T-Bird Anni Rides Again

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it has recently been brought to my attention that there is a significnant failure to Flickr occuring at the moment.  I would like to formally apologise for this adn promise that at some point in the next 12 months I will rectify this situation!

Today I had a mainly pleasant day at Oulton with Duke.  It’s not often that the pair of us get let loose at the edge of a racetrack these days, usually one of us (guess which one…) is home with Aprilia.  Won’t go into the reasons here as it relates to stuff blogged elsewhere which needs to be kept below radar at the moment, but anyway, Lola had Aprilia instead of going to Oulton, she took her to Kung Fu which she was much impressed with, then for a McD’s breakfast (which sort of negates the point of all that early morning excercise really but hey!) and then they put up the pop up tent in her living room and seem to have had a great day!

We watched lots of racing, had lots of banter with the marshals, spoke to friend on phone (he’s not okay, but he will be) and managed to mainly avoid people who I really don’t want to deal with at the moment.  Mostly we just sat and talked, not as much as we would have liked because we were sharing the ambi with someone who doesn’t understand the concept of a private conversation between partners but still, it’s somewhat of a novelty these days for us to be together, during the hours of daylight, without an 8 year old "chaperone"!

Will update friend status in a passworded post.

 

no idea waht we have done for most of the week! 

There were worrying messages (blogged elsewhere) and thus a greater diligence about being sure I have petrol in the car and a fully charged phone in case of emergency dashes. I even programmed various destinations into the SatNav (2 hospitals and a home address) to make them easier to find if I needed to get going quickly.  It’s also precipitated a change in plans for the weekend as now I am doing Oulton on Saturday with Duke instead of Lola being there as she doesn’t want to be within range of certain paramedics in case she does something she won’t regret one little bit  so she is having Aprilia, taking her to Kung Fu, and then entertaining her for the day.  Aparently I’m less likely to emasculate people than she is….. I’m not convinced and, judging by the fact that Duke has already said we are going out to the far end of the circuit out of the way, I’m guessing he’s not terribly convinced either!

There has been  quite a bit of time spent in Jungle Jims and a trip to the library.

There was Rainbows which was a bit of a random meeting but seemed to go okay for all that (but I’m glad we have nearly finished Changing The World, it’s not been that exciting to be honest!)  and I got scarily excited to find we have a new "Henrietta" at the hall which actually sucks the dirt up rather than just evenly distributing it like the old hoover did!

There has been a bit of brainwork going on, we have just about finished the last bits of history for SL1, a bit of easy maths (yes, we are still doing the easy stuff to try to speed her up before going back to stuff she is more than capable of but takes for ever over), bit of reading etc.  I am going to do some random project type stuff for a while with her, got a few things I’ve downloaded here and there, we just need a break from World History for a month or so before embarking on SL2.  There has been much reading of Dark is Rising which is a bit of a harder story than Over Sea Under Stone but she’s just about keeping up with it.  I’m thinking we may ahve a Roman Mystery binge before we settle back to SL2 as well, we seem to ahve been reading them on and off for ages!

I’ve plodded on through my OU work, succeeding in very nearly catching up but being horrorfied to realise that I need to send my next TMA in next Thursday, which means having it finished on Wednesday before last post and I’ve not started it yet due to a complete inability to get my head round it…. I know what I need to do, I need to read a whole ***** novel and pick out quotes about a couple of techniques, I just can’t quite manage to work myself up to wading through it all and am seriously considering asking for an extension or just saying I’ll skill this one (which I mustn’t do, any score should be better than no score and if it’s really bad then it will get removed at the end anyway and subbed for whatever my average is for the rest of them) 

Meanwhile, Aprilia has had a barking cough that turned into a sore throat and a sniffy cold which has made her sleeping even worse than it was.  Biovea have assured me that they have posted the melatonin adn that if it’s not arrived in a week or so to get back to them again.  I can’t help but feel that really taht is not good enough, especially as it appears that I’m not the only one waiting on them (and beleive me, if the post mark is anything other than the day they say it was posted I will be expressing my displeasure)

I am fighting off a sniffy cold which, inevitably, is going to hit with full force this weekend when I am busy both days.  Ah well, better this weekend than next when I am at Brownie Pack Hols again… thinks… must buy enough Ding Meals for Duke to feed him for the weekend!

