T-Bird Anni Rides Again

Today seemed to rush past in a bit of a blur.  There was "schooly bits" in the morning complete with some puzzles and a discovery that I have broken my previous record…. this time I got to week 19 before I got totally out of sync with the Sonlight Instructor guide and gave it up as a bad job.  Maybe by the time we hit "senior school" we will have cracked this whole following instructions thing.  We ahve really enjoyed the Greek Myths book which has been our story book for the last few weeks but now, intead of pushing on to A Year with Miss Agnes, Aprilia wants a return visit to Homer Price, especially the one with the donuts. I’m thinking of recording it to audio CD for her so she can have it as a bedtime book.  In fact I’m thinking of doing that for a few of her favourites and building up a bit of a better library for her, she’s grown out of the faerie story CDs now really and it costs a fortune to keep buying new ones, although dad does his best to remember to buy the Telegraph every time there’s a CD in it.

I also had to build a new desk today.  Duke has revamped his "office" and has lusted after my corner desk for long enough, he was going to get one for himself from Ikea but it appears it’s discontinued so in a moment of weakness I said he could have mine as when we revamp our room I want it a bit more bedroom-like and less office cum storeroom cum general disaster zone (I’ve mentioned this before I’m sure)  So yesterday I emptied not only the desk but all the stuff arround it onto the bed so taht Duke could run off with my desk, thinking we could then assemble Duke’s old one in it’s place and get stuff back off the bed before bedtime.  Didn’t work though.  I made do with an upside down crate so I could finish my essay (which was due yesterday, not today after all!!!) whilst I waited for him to be ready to give me a hand.  This is what it all looked like at this point.  i feel I have to point out that a lot of the stuff there is because, in trying to get his desk area just so, Duke had strewn a lot of the stuff that was previously stacked by his side of teh bed to find specific cables, gizmos and gadgets, but there is a lot of clean washing (usually stacked just by the desk) stray Rainbow books and more books than I have any right to keep on a desk!

By the time the corner desk was out of the bedroom and reassembled in his office and he had fastened various gadgets and gizmos to it, installed all his stuff on it and sat admiring the effect for a short while it was too late to start putting anything together for me.  So we slept on the sofa bed, which claims to be a double and once more we remembered that actually it really isn’t.  So today I put the desk together myself and managed to do it with remarkably few problems besides actually finding the bits (how can one desk spread itself out over so much house?)  I’ll get used to it I guess.  Trouble is, of course, that now he’s back to one job the revamp of the rest of the house is on hold so who knows when I’ll get this.  I sort of liked teh minimalist effect of the up ended basket but it was a bit hard on the joints to sit cross legged for the 2 hours it took to write the essay

Oh, and it was Rainbows, and I couldn’t think what we were supposed to do nor find the book we are using so I declared it a parachute game meeting, took them onto teh field and pretended that I’d planned it taht way.

And then, being as it’s Duke’s birthday, we went out for tea.  

All of which probably explains why today was a bit blured round the edges, looks rather busy now I look on it from this end  

Just realised it’s 11pm, the back door is still wide open, chairs are still in the middle of the lawn and the cat is still out, we don’t let her out at night cos we are mean and nasty owners (in her eyes anyway!) and think that balck cats are not things to allow to roam around after dark when tehy can’t be seen and risk being hit by cars!

Off to rattle the food bag out the back door then! 

This was a SuperBike weekend at Oulton so I was there on the overnight cover for 3 nights.  Now, usually this involves much sitting about drinking coffee, watching telly and gossiping (beleive me, if you think women can talk, you need to meet a paramedic.  they make me look positively withdrawn a lot of them!) then going to bed "with one ear on the radio" at about midnight once the folks have dissipated from the bar.  We may occaisionally get a scraped knee to deal with but that’s normally it.  This weekend we have had

1 "teenage girl syndrome"  (got all upset and hyperventilated - it seems to be a teenage girl thing)

1 pyrexic, projectile vomiting baby 

3 brawl injuries plus a further 2 not injured in another incident but needed a cuppa and TLC

1 indecent assault

1 spousal assault (who didn’t want to involve teh police but security had already called them and Cheshire has a zero tollerance policy so they refused to cancel the call, took a statement of anyone willing to give one and hauled the offender away for a night to "think about his actions")

1 choking incident which could have been very nasty had someone else not been very quick off the mark - he was at the far end of the site and it would have taken us too long had there not been a Good Samaritan handy

1 lady not looking where she was going and walked into something 

which all adds up to more incidents in one weekend that I have delt with in the other 15 or so sets of nights I’ve done over the past few years.

Then there was Aprilia’s friend from Rainbows who came round for a play date on Saturday when we pitched the "small" tent on the front, discovered taht half of it is missing (pegs, 1 ground sheet, 1 pod) somewhere in the garage.  Sunday she went on the return leg of the play date whilst I did 1/3 of my essay (due in tomorrow so I’d better get on with it!)  Monday she didn’t look too well so we got the sofa bed out and watched the entire MIHigh day thing on CBBC followed by last week’s Dr Who that we had recorded or at least, she watched MIHigh, I slumped next to her and napped most of the day and still managed a very good night’s sleep last night (ah, you apreciate your own bed when you have slept on an examination table for 3 nights!)  Today we JJ-ed in the morning and went for a walk to the park in the afternoon which restored some colour to her very pale face.

