Can’t really guess who’s going to win, they’re all incredible.

We ended up with very convoluted arrangements whereby Steve and Abbie stayed at home, with a bit of help from Grandma during after school times. Josiah came with us as far as the Portico where he stayed with Ernest and Buttercup for a few days. Meanwhile I took Anna, Violet and Gwenny on to Kessingland for the longest sleepover ever!

We had a free static for the week, I think they chose the worst one to give us, but it was ok for a few days. Well it was once I swapped the tv for one with an av channel for the Wii!

Tuesday was taken over with preparations for the evening, between a long rehearsal and then a quick swim before three hours of makeup and hair doing. It was an enjoyable night actually (mainly thanks to Twitter friends!), and while I sort of wanted Anna to win because I thought she was genuinely the best of the bunch, she didn’t, and I breathed a huge sigh of relief at not having to go to Grand Finals in Clacton! There are a few snippets of video here, here, and here – the latter being the hilarious finale to the Disney Show which the Teamstars did – which really was one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a long while.

Wednesday was a fairly boring, grey day, and we lazed around watching tv, reading, and playing wii. The girls took the living room over in the evening and pulled the sofabed out so that they could have a proper sleepover together (ie all sleep in the same room!) but Anna ended up back in bed with me by the end of the night!

Typically, Thursday was a beautiful day weather-wise and in some ways it would have been nice to spend longer on the beach, but we had to get back, so waved goodbye to Kessingland, hopefully forever!!

We spent the rest of Thursday chez Portico which was nice, and drove home late that night. Then spent Friday pretending we hadn’t got home yet and generally procrastinating over everything. Must add that Joe had a great week, as did Steve and Abbie – Steve was amazed at how quiet and peaceful it was!

Saturday was more normal; it included an orchestra practice and AGM where I somehow managed to get on the committee for ECO – well I figured it was a worthwhile thing to get involved with and all three of our children will benefit from the orchestra over the next few years.

Then we popped up to share cake with my sister in her new flat at university, of course my phone chose that moment to play up so I couldn’t ring her – I vaguely knew where I was going thank goodness but we did still drag a random towel-clad fresher out of her flat in order to let us through the building so we could find the right place!

And the afternoon was spent cleaning and tidying the first floor of the house. Which was great until I went downstairs and saw the comparative mess down there! Ironed while watching X Factor and then had an early night before an early morning Grand Prix which is a must-watch this morning!

Right, now that’s out of the way. It’s been busy here as usual over the last few days. On Wednesday and Thursday we spent some time looking around the two secondary schools we were considering, so that was interesting. Thankfully Anna and I agreed on which one we preferred, so our first choice on the routine application form is decided. Home education again may yet be an option but we’re all unsure at the moment so we’re applying for a high school place and we’ll make a final decision about taking it up or not nearer the time.

On Wednesday Josiah and I went to home ed group; Joe played with a bunch of boys which was good. Thursday saw us back in school making more momos with another group of children from a different class as the school didn’t get enough volunteer helpers. On Friday we had a trip to Creative Stitches with some friends, who then came back for lunch/chatting/playing, so that was a lovely day. The boys especially enjoyed the sugarcraft penguin they made – Josiah ate his before we even got out of the exhibition hall!

Today has been Orchestra for Anna (can see why she likes it, looked like loads of fun, I was jealous!), a trip into town for the rest of us, Kids’ Club film at the Picture House for Abbie, and a Happy Meal for Joe (compensation for my mistake in thinking over 5s could stay at the Picture House, then finding out it was only over 8s). Got home to do the uusal Saturday chores which aren’t finished yet so I must get back to them.

Steve’s dad is on holiday for a couple of weeks, and Terry our mechanic is ill with a horrible inner ear thing that means he can’t stand up, so we were awfully short staffed today. Meant that we had to give up on the home ed group trip we were meant to be going on but hey ho, that’s life.

Once the girls had gone to school, Josiah and I ended up at the office for the day, which was fine – we chucked a load of stuff in a box and de-camped there quite instead (as long as I have internet I’m happy!), the phone didn’t even ring until 11am so not too strenuous.

