just another morning here

There has been *way* too much dancing in my day! Got up relatively early and drove my car boot-full of holiday club paraphernalia to church to set it all up there instead. This morning was the ‘end of holiday club’ service, so we did all the songs and dances that we’ve been doing all week over again for the benefit of parents and the rest of the church. Have decided that I’m too old for it all
Then followed a BBQ, bouncy castle, face painting, etc. Packed all the stuff away and phew, it’s all over for another year. Fun but totally exhausting!

Came home for an hour to swap washing on the line (it’s the first day in a week that I’ve felt confident to actually hang it up outside!) and a few other jobs, before going out to Josiah’s Suzuki group’s Summer Picnic.

His teacher had written a piece of music which he gave them all to practice over the past couple of weeks, and they were planning to record it today. It’s a lullaby (possibly the most energetic lullaby I’ve ever heard!) which is for his daughter’s first baby, due at the end of the month – his daughter Anna lives in NZ so the track will be winging its way over electronically I think! The cello part was an added afterthought when our Anna asked for it, having helped Joe to learn his part, and also being taken with the name of the piece! Video is a bit dark unfortunately, that’s what comes of the sun being out …

They played a few more fun pieces too, and then children and parents all joined in with some Circle Dancing, apparently the speciality of the ex-Suzuki group teacher’s partner (random, I know!), which I hadn’t been expecting, but it was a bit of a laugh. Went on for ages though! Followed that up with tea and plentiful cake, the kids went outside to play in the park adjoining the village hall while the rest of us chatted – a lovely afternoon. Have had to have a bath this evening though, my legs were aching!

Steve was racing and came 2nd today; I’m annoyed now as the prize glass doesn’t match the rest of the glasses in the cupboard

This week has been largely dominated by the Showstoppers Holiday Club that our church has been running. Anna and I were helping out running teams and activities, while Abbie and Josiah enjoyed taking part in it all. It was loosely based around a theatre theme, so all the workshops were creative – Anna helped out with the music one which Abbie took part in, while Joe opted to do the photography workshop and he really enjoyed it.

I uploaded a bunch of photos that I found on my camera, which Joe had borrowed, then told him that I thought they were really good, and then he told me that he didn’t take all of them! We think that the good ones must belong to Harry who helped run the group, and who I think is also an art student, so that explains it!

We had various other activities going on during the mornings; games, art, drama, singing (generally mad songs with lots of jumping around and actions) team challenges, quizzes, etc. All good fun but very exhausting! I’m glad to be at the end of the week; we have a BBQ on Sunday for all the families – loads of them are coming, I just hope it doesn’t rain!

During the afternoons we hung out at home mainly; my parents and brother have been around so on one wet afternoon we took Ben with us to see Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, which entertained us for a while. Otherwise the children have just enjoyed having downtime; the girls have both done a bit of baking on different days (this means I have eaten way too much but hey ho), Abbie and Joe played a long imaginary game one afternoon, they’ve played on the Wii, all the sorts of things they don’t usually have time for during term time