just another morning here

Well, I spent the last three days of my jury service in court on a trial. It wasn’t anything gruesome but still felt very serious, and the pressure of making the ‘right’ decision (and coming to a unanimous verdict – which we didn’t ever manage) was quite stressful. Still, I am glad to have actually served on a trial after all the stops and starts of the first week. And I was happy with the outcome, too. The whole experience was interesting (and boring at the same time, all the waiting around – but then even that was quite nice for me as it meant time to myself!) in lots of different ways, and as a whole I enjoyed it.

On the flip side we really did notice that I am not cut out to work full time outside the home – or that our family is not geared up for it, at least! I guess if I did have a full time job we’d all get used to doing things very differently, but certain things (like shopping/meals) suffered significantly!

Children are all fine, the girls enjoyed another week at school – Abbie had a geography trip to Beer this week to compare the differences between that town/school and ours. Anna helped out with a book fair after school tonight (where Abbie spent £2.99 on a miniature picture book of puppies Steve and i nearly died when we saw what she’d spent her money on after we’d told her to buy a decent book to take on holiday!). Josiah spent most of his week with Steve doing various things from sorting out the new camper and helping out at the office, to some writing/drawing, a bit of music theory, reading, and a fair bit of film-watching/game playing (it has been raining all week!). Plus all the usual after school activities for everyone.

Looking forward to being away camping with home ed friends next week, although not looking forward to another week of crummy weather, or putting a new awning up (not even sure we have any instructions!) in crummy weather. Steve has told me I’m not allowed to be negative though, ha ha. Drinks in our awning (if we get it up) Saturday night!

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.

So, I didn’t have to go in for jury duty yesterday but had to be there again today. Spent a long time waiting around (I’m on my third book of the week!), got sent away for a lunch hour, and eventually we were taken down to a court room around 2.30pm. However before the jury were sworn in, the judge read out the charge and the defendant changed his plea at the last minute to guilty – hence no need for a jury. So we were ushered out again – and I was very relieved, as it was a sexual assault charge. The judge actually spoke to us and apologised for wasting our time – he said it was common in such cases for a defendant to plead not guilty until the moment they see the jury, at which point they simply realise that they don’t stand a chance of being acquitted, so they change their plea.

Anyway, I don’t have to go in again this week, which is good. Still hoping I get to do something next week, as long as it’s not gruesome. But as expected it’s all been a bit of an anticlimax so far.

Meanwhile Josiah had a great time with his friends Jack & Harry, whose mum took them all swimming … and the girls were entrusted with a door key for the first time – when I got home they were doing everything they should have been, so that was encouraging too Have done the Wednesday night lesson run as usual and now home wrapping birthday presents and about to watch the final Apprentice. I reckon Kristina will win; Steve thinks Simon will. We’ll see …

My first day of jury service was fairly noneventful; I turned up at the court at the appointed time and did all the intro stuff – watched a video about the whole ‘being a juror’ process, and sat around listening to lots of associated blurb. Didn’t get picked for the jury in waiting, sat around reading a book for about an hour, and eventually got told to go home and phone in later to find out about the rest of the week. Don’t have to go in tomorrow either, but again have to phone in tomorrow to find out about the next day.

So I ended up back at the garage with Steve by lunchtime, and Emma dropped Josiah back to me there. He’d had a fab time and greeted me with ‘I shot Spongebob Squarepants!’ Emma’s husband Adam, since coming out of the army in May, has got involved in setting up a new paintballing facility at a nearby holiday park, so she’d taken Josiah down there for the morning. Joe had apparently shot 60 pellets (I’ve never done it so don’t really have a clue what he was talking about) and wasn’t bad at it! I think the targets are big posters of characters etc., hence the Spongebob reference. He said the guns were quite heavy, but obviously not too heavy for an almost 6yo to have a lot of fun