to everyone who has commented, asked how I was or tried to get in contact. I’m fine thanks, just kind of got bored of blogging. Sorry! I might start again in a very low key way, just for me to keep up with what’s happening with the children, and if so will post something here to that effect… Hope everyone is well!
Windfall
September 23, 2009Our neighbours have an ancient apple tree in their garden. Each year they bag up hundreds of fallen apples and give them to us. Recently they brought 12kg of them over in plastic bags and we have been slicing and peeling ever since. Our freezer is full of bagfuls of brown goo – cooked apples with raisins and spices – ready to make Delia’s spiced apple crumble. Usually we have enough to keep going through the whole winter though now the children eat more they might not last quite as long…. We had our first one this weekend. I think winter might be on its way.
Oops.
September 21, 2009So I think it would be fair to say that Ned’s settled in to school. If you take any notice of the fact that he strolls up to the head teacher and high-fives him or winks and gives a thumbs-up to any of the female members of staff – all of whom declare themselves flattered; “over-familiarity” is a concept I’m trying – and failing – to introduce. One day last week as we walked home he told me that they’d had circle time and talked about the things that made them happy and those that made him sad. Apparently “everything” made him happy whilst the thing that makes him sad is “mummy and daddy hitting me”. Oh yes. When asked why he’d said it his answers ranged from the fact that he couldn’t think what to say to the explanation that it would make him very sad. After a night of paranoia I had a word with the teacher who laughed hysterically and told me that it had been a class theme – apparently most of them claimed to have been punched by parents or siblings.
So maybe it wasn’t great timing that Ned then fell out of Belle’s midi bed on Saturday night. They were sharing a room as we had guests and it was Belle’s turn to have the sofa-cushions-on-the-floor bed. Ned has bruises from his head, all around his right shoulder, down his right arm and along his leg. Great.
Earlier that evening we walked into Belle’s room to discover them somersaulting onto the mattress on the floor. Except that Ned wasn’t doing a traditional somersault. He was leaping from the floor and then somersaulting in the air using no hands and landing on his back, completely straight. It no doubt shows skill or strength or something. Something too terrifying to let him continue with though.
More snippets
September 14, 2009So Ned started school. Gulp. Thursday morning he was so excited he even got himself completely dressed in his new uniform, moaning only a little that the shirt collar and tie were too tight (they weren’t but he’s never worn that sort of thing before). He wobbled slightly as we got nearer to the school and clung a little as we went into the playground but he went in with only one cuddle and no backward glance; I felt a bit guilty for being the only parent who didn’t actually walk their child into the classroom but I can’t help feeling it would have been worse for him. He has 3 weeks of 1/2 days now but he’s already fairly keen to stay full-time. He’s stuck mainly to playing with one of the boys he already knew but he’ll branch out in time no doubt. He brought home a list of words for the fridge on Friday – words that he should be able to read by the end of this academic year. He was soooo proud of himself to realise he could already read all of them.
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I booked his birthday party. Despite its being almost 2 months away. I knew that there was no way I could cope with hubby and I organising a party for his peers – there are a whole load of *ahem* challenging boys in his class and I have no intention of shutting them all up in a church hall with me, hubby and a CD player. On the other hand I feel that it would be good for him to have his own party, partly because he’s never had a proper one before and partly because he’s so old in his year group it will hopefully help them to get to know each other more. However…. I have booked an indoor football party. We couldn’t justify the cost of a party where we could invite absolutely everyone (although this place I have found is fantastically amazingly cheaper than anywhere else around) so I blithely assumed we could just invite the boys in his class and we wouldn’t look too mean. What I hadn’t thought about was what Ned would think about it. He’s perfectly happy to only invite boys (apart from his sister and one of her friends) because “football’s more of a boy thing really you know” but it hadn’t occurred to me that he might say that he didn’t “want to invite any of the naughty boys; I don’t want anyone there that has been told off by Miss C_ or anyone that fidgets during carpet time because they are too naughty”. So far that seems to rule out about 30% of the children; hopefully he will change his policy soon….
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We dragged our poor children around yet another kitchen showroom and yet another flooring shop this weekend; luckily for us the flooring shop happened to be in a village where there was also a visiting funfair which cost us £7.50 in 4 rides but gained us significant Good Parent Points which we needed after hours of discussions about which work surface and which flooring. However we have now pretty much decided on work top and units and we are off next weekend to decide whether we want to go for reclaimed timber boards for the floor or to get wooden flooring from a floor shop. Boring for everyone else, deadly dull for small children, but really quite exciting for us……
Inappropriate
September 14, 2009Hubby at the weekend: I thought my new 6th form girls were very appropriately undressed this week.
