Took Big down to the library to pick up her next Lady Grace Mystery, Deception. She is absolutely adoring these, and getting lots out of them historically as well

Of course, a little later we had a row, when I told them that we were going out, and they didn’t want to, but Tim and I wanted to go to Orford Ness, this being the last week that it’s open during the week, and it was a glorious day for it as well. Departure was hindered by the fact I’d put the temporary membership sheet into a safe place, and couldn’t find it again but we got away eventually, to arrive after the last ferry crossing :’(

Making the most of the day out anyway, we retired to Orford Castle. Tim had taken the kids before, but I hadn’t been. He disappeared with Small to do a high speed tour, while Big and I took our time with the audio tour, which was excellent. I managed all the steps apart from the basement, but was aching somewhat by the end so we gave up on a plan to pop into the town for an explore and headed home via a moderately scenic route showing the kids where Tim grew up and his walk home from school.

It was a lovely afternoon out and although I was in some pain, it wore off a little on the ride home. Wimped out on tea though as didn’t want to risk really setting my hip off, although I still went out for a walk to pick up a baby bath from freegle, while Tim marshalled the kids into the shower.

Afterwards they wanted to sit in the living room with us, while really I just wanted some child free time. Big was quietly perusing catalogues, but Small isn’t very good at quiet, and tried to assist Tim with his scrabble (which was very funny ) before finding Space (DK Eye Wonder) and reading selected excerpts of it out loud. Eventually they did retire to their bedroom for a short time playing, allowing me to heave a sigh of relief and start hunting out the resources for my last TMA for MS221.

Have had enough of this maths now. Am trying not to get stressed about the exam, but can’t help feeling it’s going to be a disaster as I really haven’t understood or acquired skills during this course. I have to score 40% to pass, and I need at least 40% on this TMA too, which should be feasible as it’s at least partially on imaginary numbers which I did at A level (surprised to find that they are now being introduced at level 2 of OU courses. But don’t worry, there hasn’t been any dumbing down of qualifications in the last 20 years since I did A levels….) but it’s so very difficult to focus on something I’m enjoying so little. Taking a year off OU next year, don’t think it would go too well with new baby anyway, and then will ponder after that.

And then we watched TV and I went to bed.

So I dragged children out of bed early (for them anyway) and chivvied them along so that we’d have time to pop into Tesco for suitable food for cooking on an open fire. Even though they very much enjoy Forest school, neither of them are into the idea of changing state, which makes leaving the house problematic. Achieved it and bought marshmallows, veg hot dogs and hot dog rolls, and headed down to the country park, arriving with time to spare for toilet trips

As usual, I was fire monitor, and this time the ranger had even brought me safety goggles to keep the smoke out of my eyes. A very thoughtful touch We baked charcoal made from willow sticks in a tin on the fire, and then Big made a pencil by hollowing out an elder twig and feeding the charcoal through.

Small made a variety of tree decorations out of clay and saw a newt, which tied in nicely as the previous day’s Great lesson had finished at amphibians. Fire cooked hot dogs were good (although I cremated the second batch, oops), even Small enjoyed one. I enjoyed two And the ranger had brought tea, which I’d forgotten yet again, so I got a cuppa too.

We didn’t hang around at the end of the session, except to recruit an apprentice fire marshal, who will work with me assuming I manage to struggle into the woods for the next session, and then take over after that. We had to get back as I had my final TMA for MST121 to finish off, and swimming after that.

So did maths, put it into an envelope and then went to queue in the PO on the way to swimming, to be told that there’s a postal strike and it wouldn’t get there in time. Sigh. Wish I’d known that *before* we waited over five minutes while the post office lady arranged her next hair appt with the customer before us. (On the one hand I love that there is that level of community in the town, on the other hand, I’m in a hurry here!)

Took the TMA with us and went to swimming. Small’s group has shrunk again – there are now 6 red hats rather than the threatened 11. That seems to work better for him, and he is definitely making progress, although apparently he uses breaststroke legs when he’s on his back instead of kicking them. Needs to work on that

Didn’t see any of Big’s lesson – by the time we got out to the viewing area it was packed and we couldn’t get near the edge, and then Small needed the toilet anyway. Apparently she is struggling with breaststroke and needs more practice. Fortunately we arranged a swimming session with Small’s friend P, who has now moved up into the yellow hats group that runs before his red hats, so we only see them on the changeover.

Came home with tired children and fed them pasta (but with broccoli) and then slotted them into bed. Rang my tutor to ask if it was OK to bring the TMA over later, and found out that she was away anyway, so first thing in the morning would be acceptable.

And that was Tuesday. Bit more hectic than I would have liked, but a good day overall.

Children played pretty much harmoniously all day, or at least, from when I made them turn the tv off. And our only shouting match was when Small said he hadn’t had enough time to play, at 4 o’clock in the afternoon when it was time to get ready for swimming.

