lovely weekend

the SOTP team stepped our way, and we had a lovely time. The children acted as always best friends, the girls disappearing with made up play and real game playing. i particularly loved the use of the camera tripod for an igloo/teepee for the dolls, and the picnics. real squashed kiwi on the bed not so enchanting – possibly why we were informed by letter!

Oh, and a good point to mention was that in the game, the father grunted ‘go away I’m reading’ ? true to life

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B and J got on like a house on fire. Both doing creditable stabs at each others name. lots of sharing [and not so sharing] but def friends.

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we looked at some of each others books. chatted [or read] and chilled. Sad to see you go. BB threw the biggest loss of control of her short life so far – very impressive, all over charlie and lola!
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Afterwards a manic tidyup, SB and some fun with the jungletopia ello that has been waiting an opening. we read soem more ORT

piccies to be added when flickr catches up!

it IS lovely!


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Originally uploaded by Scrumbledelicious.

catching up on flickr

I had stopped flickring because i was so fed up with the flaky importr. I did like that it had smart sets, new sets, group allocations etc all sussed, but it stopped every 3 i put up!

Am using juploadr, and although it doesn’t do anything clever, it is at least putting them up there. There are some real jewels amongst the 200 odd! A particularly grotesque one of me as elephant woman, and some gorgeous ones of SB in chinese princess mode, and BB just being adorable.

And in this present batch going up, is a stunning one of Fran and Josie – I might even remember to flickr mail you Merry when it gets up!!

Next lot will be this weeks, and a blog about our lovely weekend.

XMAS

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AND SOME HOME ED!

making musicyour classic home ed shot number 1!IMG_1661acids and alkalis with red cabbage waterIMG_1467

Thanks ALison- how well i know the bible

You know the Bible 77%!

 

Wow! You are truly a student of the Bible! Some of the questions were difficult, but they didn’t slow you down! You know the books, the characters, the events . . . Very impressive!

Ultimate Bible Quiz
Create MySpace Quizzes

hoping friends stay on the path

As they are arriving late, and it gets dark round here – mind you, they are used to rural!

I’m beginning to feel a bit better in the hand/wrist dept – not so swollen. got fed up with sausages for fingers. Saw the rheumatologist, who suggested an up and down thing for 2-3 weeks, but should just go. good oh!

Whilst I was at work, the beans went to PBEO and learnt about birds. BB has been going on about birds intermittently ever since. Difficult to settle when they got back [mid aft], so they argued over every toy [and they had picked up a few in the morning to argue over] and swapped them every 5 seconds. SB couldn’t settle to anything either. Finally she did some nick jr and moved onto education city. Apparently spanish will be available in a months time! BB desperately jealous of edu city – and although found a number of nice sites – and tried the poisson rouge recommendation from Katy – they just distracted SB, whilst BB was mad keen to do education city too. SO have another trial version now running with BB nursery. I am not paying for the nursery just so she doesn’t shriek! I will put a BB list though in the sidebar. SB is excited that on monday her selection for education city will change – she is such a daft but gorgeous girl to be excited by it!
A colleague from work came round – bringing choccies to make me feel better. SB and BB coloured for him and generally shew off. I must integrate more with work, so that it seems a better deal. He is one of my favourite colleagues though, and always makes me smile.
Oh, the other thing I have done is started some grape and redcurrant jelly, but lost the jelly bag, so rigged up some not-quite-good-enough-for-the job alternative. Oh well, it will just be cloudy. Home grown grapes though! [and redcurrants that have been sitting in the freezer for yonks]

Bath time now, and girls have been fed. I will make us an aubergine, mushroom and paneer curry [yum] for our tea. the ‘off the pathers’ are eating on the way down, so we will eat while SB is staying up [watching attenborough natural science progs and little house probably]

I have got guests coming excitement, so no good for settling down either – do you think we should make a bit of room for them in this bombsite??

Makes the mouse look very old hat.

The new Apple iPhone uses a ‘multi-touch’ touch sensitive screen. This page is by one of the researchers working on this sort of technology. Some of the video looks pretty cool.

from merry’s sister – places i have visited


create your own visited country map or check our Venice travel guide

big house in the dark village

well, we’ll get on to that i guess!

i couldn’t move knees and below or elbows and below when i didn’t get up this morning. so name as mud at work, as we aren’t ever supposed to be sick, and i was interviewing – so someone else had to do it without prep [though my notes and questions available]

anyway, that meant SB stayed at home while i was in bed, and Chris took BB to her first gym class. by all accounts she loved it ‘i climbed ladder, i diiiid’ ‘i did do ladder’ etc – obviously the key bit as far as she was concerned! it was a little circuit – sounds very like where i used to take SB at that age.

SB was happily doing education city. she did tell the postman she didn’t have a key and mummy was in bed [blush!] when he came to deliver a parcel – now languishing in the post office. However, when whiskey brought a bird in that escaped and flew all over the room, she came up. we decided to leave bird for chris, and got her current ORT book [flying carpet] and read another 10 pages.

