just another morning here

And so I thought I would blog, while I was in a good mood!

The good start was largely due to a very successful violin practice with Josiah; we had been struggling to help all the children understand the difference between playing a piece once, and practicing a piece – to the extent that Joe made me ask his teacher last night exactly how many times he should play a piece in order to practice it! 5 down this morning, 5 to go this afternoon (not counting the review pieces).

It’s a fun song to play anyway, as Mr Featherstone has taught him the alternative ‘actions’ to do while playing each bit (plucking instead of playing open strings with the bow, turning around during the arpeggios, going down on one knee and then up again in other arpeggios, turning the bow upside down in the middle ‘sad’ section, and then some stamping during the triplets at the end). If anyone’s really interested, the piece in question is Theme from Witches’ Dance by Paganini – I searched on Youtube to find vids of the actions but couldn’t find a good one so you have to make do with this amusing double act! When Joe’s ready he might oblige and let me video him … or then again he might not

Other than that, over the past week or so we’ve just been winding back up into normal life with all the activity that entails; we had a weekend where Steve worked and the kids and I didn’t do very much at all, friends round to play on Monday, and school started again on Tuesday. One person came to miscarriage support group that evening, but hey, as long as it’s helping even one person a month then I don’t mind giving my time.

I’m in the middle of what seems like a very long interview process at the Apple Store – there was an interview seminar on Friday night, and then a further interview yesterday, but I won’t actually know the results until early next week.

Steve and I are both delivering cars long-distance this week; he went up to Oxfordshire yesterday and I’m going down to the bottom of Cornwall tomorrow.

But that’s about it, hence the lack of blogging – ‘life as usual’ doesn’t make for a very interesting post, does it?

Started very early this morning dashing down to the workshop to pick up a car, since mine had ended up there on Saturday in the course of a rescue mission for my parents, who broke down on their way here, dropping my sister at University. Not the start to her year that she had imagined but luckily they were coming here rather than anywhere else in the country, as it was relatively easy to sort them out (in the first instance anyway, Terry hasn’t looked at their car yet, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it!).

Steve’s dad is on holiday for a couple of weeks, and Terry our mechanic is ill with a horrible inner ear thing that means he can’t stand up, so we were awfully short staffed today. Meant that we had to give up on the home ed group trip we were meant to be going on but hey ho, that’s life.

Once the girls had gone to school, Josiah and I ended up at the office for the day, which was fine – we chucked a load of stuff in a box and de-camped there quite instead (as long as I have internet I’m happy!), the phone didn’t even ring until 11am so not too strenuous.

Joe did violin practice and then some of his Roman lapbook project; today he wrote out a few vocab words for a flappy thing in the lapbook, and we learnt about Pompeii and Mount Vesuvius too – looked at lots of pictures online. The whole Roman thing is making Joe want to go to Italy, he keeps saying that would be a good Home Ed trip to go on (the Roman Baths not good enough!). Went home for about an hour to scoop Abbie up then back to the office for the end of the day.

Joe and I spent a while this morning on the subject of castles; we’d finished off a worksheet that they had at Windsor last week so that I could stick it into our holiday diary/scrapbook thing, and then he got into the idea of castles and went to find his Usborne Great Castle Search book, as well as some other knight/castle books he has.

Then violin practice as usual, but with the addition of a pair of chopsticks! These are stuck into the holes of the violin at right angles, and serve to stop Joe’s bow veering off at strange angles down the fingerboard.

Don’t know if other teachers do this sort of thing as well or if it’s just a Suzuki idea but I imagine it will help a lot if he practices with them over a longer period of time. For a while he had an old 35mm film pot tied around the fingerboard to make sure his left hand didn’t collapse inward, and that helped a lot (although he still has to be reminded about the left hand shape sometimes!).

Steve came home mid-morning and we worked all together on the garage – it is now completely cleared out, and a garage full of crap (really should have taken before and after photos as it is an incredible difference!) has been transformed into a mainly empty space with tools/decorating/gardening stuff stored tidily on shelves at one end, and bikes at the other.

