just another morning here

If I am lucky the weekend might spice things up a bit round here but for now it’s boring; work and school stop play.

Well, I say that, but it’s not entirely true Last weekend Anna and I had a fab couple of hours trawling charity shops to try and put together an outfit for a murder mystery party she is going to tonight; photos may be added later if she lets me! Her social life is definitely better than mine at the moment which is fairly worrying, although perhaps normal? She’s generally busy enjoying music and school in that order – we’ve been hearing lots about a spelling competition recently, clearly sold to the children with the London final round in mind but who knows whether her team will get that far.

Abbie had a school trip to the Eden Project on Thursday, so that was a long day, but probably a highlight of the week for her. Always more fun to go to these places with your friends than with your parents

Joe’s been his usual self; totally stroppy at home yet amazingly wonderful in other places – the library challenge ‘thank you’ certificate at school and then a TKD class award following his grading last weekend. Proud of him despite everything!

All fine in Rainbow Class (my school), a nice week including a jaunt to the supermarket to buy our own lunch one day, some fancy tile making in our art session – I made one too but then one of the children managed to step on it before it was dry!

Steve’s been busy at work; the workshop has re-opened which is fantastic Terry is much better, hoping to get an apprentice in very soon to do all the heavy things which he can’t do at present. Busy means tired, but busy is way, way better than quiet so I’m not complaining. Up early because it’s the end of the month and there are invoices to be completed before the day is out, so that means a few extra hours’ work needed.

We’ve managed to fit in some cake baking, geomag building, swimming with kids’ club, collaborative tile mosaic (replacing the one that got wrecked at school!), film watching (St. Trinian’s, The Darjeeling Ltd), all the usual music/swimming/TKD lessons plus orchestra, no wonder there isn’t much time to blog. Of course any blogging time that there is, is better used playing ACCF

That when asking Anna about her day she informs me that during ICT lessons she visits my blog! School is going well for her although we all think she would benefit from getting up earlier in order to be more organised Today she had to run all the way to school after forgetting her PE kit then coming back for it! And we were most miffed to find out that neither of us made it onto her ‘top ten list’ of things she liked. Ah well!

Everything else has started up this week as well so we’re in full flow which means being busy after school most days. Josiah started an extra activity too; he’s asked a few times over the past year or so whether he could do some kind of martial arts type thing. Not knowing much about it I was a bit slow on the uptake, but this academic year I promised I would sort something out, so over the weekend we found EPMA‘s website and got in touch with them. While I was talking to the instructor, it turned out that he had gone to school with Steve, and bought a couple of cars from the garage too, so those were nice links Joe gave it a try tonight straight after his piano lesson – and loved it It’s a relatively new venture and so the class was small which helped – we think it will be good for him, so we’re all happy about that.

Abbie is currently mastering ‘perfect middle child’ status – not having huge changes in any area of life or having hit teenage-like hormones, and as she likes being organised and getting things done, she is generally polishing her halo but also being really helpful which is nice. She’s enjoying reading some Patricia St. John books that a friend gave her, which takes me back as they were a staple of every good Christian girl’s reading list in my youth!

My work is fun as ever – I do really love it. Our new group of children is fantastic, and I’ve enjoyed getting to know them. Still miss a few of the ones who’ve gone to other classes but we see them in the playground, if we’re lucky enough to have a dry day to go out there and play!

In my spare time (not that there is much of it), I have been having an ongoing Tetris battle with a friend over the past few days – she is currently in the lead in one game but it’s got too late to fight back … that’s tomorrow night’s challenge but only after I’ve been to the library and cleaned out the guinea pigs! Also, note to self: remember to pay for school dinners online! And I must get to the garage at some point as I am majorly behind on the job I am meant to do there Steve is (rather randomly) being interviewed by some Guardian journalist or other tomorrow – I do know who it is but his name has escaped me … might update tomorrow if Steve has anything to say about it!