Petits Haricots

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Just relies more on DH blogging it, and that is not so often!! SB brought home her yellow belt from judo and was v happy with that. We watched some more of a Ray Mears prog about Canada’s Northern Territories which we have v much all enjoyed.

Thurs and they all went to tots and nots. SB did some french, as she is keen to get on with the Skoldo and they all like the new look church hall. Gym to follow, enjoyable as always. BB says she has 3 friends there now – which is excellent, as she never strikes me as a natural friend maker! I managed to get home from work in time to pick BB up and bring her back, and we played a game and tickled.

Friday was a tidying day, and my parents arrived fairly early. when I arrived back from work there had been a lot of games playing and chatting. Dad had brought a v ancient tin of brasso and was working on the ‘door furniture’ [odd phrase if ever there was one!] but decided in the end to coat in tomato ketchup and leave, as quicker!! front door does look a lot better now though. We chatted, thought about their holiday to malta, and our holiday to canada a bit, and when the children in bed played alhambra.

sat we would have gone out to a national trust property, but mum had a broken toe, making walking quite difficult. SO instead we went to the garden centre and looked a the choices of slate for the garden, and also some seeds for the girls for the veg bed. We are hoping to do a good year of gardening this year, and so each girl will get a bed to play with. they have both decided on flowers and BB has gone for sunflowers [2 varieties] alpine strawbs – to eat obviously!, foxgloves, and some wierd looking fluffy things! BB has 2 types of stock, rudbeckia, violas, californian poppies, and i am sure there is something else too? She also smiled sweetly enough to get a piggy moneybank We will be resurrecting our gardening blog I think, and hoping for a productive year. July might be a prob tho!

The afternoon was mostly spent playing games, SB has decided that she can lightly play the clarinet, so she did 5 mins practice twice on the sat. She also has finished the music theory papers from gina, but won’t let me look at them – fingers crossed then! But mostly we all played snap, a counting game, rummy, uno [lots] and were chatty.

SB came downstairs at about 12.30 tho with terrible tummy pains. i decided not appendicitis, prob more related to the amount of times viv had come up in discussion. SO we had a curative Moroccan mint tea – which she rather liked and i snuggled her in bed until she fell asleep c 1.30. I thought i might sleep too, but bb woke up, but was easily sorted. waking at 2.30 she was less easily sorted, again, i think perhaps due to a bit too much thought about viv, and so i finally got to sleep sometime after hearing the church chiming for 4 am . this made me less enthusiastic about today really!

Got out of bed finally when mum started playing the piano in the ‘get out of bed now’ way she did when i lived at home, and the piano under my bedroom – some things don’t change, even 20 years later! Maybe particularly so when you are nostalgic for an easier and more secure time. girls breakfasted and dressed, snap played with BB and then smallworld with SB, mum and dad. much enjoyed, but took a long time, and pushed lunch to 2, so mum and dad left at 3 [later than we had planned] and we were too late for the country dancing that otherwise would have gone to.

Instead, we all being a bit run down by such a dreadful night sleep! SB snuggled herself onto the sofa and read a book [her fav thing i think is to read a book ] BB and I went out and sowed some seeds, her flowers and my peppers and aubergines. v happy to have propagator up and running, but hope gets warm enough in greenhouse. maybe will try and find some bubblewrap so that can insulate some more, as whilst germinating, don’t need good light, but do need warmth.

BB and I made a choc cake next, and I left them alone in the house whilst going to the onestop across the road. DH was in the garden, but effectively, they were no different to if he had been out. I timed it, just under 5 mins to go there and buy 2 boxes of eggs. I don’t understand the problem of leaving children – albeit v briefly – at home where you know they will be sensible and safe. An hour to waitrose and back would be a v different story, obviously, as BB too unpredictable for that length and wouldn’t like it. SB mostly made on her own v v yummy cheese and olive scones . Getting late by now, so bb watched a bit of sinbad, SB read, we had pasta for tea [altogether] and they got processed thro the bedtime routine.

Have had a reappearance of mice despite the mice warning thingies, trap and 2 cats!. arrghhhhhhhhhhhh.

