The weekend’s been busy – no Steve all weekend as he was off racing (more on that later). The rest of us had ECO as usual on Saturday morning, then a bit of homework on Saturday afternoon before heading to Poole for a Night at the Movies with the BSO – a concert full of John Williams’ film themes. Joe, Anna and I really enjoyed it – Abbie enjoyed spending the evening with a friend instead!

On Sunday Abbie and I went to join Isca Church handing out doughnuts and coffee at the Great West Run; then we all watched Young Musician of the Year while I folded the laundry and did the ironing. Steve got home and we were very proud of him; he’d won his class on both days and set a new class record

Monday started with some caching in the morning, while everyone else stayed in bed. I got home late morning, as they were getting up. I headed out to help with a community BBQ and the rest of them slobbed around a bit more … then had to finish my school work in the evening. Poof, there goes a long weekend. Blink and you miss it. I could do with three days every weekend.

Apart from that, we’ve all just been working, in our various places, so not much else to report. I’m still loving my new job, I’m very pleased I made the move. Happy.

Josiah went to a friend’s birthday party today and had great fun on quad bikes. They looked a bit tame to Steve and me though … we took part in a navigational scatter rally last week and that was far more fun

I have had a brilliant first week at my new job – I love the school Everyone else has had a good first week at school too – Anna has somehow managed to get some decent results in exams, and Abbie passed her Grade 5 flute so well done all round

They loved all the fairground rides, and as well as that we all had a very pleasant walk along the beach, nice lunch in a quiet pub, spent some time in the arcades wasting 2ps (but we did win rather a lot of keyrings!), then a few more rides before coming home again. The weather was lovely until the end of the day – it started raining as we drove away.

On Saturday we went to watch Josiah’s chorister football match, a traditional Easter Saturday event, and stayed for lunch afterwards. Joe decided to come home with us for the afternoon, but went back to the boarding house at teatime; he had a lovely time there while singing in the Cathedral over Easter.

We spent the day with Steve’s family after church on Easter Sunday which was lovely – very relaxed.

Monday was a geocaching day – 35 caches found, two not found – meh.

A new Angry Birds game was released recently, but I decided I wasn’t going to download it until I had completed all the Angry Birds games that I currently have. So I have spent quite a lot of time getting three stars on every level on the main Angry Birds, Angry Birds Seasons, and Angry Birds Rio last week before allowing myself to download the Space game on Monday. Obsessed, much, me?! I quite like the new one!

We’ve done homework; the girls had schoolwork to do and I had a lot of reading/preparation for my new job – I’m still not sure I’ve got my head around it all to be honest. Getting a bit nervous now but I’m sure it will be fine – looking forward to getting stuck in there.

Between us all, we’ve also: had a violin bridge fixed, applied for a couple of new passports, been to the dentist, sent off applications for various summer holiday activities, been to birthday parties, had a sleepover, started on a new Youth Alpha course, been to the cinema with friends, worked (a little), eaten too much chocolate, and had plenty of lie-ins. A good week I think.

The Russians were hosted in families from the orchestra, or families who had travelled to Russia with us in 2010, and that all seemed to run smoothly – a lot of people relied heavily on google translate, what a wonderful invention. One friend of mine even gleefully used it, along with copy and paste on her phone, to send texts to her guests *in Russian* – very impressive. I confess we didn’t have to use it that much – one of the girls who stayed with us understood enough English to relay everything to the other one, and between them they managed to gesticulate and use enough English to make us understand most things!

Over the first weekend they spent time with ECO in rehearsals and then on the Saturday night we got together with a couple of other families within walking distance for an evening meal – one of them was hosting the bass balalaika player so we had some fun playing with that!

On the Monday, the dancers spent the day at Exeter College, with the performing arts dance students there; they exchanged traditional folk dances – the English taught the Russians some Maypole dances, and the Russians taught the English a traditional folk dance as well. We also had a civic reception from the Mayor in the middle of the day – in Russia the culture is very different and everything is controlled by the city council, so this was a diplomatic effort on behalf of our Lord Mayor – even though ECO organised and paid for everything, she was wonderful at ‘officially’ receiving the group.

Back to the college for rehearsals in the afternoon, and tea laid on by the college catering students, then a performance at Exeter College in the evening. It was actually incredible to see the dancers ‘close up’, having seen them on the big stage the night before – a totally different experience.

Tuesday was a day trip for the Russians, down to Dartmouth then a boat ride to Greenway (Agatha Christie’s house). Tuesday evening was meant to be with host families; we’d planned fish & chips but then our girls wanted to explore the city instead, so they did – on foot – and got the bus home! They seemed to get on fine, although they did end up eating in McDonald’s, but I shouldn’t mock as I remember some of our party eating there when we were in Moscow (not us, I hasten to add )!

Wednesday was a partial day out – we visited the Norman Lockyer Observatory in Sidmouth. I confess to sleeping through most of it (well, these presentations happen in darkened rooms and I just can’t help it) but the telescopes were interesting. From there we went to a hotel in Sidmouth for a lovely lunch, then the Russians shopped in Sidmouth while we sat and had tea in the hotel After that we travelled across to Exmouth Community College, whose deputy head teacher was a member of ECO in his youth, travelled to Russia with them back in the 90s, and still plays the balalaika now – so he had offered to host a performance as well.

Thursday was a day trip to the Eden project for the Russians, and then a Ceilidh for everyone. Excellent fun here – by now everyone had relaxed and made friends, even the adults – there was some vodka consumption in one corner No photos of this from me unfortunately!

Friday, their last full day in Exeter, was spent mainly shopping! The day was broken up by lunch, some gift giving, and an afternoon concert for the accordion players, and then we arranged for them to go and busk outside as well.

