Home Educating the Puddle Girls…

I shall focus on the positive of all this today It was that sort of day

Started off with everyone doing music practise. I shall have to get teachers for them sometime soon i think, but money is tight just at the moment, so i’ll be waiting until the new year i think. Need to tune Maddy’s guitar (gulp) but Amelie and Fran are okay and enjoying making noise. Everyone was reasonably busy so i went off to sort out our passports while MF looked after them.

Josie and i had a nice time in the post office, she was good company. Managed 3/5 passports. Had to get new birth certificate for Amelie (bank lost her full one and i forgot, Max put wrong marriage certificate in for me ) Will go back tomorrow am to complete mission.

Did a fair bit of shrieking over state of house.

Then went out to Barnwell Country Park for a picnic with Hannah and co. I’ve not been there for years and i don’t think last time we went we were particualrly impressed but i saw that they were doing nature trails there so we thought it would be a nice diversion. Josie is looking so much healthier for a week outside that it seemed a good idea to try and continue it while the weather is still summer-ish.

After a lunch and a very minimum of opportunity to chat, thanks to clingy and repeatedly returning children we set off on the trail.

I think it would be fair to say that they warmed up eventually but there was a fair bit of whining while they did so. However Hannah and i have a nature study plan (rofl, a plan… a plan which consists of “doing some”), so they might have to get used to it. I think a bit of practise at just being out and doing something will have to be got through with gritted teeth

In the end they all did pretty well; the younger 3 did a spotting thing and saw butterflies, swans, geese and more. Amelie was doing a fair job of spotting the  words too and the bigger 3 spent time in bird and kingfisher hides, found different types grasses, drew what they could see (Maddy did a recognisable cow parsley and teasel bush) and Fran surprised me by what she could write and spell quite happily. She surprises me with that a lot, she’s far more able at it than she chooses to show me!

By the time we got back to the car everyone had had a lovely time and were very pleased with the cuddly toy prizes they received. Yum, more stuffed things

Finished off with Doctor Who, though we’ve nearly all watched it all now, which is a shame because it has been a lovely family obsession; last nights was The Satan Pit, which really did have an EXCELLENT monster

Thought i would mention this site, as we’ve managed to have several good days out from it recently. Very handy little site, more power to its e-elbow.
Wherecanwego.com 

A very slow back to normal day today, with not much of anything but a little of everything. Hardly worth beginning to get back into a routine as the next 4 days and all next week are a bit different to normal anyway, so i didn’t bother. Maddy achieved 2 sums and some reading, Fran achieved about 4 sums and read about Christopher Columbus. beyond that and some hasty tidying, we didn’t achieve much in the way of anything.

Amelie on the other hand, did. She is HUGELY motivated by wanting to read and will badger anyone, at any time until they run away screaming. She has got a good memory for words and can pick strings of words she knows out of books, so she is actually making an excellent stab at some of the Usborne Apple Tree Farm readers, which is quite impressive as Maddy would still go all floppy at the sight of those. I’m going to sign her up to Studydog i think, so she can enjoy that, i’ve got a feeling she’ll adore it. So i sat with her for ages doing various books, and Max has done more tonight as well, and she is a very happy bunny indeed.

Decided last night that all the work stuff that needed doing, the washing, the house, the unpacking etc etc was going to mean several days of stress and wailing, so took all the igrls to Sue’s instead and came home for 4 hours of uninterupted tidying and working. Leaflets got ordered, banking done, washing put away, my bedroom is spotless, passports almost sorted (i have to make a return trip tomorrow morning), accounts up to date and kitchen fixed up.

So now i can enjoy the rest of the week and we don’t have to do any shouting.

The girls had a fab time at Sue’s - they picked plums, played, talked to the dogs, coloured and drew and mostly didn’t want to come home. Maddy drew an amazing picture, i must blog it.

I should probably go to bed, or as Josie would say “goat to bed.”

Somebody sort out the NHS. Please. It’s being run by lunatics.

I phoned up for Amelie’s allergy appointment and they couldn’t offer me an appointment until the day after the 13 weeks that we must be seen within. This meant that she couldn’t offer me that appointment, because then she wouldn’t have been seen within the 13 weeks. So she was going to have to get her manager to open a new clinic, within the previous week (when we’d be in France), so that an appointment within the 13 weeks could be allocated instead.

Except we wouldn’t be able to go, but that would be okay because it would be within the 13 weeks from her referral.

Fortunately a manager with commonsense prevailed.

