just another morning here

Friends on iPlayer …

Sarah — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 18:56:33 +0000

Thought I’d write a blogpost while catching up with various friends’ appearances on iPlayer today: first of all Josiah’s friend Jonathan on Newsround on the topic of a longer foreign exchange, then my friend Jo on Jeremy Vine (just over an hour in), talking about selective mutism. Both fascinating subjects and obviously ones I’m interested in given that friends are experiencing them. There’s also a child at school who has tendencies towards not speaking when they don’t want to … so I’m interested from that point of view too.

Nothing much going on here; I have taken delivery of yet more nametapes to sew on yet more school uniform (you’d have thought I’d have learnt after Joe changing schools in September, but no!), so that’s an ongoing chore. Before Anna’s change of school she’s madly rehearsing in order to fit in a talent show in aid of the Haiti Relief fund (I think this is what she’s playing but it seems to change daily!), and Bugsy Malone – just a little bit busy then.

Abbie was totally wonderful at the weekend, so I must mention that She did all her music practices without really being asked, offered to polish Josiah’s shoes along with her own when he threw a paddy about doing it, did a bottle bank run, finished off homework, and was generally helpful. After that she bought herself a magazine, sat and read it from cover to cover, then spent the evening cutting bits out and making collages. Her treat today was a jar of Sainsbury’s basics pickled onions, and a box of Twinings Strawberry and Mango tea – her choices, I must add, otherwise it sounds a bit odd!!

Steve and I went to the Cathedral Choir’s Candlelight Concert on Saturday night, which was fabulous. I wonder how long it will be before I cease to be amazed that Josiah is part of it. Don’t think he realises how fortunate he is!

Had a lovely day at work today, despite feeling crap with a cold. I ended up covering in one of my favourite classes with some of my favourite children – it’s a class I spend a fair bit of time in, which is nice. I must admit that this HLTA job has made me rather fancy having a class of my own, which might mean getting a proper teaching job … who knows?!

Anyway, time to take Abbie to her drum lesson …

Not without a food processor!

Sarah — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 22:19:25 +0000

Riverford have been sending out recipe cards since Christmas, which is good, as I often get stuck in a rut with meals. We tried these Cheesy Cabbage Patties this evening, and I thought they were really nice.

The children moaned and gave them a verdict of ‘ok’. When I said it made a change from bangers, mash, and cabbage (which is what I normally do with cabbage!) they all replied ‘but we like it like that!’ I had thought I’d win them over with the addition of crinkle cut chips, but no. Ah well, you can’t win them all. I was proud of myself for making the effort to cook something more interesting, anyway. Would have been an awful recipe to try without a food processor though!

In other news … er, there isn’t much. Anna tried out a new youth group just down the road last night, and met a few old friends there, so I suspect that will become a regular, at least if all homework is done!

We’re preparing for impending school changes by sorting out uniform (mainly from 2nd hand shop so not too bad) and getting more nametapes. Annoyingly only saw these little button things on a different website *after* I’d ordered standard woven nametapes … now trying to persuade myself that they’re just a gimmick and probably not as easy to apply as the video would have you believe …
Also sorted bassoon lessons – same teacher has been organised to visit the new school, meaning I don’t have to break the contract with him, phew. Was worried about that for a little while!

Having a few niggles about mornings – we have all been struggling to get up in the mornings and it reached traumatic levels this morning when Steve and Joe were only just on time to leave, having both been in a rush to get ready because they didn’t leave themselves enough time. So they took the car I should have taken instead of the one which failed to start. Only problem with THAT was that Anna’s blazer and school bag were in it – of course she didn’t notice because she was still in bed; had she been up she might have missed her blazer before Steve was all the way across town. So I dropped her to school in the last car we had in the drive (fuel light on, of course ), and left her with her bassoon, freezing in just a school shirt, waiting for Steve to drive back with her stuff.
This MAY teach a few people a lesson about getting up a bit earlier …

Second geeky caching post

Sarah — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 19:59:15 +0000

I may do these at irregular intervals when I am very bored and probably ought to be doing something else, like updating the orchestra website or something. Here’s an update on the last geeky caching post that I wrote about six months ago. Easier to view pictures big on flickr if you’re actually interested, otherwise you can get a vague idea from the filled in counties on the uk maps, say ‘yes dear, that’s nice’, and flick on to the next blog

First here are last year’s graphs:

And now today’s:

Adding in the little graph that shows difficulty and terrain, as I am particularly proud of the 5/5 that we did last year!

Just for the sake of it …

Sarah — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 22:05:29 +0000

Nothing much to say though. A fairly average weekend: choir/orchestra yesterday morning, cleaning, chores, and lolling around yesterday afternoon. Film/tv watching in the evening.

Today has been quite nice though. Josiah had three services to sing at the Cathedral and we’d not got our acts together with regard to booking him in to school for lunch, so instead we met him and went out to Pizza Express, which was a big treat. This was after a little caching expedition on my part, while the three lazier members of the family were very slow to get up.
We mooched around town for a bit (Anna went off to meet friends at the cinema) then attended evensong and came home for some TV. We’ve been catching up on old James May’s Toy Stories and only got round to watching the LEGO one tonight – fabulous

Finished the evening off with a bite of tea and then watching the Bodyguard for old times’ sake. I think the memory of it is probably better than it actually is … !

