just another morning here

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 ….

Apparently it was really hard to have someone else doing the bowing for you – Joe said he didn’t know the pieces when he wasn’t doing all the playing for himself! Still, it was fun The bigger children made it look effortless, and it didn’t sound bad either.

Somehow they just ended up doing that while in the middle of the rehearsal for tomorrow’s concert!

Orchestra this morning: both Josiah and Abbie are now playing in the percussion section which they are really enjoying. Abigail decided she’d rather do that than be one of a hundred flutes, and likewise Joe thought he’d rather do that than play his violin. I don’t mind – the percussion section needed players! Abbie’s going to be having kit lessons from the orchestra drum tutor too and she’s really excited about that

This afternoon we’ve been kicking around at home; Anna’s had a friend over and the kids have all played Singstar, Guitar Hero, eaten lots of sweets, some pizza, and are now watching Bugsy Malone on video – mainly because it’s the show that Anna and her friend are doing at school.

Steve and I went out on a quick cache hunt when he got home from work, but that’s another story; it’s part of a long-winded multi cache so I’ll blog about it all when it’s finished!

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

We just found out the music exam result we’d been waiting for. Anna was told a week or so ago that she’d scored 130, scraping a distinction in her grade 5 piano.

That was excellent enough but tonight Joe got tired of waiting so phoned his violin teacher to find out that he also got a distinction for his grade 3, with a grand score of 134, currently the household record for ABRSM exams.

Huge well done to both of them, they both worked really hard in the run up to these exams so I’m really pleased for them