Today was a much reduced group. Lecielrouge were off to what sounded like a v boring london trip [lol!! just absolutely green with jealousy - a preview of the dr who experience! looking forward to hearing all about it.], and at the last minute Jax and Merry couldn’t make it either. SO a quick readjustment and a slow lazy start! It had an inauspicious start, in tht DH had swept the conservatory and then loads of the mess was in an old laminated tablecloth . unfortunately i didn’t know this, and next morning when putting furniture back i disturbed it, and all the mess went all over the floor again not happy!!

We had a much lazier session that usual, as had less children to do each craft [and thus some spares as well], but also less crafts for them to do as the negative. We started with all the children taking turns to bounce on the trampoline, and SB organised the ones currently not bouncing into building the trojan horse. my orig idea would have been that we would have done it peep thro, a bit like joseph, but they built a fab 3d structure instead and painted it. at the end of the day, when dry, they took turns being hiding greeks in the horse, or howling trojans on the ramparts!

The next bit was music with G, she had brought a variety of instruments that might be similar to those in ancient greek, and we had pretend aulos with 2 recorders! was it a shawm with the hidden reed? anyway, we enjoyed being v noisy!! snack had a greek flavour with olives and humousthen some started with instrument making, others with greek pots, and yet others with the olive winner wreaths. there seemed to be a fair bit of remembrance/knowledge floating around, so something is going in and the greek pots looked really good.

lunch was the standard pasta, but hoping that next time we might bring and share greek style? some more trampolining, then more of above, and also some Agamemnon masks, cunningly made with tin foli rather than beaten gold an interesting greek war game – which the boys spotted a cunning winning strategy for fairly quickly, and some music theory paper prac for those planning the exam this time. SB surprised me by 90%! lets hope she reads the questions properly in the exam and does as well then. Wrapping up with trampolining, photos in the trojan horse, and a nice cup of tea . brownies and judo for sb, and bb and i are relaxing on the sofa

[will add photos when flickred]

well, i was going to say that i had done completely nothing today, but it isn’t entirely true. i trampolined, and grad felt more confident at it!! [ie reassured it wouldn't break under me ] the girls trampolined, made bead bracelets [by the dozen ] SB did her music theory and we mostly spent the day not really doing a great deal. the greenhouse is looking much more sorted tho, and we did cook bananas in the embers for snack – yummy!! and then show how you could use glowing embers to make a new fire. But that was pretty much it. SB nearly beat me at the train game – she played brilliantly and I can’t believe she didn’t win actually

first true day off in a fortnight! phew!! i was working last weekend, and actually, latinetc days for me no longer count as days off as they are such hard work. Different from work work, but i have to concentrate and be organised none the less! on latinetc, i do think the effort we have all gone into to try and tweak and jiggle about the timings has given us what looks like a fab day

I had thought to rouse myself to go out, but in the end had a lovely relaxed day with the girls!! SB didn’t sleep well last night, so i slept with her and we woke up late! downstairs and a bit of music theory – i do wish she would write the sharps and flats on the right line and in the right order! she also finished her galore park junior english 1 and started her junior history 2. she was somewhat mortified to be ‘behind’ in age, and i told her this was ridiculous, the galore parks were perfectly timing with our story of the world in history and best kept that way [and she has finished book 1 in a term], science was science, and she was getting a good grounding [nearly finished book 2] and english wasn’t her strongest point, so it was best doing thoroughly in order. [actually, she is now much better at english generally, but spelling abysmal!]. [ aside -the junior galore parks say book 1 for when 7 at beginning of year, book 2 at 8 and book 3 at 9, so we should be at 9. I wouldn't be at all surprised if she didn't become a bit more keen to get through the galore park to 'catch up' tho]BB and i did maths together, where she swore she didn’t understand what ‘take-away’ meant. i explained in all the different ways, and then she said, ‘why hadn’t i just said take-away at the beginning’ argh!

