Well I wasn't expecting that!

Yesterday my flabber was well and truely gasted.  At the beginning of last year we started something new regarding pocket money and instead of us paying for treats, giving spending money on holiday and giving money for birthday and Christmas presents for our 'little' family (i.e. the four of us), we decided to give the girls £5 per month but no longer pay for any of the above.  In order to get this they have to properly tidy and clean (wipe surfaces & hoover) their bedrooms by the end of the month.  To start with for K in particular the money seemed to burn a hole in their pockets and we did wonder whether it had a been a good idea, but now they save up most of their money, rather than frittering it away.  It has generally been something of a struggle to get M in particular to tidy her room, which manages to get to the point that you can barely see the floor after a few days each time.  I have been encouraging both girls to do a bit at a time over the last few days to make it a bit of a more manageable job on the last day of the month, which K had been doing, but M hadn't promising me that she wasn't going to moan and strop when it came to doing it.  I was rather sceptical to say the least!  However, yesterday afternoon K & M disappeared upstairs, only popping downstairs occasionally to put things in the recycling or the bin and to tell me that they'd found a way to make tidying fun!  Apparently they'd turned an arrow into a fairy wand and one of their toy dogs was using it to make them tidy things, they took it in turns to work together in each of their bedrooms and did a really pretty decent job without any help and without any moaning.  Long may it continue!

While the girls were busy tidying their rooms, I baked a cake for A's cricket club's President's day bake off, and this morning almost the first thing M said was to ask if she could bake one as well.  I wasn't sure we'd have time, as we had already planned to go to have a look at the archery at Wollaton Hall but heading to A's cricket club, but she clearly really, really wanted to, so we managed to squeeze in baking it before we went and she quickly decorated it between Wollaton and the cricket club.

The archery was really interesting, we were all surprised and impressed at how small the target are that they are shooting at and for the little bit that we watched nobody scored lower than an 8 and it was mostly 9s and 10s. 

The archers...

...and how they got on.

K, M & I all had a go ourselves, which we enjoyed, the targets were about four times the size and we were about 20 times closer though! 

Having a go

K's and my targets

K & M did like it, but they are very clear that they prefer 'Tudor archery'.  I also chatted to a man there who was telling me about different types of archery, including one I hadn't heard of, field archery, which is basically a walk in the country with your bow and arrow and targets to shoot at as you go along. 

It was a nice relaxed atmosphere at the cricket club, there were several short games, from their junior teams and one from the seniors which A was playing in.  M has decided that she'd like to try cricket and she had a bit of a go with a couple of boys, including a bit of help how to bowl.  A asked what would be the best thing to do for her to have a proper go and so we're going to look into that for her and living pretty close to Trent Bridge there should be something!

As for the bake off, it seemed to be rather a last minute idea and consequently there were only three entries, two of which came from our family!

My 1st place chocolate cake

M's 2nd place Hogwart's crest decorated sponge cake

The girls and I spent some time at the cricket club, but the girls' babysitter had popped over before we left, to ask if they could help with her school art project this afternoon, which they were keen to do.  So we came home and they went to see her and eat things so she could take photos of them doing so to use in her project.  Then we went back so we could buy some of our cake back to eat!