Sigh. But he likes swimming, so he got over it quite quickly and they packed up their swimming stuff into their new time traveller bags (Big’s arrived yesterday morning, phew!) and we headed for the pool. As long as I leave plenty of time and have my hips strapped together I don’t seem to suffer too much from the walk, and while it’s like that, I think I need to keep up the exercise where I can. It’s not like there are any hills in the way around here

Small’s lesson first, his friend P has been moved up to a yellow hat group that runs at 4.30, so he now gets out as Small is getting in, so as anticipated, think that was a very short lived friendship However there are now a couple of other little boys in his class and I saw him playing around with one of them during the lesson. Hm. I know his goal is to make friends, so I can’t be too cross that he’s playing as well as swimming, but there will be a fine line to tread to make sure he doesn’t become disruptive in the class.

Got him out as Big got in, and then discovered that although he’d shown me the shampoo as one of the things he’d gathered together, he’d failed to actually put it in his bag. Sigh. So shower to rinse off the talc from the swim hat, but no actual washing. This did seem to speed things up though, so that I got to see some of Big’s lesson. She’s doing really well, as her teacher had mentioned they were concentrating on breaststroke this week, and she really seems to be getting to grips with it. Am still proud of her It is much more pleasant to write about swimming lessons this time around too!

Leisurely saunter home with them eating bananas, had called ahead for Tim to process a pizza for them which worked well. And they were quickly off into bed, and even quicker asleep – think that a mile there, a swim and a mile back is a pretty good way to tire them out for at least one night a week

Did some more OU while we watched CSI Miami. Horatio is ever so annoying, but it’s easy watching while I’m trying to work. Just got about 4 questions to do, then need to submit it online. Don’t particularly like this style of assignment though, there is no possibility of getting marks for working, you either get the right answers or you don’t. And there’s no indication of how many points there are for each question either. I’m going to be very happy when these courses are over. Think I might take a break next year and ponder what, if anything, I want to study next.

Monday was a mainly quiet day as is usually required after visitors for rest and recuperation, however restful the visitors have been. There was much television watched, some putering, possibly some reading and drawing, but that was about it. Until bedtime, when Big asked Tim something about coordinates, and he launched into a beautifully judged, eloquently explained description of how it all worked, complete with illustrations on the computer and use of google earth.

I was learning lots, but I did rather lose focus when Big said, a trifle impatiently “but is this going to answer the question I asked you?” Ah well. It did remind her of google earth, so that was a good thing. Not sure whether any of the rest of it went in, which is a bit of a shame, but rather the way it goes around here!

Monday afternoon I set to with my OU CMA (computer marked assignment as opposed to TMA, tutor marked assignment). It’s on probability and statistics, which ought to be a doddle given that I’ve covered the topic at uni level before. The drawback being that I really don’t get either of them, and Tim and I had an interesting debate over the aubergine parmegiana that I was making that implied he’s not much further on that I am. Oh well.

The aubergine thingy was lovely, and major breakthrough with Small – he tried a tiny piece of the onion in tomato sauce that was one of the ingredients and liked it! That really opens up a lot of possibilities of sneaking onions and tomato sauce into things, or even making my own pasta sauces for them. It probably took us about 20 minutes to talk him into putting it in his mouth, but we got there in the end.

Big tried it and said it was alright. She later told me that she didn’t like the flavour, but I could always try it again with different cheese. Both Tim and I enjoyed it, and what’s more, Tim had a second helping! Definitely calling that one a success, which is rather good as I’d no real idea what to do with aubergines before that.

Much to my surprise both children agreed instantly that the way things are going isn’t working out for them. They were very open to the idea of rationing computer time – Small suggested 4 turns each a day, but when we worked out that that was 4 hours that they couldn’t play together, he dropped it instantly to 2 turns each. I’ve a feeling that he’s going to feel hard done by when we try that out, but it’s his suggestion so we’ll go with it.

Then I suggested the idea of a box with activity ideas in it for each of them, and they leapt on that. Small grabbed pencil, paper and scissors and made 9 pictures of activities he wants in his box – maths, science, space, reading, playing, drawing, history, the world around us, and something else which temporarily escapes me. (Can’t reach the piccies from where I’m sitting with my twitchy legs up on a footstool!)

Ah, remembered. It was go outside. With a nice big picture of the sun

Big’s list was similar but slightly longer. Think she included languages and music and had macrame instead of drawing

So tomorrow it’s back to the garage to find the index box and cards, and we’ll transfer the ideas to cards (or stick the pictures to cards, whichever works best for them) and then it will be up to me to start coming up with ideas to satisfy the named activities. I think I’m going to have to do some resource hunting and make myself a bigger box up – some of our stuff has appeared out of boxes, and also I want to do some things relevant to the local area. Tim found a site that has old maps of various areas so I could link historical investigations with environment and geography. Of course, as we get going it could well be that they come up with their own ideas and resources, which would be good too

I do find it amusing that my own schooling keeps breaking through – it’s not really relevant to break up learning into these subject areas, but at the same time, I want to offer a wide range of experiences to the offspring at this point in their lives – they can specialise any time really. Thinking about it in subject terms lets me do that. And we need to change the dynamics of our day as there is far too much squabbling and petty fighting atm, and I think it’s because they are bored.

