just another morning here

Oh yes, I am finding Easter very restful! Nothing to do with Josiah staying at school, I’m sure ! Ahem.

Easter Saturday was spent mainly preparing for Steve’s dad’s 60th birthday party which was an open house affair from 4pm onwards. In order to help Marg keep it a surprise I did lots of shopping and preparing food earlier in the day. Of course Steve ended up with a customer on test drive as we were due to pick him up at 4pm but we weren’t too late. I think the party was a success, and certainly Russ looked pleased and surprised with his gift of a trip to Paris; Steve took them to the airport yesterday.

The kids came home from the party laden with chocolate from various family members, and I brought home plenty of leftovers too, always good

On Easter Sunday the girls and I left Steve watching the Grand Prix and we went to church. The rest of the day was spent doing normal jobs etc., no family roast dinner as it seemed a bit mean to do that without Joe! We might get one in later in the holidays, if I can be bothered to cook one!

Later in the day our friends Stuart & Liz arrived to stay for a few days. They fancied doing a night cache so we all went out in the evening armed with wellies and torches to re-visit one that belongs to my friend; only Steve & I had done it about 18 months ago now, so enough time had elapsed for us to have forgotten the way!

Monday saw most people having a lazy start; I got up and made cottage pie for tonight while they were all still in bed! Breakfast happened; there was some gameplaying and I think some people had showers, then after lunch we went out for a long walk along the Estuary from Exton to Exmouth, with some caches completed en route.

We got the train back then headed into town for evensong. Not entirely sure what Stuart & Liz made of it – it was much busier than usual due to the annual get-together of the Old Choristers’ Association.

Fab to have Josiah home afterwards, though I did have to wrestle him to the floor to get a hug out of him! He’d clearly had a ball boarding at school over the past few days. After dinner we caught up with Dr Who, then the children went to bed and we watched a film (well, I blogged and faffed around with photos while the rest of them watched a film. Having fallen asleep during Dr Who at 8pm I thought I’d better keep myself awake somehow!).

I’ve decided I quite like having birthdays on a Saturday; it means you can stretch celebrations out all weekend really! Luckily for all of us, it was also a free weekend for the boy choristers, so no choir commitments for Josiah (and no taxi driving necessary for us either!).

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.

When we got home (much later than usual due to meeting a newspaper reporter as we were leaving orchestra!) we discovered a couple of parcels in the greenhouse – one was some bassoon reeds ordered for Anna after someone dropped a folder on hers (lesson to be learnt here: don’t leave your reed lying around), and some Gellibaff that I’d ordered for kids at school. On opening the latter we discovered that one packet had split in transit and was all over the place, so the children decided they would have to use it up, as a service to mankind, obviously

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!

We saw ‘The Ministry of Fear‘, which I think was good, although I did struggle to stay awake – darkened, warm room, it’s a killer! Couldn’t even have a coffee in the interval, since I’m still on my self inflicted Lenten caffeine ban!

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.

Or at least, I must be old, as I have a teenager for a daughter. All parents of teens are old, right?!

Anna’s currently picking her way through a new music book that we gave her, which she’d wanted for ages. I may regret buying it for her as she tends to sing along – then again she can sound quite nice these days really!

She took a few friends out for a meal last night, then had films and a sleepover here, and a day in town shopping today. There are benefits to having your birthday fairly soon after Christmas, it seems, as she had loads of giftcards and money to spend, so has had a very lovely day!

It is always best to have sunshine when BBQing, I find. The last time that we were at Steve’s parents’ for a BBQ it hacked down with rain for the whole day, so this was a huge improvement!

Today we were celebrating Marg’s birthday and also Great-Grandad’s birthday which was yesterday – a combined age of 144 As ever very pleasant to spend a day with family, in a beautiful garden, with far too much lovely food!

Meanwhile Steve was racing again, still can’t beat that Cosworth! He got his own time down to 27.17 and came second, while the Cosworth brought the class record down to 26.96. Ah well. Next year, I am informed, he will sort this out. Sounds expensive to me.

The girls have gone for a sleepover with Caitlin & Riona making it fairly quiet in the house tonight, especially in our bedroom, so we made the most of that