just another morning here

Last week was taken up with our little excursion to Kessingland Beach. For anyone who doesn’t know, while we were there with a Home Ed. camp earlier in the year, Anna and a few of the other children entered the karaoke competition, so this was the Park Final week.

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!

Can’t believe it is May already, time seems to be flying, we must be having fun or something.

We all had a lovely weekend away chez Portico, it was great to relax, do practically nothing, but catch up face to face for once. None of the children wanted to come home on Sunday.

Yesterday Joe and I had a relatively good day at home despite a few things taking longer than they should have. We got through violin practice and some maths/music workbooks before going to Sainsbury’s. I think I could almost give Joe a list and let him do the shopping for me while I have a coffee in the cafe, perhaps I’ll try that next week

In the afternoon he played a bit of Wii and then we looked at some maps and atlases together; we are trying to plan where to go in the summer, having booked a Dover-Calais ferry crossing. Belgium is a hot favourite at the moment but none of us can really decide! Opinions are split between coast and cities, and we have time to get down south if we wanted to, just can’t make up our minds!

Abbie went to play with a friend after school while Anna came home and took ages to pack her bags for her school residential. She’s staying at the Courtlands Centre until Friday.

This morning everyone was up bright and early and got music practices done first thing; Joe and I went off to work while Steve took Anna (and her kit bag) and Abbie to school. Our work was pretty fruitless as the DVLA staff were all on strike! Still, we ran a few errands before coming home.

We’ve worked through a few more science kit experiments, still on the subject of forces, demonstrating Newton’s 2nd and 3rd laws. Not sure if this information will be retained, but we’ve had fun anyway

And finally, I am tired of usedcarspecialist. No hidden messages in there, honest Even Steve has dumped the usedcarspecialist tag at work, and I’ve been annoyed with it for a while too, so I’m dumping it as well. It was just the first thing we thought of when signing up for stuff and it’s a rubbish ID, especially as it’s always been mine not his which is topsyturvy really!

So if you ever want to IM me again please can you add my new yahoo id which is two_red_boots Or if you’re on gmail I’m now using tworedboots[at]gmail.com so can chat via that (usually better than yahoo as for some reason my yahoo messenger frequently drops out on the laptop), although my main email address is still the same. Just marginally annoyed that the flickr post bar can’t seem to find the flickr ID, it’s returning the error code ‘user not found’, any ideas anyone? I think the time is approaching for a new blog template too …

Bit of a collision of worlds today, at least I felt slightly pulled in different directions. Anna had been awarded a Thank You Certificate – something they get in school either for achievement or effort or whatever, can be anything. So anyway we went into assembly this morning for the presentation of this week’s certificates. Didn’t start well as Joe was obviously stressed out by having to go in there as a home educated kid, so he behaved like a lunatic for most of the morning in one way or another .

Assembly was great, Anna was chuffed, I am (of course) suitably proud of her even if I am still convinced she has a split personality between school and home, and I even found myself wishing that Joe was still part of school too. Really, as schools go, we couldn’t want for a nicer one, it is lovely. Oh, really I’m pleased that all three of my children are happy doing what they’re doing at the moment, but I do find it much harder work having Josiah home on his own than having all three of them around!

Came home and I cooked dinner while Joe did maths and a little bit on time signatures. Then after lunch we had a visit from the Portico, which was lovely After a while it was time to pick up the girls from school, I don’t *think* Gwenny got ‘infected’ by being on the school grounds, but only time will tell

Anna had taken her cello, piano accordian, and a whole host of other toys into school this week, because of the dubious honour of being ‘special person’ in her class, so between that and temporarily losing her scarf it took ages to get out of school again but we made it eventually! As Steve said this morning, we’re actually pleased that she likes her cello enough to want to take it into school and play it, even if it is rather awkward!

At home we just sat around drinking tea and trying to get the kids to settle down – there seemed to be an awful lot of grumbliness especially over one of Violet’s birthday presents, but after tea they all managed to go off and play for a while, leaving the adults to have coffee and a bit of a chat before it was time for them to leave, taking Anna with them for Violet’s birthday weekend.

We chilled out with a film (which I stayed awake throughout – enjoyed it) and that’s about it for today. We are trying to go to sleep but the pub at the bottom of the road has live music that we can hear from here, Steve thought someone had left the drums on in our own house it’s so loud! Anyway, gotta hit publish before midnight so that will have to do!

I want one!! (although it really should look shiny white ipod/ibook-esque to be part of my collection ) Perhaps one for Jax and Tim’s series … although I do confess to rather liking the idea of it If you could programme it like those Roma things (do they still have those?) it could even come under ‘educational resources’, couldn’t it?

Today we (the girls and I) have shopped (with a nice coffee/hot chocolate pitstop in there somewhere), baked, and gamed. Oh, and done blog-related fiddling too, watched a film, and then some TV this evening. A friend popped in and sat in the kitchen while I baked, so it was nice to have some adult company as well as spending girly time with Anna & Abbie.

Meanwhile Josiah has spent the day chez Portico, while Steve and Chris went off to some rally or other to take photos of cars. Yawn. I’m expected to enthuse about these after the event, but my favourite one is this one … because I think it’s far more interesting to look at people!