T-Bird Anni Rides Again

Back in the mists of time I used to blog multiple times a week, sometimes even multiple times a day!  Now all I can claim is a few times a month.  Life. It gets in the way you know!

So, this last week then….

Work is ticking along, it’s rather nice actually to have that hour or so doing something fairly brainless, uninterrupted by family and away from the house. 

The Outwell is still up in the back garden, but I think I’ve worked out how to make the kids pod work… I’m going to cut the groundsheeting off it and use it like curtains within a normal pod (will have to sew loops inside the pod but that should be an easy job)  Am still truely hacked off that I was so badly mis-sold with the damned thing but life goes on and in the grand scheme of things a dodgy kids pod is piffling really.

Rainbows is on hold.  I have too many balls in the air, Rainbows is one I can put down for a month with little or no pangs of concience.  We will start after my exam and have a 7 week term.  Final straw was that "a number of parents" phoned the county commissioner to complain that they had expected Rainbows to start and it hadn’t.  No, they didn’t phone me first to find out why.  So stuff them.  They can damned well wait until I’m good and ready to start back  am not flogging myself or risking stuffing up the exam on their behalf.

Educating is going in fits and starts.  We did loads of schooly stuff yesterday, finishing off the waifs and strays of old workbooks and revisiting the first NVR papers book - I’d scanned the whole lot last year which she ground her way through at agonisingly slow pace so we started again, in the book this time, which she doesn’t know is the same one, and she rattled through an entire paper in 10 mins.  She likes NVR now!  Monday she spent the whole day self-educating on the PC with a mix of Zoombinis, Spelling Blaster, Moshi Monsters, Magic Schoolbus and Cbbc website games.

Revision is also going in fits and starts.  I’m happy with the plays part (I know which play to revise, I know it will be an extract to do text analysis on, that’s easy)  I have 2 novels I’m blissfully happy with, which should give me a few options on the prose question.  But then we get to poetry.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I actually rather like poetry.  But the selection we have is pants for the most part.  A few corkers in there but for the most part it’s pretentious or feminist (and don’t get me started on being force fed feminist issues on this damned course….)  Sigh.  I think my trouble is that the first course I did was so well produced that everything afterwards seems like utter dross.

It’s that time of year when we re-qualify on First Aid too.  Irritatingly all the really busy stuff at Wombwell can’t be counted towards the re-qual (you are supposed to be able to count stuff you have actually done so long as all the criteria are met) because I didn’t have my paperwork with me (it wasn’t issued out til the next day) when all hell was breaking loose so no one could stand there and tick bloody boxs.  Calm blue ocean be damned, I want blood…..   or maybe even

By the way, I keep being accused by people at Kung Fu of being too nice.  Was even accused of being a lady on Saturday.  See?  I can still fool some people at least some of the time  

it’s this Jethro I swoon over….

now we have cleared that one up….. we’ll move on shall we!

Okay, so we need a decent SMALL tent for such things as me going off with Guiders and for Aprilia and me going off for weekends on windy hillsides (like at the end of the month!)  the choices seem to be….

Wynnster Falcon - don’t know the name and I know I swore never to buy a tent if I didn’t know the name ever again after the last fiasco but this does look nice and roomy but is a little above what I want to spend

Vango Beta 250 - again a little more than I want to spend, and only 2 berths for that extra cash (we like 3 so that there’s a bit of space for Aprilia to flail arround in her sleep!)  but a nice big porch area for dumping wet coats etc

Vango Alpha 300 - it’s a dome, and domes are stronger, I know, but I’m not sure how much space there is outside the pod for dumping soggy stuff, but it’s much more our price range!

Vango Zetes 300 - this is looking favourite at the mo because it has a bit more porch space (but not as much as the first two) and is a price I can justify!

Arg!  like I *need* another tent….. but the Hobbit Hole is way too big really for just 2 of us and for just a few nights even though it’s been shown to be storm proof, the Outwell is lovely but I’m worried that a tall tunnel won’t take kindly to strong winds at Jan and Jonathan’s  and the old Argos one really is not fit for purpose any more since the cat ran all over it (and it leaked before then!!)

