Run 1.5 miles on just under 16 minutes.

Home, shower, dress. Somewhere in and amongst put washing in, (nappies, strip sheet of double bed and bedside cot). Dress Smallest, wrangle children in passing.

Wander to Post Office (bumping into relative for chat on way) to recover money Big lost in stamp machine last night. Find it in rejected coin slot. Stop at coop on way home to buy stamps.

At home, pack lunch and hang out washing before piling children into car and heading to medieval reenactors fayre to meet with friends for afternoon to work out what is needed for Kentwell.

Meet dragons, buy signed book (The Tudor Tailor
) , facilitate drop spindle lesson for Big, get hugely reassured about whole Kentwell thing, but miss cafe and spend afternoon without tea.

Drive home.

Wash up, make tea, eat tea, fetch washing in, make beds and write blogpost on phone siting on bathroom floor while Smallest in bath and tea going cold.

And I wonder why I never seem to get anything done…

I was beyond tired when I got to bed last night, and then had an awful night with Smallest – first time in ages. I think it was all the driving around that did it, with short odd naps folded up in her car seat iyswim. So I didn’t feel an awful lot better when I got up this morning, with another appt to go to, then back for only a couple of hours before tramping down to the leisure centre for yet another instalment of rookie lifeguard.

It’s just as well Big started rookie in September rather than waiting til this year. She’s two lessons off finishing the standard course now, with just her gold challenge test session and then the 1500m test session to go. Oddly her teacher had been preparing them for the mile, and I know that a child in her swim squad did just that in March, but when the letter came out it only said 1500. I’m going to ring up and query it, as she’s ever so disappointed to think she might not get that. I don’t care if they’ve discontinued the badge, they can let her swim the extra four lengths and write it up themselves if necessary!

So that’s the water related news. Although I’m not sure if I mentioned that when we were at a sandy beach at the weekend Smallest paddled for the first time (I know I shared the image) and had to be carried out of the water shivering and screaming to go back in

Small has had a tough week, but it was hugely brightened this morning by the arrival of Shadowmagic: Prince of Hazel and Oak, ostensibly for me to review, but in reality it looks like he’ll be doing it. I won the first last year and he stole that and read it, emailing the author, John Lenahan, to say it was one of the best books he’d ever read. (For his age he has actually read quite a lot of books. He’s not desperately discriminating though ) Anyway, it kept him very happy in the car today, so that was a huge bonus. Thank you Friday Project, full review to follow very soon.

Not been a good week for the garden – accidentally left the seedlings out overnight instead of returning to the porch and something ate several of them Tomorrow I must see what I can salvage. That’s if I remember to bring them in tonight.

And I do believe we might get some rain too. That would be good. I miss it.

It’s been a good day. At 9 o’clock this morning I couldn’t forecast I’d be ending the day saying that though. At 9 o’clock I was asking Small to stop screaming shut up.

Why wouldn’t you be quiet, I asked Big.

I couldn’t hear him.

Why couldn’t you hear him?

Because I had my fingers in my ears and was singing “la la la I can’t hear you.”

*headdesk* Not a good start to a hectic day.

Because today was Christmas party home ed style. It was our group nativity and show, and Big was due to narrate, as well as playing the bells. By 9.10 she was in her room sulking that she didn’t want to be involved at all, and it took til after 10 to gather everything together and get out of the house.

Thankfully after that start to the day, the only way was up.

Big pulled herself together and narrated beautifully.

Small stepped up and with only one rehearsal filled in as the third king.

And I really enjoyed the afternoon. Once the screaming had stopped

So thank you very much to all concerned for making Christmas kick off in a wonderful way.

There’s loads of them around. I did the Next one (£210 of gadgets today) and #12daysofNokia, EZPay via facebook to win £50, theluckygamer, cheapassgamer win everything, bambino goodies, Itchy…I’m sure I’ve forgotten a few. Stick ‘em in the comments if you want to share!

Other than that, I went and queued in the post office, did a bit of shopping, drove slowly to town in the fog, drove even more slowly back, oh and all that was after I’d run 2.5 miles this morning.

Still time to sponsor me for the EACH Santa run

This morning we were due to set out early or mid morning for historyetc. I stayed up late trying to get stuff done beforehand, and then got up early to finish things off. And we still didn’t leave home until 12.30

This meant that the children missed the morning crafts and lunch with their friends and if I had been organised enough to be bringing something with me everyone would have been waiting for it. So perhaps there is a bright side to being disorganised and unprepared. (As an aside I have now figured out my contributions from now on. I’m going to get a batch of pegdolls and a pile of remnant material and each time I’ll look up a costume related to the period we’re doing. Then they can all end up with a little collection of historically dressed pegdolls. And as a second contribution I’m going to provide a pile of lapbook blanks and some suggestions for bits that can go in them and then especially older children who run out of things to do can fill them in with whatever takes their fancy Job’s a good ‘un.)

