Classic K.

K doesn't particularly want me to broadcast this, but I want to have a record for posterity.  She had to fill in a form for Scouts this week, something to do with a new database that they're doing.  She filled most of it in herself, but there were a few bits that she wasn't sure about, so gave it to me to finish off.  When I looked through to see what was missing, I noticed that she had ticked 'Other' in the section about religion, but hadn't filled in the box to say what that other was.  When I questioned her about this, given that we are nominally at least RC, she told me 'I haven't come up with a name for it yet.'  Further probing revealed that her religion worships four animals, a giraffe, a leopard, an elephant and a butterfly, all of which hatched out of flowers in Africa shortly after the dinosaurs died out!  It's not a proselytising religion, so she's not out to convert anyone and I don't have much idea what if anything else is involved, but it certainly sounds interesting!

Making all sorts of things.

There's been lots of making going on lately, quite a lot of which is for Christmas presents, so I can't give many details as I don't want to spoil surprises.  This is one that M made for her best friend J and gave her this afternoon, so I can share this one.

A shuttlecock fairy for the top of the Christmas tree!

M has been doing lots of crocheting and has finished, with a bit of help from me but very much mostly her own work, Daddy's Christmas present.

K has also been doing lots of making, I think more cards than presents, but since she hasn't needed any help, I don't really know what it is she's been doing!

Inspired partly by a lad at Asfordby who had a little box and was collecting money for his local foodbank, and partly by Blue Peter who had a report on them, on Thursday the girls and I went to the supermarket with a list printed off our local foodbank's website.  A & I had agreed that some of what was effectively his Christmas bonus should be spent on a donation and both K & M asked me to take money out of their bank accounts so they had a trolley between them too and we delivered it on Friday morning.

This morning, rather later than most people if our street is anything to go by, we put up our Christmas tree, which has come in from the garden for its second year.  As ever K & M have shunned convention and this year have gone for a giant panda by the name of Polly for the top (last year was a glow in the dark diplodocus!).

Polly in position.

The final effect.

This afternoon we had the girls' friends A & J round and the four of them spent almost the whole time making a film trailer on the ipad that their friends had brought round.  I had to step in once to adjudicate and argument between K & M, but generally they discussed, negotiated and compromised really well and they were all very happy with the final result.

In other news, the sloe vodka and sloe gin that we made with sloes from A's uncle's farm in Kent is very good.  I've made some rather lovely sloe vodka truffle chocolates and some chocolate enrobed vodka sloes.  The sloes from the gin are now starting the process of turning a bottle of red wine into sloe port!

Can't believe I forgot this!

On Thursday last week K & M noticed that there appeared to be a wooden train in very good condition in a skip outside a house about half a dozen doors down from us.  On closer inspection there seemed to be an awful lot of stuff in there that had no business being thrown away.  Both girls were as bothered by the waste as I was and M was also very taken by the train and asked me if she could have it and I replied that I thought it would be okay, but that she should probably ask first.  She and K knocked on the door a number of times that day, as we went passed several times, but it wasn't until it was dark that there was finally someone in.  In response to the girls' polite request, they were told that they could take anything they wanted. 

So on Friday afternoon, after Uncle S & Aunty P had left, first just K, and a while later M too, went skip diving!  They brought at least half a dozen bags full, mostly of toys but various other things too, most of it in immaculate condition.  There are a few things that they are keeping but most of the rest they cleaned up if necessary and some has already gone to a charity shop with more ready to go.

Very proud of my girls.

It's been a while...

I've got out of the swing of blogging lately, partly because it's been fairly quiet round these parts recently, so it doesn't feel as though I've got that much to say.  In addition to that though, M has some concerns about becoming famous, even though I have the settings such that you need the link to find this blog and I only refer to the people by their initial!  I have reassured her that she really doesn't need to worry about this and she has agreed that I can put things 'on blog' again.

Last week was Fun Club, which was the traditional Christmas show, where anybody can perform.  There were quite a few musical numbers and also a little nativity play by one family.  K has never been up to take part, although M has played the piano for the past few years.  A couple of months ago she had decided that she would play the French horn this year, but changed her mind a few weeks later and didn't change it back again.  They enjoyed the show though and joined in with the carol singing afterwards, which I accompanied on the piano.

