T-Bird Anni Rides Again

Hlaf way through the RAinbow meeting tonight one of them told me that her brother was ill with a gastric bug and that she had it too but didn’t feel poorly.  Is it me?????  Or is it not considered a ****** stupid thing to do to send your child into a group of other kids when they have something that could make some of them really poorly?????????   If I’m ill at the weekend I will cancel next Wednesday on principle and let them all know it is because one (anonymous) child was sent with a bug and me and Aprilia are still in quarentine.

The really, really anoying bit is that now I don’t know if I can send Aprilia to Brownies on Friday.  She’s supposed to be being tested for a badge but it won’t have been a clear 72 hours and one of the Brownies is on chemo so isn’t well to start with.

But apart from that, it’s been a good day! 

I’ve been granted a "Daisy book" player through the OU which is great as it’s what I’ll need for my next course, as they stop doing tapes.  Trouble is the are buying me this one which is a hulking great desktop thing and more expensive than this nice portable one ( http://tinyurl.com/5vbkwd )which is what I asked for, would prefer as it’s more practical and will probably end up buying for myself at some point!

Wouldn’t mind if I’d not asked for a specific one or if what I’d asked for was more expensive but the portable is cheaper, does more and would mean I could put a small wallet of SD cards in my bag and head off out of the house nice and easiely.

Ah well, guess beggars can’t be choosers and all that! 

the software I have for reading out things for me (and for converting scanned text images to Word) has a speech recognition facility.  Now, I had been told it wasn’t up for much but I was wondering if maybe with the latest version and with Vista’s own speech engine it may be worth a go.  How wrong can you be?  I’ve gone through the training twice and it still doesn’t work although it now recognises some commands.

Ho hum, back to typing and spell checking carefully (excpt here of course where I ALWAYS forget to check!) 

Last night was not my best night’s sleep!  It started out with just me and Duke which is pretty much all there is space for in our bed.  Then Whiskers draped herself ineligantly over my feet and purred smugly, which is fine, she’s only a diddy cat so it’s not uncomfortable unless I move my feet at which point she pounces on them.  then Aprilia suffled in, announced that she had had a nightmare and got into bed next to me, snuggled in on my pillows and promptly fell fast alseep leaving me with no pillows, about a 6" wide strip of matress to sleep on and 2 people wriggling and trying to shove me out of the way to make more space for them (and a cat pouncing randomly on 3 sets of feet purring very loudly at randome moments….) 

Education has happened, with extra added Narnia (yup, we are back in Narnia for the 4th time!) and Roman Mystery which we ran out of steam with last year but she’s got back into again. 

Friday was the usual rush round the shops but also a quick trip to the opticians to pick up her new specs.  I finally had enough of Vision Express even though their tests are more thorough and the specs are made faster, I was sick of being told that children can only have appointments are down right inconvenient times and being looked at funny for asking why she couldn’t have one of the available apointments on the board when the shop is empty….  We now hvae a SpecSavers much more locally so they will do nicely thanks.

Friday evening was the "Whi Factor" (Whitegate Church…. yes, tenuous isn’t it?) talent contest.  Thre were some spectacularly good turns and some down right awful stuff.  One of the good acts (but not the best - she was a 13 year old girl who sang her heart out) got first and one of the local school kids got second for singing along badly to some song or other whilst her kid sister bopped about behind her.  But all her school mates were there to vote for her and so Aprilia learned one of lifes less delightful lessons - it ain’t what you know but who.  The singer definitely deserved to win, no arguement (and that from the mother of another entrant!!!)

Yesterday I was supposed to be at Oulton just for the morning whilst Duke did something with the electics in his den with his nephew-in-law.  Was a 2 hour job aparently.  Which is why I ended up staying all day cos they were still sweating it at 3pm!  Which would have been fine if I’d planned on being there all day but I only had 1 can of pop in my bag!  This did mean I had to beg lunch of Harley and was then thoroughly taken pity on and ended up with several other people donating spare food to me.  I ended up with more than I would ever have packed up for myself!  But I can definitely recomend Cathedral City cheese and Branston on Asda’s brown bagette, very pleasant!

Today?  You know, I have no idea!  Well, not strictly true, I know I went to church in the morning and sewed a few more badges on my camp blanket in the evening but the middle is a haze.  Must hvae done soemthing surely!  Ah well.  Oh yes, chatted on line to a Guider who it turns out lives not far from me and knows Jacki from EO!  Small world hey?

Also found out today that both copies of the CRB form I filled out last year for Guiding (and which I am not supposed to be let loose alone until confirmed as okay) never got as far as the lady who co-ordinates it let alone to the Criminal Record people!  Ho hum. 

for those of you who are my friends on Facebook, there are now 2 videos of Aprilia "reporting" on the state of our back yard and on w hy she hates litter.  They are rather comical in that 7 year old trying to sound like a grown up and failing sort of way. 

Duke assured me that the weather today would be all find and dandy as it’s going to be lovely til weekend.  Which is why I was woken up by the rain this morning!  Ho hum, guess we aren’t using the chimnea tonight then!