Is it me?

Saturday we reduced to another paddling trip to Postbridge, before buying bbq stuff and heading back to the campsite ready to babysit M and Iz and Joe and Lou wanted to go to a concert. (To be fair, i think ‘wanted’ states Joe’s stance on the particular band rather too strongly… ) So we had 6 girls for the night and it was lovely, all very easy and enjoyable. M is a particular delight, she knows how to play her audience, so consequently she had me wrapped round her little finger!

Sunday we all, including the cousins and Joe and Lou, went to Lydford Gorge and picnicked before doing the circuit of the gorge. It’s quite steep and rocky in places, with lots of steps in the other bits, so i was highly impressed by them all making it round, including Joey. We took Fran the year i was pregnant with Maddy and she did it too back then at only 18 months or so (i only just did, i was a bit portly for it really!) but it is quite a hike so they did very well. More posing for photos (must find camera) and paddling there too. Think we Little Cheffed for tea again that night, cooking seems a bit of an effort when camping. Max and i stayed up late watching Peter Kay segments on You Tube. Laughed much to much for my pelvic floor
Monday we packed up, discovered we had inadvertantly stayed a day longer than we’d booked and had caused them hassle but they were lovely about it. Less lovely were the sons of the family who had been expecting to have out pitch. They walked backwards and forwards in front of our tent talking in that “outloud because really we want you to hear” way about how we’d stolen their pitch and we supposed to book out while throwing us evil looks. In fact, i only realised because of this, so was able to settle up with the owner without her having to ask, but why the kids had to be so ridiculous i have no idea, there were spare pitches so they were just a few spaces along Oh well, we all make mistakes. Still haven’t quite worked out what went wrong!

My favourite thing about monday was stopping in to see the friends who i met when she bought stuff on BM and we discovered she’d been at school with Max. We spent 2-3 happy hours with them on their lovely small holding with their great kids and their delicious cakes. Still very much an HE family, in fact, not sure i know a MORE HE family than they are and it was great. How fab to have a life where tea in the garden is improved by the family pony popping over to say hello? Hoping to get back down to see them this autumn if i can as the combination of setting and family is almost instantly restful

Finally made it over to Joe and Lou’s after tearing ourselves away, primed the kids with calories and drinks and then headed off to Heavitree’s Party in the Park. Never been to anything like it before but it was lots of fun, though a bit loud for me and i seem to lose the power of speech and thought when things are loud. However, picnic, Pimms, fast rides, sun and lots of good music made for a very enjoyable evening. The girls liked Take That 2 and LOVED The Spicey Girls; i took the younger 3 home before Queen as they were drooping by 10pm but Fran, Iz and M made it to the end. Huge amount of fun and 6 very tired girls.

This morning i had to go and shout at a florist (sometimes having worked in retail really is excellent, i got £30 out of her in about 20 seconds flat after failing to achieve anything over the phone in a whole month) and then we dropped in to TRB with breakfast. Spent a lovely 90 minutes or so there, put some dirty handprints on the newly painted wall ( ) and then headed home. And now we’re back with no family holidays for… oh.. a month or so I have started having nightmares about exploding planes though, so plenty of time for me to get used to that idea!!!!

Friday needed to be at a slightly more leisurely pace after all that and as cousin M was better, we decided to meet up with Joe and the girls at Castle Drogo. (LOVE National Trust membership, worth every penny!) Had a somewhat torturous trip up there; it’s a very, VERY narrow lane and quite stepp coming from the side we were on and someone was half way up and comprehensively stuck in a motorhome. Huffed a bit as we were the ones directly behind and various people got irate or went up to help cars get past; in the end, he got stuck again and i went up to let him know he was really going to have to be the one to move next as there simply wasn’t room. It then became obvious that he was a gentleman who had, i’d guess, become a widower in the last year and had bought a motorhome and decided to go off on tour. He was a bit flustered So we were nice, helped him out a bit and when we all got to Castle Drogo, i flapped over him for a bit and probably annoyed him greatly and then we left him recuperating! I felt a bit bad for huffing though.

After that, we had a REALLY NICE DAY. (Look, a “really” and a “nice” all in one 3 word sentence!)

Playing in the trees. (I’ve got that grainy problem again, i’m gonig to have to read the manual.)

Amelie being a bit B list celebrity.

Cousin M - same age as Amelie, a whole different sort of girl!

Doing the history trail.

Being gorgeous.

