Category Archives: literacy

A bit slow

Things seem to have been a bit slow here last couple of days. After her late night on Wed SB had bit of lie in, which did give me and BB time to have a good play together, which probably doesn’t happen often enough. She is really into trying to copy you and say words for things now, which is entertaining. She likes books as well, esp. those that have touchy/feeling bits, – she really likes the ‘That’s not my..’ series. She will often go and get a book from the shelf and come and climb on you lap.

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Not really sure what happened with SB in the morning, she played with the cindy/Barbie and cuddly toys – apparently she likes to tell them a story everyday. We did what a couple of schols programs. There was one comparing two farms in UK and France which she liked – about sheep farming, shearing and making cheese.

There was some reading of library books again, she will often now read bits of books as we go along. She wants to do some stuff about Space. In particular, Rockets, Astronauts and stars so we looked at books about that sort of thing and talked about why the Saturn V rocket was so big, but the bit that the men travelled in was so small. Must organise some thing on this – any good links?

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In the afternoon we walked the scenic route via footpath and old railway line to the veg shop. Walk was pleasant, BB enjoyed toddling along, played Pooh Sticks, looked at some of the flowers and at a Badger set. BB blagged a pear in the veg shop. She went, in made a beeline for the box of pears took one and started munching it. didn’t notice at first (it’s normally unstaffed as it’s at the garden nursey and the staff there come in to serve you) until it was too late. The woman who served us let her have it free.

Home in a hurry (losing BB welly on the way) out to Ballet. Visit to the playground, home for dinner, watched the Coral Sea episode of Blue Planet. SB got to saty up very late as said she could wait up for Helen who was giving her talk, but she didn’t get home until well passed 11pm. She was quite happy and spent ages playing on Webland.

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Friday

So again SB had little bit of lie in. :-)

BB helped me tidy the kictchen a bit, hang up nappies (waste of tiem it was soon to rain later) etc. SB hama beaded over breakfast – though rather upset when she knocked it and dislodged lots of the beds – BTDTGTTS, put away quite a few of childrens clothes upstairs. Went hrough all her T shirts, shorts etc. to check on stocks before th summer. soem reading with SB, SB did some more Explode the Code, almost at the end of the book now. she has fair whizzed through this one. She does the same thing as me and gets ‘b’ and ‘d’ mixed up wehn she writes them. At least she won’t get sent back down to sit in the younger class like I did at primary school – presumably the teacher thought I was doing it deliberately.

After lunch we hit the supermarket – forgetting I was not going to go to the Tesco at the moment as it’s pain while they rebuild the store. hoem to meet Mumy back from work SB did some maths , red Nose readers with Helen.

Both went to bed bit late, for reasons that I’m not sure about.

Cousdin M coming to visit this weekend so time to egt the hoover out.

a few SB-isms

we were watching the planets DVD and the asteroid crater in Arizona -

“is that where all the dinosaurs were standing when they became extinct? Had they all gone there to eat something nice, or asleep?” Hmm, perhaps not quite got that image right then!

or about her tooth that fell out today

how will the seed bunny know it is out? [i am wondering what to say at this point] i imagine he got an email [!!!!]”

Poor lass though, BB gave her a shocking bite. BB also deliberately bit me for her evening feed – right Chris, here she is for a bottle!

I also had to soothe hurt feelings, as at the end of home-ed group, one of her friends Mum’s invited the other little girl and her mum to their house for a play. SB asked if she could come to, and was told no. Fair enough obviously as this was an adult invite with children as it were, but SB thought she wasn’t wanted, especially as she has been before.

We had a lovely weekend though, and did lots of playing in the garden and with her dolls house and her paper dress me dolls. SB and BB playing nicely together – some squabbling over the fun blox!, we all having fun. Read lots of books – the DK encyclopaedia, and childrens history book about middle ages, some singapore maths [oops, we left the book in the rain, but it has recovered!] And more playing with the electric circuit. Also she has progressed onto the cbbc website – though some of the games there are, well!!! We looked at flowers outside, played botanist explorers [amongst others] [she was very bossy, and me 'n BB poddled along behind!] picking a few, and then she has made a picture with them that we are pressing. We have also started off a second hand triops kit. It had run out of nutrients, and we are using pond water – lets see if that works. Some cbeebies watched, and also DVD of life of mammals – SB really into these DVD’s at the moment. She was also particularly proud to swing like Violet [some hero worship going on there]- hanging by her knees from the trapeze bar thing. Thankyou Violet! Some hama beading, and I think we have had a very full Home-ed autonomous weekend!