Protected: Catalogue of misadventures

Sarah — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 12:28:09 +0000

Panto Week

Sarah — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 18:38:22 +0000

Or: so much for less junk food this year! This week we’ve had a few muddly mealtimes as the girls have been rushing about to panto, and timings haven’t exactly been family-meal-friendly!

They had a technical rehearsal on Monday night, full dress rehearsal on Tuesday evening, then performances every night after that. I’ve been helping with the front of house for the past couple of evenings, but tonight we’re going to watch properly, along with Grandma, Grandpa and Robyn. There are some pictures on flickr but only for friends and family as they’re not my photos!

Panto has been great – loads of hard work but the girls have loved it. They’ve made friends and had fun, and I think it will be much like pregnancy – I’ll have forgotten about the niggles by the time the next one comes around and they want to do it again!

In the middle of it all, on Wednesday both Anna and Abbie sat entrance exams for St. Margaret’s – and we heard towards the end of the week that they’ve been offered a music scholarship and an academic award respectively – which is great news. We had toyed with the idea of applying for a specialist music school place for Anna but they’re all miles away which would have meant full time boarding, and we quite like her really, so actually we’re all very happy to abandon that plan and keep her at home, but in a school where she will have a peer group doing music at the same level that she is. So, not exactly sure yet when Anna will move but it might be soon, and Abbie will go in September.

So, back to panto – looking forward to a great night out watching it tonight. Tomorrow Orchestra starts again so no chance of a lie-in, but after the main orchestra rehearsal the girls have to miss Chamber to get back in time for the matinee. Then one more performance in the evening and it will all be over. Until next year … maybe!

Wintery weekend

Sarah — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 19:54:03 +0000

Not a terribly interesting weekend in our house, really.

Orchestra doesn’t start until next Saturday, so I took the opportunity to go to the meeting of the chorister parents’ association on Saturday morning while Josiah was at rehearsals.

After that we came home to find that Steve and the girls had only just surfaced, lazy things! Joe did some piano and tidied his room before his friend came round to play. The girls took practically all day to tidy their room!

Music practices were noisy … Abbie drumming along to Greenday upstairs while Anna accompanied Josiah downstairs, then Anna went up to accompany Abbie’s flute … and that was only before the outing to the sweet shop! They finished off afterwards, and had tea, before settling down to an evening of crafty stuff while Steve and I went out for our anniversary dinner at the Conservatory

On Sunday we woke to more snow falling, and had to be up early for Josiah to go and sing. The girls thought they had a sound rehearsal at Panto but in fact it was just a setting up day and they didn’t have to be there, so they went over to visit Grandma and Grandpa instead. Anna wanted to discuss Professor Layton puzzles with Grandma!

Steve and I decided to go out for a walk in the snow, geocache involved of course! We popped in for coffee with Neil & Ivonne, which was lovely. Then picked the boys up from the Cathedral (we share lifts with another family!), back home to drop one boy off and let the other one get changed, then back to Grandma & Grandpa’s for lunch. Stew and dumplings – the perfect cold day dinner! The kids had a fab time in the snow in their garden, too

Home for music practices (all three children are trying to do 100 days of practise on all instruments, which *is* a bit of a logistical nightmare at times!); Abbie played with Mollie and another panto friend who was round, the girls shopped on the Boden sale website, and then later on we snuggled up with nibbly pic’n'mix tea in front of a film.

Somehow the snow just makes being inside together feel lovelier than usual, it’s been fab

Finally. Wintery or Wintry? Which is correct and why?! Been dithering between which to title the post with and now they both look odd …

Snow day the second

Sarah — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 17:24:50 +0000

Had loads of fun out with Abbie’s panto friends this morning. Poor old Anna had to go to school, but she had Bugsy rehearsals all day so she didn’t mind too much. Her music audition was cancelled but has been re-scheduled for tomorrow … and we’re all back to school tomorrow, too. Could be fun on the lane that leads to my school but I’ll be walking so I’ll be fine!

Snow Days

Sarah — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 22:22:27 +0000

Snow days are always welcome in my house, as long as *I* get the day off as well! Today we weren’t sure which of our schools were going to close or not, so the kids went out in the close really early just in case they’d have to go to school later!

As it happened, they didn’t; we were all at home. Josiah played for ages with friends in the close, while Abbie joined with other friends and was out and about between houses and the park all day, nearly. Anna did go out, but then was mainly at home working for most of the day. I did very little, I confess! Some orchestra work, a bit of housework, helped Steve bring a car home, but that was about it.

Most of us are off again tomorrow, despite the fact that roads in the city seem mainly ok! Having said that, I didn’t go to housegroup tonight because I didn’t want to drive on the icy roads in the dark at night. Anyway, we’ll see what another day off brings …

Protected: Rambly personal post

Sarah — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 20:27:54 +0000