Duke inherited a nearly new phone off Rick (hmmm, really I should work out a fake name for him, doesn’t seem right having a real name mixed in with all our fake ones!) a little while ago which meant that the phone that he inherited off Rick a few years ago was going spare (yeh, I know, we have some really good friends!)  Considering that mine is limping along with a dying battery, I jumped at it and have spent the day playing with it, trying to work out how it all works!  I like it… but I want to tart it up with a new fascia or two.  You see, there are 3 I really like, and they are sooooo cheap and if I had a few different ones I could dress it up depending on where I’m going and what I’m wearing…. OH Lord!  Somebody stop me!!!!!  Next it will be matching phone sox and little dangly things hanging on it……

So, erm, waht did we do then?  I pitched the tent as the weather was sunny and Aprilia wanted to play in her kid’s pod and agreed to be educated if it was in the tent.  The "fits any Outwell tent with this specification" pod doesn’t fit ours.  Even though it should.  Not even close although, obviously, being a resourceful type it’s nothing that some sturdy elastic, a few plastic rings and a bit of patience won’t cure.  Irritating though.  But once it was up we moved into it for the day anyway and did indeed do some educating!  It’s still up several days later because, naturally, as hte last peg went into the mud, sorry, I mean ground, the heavens opened so it’s been water tested now and found to be excellent.  Apart from where I broke the basic rules of tenting and left a tiny strip of groundsheet poking out from under the fly sheet.  Silly woman!

My OU books arrived this week.  Much easier to read with regard to the writing style but still very close packed text which is hard on the eyes and doesn’t leave you any space to mark the text.  So I’m plodding through all the PDF downloads that they kindly provide on the course website, converting them to text, reformatting them in a much nicer font, in 1.5 line spacing and running them through Read and Write to convert them to audio files to listen to whilst I’m at it.  Duke has already made comments about how much time I spent sorting texts out for this course and is it going to be like this until October.  I took a very deep breath and informed him that i would invest less time on studying than he invests in biking and emergency service related forums but that it would be lovely if he could support me just a little by, perhaps entertaining his daughter every now and then.  Vain hope.

Aprilia made an attempt to sleep over at Nelly’s last night but I had to go and rescue her at 10pm because Nelly wouldn’t shut up.  Good job she only lives a couple of streets away!

Tonight Duke has taken Aprilia to his cousin’s house.  He was somewhat put out that I declined to go too.  This, despite the fact that even he noticed that I was treated like I wasn’t there at Christmas and that he knows exactly what I think of teachers who are arogant enough to think that a teaching diploma gives them the right to teach a subject they ahve no knowlege of and to pass comment on the abilities or otherwise of people suffering from learning disabilities that they have no understanding of.  But anyway, Aprilia will play with Emmie and be blissfully happy, Duke will chat with "cousin in law" and be blissfully happy, I am home, blissfully happy, so that’s okay then!

Oh, and the eating our way round the world thing…. we had "latkes" (Jewish potato things, like Rostis) the other night, they were very nice, I will def be adding them into the recipe book… do you think anyone will mind that I served them with cold gammon 

Okay, so yesterday I sounded like a spoilt child, I’m really sorry.  In my (feeble) defence, I was tired and had spent the whole day playing referee between Duke and Aprilia who are very skilled at winding each other up at the moment.  I’m not sure when the relationship between that pair slipped but Oh Boy it’s slipped!  Duke used to read bedtime stories to Aprilia whilst I had some down time.  It gave them time together and she did enjoy it as he would read the dread Rainbow Magic books to her which she still loves and which I still loath reading!  If I’m going to make the effort to read to her I want it to be something I enjoy for goodness sake!!!  I’m not sure why he stopped reading to her at bedtime but I think I may have to re-instigate this in the new year.  I suspect part of it is that I’ve got lazy during the day, not doing "school" with her so needing to read "daytime stories" to her at bedtime.  This also has to change as by 7:30 I’m getting too tired to be patient with a tired girl trying to delay bedtime with "Mummy, we didn’t do any puzzles today, can I do them now" and then melting down at things she’s perfectly capable of doing.

