Having done the classic thing of waiting for my deadline to finish my TMA work, I really needed to get stuck in this morning. Which of course meant that the children picked up on this desire to do otherwise than pay them attention, and they were all over me and the living room in annoying fashion while I tried to work.
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.
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