Lovely time. I sunbathed after all that, i seemed to be ridiculously tired all week, and Max and Joe took all the girls in the castle for another trail and a nosey. Then i sat with them while they played and amused myself people watching. One elderly couple stood by me quite openly discussing the 6 girls and trying to work out which belonged together. They settled on Iz, Maddy, M and Amelie being sisters, with M and Amelie as twins and Fran being the second oldest (Iz is taller but younger in fact) and being sibling only to Josie.

I enjoyed telling them how wrong they were; i don’t think they realised they’d been stood right over me while discussing my brood

Iz - didn’t get a good one of her really.

Finished off the day paddling at Postbridge. It was one of those incredibly deeply sunny late afternoons; the photos seem to have come out all 1970’s slide-ish, not sure why. Lovely though.

Then went off to forage for dinner and ended up at excellent chip shop in Tavistock, which was having a Balloon Festival. Impossible to get a decent photo, at least, impossible if you are me, but i did love the way they were just appearing from the end of the street. Very surreal.

Got impossibly lost on the way home, which reduced us all to complete hysterics. Set off towards the campsites landmark, Dingles Steam Village, which was helpfully signposted right from Tavistock (where we’ve decided we’d quite fancy living) and then managed to lose our bearings in the last few miles when we realised we actually only know how to get back to it if we come from the A30 and are otherwise clueless as to its actual geographic position. It takes some doing for Max to get as lost as i can, that’s for sure, but we had NO IDEA where we were, except that we were, without fail, always 2 1/2 miles from a hamlet called Germansweek

Got home eventually, very, very late.

Thursday we had a VERY LONG DAY. Had intended to spend it with cousins, but M was sick so had to stay away from her really, given our “don’t want tummy bug in a field” status. Got lunch and ate that under Kestor, then took a walk up to see if anyone had found our letterbox. A few had so the girls were delighted.

Climbed about a lot, Josie was particularly determined to be intrepid

Then we started to walk down toward Batworthy Corner, scene of mine and Max’s best Dartmoor tale, which the kids like to be told.

Josie did a Buttercup…

…. but eventually we convinced her we were prepared to go without her and she followed and did the rest of what was probably a 4-5 mile walk on her own 2 feet. What a little star.

Maddy fell in a hole and wailed a lot; Aspergers kids are supposed to have high pain tolerences, not Maddy I’ve never heard so much fuss about a scraped finger. Humphf.

Met someone taking photos for this site on the way down, she took a photo of our crocs, but i don’t see it on the site! Eventually made it down to the Teign River/Stream, which Amelie immediately dubbed “a magical place”.

We’ll gloss over the part where Frances decided to behave like a mountain goat skipping across the rocks in the river (which was in full flow from so much rain), lost her footing, skittered down through the rocks, white water rafting on her bum, lost her shoes, missed a million rocks with her head by about a millimetre and then decided her shoes were more important than her life and tried to retrieve them.

Sometime later, i ceased screaming at her about how i can buy more crocs, would have to work bloody hard to get another Frances and people die making stupid bad decisions like that. By this time i had reduced all 4 children to sobbing wrecks. Amelie continued to wail “when will i forget about Fran nearly drowning at intervals for the rest of the day.

However, we got over it, Max put the big two through the “whooping rock” (big rock with a hole through it) - at least, Max knows it as that, but i can’t find a reference to that particular one anywhere. Maddy later fell through it again, up to her neck (fortunately i wasn’t looking and Max pulled her out without me knowing.) Edit - i think it is this rock actually.
She was delighted to find it had a dimple the perfect shape for a Maddy bottom though.

It was very beautiful down there.

Then we walked them up the other side to see the stone circle, a particularly good one with lots of odd triangle stones

and then all the way back, stopping to retrieve various bits of sodden clothing as we went. I think at one point Fran and Maddy had every item of clothing they had had on, on a rock of tree somewhere

Luckily i had spare clothes.

Ice cream in Chagford was in order, along with a trip to put flowers on Gran’s grave in an attempt to give Amelie some closure on it all. Moderately successful.

Took them all into Moretonhampstead then for the carnival with Joe and Iz, which was excellent this year, thoguh my camera batteries ran out. One particularly fab dalek, which so convinced Josie that for the rest of the week she asked if the daleks were still there every time we went through the town! Finished with fair and food and home for a very late bedtime indeed .

We’ve had just under a week away and it was too nice to even spend time blogging this time, even with the wireless campsite

Before we went we had a high maintenence few days, most of which is a blur now but some of which involved me working extremely hard on my new shop which is now, i think, ready for a good old testing before i set it live with a proper advertising campaign.