An amazing week really – as I have said in other places, I am so proud of ECO all over again, for being the sort of organisation that can pull off hosting such a brilliant week for people. It was very interesting to watch how the Russians relaxed as the week went on – from some tricky negotiations over the concerts/rehearsals on the first weekend to them being completely at home by the end of the week and not worrying about the details because they trusted us more (I felt). Host families were wonderful, as were key people playing organisational roles. Still, it was good to get to the end of the week and breathe a sigh of relief to send them on their way, in the knowledge that they’d had a brilliant time – there were tearful farewells between some families and their guests on the last morning, which just went to show how amazing an experience it had been.

France (being hosted by the OJHB) next Easter, that might be a little bit easier

It’s been a whirlwind few days saying goodbye to colleagues and children at school, as well as a morning at my new school, and an Anglo-Saxon banquet … all at the same time as trying to mastermind project ‘Get the House Ready for the Russians’ while working.

I have been well and truly spoiled, my TAs made me a photo montage of my class students and staff in a gorgeous frame, and gave me a silver sparkly bracelet. AND we had a lovely night out together Then today I had a few little gifts from the children in the class as well as flowers from other people too – my house looks great tonight!

We were lucky enough to be able to organise a bus day today, so we had a day out with the whole class (plus one extra!) at Decoy Park – they enjoyed the play area, we had a picnic, and walked around the lake, then played some more – and the sun shone, and I took lovely photos

I am really sad to leave everyone (it was so weird and sad today – I hate goodbyes) but yet looking forward to the next chapter in my surprise teaching career – in my next school I am going to teach the Early Years class which is a big change from KS4.

And now, we are into the Russian Exchange, our Russian guests arrived this evening, thankfully an hour later than expected as I would never have been ready in time! Regular readers may remember our trip to Yaroslavl in 2010; this is the return visit. We (ECO families) are hosting a ballet troupe and an accordion ensemble as well as leaders etc., so we have a week of entertainment and cultural activities laid on for them. I don’t have to be involved in all of it, just a few of the days, but we do have two lovely teenage girls staying with us. Anna, Abbie and Josiah worked hard during the first two days of their holidays to get the place ship-shape and beds ready etc. It’s going to be fun if we can all just catch up on a bit of sleep first …

I confess, I was mostly looking forward to the food and the company, but I enjoyed the activities too (the food was the best though!). We had a camera in each group this year so I wasn’t the official photographer, but joined in with all the activities, so that was a lot of fun.

Generally it’s just a lovely week to spend with some of my favourite people – staff and students alike – they are a fantastic bunch. Brilliant to see the children having opportunities they don’t normally get, achieving so much, and enjoying themselves with the freedom that comes from being away from the confines of school. We were lucky with the weather again this year which was great. There were a few people who couldn’t go which was a shame, and they were very much missed.

My family, meanwhile, didn’t miss me at all, I don’t think … so after a day of music related activities on Saturday followed by a school quiz night in the evening, I went back to work for a day on Sunday to write reports. It had better be nice weather in the Easter holidays, that’s all I can say!

Today we were as busy as usual – I tried not to go to orchestra but failed since the person on duty had car troubles so I had to go anyway – and the children were all there as usual too. Josiah usually fits a choir rehearsal in as well as orchestra but just had the one thing to do this morning.

We did actually have time to come home for lunch; sometimes we don’t do that as we don’t have time, but today we did. Then dashed back out for an afternoon of music – Suzuki Group lesson, Hannah’s pupil concert (was meant to involve both girls but Abbie chickened out of her piano piece!), and rehearsals for the DPAF next week. Here is a condensed version for the grandparents’ benefit

This evening we went out to Great Aunty Jacky’s birthday party – the children plus Abbie’s friend Riona who’d joined us for the night, dressed up in Lord of the Rings theme as requested; Steve and I were very bah humbug about costumes (can you believe it?!) and just went as ourselves.

Tomorrow I’m out all day helping with a school dance show. At some point over the weekend we are also cleaning out the fish and guinea pigs as usual, folding/ironing about six loads of laundry, cleaning the bathroom and hoovering round, etc. etc., it never ends. So, er – free weekend, anyone?!!

Anyway, Anna managed to find something that means far more to me than a CD – she decided to get baptised. Actually she’d wanted to get baptised for quite some time but I think I put her off when she was really little, wanting her to be a bit older and wiser … and she put herself off at some point too, I think! Her trip to Romania over the summer was formative in the decision making process coming round again, and she has decided for sure this time. By chance it was planned to happen on a weekend close to my birthday, so we had a lovely family celebration day with my parents and Steve’s parents.

Baptisms are one of those things that invariably make me cry (along with nativity plays and the opening music to Fly Away Home), and over the past few weeks I haven’t even been able to think about Anna’s baptism without getting emotional, so I’m writing here what I couldn’t quite say today, for fear of embarrassing her (and myself!).

I can’t actually think of many things that I would value more, or be more proud of, than one of my children choosing to make a commitment of their own to the faith that means so much to me. I often worry that we’re doing a rubbish job with parenting, muddling through and making the best decisions we can, but not necessarily being sure about very much. But this has reassured me that despite my failures as a parent, God has a plan for my children, He wants to know them individually and personally, and that is something I am incredibly grateful for. The emotional occasion was probably made all the more moving for me by the fact that she asked my Dad to baptise her, along with Andy our own church leader, and that was very special.

We followed the baptism with lunch at ASK; we picked it because it’s cunningly situated on the Cathedral Green so that Josiah could down his dinner and then run back across in time for Evensong. We went to the service as well, after a slightly more leisurely dessert. After that followed some furniture removal (come on, what celebratory day is complete without it?!) then a cup of tea and some cake