I have been considering a type of box system, but I was taken aback by their enthusiasm for it, and I’m way happier about doing it if they’ve chosen the activites that go in the boxes. Although I did prompt them to include maths, and suggested things like the world around us/ geography.

So, a new start, tomorrow. And let’s hope that it brings a bit more harmony to the house!

In other news, the ten sided dice have arrived – I’ve had two requests for spares, will drop email to those ppl to get their addresses, but I’ve a couple more if ppl want them. (I bought 10, and I don’t think we need 10 really.) And our other somewhat bigger purchase arrived today, a sewing machine Quite looking forward to getting to grips with that.

And it was veg box delivery two today. More courgettes, more carrots, and two cucumbers this week. No beetroot thankfully, as I’ve still got two left from last week! Tonight we had vegetable and halloumi kebabs, or at least, Tim and I did. Another new rule – if there are new foods on the plate, at least one must be tried. Didn’t work desperately well tonight, as Small spat his courgette out Still, may be something we need to build up to! He did try the pepper, although announced it to be eww, disgusting. Good stuff.

Not that he was too horrendous – he does like his swimming lesson. Not sure how long he’ll go on feeling that way if they continue to have different teachers every week and no continuity. Big’s friend C is very discouraged – she’s been working really hard trying to develop the skills so that she can move up into Big’s group, but they aren’t being assessed as their regular teacher has been off for several weeks now. In fact, I think she’s only taught the class once since Small started.

Big seems to be making excellent progress – the ten minutes of her class that I saw, she is doing something that looks very like front crawl, well, til she runs out of breath anyway Seriously though, there’s a lot less splashing and a lot more travelling from her than from the other two currently in her group. Worst case scenario is that C will get moved up into her group and Big will instantly get moved on. Don’t think it’s an unreasonable scenario either from what I’ve seen of what the next group up is doing.

So that was the morning – we stopped off at the soon to be renamed remnant shop for some more rainbow cord so that Big could make more macrame friendship bands. She’s working quite hard on it, and it is bringing some practical maths to the fore. As well as plenty of temper, but hey.

Small’s workbooks arrived for 1B, so he promptly went off the idea of doing maths at all. Sigh. On this we aren’t going to be desperately autonomous – I am going to require a certain amount of mathematical practice to happen every week. Will have to ponder on how this doesn’t become just an area of confrontation between myself and Small – Big sees the point of it, so I don’t think will fight too hard. Plus at the moment she’s really enjoying the maths she’s doing. So was he, but apparently that doesn’t count any more.

And I’m not sure what they did for the rest of the afternoon as I retired to bed. I didn’t feel terribly well, my hips and legs were aching and I couldn’t stop sneezing. Was slightly surprised when I slept nearly 4 hours though!

Got up in time to sort them out a pizza for tea – day before veg box delivery and we were down to a few sad looking carrots and runner beans, couple of onions and yes, of course, some beetroot. I think beetroot may get knocked off the preference sheet tbh.

Still, they’ve been offered lots more home cooked meals and vegetables this week, and I hope to get that going as more of a pattern, it’s going to take a while to break through Small’s resistance on trying anything even vaguely new.

Read some Wayside School is Falling Down at bedtime – it’s good read aloud stuff. And then sat and stared dejectedly at my maths for a while in the evening.

Once I was down and breakfasted, the whole family collaborated over yet another Science School project, this time he wanted to make a hovercraft. This required a butchered plastic bottle, which Tim did with a hacksaw. We then discovered that scissors would have been better, as a hacksaw left a slightly jagged edge, and a smooth edge was required.

Penknife successfully put the required hole in the lid, then getting the balloon onto the lid was a two person operation. Took a while, but we did eventually succeed in making the bit of bottle skate across the table, but I don’t think it did quite what Small expected, as he lost interest at that point and wandered off. Oh well.

From there they moved on to putering, more cooperative game playing, with the occasional spat over pushing each other off the stool. I did eventually get bored with the low pitched squabbling and pitched them both outside so that I could have a go at my TMA. Stared at it for a while, then gave up in disgust and did some tidying while they watched TV. Have also processed yet more clothing out of bags from various garages, and even did a bit of weeding, removing mint from the veg bed that I dug over but didn’t plant up. Thinking about letting the strawberries populate it, though not sure that they would keep the mint down too well.

In the run up to tea, required some bedroom tidying on the children’s part, which was completed with surprisingly little anguish. About 6 o’clock, Big asked where Tim was – he’d set off for old house about 10 o’clock in the morning! She’s very observant, can you tell?

He made it back just after they’d finished eating and were getting their swim bags ready, and then went out again to fetch up fish and chips. After I’d eaten, I read to them, and now I’m pondering an early night. Going to be a long day tomorrow.

I’d expected Small to be hard work in that I thought Big did a fair amount of entertaining him. Turns out that actually I must expend quite a lot of energy keeping them in harmony with each other (or trying and failing to do so!) as he was an absolute doddle on his own. Well, apart from the intense educational aspects of it!

