Anna went off to London on Saturday for the Open Day at the JRAM. She went with friends who we know through Suzuki violin and who have been attending since September. Anna was fairly impressed by the whole thing and is filling in her application form this week – time will tell what happens …

The rest of us were at orchestra as usual – I got some work done at the same time, then in the afternoon I took Josiah out to Crealy for a short play before a Stringathon World Record Attempt for the most players in a string orchestra playing one piece at the same time.

On Sunday I went out caching – while Abbie went into town with her boyfriend They took some other friends with them too. Not quite sure what they did! Anyway, she’s not the only person in this household to have had some sort of Valentine’s Day celebration, Anna got a card too though she doesn’t know who it is from!

Anyway into this week, we’re just trying to survive another really busy week in the run up to half term (and yes, half term means I am half way through the year!).

Tomorrow I have an Enterprise Day at my school (where we are muddling all the upper school classes up for an Apprentice-style day tasked with using beetroot in a creative way!), while Josiah has his House Music Festival in which he’s playing a solo. Anna has a GCSE options evening as well … though if she had her way she wouldn’t choose any of them – they’re all too much like hard work! Can’t think where she gets that attitude from

Came home for Father’s Day roast dinner with Steve’s dad here too, played Joe’s new wii game together, and now have slumped. Kids have a non-pupil day tomorrow so they’re home with Steve while I still have to work so I’ll be up early on my own for once.

We walked down across all the bridges and around the lake where we saw some gorgeous brand new ducklings, honestly they looked so new they could have been going for their first ever swim in the lake. The mother duck didn’t like me getting so close with the camera and I had to move quickly at one point when she came towards me in a threatening tail wagging sort of a way. Even the boys thought they were cute!

Josiah and I got some work (workbooks for him, housework for me) out of the way first thing, then we went off to Crealy for the afternoon, where they have opened a new Dinosaur themed barn, including a square area with four Air-Joe guns in it and loads of soft balls – it looked like great fun, if I hadn’t been in the middle of a book I would have joined in (next time I will!). And hopefully next time we go I’ll have my camera back!

I took him on the log flume, and then he was thrilled to realise that he’s now tall enough for the squirty boat ride, so he went on that by himself, and because it was quiet he got to stay on for ages.

Meanwhile Abbie was skiving school, haven’t quite worked out why yet, if there was a reason at all, it actually sounded like an over-zealous teaching assistant covering her back more than Abbie actually feeling sick! And she often says she feels ‘funny’ when actually she feels hungry, or tired, or if she needs the toilet … anyway, Steve got called to pick her up shortly after lunch so he gave her the benefit of the doubt this time, but I was quite annoyed with school for being so silly about it as she was perfectly fine. We put her to bed really really early, just to make sure ‘her body had plenty of time to sort itself out before tomorrow’, and have told her that we’d rather have the truth about anything going on than random episodes of feeling sick and then making miraculous recoveries at home. Hmmmm.

Anna had a good day and has gone out to ballet feeling grown up due to being in the top year of school, and having a Facebook profile of her own.

So instead I drove round about 5 local pet shops looking for something suitable and eventually found an ex-display double hutch in one of them, so that was a result, as it wasn’t too expensive. Also picked up a nice big run (like this but mine was cheaper!) which reminds me of a babydan playpen, it’s octagonal but like the playpens you can use the sides in any combination you like. I’ve split it down the middle with some other mesh panels, so they now have a huge amount of space each, but can still see each other.

Yesterday they both seemed really happy and were jumping around all over the place – mind you if Caspian gets too close to Reepicheep’s side, Reep does start rumbling at him immediately. I wonder if he’ll grow out of it … just couldn’t bear to see any more injuries on the way. Caspian’s back is healing nicely but it’s a scar at least a centimetre long (which is quite a lot on a small guinea pig really!), and until Reep has settled down it’s not worth them being together.

Our other pet trauma was with Gizmo the hamster, who seemed to have nasty crusty spots growing on all his soft tissues (ears, nose, bottom of feet, genitals – ew!), so we took him to the vet on Monday. Anna was really worried that he’d have to be put down so spent much of Monday morning faffing around taking photos of him just in case. Found out that he has hamster mites which is treatable, he had one injection then and there’s another in a week or so. Had to scrub his entire cage etc. really carefully too. Gizmo has now become our most expensive hamster ever

Haven’t managed to achieve much else other than that! The girls have been back at school after half term, so Joe’s been missing them … he would swear blind that he doesn’t miss them but his behaviour tells me that he does They’re both happy to be back, really enjoying their schooldays. Sometimes it really makes us wonder whether Josiah would be better off back at school as well, but there we are, an ongoing debate in this household!

We’ve had Robyn with us over the past couple of days, so had a trip to Crealy yesterday, did the Sainsbury’s shopping, and that’s about it. Music stuff ongoing as usual, and Joe spent a while yesterday doing mazes/puzzles and music theory workbooks, but that’s about as educational as we’ve got I have spent too much time nit-combing this week already (and have lost my best nit-comb, aargh). Last night was Miscarriage Support Group and then we watched a film when I got home. For the second time in a row I managed to stay awake all the way through!

