the weekly update

i don’t like the fact that i am blogging so little. it means that i am not home much, it means i am not seeing my family much, it means that i am feeling disengaged, not part of what is going on, separate from family and friends . I don’t like it.

The girls did pretty well as a home ed week, with a fair bit of chugging along with the bookwork. SB has read lots of books – not much of a surprise! Friday they had arts award and came back with some great gouache pictures. BB fell nastilly off her bike on monday and her hip bone is still sore. hmmm she is still running about and cycling and trampolining. i think prob whatever it is, time and rest is the answer… the usual clubs and groups have got going again, and SB is working towards grade 4 ballet this term – fingers crossed! they have been listening to bryson’s short history of almost everything in the car.

we weren’t sure what BB made of it, but she was apparently chipoping in when they talked about Kelvin and glasgow university. DH likes listening to it anyway, and hopefully the girls pick something up

SO on returning home [late] on friday, i was determined to ignore all work! We went to the fair in the village. just small, but fun, and i laughed and enjoyed watching my girls so happy. i prob was a bit indulgent wrt the number of rides… SB loves to dodgems, and BB got a bow and arrow from hook a duck.

Saturday was a relaxing day at home. we thought to do some home ed type stuff in the morning, particularly as raining! SB did some maths – has got to bodmas, tho explained in a less antibarbara way and BB was happily doing subtraction. SB also did a quick viola and piano practice, whilst BB and i did professor layton together. With lunch we watched one of those Brian Cox looking at planets, and BB had remembered alot about us seeing jupiter and saturn through a borrowed telescope. After lunch SB and I made tomato chutney, and BB and DH did diy – putting together a computer desk. SB and i picked the ingredients – loads of ripe toms, some apples, some chillis, lots of mint as well as ustilising our onions and garlic. SB is a great cook and we enjoyed making this together. the onions made me weep excessively however! Whilst this was bubbling, we were doing a geog extension q from galore park. She decided to make a poster to exhort ppl locally to do their bit for global warming, so has come up with a design and the words she wants to say. pretty fab in rough if she does it in neat, she wants to send to blue peter for a second badge and also put in our window… BB therefore also wanted to do something, and decided to write out the caterpillar poem and illustrate it. This was a v stressful experience. she went wrong half way through, and would accept no crossings out and so i wrote it out, and after some practicing she was happy with her toad, but then drew a bird… some sobbing later i wrote it out again, she practiced a bird on the failed one, drew on the new one, and prefered the old but only wanted one bird… we gave up and cuddled at some length, had dinner watching bang goes the theory and read harry potter for bedtime [sb is getting dark materials from DH and harry potter from me, but bb shares the book between us]

Sunday saw SB resolutely loll in bed and read until midday and then be a bit waily because she had missed baking bread. i have the patience of a saint on occassiona and promised we could juggle making bread with eating lunch and prep to go out and we did, and she was v happy. BB had got up, and watched some dinosaur prog, played prof layton with me and then made bread. both girls v good at making and kneading, we are using river cottage bread book, and both doughs were left in the conservatory when we went out geocaching.

when we went out, the weather was so fab that DH was wondering why i was bothering to hunt around for packamacs. 10 mins down the road we were in a tropical rainstorm, without the heat. mmm. BB was grumbling about geocaching in pouring rain, and i was being resolutely optimistic singing italian colour songs at the top of my voice. BB fell asleep and the weather was less awful tho clearly variable as we reached our destination. Followed shortly by le ciel rouge. the first geocache was an excellent hide, we both suspected it from the start, but initial investigation proved fruitless, having exhausted other possibilites we tried harder at it, and this time had thegreat reveal we then followed the circular route with another micro success and a large cache to swap tat and TB’s and then had a romp across freshly ploughed fields – nice and muddy! we knew from the google map we were near enough following the path, it just had been ploughed across so entirely invisible. a ftf though next and a wrong path choice [like everyone else it seems reading the logs] had me doing a roll under a metal gate, as my muddy slippery shoes didn’t have the purchase to go over it – it was quite high! giggle we found number 5, skipped number 6 and did number 7 [bb's find this time] by this point we had been drenched by a number of showers, and fortified with loads of chocolate – some of the children are pretty receptive to a chocolate boost so we decided to then cut across [along a path for a change] to number 16, micro not quite at coords, 17 – footpath sign pointing to entirely the wrong direction, and then a fairly awful trog across v v muddy fields with our shoes accumulating inches of mud chocolate and 2 finds kept the kids going, but when it started to pour it down, and we were v v muddy, bb lost her will to live. I think she had done pretty well tbh. SB fell over in the mud, but she is such a jolly girl she laughed and got on with it. both had chosen to wear crocs against my suggested wellies… a fail to find for last one mostly cos it was raining and we had had enough! so back to the car. once off the mud and onto the road good humour returned for all and we paddled in puddles to get off the mud. Had a great walk, and lots of laughing and chatting.

Back home bb and sb knocked back and proved their loaves – sb a plait and bb in a tin. unfortunately i left it 15 rather than 10 on high, so sb;s top slightly burnt, but otherwise they look good. girls had bath and shower and dh made a yummy winter walmer sausage in gravy with mashed pots and cabbage. mmm mmm. watched in front of yesterdays doctor who and the stories and bed. time for my bed too