just another morning here

Today has been utterly mad! Started at 8.15am leaving the house to go and take Steve’s parents to the airport, they’re on holiday for a couple of weeks touring Ireland – a route we might follow them on next year in the van, I fancy it, anyway.

After that came home and did Narnia for an hour or so, then popped to Sainsbury’s. We had been planning to swap over work/home at lunchtime, and I got to the garage on time just before 12. While I was there customers were all over the place, and I sent someone out on test drive, then while they were out we decided it was going to be too much hassle to swap over, mainly because we realised that I can’t put the barrier on by myself, and we have a school governors’ meeting here at 7pm, Anna swims from 6 – 6.30pm so to get back by 7 is tricky anyway, never mind having cooked, or Steve doing the swimming run then coming back to the garage to help with locking up, blah blah – not sure all this needs to be on the blog really! Customers came back, I handed them over to Steve and then scarpered!

So the upshot is that I’m still with the kids, we’ve come home for lunch and to chop veggies ready for tea, but we’re about to go out for swimming, and inbetween lessons which are so badly timed, we’re going to hit Crealy for an hour’s play. I have plans for a bit of maths and reading with each child as they’re waiting at swimming, so I hope that works out, as we haven’t done any for ages.

So, time to go and make sure that plenty of things to do while waiting for swimming siblings have been rounded up, then we’ll be off.

The upside of having governors’ meetings here is that at least I can be online while taking the minutes, so if anyone’s around, ping me, I’ll be glad to talk to you Anna has decided to stop school now anyway, she just fell out of it, and has made other friendships so I guess she stopped needing it in the same way that she had done, I’m hoping I might be able to be relieved of governor’s duties, but it’s not as easy as all that. And I know the chair of governors does occasionally read this, so I’d better shut up now!

and for my reference – planning to cook these for tea tomorrow: Tuna Burgers

Smoothie of the day: Banana & Mango with Apple juice

Hectic morning turned out okay. Kids all got up and ready in time to leave around 8.40am, getting us to Stage Studios just before 9am. We realised that Anna’s thing didn’t finish until 10.15am so decided to go to the park for 45 minutes, get to Joe’s thing on time at 10am then be a bit late picking Anna up.

Bit disappointed to find that no-one else turned up to the suzuki intro session; we thought there was another 4yo starting at the same time as Josiah, and they would have done some group stuff together. Anyway the teacher, Mr Featherstone, was lovely, and Joe responded well to him – we’ve come away with a sponge & ruler violin – to get used to how to stand/hold the instrument. Steve and I are apparently going to have lessons as well, which is quite scary, but I definitely see the point of it, as otherwise you as a parent must find it hard to support your child in learning. I’m actually just worried that Steve will be better than me

Got back to pick Anna up and it seemed she’d had a good time although she didn’t want to have to choose between this and Stagecoach. I am reserving judgement – we have to give Stagecoach half a term’s notice, so she might as well finish this term, and we’ll decide which one to go on with at half term. Now I just have ballet to sort out – we *might* be having dance lessons again at home ed group but it’s not definite yet.

Popped to Sainsbury’s on the way home for some shopping, had to buy Abbie a couple of pairs of trousers as she seems to have shot up, at least too far to fit into her jeans from last winter. Managed to get Joe some black trousers for Aunty Mimi’s wedding, too, but no luck on the white shirts, they only had polo shirts, what are schools coming to these days, honestly

Had corn on the cob for lunch and now we’re settling down to veg out in front of the original Superman … well, they’re vegging out, I’m doing that laundry I procrastinated over last night After that we’re planning tea, a chapter of The Magician’s Nephew, then more TV. Lazy day really, but hey, it is Saturday.

Have only had one phonecall from the office this morning, which was fielded successfully – thankfully my mobile tells me when it’s a forwarded call, so that’s handy. Hopefully we won’t have missed too many customers on the site, either.

Have achieved lots today, still feel a bit behind but Steve’s home tomorrow so hopefully he’ll catch up on housework

And then we had lunch

Afterwards we hunted for library books (unsuccessfully, why are we always missing one), went to the library anyway and got more books, then on to EO group in the park. Went to the Scrapstore for lots of bits and bobs including some Anne Fine books which I hope Anna might like, pink and sparkly stuff for making princess hats at Puddlers on Friday … and after EO group Anna’s stayed on for cello lessons, Steve will be picking her up and coming home for tea in a minute, time to get off the computer and cook something …