Steve’s working on a little project of his own, mission Garage Clearout. Joe’s been helping him a bit, too. It’s going relatively well at the moment, especially since he lined up our old fireplace surround and other stuff in the drive ready to take to the tip, and our neighbour looked over the fence and said ‘I’ll have that!’. She took the fire too, and some decorative patio slabs that we’d taken up – ie most of the heavy annoying stuff! Always happier to see things go to a good home than to the tip, so that’s good. I had tried to freecycle it all last year with no luck!

In other news … there isn’t much, in fact I can’t even think what we’ve done. Wednesday was home ed group and music lessons, Thursday was Steve’s birthday, and today has been a combination of Crealy and getting the van ready to go away. Could comment more on all of that but I don’t think I can be bothered! The girls made it to the end of another half term of school, and we’re going camping in the morning, so we are manically trying to pack this evening. Feels like so much work to go camping, but I know it will be worth it when we get there – I’m even looking forward to the rain that’s forecast as it means we won’t feel we have to go out and do stuff, we can just laze around reading and watching DVDs I am going to allow myself one (or maybe two if Steve’s not watching ) text-twitter every day … so if you want to know what we’re up to, sign up and find me there.

Josiah and I have had Robyn with us all week so we’ve kept busy which is good all round, it means Joe and I don’t annoy one another too much, Joe and Robyn annoy one another instead

Monday was shopping day, then we baked cookies, then just played at home. As usual breathed a sigh of relief when Anna got home as she is so great with Robyn! Mollie and Ruby came over too, and they all played with Robyn’s playdoh for hours

On Tuesday we went swimming in the morning, which was pretty fun although Joe just seemed out of place and huge in the little pool with a bunch of toddlers.

Anna had cello after school; the rest of us went to the park while she was there and I met an old friend, so it was nice to have someone to chat to (makes the park bearable!), and generally catch up with her and her family.

Wednesday‘s activity was home ed group at the park; Josiah made another new friend (hurrah) and Robyn enjoyed bimbling around the park too. Came home in time for Robyn to have a sleep, a little bit of Zelda (have been playing lots this week!), piano and recorder lessons, had tea, then went out for violin/Stage by Stage/Wind Group as usual. Appreciated the return of my chauffeur after two weeks doing that run without him

On Thursday we met up with our friend Becca to do something with her in celebration of her birthday. The weather didn’t look great so we ended up at Crealy – then it actually turned out to be a nice day! We played in the play areas, treated Becca (and ourselves) to a panini in the cafe, walked across the bridges to the lake where we fed the ducks, came back up and the children played in the sandpits for a while, then we rode the carousel and Becca even took Joe on the log flume, she was obviously feeling reckless

Today was County Show Day. We had a great day; Josiah took photos of everything he thought Steve would have liked to see, which was mainly cars. The highlight of our day was probably Andrei Burton (a top mountain bike trials rider) doing a display at the Cycle Exeter stand, he was amazing! Robyn loved all the animals, predictably. Oh, and our other fave stand was a science education one where there were all sorts of primary science type activities, as well as circus skills and a clown, we stayed there for a really long time, almost as long as the queue for the face painting

Home to generally veg out and then Joe lost his first tooth. For some reason this makes me stupidly emotional, my baby losing his baby teeth. He is quite excited that the tooth fairy has gone out to play poker tonight, as the tooth fairy promised that if he won, he’d be in a good mood *and* have some money by the time he came home to look under people’s pillows!

Oh, and I almost forgot, Anna got a Thank You Certificate at school for passing a Librarian’s Test and therefore being awarded the honourable title of Library Assistant, complete with shiny badge

Over the weekend, after watching the run on Sunday, we basically did not a lot at home. The girls did (yet another ) big room tidy. One day they will learn that if they pick things up every day then they won’t have to do mega-tidies at weekends. Then again I sometimes prefer the ‘do nothing for ages then give it a blast’ approach too, so I shouldn’t complain too much I suppose. Meanwhile Joe and Steve worked on this meccano type metal kit, which kept them occupied for a while.

Steve watched too much snooker, and has traumatised me by shaving off his beard yesterday. Changes like that shouldn’t be allowed. I started a new ac:ww town and moved my (almost completed catalogue) character over there so that took up far too much time over the weekend as well.

We did have a nice walk up on Haldon yesterday with various friends. Abbie and Josiah took bikes, while Anna decided not to take hers because she wanted to help look after baby Josh.

Today has been hard work, I really don’t like bank holidays, they lull you into a false sense of holiday and then you have to snap back into normal work mode, not only that but I always spend all week thinking it’s a day earlier than it is! Might not feel so bad if I hadn’t been kept up by a certain snooker match last night

We had Robyn this morning so got some stuff done first thing and then took her out to Crealy as it’s ten times easier than staying at home! Had to bribe Joe with a muffin to get him to help look after her in the play areas but then he did an admirable job.

Home for lunch, said goodbye to Robyn, now having a lull (I needed one) before the girls come home from school.

Nothing else to report really – Viking day was fun, apparently.

Had a couple of rubbish days with Joe and him generally not wanting to do anything constructive after I try to limit screen-time. But yesterday was better, Crealy was open so I promised a visit, which meant that he got violin, maths and music done in record time with a great attitude towards it all.

Today we’ve done more of the same (violin, maths & music) and we’re about to head out to the South West Festival of Food & Drink which should be good fun despite the rain