just another morning here

Today started lazily – we were awake early as usual but it is a luxury to not have to get up

Lots planned for the day; we started in earnest with some music practice. Josiah and I are trying to overcome some Vivaldi which *is* hard, and Joe doesn’t really like it. I remember when he learnt to read, and he could read very well, but didn’t have the emotional maturity to tackle books that were at his reading level. I feel as though we’ve reached the same sort of place with violin – he wants to play easy little things but his ability is much better than that, but the things that would stretch him he doesn’t really like (plus they’re oh so hard!), so there’s a bit of an impasse there. Ho hum. Such is life for one to whom things have come easily – when you have to start working at it it hurts! (and I should know ).

Anna and I threw together an application for the SWMS yesterday (it’s due in by Wednesday!); we’ve been wondering whether to do it or not for ages but figured we didn’t really have much to lose. The first year is only a ‘feeder scheme’ anyway so if we decide we don’t want to carry on after that then we don’t have to. I confess we didn’t record anything new for it, I just ripped some MP3 files from various old videos that I’ve got hanging around, so hope they will do.

I finished off some blurb which is meant to be a presentation for my interview tomorrow. I hate ‘presenting’ things and am fairly bemused by an interview for a teaching post not including any teaching whatsoever, but there we go. Will update on this by the end of the day tomorrow I hope.

The day then got mucked up (typically ) by someone wanting to come and look at a car. So I went to Sainsbury’s. Pah. In anticipation of the *whole* day being mucked up by hundreds of potential customers I treated us to yummy things for lunch. I shouldn’t moan; Steve is starting a new business so it is actually quite exciting to have the first customer buy a car from it. Luckily he was finished by lunchtime so it was back to Plan A.

We went down to Torquay to a pool with waves and chute etc. having promised the children ‘fun’ swimming. I must admit that I never thought our family would go swimming as a treat, as Steve used to hate it and would never come with us. However, he’s been swimming by himself a fair bit recently, as well as with whoever he can drag along after school, and it was lovely to all go together. Hot chocolates/tea/coffee in the cafe afterwards were fab too.

After that it was off to find a geocache – one set by my friend who I cache with regularly. He had challenged me and said that the unusual final would catch me out so I *had* to succeed. We very nearly did give up after half an hour of looking – I’d texted to tell him we were having trouble but luckily we found it before he replied. Still didn’t ‘get’ the clue even after we’d found the cache but we have had it explained to us now, we were just thinking on the wrong track. I always feel I shouldn’t say too much about caches on blog but if anyone is interested in what sort of thing it was I’ll discuss it in the comments

Came home, then remembered that we were meant to have got passport photos done during the day for our Russian Visa applications – so bundled back in the car down to Sainsbury’s for a job lot of photos. Probably a relatively expensive way of doing it but I couldn’t be bothered with the faff of taking them ourselves and printing them out – plus the children behave better for a machine!

So all in all it ended up being a lovely day. Home for pizza & salad for tea, then a re-showing of Outnumbered before bed. The argument about the calendar could really have been filmed in our house

Really wish every weekend had three days in it.

Since the last post I seem to have spent rather a lot of time in the car. I drove some people to Heathrow very early on Friday morning, which was a very easy drive. Then I did about 16 caches on a walk that took me about three hours – some of them were really tricky. After that I drove home, taking a couple more caches in en route, but got stuck on the M4 and M5 for hours, not such fun.

While I spent all day doing that, the kids had a good day with Steve; he took them swimming – something I *never* thought he’d do! In the evening we cracked open a bottle of fizzy wine and spent our mealtime making toasts to various little things – sometimes it’s good to celebrate the small things too After that, we watched Slumdog Millionaire, the start of a good weekend for films.

Saturday was orchestra as usual (though Anna took her bassoon as well as the spare cello which she doesn’t like!), and jobs as usual – cleaning out the guinea pigs, hoovering, etc. The girls had friends round again, too. Steve went back to work, as that was infinitely preferable to helping with housework, apparently After dinner we watched My Sister’s Keeper, and I blubbed all the way through. Thought it was very good though, and a reasonably close adaptation of the book – different ending but I still thought the film kept to the feel of the book despite the alternate ending.

Today Josiah and I drove down to South Devon to meet some new friends that we’ve got to know through our Suzuki Group – Joe and their little boy hit it off instantly over Pokemon cards, as you do. The mum is a piano teacher, so we arranged for her to accompany Josiah at the upcoming festival, so we needed to get together to practise for that. I *think* it went well, it certainly helps to focus on the things that need polishing between now and then. Very wowed by their house, which was beautiful, including purpose built music studio! Had to drag Josiah away as well.

Meanwhile at home Anna and Abbie spent most of the morning sorting out stuff for Anna’s new school, and doing some last minute bits of work, tidying etc. Anna then disappeared off with Aunty Emma at the last minute, to help look after Robyn and Lola during Em’s rehearsal. Steve has been out with a customer on a camper van – I never know if him being a long time is a good sign or not. When he’s home I think we’ll be watching the last film of the weekend, Seven Pounds.

Then I suppose I ought to think about what I’m teaching tomorrow ….

I was most disgruntled, last night, to get home from an evening with friends to find that Steve had eaten ALL of the rest of our ice cream! I thought that was seriously unfair! Still, better for my waistline I suppose.

Being cross, I decided to stay up late breaking (and then fixing) the church website that I look after – finally went to sleep about 1.30am which is very late for me!

Woke up at 6am as I have every morning this week, to the sound of piano practice. Taking music seriously is good of course but it’s getting a little too serious even for me! Bit tired as a result, early night tonight.

Have been thinking all day about the Home Education consultation report due out today – haven’t been home yet so haven’t managed to read it, but I’ve read enough tweets etc. to know that I’m going to be almost as cross about it as most of the HEors that I know.
Still, I do wonder whether it will actually become legislation. But until that point it’s worth standing up and fighting the intrusion on privacy *as a parent*, never mind what educational provision our family has chosen.

Meanwhile mad Thursday evening continues. After school I dashed to drop Anna at choir with the others. Then took her to her piano lesson (date of G5 – 30th June) and the rest of us mooched in the park. Thankfully met a friend from work along with a 9yo sibling of a child at my school (friend has his sister for respite for her – great idea as I’m sure it’s much needed!) so it was nice to see them.
Then on to swimming lessons for all 3. Blogging by iPhone before I fall asleep while waiting for them to reappear!

Two hours of extreme noise; one in the swimming pool and one in the activity room

Josiah didn’t make it, he was up and well enough to go over to Grandma’s, which was definitely a better option for him, he wasn’t alive enough for swimming and partying. His invited friend still came though, and Anna had a friend there too.

We’ve come home with an extra two of Abbie’s friends who are sleeping over … after sorting their room out and opening party presents (Abbie did really well! some lovely craft sets, music related things, and some money too) they’ve dipped in and out of the X Factor and the Girls Aloud party on the big screen, but they’re being fairly quiet so far! Anna’s out at Soul Exeter and Joe headed back to bed after Merlin. Steve’s popped down to the pub at the bottom of the road with some garage related mates. I have eaten party leftovers and found a bottle of wine to drink