This morning
September 9, 2009Belle has had a cold for 3 weeks and it is making her reluctant to eat her normal breakfast which she complains tastes horrible. This morning I made her a smaller-than-normal bowl of the moaned-about weetabix, bran flakes and milk and gave her anothe bowl of dry shreddies at her request. She looked down at the bowls.
“Mummy, I feel as though you are trying to fatten me up so you can shoot me dead and eat me”.
Belle’s First Day Back
September 8, 2009And she loved it. She came home buzzing and was still buzzing by the time I got home 4 hours later.
The main highlight apparently was having school dinner – she had pasta with tomato sauce, sweetcorn (“but only a tiny portion – no more than a handful”) and a piece of pitta bread followed by crackers and cheese “I thought it looked a bit like Brie or maybe Port Salut so I chose it but it was really horrid” (it turned out to be a Dairy Lee triangle). The other option was sausages and Yorkshire puddings for main course and milkshakes or yoghurts for dessert which would also have gone down brilliantly so she’s happy. Thank heaven.
The “friend” she had issues with last term was off yesterday which seems fortuitous as she has now settled herself onto her table between 2 girls she really likes and they are not allowed to swap seats so hopefully that’ll help her determination to choose her own playmates from now on. She is on the top table – or the “hardest work” table to use her words. She said she hadn’t expected it (though we had) so I asked her why. “I wasn’t sure I would meet all the targets”, she said. Goodness me. Is this the language they actually use in front of the children or is she just very very good at earwigging the grown-ups?
They were straight into work, writing factfiles about themselves, doing self portraits and getting reading books already. No homework till next week though.
Catching up…
September 7, 2009So today was Belle’s first day back at school. I felt slightly guilty for not being there but then figured that, as a Year 2 (Gasp. Where has the time gone?) pupil now, she would cope and my precious time off would be better spent on school trips or attending concerts. She was keen to go back; one of her friends had her 7th birthday party at the weekend which helped – they’d all got used to seeing each other again.
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Ned starts on Thursday with over 2 weeks of mornings only and then another week where he stays for lunch before finally going full-time. He wavers between looking forward to it and feeling anxious about it; we have managed to meet up with 2 of the boys he will be with and he is less worried since then. I will be interested to see how he deals with it on Thursday; my prediction would be – scared but stoical.
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Belle has size 13 feet. I have size 4 feet. She will be bigger than me by her teenage years I should imagine. See? That’s why I have plenty of shoes – so I can share them with her one day…. Ned is a size 12 already so it seems unlikely that either are going to take after me in the shoe size department.
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I regret the passing of the holidays. I get a bit jealous of hubby having all that time off with the children whilst I get a scant two days a week during which I am trying to shoehorn in visits to friends and family aswell as doing those jobs which fall to my lot. I know it’s ridiculous because I am sure, were the tables turned, that I would be going stir crazy trying to find wet weather activities and things to keep them occupied. Hubby has been parent-of-the-month though for both of them; they have really enjoyed spending the time with him. More than 2 years ago Belle was given this by a good friend; it has languished in her cupboard waiting for a time when both children would be old enough to enjoy it. Hubby and they spent days making this since we returned from holiday and one would think it was the most exciting thing they had ever done…. I have taken half-term off in October though so hopefully we can manage to have some down-time to just enjoy even though we are away for 4 days.
Judgemental
September 1, 2009On holiday we went to the market to buy fresh fruit and veg and to look at the scary-toothed fish. Two small girls (maybe 5 and 3?) came racing up to Ned and Belle and started hugging and kissing them, stroking their faces and clothes and saying (we think) “Beautiful, beautiful” in Portuguese. Belle took it in her stride, smiling down at them through gritted teeth. Ned flushed bright red and stood the other side of me, radiating embarrassment.
A few hours later he said “I wish I knew a judge”. If you’ve ever read “Just William” (and if not, why not?) or, even better, heard the audio versions by Martin Jarvis, you can imagine precisely the tone of voice this was said in. “If I knew a judge I would get those girls an’ I would take them to the judge an’ I would tell him to put them in prison. Huh”.
Holiday reads.
