My colleague and I went to a conference specifically for HLTAs on Tuesday. Very nice to be out of school for a day and it was quite interesting too. OFSTED are in my school this week specifically looking at PE but everyone is on their best behaviour as a result (hmmm!).

Had my performance development review at work yesterday. Think it went ok. Lots to feed back from the conference anyway. We’ll see – I’m still hoping for a teaching job there in September but don’t know if or how that will happen.

Anna and Josiah both got up half an hour earlier than usual today in an attempt to be the one to have the last bowl of cheerios. This made me laugh greatly. Josiah won. I then found out that Anna had had a bowl of cereal last night but clearly *didn’t* choose the cheerios then, daft girl! She says she didn’t have them last night because that wouldn’t have been fair, but this morning was different?!!

The piano tuner came to tune the piano for the first time since it arrived. Apparently it wasn’t that far out anyway (I certainly couldn’t hear it) and according to Steve he wasn’t the most talkative bloke on the planet so I don’t really know what he did!

The door people came to replace the gold handle on our new front door with a chrome one, which they should have had on it in the first place. And they fiddled around with more sealer and oiling the squeaks too – far more pleasant to listen to the front door opening now.

Other than that, a few lessons as usual, lots of practising and lots of school and lots of driving around here there and everywhere.

Josiah left first this morning, to spend the day at the cathedral. I took Anna to school, to spend the day on a play rehearsal. Abbie and I then went off to church for the morning.

It was such a gorgeous day that we couldn’t bear to just come home for the afternoon, so we went and picked Steve up, then drove out to Budleigh Salterton for chips on the seafront. Only we couldn’t actually find chips, so we settled for bacon butties instead. And decaff coffee
We had a lovely walk in the sunshine, but it was cold and blowy as well, so on reaching the other end of the beach we had ice-creams inside the cafe! Abbie spent ages finding spotty and stripy stones, so she was happy. A cache at each end made me happy too.

Home for a cup of tea and then Steve went out to round up the missing children while I cooked dinner. Hope all homework etc. is done as I asked them then took their word for it! We watched a film then it was an early night all round.

Abbie’s school choir had been invited so it was quite nice that she got to go as well. She and her friend dashed back to orchestra for the chamber orchestra rehearsal though, so I popped my head in then – couldn’t stay away

Steve and I went off for a coffee after that – well, obviously I didn’t have coffee as that would have caffeine in it, so had a nice hot chocolate instead. Nice to be out on our own, although as usual we seem to struggle to find topics of conversation which aren’t work or the children!

Home then for a few jobs, bedroom tidying, homework etc., before the next round of lifts were needed – picking up the boys then dropping Anna to a friend’s birthday party. Now sitting down to watch Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs together with the younger two.

Not much news from the week – it was work and school as usual, with the exception of Vivaldi’s birthday on Thursday when there was no evensong, though the two facts were, in fact, unrelated I put another job application in (heard back from the first one, the school withdrew the post as apparently they decided they couldn’t afford it), but I’m not terribly hopeful – and anyway I’d prefer to get a teaching post at my school, really. Steve spent half the week with man-flu but thankfully has managed to recover and not die, so that was good.

I went out with work friends on Friday night to start the weekend off – was very restrained though, as we all had to be up early the next morning. Steve and the kids did a bit of tidying up while I was out, which was very nice

On Saturday I had a few things to open in the morning, then we all got up for orchestra as usual. Only it wasn’t quite orchestra as usual, because we had the pleasure of the company of six players from the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, tutoring some of our sections, then playing with our children during the main rehearsal. I was on hostess duty, then photographer duty – all very enjoyable. And the orchestra played happy birthday to me (ok, they usually play happy birthday to people, but I got a special rendition). Brilliant to have the BSO tutors there, very inspiring for our players to meet people who do it professionally.

It is totally disgusting stuff, but they did have a whale of a time for a good half an hour, all 3 squashed into our bath. They are much too big for that kind of activity these days really!

Anyway, after that we got a quick bit of homework done, then it was time to head over to Steve’s parents’ house – they’d laid on a lovely birthday tea and then they looked after the kids while we walked down to the theatre. They also gave me some much needed birthday socks!

Home late, but no matter, as this morning we had a long lie-in. The kids got up and made pancake batter, then when I’d put the BSO photos up in various places and kicked a bit of website into shape, I finally joined them.

