just another morning here

Haven’t felt like blogging really – as usual when the girls go back to school it takes Joe and I a few days to adjust, and I don’t want to speak too soon, but today’s been ok. Wondering if the new star chart in the kitchen has helped at all – probably, as he had done his workbooks, piano practice, and brought us a cup of tea in bed all before 7.30am! The kitchen was a complete tip but we’ll gloss over that

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.

Could not believe it, today we trekked all the way into town and there was no sign of a single Roman. I was most peeved, and traipsed the children all round town to make sure I hadn’t got the wrong place – there were no signs up or any information to say why it wasn’t on. Thought for a moment I might have made a fatal error and got the date/year wrong, but no, the website *did* say today. Humph! Retail therapy came to our rescue and we bought summer sandals for the girls, and chocolate donuts before walking down to meet Steve at the garage.

Went to look at a nice house (sorry, can’t find the details online easily – it was a big one to share again, but in Teignmouth this time – probably too small for all of us though), then had pizza and watched Touching the Void with friends. That was a very different film to our normal choice, we did enjoy it though. Anna stayed up to watch it with us, tbh the only part that made it a 15 was a bit of strong language in one particular place which went completely over her head anyway. I think she will have learned something from it, and it makes a change for her to watch something in a different genre as well. Anyway, I’m knackered, and have another busy day tomorrow so it’s off to bed I think, night all

Today we went to the Roman Museum in Melrose where the children enjoyed looking round and riding on a horse (obviously a Roman one!). We then went for a walk at Newstead which would have been great if not for the howling gales and torrential rain! We got soaked!!

Anna’s report of this to Steve went something like ‘we went on a roman walk and I think someone called ‘Trivia’ was buried there …’
Had to giggle at that one! I’m not surprised she didn’t manage to take much in though, it was a shame, because our guide obviously had loads of interesting stuff to say but it was fairly impossible to listen to him with the weather. Our friends Vicky, Joshua and Lydia came down to Melrose for this and enjoyed themselves with us which was really good. Today we started our big ‘camp mosaic’ project – at my instigation but with cutting out from lots of people, and the main drawing was brilliantly done by Roslyn!

The butterflies have hatched! Big excitement here on Sunday as we watched the first three emerge from their chrysalides. We released two of them this morning but one has a bit of a dodgy wing, so he’s not going anywhere. The fourth one hatched this afternoon – we missed it . Anyway, here are some pics.

Have been busy doing all sorts of other things … finally got round to making panpipes (Ecuadorian ones, of course), and had a great time on Cathedral Green yesterday with a bunch of Roman Centurions. Abbie particularly enjoyed being part of the army marching up and down, while Anna liked the stalls showing Roman food/cooking and mosaics, armour, and Roman artefacts. A great followup/review of our Roman project!