So if you feel inclined, please do have a wander through my brand new spin off toy site, PlayMerrily… comments, bug reports, reviews and of course orders will be gratefully received. I’ve got no idea if it will take off at all, so i’ve kept the design of it very minimal at the moment. If it does okay, i expect it will get a revamp next year

Max took the girls out on the sunday and they spent the day at Stowe House and Gardens and then at the Northampton Balloon Festival while i finished off - the result was that i got nearly everything done so we could go away. Phew.

Monday - highly stressful morning in which the passport photo machine expired after 2 sets of photos but swallowed my extra £7 plus sundry other arghnessess, but then a lovely pm playing with the beans over at ours.

Tuesday  was a complete nightmare day which i’ve blotted from my memory. It involved passport photos, shopping for holiday essentials, singlehandedly clearing what was left of Gran’s belongings (3 full carloads to the Sally Army), a failed town trip for bedding mats and then a trip over to Helens for passport photo signing (they kindly fed the girls dinner, Sue having had them for some of the day) and then home to pack.

Wednesday we got up early and did the rest of the packing, i placed some stock orders (August has almost, if not quite, matched July in sales which is pleasing but it has been retail death the last few days which might mean i’m not drawing a wage this month ) Got in the car and went off to fill the car tyres, where Max noticed that 1 tyre was down to the canvas. Several tyre places later, i remembered that i was told after the wheels were rehung (or whatever) to take it to get the tracking done, hence the 3 tyres that were in fact bald 2 hours and £190 later, we set off for Devon.

Arrived at our lovely campsite at South Breazle, between Okehampton and Launceston. Got fabulous weather again all week. They’d had a tough summer with the weather being so bad but had only had one day when their drains had finally got overwhelmed; was very impressed to discover that not only had they spent all day fixing the afflicted, but they plan to re do the drains in that bit that got overwhelmed this autumn; even then it was only during the rain itself apparently. Such a nice couple More on them later

Set up, sorted everyone out, fed people, put the tent up in record time and got sorted. We seemed to be very neatly packed this time, no mess at all. Bargain.

I completed my week of “work in the morning, tidy at lunch time, go out in the afternoon.”

Today the kids got their stuff done in record time; maths, reading, music and ’something else meaningful’ - MF sent 54 parcels, making this week the busiest week of parcels ever; 201. Bit scary.

Am, frankly, praying that last years growth does not repeat itself as i do not want to be 6 times as busy as August in November. At all. Frankly, double will be pushing it, but double i’d like.

I’m trying not to think about it. Fortunately MF is very equal to the task, LF was in top form and with the imminent return of lucy to the BM fold, things might be okay. If i ever get the boxes unpacked.
In the afternoon, we got the cream of the weeks afternoon activities, the one they’d been waiting for. We went to the family riding stables, the ones recently taken over by MFs sister.

This was a. very. exciting. event.

Louise runs Bulby Equestrian Stables and it really is great, lovely atmosphere, lovely safe spot to relax in and fab horses; even i liked them and i’m about as unhorsey as you can possibly get. We met quite a few of these horses and the girls had a ride on William and Buster.

Amelie and MF.

Fran on Buster.

Maddy on Buster.

Josie had several goes too and after an initial hestitation, she was very excited. No photos though as i walked with her. She particularly likes MF, they get on well, so she was very happy and also had a go on William with LF. Wouldn’t ride with Mini-Violet though, she’s highly suspicoius of people her own height and oddly, the suggestion that Mini-Violet was her cousin didn’t seem to improve her temper about it at all!

Mini-Violet and LittleFlower.

Fran and LittleFlower. I can see a likeness in this photo actually. LF is adorable, you can see why we like her

Hoof Picks and Tiaras - a pony mad princess.

William.

Finding out about Sage’s sore leg. Fran was hugely impressed by her day out and threw herslef right into it; she mucked out a stable, went off on all the collecting of horses, feeding and so on and would have stayed the night if i’d left her i think! We’re going to try and go regularly and lousie and i also talked about doing an HE day up there, a sort of taster day.

I’m incredibly blessed with my friends and family aren’t i? Ice skating coaches and horse riding stables. Not bad at all really

Finally got a smile out of Josie. She’s looking really rough though, so pale. I’m worried now, cos i can’t get her out of it; i’m taking her to the docs on monday.