By 10.50, we’d had his new science kit from Playmerrily spread out all over the floor and discussed it (unfortunately it needed cress seeds which we didn’t have so we couldn’t start it there and then), I’d printed a Woodland Log from the Woodland Trust Big Summer Challenge (I’m going to be very cross with them if I find out that I can’t find my way to all the other good stuff that I’ve noticed being talked about on facebook, but haven’t printed out just yet as we’ve a paper shortage!) and we’d talked about that, we’d done some Scratch which was sparked off by him blogging the night before (must go back and add that to the post about the night before!) which in turn led to a discussion of what a degree is (stand up, turn right around, that was 360 degrees, so half way round was 180 and so on) and also what percentages are (rather like fractions, 100% is 1, 50% is half and so on), he’d drawn a profile picture of himself in Paint.net for use on his Scratch profile page and we’d uploaded that as well as his Scratch project so that we could link it on his blog, and he’d created various games through various game creator websites.

Phew. I was shattered!

He then found fusion fall and signed up for his first MMORPG. I’m so proud.

He played on that pretty much all day after that, with variable requirements for assistance. To begin with when he left it it logged him out and made him start again from the beginning which was traumatic for all concerned, but I later discovered that that was because he hadn’t finished the (not mentioned or demarcated in anyway) tutorial level. It has hugely expanded his vocabulary, not always in good directions (not impressed to find use of the word cretin for example, which is not a word I’d feel comfortable with him dropping into polite conversation) and though we never doubted it, has proved yet again that his concentration span far exceeds his need for food.

I managed some OU work, although tbh, I am loathing these courses and it’s making concentrating on them really really difficult. I hoped they would mend maths for me, and that I’d actually start understanding it, instead I think it’s proved that I’m not a natural mathematician at all, and maybe I’d be better off sticking to computing or philosophy or something of the sort.

Finally managed to persuade him into bed with a chapter of Kensuke’s Kingdom at around the same time Tim arrived back from his dropoff journey, and that was Monday.

I don’t like the books that we’ve found in the Smiths and so on, and while I do like Montessori it requires rather too much one to one with me, which when it’s something she doesn’t like, is to be avoided or it just becomes a flash point. I thought that the Singapore maths might be right up her street, and I’d printed off 1B for Small and 2A for her.

Turned out I was pretty much spot on for him – he managed most of it with some pointers, while I was miles out with her. Her confidence is none existent and her abstract skills are lacking. So I printed out another copy of 1A which she sailed through with a couple of mistakes, giving me an idea of where to place her.

So I ordered from Maths no problem then later on realised that they have new editions arriving within the next few weeks. I mailed them to ask if they could hold and upgrade my order, and they are doing precisely that. Lovely helpful ppl. I’ll review the books once I’ve got them too

So that took up most of our morning one way or another. Later on Big and I chatted about her diary some more – seems that she wasn’t writing a diary, she was trying to write a My Story about her life, and hadn’t realised that in a fictional account, things get switched around. So now the pressure is off and she’s going to write a special occasions book instead. Good.

Small did some more science from his book, cutting out a snake to do an experiment to show heat rising. Of course the heating is only on for brief periods to heat our water up atm, so he hasn’t managed to use it yet, but we’ll get there.

Then in the evening it was Beavers. He is having a fab time there, although apparently they are having to support him in the games a little. And when I dropped him off, he didn’t line up with the other children, he just waited with Brown Beaver. They are being very good about making adjustments for him, and in return he has been behaving impeccably. Now if I could just arrange for a Beaver or two to come over he’d be over the moon.

I took my OU work with me and sat in the car with it, revising differentiation. It did not all come flooding back Maybe my brain really is rusty.

It was never going to go well. In the end, despite trying to think of a number of ways for them to amuse themselves far away from me (we’re playing with the idea of the 100 species challenge as first seen on Jan’s blog, which led to much photography (Big) and drawing (Small) but resulted in them back in the living room trying to identify plants in a number of books) it all went horribly wrong and they were banished to the bedroom, where they settled down relatively quickly and played nicely for quite a while.

All I’d been trying to get them to do was go outside! It was such a lovely day and they seem to have given up playing in the garden, which I think is a shame.

Ah well. I did maths slightly frantically until just after 4, then we gathered ourselves together and dashed off to swimming. Not that we needed to dash on our account as Big’s lesson is now 5.30, but we had C’s red swimming hat from the other day, so we had to get it there for her lesson.

That meant we were there with half an hour to spare, so we spent it in the sun on the beach. Of course with the whole beach to choose from, they had to sit six inches from each other and fight over a bit of sand :rolls: but I sat far enough away from them that I could pretend they were someone else’s problem.

Small was prebribed with the idea of a drink in the cafe so he was very well behaved throughout Big’s lesson. Her new group only has 4 children in it, including one brownie from her pack (small world) and she seemed to get on well with the new teacher. She tried hard as well – they started breast stroke tonight, and I could see that the teacher was pleased with how she started with it.