In fact, there has to be change in general over the next 12 months.  I’m not naive enough to think I can sweep into the new year with a whole new routine but I do need to gradually introduce better habits and start to get a better grip on life.  I can’t expect Aprilia to keep her side of the bargain when I’m not keeping mine, I can’t expect her to make an effort with her room when there’s junk on my floor, nor can I expect her to suddenly stop what she’s doing because I’ve finished aimlessly browsing the web and am ready to do school if I’m not willing to stop what I’m doing to do something for her.  I have to stop behaving like an only child before she turns into the stereotypical only child.

This morning she wobbled because I’d asked her to pack an overnight bag as she is sleeping over at Emmie’s tonight.  She knew what she needed to end up with (a bag full of stuff she would need) but had no idea how to get from where she was to where she needed to be.  It brought home to me that really she does struggle without careful direction and simplified instructions, broken down into little chunks.  I know it’s a typically Dyxie trait (we see The Big Picture not the Detail!) but that doesn’t help her really does it?  So we need to introduce "Practical Life Activities" into the day so that instructions like "pack a bag" or "put your clothes away" stop being daunting, unmanagable tasks and start to be the title of a mental list of actions (does that make sense?)  I also think taht PLAs such as changing batteries in toys, pouring activities (she’s still really shakey on this, hand eye co-ordination is still a challenge) and so on would probably help her a lot.  It would also fill our day up a lot, leaving her with less "slumped infront of the TV time" which tends to be her defaut if not given direction.  Of course, that also leaves me with less "gazing at the PC time" but I suspect that that would be a good thing really!

So, in a spirit of accountability, and starting once Duke is back at work so we have some sort of routine back again….

I hereby state the intent to instigate the first good habit in January which will be to  get "school" done in the morning, right after breakfast and aim to do something practical in the afternoon.

I got my result through today for my OU course - Pass 3!  Am a happy bunny now!

from feeling like I had ages before the exam, suddenly I only have 3 weeks.  And I’m away with Guiding next weekend and I did bggr all this weekend cos I’ve been knackered.  Am hoping I can get loads done this next week!!!!!!!  I need to have pretty mind maps scattered round teh house NOW otherwise I don’t hvae time for them to infiltrate my brain!

I’ve just submitted my final TMA for this course - 10 minutes before teh deadline!!!!  You gotta love electronic submission!  It’s utter pants, way, way under the word limit (like about 1,000 words under!) and I just don’t care, I checked on the score calculator and actually it will make bugger all difference to my final mark.  Its all down to the exam now for which I’d better start doing some work as it’s only a month or so away and I’ve no idea how on earth I’m going to even scrape a poor fail let alone a bare pass!

Right, tent, groundsheet, inner bits, spare guys (the bright yellow ones bought to make us feel a bit more secure last MP summer camp) pegs and poles are all in the car.  Good start!  

Camping kitchen, cooker, mess kit, food and utensils are packed.  Got my priorities right you know. 

Duke got sent into the garage to do a search and rescue mission for the portapotti, it was indeed under the mess mountain.  Things are looking up.

Aprilia’s bag is packed, including all those knickers we found all over her floor.  Her shoes, boots and wellies all have names in them and her bedding is all tucked up in a bag.  And all of that lot is in the car already. On a roll now!

My bag needs a final check to be sure I have sufficient of everything and my bedding roll needs fastening up then it can also go into the car.  This may be a record.

I even know where the sat nav is - it’s ON CHARGE!  So it will actually be capable of picking up a signal as soon as we set off rather than needing to wait until there’s sufficient power for it to get going.   

Left to do now….. Bake flapjacks, and possibly snickerdoodles, check paperwork is ready, lay out Kung Fu clothes, baby wipes and uniforms for us both so we can do KF, have a quick wipe down, change into uniform and set out.  I’ve forgotten something haven’t I?  Surely?  I’m gonna get to camp and there will be a wailing twitter from me when I realise I’ve forgotten something really, really important!  I hvae a reputation to keep up after all……

See y’all in a week!