LF again

Fab day, not even spoiled by the jam back through Stamford. Finished off with family tea and an episode of Cybermen and now i’m trying to summon the energy to work.

I’m really pleased with myself for this week; it’s been a huge confidfence boost to get out and get so much done. The girls feel happier, i feel better and i’ve even recovered from a mid-week wobble okay. Feels like i’ve got my priorities sorted out a bit.

… you can’t say fairer than that. Look at all those blogs

This morning was a bit bleary for several reasons too tedious to go into but i woke up rather sharply when i went on to the drive to investigate my latest stock dleivery, only to discover that the company i ordered from but specifically requested didn’t send me the stock till mid-september had ignored my request. Which means i now have £2k worth of stock that i don’t have time to make sale-able. Grrr. It’s all for the new site, Peppa Pig, Sylvanians, jigsaws, books, some new crafty stuff and some Supermags, but i don’t want it yet. Wail. Had to take it all to the storage place and berate firm on phone while demanding they don’t invoice me for the next 8 weeks. Pah.

After some more normals (Fran can do division, yay, not long now and i can give her a calculator with a clear conscience because the minute it requires her to do long division my allegience to manual maths goes on holiday) we headed out again, this time for Burghley House, which is now conveniently just up the road from us. Takes far less time to get to than it did when we lived 10 miles closer! Sadly the Sculpture Gardens are no longer free, but they redeemed themselves with the Water Garden bit (can’t recall what it is exactly called) which i didn’t know about. I bought a family pass anyway because that’s the same price as me and my 4 gonig twice and we went into the new bit first. It was so good we never got to the Scupture Gardens

We had the lovely pleasure of the company of Hannah and Co, which was great - and the kids had a ball.

Grubbing about for acorns aka fairy food.

I iddn’t know, but she was weeping because she was wearing trainers, not crocs, so thoguht she couldn’t go in the water. Didn’t occur to her to go barefoot

My very first attempt at setting the shutter speed manually, not great, but not bad and therefore blogworthy so i remember i did it!

Josie refusing to let me take a picture of her face

Obelisk.

Thing. I’ve finally worked out why i keep missing the tops of things, i’m tilting the camera as i press the button. Must work on that.

Watery thing.

Panting thing

Friendship.

I have this odd feeling this girl would be right at home in Chelsea or Kensington. This pose makes me think of an It Girl!

Shiny, spiky thing.

Fran’s footprint.

Seven stars and seven stones and one white tree.

Fairy food. I was told to stop taking photos in case i scared the fairies off.

No exit

Plans for afternoons out went awry when Max overslept and the weather was awful, so he took the car and we were stuck home in the rain. Briefly considered a walk, but didn’t fancy the swim home

Spent the morning normalling and very determinedly listening to people read; Fran is heavily into a copy of the Just So stories we brought back from Gran’s, Maddy is liking Oxford Reading Tree books and her confidence is really growing and Amelie is half way throguh the 2nd level P&J books. She can’t sound out, it is all sight reading, but she loves it so i’m happy. She’s also worknig her way through subtraction in Singapore 1A, which is quite impressive as she’s 2 years younger than the grade it is aimed at. I barely have to explain anything, she’s very like Maddy. Maddy has sussed vertical subtraction with carrying (in a sort of ‘i’ve actually been doing this in my head for 2 years’ sort of fashion) and Fran’s happy.

In the afternoon we played a bit at various things, some games, some French etc etc and then we made a sideways start at the Sonlight Core 1 box we’ve got from Claire and Charlie. Hugely grateful for this and very happy with the shelf full of books. We all sat and pored over the pile, sorting it on to the new shelves for a while, then we looked at the Instructors Manual together and discussed how we might approach it, then we made a start of a book about our world. Nothing we’ve not done before, but we ended up discussing natural selection and so on; REALLY interesting to see how Fran and Maddy have come on in that respect since last time we talked about it (during our Darwin phase)-  they get it now and funny to see Amelie still wallowing about in confusion!

Wednesday was more of the same but in the afternoon we did a trip to the storage unit and then went berry picking. Hill Farm is (surprise) on a hill, very high up compared to our house, which is really within sight from the top. FGelt like the weather was going right passed our ears. It was fine, with a track of dark cloud off to one side, appearingto be heading away. We trotted off to the strawberry field, more for fun than berries and they had a lovely time, till i looked up to see the black cloud was right above us and a huge streak of lightening leapt right across the sky over our head.

Suddenly felt us to be 5 very tall objects on the side of a very exposed, high up spot, so tried to get the kids to move off without unnerving them.