Joe did violin practice and then some of his Roman lapbook project; today he wrote out a few vocab words for a flappy thing in the lapbook, and we learnt about Pompeii and Mount Vesuvius too – looked at lots of pictures online. The whole Roman thing is making Joe want to go to Italy, he keeps saying that would be a good Home Ed trip to go on (the Roman Baths not good enough!). Went home for about an hour to scoop Abbie up then back to the office for the end of the day.

After saying goodbye to the girls we did his violin practice which went well for once. It’s been a long summer without seeing his teacher and it’s been hard to wind back up into regular decent practice (everyone, not just Joe!), but today he managed great posture/bow hold, as well as actually remembering his pieces, hurrah.

Then we started putting his Romans lapbook together, which involved me doing lots of cutting out and Josiah doing lots of sticking. Joe chose to complete a little flap thingy on Romulus and Remus, so he drew a picture of them as babies, and then dictated a very brief version of the story to me (there was no way on earth that he’d have been able to write it out, so better to go for the CM dictation approach than have a frustrated writer on my hands).

He played outside for a bit, got the guinea pigs out, nearly lost one of them in the garden but we managed to catch it again! Then played with a lego creation for a while, before Steve came home from lunch.

After lunch I had a lovely chat on the phone with my friend Liz, and then I taught Joe how to play San Juan. This took a long time but was worthwhile as it’s a game I actually like playing! I am so so bored of most of our board games, I really need some other new games that are enjoyable for adults as well as children. Literally the only games I really like playing are Yahtzee and Mastermind/Mindbender, everything else makes me groan when he suggests them. So we went off to PlayMerrily and had a look there – we like a look of a few of the games

By the time we’d done that the girls were home, ravenous despite having had school dinners, and Laura turned up for piano lessons. Tonight it’s Stage by Stage and Wind Group so a busy evening ahead.

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!

The wet night did make the whole site a bit muddy for a couple of days but nothing too terrible on our side of the site anyway. My parents did have a bit of a Kessingland week in their awning though, and ended up throwing their groundsheet away rather than cleaning it! Think swamp mixed with cowpats and you have the general idea, yuk.

We were camped with friends from one of the other churches in the network, which was nice, because we were the only campers there from our own local church, so it meant that the children had friends to play with, I had more hair to braid (!!) and we had friends to laze around and share coffee and wine with

Saw a number of old friends throughout the week which was nice, and we also saw rather a lot of my youngest brother as well, who clearly had too much time on his hands and kept coming back to be clambered on by small girls – lovely to have him around though.

The organised ‘churchy’ activities (for want of a better word!) consisted of various meetings most mornings and in the evenings too, as well as sports and other stuff going on during the afternoon. The children all had groups to go to, which they really enjoyed and got lots out of. I was on a team helping with the 3 and 4 year olds during the morning sessions, which was a lot of fun.

We had a couple of free days as well, where we escaped the site (it was *so* noisy!) and did our own thing. On the first day we went to Herstmonceux Science Centre where we met some of the Screamteam and most of the Monsterteenies, and had a fab day there. (I didn’t ever get my email from the Art Machine by the way, what happened to that I wonder?!)

On our other day off we ended up in Eastbourne visiting Ros & Tony at Bonners Music Superstore. Steve made himself at home immediately and made a long phonecall but for some reason didn’t want me to take a photo Anna made herself at home too We didn’t spend too much money though!

Mooched around Eastbourne for a while, then went swimming again, then ended up at Pevensey Castle on the way back to the campsite. Fab castle with lots of interesting different parts added over the years. Tried desperately to get a picture of all three children looking nice at the same time but after four attempts I gave up!

We spent a fair bit of time enjoying Ashburnham again; it is a gorgeous site. Tried hard to get the camera to do things it isn’t really cut out to do with the lens I was using but the results weren’t too bad, all things considered.