I love home-ed. Still wish I did more of it though. Have at least finished my talk.

quick catchup

Main computer has had a major wobbley, so have spent much fruitles time trying to sort that, as well as only (!) having one computer around for essential tasks like reading blogs. Also Helen has been in London for two days this week and not getting back until late-ish. so lack of blogs, lack of new photos on Flickr (we have them, but have to get the external drive and connect it to the laptop) – what’s the world coming too…..

That and? certain lack of blogging enthusiasm from me this week….

Main theme of the week has been enjoying the sun outside quite a lot, there has been Explode the Code happening most days, bits of Singapore maths, lots of reading. SB is reading soemthing to me most days now, she is gradually spotting more and more words straight off.

Anway, Tuesday was Library day, so went along to that, SB had found the book that I claimed last week that I had claimed not to have ever seen – so had to take that back and admit to incompetence. But ti’s a nice friendly volunteer run library and they are used to us…… Meant for under 5′s so Sb is much the biggest there now – older under 5′s must presumably be at playgroup or something. But she likes going, so we still go. I do the occasioanl session to keep in the good books :-)

I picked up a book that SB has really enjoyed. Incredible Everything?? about have various things? (bridges, doughnuts, CD’s Beoing 777 for example) are made and work, lots of detailed drawings etc. SB loves things like this and every day me or Helen have sat down with here and looked at it. she likes you to tell here what is going on in each bit.

Much of ther afternoon was probably spent outside, a lot of librbary book reading went on. We finshed sorting out the bed for the strawberry pants.

SB finally learnt how to get herself swinging on the swing, went outside and realised she was whizzing back and forth. she was Soooo pleased with herselfshe spent most of the next hour swinging, Swimming lesson later on, home to dinner, and Mummy getting home just as we sat down to watch Wallace and Grommet – Curse of the Were Rabbit.

Wednesday we went to my parents for most of the day. SB played some games, read, did some tracing (very well) in a trace the picture book mum had bought. BB poddled about, and scared Nanna by climbing up piles of old paving stones, up on top of the wall. etc. (they are redoing the garden). They have Sat TV, so SB gets a treat of watching CBeebies in the middle of the day :-) Lots of reading with Mum, looking at various books – she has been looking at some of the Picturepedia books as well – ‘Waht’s this, what’s that..’
Thursday ???? We planted out the stawberry plants, as in SB did two and then went of to play. BB randomly came up picked up plants and dropped then around the bed…, they seem happy enough though. Ballet lesson in afternoon, some time in the playground afterwards where SB found hitched up with another little girl, Sb kept trying to climb up everything, managed to whizz up the slide, then fell down it…. :-(. I tried to do a ‘A day in the life of BB’ series of piccies which will hopefully get posted.
Friday A day when we didn’t have to go anywhere at all which was nice. Should have gone to the shops probably though. SB and BB played for ages in the morning in SB’s bedroom with Happy Street, Cindy whatever, which gave me the chance to do interesting things like changing beds ‘unaided’.Can’t remeber much, but SB did some good reading from one of the Letts Active Readers (Ratman and the Big Cat or somesuch), we looked a lots of the Incredible Things book – wandered into a conversation about how people used to make things themselves or on a small scale and now things moslty get made in factories now.? did some basic stuff about Graphs from Singapore maths.? Did some stuff from the book, then did some of own – how many different coloured flowers etc. use the little plastic blocks (name? – forgot) to ake the graps which worked well. SB got the hang of it, and interpreting it/extracting info easily.

Enjoying more sun.

Both girls were still alseep when Helen left for work, which is unsual, but it didn’t last for long. Butterbean was soon up and causing havoc. SB soon got up as well, but she stayed upstairs for? while playing with the Happy Street which has been out on her floor all week sicne the party last weekend.