So from being very impressed with how they both behaved at the leisure centre, within minutes of being outside again they were at each other’s throats. Sigh. At least by the time we got home they’d pulled it together, and watched tv companionably until tea was ready.

Ah well, tomorrow is another day. Which ends in a fun evening courtesy of brownies, although it wouldn’t have if the brownies mother I saw tonight hadn’t mentioned it, as Big had forgotten to give me the letter from last week. Still, at least the whole family is invited, so Small gets to come out and play too. It will have to be a reasonably quiet day if we’re to get through to 8pm in the evening, so maybe we’ll have another go at some more plant and animal identification in the garden. Which reminds me, we did see something interesting on our way to the leisure centre. A seagull, with what looked like a blackbird in its beak. I’d thought that they mainly went for scraps and carrion, although I suppose the smaller bird could have been roadkill.

Right must go off to bed. At least we’ve had a pleasant evening with the tennis, I recorded Murray while we were out. Missed about 20 minutes of the second set, but nothing terribly exciting I don’t think.

Slept extraordinarly badly last night, so lay in somewhat this morning and was slow to get going when I did come down. Got on with some more maths (actually managed to get mathcad doing what it was supposed to be doing, somewhat of a breakthrough!) and then watched tennis. Rather enjoy Federer.

Big was desperate to start work on her sewing for her doll, which resulted in first of all, much measuring of the doll to work out what size clothes we needed to be making. Once she’d done that she had to find enough flat space to open the pattern out on – she cleared the bedroom floor but that still wasn’t enough room, so eventually it was the kitchen table.

While she was doing this, Small took off with the tape measure and measured many things. I introduced the concepts of length, depth and breadth as well, as he just kept coming in to say something was however many inches (we’re not very metric here) but not which dimension of it he was referring to.

Really enjoyed causing temporary confusion by telling him his foot is only half a foot, and was highly amused to have him later go and tell Tim that even his foot isn’t a proper foot (and he worked that bit out himself ).

Big and I did the cutting out of pattern pieces and then the reading of instructions and pinned the pieces to the material, before I started the cutting there. Ran out of time as it got to time to take Small off for art on the beach, Beaver style.

Slightly taken aback by Brown Beaver asking where his uniform sweater was, as he was due to be invested tonight. Erm, not by my counting. Think she realised that I wasn’t quite into it, and put it off til next week, which only upset him for a moment as I don’t think he’d been expecting it either.

He did tell me after the session that he was too shy to start his picture when everyone else did, and also that that is why he didn’t start making his boat last week – he had to wait for someone to tell him to start, but everyone else just started. I’m wondering if some phrase is being used that he hasn’t interpreted as meaning time to start – must ask Brown Beaver about it.

I had a pleasant hour sitting in the car crocheting – didn’t bother taking my maths as it’s quite difficult to work in the car. I’d have got more crochet done too if I didn’t keep dropping things (hook, stitch marker) down the side of the seat too!

And now the children are finally in bed, and we can think about food and relaxation, oh and more maths.

Instead they used S’s copy of The Children’s Step-by-step Cook Book to choose what they wanted to make, then went shopping for ingredients and made banana smoothies and chocolate chip cookies. There was croquet on the lawn, and that daft kind of velcro tennis thing, which also led to them meeting the neighbour, when they had to go and ask for their ball back S found them a stash of costume jewellry that had been Tim’s mums, and they looked through that, cleaned some of it up and sorted chains for pendants, and both came back with a little swag bag of shiny stuff and all in all, seemed to have a lovely time.

We arrived in time for a slightly late lunch – kids had pizza, adults had soup and either sandwiches or leek and gruyere tarts (latter for me, and have to say although it was a slight battle to finish it, I did really enjoy it) and time for a chat while the kids did a bit more running about. Then we came home and the children retired to their bedroom to continue the very involved lego game, while I waffled about a bit and then headed off for a nap.

There’s been more Potter watching and listening as well, and then Tim’s gone off up north for a couple of nights, leaving me to hold the fort, which should be fine.

It would be lovely if at some point the children would look at the power house kit with me, as I’ve offered several times, but if I can’t interest them in that, I guess I’d just better get started on my next TMA. It’s for the easier course – got the marks back on the other one, a respectable 72, although nothing like what I would like on it. I’d pretty much given up in the end though, and left a few bits even unattempted, which is utterly pathetic I know, but there you go.

Also missed a delivery of the next load of materials, and two calls from the GPs – called them up and they’d no idea who had called or why, so my best guess is that it would be the midwife who is based there on a Tues, but I don’t know why she would be calling. I kind of assumed she would ring back later, but she didn’t, so guess I’ll just have to give up on that one.

Small found a kit he’s had for quite a while and decided he absolutely had to knit immediately. We did a row together, and he pretty much got it – today he did another row by himself. Obviously it’s a totally individual knitting style he’s developed, but it appears to work for him – I am beginning to wonder if he’s actually more left handed than right though as he appears to do far more with his left that I would expect. I know he does all his writing and drawing right handed, but it’s with a very awkward grip, so I’m considering how to explore this further.