The girls got home after school and everyone had ice pops on the patio and played with the guinea pigs for a while. Then Anna went off to do music practice and Joe & Abbie got ready for swimming. Joe’s doing really well with his swimming at the moment, and his teacher rang over half term to say she wanted to give him a trial in the next class up. This means that he’s in the same group as Abbie! At first he was pleased about the move, then said he didn’t want to change groups [my heart sank, dreading yet another swimming lesson related trauma!]. I later managed to ascertain that the only reason he didn’t want to change was that he thought it might mean no time in the bar upstairs (where there is a tv, snack machine etc.), so we went up and watched the Simpsons as usual. He was still a bit nervous, but made a good effort. The trial’s extending to next week, mainly to help me out as if I get used on jury duty I can’t get them both there until 5.30pm anyway! Joe’s a bit titchy compared to the rest of them, so hasn’t got the physical strength/stamina of most of the class, but he kept up well enough, I thought. And perhaps him catching up will spur Abbie on, too

Busy as ever here, but pleasantly so – over the weekend we’ve been in the company of our friends from house-sharing days 9 years ago, which always feels a little bit like going back in time, but it’s very easy company to keep, and we all enjoyed having them around

Saturday we cleaned the house and generally got ready for the invasion This included finally glueing Abbie’s jigsaw together and popping out to get a very cheap clipframe for it. Not sure how long it will last, but at last there is something that covers up the picture-sized smoke-stain in the hallway that I have been intending to decorate for the past three years now Did a last minute dash to Sainsbury’s too, then came home and baked until N&L arrived.

The evening passed in a combination of Larry Boy, chatting, and San Juan. Doctor Who was recorded and saved for another time! While we were playing a game we had a few very involved conversations so I’m surprised any of us could concentrate on the game by the end of it – but it was a great evening

On Sunday we were all up early, in fact the kids were all out in the close at 9am playing some superhero game or other in a variety of caped outfits – what lucky neighbours we had! Also made time for a violin playtogether first thing in the morning. Mimi and Joe both enjoyed playing together and comparing suzuki notes.

The very committed went to church, leaving the less committed at home doing hama, drawing, Lego Star Wars, dinner preparation, and more general chatting. Had lunch and afterwards headed up to Haldon for a cycle ride.

This was generally a good afternoon despite some very annoying wailing from Abigail (who, having given up her bike for John, then proceeded to whinge a lot about the old bike she was riding – kind of detracted from the generosity in the first place, but never mind!). It was Joe’s first proper bike ride and he did really well, we were so pleased that he bombed off with the rest of them and loved riding as much as we’ve been telling him he would

The sand in the play area up near the car park had finally dried out enough to be playable with so the children spent ages there while we made a cup of tea in the van, and would have spent longer if we hadn’t dragged them away! Home for more playing – with the wooden castle this time, roast dinner and a relatively early night.

Today was pretty much back to normal; work/school first thing, we said goodbye to N&L in various combinations at various times, and then I stayed on at work to catch up on the one bit of admin I do these days. Came home for a late lunch then spent the afternoon sorting out the van, which has had a winter of neglect so needed a good clean all round.

The girls both brought home excellent reports from school, so we were all pleased with those. Anna proceeded to spend the next couple of hours agonising and stropping over some homework though so we do sometimes still wonder if they both have complete personality changes between school and home! Seriously, both reports were fantastic and we are very proud of them both.

Our friend Maria popped in and we provided cups of tea and chatting (me) and engine oil (Steve) … we’re nice, aren’t we?!

After bathing/hairwashing/nitcombing (yes, aargh, again!) all three children and finally getting Anna to the end of her Literacy homework (decided we couldn’t face the numeracy as well, it was a blonde evening!), they went to bed, and we vegetated in front of tv this evening – catching up on Casualty from Saturday, then Play it Again and Louis Theroux from yesterday. And now it’s bedtime.