musical mondays – philip glass

Posted on July 28, 2008 by | 2 comments

i fell in love with philip glass’s music when i went to see the making of the representative of planet 8 at the ENO as a student. it is really difficult to find any traces of that music! i love the rolling harmonies and the repetitions. it is an evolution in his style, and i certainly don’t like it all, but … so i am trying to find in utube clips what i mean. his violin concerto good!

2 Comments

Posted in General, music to love

too hot to blog

Posted on July 27, 2008 by | 2 comments

too hot to think.

i had the tremendous privilege of working in borneo for 2 months when a student, and spent part of that plying my future trade up and down the deepest interior of the rainforest in a motorised canoe from marudi and sibu. perhaps i was more acclimatised, but i feel hotter and sweatier and stickier than then! we have had a torrential downpour, which doesn’t seem to have reduced heat or humidity. there i always stood under the mandy to tip cold water over my head to let me sleep! [you can see i was a honoured visitor to the iban and dayak longhouses, as more commonly all bathing is done in the lovely leech infested rivers!]

anyway, it was too hot to think all day, so we did butterfly half paintings, where you fold to get the mirror image. that took up lots of day! sb also did a paint a fairy kit, and bb lots of paddling pooling. we read about camille and the sunflowers and looked at our fab sunflowers. i did a sunflower picture that we then took a print from.

we did a bit of french about clothes, but its been too hot to think, so we also did harvesting = beans and pots for tea. and i did some weeding after all.

i am now going to collapse infront of a prog about australian wildlife and hope bb goes to sleep soon – she had a siesta unfortunately!

2 Comments

Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean's HE, daubing and making, General, language, Stringbean's HE

too darn hot!

Posted on July 26, 2008 by | 1 comment

i know i shouldn’t gripe. but i think my ambient temp is between 18 and 22 degrees. when its colder i wrap up warm, but when its this much hotter… well, i hide in the shade and dip feet in the paddling pool.

but, what i really needed to do was give the garden a good weed. but with it being so hot and airless, and me only just shaking off a migraine, i didn’t think it worth the risk [and it would have been seriously unpleasant]. i could go out in the datk with a torch on i guess, but now feeling lazy!

so, the girls spent a lot of the day in the paddling pool – it did seem like the most sensible thing. though they came in for a 2 hour muzzy fest before i kicked them out again. there seems to be a new interest in muzzy, and they’ve watched 3 days on the trot. since we have series 1 and 2 in german, and 1 in spanish, this is a serious amount of muzzy! i do think my german comprehension has improved mind you!
so i chased them back into the garden and we swung, paddled, picked petals off flowers etc. i took out the airdrying clay – actually i love air drying clay, especially hen you buy it in a sale! as it is cheap, and the girls can fiddle about with it to their hearts content. BB immediately said she wanted to make a coil pot, and set about doing it – she remembered exactly how we did it before easter and got going. sb made a thumb pot. they both then made pizzas. i read some of my book – male sci-fi. you have to roll eyes once in a while, but it is excellent escapism.

helped chris net the raspberries before the birds steal any more, and played games with the girls until we went in to cool off [victorian house good at being cool, partic if we leave cellar door open] and we did some french books and SB did violin practice, but we had to do a bit less, as bb also got her violin out, and was demonstrating her new clock song! they fancied pancakes for tea [they don't often get to choose!] so i did that, and whilst i was getting ready, they both did some maths. BB very proud of how beautifully she can now write a 4. read dinodoors and hairy mcclary to bb, and a roman mystery 2 chptrs for sb. SB also had a chapter of SoTW – islam goes to spain.
bath and bed for both of them. though in the gap between the 2, sb and i played several hands of rummy, and then did a simple electronics kit

forgot to say that i have given BB a pretty short bob as well!

1 Comment

Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean's HE, daubing and making, early maths skills, gardening, General, history, language, literacy, music, numeracy, pre reading, science, Stringbean's HE

short haired girl

Posted on July 26, 2008 by | 6 comments



enough photos!

Originally uploaded by Scrumbledelicious

6 Comments

Posted in General

little bit of power going straight to the head!

Posted on July 25, 2008 by | Leave a comment

that was me at work today – rofl! no doubt i will be in a bit of trouble!

girls went to chris’s parents [?grandbeans?] and all did some maths. bb can know happily do  4, and was writing 4′s everywhere! SB still on fractions. other than that, alot of playing.

chris has made a start on tidying as next weekend both extended families coming for the day!

i had a long day at work, and should go to bed earlier, but it is too darn hot!

Leave a comment

Posted in General

where has the week gone?

Posted on July 24, 2008 by | 1 comment

for me mostly lost in la la migraine land. and for chris some vomiting thing. bb pretended to have a migraine today – v cute, if somewhat worrying for the tendency to migraine is familial here. please let both of mine not be affected.

yesterday was therefore a bit of a laidback day. actually bb wasn’t laid back, she decided to learn french. i read 3 books with her, and she did poisson rouge – she can count to 10 happily in french and knows some of the colours – although still insistant that blanc is black. i can see her point… SB also did the french books with me, and so i think we are starting to get somewhere in our rhythm of french, so am pleased with that. SB and bB also did some piano practice and handwriting. sb mostly wrote reminder notices to stick all round the house for daddy to take her to the hairdressers!!

we had got a new book from amazon about tectonic plates etc, which we have also enjoyed reading and – drum roll please – we have read some more story of the world!! about clovis the ex barbarian. mUST do more SoTW!! [though i liked the look of that galore park junior history. discussed it with sb, and she prefers me to read stories to her at the mo.

today they did some piano, and played alot, and SB has been sewing – it might be a cloak for A? oh, and sb has had her hair cut! [photo will eventually follow, but i have to do them in order - chris might not be so fussy!!]

