Author Archives: HHaricot

i think it takes about 15 mins for me to be threatening to throw all toys away and move out. it is an area i have no tolerance for. i hate tidying, especially miscellaneous trash treasures.

luckilly, applying music has a miraculous effect in this house , listening to a french song cd!!

edited to add – btw, this will hopefully get house to a level that i won’t die when guests come out of embarrassment, rather than actually tidy, and heaven hope for neat!

bb fell asleep on the way back from gym, so we had a peaceful evening with SB, and then BB woke up with SB asleep [and still awake actually] and she has been generally playing with her mosp [a possible wasp or moth she made] and just generally being the kind of BB that you just find yourself saying, oh i love you bb. this is very lovely, since at the beginning of the year this was mostly said through gritted teeth. i’m not saying she is any more biddable… just that she can be more easily approached on the whole lets work together. [though it was SB chanting the best kind of work is teamwork!] and possibly because we have learnt how to work with bb. we are still working on the whole how to balance 2, as that is a crux problem at times, SB getting dramatically upset if the slice doesn’t fall her way. Whether its something to do with the whole unhappy unsettled thing? but i try and build as much individual time with SB as i can, doing something hers and fun. mind you, i don’t want tag children on the whole, i want to work to us 50% at least loving and enjoying the same thing. i guess we are getting there!

so really seems nothing holiday-ish to me! and been working quite hard too. chris put the tent up in the garden, hopefully at somestage it might dry enough to come down! SB and I have done some reading on volcanos and pompeii, piano and violin practice. we have all read some french and watched bonjour mes amis. BB and SB are happy pootling along with french, and SB def getting some vocab. both girls done some maths also. Today we did science, SB chose the brainbox kit. BB insisted on designing her own circuit, which didn’t join, so stropped at the lack of light. when it did join, she then threw a wobbly about it not being so pretty, which i cuddled and jollied and then noticed had made a short circuit, so scorching hot batteries. At least it was me who noticed! SB investigated serial and parallel lights and used the multimeter.

other than that, a lot of playing in the garden, investigating cabbage white caterpillars and other bugs! Harvesting well at present, but weeds are ascendant!

but i am going to get a bit of backpay next month. it should be used to help fix the conservatory, but i would like a really quick up and down nightstop tent.

i was thinking perhaps of the vango sigma 400. i want something that will stay up in a hurricaine, is quick to put up, light and packs small – so that if we ever cycle camp, it would be just about OK .

any alternative suggestions, or experience??

well, as you see, our blog was hacked - sigh. we now need to actually take all the hacked code bits of the posts, but the upgrade has happened – and is supposedly safer, and we have changed all the passwords for admin etc. not that the previous ones should have been in any way obvious . i had been reading about it in Arran in the grauniad, and thought we should look at our blog, as we have been to busy with other things to upgrade. Sarah’s auto-upgrade sounds good. unfortunately the first weird comments glitches were back in july, so plenty of opportunity, and plenty to search, and even if we upload a trouble free back up, there will still be loads of work to do. weirdly, on going back, its the ones with no comments that seem to be affected. however, they all have pointy bracket u style=’display:none’ pointy bracket [written so can def be seen!] so have searched for that, and only 20 posts obvious. if someone clever knows how i can find out if anywhere else, would be most greatful!

other things we did today was become kiterunners. hmm, but sorting it out have at least decided to have a more me [rather than my mother] icon. hmm, i thought i had popped it in, but not so sure? oh yes, there it is! ooh, i do like being able to do that with the new word press, nice and painless!

we also made a start at the mountain of back flickring, we have done the SOTP party, and half way through Arran.

oh yes, we did interact with the children too! SB and i had slept in the same bed last night – she is having an insomniac phase. so we had a lie in. then did some violin practice. SB and BB played a fantastic farm game for ages, and when went a bit wild, we read some books. on doing french, we decided to cherche for les animaux, so had a game with the farm and animals which was greatly enjoyed. BB was keen to do her match and sort, so we did maths, whilst SB cut out aeroplanes and wrote a letter to her cousin.

After lunch we finished making viennese swirls and then did some SoTW, legoing, a bit of investigating cabbage white butterflies that had snuck under the environmesh in the winds whilst we were away and have been having a good old nibble. we did a fair bit of dancing to steps and s-club from utube – sb v much likes them! i have no interest or fashion in teenybop, so any recommendations of anything current of that kind of nature for her to listen and dance to.

we made a lovely exotic fresh fruit salad to have for our tea, and SB did her maths. we have done the usual cuddling, tickling, playing and being silly. And now i have been looking for hacked blog posts – joy!