However, I managed to send some emails, and deliver an iPad to the post office, although it would have helped if I’d looked into how to return the @WomWorldNokia E72 *before* I tramped it down to Smiths (which admittedly is only 5 minutes further down the road than the post office, but still, it was 5 minutes I could have done without spending out and about). Which is why I still have the E72

Where was I?

Oh yes, history.

The children, when we finally arrived, loved it. They made jade rune stones and silk bags to keep them in, made shakers, listened to African stories and helped cook papayan fried rice. And of course there was playing and chatting and time to go on the wii and ds.

The adults may have found time to drink wine and eat takeout curry

And soa has bounced, crawled, giggled, slept, eaten, cruised and generally been an utterly adorable one year old.

One year old. I can barely believe it even now.

I won.

I like winning competitions

So on Thursday we used the vouchers – we took Tim’s brother and sister-in-law to Sutton Hoo, spent some time in the exhibition hall

and then retired to the restaurant.

We have visited before, and we have eaten there before. So we knew we were going to have a good day out.

It was more than good.

The kids had a fab time in the exhibition – even smallest enjoyed herself and crawled around and drew. As you can see, Small dressed up, although we couldn’t find the tunic dress for Big, so she settled on just trying on the headdress. And then the meal was absolutely fantastic.

When we went in I went up to the till to explain I had the voucher, and was greeted with “we’ve been expecting you” which was a pretty good start to the conversation. The voucher was for 4 ppl to each have a meal up to £20 including a drink, but the guy on the till said that we could just have whatever we wanted and he’d keep track and let us know when we ran out of money.

We tried quite hard, but we only went 15p over. Think that was Smallest’s gingerbread man

The rest of the adults had a steak and ale pie, while as the token veggie I settled on leek and stilton bread and butter pudding. I was slightly disappointed when mine came out as it looked like I had more salad than pudding, but tbh the portion size was actually about perfect. Although I did have room to squeeze in apple and berry crumble for dessert. I gave up on my beer though (Tim was heartbroken to have to finish it for me ) and was impressed to discover that they have jugs of water and glasses on offer, so you can just help yourself. It’s a good touch.

They also have Tripp Trapp high chairs, so smallest got to sit right up to the table, all the better to steal food from everyone’s plate. Apparently mushrooms, steak, and potatoes are good, and custard is even better, either cold from Aunty S’s trifle, or warm from my crumble.

All the staff were friendly and helpful and the children enjoyed their meatballs too – proper meatballs with chunky bread and cheese on top. And they had jelly for afters.

All in all, I can’t speak too highly of our day out – we had a wonderful time, and I would really recommend Sutton Hoo, both for the education, and for the food.

What were you doing at 20:10 20/10 2010?

Me, t’bloke, Small and the baby were at the table, eating as a family.

Big was out.

At 20:10 on 20/10 2010 she made her Guide promise and joined Guides. In a historic monument with hundreds of other Brownies, Rainbows and Guides renewing their promises too.

I think that’s a pretty cool thing to remember

So I sorted through piles of clothes into different ages and he sorted through piles of stuff generally and then dismantled the bed and manhandled the mattress downstairs. Didn’t get as far as reassembling the bed downstairs as we had a date some distance away, so at 4 o’clock we loaded ourselves into the car and set out for a swimming birthday party. (Which reminds me of one of the things the children must have done – make birthday cards!)

Fantastic pool (very warm and comfortable) and once the children were separated a very pleasant swim. Even managed to chat with a few other parents in between wondering where Small had scampered off to now! He’s definitely lost all fear of the water which I suppose is a good thing on his way to swimming, but makes for some hair raising moments for me

Michelle had definitely not over (or under for that matter) catered, and there was a lovely birthday tea, and I managed to meet Grit Slightly odd to introduce myself to someone IRL using my blog address, but not completely unheard of. Long tradition of meeting ppl online first in this family anyway Nice to compare short notes on blogging, although it wasn’t really the environment to sit and chat, with a huge number of excited and still slightly damp children about. (Whoever says that home educated children don’t get to have friends should have been a fly on the wall there last night, there was plenty of evidence to the contrary for all to see )

And after the food, and the most excellent cake, back to the manor for cups of tea and chat. Small was over excited and needed to stay sitting next to me, but once he’d got over the immediate huff he was quite calm and played tangrams for a while. We didn’t stop desperately long, or at least, I didn’t think we did, but it was after 10 when we left, and that meant it was after midnight when we got in with very tired children. So it was a lie in for everyone this morning

