just another morning here

We normally only get together with this branch of our family all together at special occasions like Christmas, so it does sort of feel like an elongated version of that, rather than any other time of year!

Of course Easter is a special occasion as well. We celebrated yesterday together – we had an egg hunt in the courtyard here, with chocolate eggs as well as plastic ones with clues to the Easter story inside (which my friend Liz had sent – and I have to specially thank her as everyone here appreciated it, it worked really well ). After hunting we went indoors and sat round the table to look at the Easter story clues, and then Dad read the Bible and we all tried to sing a hymn that only three of us could remember! (think Steve has some amusing photos of that but he’s not as sad as me so you won’t see those till we get home).

Dad and Lorraine went off to church leaving the rest of us to muck around here – Mark cooked a stunning roast beef dinner on the Aga (which none of us are used to so it was more by luck than judgement!).

After dinner we went on a long walk from the farmhouse to Belstone Tor – didn’t quite make it to the very top before turning round to come back. Stopped for a drink in the pub at Belstone and then walked home again. Took us 3.5 hours altogether and Elodie walked most of the way too which was very impressive! Played Trivial Pursuit in the evening. In fact we’ve played board games most evenings which has been a highlight of the week for us so far.

Today has been more mellow, lots of games/reading … some people went to Castle Drogo while others went swimming. I have held onto my family Nurtz (a fast card game, think it has other names but we always called it Nurtz) champion title for today at least, and there is a very serious Scrabble game underway as I write, as well as a less serious Buzz game going on too.

That’s that then – I beat the last boss on Sonic a couple of nights ago – before Josiah
I am ridiculously proud of myself for having done it before my five year old. I imagine he will want to catch up soon but for now I’m ahead. There are still a number of ‘perfect’ levels to complete, plus all the fire souls to find, plus gold medals on everything … but to be honest I’m not sure I’m going to manage all that!

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

Today Josiah took his bike round to meet Abbie from school so rode it up a stony path and then back down the grass. He was a bit anxious about it but once he realised he could do it he was fine. There was a funny moment where he kind of fell over just as some of his old classmates came out of school, but he managed not to go to pieces over it! Anyway, came home and had a snack, then he wanted to go back out and play on it; the big boy from down the close was out playing with his friends so Joe had someone to be with – big boys at that, which is always good

He also did some beautiful writing in his Draw Write Now book, and a good violin practice this morning. Apart from that we’ve just been playing, with Lego again, a bit more Sonic, some jigsaw, and that’s about it. I sliced into my thumb while chopping onions this morning so enlisted Steve’s help peeling and chopping a pumpkin, then repaid the favour by helping him out with picking up a car. Oooh we’re so nice to each other

This evening saw various ones of us doing table tennis club, swimming, and ballet. Well, that was the children, obviously – Steve and my lives are nowhere near as interesting although we have just enjoyed playing San Juan and then watching Comic Relief doing The Apprentice

Sun’s still shining here so I’m still happy – I like hanging washing on the line knowing that it will be dry in a few hours, it makes all the difference to a day And today’s been generally nice.

Joe started off with a Draw Write Now early this morning while the girls were still around. This was mainly so that he could cajole Anna into colouring the background and writing some of the sentences for him Still, the writing that he did was probably neater than hers! While this was going on the other three girls in the house (Caitlin & Riona were over here very early) were simultaneously practicing their recorders. Steve and I wondered if Rog & Ruth had done that on purpose?!!

Once the girls had gone, we sat and read the end of Monster in the Wardrobe which we’d started yesterday at the Music Festival. We quite like that Treetops series, they’re not bad stories. I think I did more reading than Josiah today though. Sometimes I insist on sharing the reading with him but other times I want him to enjoy the story without worrying about the mechanics of reading so it’s more fun to read to him. And often he’ll read something without really taking it in … I’m still generally waiting for his understanding to catch up with his de-coding abilities. He can read me a sentence out loud perfectly and then still turn to me blankly if I ask him what it said! Ahem, anyway. Moving swiftly on!

He went on to violin practice after the story, and that was very quick today. I told him if he could play his two pieces without stopping/making mistakes then that would be it, so he pulled all the stops out and did it. Fairly effortlessly as well. Which *really* makes me wonder why we have these torturously long and arduous violin practices!

After that he did some painting, from a Kipper kit that he had years ago. He got bored pretty quickly (it was colouring in by another name!) so had a bit of a play on Sonic Rings, then went and got the Lego out to play with for an hour or so while I spent some time with a Miscarriage Support Group person. Have had a couple of people through the group recently who’ve helped make it all feel worthwhile again so I’ve got a second wind with that whole thing.

Then came lunch, and we watched Friends and Heroes on CBBC. Because I’d seen it advertised and told Joe I wanted to see what it was like, he immediately said he didn’t want to watch it, he hated it, and it was rubbish (just like everything else at the moment it seems). However he then stood transfixed for half an hour while it was on so it can’t have been that bad

Another hour or so of Sonic, and I had a phone conversation with the other local Suzuki teacher who’s doing a group lesson in a couple of weeks. After the last disastrous attempt to join in with this group I’m more anxious than ever to get it right this time so I wanted to find out what she was planning so that Joe can be as prepared as possible. Apparently she’s happy to have older siblings joining in so I’m hoping to enrol Anna to help me by joining in on her cello. Anyway, more on that when it happens!

Then we played some other games together. We did some mindbender type puzzles from a puzzle calendar that we hadn’t even looked at since Christmas (got to about the end of January today!) so that was fun. Then we got the draughts out and had a looong game. It was looking touch and go at one point, I thought Joe was going to beat me but then he made a silly mistake at the end so I took him out.

The girls are home now and having piano/recorder lessons, and alternately playing chess and draughts with Joe. Then it will be tea and the mad rush out for violin, Stage by Stage (must write a cheque) and Wind Group. I’m missing my chauffeur tonight too … but at least that means I can take a short cut across town rather than sitting in traffic wondering if we’ll be late