When she came down the first thing she wanted to do was ice the carrot cake we made on tuesday.? So she produced yet another tastefully decorated cake…

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She was going to do a rainbow cake at one point. Whilst this was all going on BB spent sometime standing on a chair playing witht he cutlery and reorganising the contents. Outside for a bit, to hang up some washing . BB likes to help with this now, it’s a shame that she driops half the things on the ground when giving them to me. But she doesn’t like it if she seems me takign the stuff, she shouts at me very loud (she does? alot of shouting at the moment – whenever she wants something, something is wrong etc., it’s all a bit tiresome TBH). Pottered around for? bit looking at things, then back indoors. Girls leggoed for? bit while I did something or other, tidied breakfast things, more washjing on etc. I expect.

Back outside again, sat and read for bit whilst we ate some fruit, girls ran about, played on swings etc.. Strawberry plants were delivered today and the bit of ground they are goign in needed a bit of sorting, so I got on with that, SB sat and did some of the Singapore Maths, Thinking Skills 1A book, moslty adding up up to 20. They had some problems where you had one number and the answer, and had to find the missing number. She was complaing about this, so I showed her? how to take away the number from the answer to get the missing number. BB moslty clambered about on her climbing frame.

Then lunch, after which BB fell asleep in her seat.

Me and SB went back outside, finshed doing the bed for the Strawberries, SB moslty played around the garden doing one game or another. She seems to be really just enjoying the warm weather and being able to be running about in it. Had a bit of a conversation about what a weed is,? why we sometimes grow ‘weeds’ and other times don’t want them.. By which time it was time to get up BB who was still asleep.

So sat and cuddled? sleepy baby, whilst reading somemore to SB, looking at some books again on space stuff. . Tiem to get dinner ready, whilst I was doing that, SB did some more Explode the Code. Made? a bit of? fuss at first then got into it, and then did loads, about 7 pages I think as she decided she wants to catch Sam up, who is on the next book (book 3). So she did that until dinner time.

Over dinner we listened to more Little Toe Radio Show, she is funy, such a visual 21st century child. She likes to listen to it with ‘patterns’ (visualisations from the player ) and sits thee staring at the computer screen wayching the pattern :-) BB is so good at picking up on Helen’s voice. She was in the bath when Helen came home, but still heard here voice down stairs and started shouting and saying ‘Ma Ma’ and pointing :-) She was very cute this evening mimicing Helen doing ‘Woo, Woo, Woo’ sounds with her hand over here mouth

Sunny Day

SO we have been out in the garden pretty much all of it. However, before we went out, SB did some jigsaws and watched Cbeebies, followed by 4 pages of explode the code. She still isn’t sure of the st sounds. I read loads of books to BB. We also played vets and cats – at least I got to be the vet!
BB initiated the great going out, by insisting that we put on her snowsuit – rofl! I did let her wear it for a bit, but gradually both children stripped down to their birthday suit, and suntan lotion was applied for the first time this year. BB immediately had a blotchy face reaction. It is sainsbury’s hypoallergenic – must remember not to buy that again! Much climbing up th climbing frame an swinging on the swings ensued! After the great strip off, there was a sandcastle building? and general sprinkling sand everywhere game.
Elinor decided to chant in a very loud voice the Kings and Queens of England – she remebered a few! I was most impressed about how much she spilled out about Elizabeth 1 and Henry 8, and worked out if there was a Henry 8, there needed to be 1-7 as well! Also a spontaneous lesson in gravity, as SB said the gravity to was too great on the chair to climb the tree as she couldn’t lift her legs! So we did some gravity experiments and discussed gravity on the moon.

We did some SIngapore 1B sitting out in the sun. SB raced through as it was on less and more, and this was covered by the exeter maths ages ago.

BB is being a bit screechy every time I walk away. I think I am allowed an invisible rope of 2m. She of course can do what she likes! I had lots of cuddles and climbing games. And it is nice to devote loads of attention to her, as I sometimes worry I devote most to SB. BB is such a cute thing though.

