Making it up

Nice, No3 is neat too

A Recipe For A Housing Crash! Just to cheer up everyone.

…and which leads nicely into The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity

Oops, nearly forgot.

Word Of The Day

Value: Worth in usefulness or importance to the possessor; utility or merit

e.g. “That £$¥€ing toaster has no £$¥€ing value whatsoever.”

Dateline: Lunchtime.

In response to a request for additional toast, I insert two slices of granary into the slots of our recently acquired Tesco® Value® Toaster and push the lever down. I start to move away. Flash! Sput! The toaster does a November the 5th impression.

Now, gentle reader, more than a few of you will have been party to one of my little talks about how future archaeologists are going to refer to the period we are now in as the Cheap Plastic Shit Era on account of the thick layer of crap that is going to be left behind by all the not-fit-for-purpose junk and how cheap and good value are not necessarily the same thing and very often are not.

Well, anyway, far be it from me to miss an opportunity like this to say…

Jax, I told you so.

unevenly atm.

So trips to work stretch out and eat hours, days yawn before me, and evenings evaporate. How did it get to be 10pm, and I’ve only just unwound, haven’t done anything of the pile of things I need to do, and now I desperately need to go to bed?

Children seem relatively happy, as far as I can tell, life is hectic, work is work.

Been away. Back now.

High points of the weekend. Fresh croissants from the bakery over the road for breakfast on Saturday. Splendiferous veggie biryani for dinner. Excellent company. Some wine.

Oh, and following on from Sarahthespeechtherapist’s last visit we have been practising some sounds with Small. Over the weekend, first time ever we got “t-t-t” from him. Neat.

Bloody good weekend. Grand finale, trip to Hinchingbrooke Park for a Romano-Celto thingy with the Beans and Max’s Merry men girls.

Helen, Chris, thanks, we all had a super time.

Swizz Of The Cards

Just say No2ID.

Drive home from hell yesterday - took two hours. Lorry fire on the M1, so I avoided that, only to discover that most of the centre of Sheffield has been shut. Oh good.

So I wasn’t best company last night, although I still did reading aloud. I’m quite getting into that, and I’m concentrating on being cuddly, which doesn’t come naturally either.

By contrast tonight’s drive was an absolute doddle at only 1 hour 20 including a petrol stop. So I was positively bright and cheerful. Honest.

Small got two books, Big got a chapter of Barbie Rapunzel and the second part of the first chapter of Thursday’s children. I know that she’s sticking with that because she thinks I want her to - she doesn’t like the amount of background setting that is going on. Ah well, we’ll give it another chapter, and if she still isn’t into, put it back on the shelves for another few months. This is our second attempt already, maybe it’ll be a third time lucky book.

And now I’ve managed ten minutes sorting (must get myself an egg timer) so I’ve got to tidy up the unsorted bits, and go to bed.

Legs hurt.

Well I had a Sabbatical last week. Five days of blogging was just too much for me. It was a hectic week. I was trying and failing to catch up on all the work I meant to do, I had somehow knackered my back. (New knackered, not the same old same old). I went to the osteopath, who concluded that I had “done something” to the floating rib and told me in a cheerful voice that it wasn’t the old problem but something new. I pointed out that this was a bit like a surgeon telling a patient “Good news, you are going to save a fortune on shoes”. Anyway, it has been a lot better since, but I don’t think I would have coped at all without the help of the most excellent Sarah. I must admit though I did kind of resent not being able to spend so much time with the smalls, even though the week before I was bloody glad it was over when Jax got back and wanted to be with them.

Today has been really rather good. I had a chat with Big and we agreed that the tantruming and whining and wailing and moaning she has been doing every time she has been asked to read was unnecessary and that it would save a lot of time if she just did the reading. And she did. Worked her way through the second half of her book from Friday, got on very well with it, then read it through laughing on the recap. So that was pretty good.

We also had the nice speech therapist round this morning. She has left a set of Mr. Men and a slide and Big has been merrily helping Small practising the sounds per instructions. Cool.

