T-Bird Anni Rides Again

This morning started off Far Too Early (as indeed will every morning this week) as she has swimming lessons at 8:30 every morning this week.  She seemed to be enjoying it and I’m pretty impressed at the quality of front and back crawl that she seemed able to demonstrate by the end of half an hour.  Aparently though she doesn’t like their floats, they aren’t as nice as hers, so I’ve said she can take hers and ask the lady NICELY (and yes, I fear I did speak in capitals at that point!) if she is allowed to use her own - it’s bigger, multicoloured and has hand holes it it…..  Meanwhile I swam.  On my own.  For a whole half an hour.  In a "medium" speed lane, after having been evicted from the "slow" lane by a flotilla of blue rinses and lightly perms.  It was lovely.

After that it was a trip to the library to get her second set of stickers for the reading challenge, pick up 2 reserved books, and get cajoled into renting 2 DVDs on the promise of her watching those whilst I study.  The rest of the morning was spent with her getting sqare eyes and me producing a full third of my next TMA which doesn’t need to be in until next Thursday…. there is a very real danger that this one may get in before the deadline if I’m not careful!

The afternoon was the first of 2 "Godly Play-ish" sessions at a local church.  I’m quite a fan of Godly Play, it’s sort of Sunday School meets Montessori, so I was looking forward to it probably as much as Aprilia was.  The basic idea is that stories are told with the benefit of "props" - 2d pictures for parables and 3d models for events - that are slowly set out onto the table as the story progresses then left for the children to look at and "respond to" in their own way (they are allowed to re-tell the story with teh props, provided with art and craft supplies to draw the story for themselves etc or allowed to simply sit and think about it).  This slipped slightly wide of the mark and was a little too directed (colouring pages and puzzle sheets etc) but was non the less a very pleasant way to spend an afternoon.  I was, naturally, abandoned by my offspring, but she was feeling just tired enough that she "needed" me to stay around, so I did.

I was chatting with one of the other adults (E) there who is a big fan of home ed (or is it a big fan of Aprilia, never can quite tell)  She was saying that one of the kids at last week’s summer club was very confused about how Aprilia is home edded and how *everyone* has to go to school etc which aparently Aprilia explained away in that very matter of fact tone she takes about things that are so patently obvious to her that she can’t beleive you don’t get it that she does "do school" but she does it At Home Okay?   Small child then asked how Aprilia could possibly have friends if she just stayed at home all the time (erm, she was at a holiday club….. hardly counts as staying home!!) which E found really very ironic as Aprilia probably has more friends that this child who goes to a small country school with only 15 kids in her class and who doesn’t do Rainbows or anything (she left, she’s one of the few children I can honestly say I could have wept for joy when she decided she didn’t like it….)  compared to Aprilia who has so many friends up and down the country that we can fill a whole youth hostel between us, is adored by the Rainbows, goes to Brownies, goes to Kung Fu….. poor lonely child hey? 

um, let me think…. htere was more holiday club, another inflatable-less inflaable fun session at the swimming pool, more can crushing and such likes.  Duke bought a bike off EBay and collected it on Wednesday evening, it’s rather nice   Aprilia is really very in love with it and *needs* full bike gear like NOW in order to be able to leap on the back of it just as soon as it’s MOTed etc.  Sigh.

Yesterday we had a BBQ and attempted a fire in the back garden but soggy wood just doesn’t burn that well you know   Still, it was enough to toast marshmallows on so it served it’s purpose and was lit by the firesteel thus satisfying the cave-woman instinct in Aprilia and myself although I suspect that vaseline dipped cottonwool does count as slightly cheating!

She was at holiday club again in the morning, and we filled the afternoon with a slighly miss-sold event at the swimming pool - was billed as an "inflatable fun session" but there wasn’t an inflatable to be seen, just the usual mottly collection of oversized floats but we had fun anyway.