Big settled quickly to her work again this morning – it seems possible that I’ve now found the right level of things to be working with her on both spelling and handwriting so she enjoyed it today. We did some work on a_e and ay words – I gave her lists and she tried to memorize them and write them out herself, and then she thought of a couple more words of each type. I pointed out that she’d used a capital B in the middle of a word and she said that that was because she’s never sure which way round that one goes, so it’s easier to use the capital to get the right one. Hm, that must be indicative of something surely? And then I printed her more jardotted stuff to write over, this time just the alphabet and we agreed that any time that she’s going to do some writing she’ll go over the alphabet first to help her remember how it works. Apparently the little arrows to show which way to write the letters really helps, as she doesn’t remember anyone ever showing her that before.

Am wondering if because she could already read and write she just skipped lots of the montessori starter stuff, and therefore doesn’t have the sound foundations on this any more than she does on maths. Sigh. Hoping that we’ll whip through it now we know what’s wrong anyway.

She did some maths as well, and then got stuck into the Nature Detectives autumn/ winter mailing, complete with lots of top trumps on fungus. By this time Small had come to join us, and he started with another telling time sheet, then did two maths practices (each was only a page long mind ) although he did at one point complain that his writing was too big to fit the answers on the page. At this point I discussed handwriting with him and printed him a sheet out and he’s decided he would like to learn how to form letters. I know he hasn’t learnt before, it’s all just been acquired as he’s gone along, but I also know that there’s never any point in trying to introduce anything before he’s interested in it.

Not sure how much of the handwriting he did before he got distracted by the top trump mushrooms They then went on to play cards for another hour or so

Eventually got them organised and headed out to the park to meet up with local home educators. The car park was heaving – had to wait for a woman to leave before there was anywhere to park, but then again, it was yet another glorious day. There were lots of families in the play area, including a family with a 6 year old boy who would like friends of his own, which of course explains why he and Small headed for opposite ends of the play area and ignored each other for the hour they were both there. Sigh. Have had a bit of a chat with Small about that this evening, he was quite pleased with himself for making friends with a little girl there but she was just someone we bumped into and may never meet again, while A is someone that we are likely to meet on many occasions.

Lovely lovely afternoon in the sun and the children played in the water with only minor intervention needed, then we headed for home. I’ll gloss over the carpark which I’m going to blog separately, then when we got back home, the kids watched James and the Giant Peach from this collection while Tim pampered me with tea and toast.

Children are now in bed and I’m trying to work out if there’s anything I fancy to eat.

Hm.

Not sure that I’ve quite got the hang of this scheduling yet.

Anyway, we started out by dashing over to the next town to drop off my TMA – looked like there was another envelope without stamp on her doormat too Then we went from there to see Helen-who-lives-near-us (rather than HelenHaricot) for a play/chat/early lunch which was very lovely. Right up until I said it was time to leave, when Small collapsed into a sobbing heap as he hadn’t had chance to go on the trampoline. Apparently the 10 minute warning wasn’t sufficient because the dog was outside, and he’s not as familiar with Helen’s dog as he was with Roxy, so didn’t feel comfortable going outside with her.

Rectified and we stopped an extra few minutes for him to bounce, then I said we had to go or there was no point in going as we were only going to get an hour at group, and Big collapsed in a heap over the idea that we were already late.

Sigh. There are definitely times when you just can’t win. Scraped her back together and suggested that maybe she needed to wear a watch so that she could keep an eye on the time if she wanted to be at places at particular times (and yes, I know I’m making a rod for my back there, alternative suggestions welcome) and headed off to group.

Which she then sulked through, as the other children were playing the same game they had last time we were there and she doesn’t like that game. It is refreshing to be in a place with several other mothers who just accept your children’s behaviour though, even when your children are behaving as badly as they ever do, and not only don’t judge your parenting, recite their experiences of precisely the same thing.

Came home so that she would have time to do her Brownie homework, which obviously involved a certain amount of wailing, then walked her over to Brownies along with her badge book as requested in the previous week’s letter. The assistant Brown owl knew nothing about this – when I said it had been in the letter, she said that that was addressed to parents and she hadn’t read it Beginning to feel quite concerned about what is going on at that group tbh. Am always making sure that there are other adults around when I drop Big off!

Once she was home, they were fed and put to bed, and then I think Tim and I watched something dire on TV, can’t for the life of me remember what though!

So I pootled away the morning, completely forgetting that home ed music group was starting up again and rang again at 1pm. Which didn’t get me any further as the receptionist who answered the test results line didn’t know what any of the test results meant and suggested instead that she book me a telephone consultation with a doctor, first appt available at 2.45. Sigh. Or scream, depending on how energetic you are feeling.