We also had a rather successful maths session. I had not done any maths with her so I did a little recap. She had done ‘times’ she said - but it didn’t seem to have stuck so we talked about how it worked and explored it with Cuisenaire rods. So I am chalking that up as a success too, I think.

Dinner was kind of fun too, a game of two halves. I knocked up a simple dish of devilled chicken with buttered rice. Small thought it was great and pushed it round his plate for ages - don’t think he actually ate any though. Big - having shrieked “I don’t like rice” rejected the chicken and announced that she liked rice. Hmm. What was wrong with the chicken? **** knows. I liked it.

Jax has just got back, sounds like she has had a lovely day at the byte face, and a restful drive home averaging twenty five mph. So that’s nice.

Anyway, word of the day

Calm: Serenity; tranquillity; peace.

Really has been very pleasant.

Think I may have been guilty of wanting too much today, and consequently not really getting anything. Managed to make it out shopping without children, but Small had to prised off me, which made me feel bad.

Big and I failed spectacularly to manage to get along this afternoon - everything she thought of to do for one reason or other we couldn’t manage. Ended up sending her out of the room to her bedroom for some transgression that was so terrible that I can’t even remember it now. Possible that I’m not being entirely balanced here.

Anyway, we recovered the day slightly when we read after bath - she had the ‘prelude’ to Thursday’s children, Rumer Godden, he had Rattletrap car again - she read Wobble Bear says Yellow, all by herself. I was well impressed. I had to help mainly on words starting with ‘w’, and occasionally point out that reading the words on the page helps with telling the story, but she did it.

And then Tim said that instead of sorting and tidying, he thought I should relax after a tough day, so I did. Got lots more crochet done, and caught up with Lost. Just watching Legally Blonde now, and pondering what to wear tomorrow. Joy.

Big has decided she wants to learn to cross stitch. This is something that I get to do rather than Tim (not quite sure whether to be thrilled about that or not tbh).

Anyone the kit we bought came with 12 threads which is what it said on the box, but they are only in 4 colours. The included designs require a whole selection of colours we haven’t got.

So I’ve found this:

Cross stitch guide and she’s chosen this

Wish me luck.

Following a discussion on a list somewhere, someone suggested that many ppl rely on Hesfes as their introduction to home ed and the home ed community.

This seems odd to me on many levels. Are there really ppl who go to Hesfes who’ve never met any other home educators? Hesfes doesn’t begin to represent the entirety of the home ed community. I’m sure there are large subsections that wouldn’t dream of going near it, forgive me for the stereotyping, but I can’t imagine that ppl home educating for religious reasons and doing a structured approach have even heard of it, let alone would go to it.

How many ppl go to Hesfes once and never again? Or how many of the ppl going aren’t now home educated - teens past the age perhaps?

I’d be really interested in answers as to how ppl reading here met home ed and the home ed community irl, way back whenever it was.

Pondering on how I could research this more efficiently…

to here:

which was very pleasant.

Caught up with Kirsty, Kris, Barbara, Janet and met Joe.

Which was also pleasant.

I’ve got more piccies and more to say, but I feel very rough, so instead I’m going to go to bed and hope I can sleep whatever it is off.

Bear.

And apparently he can say doll too.

I think we might be cracking this talking lark….

I keep getting this urge to slap ppl round the back of the head and say “you think?!”

The driving is getting better - I left by 7.15 this morning, and even stopping to let the mouse out in the layby (is that number 9? Do we care any more?) I managed to get across the A62 without getting stuck in traffic. That junction usually costs me 10 minutes. So at my desk by 8.20, which means the end of the day feels that much closer somehow.

And I do enjoy coding. I like problem solving. I enjoy researching program design. Must read that book Jonathan lent me.

Even better, I popped out for a cuppa at lunch time, and it was very peaceful. Thanks Gill. Amazing how home education and blogs have given me real friends all over the country.