Duke called at Jungle Jim on the way home for a show round at the grown ups gym there (no not a soft play for overgrown kids, a fitness bit tagged onto the play area, the idea being that parents could go get fit whilst kiddies played) and picked up our first consignment of empty cans whilst he was there.  Thus, Aprilia and I had a very therapeutic half hour crushing cans in the evening!  Half filled a bin bag with just 3 day’s worth of pop cans, saves Jason money on his waste disposal (businesses pay by weight) and will be raising funds for Red Cross at the same time….. one of those truely win win things!

Saturday she was tired, think she went back to bed after kung fu.  Duke finished at Oulton really early and somehow we ended up going out for tea.  Really must stop doing that!

Sunday I was at Oulton and witnessed a remarkable display of two faced behaviour from the paramedic who started off saying that Uncle Curly was going to end up struck off and, half an hour later was saying he would probably get away with a reprimand as he had already made amends for the percieved offences etc.  Facinating watching him tie himself in knots like that.  Same man also had an almighty sulk for most of the morning after I told him to let go of my uniform - he had grabbed the shoulder of my uniform to lead me somewhere… I asked him politely to let go, he didn’t, I told him to let go, he didn’t, I informed him that if he didn’t let go I would make him, that seemed to work   but he seemed ridiculously surprised when I informed him that I didn’t actually like being hauled like that and would he not do it again please, then he shut himself in the office and sulked.  Sigh.

 Yesterday Aprilia went to holiday club, she’s tehre every morning this week.  There is a vague idea that I may use the time to study a bit.  It’s only a vague idea mind you.

last night we went to see Harry Potter.  I’m glad I hadn’t made the mistake of reading the book before seeing it. Duke sat muttering how taht wasn’t in the book and how they had missed that out…. I sat and enjoyed it for what it was!

Last night at KF, one of the others had a weighted vest with 22lb of weight in it.  I could barely stand let alone train with it on.  I’ve lost more weight than that in the last year, how on earth was I able to do anything????

In other news, would you beleive that we ahve been swimming again…. thats 5 times in 5 days.

I think we have "discovered" a new favourite writer for Aprilia!  I’ve just read I believe in Unicorns to her and she has informed me that it is not going back to the library any time soon….. think I may just have to buy that one then!  I’ll admit I could happily read it to her again (and again) and I’m hoping that that is the style of most of the M Murpurgo books as if so I think we may have hit the jackpot in books that are less air-headed than the ******* Fairy books but more within her reading ability than the Harry books!

In other news, we have been swimming twice already this week and have bought goggles which seem to hvae made quite a difference to her.  She’s booked in for a week’s "crash course" in a couple of weeks, I didn’t realise until after I’d paid what time the lessons were but hey, normal people seem to manage getting up to be places by 8:30 so I’m sure we’ll manage.  She’s continued to read to me with increasing confidence and stamina and is even venturing into "writing" by sending me random e-mails (ROFL, yes, we are turning into one of those families who e-mail each other from different rooms in the house….. she’ll be IM-ing me soon if i’m not careful!)

Friday morning Aprilia announced that it was time we got on with some Brownie badges.  We thumbed through and decided that "Culture" would be a good "instant gratification" type badge to do whilst we got stuff ready for a more long term project.  So she is finding odds and ends to put into a time capsule about her life, including her just grown out of Brownie teeshirt (why oh why do they make them so damned short in the body????) and various other very random items.  Then she elected that we should do the "visit a local museum" clause so we hot footed it to The Salt Museum which is our nearest offering.  It is very good.  Cheap too.  It filled the entire morning and led to a very late lunch which was not really part of the plan.  That just leaves us with drawing her family tree in a nice way which i thought she could do with Granny over the weekend.  Unfortunately that got lost in translation and she’s come home with the family tree jotted down on a scrap of paper ready for her to produce rather than anything more finished.  Never mind.

Friday also found us haring round trying to find a bottle of Pendaryn whisky for dad.  You would ahve thought taht I would ahve remembered to buy it whilst in Wales really but I didn’t so we went on a hunt but failed.  Never mind.  