In the meantime Big had helped Small to finish his Questseekers book, by reading the last bits to him I think So we all agreed that we would go to the library on the way down to swimming – we were due to pick up Big’s friend C to join us at 4.15. All just about doable.

Of course the GP was late calling, but once she was on the phone she was excellent. Gave me the rest of my results with an MCV of 93 and an MCH (I think that’s the right whatchamacallit) of 31.9 she thought my results were absolutely fine and that she wouldn’t expect anyone to have higher than 11 HB at this stage of pregnancy (given that the midwife said she medicated everyone under 11, that means pretty much everyone is being prescribed iron supplements, and the majority of them will be unnecessary and possibly dangerous ). So I have now declined the pregaday, my homebirth is fine according to the GP, and all I have to work out what to do is how to put this across to my midwife.

Kids were thankfully bag packed and ready to go so we left immediately after the phone consult and were at the library trying to locate a Questseekers trained volunteer by 3.45. So Small was signed off as well, result!

Picked up Big’s friend as she arrived back from school, and spent over an hour in the pool with the three of them. It’s far more relaxing going with a swimming offspring quite enjoyed the sensation. Of course Big and C contrived to fall out 40 minutes or so into the session, and both resisted any attempts at reconciliation until I pointed out that we were getting out in 10 minutes and they were wasting valuable playing time. Small splashed around with his ring, and sometimes took it off and tried a frantic doggy paddle, which did move him a little way through the water. The lessons have built up his confidence, even if they haven’t imparted any technique yet

Dropped off C and ended up stopping while the kids gatecrashed her sister’s birthday party for food and games on Wii. Which was rather nice. Then got a lift back as M was on his way to drop off DVDs at blockbuster – over halfway home. Quite amused at the shock which is expressed at the fact we do walk to swimming – it is a mile, but the kids are used to doing it, we must do it twice a week prob, as we go to the beach most weeks as well, which is most of the way there, and we do lots of shorter walks just to shops and library too. Guess I probably have nice fit kids even if they don’t do much organised sport They don’t think anything of walking to the beach or swimming, which I think is excellent.

So late home, kids processed quickly into bed and asleep very quickly – I guess a mile walk *and* swimming for over an hour was quite tiring then!

And enjoy it we did. Kids played in various combinations (suspect my children’s favourite part may well have been the gamecube ) but there was some harmonious out in the garden time, and the only fall out was between my two offspring when Big lost her cool and went for physical intervention instead of speaking to me. Sigh. That put her in a bad mood for the last 20 minutes or so, but other than that, it was a lovely day. Em and I actually got chance to chat and crochet, and O is an extremely delightful baby, I’d like one like that please

Home with an hour to go before first Beavers of the new term – time for a quick computer turn for Small and then some food as he’d pretty much declined all lunch except for grapes and the corner of a cracker. Took him off to Beavers and ended up sitting in the foyer area rather than the car, which was way more comfortable physically, but I felt rather like I was eavesdropping.

What I could hear was hilarious mind. They went around the circle asking what the boys had done during their holidays. There were trips abroad, visits to relatives, camping, legoland, and then they got to Small.

What did you do during the holidays?
Loads of things (good start I thought).
Can you tell us about just one?
I can’t think of anything. (Sigh.)
OK, we’ll ask someone else…
Oh, I thought of something. I started a project with some plants that’s still going on. (Eh?)
What kind of plants?
I can’t remember.
Flowers?
No.
Trees?
No.
OK, we’ll go on to someone else…
I remembered! It’s watercress! (Penny drops, he’s talking about the Eino science project. Out of everything we’ve done this summer: Festival of history, Framlingham castle time travellers four times, visitors twice, numerous beach trips, visit to Landguard fort, forest school, what does he remember? The science kit that we got from playmerrily. How’s that for a recommendation Merry?).

Tim practically cried with laughter when I recounted this one last night. It’s so rare that you get such a classic reminder of how differently Small’s mind operates to everyone else’s, but this really was one.

Brought tired boy home, and Tim fed them pizza, and shortly afterwards me too. Spent some time fighting with an ftp client (unsuccessfully sadly) and then gave up and went to bed.

Anyway, apart from that, and the incident with the mouldy whipped cream (thanks again to the cousin for saving the day, or at the very least the children) they had a lovely time, and Big came home with a centenary badge for her non existent camp blanket, a little fabric badge that she’d decorated and a semi made friendship bracelet, done in the round bit of cardboard style (similar to the weaving disk from Merry’s recent viking blog). So now she’s going to teach me too

Small spent his day being largely self entertaining – he had his goes at playing on the computer, and then went on to do some more website design on paint.net and worked solidly on Scratch for an hour or more, getting his sprites to interact. I showed him LearnScratch as well, but I’m not sure whether he made much use of it.

