T-Bird Anni Rides Again

doing my TMA or sorting out stuff for Brownie Holiday or sorting out the washing mountain.  Instead I am aimlessly playing on the PC.  Sigh.  Hopeless case me!

I feel I really ought to blog you know.  But then I can’t think quite where to start.  Other than a series of unfortunate events our jolly up to Melrose was rather lovely. 

Aprilia blissfully DS-ed with anyone who would play with her.  She even did real, non, electronic playing! 

And we went to Dynamic Earth with Big who was delightful as little girls always are when not with their mothers  ….. and her hand is less hot and sticky than my little girl’s too which made for some delightful hand holding  

Not to mention blissful evenings spent in the company of likeminded adults, gossiping over tea (or wine) and home baking.  Oh, and the obligatory stops at Tebay North and South on the journies.  And the meal out in Edinburgh.  The game workshop seemed to be a hit too.

and there was A Series of Unfortunate Events book 3 - discovered 2nd hand in a little shop and instantly loved by Aprilia, to the point of us going back to see which other ones they had!  Really do need to find her some bookshelves! 

But there were some other more or less Unfortunate Events along the way too.  I forgot my laptop cable and, as the battery is duff I can’t use it without being plugged in.  And my first TMA is due next Tuesday (sigh)  

And then there was the trip to Ed Zoo which turned out to be closed due to the weather.  It’s built onto the side of a cliff for those who have never been there so weather is a bit critical really!  I can’t imagine being blown off the Zoo is too pleasant!  But it’s an anual "pilgrimage" and Arpilia was very weepy about missing out (not to mention it being a wasted trip!)

And then the Dreaded Lurgy struck Duke down (along with rather a lot of other folks) so we headed home a day early in order for me and Aprilia to be totally "quarantined" from any other potential sources of infection so taht we can still go to Brownie Holiday this weekend, assuming we don’t turn green and pukey over the next day! 

But you know what?  The moment anyone starts booking for next year I shall be jumping up and down cos I really do love Melrose! 

One day I will create the perfect packing lists for all our various jollies.  No, really, I will… at which point of course our needs will change and it won’t be perfect any more!

But anyway.

Today is packing day and really I should be getting going not playing on the PC but as Aprilia has elected to sleep LATE I’m making the most of the last bit of peace I’m likely to enjoy for a little while.

I’m also cursing the fact that I have been delinquent once again at backing anything up or maintaining my files in good order as I’m about to get brave and format Vista into oblivion having been given a lovely, shiny, legal copy of XP to install in it’s place.  I’m hoping dearest darling Duke (can you tell I want him to do something?) will have an external drive I can borrow to just shunt the lot over to and this time I WILL remember to print off my passwords from Firefox as that doesn’t transfer over you know….. (and you just know I found that out the hard way don’t you?)

I’m also cursing the fact that I’ve loaned my copy of Inspiration to someone who I haven’t seen for a while so I will have to install Aprilia’s "KidSpiration" instead which is cute but will be a bit embarrasing if I haven’t got it sorted out before I get round to booking my "how to use your computer" session with the DSA supplier (ooops, really ought to get that sorted!)

Ah well, must get on with it! 

Yesterday she made pancakes with virtually no help from anyone (and they were good!) and today she made galettes (French, very rich bickies) with me just reading the instructions and did most of the work on some flapjacks too.  It’s all very exciting.

She decided that, as all the girls had permission to wear guiding uniforms to school today, she would wear her Brownie clothes all day as it’s thinking day and insisted I wore my guider polo shirt too.  Strange really that no one batted an eyelid at the soft play place with us there but then it wasn’t our usual haunt and it was full of Yummy Mummies who probably wouldn’t notice serfs like us anyway    Was a nice place but a bit far really for regular visits and far too noisy for Aprilia who got really rather frazzled with it all and wanted to go home after not long which we couldn’t do as we had shared a car to get there.  Ho hum.