August 29, 2009Having children has certainly curtailed the number of books I manage to read but I still got some reading done on holiday….
Books I read….
“News from No Man’s Land: Reporting the World” by John Simpson. I like John Simpson’s writing and have all his other books so I borrowed this from the library. It was a fascinating read. I am full of respect for someone who has seen plenty of the worse side of life and yet manages to remain remarkably uncynical.
“Days from a Different World: A Memoir of Childhood” also by John Simpson. I picked this up from the library at the same time. It’s very different from his other books as it is all about his first few years but he intersperses anecdotes with writing about world events going on at the same time (he was born in 1944). I found myself feeling very ignorant about recent world history and wanting to know more. It is interesting too because he hasn’t had what I think of as a “normal BBC presenter” (ie very tradititonal and somewhat privileged)type of upbringing.
“Corner Shop” by Roopa Farooki. I only just discovered and read “Bitter Sweets” (her 1st novel) and thoroughly enjoyed it. I liked this one too. It’s a fascinating and rather-too-insightful portrayal of a family’s life over about 30 years with a marriage between a Bengali man and a French woman, their son and the relationships between the generations. She writes beautifully and I am looking forward to reading the next one…
“The Other Hand” by Chris Cleave. This is the most outstanding book. It’s the sort of book that ought to change lives. I didn’t even know about this book; Best Friend offered it to me as she had bought it for her own holiday reading and then discovered her mother had a copy to lend her. The blurb on the back asks you not to tell anyone about the content of the story and just says it’s about 2 women who met once and then meet again 2 years later. I feel obliged not to say more than that but I cannot recommend it highly enough. It is amazingly written; I cried through half of it; it’s harrowing and amazing. And it’s a book that I think will appeal to men and women…. The reviews on Amazon are poor and maybe I am alone in finding it amazing but I would genuinely recommend it.
“Alentejo Blue” by Monica Ali. I was one of the few who disliked “Brick Lane” and I have no idea what possessed me to pick this up in the library, much less actually to take it in the suitcase. I hated it. I forced myself to wade through it but I couldn’t bear it. I will do my very best to avoid any future books she comes up with…
“The Shack” by William P Young. I have avoided this for months; it has been raved about by most people in my church and has even been pushed by the pulpit; that sort of hype is always enough to make me run a mile even when we’re not talking about the “Christian novel” genre which is one I always avoid anyway. But I’d run out of books and my mother had finished this so I gave it a go. And ….. I was surprised. I thought I would hate it or begrudgingly love it or something, given the level of passion it seems to have engendered. And I just thought it was a bit of a nothing book. I didn’t really care about what happened or what was said; I didn’t notice any great insights or have any particualr revelation. I honestly found it a bit boring.
Books Belle read.
“The Twits” by Roald Dahl. I never read any Roald Dahl as a child. My first introduction to him came a few months ago when I read “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” to Belle. They have been studying Roald Dahl at school though and she is a complete convert. She loved this and found it very amusing. When I flicked through it I thought it was rather mean and gruesome although quite funny but it obviously appeals to my 6 year old…
“Fantastic Mr Fox” by Roald Dahl. Ditto ditto.
“Penny the Pony Fairy” by Daisy Meadows. I’m not sure we’re going to escape these for a while. Belle loves all of them despite the fact that they are all pretty much identical. Daisy Meadows is onto a good thing.
“Lotta says No!” by Astrid Lindgren. Astrid Lindgren wrote Pippi Longstocking which we are now reading as Belle’s bedtime story – it remains a great book 6 and 1/2 decades on from when it was written. Lotta is a slightly easier read. Belle found it very amusing and sat for an hour by the pool ploughing her way through this. I shall definitely look for the others in the series.
“The Hodgeheg” by Dick King-Smith. I know nothing about this one but Belle enjoyed it. I tend to find DKS rather dull but he seems to appeal to children….
“The Guard Dog” by Dick King-Smith. Ditto.
Book we both read.
“The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” by C. S. Lewis. I read this to Belle (and sometimes Ned) as her bedtime story over the holiday. I love the chance to revisit classics through new eyes (or ears). Belle loved this. She found it very exciting. She guessed the allegory bit when Aslan died; a few hours later she was saying “But the good side has to win so if he’s died does that mean he’s going to come back to life again?” but the rest of that aspect went over her head. The story is a great one though; it’s been too long since I’d read it last.
geepeemum 