Tim was brave and entertained cousin’s boyf at the club for several hours, and came back very cheerful shortly before our Brownie was delivered home. I left him in charge while I went off to take some books to drop in to a charity shop and have a stroll (a very gentle, not needing to be anywhere kind of stroll that felt relaxing rather than stressing. Lovely).

The evening deteriorated somewhat around tea time. I’d made a semi traditional meal – boiled potatoes, cabbage and green beans, raw carrots and hickory smoked chicken pieces (those came out of a freezer bag!) Something for everyone, but somewhere along the line Small got himself worked up, partly due to the fact that the weekly shop had been done at Lidl rather than Sainsburys and that meant various familiar items weren’t so familiar. I should point out that I used to shop at Lidl when we lived in old house, and at last house we shopped at Tesco or the coop, so Sainsburys has hardly been carved in stone, but it had been for him, recently at least. So he wound himself up for a battle and a battle we had. Which was nice.

After that, I think Tim and I watched mindless tv until I keeled over and went to bed.

As is usual, I horrendously underestimated the time taken just to cut out 25 5″ squares, so C was still cutting at lunch time, while Big had cut enough for her first tier and quit at that point to start sewing. I made potato salad (from the free potatoes) and we had pick and mix picnic lunch, outside for the offspring, then they played for a while, including Small who wasn’t overly impressed at the time the girls were spending crafting.

And after that, we did some more cutting and sewing. The pattern is a free one from YouCanMakeThis.com – search for Twirls for Girls and you should find it. I do like the amount of instruction that’s included in the patterns, great for beginner sewers.

Sewing pieces of skirt together took up through the afternoon – I think the girls were at it for about 3 1/2 hours all told, pretty impressive concentration skills. Then I boiled up some pasta and Michelle, C, Big and Small snacked before our guests packed up to head home. Lovely weekend – both Big and Small adore C, but somehow don’t actually fight over her, and Michelle is a very easy house (or garden ) guest. Much fun all round, and we hope they come again soon. They could even bring M if they wanted

Quiet evening for offspring – shower and early-ish night, and I don’t think I was actually all that far behind them.

We also saw the biggest caterpillar I’ve ever seen – it tried to commit suicide in one of the watering cans, but I tipped it out and although it was a little dazed a little while later it was humping around the garden again.

After lunch (pick and mix sandwiches with home made bread) we sauntered via the fruiterers to the seafront, where we found hotrods parked all along the promenade. There were several fabulous VW camper vans, and various more obviously hotroddy cars as well as just some classics. The children played in the sand and the sea – the girls made a fabulous castle complete with moat and drawbridge, and Michelle and I were entertained by a completely batty old lady who talked to us for a while.

Tim came down and met us just as we were finishing up – sadly for the children we declined the opportunity to buy them ice cream on the grounds that they’d had access to strawberries, biscuits (for a little country market stall pitched on the grass beyond the prom), grapes and apples, so Small munched the entire bunch of grapes on the way home

Michelle, C, Big and I stopped off very briefly at the remnant shop to raid the bargain bin of 10p scraps of fabric to make patchwork skirts for dolls, and then we sauntered home again. Good way to spend an afternoon.

Evening vanished in cooking while the children watched a film or drew or read – I am so slow at everything! Bubble and squeak, the remnants of the carrots and beans, lamb chops and sausages for the meat eaters (except Small wouldn’t try a chop and Big didn’t like it) and I’ve remembered that I had a country vegetable pie the night before. There we go.

Children to bed relatively early – sea air tired them out, or maybe it was the lack of sleep the night before? Was quite amused to find some pictures that had been drawn of the film, Magic Roundabout, and to be quite unable to decide who’d done them. Ppl in Small’s drawings don’t usually have arms and hands other than stick ones, but in this one he’d done fingers and everything, so I’d assumed it belonged to one of the girls. But no. Not sure whether this is an evolution in his drawing or just a one off, but fascinating none the less.

Lovely chatty evening again but an earlier night than before, as adults were rather tired too.

As is usual, had the argument with Small about leaving the house. It doesn’t seem to make any difference whether I tell him about the activity in advance or not, whether it’s something he’s familiar with or not, whether there are ppl he likes going or not. Hohum. In this case we were due to meet up with WFHelen, Em, Merry and Michelle, so we were definitely going whether he liked it or not!

Of course we didn’t have bread ready for a picnic, so I gathered up fruit and water bottles and we set off, with me having a rough plan that we’d go to one of the many little cafes and grab something for lunch. In the end Michelle had surplus sausage rolls which she was happy to share, and that took care of food needs for the day.