Friday was also the day that Aprilia was going to Granny’s.  So having spent all morning (and most of the afternoon) doing stuff other than getting ready, we did that random packing thing again, filled a sports bag with clothing, books, DS, story CDs, CD player, Brownie uniform….. you get the idea.  I’d planned on just doing a "drop and run" as I still needed to get my stuff ready for the weekend too.  But dad put the kettle on and insisted I was sociable, and to be fair, I don’t take a lot of persuading, so I gossiped whilst Aprilia went for a hair cut with mum and I eventually got home a good few hours later than planned.  Never mind.

We watched the final 2 Torchwoods and decided I didn’t much like it.  Neither did I like Duke’s attitude to the sobbing mother that "well, it saved all the other children"  I’m Sorry????  I refrained from enquiring how he would feel if Aprilia had been the one available child that could be sacrificed to "save all the other children".  I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer.  And yes, I know it’s fiction. 

Saturday we ambled off to Wombwell, treated waaaaay too many small boys who had crashed (no small girls, they seemed more able to keep their karts out of the walls, not sure what that says really) and had discussions with waaaaay too many parents about the concept of good quality rib and back protectors, helmets that are small enough to actually fit their offsprings heads and Gereral Attitudes to officials.  Sigh.  The evening found us being sociable in an awning with cider, cakes and very good company.  I do like the sociable side.

Sunday was more of the same really (without the long drive there, I really do like the staying over at the circuit side of the plan, it requires much less early starts!) and then a mad dash home as mum and dad had conveniently forgotten that they had originally agreed to have Aprilia until Monday morning and were expecting me to pick her up "some time on Sunday"  Well, half seven is a time, and it was on Sunday   Harley drove like a man possessed to get me there (Duke being in the slower ambi and thus had been "volenteered" to finish packing up the treatment room and go to the local hospital to collect spine boards etc that had been attached to patients we had sent in….) although why this required the playing of loud country music I couldn’t quite work out

And today?  Well, today I am intending to evict the last bits of tent etc from the car (yes, the evidence of Shell Island is yet to be dealt with) and do some of the small repairs on it that really have been in need of being done for quite some time.  Also this week there is an intent to join in with this odd fashion that seems rife round the blog ring.  It’s called tidying up aparently.  And rumour has it that once it is done you ahve more space.  Actually I’m thinking that tidy is going to have to be something done fairly often before much longer.  Having read about a child taken from a family where the state of the house was named amongst the evedence of their abuse, and knowing that, as a home educator, I am already assumed to be some kind of vile abuser, I figure that at the very least we should be able to see 50% of the downstairs floors as a matter of some urgency.

it would appear that I have a reader in my house!  She ambled in to me at 10pm last night to read the first 2 pages of Bad Beginnings (Lemony Snicket) to me, then proceeded to read a fist full of Benny and Watch stories (short stories with lots of pictures based on the characters in the Boxcar Children books).  But more importantly she now thinks that all the hard work was worth it because reading is really very good after all.

I have suspected something has been going on for a while as I keep finding easy reader type books in amongst the bed clothes but have just smirked and tidied them away knowing full well that this Little Madam does not let on she can do ANYTHING until she can really do it.  I do love the way children do stuff in their own time!

Saturday

 Had a lovely journey over the Welsh mountains, stopped at a lovely tea shop on the A5 just outside Betws-y-coed, and arrived seconds after the Manor Borns.  After a lengthy safari (and amidst much nervousness about my sump/exhaust/front bumpers…) we found a spot big enough for at least 3 of us, with the plan to offer our spare sleeping pod to 4th family and to relocate the next day after all the weekenders had left.  There were a few fraught moments when I discovered that you really do need longer pegs in sand, and to hammer them in, but finally we were sorted.  The Goddards arrived next and their dainty (by comparison to the 2 ridiculously big tents owned by The Manor borns and me) tent went up no trouble.  There’s a lesson there I think….. (it’s either get a more reasonably sized tent, only go on very boring but perfectly flat campsites or invest in lots of very long pegs….)   The Babs arrived, and finally got one of us to notice (oops, really should keep phone in earshot!) and our company was complete.  There was sunshine and showers, the children all dissappeared into the dunes, and we even indulged in a small-ish fire in the evening and all in all it was a reasonable start to the holiday really.