Sb and I read a magic bus book, and now off to bed. Will do phoitos when I come down!

our ‘typical home-ed day’ Photo Meme 2006

somewhat late, and I didn’t get started with the camera quite at the begining, but hey ho, that is probably what my typical day is! Obviously, this wasn’t entirely a typical day, as it was bank hols and both parents at home. Full photos on flickr.

Oh, and Happy Birthday Little Nanny!
Started with SB and BB playing with the happy street at too early o clock, and then by the eime I got up, SB had moved onto Sindy’s and BB was rarring about. I fed her and she settled down to playing with the bricks.

So, 10:00 and SB starts with explode the code – 4 pages. SHe’s quite good at doing this mostly on her own. I did need to remind her that there is a double l at the end of words such as sell and spell etc. Also, it took a while to convince her that there was a st sound and how it was made.

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So that was 10 mintues – I happen to know because thats when she decided to play nursery with BB, who was being the baby in the baby room. BB took it all in good part, and I do like seeing SB playing games specifically with BB, rather than just moaning when BB ruins things.

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11 -ish, and we did some maths. SB chose to do some from the miquon book – something that I find more dificult, as I have to sit there with the instructors guide to work out what we are supposed to be doing. mostly counting and adding, as we do it so rarely she is on ‘easy’ pages.

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12-ish BB had an early lunch and fell asleep. Chris and SB looked at rocks and minerals with enchanted learning, moving on to the cretaceous period – and quite a bit of discussion on extinction and then to continental drift on the ‘puter. SB then looked at the new webland.I went out and did a spot of gardening, coming in for lunch – by which time BB had woken up and had a second lunch! 13-ish!

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14:00 I read to BB, and SB did lots of dot to dotting – going up to 50, and then looked at a thomas the tank book. She then disappeared to her bedroom to play some more with sindy’s

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15:30 We all got ready and went out to the park and stayed there until nearly 17:00. SB loves the park, and clambered happily about. BB did lots of climbing practice – antother Know No Fear daughter! So we took lots of pictures of BB, as its the first time she has had all this fun. Although heart in my mouth, was proud of her climbing skills!

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when we got back, SB played with the ballerina candleholders and various kinder egg bits for a while. TBH, I have no idea what we did then! BB drew on herself.

18:00 ish teatime -in which SB was trying to remember all the countries she had heard of – second one was indonesia!, then tidyup and pyjamas on 19:00 we watched the deep on DVD and the 20:00 bedtime stories and finally sleep!

Other photo-meme days for this year can be found here, here, here, here and here [so far!]

Help -we’re trapped!

After Helen’s exhaust falling off episode last week, I had to take the car off to Kwik fit for a new one. My mum came round to look after the kids to save them being dragged around with me.. I had an ok time – off to the garage, had a bit of wait – once I would have been ‘grr!’ now UI just enjoy the chance to sit and read the paper for 45 minutes uninteruppted – i was quite sad when the chap said it was done ;-)

Went off to do a bit of shoppign as well, a little while alter there was phone call from my mum, they were all shut in the playroom! The handle came off the outside of the door a week or so ago. I was waiting to get some new screws since it didn’t seem to have any, other the one I could find – coincidentally I had just got some when my mum rang me. THe metal rod that goes through the door, ahd of course come out and was sitting in the playroom. Of course my mum shut the door….. soemtie later they tried to open it and were trapped – so I had to cut short my shopping.

Whiel I was out they seemd to have fun. SB and Nanna did some more patterns on a couple of T shirts wuith her ‘Puff up paints’, BB did some ‘drawing’, some general playing, some reading etc. more playing after I’d freed them and we had lunch etc. SB did read one of here Red Nose Readers to Nanna, – other than couple of odd words she can pretty much do these now. We played a game where SB was apost man and briought lots of presents, seem to eb an excuse to empty out BB’s toy box….