Big was very happy with the highwaymen activities that were going on, while Small just wanted to do the wall walk and the moat walk. He did sit through some of the first talk, and a bit later on WFHelen was taking her two up on the wall, so he went up with them.

While the girls partook of the race to York, I managed to stagger around the moat walk, which kept him happy, though it did mean I missed the mummy race. Not sure I’m in quite the right shape to take part atm

Once all the highwaymen activities were done (and the brief but heavy rain shower (rain? In Suffolk? Surely not!) had passed over) Michelle and C set off to do the audio tour and Big went with them. Small and I watched the virtual wall tour, which didn’t have sound, and then he said he wanted to do the audio tour, which I couldn’t help with. I really can’t get up the steps to the wall walk any more, it just can’t be done Fortuitously at almost exactly this point, Merry and her girls walked past all ready to set off for it, so I managed to tag him on the end, then bought myself a nasty cappucino from the machine in the shop and sat on a slightly damp bench to watch my children from a distance being educated with other families

Em and WFHelen had departed by this point I think, though it was lovely to see them. O is really growing so fast it’s slightly disconcerting!

Once audio-ed out, it became obvious that Small was very ready to leave. He’d done pretty well throughout the day though. It’s getting difficult to match his needs with Big’s needs – will be even more amusing next year when I’ve a small person to cater to as well

So we headed for home and arrived about a minute before Michelle, who was bringing her tent to our garden for the weekend. Tent pitching and tea (I cooked, though for the life of me I can’t remember what!) and a very late night for all the children, but very pleasant chatting for the adults. Lovely.

End of the month Thursday, so it was Forest School. I thought I’d got up in ample time to get us ready to go, but I had, as usual, underestimated the time required to talk Small into leaving the house. He is incredibly activity resistant atm, or at least, very resistant to leaving the house for an activity. Once we get there it’s usually OK.

As it was for Forest School. We were a couple of minutes late, and greeted with great relief as apparently the idea of the fire without me wasn’t good Off into the woods and a couple of hours of smoking myself later, it was declared to have been a good session. Big also did smelly potions and was v helpful with sharing things round – we did pancakes on the fire, and I learnt loads about using a large frying pan on open flames. Puts a fire out remarkably rapidly when you put a large pan across the top.

Small drew with charcoal on a tree, then chased bugs with a bug viewer (the child who professes to be scared of spiders desperately tried to catch one to put in his bug viewer so he could identify it with his Usborne Spotter Bugs and Insects). I think one or both of them also tried out the trail laid around the area though I don’t think they blindfolded up for it.

I was, as usual, slightly surprised by the lack of supervision some ppl give their children near fires, but that’s by the by. No one got hurt, although Big did end up with a face full of smoke which wasn’t very pleasant for her.

Quick picnic lunch afterwards, Roz the stand in ranger came and ate with us which was pleasant. Then she dashed off to Clacton air show and we came home so that I could have a cup of tea before we headed out for afternoon swimming with Small’s friend P.

Pleasant session in the pool – I’m amazed and very proud of the progress Big has made. She has a creditable crawl, especially when she remembers to lift her left arm out of the water, breaststroke is nearly there, she’s just struggling slightly with breathing out while under water (if she hasn’t breathed out, then she doesn’t have time to breath in as well as she lifts her head, and her timing goes to pot). I can easily see her being moved up a group in a week or two though, which is just going to be the crowning glory for her friend C, who still hasn’t achieved a front stroke to get across the pool so hasn’t been moved out of beginners

Small has absolutely no fear of the water any more, I’m pondering a crash course of lessons for him as I don’t think he’s going to learn too well from the weekly half hour session beyond the lack of fear thing. Although the lack of fear has been a very useful achievement

Wish I couldn’t remember Thursday evening, but I can all too well Was leaning over the table and reached one way and something went crunch in the middle of my back. Ow. Had to call Tim to help me out of the kitchen as I couldn’t walk unaided, and he got me to the reclining chair where I spent the rest of the evening feeling sorry for myself. Not a good end to what otherwise was a very pleasant day.

(Yes, I know that doesn’t sound very feminist, but Tim knows way more about looking after houses than I do, if I needed to know it like when I lived alone, I would deal, but I don’t need to right now, so I concentrate on the things I do need to do. )

Tim was up before we needed to leave while we were still doing the finding last little bits for day bags, and told me there had been a leak under the kitchen floor so he’d turned the water off before going to bed. That would explain it then. Left him to deal with that and went off to swimming.

