Although as an aside, i really love this picture of Fran.

And this one of Josie with “dizzy hair” is lovely too, except it blurred – but never mind.

Another decent day; maths round the table first thing; Amelie grapsed hundreds and what to do if there are no tens, i was ever so proud of her. Lots of reading, i couldn’t get Maddy’s nose out of the book she was engrossed in and when she finished it, she moved on to a Rainbow Fairy book. Really do love seeing her grasping this now, though i think she still employs the “guess it” technique a fair bit. Hopefully carying on with ETC (which she loves!) and doing this new GP English book will be beneficial to her. Fran was happy with Verbal Reasoning, slightly less happy with decimals and played some lovely cello.

I’m making a massive effort to reconnect and focus on cramming days with interaction; i’ve been terribly zoned out recently and reading too much. These last few days have been much better again. So we’d crammed lots in by the time Kate and Madison arrived and all 7 of us had lunch around the table together. Madison is a treasure, i do adore having her as a god-daughter, though the timing of her conception is still a tiny bit raw. But being so pleased she exists and having such a tangible piece of her makes that okay – and makes me make it okay – which is good for me.

Long gossips, much garden play and copious amounts of showing Kate their stretching exercises; Amelie is astonishingly flexible. Josie and Madison have a real connection and loved being out in the sandpit. Then it got heavy and thundery and showery and yuck – so they went home. But it cooled off a while later.

We all tidied – i’m (re)trying a new technique of being supermum and having the house ordered, controlled, tidied and marvellous by the time Max gets home in the hope that either i will grow to like that, or he’ll realise we could squeeze a little more space into our lives. By the time he got home, teac was half cooked, the house was tidy-ish and the kids were educated out and tucked up on the sofa watching a film on the laptop and all huddled into the old sofa together, due to our telly insisting on giving us a black screen half the time; you have to hit it in the right place with the first thump for it to come back – or it stays black and you have to turn it off for half an hour. Very annoying.

I’m now being driven insane by the singing from the camp out the back; i don’t know what it is but it makes me very uncomfortable. It has a mesmeric, brainwashy sound to it, a sort of “by the end of the week you’ll know the words and we’ll have you absorbed” feel that brings out all my worst prejudices from my several highly unpleasant  experiences of churches that exerted just that kind of power. I’m sure i am being very unfair – but chanty, happy clappy, endless drumming and yowling just makes my skin creep.

If I was a rainbow

I’d play about.

If I was a rainbow

I’d dance about.

If I was a rainbow

I’d laugh and shout.

If I was a rainbow.

(And the most remarkable thing about this… i haven’t helped with, or edited, the punctuation!)

Didn’t go to the doctor today on account of the only appointments being for the patronising one; i really don’t need him prodding me and telling me i need to lose weight. Pah. Will have to wait.

Went to work, forgot my bicarb, had to come back, Fiver got bitten on the top lip by Smartie and had to go to hospital – has come home with a staple in his mouth and anti-biotics. Honestly, it is always someone! Max and i were whittling about the middle girls fighting the whole time last night and now it’s the rabbits!

Went back to work, spent ages improving descriptions of products in desperate attempt to sell something, came home, everyone hads lost the anti-biotics syringe; went out to get one from Kate, purveyor of all things medical. Came home, dealt with rabbit, played badminton.

All quite eventful – but nothing is as impressive as the EDUCATION!!!!!!

We ALL did “education maffs” first thing, with everyone sat round the coffee table; Amelie was happy with Base 10 stuff, Fran did decimals, Maddy did times by 10 or 100 and Josie did “EDUCATION MAFFS FOR BIG GIRLS!!!!”  Then Fran did an 11+ practise thingy and adored it; had to tear it away from her in the end! Maddy did some reading, Fran some cello and then Maddy and i started the Galore Park English book i have got her; she did a comprehension and seemed very positive about the book. Fran and i looked throguh the first chapter of her one and agreed a plan to start on it and then she and i also did the first section of her Galore Park history book. She’s thrilled with it, it has so much in it that pulls her bells, so that is excellent. We made a start on the Norman conquest, the succession disagreements and also on historical sources and how to use them. Later on Maddy, Amelie and i started on the first “what is history?” chapter of their version.

Good day. We even had lunch

Quickie: navigated the A14 with only 2 mental drivers with a death wish to brighten my day. Rather a tight balance between drinking enough bicarb and not needing to wee every 5 minutes! Had a very pleasant day with Nattyem, her girls and D and a few doodah doodah moments at her girls also having a room full of tigers and penguins. We didn’t get nearly enough chatting time, but never mind

Home for a quick tidy up and so on, then Max made it home safely from Italy. I’m almost beginning to trust aeroplanes (touch wood).

Had huge plans for today, but woke up this morning with something horrible going on in my bladder, which i eventually realised was a uti and has probably been contributing to my general air of malaise, tiredness and weepiness over last week or so. I’ve had a pain in my tummy for a good 10 days but was irrationally afraid it meant i was pregnant so have been ignoring it. Not anymore though; have staved it off with bicarb for now but will have to go to the docs on wednesday when Max is back in the country.