We staggered downstairs, and SB had second breakfast and did some more of the painted garden kit that Big bought her for xmas. I was looking at the internet, but the wind has been blowing hard, and the ‘leccy was an early casualty. Severe weather indeed. So i found bird instead and released it outside – to whiskey’s total disgust. We read some DK history, the really interesting bits [pharoahs - where she recited what she knew from the terry deary cd - alot in fact, and the crusades]. I rang and apologised to my sister for grumpiness, so felt better.
Chris came home with a sleepy BB, who napped [they had been shopping] apparently a bus had got blown off the road . He pronounced the ‘leccy global to the village, so we rousted out various camping supplies and candles, so that when night fell we would be all set if normal service not restored. Good thing, as no ‘leccy till past 7 as it happened. SB did some MPH singapore maths 1B and we then played ‘who is it’ – or whatever that guessing game is with picture cards.

more playing, and then tidying so we were all ready for the dark. the fire was lit, sauce for the pasta cooked, candles and torches and gas lamps placed in useful places.

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We retired to the fire room – all nice and snuggly warm – as the dark fell. the girls loved it. BB thought it weird the lights and tv didn’t work.

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So we played little house on the prairie, the various games we had – buckaroo, dancemat, animals. but in honest, the singsong was the favourite thing! so we had picnic tea and then cakes. the lights came on the street just at bedtime. SB wanted to finish the day in old style, so we took the candles up to bed, told stories by candlelight and discussed how few books laura had – family bible and shared schoolbook that had been her mothers and a lot of other things about the early settlers.

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the village looked very different without light. you forget the effect of streetlamps and window lights on a place. I haven’t done a roof tile count yyet though

crosspatch

i knew i was being one all day, and though very contrite, had the tolerance level of kamikaze on acid. Mainly I think with worry that this is not going to be a weird one of joint thing, but…

Anyway, SB did lots more education city – she does really enjoy it, and getting there to the french without so much help [i nearly bought rosetta stone though Deb!]. She has also done some singapore maths MPH 1B – and as we are 2/3 through, have bought 2 series from half moon books – well, nearly, I have sent them an email! – so they are across in resources bit. I had bought the original 2a and b textbooks half price from sonlight when they went to the us ed, so though i had better have matching workbooks – so we will be doing a not MPH year – shouldn’t matter!

My mum and dad popped in on the way back from Little Nanny’s, and were a bit shocked at my cronkiness. Anyway, they played with the girls a bit and had a bite to eat before carrying on.

BB had a look at toddler cd – though prefers still just to irritate SB! we read some apple tree farm, she played ‘yego’, and had great fun with a magnetic break apart ball that SB also loved at that age from ikea. we all stopped for a ‘yup-a-tea’

SB and I finished the marco polo jigsaw in our explorers book and discussed that a little bit, before moving on to story of the world, where we got a bit stuck with the punic wars – cos unlike my usual ask very little questions, and minimal narration back, i got fixated on her remembering carthage! [why i don't know, as i hardly expect that telling her today will give her instant recall in 30 years time!!]. however, we made up over the Hannibal and the elephants story. She read me 1/3 of a level 8 ORT book – the magic carpet – and she is def getting more fluid. Apparently, whilst at Jax’s, she had a go at one of Big’s fairy books, but they are too difficult.

I got grumpy so left her and BB to play, and looked at sonlight core 1, rosetta stone and worried that we dip around a lot and aren’t organised, and maybe should be sonlighters etc etc [usual panic there]

BB wanted to play a game, so we got out the marble run, and SB made her runs and it all went predictably pear shaped, but they kept trying. eventually giving up to play bouncy ball games.

My sister rang to commiserate – well I think that was what for, but in a jovial way she said i have got it too, and it is worse than yours and yours will get far worse, so I pretty near hung up. tea really was ready, but I was rude, and feel bad as I just took it the wrong way rather than her meaning to make me even more grumpy. [she is a much lovelier person all round than me] I will ring tomorrow if I am less grumpy.

Ah well. the girls had a bath whilst I grumped. SB came down and saw big’s castle. she def wants a castle for her birthday, but no longer tower of doom, but perhaps the pintoys mediaeval one – which I also like. SO I guess that is on. She then got stuff ready for tomorrow, as BB goes to a toddler gym session first one, and SB will have to sit at edge as quiet as a mouse – fingers crossed for chris there, as it will be difficult for SB who will be desperate to join in.
I have now eaten loads of chocolate – which I had banned from my diet – sigh.

rashes

well, that rash seems to have been the start of a reactive polyarthropathy caused by an infection caught from children – viral or bacterial. seen a consultant rheumatologist today as just couldn’t hold pen properly – sigh.

luckilly no need to do anything overwhelmingly important with my hands till next tues, and he thinks it should be better by then.