There in good time, especially as Small had his trunks on under his trousers today. And we’d remembered to put pants in his bag for after His teacher finally back today, without so much as a word of explanation, though she did have one armed strapped up, so perhaps the brief rumour of a broken arm was the nearest to the truth. I do not have a problem with ppl being off, things happen, but I do have a problem with poor communication. What would it have hurt to have told us what was going on?

Anyway, she seemed to be putting them through their paces today, in preparation for moving some up as I think this lesson was actually the first of the new set of 10. Think there were nearly 10 children in Small’s group today, and know from seeing the list that there are actually 11 booked in, which is one more than the max, so she needs to move a couple out. Looks like it’s going to be Small’s friend P, which will no doubt upset Big’s friend C, but at least I overheard Denise saying that they need to be able to swim across on front and back, and C does keep stopping to put her feet down to breath when she’s swimming on her front. They are spending next week at a waterpark Eurocamp in Holland though, so she might get enough practise to sort it out then

Not sure it’s going to do her much good in catching Big up though, her teacher was giving her last minute instructions as she came out of the pool and the impression he gave was that she’s very near to moving up again herself. Apparently she needs to lift her left arm out of the water in crawl as she isn’t doing, and her breaststroke still needs some work, but they are looking at that next week. And she only started breaststroke during this course of 10 lessons, so I’m not too surprised. He says her crawl is quite powerful though, which I’d thought, seeing it during her lessons. Very proud of her, she’s really making fast progress now, and that’s without me taking them swimming much in between lessons.

And on to our beach playdate. J had taken Small out with her two while I waited for Big – she was only 10 minutes ahead of me and I figured by the time she’d gone to her car to pick up their beach stuff there wouldn’t be that long for him to get stressed. Sure enough when I got out there they were very happily building a sandosaurus, one of Small’s favourite things to do. She did tell me later that it had been his idea, and that he’d been quite happy to adapt it and name it after all three boys together.

Once I was there he was allowed to go paddling, and did, up to his waist. This lack of fear of water is definitely a two edged sword! Big was in and out as well, trying to swim in it, and nearly managing J said she thought I was very brave, letting Small in the water without floats or me. Tbh, I think putting floats on him would be a mistake if I wasn’t in there with him, as he’d be far more likely to be washed out to sea, as it is, if he gets too deep he gets water in his face and comes hurtling out again. This has only been a problem in the last week or so though, up until then he would never have gone in over his knees.

J got togged up to swim and her younger boy decided he wouldn’t go in so she leant Small his armbands. Didn’t seem to make him float much better and fairly soon he came out anyway, shivering. Was desperately trying to get him dry and warm as Big did similarly, tried to get her to take her suntop off and actually use her towel to get dry but she insisted on sitting on it, shivering, and was very soon into a full screamy waily meltdown fit, I think mainly because I was helping Small and not her. I thought she was capable of getting dried and dressed by herself, and he needs more help as he’s quite likely to decide he’s dry when he isn’t and then soak his clothes.

J removed herself to build a sandcastle with the boys while I tried to retrieve Big, but it was a full on 10 minute absolute loss of control. Very embarassing, and in the end I just had to get hands on and drag clothes off her and insist she do as she was told. Not helped by a seagull doing something unmentionable down my back and on her towel, which really overloaded her sensory wise.

Hohum. Once she was dressed and warmed up a bit she recovered herself and started apologising, but was quite surprised that J was still happy to arrange another meetup after all that! We’re going swimming together Thurs afternoon – will be interesting to see how Small manages now in a pool. And might be able to get Big’s left arm sorted for her crawl

Home and a quiet afternoon with yet again far too much screen time. I did require them to do some reading as well, and eventually sent them to bed with books. Small has finally finished You’re a Bad Man, Mr. Gum! and Big finished two library books yesterday. So I think a library trip is in order today, we’re getting closer to the end of the Questseekers challenge, and I would like them to finish it as this library actually does a presentation ceremony

“Um, the washing line?”

“What, not the tent?”

doh. They breakfasted and putered, and Big taught Princess and Scott how to scoobi keyrings for themselves. In the meantime, Tim cooked up a proper breakfast for Bil and himself.

Small wanted to go on the puter again, so I told him to wait until our guests had gone. Which meant he spent the last quarter of an hour asking whether each stage of leaving (going out of the door, through the gate, getting into the car) qualified as them having gone. Sigh.

Once they had gone, he putered and they watched some TV. Then I told them that they’d had too much screen time for the time being and they reluctantly did some reading. Small is working his way very slowly through You’re a Bad Man, Mr. Gum! which is his overdue library book that I can’t renew as someone else has it reserved. He’s determined he wants to read it, but somehow this is supposed to happen without him actually opening it. Not sure which of her library books Big started on.