1 Comment

Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean's HE, early maths skills, General, geography, history, language, literacy, music, noises and sounds, numeracy, pre reading, Stringbean's HE, writing

wearing her glasses

Posted on July 23, 2008 by | 6 comments



wearing her glasses

Originally uploaded by Scrumbledelicious

did we say that SB now needs to wear glasses??

6 Comments

Posted in General

home again

Posted on July 23, 2008 by | 1 comment

after our fably sociable weekend [did i mention max as being a particularly good tent taker downerer??] we came home with a stop at little chef on the way. bb couldn’t bring herself to wake up – bless – so sb, big and small [from making it up] were able to sit on their own table, and us grownups at another. they were really beautifully behaved [mostly] and we all ate well. even better, the lovely waitress and new chef made such a pigs ear of the order [but without ruining the meal] that we barely paid for any of it!! our girls fell asleep in the car and jax’s followed a bit later, leaving us with some gossip time.

whilst i was at work on monday the girls and big and small had a lot of fun as it was a glorious day, and i got home from work early, so had more chatting time with jax and she finally left after tea.

i liked the way the tents worked at the weekend in a cross, leaving a good sociable central zone, particularly well for sitting and chatting into the night. most nights not too cold, but the last a bit parky, so jo was well wrapped in a duvet – which seemed v sensible! it was good actually to have such a good show up of husbands too. it was just what i needed! must do it more often! it almost made up for no kessingland or alternative! august looks set for being pretty sociable too…

1 Comment

Posted in General

festival of history!

Posted on July 23, 2008 by | 1 comment

i have got there!!

it was lovely meeting up with so many people, we loved it again. it was trickier this year due to sb’s foot – first day we walked too much and she was really pained so we left earlier than planned.

we loved – punch and judy show; bzents – sb in horatios last hurrah, totally fab childrens hysterical historical plays; the roman legions; the kinghts fighting and jousting; the fire eating stilt walking fool; d day re-enactment – firing sb’s enthusiasm for a subject not really thought of here yet. also just walking around the re-enactors a lot of them took a lot of time to talk to us and answer questions. sb is getting more and more confident at asking and we went round pretty much all the areas chatting and seeing what was going on, sb mostly taking the lead with who to talk to and what she wanted to know. the living history tent also excellent with a go at all the archaeological techniques and easy hands on for both girls. bb particularly loved the skeletons. we impressed the display girl as me and sb using ‘proper’ bone words. not hard really for me though is it!! the head of saxon finds who was manning the metal detector finds was also a treasure himself, and they all had oodles of time. the family zone with the ever popular sandpit, games, morris dancers, bands etc. sb loved actually one stand that had a travelling show theme with pretend animals etc. sb and i also popped into one of the more ‘adult’ talks on dressing mr darcy, and had a look at costumes. not for long, but she thought she would like to go to more of those next year!
i think that one of the most impressive things is that english heritage are so obviously very keen to give a hugely satisfying day out and have put lots of thought and effort in. we will hopefully be doing it again next year, and hope people might again join us. tent sharing is fine and easy for a weekend, and saves a lot of tent taking down effort!!

now i have thousands of flickr photos to do.

slightly terrifying was doing a wee in the cubicles by the main arena whilst the parlimentarian big guns were going off.

1 Comment

Posted in General, history, Out and About

playing at wicksteed

Posted on July 22, 2008 by | Leave a comment

i could have done this in th last blog post, but that was about tents – something i am rather keen on! so this is about the adventure day. having taken bb to a similar park on our family holiday, we were aware that she is something of a delicate daisy about rides. it is a bit of a shock, as her general personality isn’t that delicate, and i always thought her fearless! so we bought chris and sb a band, and me and bb a run of tickets. good thing too!

chris and sb had a ball, they went on loads of things and had a great laugh. def got their money’s worth. i would have loved a go at the water ones… oh well, plenty of time in the future. sb loved the big roller coaster particularly and the wavy slide [i would have liked that too!]. bb loved the bouncy castle and teeny tinies  vehicle ride, and for both of these, she didn’t get asked for a ticket as she is on the 90cm borderline. so she had 4 free rides. she also loved the playpark, so actually had a fab time. bUT she hated the ladybird ride and wailed for some considerable time over it!

when i have flickered i will add some pics. the only neg was later on that day when sb had a recurrence of her low mood blogged previously. i think she had been feeling a bit left out, and her foot was playing up by then, and a week of late nights got her to sob herself to sleep. luckilly i was on holiday with great friends who i can talk to about these things, and they had a chat to their kids, and the next day sb had a ball with her friends again. it is good to have such lovely friends that you can talk about these things with, even though i felt bad about it. i also gave sb a v long talk [again!] about give and take, and working out what you actually want. i am hoping that she will get this social thing earlier than i did [about 30!!]. i know i over empathise with it in some respects, cos i know how it has affected my whole life, and i am glad i can bounce this off the friends there, and know they aren’t judging me too much as a psycho neurotic parent!!

more wine, jax and family arrived [unfortunately pretty much at the point i frogmarched an overwrought sb off to bed!]

Leave a comment

Posted in General