Big has got started on her baby knitting, she’s working on the lower left hat from this pattern. It’s far and away the thinnest yarn she’s worked with, but she’s coping with it really well – I had to do a row this afternoon to get her back to the right number of stitches, but it wasn’t disastrously astray, just several extra loops that hadn’t quite made it off the needle where they should.

Our main activity today though was the Ecotech trip. Coming from a part of the country with dual carriageways and so on, I’d looked at the distance, 67 miles, and thought, oh, about an hour, that’ll be fine, and got an unpleasant awakening when we plugged it into the satnav and that said 1hr 20. Turned out even that was optimistic and we were nearly 10 minutes late, which meant we arrived just as everyone was being gathered into a group – ie pretty much perfect

Morning session for us was building model turbines, which Big loved, particularly as she sat with SB, and Chris kept an eye on her when I had to extricate Small for increasing frustration levels. He struggled with the day – he didn’t actually want to go when I proposed it, but I think overall he enjoyed it, he just really doesn’t do group activities, not least as he always seems to come up with an idea diametrically opposed to what everyone else in the group wants to do, so he doesn’t get to do it. Hm. Must think about this some more. I think overall that maturity with infrequent group exposure in the meantime will get us there, but I must keep an eye on it and make sure that he doesn’t just get set in a way of non participation just because that’s what he does. Or doesn’t, iyswim

Afternoon activity was a trip up the turbine, apparently it’s the only one in the world open to the public, and rather put the entrance fee in perspective. Though given that there were activities, I didn’t think it was terribly steep – £9 for the two children and I got in free. The cafe was excellent as well – they didn’t have anything as a sandwich filling that Small eats, but were very happy to just do him some (nice) bread and butter, and didn’t even charge for it, bonus!

Trip home was just as tiresome, though as I wasn’t feeling under time pressure at least it wasn’t as stressful. Then I sauntered out to post my TMA (Tim hadn’t been up to the post office stroll, I think he has the bug of doom ) and pick up milk and so on at the Coop. And that brings us nicely up to the knitting, which was where I’d started the post

Oh, although I have missed out the bit where I called up the local Brownie area organiser and arranged for Big to try out at Brownies from tomorrow evening. Sounds really lovely – they need more girls in the pack so as to be able to organise more things, and there are three other girls starting tomorrow, moving up from Rainbows, so she won’t be the only new girl. Fingers crossed this is the start of her making friends in the local area.

This last bit was slightly spoiled by a completely unnecessary falling out in which Big pinched Small (right in front of me) and then denied she’d done it, and when presented with the evidence (red mark on his arm) said it was all his fault for being mean and horrid. Actually, she didn’t say this last bit, she screamed it, so communication rather broke down for a while. Made it far more difficult to concentrate on my TMA as well.

Am struggling with my TMA. So far I’ve managed 2 questions out of 6, counting up to 20 marks out of 100. I was very late in starting it because of being late finishing the one for the other course, but the need to sleep the clock round every night isn’t helping.

Hohum. Will have to have a think about this, and check out the regulations as to what mark I need or whether I can somehow substitute this one or some such.

And now it’s time for bed. Except I nearly forgot something, the fact that my sister called me, and asked about home education and whether anyone comes and inspects us to check we’re doing it right. We were on the phone for over 11 minutes, probably the longest call we’ve had in years. I’ve no idea whether I managed to explain it all OK, but we talked.

As well as that they’ve achieved playing in the garden, Big has done more embossing, they played with playdough for a while (Small was briefly upset to hear that his fluorescent play dough didn’t come with us as it had fluorescent spiky mould – yeuch, but recovered when he found I did bring the stadium (his word) that it came with), there has been computing, and Big had a brief flirtation with some history. History as a subject is sort of interesting to her, but it’s the Victorians that still swing it – she’s watched the sole surviving episode of Victorian Farm (think some of them may be on the other media centre which is not currently hooked up to the screen here) and I’m looking out for other things to take her fancy.

I really need to find a way to encourage Small to experiment with different ways of holding writing implements – I think it is beginning to hold him back slightly, particularly with the painting that he’s now interested in doing. (Which is a first – he’s painted beforehand but not really of his own accord. He understands colour mixing better than Big does, which seems odd, but she’s been experimenting with the chalks she uses to decorate her embossing as well.)

And I went back to bed this afternoon. I don’t feel ill when I’m lying down, so I quite enjoy doing it. Must get on with some more maths this evening though – got to a part last night where I needed to listen to a cd, and given that we were watching TV at the time (NCIS (Naval Criminal Investigative Service) since you ask) it didn’t seem particularly fair to stop the watching to try listening.

Think I’d better grab my baked potato and listen to the cd tracks now, before Tim comes to settle down with me.

Anyway, after lunch, Small listened to Harry Potter for approx 5 hours (!) and is now well on his way through the Goblet of Fire, which is cheering Big up as they may get to watch the film soon

I spent some time in Small’s bedroom, trying to sort and discard and produced two carrier bags of miscellaneous rubbish as well as putting lego bag into the lego box, cars into the car carrier, books onto the bookshelf and so on. It was somewhat disheartening, especially as it wasn’t anywhere near tidy when I gave up.