We did a fair bit of fimo-ing. my big blue pack of fimo tho is really dry. i opened it at christmas and it was diff to use, which i put down to the cold conservatory, but it still is v cracky and hard to work. too expensive to junk, but the girls won’t use it either – any suggestions on how to get it workable? never had that prob before with new stuff. SB was doing some lovely cut in designs, but didn’t like any of them and scrunched before i got a pic, but was finally happy with a leaf imprint design she has made for a travelbug. BB has made a travelbug fob remarkably like the tanith charms. I made 2, a union flag to set free in Canada, and a turtle one with scraps. [i don't allow myself the nice fimo]. BB did a fab plesiosaur, but we had constant arguing with SB over pronunciation [ply vs plee] , so it is now an elasmosaur [it does have a long neck] actually it is now broken, so i need to find UHU before bed!

we also did some sowing and growing. Our hanging gardens of babylon have sprouted, tho some of the seeds have gone a bit mouldy. We got the potato council potatoes – rocket and rudolph – and put them out to chit, a bit early, but other years we have forgotten, so they have chitted in their bags! DH was also being a good gardener, on the clearing front he has done an excellent job on one of the jungle areas, aiming to have the greenhouse useable soon! That meant we had lots and lots of branches and bits for a big ginormous bonfire! so we had one and cooked baked pots in it

Girls also spent ages trampolining, general larking about and watching back dr who whilst eagerly awaiting the start of a new series we also looked at my pics of canada from a holiday there when i was 20 with parents. All v excited . Also our rabbit sedna, who has had a stormy course post op neutering seems a lot more lively today.

All in all, a great day! I might even have energy to go walking tomorrow

migrainous day for me, coldy day for z, shattered day for k, and very grumpy day for g as the road she needed to drive along was blocked and so she had a fab time getting to latinetc . but, despite that, actually i think we did well!! The children all enjoyed it, and did a fair number of things. we adults i think got an idea for fiddling around with what we do when to try and make the flow easier for us [cos it is a 'hard work' day]. so 3 cheers for latinetc!! we did try out me having a gap between each science, and that made quite a difference too.

SO, for science [since i do that bit] we did acids and bases, recapping on chapter 4 of real science for kids chemistry. What an acid and base is, what pH is all about, different indicators [we had prepared cabbage water and also had litmus papers and indicator paper]. I had made a sheet so that we could test our solutions 1 and 2 [dilute vinegar and dilute ammonia] and see what happened to the indicator and litmus, and then use this to determine whether our other 6 solutions were acids or bases, and we also then stuck all of them down. the cabbage water I had in test tubes, and it went such beautiful colours. my favourite was the emerald green with the ammonia :). All the children seemed to have learnt something and been happy with the experiment.

Loved the torn architecture art that z did with them this week, both girls made really lovely pictures. definately ‘portfolio’ art type material . BB again had a recorder lesson, and was v happy to now be playing hot cross buns. me too, as little fly was wearing a bit thin… i heard the middlies recorder ensemble sounding fab as well, and saw some music theory in action. Minimus also occured, they were supposed to march outside, but it was absolutely freezing!! [and no grown up fancied it] so they were let off .

I think that for all the stress and effort we adults put into this session, it is replayed a hundredfold by what the children get out of it, in view of tailored education to a high standard, with individual care. Great friends to do it with as well. Something to be proud of [even if, with migraine on weds i would have prefered to duvet, and in fact by the time i got home, i just couldn't do anything else ]

brownies cancelled for SB, but she did judo. BB continued to be ‘challenging’ but did do loads of jigsaws! SB did a minute bit of mathletics, some dk project book and we all did mycenaeans in SoTW. i have been to mycaenae. it is a shock to realise i went there over 20 years ago tho!! the memory still v fresh.

I should prob do a brief recap on week before the latinetc, tho daddybean may well blog! i obv worked mon and tues, and tues a partic long and diff day! The girls did 2 extra activities this week, on mon they went for a trampoline taster session – bb disappointed that just bouncing which she cn do already! DH and SB i think would quite like to give it ago as timetables allow. Mon was also test day for BB, and this time protein and blood in urine, gp thinks might be uti, but she is completely asympt, and uti not so common. I am worried it is a renal complication of the HSP she had before xmas. fingers crossed not so tho. Tues was general home ed stuff in the morning, SB so keen to tick loads spent too little time on some things, but now, having had to do them again, will hopefully have learnt one of life’s lessons about taking care to do it right first time [ok, so it is a lesson you keep relearning!] and then another fab Djembe drumming session pm. BB didn’t drum much, as claimed her arm hurt too much from her MMR booster jab she had on Mon. When i returned we cuddled, played some lego and then watched the last edwardian farm and finally read the science chapter for the next days latinetc. I had awful migraine, so then slumped and left DH in charge of getting the stuff together