Category Archives: General

Molly Cule

whilst science kit sourcing, i saw a v cheap set of moly mod kit [ex OU] on ebay and it arrived today. so we made H2O and CO2 and looked at a few pages in the kingfisher science chemistry book about atoms and molecules and the periodic table [mostly the pictures] and we finished with watching molly cule magic school bus. A success.

The girls have [obviously] come back from Nana and Grandads and had a great time. I think BB has watched back to back nick jnr, and now is having withdrawal tantrums – hey ho! SB was proud of the fact she did some maths and handwriting whilst there. they also baked and did colouring.

edited to add that BB stayed awake till 11, so we did some maths – at her insistance, and she was desperate to read a letterland book, and looked for the letters she recognises. go BB!!

got to the end of battlestar galactica, one last half series to go. have really enjoyed itv- must keep remembering to suspend critical thought and reality checks!

modified yew shape!!

modified yew shape!!

not quite so ‘manly’ now!!

the trouble with brownies 2

how did this happen?? the whole post totally lost?? all i clicked was the allow comments and i lost the lot!:

Edit from Chris:

Now reinstated, weird, it totally got deleted from the database But was able to reinstated from the nightly database backup, and a modicum, of MySQL jiggery-pokery.

I do like it when a backup procedure actually works :-)

the trouble with brownies

BB is just a little too lark like at the moment, and SB and owl like her parents. i think this house prob only has 3 hours of all asleep inhabitants, so chris and i are a bit on the zombie side at times. i felt i had had a lie in by 9am, and went down to join the fray, actually, i think the fray came up to join me!! we did jigsaws on the bed, played imaginary games about frogs that hide in the duvet etc, until my imagination was worn out and we went downstairs. you know, i was far more imaginative with Sb more easily. i must work on this!! SB did piano whilst i was still in bed!
we did some ‘normals’ as it were, with SB enjoying handwriting practice whilst BB and i had fun with an ancient first alphabet workbook that sb had not done at the time. BB is getting to grips with at least considering what sounds might start a word. and she also has much more interest in writing – sb had none at all at this time, but bb is having a go writing letters and numbers – not often recognisable to anyone but her!. she has a runic signature that she does all the time as well, which has a near capital A in the middle.

SB had a bit more of a struggle with maths, so i sat her with me, and with prodding she did it all fairly painlessly. we thought of different ways to make a quick guess to see if the answer was right. i like singapore maths, as i think it makes manipulating numbers easier.she borrows and makes up to hundreds and tens in swirls as it were, and gets it right. ie in 4.25-2.35 she was quite happy to add ten to the 25 to make the answer 2, and then remember to take it away again for 1.90, yet at 6.60-4.90 she borrowed 1 from the 6 and did 16-9=7 so 1.70 . bb was playing quite happily with a bus, being the magic school bus!

we then did some more imaginative play, involving me walking the girls round the house on ribbon leads and pretending to feed the doggies. bb quite often needed to do a poo… i decided i didn’t fancy playing any more, so the doggies had to go to puppy school and listen to some french about a monkey wanting a banana!

some point after this [o think] the girls went to get dressed [it is lunch time obviously!] and after lots of kerfuffling i went up and read riot act AGAIN about bedroom such that both girls wailed, bb inconsolable and i tidied half, bb made a slight effort and sb a reasonable one. so only 1/3 bedroom left to go…

lunch and i became reasonable again!! we did hand painting – because i really didn’t want my face painted. my left hand was done by bb, and my right was a poppy field by sb. we had a lovely time. i painted a rainbows rainbow on her cheek ready to go to said rainbows. it was her last rainbows today and she was quite sad. also because we had got some treats to handout, and she forgot. bless.

whilst she was out, bb and i baked some chocolate brownies, and though i tried and tried to get the timing right, this time they are raw in the middle – sigh. i just can’t time brownies. please, what should be the optimum moment for pulling out? they wer for the guests this weekend, and the mixture yummy!! so we watched magic school bus.

Cuddled sb on her return and more mSB before bathtime before dinner. after dinner she was searching merry’s website for aquabeads. i have told her that if she wants jobs to earn money, they will only count if playroom and bedroom tidy! and after bb going on, she has the same deal if she wants a longneck! i have to asy, i adore the anamalz range!

anyway, where were we?? oh yes, bedtime!!!!

20 Years

20 years ago this week we met, and I fell in love, even better, we still are :-)

Beauty and the Beast?

Happy 20 years my love xxxx

(For the sake of accuracy, neither of the photos are of that time though. Couldn’t easily find any. Helen is in Canada a few weeks later in the summer. The one of me is apparently in 1989. But I’m not really any different)

some nice recent photos – am v slowly catching up with flickr!

IMG_9187 IMG_9246

IMG_8845

making the most of it.

i had a much needed lie in today. my head, body and soul were not at all engaged. whilst recovering, i heard sb do piano practice. when i came down, chris and sb had gone through those lovely anholt books around artists. we did some HE – handwriting, french. i have to say that SB’s handwriting is really coming on. She has struggled at writing, but in her own time and on her own terms she is getting there. She likes the getty and dubay, and does lots of practice with cards and notes to people. She also spent a lot of time doing the colour in doggy clothes she got from merry’s girls.

BB also did french and some early numeracy with singapore early bird and literacy from before the code and letterland red books – which i managed to find. BB was very impressed to get some books, its a shame i can’t get sb gagged quickly enough before she says they were hers first!

we did lots of imaginative play altogether today. i am trying to jumpstart my immersion back into these games, as i have sort of gradually faded out of being a pinky ponk, or a doggie or a vet etc etc. so i decided this was ridiculous, so i have been a pinky ponk [or whatever it is!] bought and cared for doggies, played with cuddlies etc etc and made my girls happy.

we also baked carrot cake, watched some how things work, nina and the neurons and magic school bus, picked peas and broad beans from the garden.
aargh how did it get to be this late?? bedtime!

musical monday – mozart requiem

even if it isn’t all written by him, it is great!As usual, yes, i have played in the orchestra – university of london – and sung in the choir – leeds festival chorus. And most noticeably written an exam paper to the dies irae in my head, and had to pause with the choir rests [evolutionary psychobiology].

dies irae one of my fav bits in any requiem tbh, and this no different, but it is all beautiful.introitus and kyrie, confutatis and lacrimosa, tuba mirum,

Protected: Festival of history reminder

This content is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

memories

looking at manor born photo of marlow church really, set me down the path of thinking of all the concerts through the years i have played there. it really seems like hardly any time at all ago, but it is over 20 years! how can that be?? two red boots orchestra photos also fed into the mood.
i am getting old!