Evening not brilliant unfortunately. Small has got a stinking cold, which I think is why he was up at 2am this morning. Bless him, he couldn’t find us, so when I hurtled out of bed (ok, crawled reluctantly over Tim) I couldn’t find him. No glasses, no directional hearing, it was kind of dark, there’s a bend in the stairs - took me a minute or two to find him given that he’d gone wandering downstairs. Got him back to bed and back to sleep, ooh, for all of 10 minutes, then he ended up in bed with us. Can’t say as I mind too much once in a while, though this morning I felt kind of rough.

Anyway, all of that meant that by this evening he was tired, I was tired, and Big has to get in on the act too. So he got three stories while she was still loafing in the bath, she got a chapter of Ballet Diaries, but I refused to read the last one to children belting round the room, clambering over beds, hiding under duvets and generally not listening.

Eventually left them to it, and it went quiet quite quickly - there’s just been a thud and when I went up, he’d falled out of the bed they’d been sharing.

Now we’re watching Doctor Who, and I’m pondering not even bothering with emails, maybe doing a little crochet and getting an early night.

and Big thinks she would like to keep a diary of her own.

I love the big grin I get from them both when I appear on an evening. I hate leaving them on a morning.

Very tired.

Night all.

Oh, and Small’s new word of the day was ‘Bob’.

Anyone interested in dinosaurs?

According to The Times T Rex looked like Fluffy Chick

Then of course there were the pterosaurs.

I seem to recall Joyce saying something at some point about it feeling like throwing her offspring up in the air and hoping that Bob would catch, beginning to get an inkling of what that feels like. Except I’m not doing the throwing or catching, just the coordinating, and it feels a bit odd.

So today should have been Tim’s office day, but his back was bad, so Sarah spelled him for a couple of hours, and he’s doing office on Thurs. Which conflicts with ballet, so I’ve just called Grandma into play on that one. Would invite her to stay for tea, but she’s off to the theatre that evening. And I’m worrying slightly about the fuel situation - I can go to and fro 1 1/2 times more before I need to think about filling up, but that would mean queueing on the way home. Think I’ll get up extra early Thurs morning and see if I can fill up on the way there. If not, think I’ll be chucking an overnight bag in the boot, and hoping they’ll take me in off the path

This evening was pleasant - read three books with Small, did a nappy change (so pleased that he’s saving those for after the bath for me ) and then two chapters of Ballet Diary to Big. Left her reading Hand, Hand to Small while I went to take rubbish to the bin. Came back in to Small screaming on Tim’s knee, having contrived to fall down the stairs in my absence. Didn’t seem to have harmed anything but his pride somehow, which is kind of impressive.

He’s been up and down the stairs several times since, eventually falling asleep in his cot, or so I’m told. And my evening has evaporated, and I haven’t found my passport again.

and himself gets 5 on his body count! Harumph, whose blog is this anyway?

Much better journeys to and from today, although it didn’t amuse me to see the queues at the petrol station at the top of the hill. I can go back and forth two and a half more times, then I’ll have to have petrol - I’d rather do it Weds evening, which I think is going to be the worse possible time to do it.

Bugger.

In other news, children had a great day out with Sarah and still made it to our puddlers group, though I think Tim filed my carefully prepared list of instructions, so nothing else made it there with them. Oops.

I got home in time to briefly catch up with Sarah, bath the kids and read two chapters of a Ballet Diary to Big, and a Beautiful bunch of bananas to Small. They then played musical beds for a bit, so hopefully they’ll sleep in in the morning again.

Night all.

Crunch, squeak, crunch, squeak, crunch, gulp, gulp. Mouse No 7 is no more, all gone. I think we may be nearing the end of them. Claude always comes in looking hopeful now, I think he is convinced that we have arranged a kind of Easter Egg hunt for him.

Edited 12th September, 7.20am. No 8 was in the trap this morning.

shame it’s nearly over.

In hindsight, we shouldn’t have belted up to West Yorkshire yesterday, lovely as it was to spend an evening off the path (red wine as well, thanks Jonathan!). But we were tired, the children were tired, and I’ve ended up spending most of today finishing off some ecommerce work.

But now it’s done, Tim’s ironed my work clothes for tomorrow, and he’s making me hot chocolate before doing the washing up. And an early night is on the cards I think