just another morning here

• shopped for Russia (too much, the bank started worrying it was so out of the ordinary!)
• worried about the weather etc. in Russia
• stuck stickers on luggage labels for 104 people going to Russia
• delivered a car to Yorkshire (just me – fab to see the friends who were buying the car so that made the trip worthwhile )
• done an iMovie workshop at the Apple Store (the kids)
• worked as much if not more than usual, with the ordinary work plus getting the businesses set for being away for 10 days (Steve)
• been to Thruxton to watch my Dad’s 60th birthday present track day (me and the kids, Steve couldn’t afford the time )
  
• desperately wanted to be driven around the track by Tiff Needell because it looked like *so* much fun, but it was way too expensive. Settled for some photos instead (me and the kids!)
  
• woken up to a random cat in our room (not ours) which must have been in the house all night, since all the doors were locked. Haven’t found any evidence of where it was yet though, thank goodness!
• waded through huge piles of post-camping and pre-Russia washing/ironing (me with a bit of help from the kids)
• worried about the lack of school planning going on around here, tried to get my head round it a bit more and actually do some – failed again, there is so much to do I worked for a whole day with practically no stops, and have achieved approximately a tenth of what I need to do before the beginning of September. Doing a bit more this afternoon so hopefully will feel a bit better about it by teatime!
• been out for a meeting with the couple in charge of the Russia trip – as second in command I’m meant to know what’s going on! I do, honest. Well, slightly! Fairly concerned about the weather and dust/smog situation but other than adding it to our risk assessment and giving travellers appropriate warnings, we’re carrying on regardless.
• been for an appointment at the bank – school related – as we’re trying to set up an enterprise project with our senior students. Life skills are top of the list of things to learn so operating a bank account in conjunction with buying and selling things is a good idea.
• taken Josiah to the 2nd hand uniform shop at his school, to look for a blazer and tie. Got those, and a couple of shirts, but forgot to buy a jumper. Then again I could just save myself the aggro of having to track down his jumper every day by not buying him one in the first place! A blazer’s going to be bad enough to keep track of, never mind *2* possible garments to lose?!
• done all the usual music practices, cooking, tidying, cleaning etc. around the house – I’d like to suspend ‘house getting dirty’ in the same way that I can suspend Riverford boxes in the holidays, but it doesn’t work like that, in fact it’s worse with all of us around all the time!

So tonight we visited a little pub which Steve has been to many times, but I’d never been there before! Steve finished work really late, and I’d had a stressful afternoon due to trying to work at home and failing (it’s just never going to work), so I fed the kids at home, then when Steve finally finished we went out for dinner at The Hour Glass. Fabulous little pub; food was great, and it was definitely good to spend a bit of time together without the distractions of home (there are plenty!).

After that we went on to see the launch of Girl Friday‘s EP at a tiny cocktail bar in town – plenty of atmosphere and fantastic to see what Steve’s sister has been spending all her time working on recently. Can’t link to the new video yet as I don’t think it’s online so will have to post this one instead

Its Not Over from nickjamesgordon on Vimeo.

Our church family bible week changed name and venue this year; from Springboard to Transform, and instead of being at Ashburnham as in previous years, this year we were at Lenchwood.

Steve had to work and race, so he didn’t stay with us, although he did take us there (in a lovely K-reg Rover which only just made it – it was the only car that we had with a towbar!) and help us set up (how kind of him! it was payback for the day’s cover I did at the garage ). Unfortunately this also meant we had to wait for him to collect us at the end, which did entail a long wait and a late night! I managed to disassemble the trailer tent singlehandedly (though I’m still not entirely sure I could put it up on my own), which may have been shooting myself in the foot for any future occasions, but we’ll see.

Still, we had a great time, caught up with lots of friends and family, etc. I helped with the 3-4 year olds group in the mornings, but still got to the evening meetings which were excellent. Even did 5 caches on foot from the campsite, bonus!

The children spent the vast majority of their time playing games; Set, Uno, and Jungle Speed. I may finally have to give in and buy our own set of Jungle Speed …

Huge congrats to the girls for the music exams that they took this term: Anna scored 130, scraping a distinction in her Grade 5 Bassoon. Strangely enough she also scored 130 in Grade 5 piano and cello when she took them a while back!
Abbie took Grade 3 flute and scored a respectable 126, giving her a merit, and her best music exam result so far. She got full marks for her aural!

Josiah hasn’t taken any music exams this term, but he is still pleased to hold the family record for points