Sunday

Or was it Saturday night?  Don’t think I looked at the clock.  We had just a little bit of rain and a stiff breeze and I woke up realising that I’d not put the longer storm guys out or checked that the normal guys were okay so lept out of bed and attended to that, I was soaked before I’d even got the first one done.  Ho hum.

Anyway, it was lovely again by morning and we had a pleasant time toasting gently in the sunshine and occaisionally waving at children on the horizon.  I’m sure sometimes we were waving at our own and not just random children…..  Scouts were sent out to find a bigger pitch in the afternoon and I’m going to let Nic blog that so as to maintain the neutrality and impartiality required of member of the Red Cross.  Suffice to say there was a compromise reached eventually and 3 of the 4 tents were successfully pitched up on the next area down to where we had been the day before.  Then we started to unpeg mine…. remember my tent is huge and parachute shaped?  Just as we got past teh point of no return a gentle breeze whipped up, and then there was some light rain, but we carried on (well, we had to really!) The breeze got a teeny bit stronger and the rain a teeny bit wetter (and I’m in denial about it being any worse that that okay?) and we walked it to the new pitch and wrastled it into position.  Aparently my tent doesn’t like being walked, and tried to collapse itself which made getting it pitched a little more eventful than I would have liked.   I was, aparently, getting a little testy at this point.  Then my trousers started heading south and the whole world knew what was written on my undies.  Oh how we laughed……   Eventually it was (sort of) up and everyone ran away except Michelle who fed me wine before running away…..  Obviously the weather cleared up not long after that.

Monday

There was a bit more weather over night which made me glad that I had done that obsessive guy rope checking and tent peg bashing thing before bed.  Some of us ambled over to the rocky end of the "island" for shell collecting and Duke phoned to sort out arrival times etc adn to day that Curly the guinea pig had died. Sun shone I think, but not as much as it did on Sunday.   Duke arrived fairly late on and there was a campfire in the evening.  Marshmallows were toasted, smores were made, children were lightly scorched and marinated with wine.  Gotta love camping!

Tuesday

We went to CAT.  It’s very good, better than I remember it being last time we went.  I bought a fire lighting steel so I could be as cool as Nic.  There was a bit of tomfoolery with cars when we got back, first Ady needed to be rescued by the nice chap in the corner, then The Babs decided that that looked like fun and tried to get stuck too but really didn’t put the required effort into it and thus didn’t require Ray Mears to rescue her, just us pushing and a few well aimed swear words.  There was another fire, lit without the aid of a match, but we did have to use a fire lighter due to a lack of proper dry kindling etc.  There is something rather satisfying about making all those sparks!  We did establish that holly roots aren’t too useful on campfires though, all glow and no flame, we shall do better next time (or nip over to the camp shop and buy a bag of logs!)

Wednesday

 We headed home   Somehow packing up at the end is always a longer process than it should be.  And somehow it seemed to take up twice the space it should do.  But, as we had 2 cars, taht was okay.  Duke and Aprilia headed off to the slate mine whilst I headed straight home so I could get showered before Rainbows.  They had a great time.  I had a great time with the Rainbows but could have happily beated some of teh parents to a pulp.  I mean, how hard is it to LET ME KNOW if your darling isn’t going to be going to the outing next week?  They have all known about this for weeks and yet non of them have had the decency to let me know that they won’t be going.  Last year 1 girl came and I swore I wouldn’t do any more outings, but thought I would give it one more go but with a note saying that I would need to know in advance so I could provide party bits as it is the leaving party for 2 girls.  Neither of the leavers is coming.  So that’s saved the unit 2 "Leaving Rainbows" gifts anyway.  I do hate the attitude that most of the parents have.  They really do treat me like something they scraped off their bloody shoe.

