just another morning here

So … since the last blog … we had a weekend, which seemed to disappear all too quickly.

Monday was interesting. I spent the day in the court and actually got as far as being on a jury, but not much further. We’d been sworn in on the jury and heard the charge, when one of the other jurors said something to the usher. It became apparent that he knew something of the case so he was off the jury and they replaced him. All seemed fine and proceedings went on for an hour before lunch, we started hearing the case etc.

Went for lunch then there was a long wait afterwards. Eventually we were traipsed back into the courtroom to be told by the judge that we couldn’t be the jury on the case because of what the original juror had said.

Back in the jury retiring room it transpired that one person *had* heard what he’d said, which was something like ‘I know all about this case, he’s guilty’.

So they were right to throw the jury out, but I couldn’t help thinking it was a bit of a silly thing to say in a courtroom, and I was slightly disappointed that we didn’t get to see the process through until the end. I didn’t have to go in today at all but will be back in tomorrow, can’t imagine anything interesting will happen with only 3 days of my two week stint left though.

Meanwhile Steve and Josiah went to pick up our folding camper. After our last camping trip we decided to make some changes, and this is what we’ve ended up with. We can *just* get it up the drive and in the garage, and managed to put it up in the driveway (photo to follow in the morning) to sort a few things out before we take it for a trial run to MuddlePuddle Camp at the weekend. Of course we couldn’t test putting up the worst bit, the awning, which I am dreading, it really does bring back so many memories of my childhood caravan holidays with my parents where putting up the awning was always really stressful for some reason!

Today has been fairly boring, Joe and I have just caught up on jobs – weeding in the garden, shopping, washing, ironing, that sort of thing. Oh, and we went to buy a groundsheet and some towing mirrors, too. The most annoying thing about this whole camper malarkey is that I am going to have to go back to driving school – because I took my test after January 1997 I don’t have the towing class on my driving licence. So I am going to have to take extra lessons and an extra test to get whatever class it is on my licence. Probably just as well as I think I’ll be pretty rubbish at towing, but annoying that I have to pay for it!

As well as all that, we were trying to take care of Gizmo the hamster over the weekend but we failed He’d been having treatment for mites, and basically didn’t really recover since the last injection. Tried drip feeding him fluids from a pipette but it didn’t work and he ended up being put down at the vets on Monday night. Anna was quite upset, but there we go.

Other than that life goes on as usual. Glad to have Russ back at work. The ibook screen is just about working, can’t decide whether to put it in to try and be mended or just persevere with strange angles when necessary.

Well, the guinea pigs are sorted. I spent some of Monday morning considering how to build a new hutch and run, then deciding that it was probably better to buy one, as I’m fairly rubbish at making stuff – it would probably have ended up looking (and being) awful, not to mention that I’d be likely to spend practically as much on materials as on a ready made one anyway!

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!

Some artistic licence is required with today’s post, as despite an absolutely terrible morning with Joe we did actually manage some nice stuff too.

Started off with some pattern block play, and followed that with violin practice (surprisingly enough, this is where we skip a few details. How a 10 minute practice can sometimes last an hour and include so much stropping and rolling around the floor I never will know. And yet when he actually manages to play something he’s really good ). We talked about doing a bit more science; I produced some books for ideas and Josiah pronounced them ‘stupid’ without even looking at them. At which point I decided to call it a day and give up on him to do my own stuff instead.

Went to Sainsbury’s then into town for lunch with Steve at the garage. When we got home Josiah got his bike out again while I was hanging up washing (oops, forgot to bring it in) and fiddling around with old bikes that we’re giving away via freecycle. He did even better than yesterday – now confidently starting, stopping, and even turning corners! Then he came in and drew a bird from one of the Draw Write Now books, and managed to write one of the sentences from the page without too much trouble. The nice afternoon just about compensated for the awful morning!

The girls appeared home and we played Wii Sonic together for a bit before going to try and sort out the hamster – he’s made his nest under the wheel which is a bit daft really and I’m paranoid that he’s going to get too cold there. Still not sure he’s been persuaded to nest in the little house in the cage but there we go. The kids watched a dvd together and then we had a late tea.

Well, it’s been a pretty uneventful weekend here. We cleaned and tidied the house yesterday, then went to the pet shop and the children put their pocket money together for a new hamster. More of the money was Anna’s so Fudge (our first girl hamster – not a very girly name I know but a good hamster name!) is mostly hers. We tried to break her in gently and didn’t put the ladders into the top part of the cage, so that she just had the bottom 2 levels to get used to at first, but then she climbed up the sides all the way to the top, so Steve decided to put the ladders back in so that at least she could get back down! She has been fairly jittery and nervous which I’m sure is partly just the normal thing of being tiny and scared of a new environment, and partly not helped by my overexcited children who really should have left her to settle for a little bit longer before handling her Photos to follow at some point … but she looks like most other little brown hamsters

Today I spent the day with other EO members at the South West home ed workshop. Don’t think it covered much that I hadn’t read already but it was good to hear real people talking about it all. And nice to see a few friends that I hadn’t seen for ages! (One of whom told me I was looking young – I love you!) Anyway, I would really recommend joining in if you can make it in your area