I have no idea what this forum is, nor why it is in my PoP site stats, unless i haven’t read far enough andf i’m hated. I wonder if it is any of you?

However, it made me laugh. A lot. And that is good.

My favourite bit of today was the solid 90 minutes that Fran sat on the sofa, reading to Maddy and Amelie from “Puzzle World” an Usborne compendium of stories, while they leant over her shoulders, taking it in turns to answer the questions in the book. It was lovely.

My second favourite bit of the day was Fran and Maddy reverently using new pouches of pencils and creating really lovely pictures of fairyland and rainbows. Both of them took ages over them and they were great.

My third favourite bit of the day was lying on my bed, surrounded by washing and underneath my two youngest, who both decided to come and play. We lay in a heap for ages, singing songs, tickling and being silly. Josie has always got a spare kiss and giggle for me and Amelie is easily my most empathic child; she can newver be fobbed off and she always knows if i’m too fragile to take silliness from her. She never fails to come up with the goods if it is really necessary.

My fourth favourite bit was listening to 2 old ladies in the doctors waiting room discussing how nice my children are.

My fifth favourite is about to happen; i’m off to play computer games with Max.

my sixth favourite was getting 12 pages of perfect maths handed to me by Fran and playing a mental maths test with her while she ate paella with me and Max and seeing her get all her 3x and / by 3 sums right. She learned those all herself.

This isn’t even very long ago really but now Maddy is older than she was there!

We move one week tomorrow. Maddy is marking the days off on the calender This is really quite an achievement for her as change can be such an issue but she seems genuinely excited. No doubt i’ll find her under a bunk bed in a day or two though.

Anyway, the removals are booked and i’ve spent the day clearing shelves and packing boxes in desultory fashion, in between taking painkillers and wishing Max was still off work. I hate being ill. Still, i’ve managed to move random crud from half of one room, so that is a start. Hoping that tomorrow i’ll feel slightly more inspired to do a bit more. Am wondering where everything will go in the new house as i’m not really sure we’ve thought it through well enough to actually have homes for a lot of our books and educational things. Still, we are planning on using our garage as a sort of extra room/playroom type place, so i hope that will solve the issue. The girls are going to like having a computer upstairs anyway as they’ve been asking for one for ages.

What was good today was that both big girls were really motivated workwise, which pleased me lots as i wasn’t feeling hugely like pushing them. Fran has completely got the hang of division (did i blog that my explanation largely consisted of “divide cakes on to plates, the answer is always smaller than the first number”?) This appears to have been enough and she did 6 pages of them without any trouble. Oh i am pleased. Then after that i asked her to read 3 double pages in any of the little Usborne Mini Encyclopedias and she picked on on oceans, read about waves, currents and coasts, decided to do a project, drew and wrote up a page on waves and narrated all the most interesting things back to me. She was really excited to be able to execute all that for herself. I think she read a book about an island too, having scoured what was left of the shelves for relevant stuff.

Maddy meanwhile was working on some JP handwriting and spent ages on that. She wrote her name in writing that wouldn’t have disgraced a 10 year old I can’t actually think what else she did, i know she has been drawing lots of dolphins and mermaids lately. Amelie was moping and playing on a Tweenies cd-rom, having been up half the night and Josie (who had also been up) was doing similar.

Everyone played in the garden a good bit, managing to avoid nettles this time. yesterday Fran fell in some and was stung horribly; i think she must have had 30-40 bumps I got treated to another rendition of Maddy’s mermaid song performance Oh she is so gorgeous.

Kate came over and we planned our new garden, which her dh is going to do for us. It’ll be nice, a stagger patio down one side and a lawn that curves to mirror the curved wall too, with some screens for shade on 2 spots. It’s south facing, so needs breaking up a bit or it will be boiling. I’m going to plant a Schumacher tree against the back; it’s mine and Max’s tree, as by a strange co-incidence, there has been one in the garden of all the houses we have ever felt were really home. And the rabbits get a new home too; we’ve been entertaining ourselves with online window shopping for rabbit mansions. Well, fresh start for everyone

Really must do something meaningful business-wise soon, BM is still busy, though obligingly slightly fewer customers have been buying but buying lots since the end of the easter holidays. Got some new products arriving tomorrow, so must get those on.

Girls started their swimming lessons tonight. Don’t think Level 1 will stretch them really, but they were so excited. Bless.

There was enough money! We don’t have to grab a bag and make for the hills after all!