There was a slightly challenging element to Kung Fu yesterday, a lack of sleep rendered me even less co-ordinated than usual, standing on one leg was a challenge…. standing on one leg whilst kicking with the other was more of a challenge than you could ever imagine   Aprilia, however, did really well and is still bouncy about doing her next grading in May which will make her higher graded than me cos I’m not doing it!!!

Rest of the morning was taken up by her self-educating herself via Nessy again.  I do believe that child may one day read independently you know….

Afternoon was taken up with us going to see my parents to deliver the Mothering Sunday card (note, it is NOT Mother’s day…. that is, I am informed, an American aberration and not to be confused with the traditional Christian day mid way through Lent )  She was on good form and whisked Aprilia off for a haircut, I do like where Aprilia gets her hair done now, they do such a lovely job, and they can slot her in at a moment’s notice!  Then Aprilia played with dad in the garage for an hour or so and I managed to hold a civilised conversation with mum without once having to bite my tongue.

The evening was taken up with me on duty at a "wrestling" event at the local hall.   It was mildly amusing to watch all that choreography and over acting for about 5 minutes, then I went and sat with Harley in the lobby. 

Today we had pancakes for breakie and whilst they had a slow-ish morning, I beat myself up for not having kept up to date with the accounts for Rainbows this term, I think I’ve got it right now, or at least right enough although I’ve ended up with 5p more than I should have….. then Duke whisked Aprilia off to buy my mother’s day card and gift (note how I really DON’T care what title the day gets….) - I got flowers and Jelly Babies by the way - and then we ambled off to his mum’s for lunch.

This afternoon Duke finished the base for the new to us greenhouse and discovered the truth in the old addage of "measure twice, cut once" or in this case "measure twice, brick-lay once" as his base is neither big enough, square or level.  I gently massaged his wounded ego whilst he decided that maybe it didn’t need a brick base after all (like what I said in teh first place…..) He admitted defeat and turned on his PC for some time alone with you Tube, I hit the books for a while and Aprilia had a Magic Schoolbus marathon.

well, okay, so there was some ed before bed too, honest!  "Nessy" arrived yesterday morning, not bad seeing as it was only ordered at 4pm the previous day really!  So whilst I nipped out to collect a rocking chair off freecycle she started playing with that.  It’s very good apart from one minor niggle.  It does move just a little too fast really.   This was a cause of some distress.  But then we discovered "homework mode" where you just play the games with various sets of words of the type that children get sent home with as "spellings" these days.  No bananas for Nessy (the aim of playing the main game) but a chance to practice all the games, pick the ones you really like and learn the words with those before going back to the main game.  So she was happier then.

She made eggy chocolate spread bread and eggy jammy bread for lunch which is somewhat of a delicacy as far as we are concerned, not to mention a good fast filling lunch!  No wonder I’m not skinny!

There was general playing in the afternoon and then Barbie (no, that’s not her name but she’s a diddy little blond girlie who always gives the impression that her mummy played dress up the doll with her before she left the house!) came round and they played on teh Wii, spread Hama beads everywhere and did some Christmas cards (as you do a few weeks before Easter naturally!).

 She seemed sort of tired at the right time so was chased to bed with a chapter of Dark is Rising and I logged on for a "stsudy group".  Finished study group to find her still wide awake so decided to bore her to sleep with lots of "Child’s History of the World" which we are still trying to catch up on before we start Core 2 as we got significantly ahead with the other bits of Core 1!  Didn’t seem to work really….. but hey, we romped through 4 chapters (end of the Roman Empire) and thus are nearly up to where we should be and she didn’t declare herself bored once (although I’m willing to accept that that was probably due to her not wanting me to leave the room rather than being rivetted by the book itself)

So once again it’s got to Friday and we still aren’t managing to establish a strong routine.  I really do need to get a grip on this…. but not today, because today we are out again, making Spring/Easter crafts this time!

am still waiting for the melatonin to arrive, meanwhile, Aprilia has had a semipermenant dull headache which I’m pretty certain is purely down to her tiredness but knowing what’s causing it doesn’t make it any easier for her to deal with it.  If only MediSed worked for her I’d be a seriously bad moma and dose her up on that for a few nights until the drops arrive but it makes her hyper (***** typical hey?)