On Wednesday, immediately after M's French horn lesson, we headed into town.  Ages ago the girls had been given cinema vouchers for taking part in research at Nottingham university, which needed to be used by the end of the year, so I suggested that we go and see Paddington.  K & M were a bit sceptical, but agreed to give it a go and we met Z & R at the cinema and R came in with us.  In the 11 o'clock showing on a mid-week morning there were a surprising number of people there, most of whom were over 60.  We all really enjoyed it and would thoroughly recommend the film and thought Paddington's hard stare was particularly good.  Z met us afterwards and we had lunch together before we had a wander around the Christmas market and then parting company to do a bit more shopping before heading home in time for the girls' swimming lesson.

On Friday we had visitors, Uncle S & Aunty P came for lunch.  It was lovely to see them albeit fairly briefly and we agreed that we must go and visit them again in Oxford early next year.

Monday was Asfordby, with a Christmas crafty theme, although the older children, including K & M, spent most of their time playing outside.  Afterwards we went back to friends' house and after some disagreement, it seems that there is a plan afoot to put on a short nativity play at the next Asfordby which is the Monday before Christmas.

In other news K has been experimenting with her art supplies today.  She has been using watercolour pencils and pastel crayons in her pictures, which I think are rather good.  I'll ask her permission to take photos to add here later.  Both girls have been continuing to read quite a lot, at the moment as well as the How To Train Your Dragon books, they have two books by Chris Riddell out of the library at the moment including Goth Girl and the Ghost of a Mouse, which they have both enjoyed. 

Following our completion of the Usborne History of Britain, we've started on a timeline on lining wallpaper.  So far I've put on the monarchs of England (Britain from 1603) back as far as Alfred the Great and will be adding on things that we read about.  At the moment I have been doing most of it, but I'm hoping that the girls will join in some more as we add more on and the plan is to expand to other parts of the world too.

The timeline.

Things we have done this week.

• Been to Asfordby, where there was a bring and swap session, where we took lots of things and only came home with a few (this is a good thing!)
• Piano lessons - for the first time in a month for various reasons - and practice.
• M's French horn lesson - and practice.
• Swimming lesson.
• Scouts for K.
• Read the final book in the Usborne History of Britain series; Britain Since the War, which filled a gap in what we had learned about Berlin on our recent trip, as it mentioned the Berlin Airlift, which although clearly was covered in The Story of Berlin museum, we had started to get rather hungry by the time we got to that part and had stopped looking at everything!
• Continued reading Piratica
• K has been doing crafty things, making flowers, a tiara and various other things out of tissue, paper, foil, pipecleaners and other things.
• M has started crocheting a hat for A.
• K and I listened to an episode of The Infinite Monkey Cage about Bletchley Park.
• M has bought, and read, two Daisy and the Trouble With... books on ebay. 

I'm sure there are other things, such as starting the monthly tidy up of the bedrooms, but given that I've been feeling rather unmotivated this week and feeling that we haven't done much, I think that's pretty good going!

Oh and I've had about two feet cut off my hair and posted the ponytail off to these people.

Reading, reading, more reading and a little bit of other stuff.

This afternoon I read The Second World War from the Usborne History of Britain to the girls.  K in particular was, perhaps rather excessively, excited by the rather brief reference to Bletchley Park.

I have also started reading a book that has been recommended and subsequently lent to us by a friend, Piratica, which we're rather enjoying.  It's set in seventeen-twelvty, in an alternate England which has become a republic, which is an interesting idea.  It's not the first time we've come across the concept though, having read The Wolves of Willoughby Chase a while back, which is set in an England in the reign of James III.

K & M have both been reading a lot lately.  They are working their way through the How To Train Your Dragon books, which M is requesting from the library in order.  Another series that they are both enjoying are the Helen Moss Adventure Island books.  M has also started reading, or in some cases re-reading, Daisy and the Trouble With... books.

I am also reading Which Witch to M, which K has recently borrowed from the library and enjoyed.  It's rather strange because I half remember it from my childhood, but the thing that I remember is having very vivid dreams having read it, rather than the story itself.  A is also reading another William book, to both girls which we've borrowed from friends.

Finally, on the reading front, our first copy of First News arrived today.  K got engrossed it pretty quickly and it looks like it was a good plan.