They moaned and whinged, i tried again with slightly more force, they saw the next streak of lightening and suddenly my 3 big girls had legged it and unfit me and little Josie were the only 2 tall things left on the hilltop! (Sounds a bit like the song… ‘mother duck said “RUN FOR COVER!!!” and only mummy duck got scorched….’)

Got back to the berry hut and it HEAVED it down, place was drenched in seconds, so we hung about a bit, dived for the car and arrived home very wet and mucky, only for me to remember i’d had all the carpets cleaned that morning!!! So i made them stand in the rain till i found something for them to stand on, a white bed protector, and judging by the state of it afterwards, i now know how my carpets got so dirty!!!!

I went out in the evening and Max played a Sci-0ology game with them that we got from the Young Scientist Club - lots of fun, they were all playing it again thism orning before 8am

I promised the girls we’d spend every possible afternoon out this week, so long as they did some work in the morning and uncomplainngly left the public areas of the house tidy at lunchtime. On Monday they kept their word, so i tried to take them to Hill Farm for berry picking. Unfortunately it was closed, so we did a detour around the bits of countryside out to the side of us (not fen and very much prettier) and came out at the farm. Glad of my season tickets, made it worth going for a couple of hours and we had some much needed fresh air without it being too busy.

Pretending to milk a cow!

Meeting some chicks and a guinea pig.

Playing Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

Being gorgeous.

Being sultry.

Being almost like Summer.

Being orange.

4

Playing Fran Boats.

Being brave and able enough to go to the shop for water nad batteries on your own, lose £5 on the way back and fine it again.

4

Being braver than you used to be.

In fact, in the girls’ (and naturally mine too) opinion, the only thing that spoiled the afternoon was the fact that Chloe and Michelle weren’t there this time Lovely afternoon.

We’re indulging in a little bit of French language here, in preparation for our death-defying leap over the North Sea (yes, we’ve booked the planes, no i haven’t yet organised the passports, yes i really am going, no i haven’t placed a bet on the certainty of a major terror alert erupting in the week before we go but i will be doing, it’s a dead cert, i suggest you do it too) and i’m trying to drag up as much of it as i can remember. The kids are doing lots of lotto and stuff in French and i’m planning to do as much as i can with them over the next few weeks. You might get a few French blog titles

We’d planned togo to Kelmarsh over the weekend, but in the end the first freee weekend with a car was mostly required for tip runs, house clearing and general catching up. Max’s bike needed repairing (again, how come no one makes puncture free tyres? And how come he gets so many????) We got rid of the rubbish from Gran’s house and i’ll do a charity shop run later this week too so then that job will be moreorless over. It’s an odd thing, picking over a persons house, i’d hatre to do it if i were closer to the person really. I found it terribly sad, not in a grief-y type way, but in a lost opportunity sort of way. She was intensely private and i don’t think any of use realised that every card, every event, every photo was carefully catalogued and kept. She’s written diaries her whole life, personal ones, travel ones, baby ones; she was a wealth of information and fascination that i for one never really made enough of. I’ve got a lingering guilt about it now i suppose (surprise) and a determination to do better with the people i still have.

Max has worked really hard at spending quality time with Amelie over the weekend and it seems to have paid off in a calmer, less clingy child since. He’s looked at dinosaurs with her, read her books on volcanoes, listened to her reading and taken her out and about with him. I think she’s finally realising about grabbing and cuddling people who don’t want it, which is a big deal; she might still want to, but she’s spotting the “back off” clues a bit better and is holding back or going to me or Max instead.

One other side effect of reading George and Sam (a side effect i’m so pleased with i’m immediately reaching for all other parenting/HE books) is that it has reminded me of why i’m at home in the first place and that my main motivation is to be a mum. This is part of my ‘grand plan to be happier’ too (not one person voted me happy on facebook, a grim enlightenment indeed ) so on Monday morning we set about reclaiming HE.

First up was back to maths and i was glad to see the big 2 hadn’t lost any ground by having a month or so off; Fran’s nearly finished 3A now and she’s working well within her capabilities on it but benefitting from the revision. I was quite impressed when she did 235×3 in her head the other day, there is no way i could have done that at 9 (possibly not at 19 actually!) I spent ages on the sofa with Maddy doing ORT books and then lots of time with Amelie doing Peter and Jane. That was really nice too.

Then in the afternoon we tried to go berry picking, but it was closed, so went to the farm instead. More tomorrow - run out of time