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.

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!

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.

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

This is a handmade hamster palace, with four floors, and a clear panel at the bottom so you can see the burrowing/nesting/hiding bit as well. We went and picked it up from a lovely man who had made it himself for a rescued hamster. Hadn’t quite realised just how big it was but when we saw how great it was we couldn’t change our minds – and Abbie thought of a perfect place to put it, so we’ve squeezed it in. Gonna have to sell it to Anna as a new bedside table, it’s as tall as the bunk beds!!

So we spent a happy afternoon gluing lolly sticks onto a couple of planks to make ladders – typically Haffertee has been climbing the sides of the cage instead of using the ladders, but there we go. Then once we’d cleaned and prepared the cage we put Haff into it and he seemed to love it – took him a while to really go exploring but when he did he was away. So a huge thank you to Dave from Freecycle, it is fantastic and we all love it

We’re wondering how long it will take Steve to spot it, I suspect he will see the photos/read the blog before he notices it

It has been a beautiful day here; bit gutted that we haven’t managed to make the most of it, but there we go. I had the annual Memorial Service for babies lost through miscarriage, stillbirth, and neonatal death to go to this afternoon, and Steve had to go in to work to let someone test drive a car, so it was always going to be a non-starter of a day, really.

The children have played out a fair bit though, with Mollie and Ruby in the close, Josiah is out there still in his pyjamas, and Abbie is in her sunsuit! Just couldn’t be bothered to insist on anything today.

Abbie spent the first part of *her* morning on a hamster hunt, she did admit responsibility in having accidentally left the cage open yesterday, so I think she breathed a huge sigh of relief when she found him in her dolls’ cot.

Anna has dossed around, but came with me to the service this afternoon. Her comments were that it was a short service, and that she was surprised at how much crying there was. Doh. My feelings on the whole thing are pretty much the same as last year and the year before that. I can’t quite decide if it’s good to give time to feel stuff all over again, or if it’s just a strange sadistic thing to put yourself through once a year. I am really considering stopping the support group, and if I do stop it I don’t think I’d go to the service, which leads me to think that it is just me getting emotionally carried away by the situation rather than any real grief of my own. Obviously I did and occasionally still do grieve, but the service itself doesn’t help in that for me personally, I don’t think. Still, having said that, someone read a very powerful poem today which I might post one day.

We had a lovely night out (at Harry’s) yesterday, too, which deserves a mention – we were celebrating a decent month of sales at the garage, so it was a works’ do – felt like a proper one for the first time ever though as it included our mechanic and his wife as well as Steve’s parents and us. We might even manage it this month as well, if we’re lucky

Started off this morning by helping Steve at work, running errands with kids in tow.

Home for a quick coffee for me, while the children played with Mollie and did their music practice.

Back out (via the cinema to get Orange Wednesday 2-4-1 tickets for Narnia) to our Home Ed groups’ joint Christmas party. A well attended affair including a party lunch, storytelling session, gift giving and opening and enjoying, then carol singing and lantern procession around the park! We were there until around 5pm when we went to extract Steve from work and take him to the cinema.

Loved the film. I wasn’t sure I was going to, and I’m not going to attempt to review it at all as there are plenty of reviews out there already. But I liked it – I liked the ‘magical-ness’ of the story which I think they did a great job translating into film. The cast were brilliant; there were a couple of moments where the special effects seemed less good than others, but the main animal characters were exceptionally well done. The battle scene, we realised on the way home, was interesting because there wasn’t a drop of blood spilt (or very little, at least!). Still not quite sure it tops the animated version for me personally, but they are such different films from different eras so you really can’t compare them. If Disney/New Walden Media are planning to make the entire series I will be thrilled, does anyone know if they are?

Once home and the children were in bed it was an early night for us, too. Well, it would have been early for me until I started chatting online on Animal Crossing, where the Wild World has become a small world – wi-fi means you meet people by playing across towns with your characters, and somehow I’ve managed to meet a someone who’s as sad as me – obsessed enough to buy AC:WW before it’s even released in this country, then play it obsessively too. I got Nookingtons (with added hair salon) first though! Bizarrely, my new found friend actually lives nearby in real life, so one of these days we’re going to have to meet up and play AC without worrying about the network dropping out!

Still no photos of the new hamster but Abbie did have him out of the cage this evening and he seems quite settled and still very cute. Will get Steve on the case today

So today after the Sainsbury’s shop which we got out of the way early, we went back out to have another look. Unfortunately the rescue centre wouldn’t let us have the kitten, as she wasn’t really suited to being with children, in their opinion. It was that kitten or nothing as far as Abbie was concerned, so she was a bit disappointed, but only for a moment, as we settled on getting another hamster instead, which is something she had wondered about spending her birthday money on in any case.

So we’ve come home today with a little honey coloured hamster who is very sweet, and has been named Haffertee after the star of the Haffertee Hamster series of books. Photos to follow tomorrow when he can be handled

Steve phoned this evening to say they’d arrived in Troyes safely. Apparently Anna had been really good with the meal – one of the things we’ve been trying to impress on her over the past couple of weeks is to eat things she’s given without any rude noises – and there were a number of things Steve thought she’d normally moan about and struggle to eat, but she cleared her plate with no fussing. Good to know they can manage it when they have to, eh? Just wish she’d do the same at home!!! Anyway. And Bob (one of the friends they’re staying with) had taken her out to the Boulangerie on her own, so she’d enjoyed that.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, Abbie and Joe decided this evening that it would be fun to put the hamster inside Steve’s didgeridoo. He has a proper, 4ft long one, which, to be fair, does look like a rather nice hamster tunnel. Of course they failed to think that if Charlie decided to stop in the middle, that we wouldn’t be able to get him out! So we spent a fair bit of time trying to coax him out of it before bedtime tonight – eventually we gave up and read stories with ‘traps’ set at either end, and he came out of his own accord, thankfully. Well, the piece of fruit at each end probably helped, too. Ho hum!

As well as all that, Josiah fell asleep while we were reading stories earlier in the afternoon, so Abbie and I did some workbook stuff together – English pages about capital letters, full stops and commas (for some reason they didn’t include the use of – and … on their pages, I wonder why?!!), and some Maths pages working on adding and taking away ten. It was really nice to spend the time with Abigail on her own – as well as concentrate on a couple of academic things! She enjoyed doing the English book as she just had to ring letters and put in commas and full stops. When it came to the Maths she asked me to be her scribe, as usual. She seems particularly bothered by the fact that she can’t write 5s! She’s fine on all the other digits, but for some reason, 5 presents her with a particular problem. Anyway, I don’t mind doing that – it’s the mathematics I’m interested in, not her writing abilities. We had fun together

I’ve been out for a meal with friends this evening, then back home for a natter with my friend and babysitter. It’s never the same going to bed on your own though, I’m rubbish at it, I’ll have to try not to stay up *too* late!

Oh, and NEWSFLASH! My brother actually wrote something on his blog, *and* it’s relatively amusing!!!