just another morning here

I started being annoyed at 5am this morning when Josiah woke up and started music practice – normally I’d be really pleased with him for just getting up and getting on with it, but not at 5am! He hadn’t realised the time until he went downstairs for breakfast afterwards and looked at the kitchen clock. Couldn’t really get too cross because for starters in order to get cross I’d have had to get out of bed, and as soon as he did see the time he sat quietly watching tv until 7am.

Secondly some ebay buyer is messing me around and doesn’t want to complete their transaction, which is just irritating in the extreme for a number of reasons.

And NOW. Now. I have been playing this silly game called MySims on the wii for a few weeks, and was going to complete it today – complete as in have collected all the UberSims and maxed out the town in the various ways you can do it. Anyway, the daft game developed a bug at the last minute, and wouldn’t let me move the last UberSim in. Or move any other Sim in for that matter, it had one Sim stuck in its memory and wouldn’t even move that one in. So I gave up, which I probably should have done weeks ago, it must be the most boring game on the planet, I really don’t recommend it – only people with ocd like me will get a kick out of completing boring tasks just for the sake of collecting everything and ticking all the boxes. But even I’m not OCD enough to start again from scratch.

Guess I’ll have to do some housework instead. I’m waiting in for some shelves to arrive today, and it has seemed futile to do much cleaning until they’re here, as when they are set up I am planning a major re-organisation of books and stuff around the whole house, which will create loads of mess, which I’ll have to clear up after, so there really isn’t any point clearing up beforehand, is there?

Haven’t felt like blogging really – as usual when the girls go back to school it takes Joe and I a few days to adjust, and I don’t want to speak too soon, but today’s been ok. Wondering if the new star chart in the kitchen has helped at all – probably, as he had done his workbooks, piano practice, and brought us a cup of tea in bed all before 7.30am! The kitchen was a complete tip but we’ll gloss over that

After saying goodbye to the girls we did his violin practice which went well for once. It’s been a long summer without seeing his teacher and it’s been hard to wind back up into regular decent practice (everyone, not just Joe!), but today he managed great posture/bow hold, as well as actually remembering his pieces, hurrah.

Then we started putting his Romans lapbook together, which involved me doing lots of cutting out and Josiah doing lots of sticking. Joe chose to complete a little flap thingy on Romulus and Remus, so he drew a picture of them as babies, and then dictated a very brief version of the story to me (there was no way on earth that he’d have been able to write it out, so better to go for the CM dictation approach than have a frustrated writer on my hands).

He played outside for a bit, got the guinea pigs out, nearly lost one of them in the garden but we managed to catch it again! Then played with a lego creation for a while, before Steve came home from lunch.

After lunch I had a lovely chat on the phone with my friend Liz, and then I taught Joe how to play San Juan. This took a long time but was worthwhile as it’s a game I actually like playing! I am so so bored of most of our board games, I really need some other new games that are enjoyable for adults as well as children. Literally the only games I really like playing are Yahtzee and Mastermind/Mindbender, everything else makes me groan when he suggests them. So we went off to PlayMerrily and had a look there – we like a look of a few of the games

By the time we’d done that the girls were home, ravenous despite having had school dinners, and Laura turned up for piano lessons. Tonight it’s Stage by Stage and Wind Group so a busy evening ahead.

Really don’t feel like blogging but having downloaded from the camera I suppose I might manage to put a few pictures together and come up with a blog post!

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.

Swimming was enough to wipe Robyn out for the afternoon (mission accomplished!) so she slept and we played Zelda, then had Ruth round for a cup of tea before going on to the park then school to retrieve the big girls.

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

After that, swimming and ballet lessons and an early night, Steve and I were both tired, but it still felt very odd to be going upstairs past the kids’ rooms saying goodnight to them and them all still being awake when we went to bed – that’s just wrong, surely?!!

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

We spent far too much money on food and other rubbish and came home with far too many fluffy sticky advertising bugs, pens, and carrier bags. Still I guess at least the pens and carrier bags will come in handy. Prize for most useless giveaway must go to DVLA, who, in May, were giving away windscreen scrapers

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

On the gardening front, we sowed various seeds a couple of weeks ago – sweetcorn, runner beans, and peppers.

First two are doing well but no sign of the peppers yet.

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.