Delicious pancake brunch (marshmallows included ) then we went out in hunt of a few caches and a self-timer photo. Unfortunately it was a bit windy and we couldn’t find many safe places to prop the camera, so this is all we managed, but it’s better than nothing!

After that we came home to finish off homework and music practice. Made some burnt popcorn and did some arguing which I am obliged to include. Happily we now have some un-burnt popcorn and have settled down with Coraline on Blu-ray.

She came home with three lots of homework – one of which is going to test her as it’s revising a whole load of science that she hasn’t done, but no matter!

She also arrived back with a planner full of days to remember instruments; Wind Orchestra one day, String Chamber Orchestra another – and a couple more groups besides. Thinking about it, she hasn’t mentioned choir yet! I suspect all of these groups have lots more pupils in them, and aren’t just a mish-mash of other random instrumentalists who happen to be in the school

The friend she made yesterday apparently is also taking Grade 6 piano soon so at dinnertime they went and practised together.

All of these things are exactly the reasons we wanted to make a change, so Steve and I are happy. She got home and whipped through homework and music practice so that she could go out to the local youth club, where she still sees most of her best friends from Pinhoe, so I think she was happy too

While I spent all day doing that, the kids had a good day with Steve; he took them swimming – something I *never* thought he’d do! In the evening we cracked open a bottle of fizzy wine and spent our mealtime making toasts to various little things – sometimes it’s good to celebrate the small things too After that, we watched Slumdog Millionaire, the start of a good weekend for films.

Saturday was orchestra as usual (though Anna took her bassoon as well as the spare cello which she doesn’t like!), and jobs as usual – cleaning out the guinea pigs, hoovering, etc. The girls had friends round again, too. Steve went back to work, as that was infinitely preferable to helping with housework, apparently After dinner we watched My Sister’s Keeper, and I blubbed all the way through. Thought it was very good though, and a reasonably close adaptation of the book – different ending but I still thought the film kept to the feel of the book despite the alternate ending.

Today Josiah and I drove down to South Devon to meet some new friends that we’ve got to know through our Suzuki Group – Joe and their little boy hit it off instantly over Pokemon cards, as you do. The mum is a piano teacher, so we arranged for her to accompany Josiah at the upcoming festival, so we needed to get together to practise for that. I *think* it went well, it certainly helps to focus on the things that need polishing between now and then. Very wowed by their house, which was beautiful, including purpose built music studio! Had to drag Josiah away as well.

Then I suppose I ought to think about what I’m teaching tomorrow ….

In other news this week: my sister came to stay, which was lovely, even if we didn’t see *that* much of her. We had new doors fitted front and back – very exciting but no photo yet as the dratted door people left us with silver knocker and letterbox but a gold door handle – we’re getting that changed!

Yesterday the girls both went out for a Wind Group rehearsal, then Anna had a theory lesson. Josiah went to play with his friend up the road, and Abbie stayed at home and vacuumed the hallway after the door fitters had gone. Oh, and friends from church came for tea.

Haircuts all round this afternoon, and now more friends are here for tea and a film afterwards. It’s been a good week, especially helped by Josiah having a brilliant attitude towards music practices every day (these are usually Big Fallout times)! Plenty to do but lots of space either side, so everyone’s been happy.

We’re now home for the rest of a busy week; my sister is staying and we have various other things happening which I’ll write about as the week goes on!

Jim is Anna’s 3/4 size cello. Over the past couple of years (she insisted it was longer but I only picked up the cello in July 07, I know because I blogged it!) she has obviously spent quite some time with this cello and become very emotionally attached to it! So much so that she wanted to keep it when she moved up to a full size, but I said no, and callously sold it before she’d even finished with it!! No, seriously, it is going to a good home with the Puddles tomorrow so she’s happy really.

As an aside – is it odd to name one’s instruments? I thought so, but on questioning a few of the kids at orchestra it seems quite common! The most amusing one I’ve discovered so far is a bass clarinet named U-bend

Anyway. Anna’s new cello is over 100 years old, German, and was totally beaten up when we first bought it. I should have taken a photo but I forgot. It had a couple of really big cracks on each side at the front, a lot of the edging around the body was missing, the pegs (and holes) needed replacing – and so the list went on!

Devon Strings are currently working their magic, and restoring it beautifully, putting the best strings on it and setting it up properly, etc. At great personal expense! I’m very much looking forward to seeing it (and hearing it!), by the end of the month if all goes well. And hopefully Anna will love it just as much if not more than poor old Jim.

I dunno, you always have a special place in your heart for your first love, though, don’t you?