just another morning here

Josiah is working on this Seitz Concerto at the moment, and I confess now that I am totally sick of it. It’s quite an interesting piece, I like the set of three Seitz pieces in Suzuki book 4, and I used to especially like this one, but now I just want to leave it behind! The double stopping in it is really hard and we’ve had at least the last four violin lessons totally devoted to it – about 6 weeks practicing it, and I can’t stand it any longer!

So, desperate measures have been called in: at each practice I will pay 1p per repetition if he does 1, 2p per repetition if he does 2, 3p per repetition if he does 3, etc. So therefore for 10 repetitions of the section he’s working on that day, I am paying a whole £1. I guarantee that if Joe does at least 10 repetitions a day at every practice for a week (usually 5 days when he actually practices) he will have the piece pretty much licked, so for £5 it’s totally worth it. And I’ll have a son who’s practicing happily, which is also worth paying for He’s meant to do that many a day anyway but usually we struggle to get to three. Today he did eleven

In other news here: very glad to get to Friday, although slightly disappointed that as usual the weekend looks jam-packed with not much time to catch up on washing and housework. Still, tonight I am vegging out with trashy magazines, flapjack and cups of tea. The excuse for the magazines, of course, is that Anna has art homework which is to make faces by making a collage of faces, so I needed something better than the AA magazine, Autotrader or the Caravan Club magazine for her to use!

The girls are out at a Panto rehearsal, and Abbie’s got a friend coming for a sleepover – think they will probably sleep as they’ll be tired after rehearsals. And this friend comes to orchestra too so nice and easy, no special arrangements to be made.

Tomorrow’s pretty busy too but I’ll write about it after the event …

Anna hit the grand old age of 11 yesterday, and we all enjoyed celebrating her birthday with her. She had a few presents in the morning, which she was very happy with. Then we went into town so that I could sort out her presents from us – a Build A Bear which she has been hankering after for ages (are you ever too old to secretly want one? I’m not!) but can never quite bring herself to spend her own money on, and a new bank account in her own name – complete with bank card which can be personalised so that’s an extra gift which will follow eventually. She was thrilled with all of that too!

Spent hours in Claire’s Accessories as a special concession (I usually operate a strict ’3 minutes and no more!’ policy in there!), and a few more shops along the way. Then we went to MacDonalds for lunch and managed to meet one of her best friends from school, so that was an added bonus! Meandered home via a few more shops where the girls both bought slippers that they needed.

At home we played beauty salons; the girls showered and I blow dried their hair (even made an effort with my own!) then they faffed around with nails and makeup ready to go out in the evening for our Christmas present pantomime.

It was a fantastic evening, the panto was great and Steve’s mum had sneaked to tell them it was Anna’s birthday so she got sung to in the middle of the show as well which was exceedingly embarrassing for her but funny for us! Afterwards we had fish & chips with Steve’s parents, then home to bed.

As an aside, and only because I quite like the photo of myself for once: Abigail wanted a locket, so we hunted around and found a nice one in H Samuel that she bought with some Christmas money. She then decided she wanted photos of me and Steve in it so we had to pose for her last night. Now to print them out small enough and try to fit them in!