Category Archives: General

uninspired and uninspiring

i have been working this weekend, and i hate losing the weekend!! i miss the relaxation with family and chance to unwind. never mind!

have done tidying up, maths, violin practice, playing games, makebelieve and today popped to a friend and colleagues house so we could go to their village picnic in the park. didn’t see the deependers there though. i was working at the time of the duckrace, and it rained, so we made it a bit later.

v much enjoing battlestar galactica, though the mood and tone of it has altered entirely with the 4 ‘new’ cylons!

as seen on little nut tree – i am a spork

oh dear basically!!! a spork!!!

You Are a Spork
You have a playful, eccentric sense of humor.
You are creative. You see the world in bold colors.

You are a dabbler. You love to experiment.
You aren’t an expert in anything, but you know a little about everything.

migraines and mischief

i didn’t have wed off, but had to work – with migraine. so missed on what seems to have been a fab visit to a firestation, and also meeting friends to talk to grrrr.

instead i had a suprise day off today – a surprise as i was going to a conference far side of london, but, due to raging migraine and out of migraine meds, that just wasn’t practical. retired to bed with cold compress and gp appt booked. so i now have meds again and at least spent half the day compos mentis with the girls. [well sort of] what struck me was that having got out of the pistols at dawn to dusk for a bout 3 days, they have returned to that pattern. aargh to the levels of bickerdom. it isn’t all bb, the split is prob sb:bb 40:60. just that bb is noticeably more unmanageably horrid. mind you the wailing was also stratospheric today, so i might have been better at that conference in london.

in between bickers and wails and time outs [for me] we did have a lovely time! SB and bB had done some beautiful hama when i came too, and we ironed them b4 they were scattered on the floor – so result! SB then finished singapore maths 2b part 1 [at last - we have been being quite slack on the formal ed front] and bB and i did earlybird 1a -which is v easy for her, as it is predom counting to 10, which she can do in french or english quite happily. actually in english she gets to 20, then starts going up in 10′s. the more/less, most/least is quite easy too. so a romp really, but she likes having done hers whilst sb is doing hers.

after that we did some french – farm and wild animals. much taken by the fact that lots of the african ones had the same names, but with an accent. and we read SOTW on australian aborgininal beginnings – sort of! we looked at aboriginal art, read some dreamtime stories, and thought about doing some painting. but sb and bb had a fight over this, so the offer was withdrawn in a fit of pique [and regretted afterwards - must keep mouth shut!]

girls went out to play, i had a time out by hoeing – i have to say we have done the best so far with the veg and fruit beds. earlier this week chris harvested 3 1/2 lb strawbs!! we are harvesting peas, broad beans too, and the pots are prob ready to have an exploration!!

i then brought out some books on weather and ponds, and a pond dipping kit from ebay – which turned out fab [never linked to an ebay seller before, but actually the magnified tank is v fab] and this rescued the afternoon. we have quite a lot of pond life in our goldfish pond. unfortunately loads of mosquito larvae in the waterbutt, but we have lots of waterboatman – who eat them, a water spider, and pond skaters. we have a plague of large pond snails [oh dear!] and on one lily pad stem was the empty shell of what was some kind of dragonfly we think. so we all enjoyed this. BB liberated loads of pond snails, and then both girls played unhappily in the paddling pool until riot act read. SB had violin, and BB sitting on step… then BB made a card and SB and i played an alphabet game and then we played shops.
i redressed SB’s foot and put BB to bed. and there we are.

musical mondays -tallis, a return to form

i adore this early vocal music. i love the harmonies, i love the modulations, and the gentleness and soaring qualities. did you get that i love it? here is the miserere – i had allegri’s earlier for a comparison! [which i love more. somethings are better known because they are better!] with leeds festival chorus, i had the marvelous opportunity of singing spem in alium in rippon cathedral – rather magical! A fantastic bit of elizabethan music. lets not forget vaughn williams fantasia either. anyway, have a wander round the tallis on utube!

a skeleton blog for chris!

i am not sure exactly what! but i know on thurs there was a bit of ‘normals’

fri they went to a fab session at one of the not very local groups all about dyeing. they made their own natural dye with paprika to take with them [i have no idea if it worked] and whilst there did some tie dyeing, which they enjoyed.

mon, picking up SB’s glasses – which look great on her, except she looks older…  she notices a difference in vision. i cam home and we used some photochromic paper to make pictures – which was great fun, and she made a raindetector kit -like the einos but with a different badge. again it totally failed to work. has anyone had the burglar, rain or any of the ones with piezo electrics work? tempted to write to makers and complain. she made the circuits all by herself perfectly.

we played games, BB loving memory pairs at the mo. SB fed some of my endagered animals in the reserve – i am losing money hand over fist!!

relaxing in the sun

we were all a bit out of sorts to start with – prob something to do with the nightly merry go rounds for sleeping thats been happening recently. so SB and i read some brainwaves how nearly everything was invented, and BB played. SB then made a family invitation card – over and over again! BB and i played and then watched some how things work altogether.

some magic school bus later and we were all outside topping up bird feeders and playing on swings and slides. we put up the paddling pool [yet another one] and some splashing fun – girls decided the water cold enough to wear wetsuits – rofl! watcheda prog about earth, read a bit more, and that was about it i think. manic week ahead. deep breath!

we have been trimming the yews

chris is wondering how to shape this one. i thought he had…

IMG_9311

a party day

i think, on the whole, that i am going to pretend there was no other day than that which started at 4 – it would be much better remembered that way!

we went to a fab party, which started as a kids party, and then since the host and hostess are in a molly group, ended with v lovely live music. there were crafts to do, people to chat to, and kids to play with, lovely food and lovely company and lovely weather. in fact all lovely. yep that is what i will remember about today!

yesterday we went to little nanny’s

she is 87 now, and i guess that visits can be bittersweet. i remember the vibrant active nanny of my youth, and see the proud and determined to be self sufficient nan of the present, who TBH, i just want to kidnap and bring home to live. she can manage, that is for sure, but she is lonely, her friends have died, and she lives in a house of the past. even i half expect to hear my grandad whistle as he goes down the passageway. she has lived there ever since homes for heroes after ww2. they were the first tenants into that new council development, and she will be the last of that group to leave. but i am sure she would actually enjoy what time we have left alltogether more if she actually lived close to me, my mum or aunt. please, when i get to ‘that age’ if my children or grandchildren suggest i move closer, i should pack up my memories and go for it. every time i see her, she seems to be preparing more to leave. she is gradually getting rid of lots of her ‘unneccesary belongings’ to ‘save us the trouble’.

and i feel guilty [something i am v good at!] for not going more often, and not prioritising her. because when i am there, i can see how much good it does her, how she loves to see the children. it is knackering for me, because i drive, prepare lunch, make teas, wash up, cook, do odd jobs, listen and talk with her as she is desperate for all that conversation and interaction, but also chivvy children, get them to be on best, and also interact, and not point out she repeats, forgets, and always calls SB by my name and often BB by niece and my nephew by my cousins name. and all this solitariness isn’t activating brain, so games [and she was a real sharp games player] take a bit of starting if they are new [so we took hisss rather than castle keep].

but i love her desperately, and always hate to leave. and the girls were good, loving and adorable. can you kidnap grandparents?

musical mondays – something a bit different

such a naff rendition!! but..