Whilst I took Nanna home, she did some maths of some sort – ordinal numbers apparently from singapore maths 1a thinking skills. She also did some drawing of farm animals from a how to draw farm animals books, and also spent some time looking for OS symbols on some maps. Before bed whilst palyiong on the floor with SB and BB I managed to hit SB’s head on the door whilst ‘messing her about’- got a nice egg. Didn’t stop her coming back for more though after about 5 minutes. BB is so funny, we were on the floor playing about, she comes trotting across the room, shouting and then flops down on top of you. When she does it to SB she looks like a minature Big Daddy doing a ‘belly splash’ :-)

SB is getting into the Little Toe Radio Show on a whim, as the laptop was on the table (not having DAB radio or dig TV – anyway – listening when you want is much easier), I put it on last Thursday while we had dinner, she sat listening too it silenty almost for the whole hour. So we have been listening to that a bit which she is enjoying. She listend to bit this afternoon, what was funny was that becuase she wasn’t doing anything else she sat on the chair in front of the computer and looked up at the screen, even though it wans’t really doing anything.

Tired and still migrainous

We had a rather poor night. Not quite sure what was up with BB as she was twitchy and unsettled most of the time and permanently latched on – sigh.

So today, we started with SB playing story games with Sindy’s in her bedroom fro a vast amount of the morning, and I played with BB. We did book reading, fun blox, shape sorters and dollies mostly, with a little bit of scribbling for good measure. She and i sang to each other – she does seem to have a musical ear [as far as you can tell these things].

When SB came down, she got stuck in to some explode the codswallop and we also read a fair bit more from the usborne children’s encyclopaedia - formation of earth, tectonic drift, volcanos and earthquakes, the moon and its phases, formation of stars and government and politics – she chooses! We had lunch and I potted up some toms and peppers.

As BB fell asleep SB did some thinking skills singapore maths - a bit of an easy revision on subtraction under 10 in record time. i then offered her choice as to waht she wanted us to do together. First we painted her second ring box [from the tesco kit she got for her birthday], the we went to discuss ‘the carrot problem‘ [ie the rows are so overgrown in weeds we have no idea whether any carrot seedlings there] – we decided to sow some into eggboxes to see what we are looking for. Whilst out, we re-enacted a long fairy tale about a traveller princess with a pet lion who rescues a prince, marries him, and takes his money to give to her parents [well, its hard to make these things up!]We then went on to read the usborne book about healthy eating, and repeated the taste experiment – we did it last year for meme day! Sb was quite knowledgeable about why we should eat healthily.

BB woke up, and we finished tidying the playroom [Chris had started it] and hoovered, and then got out things for all of us to play together. We first listened to holsts the planets and discussed the fact he only knew about 8, and their roman names and atrributes. SB and BB did a rather good interpretative dance! When we get to vote on a new national anthem, I think I will go for I vow to thee my country! We followed on with the free horrible history romans CD, which we all blithely ignored whils arguing over fun blox, stacking cups and which of the girls should have prime lap/arm position!

We had an early tea to watch Jason and the Argonauts. SB enjoyed it. She was much put out that the story wasn’t entirely the same as in her book! We discussed the oral tradition and poetic licence, but she wasn’t impressed! She even moaned that their constumes were different. To give her credit, she knew it was a hydra, and it doesn’t come in this story, as well as most of the characters and monsters. She was also put out by the advert breaks!

We finished with bedtime stories of ‘great grandfather abraham’ and the cruxifiction and resurrection of Christ from her children’s bible. Discussing as honestly as possible [for an agnostic] the meanings behind things!

I think perhaps I should have chose today as meme day – though took very few photos – as we have covered pretty much the whole curriculum in one form or another. AND only the singapore maths and explode the code were suggested [2 pages of each], the rest entirely autonomous – though I think of us as child led.

hmmm, maybe i will see what photos I can russle up!

Augmenting Reality

Well, don’t we all feel like our reality could feel like augmenting sometimes? Seems a bit of posh term for it, but me and SB spent a fair while after lunch playing with this trial on BBC Jam which we came across yesterday.You need to sign up for it, and be accepeted to get the username and passoword. Though by the looks of it they are generic ones that everyone gets.

It is very much trial stuff at the moment, a bit crude and clunky, and the interactive bits sometimes don’t work that well, but it was enterntaining and you can imagine some good possibilities once it gets more refined.