Today

I’ve washed.  I’ve even managed to wash child.  I’ve still got the tent in the car though cos I need to put everything else away before I can face getting the rest out of the car.  

I was sorry to come home early but really, Aprilia was getting to the worn out stage.  She has wilted fairly dramatically today.  Tomorrow she goes to mum and dad’s as Duke and I are doing 2 days at Wombwell this weekend so really Wednesday was as good a day as any to come home.  Duke is planning when we can go back again….

I have no idea where today went.  I know I spent a lot of it trying to sort out stuff for camping, hampered by it not having been got out of the random nooks and crannies that it had been stuffed into by Duke.  Less said the better there.

The new laptop arrived.  it’s a Dell, it has a pink lid which alas is a sticker and I can see it getting tatty over time but actually, I don’t care.  It’s small, it’s fast, it has love hearts on it and it’s mine, all mine….. 

I know I spent a while trying to sort out where we are going.  Multimap wants me to follow round the Welsh coast which is a really long way round, I’m pretty certain that there is a better route but after an hour or so of head scratching I’ve given up, I’ll let TomTom take me which ever way he fancies and sort out better routes next time I can get hold of Uncle Curly who, being a walking atlas of Wales, will probably tell me a way easier road and mutter about daft bints who can’t read maps.  He’s right, I can’t. 

I couldn’t find the decent sized camp kettle so shot off to get one, the camping shop didn’t have one either (well, they had small ones, but I found the small one, it’s the one that can fill more than 2 mugs I couldn’t find)  but did have rather nice self inflate mats, so I got one of those, got it home,was greeted by Duke who was wearing surgical gloves and clutching the cat box telling me to phone the vet.  Just outside the back door was a cat that he thought was Whiskers which was very obviously very poorly.  So, I phoned the vet then went to help get cat into box to find that it wasn’t Whiskers at all, similar colour and markings but way bigger (well, it would have been if it had had a decent meal recently) but still, it was very sick and it was at our back door, so we scooped it into the box and whisked it away to the vet.  Unsurprisingly the vet said that the only humane thing to do was to put it down, it was very much past help and probably had been for quite some time, he thought it was probably a stray.  Aprilia was rather upset, I fear she was hoping to double our moggy quota.

But, back to the self inflate mat… once stray had been dealt with I tried it out, it didn’t self inflate….. Now, I could make crude jokes about it needing viagra at this point, but I shall pass, okay?  so, having chased Aprilia into Brownie uniform and dropping her off at Brownies, rushed back to shop, got it replaced, tested that one in the shop…. got home, went to pick up Aprilia, fed her (tea time got swallowed up in going to the vet, she insisted she was coming with us, I was all for sending Duke on his own…) then set to with the intention of packing the car but Duke wanted to use it to run an errand and to see if I was imagining the misfire (I’m not.) then when he got back he was on the phone for an hour (I was still waiting for the tent to be excavated and beginning to ponder taking the Outwell afterall….) so I packed the car at 10pm.  it’s very random.  There is almost certainly something missed.  But the tent, poles, pegs and bedding are all in.  Anything else is a bonus. I’ve not put the parafin lamps in, they would probably be useful but out of 10 of them, 9 leak making them not ideal to have in the car, and only 1 has a lot of wick left (obviously not the one that doesn’t leak) as I forgot to buy some more.  Ah well, I have a torch.

The one thing I’ve not done is got anything ready for next week’s Rainbows.  Adn we come home from Shell Island with only few hours to spare.  It’s going to be another of those seat of the pants meetings…….. ask me if I’m bovvered.  I’m oh holiday in not many more hours….. yipeeeeeeeeee