HOWEVER. It was really quite a good day. Fran did some cello; she is still coming on fast, must take some film of her and is very motivated about practising. She’s quite happy to work away at something new on her own. I must help her tune it though, it has gone wonky. Then she and Maddy found an Usborne book of a build your own medieval village and spent all day cutting out the bits for that and talknig as they went. Max will make it with them on wednsday, i hope. Not my thing, fiddly stuff of that nature.

Amelie and i did lots and lots of maths, adding up columns and using the base 10 stuff to make 10′s and units columns – she loved it and was very happy to be on to Singapore Book 2A. Bless. I always feel like a real home educator when we use the base 10 stuff.

Josie, Amelie and i did various bits of craft, weaving, sewing and so on; everyone played some badminton and they all played out in the square with the local kids, Josie too. She looks SO pleased when i let her go Maddy read a heap of books, Amelie pretended to and i was given long commentaries about the storyline of MI High….

Then we went off to gym… then we came home

It’s been a bit of a haze, this last couple of weeks. I think i blogged till just before the Festival of History but i can’t remember wednesday (i worked some of it, Max did something quite meaningful with them – i know, geography of Europe, loads of different types and styles of maps and seeing what ocuntries they knew (lots, nearly as many as my sister!) Thursday i honestly have no idea but i know i was slumping quite badly downwards so it may well have been a day of playing. I say that, i would re-iterate that even on a day when i say we do nothing, the girls will normally all do 2 or 3 things out of maths, reading, writing,computer time and music – but i don’t bother to say it anymore.

Oh, we did have a mollusc moment and watched this snail on our window for ages, thereby discovering how he moves.

And we also had a good trip into town together (me and the kids) and bought books galore (including a decent dictionary for Fran who now requires one a bit more often) and happened to see the sofa we liked in the sale.

Friday i decided to go to work and mope and Max thought that was a very bad idea, so i went to Twin Lakes with them instead. We had a good time, but i kept falling asleep, which is something of a feature of my life currently. I’m either becoming narcoleptic  or turning into my Nana.

Saturday we hurled our camping stuff in the car and headed off to Kelmarsh for The Festival of History, meeting up with many friends from the MudPud days and more. The girls absolutely loved it, as did i and we’ll definitely being going back another year. Much as  ilike the days, my favourite bit of it was the parade at the end of the first day, when the Romans did a guard of honour for all the people involved – i loved the sense of respect and camaraderie.

My favourite, i love the colours.

Actually, i’m never so keen on Civil War enacting; it always seems to be mainly boys playing with guns and seeing how long the can prolong the banging for. So i did laugh when i discovered a good friend of MF’s had been on one of the Civil War Cavalry for the day

As a family, we were literally blown away by the D-Day Drop Zone display; being buzzed by a Spitfire and Mess… oh, German plane or two was glorious and the girls were enraptured by it. Maddy made me laugh when i told her they were real planes from the WW2 – “What, they were really there? Shouldn’t they be in a museum?!?!?!?!” They got a big kick out of connecting it with the Imperial War Museum visit and adored the paratroopers; on the second day one had to cut his main parachute and use his reserve. Slightly heartstopping given how low they jumped from, i would imagine! We used to go to loads of airshows as kids, but i never saw that happen before.

Enactments of that period always make me think of a favourite book of mine, Light of the Moon by Elizabeth Buchan  which is about an SOE operative working with the French Resistance. It is an excellent book; Max and i visited the town it is based around, Riberac, on our pre-wedding Honeymoon.

Had a lovely evening with friends and were very grateful to the Beans for their loan of floor space in a tent; did more history the next day.

Last week the girls spent the week at a Summer Activity Day Camp at a local school. The big 3 all went and had a complete blast; 9-4.30 days for a full week was a bit tiring for them but they did so much stuff; tennis, quad biking, golf, archery, shooting, football, craft, bouncy castles, swimming, art – you name it, it was laid on. I got glowing reports about all 3 of them. Certainly no lack of social skills, that was for sure It meant that Josie and i had a very quiet week together, which we really enjoyed. She accompanied me to work a couple of mornings and therefore got to play with LF once (and go home to Auntie Sue’s with her for a while) and also with PTF’s little boy one day and then one day we spent with Auntie Kate and Madison, where the little ones played gorgeously in the garden while we tried to solve all our problems and one day we went on a trip to a farm with MF and LF. Josie wasn’t too sure of the animals ( ) but she and i had a cosy bonding moment on the tractor ride She and i also spent a morning in town together and had “posh lunch” – ie, anything else but MacDonalds.

Was very odd to have hardly any child interaction for the week; i missed them, but really enjoyed my time with Josie and having a bit of a break – plus it gave Max and i time to do some talking and to do the VAT return (business so dire currently that he owes ME money )