I’m torn between thinking that if she is still asleep past 8am in the morning then she must need it and leave her be and the thought that if she’s sleeping late in the morning it’s going to make it harder for her to settle in the evening.  Either way she is just not her usual self and she just leaches the life out of me.

this morning we watched Blast Lab and discussed some of the concepts a bit so I called that science.  then she wanted to watch MIHigh on Iplayer so I hit the books.  This afternoon we went for a play and then Aprilia went home with Nelly so I came home and carried on with the books.  Clawed through a full chapter so now I’m only 3 weeks behind   I feel like I am getting somewhere now and once this block is over the reading volume is much much less.  Really I ought to have got on with it and listened to all the books before the course started so I had a bit more of an idea of the plots before I started but we all know that that was never really going to happen don’t we!!!

Aprilia woke really late this morning and then couldn’t settle this evening, I did wonder about waking her but she was so tired yesterday I just couldn’t do it.  she is desperately in need of a) sleep and b) our normal routine being nailed back down.  Unlikely to happen this week though.

we both got up several hours before we woke up yesterday so spent a slow morning curled up with her watching Dr Who episodes and me aimlessly browsing cos I was too spaced out to study (which is what I normally do when she’s watching Dr Who!)  Life started to return in the afternoon so we did a bit of general "conversation ed" and she dug out a craft kit which involved pressing out lots of cardboard pieces and painting both sides of them before slotting together to make a model.  I was expecting her to gaily slop paint all over it and have it done in an afternoon.  She didn’t!  She carefully popped out the bits and bagged them all up according to which bit of teh final thing they belonged to and then painted one bit at a time with huge attention to detail   I’m not sure when she turned that particular corner but it was lovely to watch her, all absorbed and relaxed surrounded by pots of paint.

Ridculously early start (unnecessarily so!) does mean that at 6:30 I am seriously considering bath, drink and bed  but it was a good day in the main.  R arrived on time, we loaded up and wombled off to Wombwell to hlep run their annual training day.  Well, obviously we stopped en route for (in my case) 3rd breakfast but shhhh lets not mention that hey!  In the morning Aprilia got to play with a fire extinguisher although she and all the other under 14s weren’t allowed to put out a fire and then I took the littlies for some practical first aid whilst the grown ups had a proper first aid lecture, they all had a go at doing CPR, putting on slings and playing with various bits of kit on the ambulance.  It made me realise that I am most definitely a "let me show you" sort rather than a "let me tell you" sort of person as I found it much easier once I stopped trying to tell and started getting them to have a go and just moving their hands to the right places when they weren’t quite there.  I was really surprised that the 8 year old boy, who was really quite dinky compared to Aprilia, managed very well, I’m not saying I’d rely on them to save my life, but I think they would make a creditable attempt at it.

Then we had lunch which was provided by the circuit.  It defeated me!  No really, it was huge!

After that I did CPR with the grown ups in small batches and we headed back home.  Aprilia spent most of the afternoon trudling round on her bike in the fresh air.  I’m sure it was good for her although she did look rather white when we bundled her back into the ambi.

Originally R was supposed to be staying for some tea but he got a phonecall as we got home and he went from happy bouncy loony boy to very deflated in seconds and said he needed to go home as his father in law was in hospital having had a stroke.  Nothing life threatening (in fact, he went in for something else, not realising he had had one) but still quite obviously a worry.

Aprilia had headed off to play with neighbour kids when we got home but came in after 5 minutes very glum and after a bit of cuddling it turns out that they are being horrid again.  They really are brats at times, mainly when G from 2 doors down is playing, she is a nasty mean little spoilt madam (and those are just her good qualities….)  and turns the other kids against Aprilia regularly and I would dearly love to teach her some manners.  Ho hum.  But really, she was totally knackered anyway and she took herself off to bed with an audio book with only a token effort at eating any tea.

Duke is working again tonight until midnight.

So it’s just me again.  And that sherry bottle and what ever is left of the random snacks!

Since the birdies woke me up at 5am, I’ve had first breakfast (will have second breakfast with Aprilia and possibly even third breakfast at McD’s on the way to Wombwell   )  made lunch, had a nice long hot shower and am now wondering what I can do to keep me occupied until R arrives at 8 AM  However, as I have no idea what the plan is for the day, at least today I can’t claim it hasn’t gone to plan!

I suppose I could hit the books…. or there’s that audio book by Stephen Fry which is recomended course reading (or in my case listening)  Hmmm, yes, Mr Fry’s ducet tones to ease me into the day…. much more appealing than the course book which is disecting Frankenstein at the moment (actually, I could probably have phrased that better couldn’t I!)