So, tomorrow.  Erm…… packing.  And baking.  And then packing for the Brownie pack holiday that we will lurch onto after Melrose.  Never did get those early nights I promised myself.

Oh, and LEA lady phoned to reassure me that it was, in fact, legal to leave a child alone.  She had got confused with the locally recomended age for a child to babysit which is 12 although most areas seem to think 14 as a minimum (and I wouldn’t trust anyone who isn’t old enough to have brought up a few kids of their own!)  I graciously refrained from going "nah nah ne nah nah" at her as she did sound suitably embarrassed to have given me a brief moment of high blood pressure. 

I know more about something than the "expert"……

 

The LEA lady came this morning, got her socks talked off by Aprilia and then looked at what we do.  She had never heard of Sonlight (how can she be an elective home ed person and not at least know about these things?  Then again she’s new to the game so there’s time, last year’s had been at it for ages though so she had no excuse!) nor Miquon which did actually surprise me as I tend to think of Miquon as being fairly common if not exactly popular! 

Aprilia anounced that now she was a big girl I had let her stay home whilst I nipped out which the lady informed me was illegal.  I looked suitably worried but did think maybe she wasn’t quite right there and as soon as she went I Googled and found that I was right, there is no minimum age, just a "common sense rule" that they be capable of looking after themselves for the short time you are out.

So that’s us done for the year.  Now, on to packing for camp, baking for camp, and generally getting ecited about camp! 

the past day or two has been consumed with seraching for and printing off a huge heap (well, okay, about  30) pictures from the Harry Potter 5 film, typing out captions for them all in "Harry P" font (it’s like the font they use for the films, all jaggedy and lightning-bolt-ish) and a sentence or two for each in a more legible font.  Once the pictures started rolling off the printer she started sticking them in a book, no particular order to them (I did suggest trying to place them in the order they would be in the film but she didn’t like that idea) taht I can see but definitely the right order according to her.  Then she started sticking the captions onto the pictures and she’s now half way through the sentences.  I need to replenish our glue stick supplies urgently! Now, promise me y’all won’t go telling her that this has required a whole heap of reading will you?   Not to mention creativity with arranging it all and manual dexterity cutting out all the bits of writing for each page.  I’ll see if she wants to fetch it to Melrose to show you Helen!  Actually it made me wonder if i could cobble togther a "reading scheme" for her based around the 5 films, you know, pictures in roughly the right order for the film with a sentence or two telling the story so she could have her own Harry Books to practice reading from.

Last night we were at a Red Cross "compulsary training course" which turned out only to be required if you provide a particular service, which I don’t.  I shall say no more except that the icing on the cake was one of the other atendees spent quite some time telling me how I do it all wrong with the Rainbows and that Brown Owl is also doing it all wrong with the Brownies.  She was a Guider in her younger days but stopped 10 years ago but naturally she still knows it all….. sigh.

Packing etc is almost ready to begin, I spent a while today edging about 20 new tea towels cut from a small bolt of thin toweling discovered at the bottom of my stash.  There isn’t a right angle or a properly straight edge to be seen anywhere but they should do good service at drying up and be thin enough to dry reasonably quickly in the dryer.  I still have no idea how we have dwidled from a huge crate of the other cloths when I first made them all down to about a third of that number by the end of the last Melrose but hey, we are re-stocked and I got rid of some stash so that’s good! 

And now, once I excavate the bed from under a mountain of clean, dry washing, I’m aiming for one of those early nights I promised myself  

This week I need to this week….

house-y things

Clear the washing so we have enough stuff to see us through Melrose and Brownie holiday

Consider driving to the Depot to get Brownie joggers to be absolutely sure Aprilia has clean clothes for the  holiday!    They don’t stock her size any more - so I’d better get serious with washing then!

