just another morning here

Have had a fab time with Ros & family & dog so far this week

They arrived yesterday, I caught them driving the wrong way down the road as I was going home from EO group, so picked them up at Sainsbury’s and we went home together.

Kids were majorly overexcited and didn’t go to sleep until really late. Kessie (the dog) was just as bad! Today, though, we have succeeded in wearing them all out and it’s been a peaceful evening (so peaceful that I’ve been falling asleep on the sofa!).

We spent the day at Crealy, where the weather was beautiful. Kessie was allowed in as well, and having the dog with us meant that we had to avoid the indoor play areas (a Very Good Thing on such a lovely day), so we enjoyed all the outdoor bits – play areas, splash zone, bridge/lake walk, and plenty of sitting around inbetween. We also met up with Chris & Helen and their girls, which, after the children remembered one another, went really well. In fact, it went so well that I clean forgot to take Josiah to his music class at 4pm, so have had to phone and grovel this evening! Highlight of the day for me was definitely the splash zone part of the day, they had such fun in there, and then there was some involved game going on with the biggest girls, and some blackberry picking for the rest.

One of these days there will be some photos on flickr, not mine though, didn’t get the camera out all day (doh). Will link here in due course

This evening I seem to be as tired as the kids, for some unknown reason, so we’ve all gone to bed relatively early ready for our Eden Project trip tomorrow.

Just happy to have our friends here, the children have mainly been brilliant together (apart from Josiah, as usual but even he has *loved* having Buzz here), they’ve all fitted in really well. I appreciate the kids’ friendships as well as the grown ups’. And I’ve taken it as a compliment that Ros hasn’t felt the need to clean anything – yet

Have come in an hour early today to open up for our car cleaners who come every Tuesday. Drew the short straw on this one as I asked for the day off tomorrow It’s quite amusing listening to their car-washing banter …

Anyway. As Steve hasn’t quite managed to fulfil his remit of blogging about the children’s education as well as actually making sure something happens, I feel I should fill in the gaps.

Yesterday he did a fair bit of housework (what a star) and the children did an assortment of stuff, from lists that they compiled. I think (if I remember correctly) it included tidying rooms so that he could hoover them. Electronics kit. Painting. Music practice. PC game (Joe). I know Abbie was on the pc too because I had an email from her while I was at work yesterday. Anna read a book about chocolate and where it comes from. Funnily enough I’d bought some cacao nibs on a whim the other day, just to see what they were like, so I think they tasted those [they taste foul! must find something to do with them]. They all played with Mollie (thank goodness schools go back this week, we love Mollie and her family, but we’re glad she gets something else ‘done’ with her during term time). Anna presented me with a decorated glass this morning, too, so she’d obviously done something with her glass art kit yesterday, which was successfully kept secret from me!

I got home to find them in front of Nemo and Steve pontificating about cooking dinner, I hadn’t bought quite the right ingredients for a recipe so got into trouble for that!

We had a bit of a chat about his time at home with them, and how I’m such a control freak that I want him to do things my way. Well, I figure I have to do things his way in the office, so it’s not too much to ask. No, I’m kidding. He has his way of operating when he’s with the kids, and I have mine, and they’re very different. Usually it’s fine for them to have three days of me/two of him/a couple of both and it works okay with our different styles, but I asked him if he could include the Narnia project in his way this morning. He wanted me to work (fair enough as I’m not doing tomorrow), but I didn’t want the kids to not do some of their project just because I wasn’t there. Especially as we have to write off the rest of the week because we’re doing other things! After all, for this one we have a study guide which lays it all out, so it’s not exactly difficult. I will be really interested to see how they all got on, as it’s probably not something that comes naturally to Steve (to be ‘structured’, I mean) but I hope they all enjoy it and all get something out of it. Must get him to blog afterwards

The plan today is to swap over at lunchtime then I’m hoping to take the children to home ed group/Anna’s cello lessons, and the Screamteam should be arriving sometime later today too, and we’re all looking forward to that

This was a fab afternoon/evening – thanks again, we loved meeting you all ‘in situ’