The mystery of why Big’s clothes don’t fit in her drawers was solved when she excavated them all and it was discovered approx two thirds of the put away things didn’t fit. Sigh. So they were sorted into piles as to who they can be passed on to and I’m beginning to find it difficult to move around our room for all the stuff that needs to be given away.

After that, Big and I walked into town to post the purses she’s sold, and then on to Tesco to pick up milk and bits. I’m always intrigued when milk and bits turns into over £5 of shopping, but given that I did the shopping in Lidl this weekend and it came back at under £30, we’re still winning I think. Quite nice to spend a bit of time with her on her own while not in stroppy shouty mood too

Back home and fed them pizza – they listened to yet more Goblet while it was cooking and Big played some more with ideal blox. I think Small has just pretty much listened, he doesn’t seem to multi task in quite that same way. Still impressed at the hours and hours of listening, although we could have done without him shouting at anyone who interrupted even slightly!

Kids are up in bed now, and I’m pestering my MP again, this time about Clause 152 of the Coroners and Justice Bill. It gives them the ability to share data without any further discussion, and I don’t think that’s something we want really You can read all about it in the Guardian if you feel so inclined.

Now must do some more maths.

Anyway, other than that, we had a bit of a family meeting shortly after both children screamed at me for asking them to get dressed. I think we need to change how we’re doing things a little, and I’m heading towards a TV ration as it’s pretty much whenever they’ve been sitting there with their brains dribbling out that I get this kind of fallout later. Probably not the same if they were watching something a little different to nasty cartoons, but that is their choice of watching atm.

Anyway, after the family meeting, in which it was agreed that there will be some new rules and a whole lot more politeness going around, they both took off to play their musical instruments. Which would have been lovely, had they not both been supposed to be getting ready for lunch at the time. Sigh.

Lunch arrived and saved all our sanity. Then a short putering time, then a very long getting ready to go out to the library time. Small is nearly up to December on his ravenous readers card, and only wanted to get one book out. Having just returned The Magic Tree House 2: Castle of Mystery obviously what he wanted next was The Magic Tree House 3: Secret of the Pyramid except we’ve ordered that from another branch and it hasn’t had time to arrive yet. So instead he got The Jenius (Read It Yourself) to keep him going for a couple of days. The man at the desk asked if he was a genius too, and I said maybe, given that this was supposed to be light relief to the Harry Potter he’s reading at home. He’s on the last but one chapter to the end

Big took most of her books back last time, and only had a Spotters Guide to Nature (Usborne New Spotters’ Guides) to return, given that she hasn’t reviewed the Victorians (History Through Poetry) one for her website yet. She got out a Dav Pilkey, Captain Underpants and the Attack of the Talking Toilets for light relief as she wades her way Order of the Phoenix. 280 pages to go earlier this afternoon, and she got Half Blood prince out just in case. I got a couple of the earlier ones out as I think it’s time I caught up…

Right, have tea in the oven, though Small is deeply suspicious of it as it isn’t chicken drumsticks but SFC (a cheap rip off that you cook yourself, which is still smelling really good to me. I don’t miss chicken but I do miss the KFC coating!). I’ve been looking at this cookbook, How to Feed Your Whole Family a Healthy Balanced Diet, with Very Little Money and Hardly Any Time, Even If You Have a Tiny Kitchen, Only Three Saucepans … – Unless You Count the Garlic Crusher… and wondering whether it would be a good investment. I’d get it from the library but all the copies are already out and I don’t know if it will arrive before we move.

And this evening I must get my OU stuff out, work out what I need to look at next and start looking at it. I need to be ahead on my TMAs rather than behind!

Tried to do some crafting with Big who is more focussed on the idea of making money for a DS now, can’t think why, but that was spectacularly unsuccessful, mainly as the one craft she wanted to do, embossing, requires something that I know we have but can’t currently find, parchment. Hohum. I did manage to get her to do some work on a friendship bracelet, which she has continued today, but it hasn’t been a quick make that’s for sure.

Not quite sure where to go with the fundraising for a DS atm. Her pouch purses haven’t even really been viewed on Etsy, I’m wondering whether we actually set the price too low. I can’t really think of many things that she can make that we can sell – I don’t want to go too near the toys idea due to the CPSIA thing that’s happening in America – we certainly wouldn’t be able to list anything that might sell in that direction. Any and all suggestions gratefully accepted while I scratch my head on this one.

Other activities of the weekend have included putering for both offspring, right up until Big got herself banned for attacking Small and watching TV/ films and listening to yet more Azkaban. Big is desperate for Small to finish the tapes so that they can watch the film – not sure what we’re going to do about the next one, as she’s already read that one too, and we haven’t got it out of the library, nor do we have any *immediate* plans for long journeys, although there is a possible next house visit tentatively planned for some time next week.

