just another morning here

… I found my thousandth geocache today
The photo’s for my friend Ruth, who is more impressed by trigpoints than by geocaches, and since most of today’s caches were fairly boring, actually so was I.

This was actually the third trigpoint that we saw today but the only one I bothered to get the camera out for. I was out with Kris again, who also found his two thousandth cache. Now that *is* ridiculous, being as I introduced him to caching only a couple of years ago. We celebrated with a hot chocolate then came home for a curry.

At home today Steve had been at work, while the children had cleaned out the guinea pigs and packed bags for Mill on the Brue. I checked them and scrawled initials on with biro – hope that’s enough for ‘clearly labelled’. Yesterday Anna left for Romania, so we’re about to have a week with no children … looking forward to it! Although we have still got Suzie here and she’s nearly as much trouble …

Thanks to Emma, who came and stayed over with Abbie and Joe, Steve and I were able to get to Dorset Youth Orchestra’s formal concert last night in Bournemouth. We weren’t going to bother going, we were simply going to attend the informal concert today, but we figured that since Anna had had a bit of a funny start to the week, we’d make the effort. I think she appreciated it – she spent all of the interval sitting on Steve’s lap (don’t tell her I said that ) Funny though, we are so used to her playing the cello that Steve went and chose seats with a great view of the cello section, sat down, then remembered that she was on bassoon. Couldn’t see her at all! But I don’t think we’d have been able to wherever we had positioned ourselves. Ho hum.

Anyway, it was a good concert, then we stayed in a cheap but perfectly nice hotel for the night, ate sandwiches and drank wine bought from the shop on the corner, oh yes, we know how to live it up! We had had lunch out in Exmouth with my parents during the day beforehand though so weren’t hungry enough to eat out again!

Today we were meant to be going to see the car in the recovery depot, but we missed it by 10 minutes. Steve was very disappointed (I wasn’t!). Picked up all our CDs which they’d extracted, bar the one which was in the CD player – Spilt Milk by Jellyfish, luckily looks like it won’t be too expensive to replace!

After that we had some time to spare before going back to Bryanston, so we found a little geocache circle to follow. It was a brilliant set of caches; each container individually made into a different animal/bug, and one of them was really tricky to find – really enjoyed them, they’ll get some favourite points from me. My favourite was the one in the first photo, which was made from a tape measure. Very creative. And then we had lunch

The informal concert was due to be held at Bryanston’s ‘Greek Theatre’, but it was raining, so they moved back into the lobby area of the main school. Some parents sat around in the corridors while others went upstairs and hung over the gallery to watch. I just kept gazing around at the building, I must admit – it is such an awesome place! I wonder in how many schools can you fit an orchestra into the hallway?!! Music was good too, all different sorts today, some solos and small ensembles; Anna played with the Wind Orchestra as well as doing a Samba piece that they’d obviously done as a fun workshop to end the week with. Oh yes, and she did it all in her pyjamas They are musical ones I suppose, but honestly!

Everyone else had had photographs taken in formal concert clothes on Monday morning; Anna was standing on a grass verge taking photos of our wrecked car in hers – the police did wonder what she was doing in a long black dress at 9am on a Monday morning! So, since we didn’t have a posh photo we persuaded her to get her friends together for a photo instead

Anna managed to make a good impression on the Dorset Music Service people despite the dodgy start to the week (which was my fault not hers, of course!), so hopefully she’ll get invited back again another time, she had a whale of a time after that first wobbly evening which was totally understandable after the accident.

We asked her how she felt about cello vs bassoon having just done a week there with on the bassoon and she really struggles to decide … best news of all on the way home though – the bassoon that was in the accident will be mended by tomorrow – for less than the excess on our insurance. Really impressed with Griff who took the job on and sorted it so quickly. Other good news during the week were Anna’s music exam results – two distinctions and a merit – excellent!

Abbie and Joe have done an excellent job of being home alone all day, with the occasional phonecall of support. I’d totally forgotten to book Abbie in for a week at Haven Banks that I’d said she could do (bad mummy), but luckily she phoned up today and there are still places and we can hand forms and payment in on Monday morning! Suzie has kept them busy – she’s currently asleep in a drawer, which is very cute

We are running out of places to go where we can have a decent caching day now! Today Abbie, Kris and I went over to Symondsbury, in Dorset, for an 8 mile round walk taking in some 40 caches en route! Well, actually, a few less as some of those were done from the car on the way home, but still. Nice walk, and a couple of memorable caches. My lovely solar panelled bag kept my phone going all day, too I am going to have to start picking up all the odd little caches a bit closer to home though …

Particularly liked seeing Colmer’s Hill from afar – this picture looks like it was taken at dusk but it was actually mid-morning! There are some far more amazing photos of the hill online …

While we were out Anna kept phoning me to tell me all the jobs she’d done – and she was the one who’d scoffed at Chore Wars! Josiah had a great sleepover and swim with a friend before coming home.

This afternoon we went over to Russ & Marg’s for a BBQ which was a lovely way to end a bank holiday weekend

Yesterday the four of us (without Josiah, as he was still on chorister duty) got up early and drove to Oxford, in time for church at OCC on Easter Sunday. We got there stupidly early – there was NO traffic on the road at that time of day on a bank holiday weekend! Met most of my family at church, and caught up with some old friends there too, an added bonus. Good service, then home to my parents’ house to see the rest of the family for lunch and the afternoon.

As usual it was a fabulous meal cooked by Lorraine, then we just had a lovely time hanging out together; we went to the park and some people played frisbee while others sat around and chatted. Back at the house, the true Thomases (Anna & Abbie included in this!) played cards, while the spouses were left to chat- really not quite sure why they all seem to think that they can’t keep up with us! I would like to add that I won Photos are here

Cups of tea were served, along with some rather strange cake made by Esther – apple, raisin & walnut, with a layer of goats’ cheese in the middle. Turned out to be a bit like Marmite, either you loved it or you hated it. I want the recipe!
Eventually left, not that we really wanted to … home and bed.

Today we did separate things. Abbie and I went geocaching with my friend, while Steve did some food shopping and fiddled about with a Toyota Starlet, and Anna spent most of the day making a birthday present for a friend. Abbie and I found 32 caches today, and were still home by 4pm! The first of them had a ??5 FTF prize in it so that paid for our post-caching ice creams Others included a ring where we had to build up the digits for the bonus using a stencil – the numbers were like digital clock numbers so each stencil added a few more lines, which was a very inventive idea, I thought. The bonus was a safe, which had been embedded into a stump, so you had to collect the combination for that on the way round as well – definitely worth a favourite point on the Geocaching site. I kept trying to take photos of Abbie’s hair as it looked particularly nice today but she wasn’t really helping …

So, we got home for ice-creams and a quick shower; Steve got home in time to sling a shirt on before we headed to the Cathedral for evensong – Easter Monday is when the choristers are joined by the Old Choristers Association, so it was a full house and a massive sound, excellent. Then we scooped Josiah up and most of his possessions from his time boarding – I say most, as he always leaves *something* behind He’d had a brilliant time, as usual – he thinks it’s one big holiday, which it is, for him. I’m glad the chorister thing is so positive for him and that he doesn’t resent it at all. We missed him, especially yesterday with family, but he didn’t mind at all. There was more chocolate at the boarding house, too
So, home for pizza & salad. He then had to catch up on Dr Who as they hadn’t watched it!

Bedtime now. I don’t feel at all ready to go back to work tomorrow, but at least we have a short week ahead.