just another morning here

I went, as usual on the first Tuesday of every month, to open up for Miscarriage Support Group, only to find that the locks had been changed. On further investigation it turned out that the organisation who had been letting me use the room have gone, and the room is now in use by someone else. They kindly let me use the space this evening (luckily, as I had people coming from an hour away!) but I can’t use it next month or any more after that. It had been a very unofficial arrangement anyway so I’m not surprised that they didn’t know about me, nor I about the changes which were obviously afoot.

So there, the decision that I’ve been wavering over for a couple of years now is out of my hands – I haven’t really got the time or energy to go chasing after another free room in the city (as if I’d find one), and to be honest, the number of people that come is minimal – sometimes not enough to call it a support group really. And I think that after 6 years of hosting it singlehandedly I’ve probably done enough. In some ways it’s a shame, because it means there is nothing like that available for people in this area, but I shall stay on the MA phone contact list and still be available that way. Can’t imagine that I’ll ever feel any less strongly about pregnancy loss and its effect on people.

So anyway, if you have landed here looking for the Exeter Miscarriage Support Group, I’m afraid it is no longer in existance, in support group form – but please do get my phone number from the Miscarriage Association and I’d still be really happy to chat.

We’re back down to earth with a bump here. Last week my sister was staying, which was really nice, but we didn’t get an awful lot done as we were still in definite holiday mode! We did do a couple of nice things including a mooch around town to show her the sights (or at least the good coffee shops!), church followed by a BBQ with friends on Sunday, a trip to Dartington Crystal (because we’d won free tickets) on Monday, and a fair bit of dossing around at home.

Yesterday we had Caitlin and Riona with us, took Esther back to the station early afternoon, and then the new term began with Anna’s first cello lesson later on in the afternoon. Incidentally, she passed her Grade 4 cello (108), don’t think I ever blogged that. And Abbie passed both the Grade 1s (piano 114 & recorder 107) that she took at the same time.

In the evening the girls both sharpened all their pencils and got their uniforms ready, and I think they even managed an early night – certainly they were in bed by the time I got home from an aborted Miscarriage Support Group meeting (forgot the keys, oops. still saw one person though and had a good chat on the stairs instead!).

Today the girls were back at school, and obviously pleased about it as they were both up and ready way earlier than necessary!

Josiah and I have had a relatively good home-ed day too. He did a couple of workbook pages from a music and a maths book, just to try and get back into the swing of doing something each day. He seems to have forgotten how to write all his numbers!

Then we did his music practices together, then made a picnic while signing up for Education City again, in order that I don’t feel too guilty about hours spent in the office, our next destination. By the way, does anyone still have a valid ‘refer a friend’ code that I could use when I actually have to sign up properly in 10 days’ time? Steve and I had a business meeting to attend together so Josiah amused himself with Education City on the computer at work while we did that.

The plan after that was to head to Home Ed group, which I assumed would have started back today, but the park was empty. Joe was a bit disappointed – I really should have checked beforehand as I probably had the info in an email somewhere. Ah well, there’s always next week. We had our lunch in the park anyway, and it gave us the chance to have a good chat about a couple of goals for home ed, which was good. Joe’s decided he’d like to try making a lapbook about the Romans, so that gives us something projecty to do alongside basic workbook things. He was only 18 months old when the girls did their first ever home ed project on the Romans so I don’t suppose he can remember much about it – in fact thinking about it, they did it with Aunty Jacky and I took him out to the park while she was there, so I can’t remember much either!

Anyway, then we headed back to the garage to get a few more things sorted; we’ve got a stand in the local shopping centre’s ‘Motor Show’ next weekend so there are some extra things that need doing for that.

Now we’re home for piano lessons. Still chasing my tail with lots of paperwork to catch up on so better stop blogging and get on with it!

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!

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