So there it is, all caught up again and if you are still with me at the bottom of all this I’m impressed! 

Today we have shopped, including buying her a pair of "croc-a-likes" for £2 off the market which she is ever so happy about.  Then we gardened for several hours and although there wasn’t a lot to show for it we did at least get the first sowing of peas in.  And there was swimming, 2 "rations" of DS time for her (we have a timer, she likes to know when her half hour ration is up!) a visit from the BT engineer who agreed that the fault really was at the junction where it should have been fixed lsat time but wasn’t   and lots of generally just being.  I’m sure some of it was randomly educational.  I’m not sure which bits though!  I suspect I’m a traitor to the "stuctured home ed" brigade just now, but we are really, we are just having a "rest" from it for a while

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!) 

Well, just for a short while I had a lovely shiny new promise badge, presented to me after renewing my Guiding Promise in front of all the girls which makes me pretty much a "real" Guider now rather than a trainee (just got one bit to do, which is the combined Rainbow and Brownie bash in June) 

Then I went home and instead of doing waht I usually do and taking the uniform off right away, I decided first to deal with ice for Aprilias’ very sore finger, then tea for very sad Aprilia, then cuddles and Calpol when tea didn’t cheer her up and ice didn’t stop her finger hurting.  Then, because she kept fussing I got serious and taped it to it’s neighbour so it was supported which worked wonders (not that I think it needed it but if it makes her feel better….)  Then I realised I no longer had my shiny new Promise badge pinned to my shirt.  And now I have no idea where it is.

Learning has been mainly craft based today as she is going all out for her Brownie craft bdge.  She has done a friendship bracelet on a braiding wheel, decorated a teeshirt and had a hot glue, fabric and sticker fest to decorate a wooden box.  I’ve yet to decide if the box counts as a textured collage, a decorative item made from wood or "another craft of your choice" but she had hours of fun making it!  Whilst she was busy we chatted about all sorts of stuff, real deap and meaningful one minute and innane the next.  Lemony Snicket provided "vocabulary development" at bedtime. 

Typically, since joining the structured HE blogring all structure has evapourated!  Do I care?  nah, it will drift back again soon enough! 

I have Red Cross uniform that FITS!  And is vaguely PRACTICAL!!!  Much as I love my overalls (boiler suit, whatever you want to call it) they are now 5 or 6 years old and showing it.  They sort of hang on me like a lumpy sack and have been repaired more times than I care to think about due to the fact that a) they are badly made so a whole seam fell apart after 2 months of wear and b) the fabric is so thin they snag and rip way too easily when you are playing with racing cars.  Oh, and they are a wretched nuicance when you need the loo as you have to strip off the top half thus risking dangling the sleeves in whatever is on the floor (and at some places I go you just don’t want to do that!!!) and meaning you need to part company with your coat, which is also something you just dont want to do when the local youths have put out the windows in the loo block and there is a huricane blowing through

Not a lot else happened yesterday.  We were "treated" to some spectacular displays of vile temperedness from L at Jungle Jim which was a bit wearing, and had to deal with 2 irate mothers whose kids had been slapped, scratched or pushed by her and who assumed that I was somehow partly responsible for her.  I’m afraid I pointed out that MY child hadn’t laid a hand on their kids so they could leave me out of it.  and yes, I know she wasn’t involved because I saw it happen and Aprilia sort of stood there looking shocked then did her "I’m a bossy thing and I’m going to tell you off for being mean" which is comical to watch but doesn’t really help    I do feel quite sorry for A but I also think that she needs to get a grip on the situation either with meds or with behavioural "therapy" before L is much older and gets totally unmanagable.

But anyway, tis first night back at Rainbows this evening and I have yet to produce, let alone print off the programme and I also need to write a letter about 2 events so I had better get going really! 

well, it’s lunch time and no studying done yet!  Mind you I settled down to watch the recorded last episode of Torchwood last night only to find that Duke had forgotten to record it (and divorce was averted only becuase it’s a bit expensive and I kind of like where I live!) so this morning I’ve watched it on the BBC Iplayer thing.  Not quite the same effect as watching it in comfort on big telly downstairs but  still good.  And yes, I wailed.  Repeatedly.  And again when they showed bits in teh "Confidential" bit afterwards.  But I did get somewhat confused - "Spike" claimed that John is the nastiest character he’s played - scuse me?  You were a vampire in a previous series, how nasty can you get!!!

So, this afternoon then.  Studying, craft bits and looking at new book of parachute games that just arrived for Rainbows.  And chocolate.  I do feel the need for chocolate today. 

I’ve just got my mark back for TMA 2 and it’s a much more respectable 71% which, considering I did it within a week and with non of the background info I would ahve had if I’d read the whole block rather than just the bits directly relating to the question I think is pretty damned good!  I did laugh at the tutor’s comments though, the guy is the epitome of tact and diplomacy…. I threw in a quote that at the time I thought really reflected well on teh question but now I read it again was totally off the wall and his comment was "The precise relevance of this example for answering the assignment question is a bit unclear."  which is, I guess, a polite way of saying "you lost it then didn’t you?"

Onwards and upwards now, next TMA is on how women with mental illness were treated but that’s not due til the 26th so I can actually read everything up to and including the chapter it relates towith a bit of luck, planning dn cooperation from small "needy" child (and oh my is she "needy" just now!!!!)