Clear the living room and hallway so the LEA lady doesn’t declare us a health hazard and insist Aprilia is removed for her own safety (JOKING!!!  well, not about tidying up but…)

Book Whiskers into cattery

find cat carrier and do something with the broken latch so she can’t escape when we take her 

Bake 

School-y things

Help Aprilia put together some stuff to show LEA lady - her choice, I’m happy for her not to see anything but Aprilia is a born show off you know.

cut and fold the latest batch of reading books - "level e" ones supposed to be for 4 year olds so alas rather boring for a 7 year old but on her current reading ability. 

Try to whip some sense into the disorder which is currently her puzzle book drawers.  They got all mixed up and now I don’t know what’s where.  and I’m sure there must be some dead weight in there too that could just get recycled. 

Do 2 week’s worith of OU stuff so I can get away without taking it to Melrose! 

Rainbow things

Print off Mothers Day cards for Rainbows to colour and write in

Print off "gift coupons" with things like "this entitles the bearer to help with the washing up" on for RAinbows to put inside cards (this month’s Guide Mag has the suggestion of them writing these on post it notes but it just looks awful with a stack of yellow stickies so I thought coupons would look neater) 

Go to training session on Thursday night to pretty much finish off leadership qualification 

Other Stuff

Make a copy of Ballet Shoes for Jax

Pack Sonlight stuff for Helen 

Get some sleep cos I’m pretty sure I’m not going to get enough next week….. 

 

Traveling by train into Manchester is very pleasant.  It involves a very short drive at either end of a nice long hour sat undisturbed, unworried about missing my stop as the train is one that stops at Picc and goes no further.  Then a quick hop over to the outside platform and 4 minutes to the next stop and a similarly short walk to the building.  Wish I’d done it last year rather than driving to Liverpool!

Tutorial was good, it took all the stress out of it to have my recorder to save it all for me, felt almost decadent sitting there whilst everyone scribbled furious notes.  Now I just need to remember to listen to it and transcribe it at my pace as there is some stuff that will be useful for the TMA.

 

You are late-sleepy relaxation, the half-awake moment when you realize it’s morning, but you don’t have to get up, because there’s no place you have to be. You are that cozy spot under the covers where everything feels temporarily perfect, even if you know you’ll eventually have to wiggle out and start the day. Maybe you’re the artistic type, who doesn’t function well on a normal schedule. Sleep’s important to you, and you like the freedom of sleeping as late as you want (especially since that is closely related to the freedom to stay up as late as you want). You like to roll out of bed, put on some comfy clothes, and get a laid back start to the day. If not everything on your list gets accomplished, no worries. Your only priority is having no priorities – you just want to take things at a slow, mellow pace.

We went to Aberkhan today with my mum to get fabric for a dress for Aprilia.  Now, we allowed her free choice on fabric and she ended up picking some that is a lovely colour but is really cheap fabric meaning that I’m not terribly convinced how good it will end up!  Never mind, I have plenty of other stuff and it can just be a play dress if it’s too awful!

Also got some yarn to make a cardi for Aprilia as she ahs just grown out of them all and a piece of fleece to be her "camp blanket" so she had somewhere to sew her Rainbow badges.  She will sew her Brownie ones on it in 3 years time but til then it is just a little sparse shall we say!  I may buy her a few extras over the next few years (from places we go or whatever) just to make it look a little less bare.  I dug out my camp blanket so she could see what it looked like and she was deeply envious of all those badges but less impressed with the rather yellowed-with-age blanket!  She rather bluntly suggested that it was time I made a new one and "tidied up all those badges so they are all neat" rather than my rather chaotic distribution of random badges!  She may well have a point you know! 

She also spent a while today planning her collage for the LEA lady.  She did a huge one last year and this year wants to do one on the theme of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.  Mum donated a large wodge of coloured tissue paper to the project which is handy as we are totally out of the stuff.  So all we need now it to clear the floor sufficiently to tape down the paper, scetch it out, print off some pics of the main characters to embelish it and cut her loose with the glue!  I did suggest that when the lady said that if Aprilia wanted to show her any work she really meant puzzlebooks but she gave me one of her withering stares and said "Mummy, that’s boring, she’ll like a collage much better"  So who am I to argue