Well, I can’t say as I’m overly enamoured with having a patron saint who isn’t english, who possibly never even set foot in the country and whose claim to fame is that he rescued a fair maiden from beign lunch for a dragon but anyway, Happy St Georges day folks!

Today was fairly bitty really.  There was Sonlight and Miquon, there was one page of Stile which again brought up the issue that actually she is still struggling with words when there isn’t a nice picture clue and a bit of context from the rest of the page to help her along.  I also found out she has forgotten alphabetical order completely, how did that happen? 

I faffed about trying to tidy up a bit, getting ready for Rainbows and generally pootling.

Had a slightly surreal conversation with the mum of a new starter, she somehow had decided that her offspring didn’t need uniform to be a Rainbow and was going to let her darling child pick which ever fashion victim items she fancied to turn up in each week.  Now, I have to say, as far as I know Guiding has always been a uniformed organisation, all the rest of teh girls are in uniform with one exception (who was enrolled by my predecessor so I can’t do much about it) so you would think there was a clue there really wouldn’t you? She was really rather taken aback when I pointed out that she needed uniform within the first term, not much, just the top is fine.  She hummed and hawed so I pointed out that I’d consider taht she didn’t want to join and would give her place to the next girl if uniform was not purchased within the time.  And unless she knows of a charity shop with much better quality that the ones I frequent, she aint worried on a cost basis.  And she was 10 minutes late picking child up.  I can see her being "that" mother taht they all warned me about…. mutter mumble…

This evening we pootled as a family in the garden which is coming on nicely now.  No mice any more, either the relocated to more peaceful surroundings or they were a midnight snack for someone else’s moggy.  Must get on top of the horsetail again.  Where the grass has grown really tall there’s non to be seen but on the scrubby bits it’s rearing its ugly head again.  I’m tempted to declare chemical warfare but I just hate to break out the chemicals over something that’s beatable without.  Also need to clean up the pots and get set to start off the runners.  Then it’s time to build the beandome again, wonder how many swearing sessions it will take this year?  Each time I think I work out what I did wrong lsat year adn each time I just make a whole new set of interesting variations on a theme of how to not erect a pentadome! 

The book is available here and you can get bdges but I doubt they fit with the Montessori ethos!

There are 6 rights explored 

To be me, the right to an identity, to hold and express your own opinions and celebrate your own beleifs. 

to be happy, the right to be protected from harm, to play, to access healthcare etc 

to work together, equality, fairness, teamworking and how small changes in our lifestyle can have global effects

To Learn, the right to access a suitable education and a look at why nearly 60% of the world’s children have no access to any education

To live in peace, peace of mind as well as living peacefully and the right to not live in a warzone

To be Heard, freedom of speech and the right for children’s voices to be heard. 

Each section starts with an explanation of the rights and the responsibilites those rights come with.  For example To Be Me starts lists the right to a "registered name and nationality, to freedom of expression, to have their identity protected, to be part of a family, to have their privacy protected, to enjoy their own culture and to practice their own feligion and language" which carries the responsibilites for us to be ourselves, to respect our heritage, to not give to pressure to conform to ideas and ideals that are not "ours" unless we actually want to (not being a fashion victim), to speak up and to encourage and support others to speak up.

I’m doing 1 section a term and spreading the activities over 3 or 4 sessions so we don’t rush through it. 

Some of the activities in Aim Hi (  http://www.guidingessentials.org.uk/mall/productpage.cfm/GirlGuiding/6541)are good too, that’s a pack produced with teh WHO about what it means to be healthy. 

If we ever manage to catch up with each other I could fetch them for you to look at but I suspect your weekends are rather too precious just now! 

this evening we spent some time clearing some of the **** up in the garden.  Duke dismembered a play shed last year and never got as far as shifting the wood off the grass but as Aprilia wants her own patch of garden, and as that depends on Duke and I doing the heavy clearing, we set to.  As we lifted one big bit up there was a squeek and suddenly Whiskers was off in hot pursuit of a very cute mouse (I can call it very cute cos it was in my garden, I would be calling it something else entirely if it was in the house )  She caught it, she let it go and played with it a bit, it ran off, she caught it…. you can see where this is going can’t you? 

I think she caought it a good 10 or so times in all, aided and abetted by Duke who thought it was funny to catch it under a flowerpot , put a trowel underneath then carry it to where Whiskers lost the scent and release it for her again   Then she found the nest and rootled round in that for a bit and then came inside for her tea having failed totally to dine on fresh mouse   Duke thinks she let it live so she can play with it again tomorrow.  I think she just has no idea what to do with it once she’s got it!  Either way I finally got round to putting flea drops on her and de-worming stuff in her food as I figure if she has ambitions as a mouser she’d better be protected against uninvited guests.

Before all that excitement, we went to soft play then L came home with us and the two of them rubbed along with minimal sparing most of the afternoon.  

Tomorrow is Rainbows and I have failed miserably to plan anything.  I thought about doing something for St Georges Day but thought that they would probably have done it to death at school all day.  So I’m looking at making bead bangles on pipecleaners as part of "The Right to Be Me" which is all about being an individual and recognising that everyone has the right to their own identity (part of a fab resource pack called Right Now which is all about Human Rights - would be an ace resource for structured Home Ed groups or even for a family)