just another morning here

We’ve just got home from seeing the Y6 productions at Abbie’s school.

There are two Y6 classes this year, and one of them did a mashup of the Old Testament while the other one did a quick skip through the New Testament. The first production included excerpts from Joseph (and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat), David and Goliath (The Giant Slayer), and Jonah (Jonah Man Jazz) – the second performance was The Gospel Show.

Abbie played Joseph – and then a Philistine, and then a drunken Ninevite – not sure which part she enjoyed the most! Joe and Anna ended up being involved too – Anna supported the Y6 keyboard player in one of the jazzy pieces that he couldn’t quite play, so Joe helped with props. It was a great evening, really loved seeing Abbie and all her friends enjoying themselves

Still feel it’s very unfair for two of the family to finish a whole two weeks before the rest, but c’est la vie! Highlights from this week:

Monday
Josiah’s school Prizegiving: he got a prize for effort, progress and achievement in Y4 so well done to him. He also played in the orchestra and sang in Junior Choir during the evening, so nice to hear that, especially the singing since I missed the Junior Choir concert last week.

Tuesday
Nothing special to report; Joe sang at a funeral but otherwise things were normal. As normal as they ever are around here!

Wednesday
Josiah’s school trip was on Wednesday; he really enjoyed his day out at Escot.

Thursday
The end of term for the posh schoolers. Also Anna’s prizegiving, and then Pinhoe School’s Choral Evening – which clashed with the last Evensong of the year (plus farewells for the Y8 choristers). Oh, and let’s not forget Abbie and Georgina’s second trip to Taverner’s Farm where they made a tub full of their very own ice cream to support their school project!

They also got to help making lots of other flavours, and generally had a fantastic time. Anna had a friend back here so the girls did the choral evening with me, while Steve went to the last evensong of the term. Then I took Anna and her friend back to the friend’s house for Anna to sleep over. Then came home and breathed a sigh of relief! Phew.

So tomorrow Abbie and I will be off to school, while Anna is going to the beach and Steve will be largely loafing around with Josiah.

Just too tired to bother writing anything. All we’re doing is working, and everyone is exhausted. I even overslept by 40 minutes the other morning, and oversleeping is something I can’t remember ever having done before!

Since my last post, Abbie’s had a taster day at St. Margaret’s (and is much happier about going there now, thank goodness. She may even be able to cope with a skirt after all ). The same night, Anna took part in her school’s Performing Arts evening – singing in Cats with her choir, playing a cello solo, and her bassoon in an ensemble. Friday night was Josiah’s school’s Marquee Concert – a fun end of year bash which was very entertaining.

We had the Orchestra’s summer concert at Connaught Gardens in Sidmouth on Saturday – a blisteringly hot day, but it was a good end to ECO’s term. Now we just have rehearsals with the group going to Russia. There may have been a little bit of caching over the weekend too

This week has contained Sports Days (Upper and Lower School) for me as well as an Upper School Swimming Gala – all fun and exciting but very stressful as well! Anna’s sat her Grade 5 on bassoon, and Josiah had a Junior Choir concert in amongst all the other ‘normal’ singing that he does. He’s also quite excited to have been told that he can start preparing for Grade 5 violin as it makes him feel grown up, but it’s just costing me a fortune in music! Meanwhile Abbie’s enjoying the last tiny bit of Pinhoe – she’s having fun preparing for her Y6 play and other nice things like that.

So – definitely counting down a day at a time to the end of term, but there are lots of good things happening too

After school today, I went to meet up with Abbie, her friend Georgina and Georgina’s mum too, at a nearby farm. The Y6s have been given a project to do on food and farming; they have to pick a local farm and study it. The girls chose Taverner’s Farm, an organic dairy farm which makes ice cream

It is also known as the Orange Elephant, because of the type of dairy cows that they keep but also because they keep a big orange elephant in a field that you can see from the A38 dual carriageway! Anyway. Georgina’s mum had fixed up an official visit, so after an ice-cream in the cafe (because it would have been rude not to!) the very friendly farmer showed the girls around, let us take all sorts of photos, talked them through the dairy farming and ice cream making processes. It was fab

Now, of course, they have some work to do writing it all up …