As an aside, my Flickr post bar has miraculously sprung back into life tonight after months of not recognising me as a user – don’t know what happened there but I’m very glad to have it back!

Got a bit of washing done today but generally lazed around as we were fairly exhausted. Our wonderful neighbour(s) had done a fantastic job with the guinea pigs which was an extra blessing.

With the exception of a difficult violin practice with Joe first thing, and explaining to Anna early on in the day that I am not going to argue with her over ridiculous topics of conversation (like ‘why do we need to go to Sainsbury’s?’, or ‘why do we have to go on holiday?’, honestly, it’s like having a 2yo again, sometimes ), it’s been a lovely day and they’ve all helped with a bit of clearing and tidying up as well as dossing around a fair bit, as one should on the first day of the holidays. Steve and I viewed a couple of houses (as you do), and I popped into town to fill in a CRB check form. Oh, and we went to Sainsbury’s.

The girls did some music, just because they enjoy it (yippee, we are making progress here! although drums at 8am was a bit much!). Anna’s drawn a montage of Sonic the Hedgehog characters, copied from game box art, and she’s got a ballet lesson later on. The other two have played together on the gamecube, then outside when it finally brightened up, and even managed not to have too many arguments

Right, must go, I have a huge pile of paperwork (rubbish!) to sort through which really should have been sorted a long time ago, these piles of paper just have a habit of building up, though, don’t they. And some washing to fold, and dinner to cook before friends arrive for the evening (wine, nibbles, and Wii party games!) … but hooray, it’s the holidays, even chores aren’t bugging me today

Don’t want to spend too long blogging today as I’m halfway through the Deathly Hallows and Steve wants it next … but it’s been a lovely day so thought I would write something.

Anna had a friend to stay last night; another Anna. Very pleasant to have her company though it was slightly confusing at times The girls spent ages making little braids attached to hair bobbles to sell at their school summer fair, and also went over to the park to meet yet more friends. After the other Anna had gone home, my Anna made marshmallow crispy cakes, played with Mollie and Ruby, then went out to play with yet another friend for the afternoon.

Abbie’s been mainly kicking around here, in pyjamas all day. She read, helped with the braids, played with Mollie, helped me with the guinea pigs, and made chocolate crispy cakes. And then had a bath

Abbie slept in the music room last night to make space for the other Anna, and she started drumming along to her cd last night, and has been doing it at odd moments throughout the day too. Steve came home and has shown her how to hold the sticks properly, and a basic 4/4 rhythm, and she’s been happily playing along to McFly and making a pretty decent job of it, for an 8yo beginner I am quite impressed. Think Steve (formerly known as a pretty good drummer) would be quite pleased if one of the kids took up the drums! Still, it just added the criteria of ‘downstairs music room’ to our list for any future house of ours, as despite the fact that it’s not a proper drum kit, it still sounds like a herd of elephants upstairs when you’re sitting underneath it!

Josiah stayed in pyjamas today too. He did a decent music practice, then played far too much gamecube, working his way through an old Sonic game again. He helped with the guinea pigs too, and also managed to trip over outside grazing his side (not quite sure how he managed it!) and elbow, which left him feeling a bit fragile and needing cuddles which was nice for me Managed to bath him too this evening as he was stinky!

And I’ve really enjoyed just pootling around alongside the kids – cooked a couple of Shepherd’s Pies, made a courgette & banana cake, washed and dried three loads of washing, had a couple of long phonecalls with various people, did lunch for everyone, helped out with the music practices, braids and crispy cakes, washed the kitchen floor after they’d finished, and then finally opened the book

Secondly, I won a 3/4 size cello on ebay tonight! Very chuffed, as I couldn’t be home to watch the auction through, so had to just put in a maximum amount and hope for the best – it paid off I have been exchanging numerous emails with what seems like a very friendly and genuine seller so now I’m looking forward to picking it up at the weekend.

While on the subject of music, it’s been exam week here; Anna sat her cello Grade 4 on Monday, while Abbie took Grade 1 in piano and recorder this morning. Now for the two week wait