Tim went out for his usual Sunday outing, and was a little longer than usual. Apparently there was jazz on. Left him refereeing the screen time/ puter time debate and headed off down through town to pick up a toddler doll from freecycle for Big. Thought that it might be better for her to make clothes for that, so that she can do the Dolly and Me style creations from YouCanMakeThis.com

I’ve been thinking that the walk to the leisure centre was around a half mile, and worrying over how long it’s taking me these days. Today I checked it on google maps when looking up exactly where the road is that I was going to, and found that it’s actually just over a mile. That makes me feel a lot better. Took me absolutely ages today, but it was kind of hot and without swimming lessons to get to, I wasn’t in any rush.

Home about 4.30, and half an hour later Big and I were set up in the kitchen making dolls clothes. Took an awful lot longer than I’d anticipated – we did lose a little time with me working out how to do zigzag stitches on the fabric that we were using, but also a lot of it with Big just not paying any attention to what I was trying to demonstrate to her. So I’d carefully explain what I was doing and show her how to do it, then we’d swap places and the first thing she’d say would be “what do I do?”

Aargh. Still, we managed a simple shirt. Nearly a disaster when we discovered it wouldn’t go over the doll’s head, but it fits Holly the bear nicely and can be put on the (as yet unnamed) doll by going up over its feet. Think we might try making a slightly larger one in the next few days, although tomorrow she wants to try a wrap skirt.

Also think I might try scaling the pattern up and making her a similar top, I think we have enough fabric for that and it would be good practice on messing around with patterns.

Have to say, that compared to standard patterns, these downloads are way better. They aren’t just pattern pieces, they are pictorial instruction sets, with written instructions as well, so even for this simple shirt (basically a tube with arm holes and an elasticated neck) there are three pages of step by step instructions on how to do it.

And the first thing you do, I’ve told her, is read the instructions right the way through. She doesn’t know why, but she is going to learn that that is a rule.

Small drew for at least part of the time that we were sewing, he took a look at the Usborne Starting Drawing book I grabbed from the library. Hoped it might inspire him to try out a few more things with his art. Not sure whether it did tonight, but it might sink in over the next few days, and I’m hoping to do some work with him as well.

Tim finished off their day with some more Wayside School and I sat and felt hot and twitchy. And now I’m going to go lie down and hopefully not feel quite so hot and twitchy in bed.

Adults pottered through the morning – I got the beach stuff through the wash so that UV suits and so on could be reused in the afternoon. Then we rounded up offspring and went down to Landguard Fort for an explore. We are really getting our moneys worth out of our EH membership this summer This time we got all the kids in free (well, they are all family group, what with being cousins ) and only had to pay for Bil. Tim splurged on the guide, which I started to glance through, then gave up as there was no way we were keeping up with the kids while I was reading!

Raced round the fort, which is very interesting, and I think we’ll do another visit sometime with fewer ppl. Don’t know whether the kids got much out of it, but I hope that something goes in at some point.

There was also an art exhibition underway which I rather enjoyed. Well, the bit I saw anyway!

Paid a very brief visit to the neighbouring nature reserve but various children decided they needed the toilet, so we went back into the fort to use the facilities and then headed off to the beach.

The blokes dropped me and the kids off and then took the cars back home. Tim went off to do shopping and Bil walked down to join us, sensibly stopping off to buy sausage rolls (and thoughtfully cheese and onion rolls ) and drinks. I’d already got apples, so when the children had swum for a while, dug holes, run around like loonies and so on, we fed them as well. It was a very pleasant afternoon – good to spend some time with Bil chatting. I did try to read some of the fort guide, before he joined me, but decided that I probably needed to pay some attention to the children – visions of Bil arriving and me saying, well, they were there a minute ago!

Small is getting very brave in the water now – he came back to me eventually with wet hair! He made me nervous a couple of times, but he isn’t actually going in very deep, only really to waist height, then he’s wave jumping. Good to see his confidence rising though.

Big spent some time digging with the boys, think she’s found it slightly difficult being between ages this weekend. Overall she’s managed fairly well though.

Brought them home eventually and there was more putering and game playing (Cranium Cadoo, which always goes down well). Tim went out and fetched fish and chips for tea, yum, then we did actually put children to bed, as they were more than a little tired.

Small wobbled as he thought (correctly) that the older boys were staying up a little more drawing. At which point Scott made an excellent attempt at heading off further tantrums by appearing in the bedroom door and saying “we’re stopping drawing and going to bed now, goodnight”. Shame that that just moved the anguish on to wondering what they had drawn. Oh well.

Took Bil a while to get Princess settled down, but we did manage to have some time chatting as well. A good day all round.