Today I’ve done lots of blogring maintenance, adding various blogs to the ring and removing some from the admin queue section that are very obviously ex blogs. Other than that I’ve not really moved – I’ve thought about all the things I’ve got to do over the next couple of weeks and whimpered internally. Must get off backside tomorrow and get started – can’t do an old house run as I’ve a doctors appt in the middle of the day, but might fit one in on Tuesday. Also need to find my OU stuff and get cracking on the next assignment as it’s likely to fall due pretty much in and amongst moving and I’d prefer to be ahead of the game rather than behind it. Turns out that the 80 I got on the TMA could have been much better if I’d paid attention to what I was doing – I lost 6 marks by missing out a question. Still, better to stuff it up like that on the assignment that doesn’t count I suppose. And the comments from the tutor were very encouraging too.

Right, think I might turn off the computer for a while. So that I can focus on the tv instead…

He came through to the living room with me while Big stayed in the kitchen with Tim and they both received intensive maths coaching. How much does 30 minutes of one to one attention equate to in terms of school time I wonder? Just keeping my eye on the full time aspect of the education requirement

After that, I think she did some more reading, she’s finished Goblet of Fire today. Small spent a few minutes here and there amusing himself with an Adventures in literacy pack I found at old house, and I researched beginning programming environments.

I tried out Hackety Hack and wasn’t 100% convinced, but Small sat down and had 20 minutes working through lesson 1 anyway. He seemed to enjoy it, and 20 minutes was about the limit of his attention span. Don’t know whether he’ll want to do lesson 2, but I’ll have a look through it just in case.

Part of the reason I was looking at Hackety Hack is that it says you can write your own blog software with it. And the reason why I was thinking that is because Big (and Small) are starting their own websites. They aren’t actually blogs this time – they both have blogs already. Big is putting together a site on Victorians, and I’ll link it just as soon as she lets me. At the moment she doesn’t want anyone to see it, perhaps partly because she asked why I don’t let her use her real name online and I explained more details than I’d originally wanted to, mainly because she kept asking more questions.

Anyway, we spent some time discussing what she already knows about Victorians (quite a lot) and what she wants to put on the website. We also discussed CMS, WordPress, web safe colours, website design, CSS and a variety of other technical issues, so I’ll chalk that up to putering as well as history.

I got two more email responses to various emails I’ve sent about the home ed review, and they depressed me rather. It appears that the Lib Dems don’t understand home education, and certainly didn’t read my email or respond to my concerns. Sigh.

But in better news I got the feedback on my first CMA, I got 87% which was reasonably satisfying. Won’t get the feedback on my TMA before Melrose but I’m hoping that I’ve done alright on it. I’d really like to do well on this course – I feel like I let myself down during my degree and it would be good to put that right.

Anyway, we’ve had curry tonight and watched Bones. Slightly worried about weather forecasts for the weekend, but I’ve got tomorrow with my sister and Big’s birthday shopping expedition to get through first. Hohum.

We did watch Ballet Shoes together and I was very disappointed at the plot contortions that it had suffered to make it more attractive I assume. Killing off poor Mrs Simpson and giving Garnie some inflammation of the lungs, and what was the whole cigarette smoking scene about? I don’t recall anything about smoking in the book, have I just edited that out of my recall, or have they actually added something that is barely allowed on TV nowadays as a plot device? Bizarre.

Going to try to persuade Big to get a bit more organised with her Victorian obsession, think it would do her good to start recording some of it. Might actually show her how much she’s learnt about it all as well. We’re thinking about her putting together her own resources website, with book reviews, TV reviews, articles about inventions, places we visit and so on. (And yes, of course it counts as wonderful evidence should it ever be required. I’m assuming at some point we will get some contact from some LA, not that it’s ever happened so far. I will have to organise my thoughts as well at that stage – we seem to drift into autonomy without much direction every time I blink, mainly because no matter what I organise, the children never want to do it. Sigh.)

Am now discussing jokes with Small. “Did you hear the one about the magic tractor? It turned into a field!” He laughs at things that are labelled joke mostly without any understanding of why they might be funny. He does get that “turned into” has two meanings, but doesn’t get that it’s the potential misunderstanding that makes it funny. Wonder why I’m thinking about Big Bang theory just now. Hm. We’ve also discussed how kettles and toasters work, not sure he gets it entirely, but it’s a start. Must try to keep track of these interesting little conversations, as he gets most of his education that way atm.

Other events of yesterday – I got my TMA into the post. It won’t have got there yet though, as Royal Mail had cancelled afternoon deliveries from Brighouse. Also posted clubcard deals tokens for Nature detectives and English heritage membership, given that we hardly ever use our clubcard tokens, it was very good of me to have got organised enough to do both of those. Oh, and I submitted my CMA (should get marks fairly soon I hope?) and processed some more paper into recycling and throwing out piles, as well as posting the form to reclaim overpaid council tax from old house.

Tim is down at old house today. I need to roust the children as I’ve a follow up appt with the doctor to get the results of my Xray. I’ve loads of pain in my hip today, which I assume is related to stumping around town yesterday in wellies. Still, having the pain will at least mean I can describe where it is accurately, always look for that silver lining.