Basically, what you have is simple story, that you read/listen to. Interspesed are little scenes where you use the printed materials to produce animated 3D characters on screen. You print out sheets of paper, with simple little block patterns printed on them. each one correpsonds to a specific charatcer/object , when put in front of the webcam, the software produces a 3D image on screen, by moving the printed image around, you can move the image on screen, rotate it etc. simple little actions/animations can be triggered etc.? Worth a play, other than bit of fiddling about to get the webcam to work with it, it worked fine, though it is little camera on stalk, pluged into the laptopo and could done with being mounted higher..

Other than that, we didn’t do much this morning really, moslty pottering around, waiting for Helen to go of to her conference for a couple of days. BB insisted on getting up at about 7.30 after I gave in, and then fell asleep again in her high chair about 9 grr! Did some reading with SB, a couple of Red nose Readers, some Cbeebies. SB and BB played soem chasing games together, BB kept wanting to unload the dishwasher. By bedtime I was glad once they were both settled – BB took a while as she slept a bit too long while we were augmented.

Relaxed with a beer and The Apprentice? Quite enjoyed this one, I loved the way Ruth just basically ignored the lads in her team and just went and got on with it. Poor old Tuan, just never had it in him, he was going to have to go, though I can’t see Syed making it – to inconsitent. i wonder who would ahve gone if it had been the other team, which it could easily have been it was so close.

Relocation, relocation, relocation.

Relocation being the phase Butterbean is now in.? She is endlessy finding things, picking them up, investigating them dropping them all over the place, emptying things….. You know it is.? I’d forgotten tiresome it is to have them endlessy scattering stuff about. and I suspect with Stringbeans stuff all around there is much more for her to scatter. But she is just so cute at the moment as well, so she gets away with it :-) She is very much in the midst of the learning stuff everyday phase as well, so all the time you can almost see her learning about the world.

Anyway, apologies to those wondering where we have been – we have been away at Helen’s parents over Easter. We had? a lovely time. SB spent ages playing with her cousin M, they get on so well. BB had fun ‘Rarring’ around with everyone and trying to join in with the bigger ones. I got to read lots of the paper. We all had good time. Though as we ended up going on Friday morning we got stuck in lots of slow/non-moving traffic on the M25.

Back home BB was up woth me this morning by 6.30 so we had? a good start. She almost dragged me out into the garden after breakfast . She went and got her wellies, and shouted at me until i put thme on her, then wandered off to find her coat, got me to put that on, then pulled at me to come and pointed at my coat on the hanger -? knows what she wants that girl :-) She loves getting outside. whenever the door is open, whoosh – she is off. We spent ages outside in the garden while she pottered an explored. she particularly likes finding the odd bowls/buckets of water around to investigate. She helped me hamg out the washing too – picking up the clothes out of the basket and giving them to me – she is growing up and developing so fast. Rather nice pottering around in the early-ish morning sun
Eventually went back in – I think she was getting too cold once she got wet.

after that the day got? bit frustrating actually, one of those days where time seems to disappear and it seems hard to get into things. SB got up her and BB played together for? bit, more breakfast, Sb did some maths ( a bit more of of carrying on from last week) – she asked why she didn’t get a holiday like the school children :-) When I pointed out that at school she would have to sit still at a desk fro a lot of the time, she’d have to do what she was told? most of the time etc. etc. she seemd to think the amount of? ‘work’ she has? to do isn’t so bad :-)? She did? bit of hama beading, started with? star board, she was working on a pattwer, wwhen she discovered sh could make a hexagon pattern ‘inside’ it as well, which she thought was exciting. After lucnch she spent ages on the BBC Jam site, be better when they get some more content, but she was happy.

Had to go out to get a Freecycled stereo/CD player thing, and to the farm shop for veggies, where SB did her cute, helplful, chatty girl thing.? Forget what else, but Sb watched? a bit of the Clangers DVD. Which did spark a conversation about Earth, the Universe, about he concept of ‘sky’ as SB had the idea about earth being ‘ in the sky’, though she also has the idea tht the ‘sky ‘ is all around the earth. Bit of a tricky concept sky really. We all spent some more time out in the garden, i did a couple of jobs, B got wet again.? SB triesd climbing in roller skates. BB sulked cos she could climb on the climbing frame. Then we had dinner and then tidied the playroom beforw Helen arrived homwe (rather late)

Wil try and get up todate with flickr? soon, but Helen away from tomorrow to Friday