Making lists.

Yesterday the only thing we had on the calendar was the piano tuner.  So in the morning I asked the girls what they'd like to do and between the three of us we came up with a list of things we'd like to get done during the day.  We do sometimes make plans like this but don't usually write them down. 

Our list looked like this:
Bake chelsea buns (we watched The Great British Bake Off the day before and had decided it would be a good idea)
Go to the library and the shops (I had a book to take back and we needed milk)
Read Heidi (well, a few chapters anyway)
Read the first book of our Usborne History of Britain set (I had suggested reading the one about the Second World War, given what we've been reading lately, but K wanted to start at the beginning with Prehistoric Britain)
Watch the dvd of As You Like It (from lovefilm)
Do some tidying of bedrooms

By lunchtime we'd made a start on the chelsea buns (not entirely in the spirit of the Bake Off, we were using the breadmaker to make the dough) and I'd read a couple of chapters of Heidi and K & M had really got into an imaginative Playmobil game, that has been on-going for several hours over the past couple of days since and they'd also had a go on next-door's trampoline.  After lunch though, with a little bit of encouragement K & M joined me in the trip to the shops and the library and when we got home K & I (and M for some of the time) watched the first half of As You Like It, while eating one of the chelsea buns.  K & M claimed to have done a bit of tidying of their bedrooms, although having taken clean clothes into their rooms, I'm not entirely convinced of that!  Taking them at their word though, that means we managed 3 and two halves of the six things on the list.

This morning I suggested we continue with the list and read the first half of Prehistoric Britain with the girls.  K was a little bit put out that it started pretty much with the dinosaurs, but was placated when I showed her the timeline at the end of the book that does start at the beginning.  We got as far as the end of the Stone Age and came across a couple of places of particular interest.  The first was Newgrange in Ireland, a Stone Age passage tomb that is built such that at dawn on the winter solstice the sun shines directly down the passage, lighting up the chamber in the middle of the the mound.  A & I visited it on our honeymoon, so we need to dig our photos to show the girls.  The second place mentioned is much more local to us, Creswell Crags, somewhere none of us has visited yet, but we will certainly be looking at sorting out a trip now.

In other news, this afternoon we headed into town, the main reason for which was for me to take part in a flashmob with the choir I sing with and a visiting Norwegian choir.  It was really good fun!  Tomorrow afternoon the two choirs are having a workshop together with a joint concert in the evening, which will be my first proper concert since I lost my voice about 15 months ago with whooping cough.  I'm really looking forward to it.