent picture of me with the kids (mainly because I hate having my photo taken!) so occasionally I have to grab them all and torture them by making them pose with me. There were a couple of nice ones in amongst the failures!

After the film we did our usual Sunday evening music practices in various combinations, which was mainly nice … and now the kids have gone off to bed, Steve and I have given in again and are on computers, not talking to one another at all!

p.s. I have decided that I can’t quite bring myself to let the blog go, despite it being total drivel most of the time. Enough people said ‘nooo’ when I threatened it!

This week has been largely dominated by the Showstoppers Holiday Club that our church has been running. Anna and I were helping out running teams and activities, while Abbie and Josiah enjoyed taking part in it all. It was loosely based around a theatre theme, so all the workshops were creative – Anna helped out with the music one which Abbie took part in, while Joe opted to do the photography workshop and he really enjoyed it.

I uploaded a bunch of photos that I found on my camera, which Joe had borrowed, then told him that I thought they were really good, and then he told me that he didn’t take all of them! We think that the good ones must belong to Harry who helped run the group, and who I think is also an art student, so that explains it!

We had various other activities going on during the mornings; games, art, drama, singing (generally mad songs with lots of jumping around and actions) team challenges, quizzes, etc. All good fun but very exhausting! I’m glad to be at the end of the week; we have a BBQ on Sunday for all the families – loads of them are coming, I just hope it doesn’t rain!

During the afternoons we hung out at home mainly; my parents and brother have been around so on one wet afternoon we took Ben with us to see Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, which entertained us for a while. Otherwise the children have just enjoyed having downtime; the girls have both done a bit of baking on different days (this means I have eaten way too much but hey ho), Abbie and Joe played a long imaginary game one afternoon, they’ve played on the Wii, all the sorts of things they don’t usually have time for during term time

Our friends who got married in October had Emma Richardson of Freckle Photography as their photographer, and I must say that their wedding photos are among the most beautiful that I’ve seen for a very long time. Definitely biased, but I particularly like the couple of photos she took with my children in them, and thanks to Julian & Maria for letting me have copies to add to my flickr.

Okay, the rest of the photos from week one are here as well.

Sitting at the kids’ play area finishing this off, watching Steve & Joe play ping pong while Abbie plays some girl/boy gang game with other children! Anna’s reading in the tent …