In other news, yesterday we went to see the second and final film of Into Film festival, Walking With Dinosaurs.  It was slightly stressful getting there, as we were running a little bit late and we arrived a couple of minutes into the film, although having spoken to friends who arrived 15 minutes before the offical start time, they started the film well before they were supposed to, but the sound didn't work and it took a while to sort it, but even then they started slightly early!  The film wasn't quite what we expected, having not read the information very carefully, but we enjoyed it anyway.  We had very vague plans afterwards with friends who we'd seen at Thinktank for the first time in ages, who were also at the cinema.  We went back to their house, where the girls, K, M & Ma, had a lovely time playing and then decorating paper bags as party bags ready for Saturday, which is Ma's 10th birthday, while L & I had lovely catch up chat.

Very finally, M has been crocheting and showed me this that she has make this evening.

Books (both fiction and non-fiction) and bookshops.

One thing I forgot to mention about our trip to Berlin, was the book that we took for me to read to them while we were there.  It was one that M had been given for her birthday back in June, but had decided that she wanted it to be one for me to read to the two of them: Wonder, which we would all thoroughly recommend.  It is a very thought provoking book, which led to discussions on various issues, which were all dealt with well in the book.

Since getting home, we haven't really been up to doing much, especially K, who's still getting over the sickness bug and not yet eating properly.  As a result of this we've continued with the Usborne History of Britain series and yesterday I read the whole of The Victorians and this afternoon all of The First World War.

This morning we went to the cinema to see How To Train Your Dragon 2, as part of the Into Film Festival.  Afterwards we popped into town to Waterstones, who are quite frankly brilliant.  K had been given Mary Poppins, the book, for her birthday and not only had she already read it, but indeed had a copy.  We didn't have a receipt (and indeed I'm pretty sure the book wasn't bought from them) but they do stock the edition that she'd been given and they were perfectly happy to take it back as a return and give credit for it.  Not only that but one of the assistants in the children's department spent quite a while talking to K and giving suggestions for what she might like instead.  Clearly the shop benefits too, as while we were there M decided to buy a book (a Daisy and the Trouble with one) and I bought a birthday present for a 12 year old boy (The Lord of the Flies - having talked to his mum about it) as well as getting a different book for K, The Fire Within the first in a series that does sound like something K will really enjoy, but you really can't beat a good bookshop with knowledgeable staff.

Back from Berlin - part two.

On Friday afternoon, we went to the girls' choice of the Natural History museum and it was a good one!  The dinosaur hall in particular is very well done and happily all the information was in English as well as German as both K & M spent a long time reading the vast majority of it!  We saw:

The world recording holding tallest mounted dinosaur, a very impressive brachiosaurus

Possibly the most famous fossil in the world, an archaeopteryx.

K & M were also very happy to find a fossil, which they said was Half Tooth, the smilodon (sabre toothed cat) that is the main character featured in one of the Walking With Beasts episodes (a series that followed Walking With Dinosaurs). 

Half Tooth.

We also spent time finding out about plate tectonics, watching a video that went from the Big Bang to present day and then from 'here' zooming out until they talked about the billions of galaxies each with billions of stars.

Our final day we went out to Potsdam.  It wasn't the best time of year to visit the huge Sanssouci park, as even the statues had been covered by rather sinister looking grey hut like constructions, presumably to protect them over winter.  We did go into Sanssouci palace, which was rather impressive though.  In the afternoon we went somewhere for the girls, a hands-on science museum for children, called Extavium, which had some really good things.  Among other things we did an experiment on probability and talked about bell curves, K lifted a car and both girls loved the darkroom where you waited for the flash to make shapes on the light sensitive wall.

K lifting a 'Trabbie', 'the' East German car.

Making their moves!

For the evening of our last day we'd booked to visit the dome of the Reichstag, which was quite interesting and reinforced quite a lot of what we'd learned about earlier in the week.  They have guides in various languages and a children's one but only in German.  A got one in English and I got the children's German one with the plan to translate for the girls, but it was so bizarre and sort of aurally cartoony and nonsensical a lot of the time that it didn't really work, but the girls found it hilarious to listen to the silly voices and funny music, so they enjoyed it anyway!

The Reichstag.

The Brandenburg Gate from the dome of the Reichstag.

We had a packed lunch each day (taking bread rolls with cheese from the enormous breakfast buffet at the hotel) and ate out each evening.  K & M are getting much better at trying new things, so we were able to eat in German restaurants a couple of evenings and they each ate schnitzel, as well as trying some of my spatzle, which M liked but K didn't.  We did have Italian the rest of the time though.

Something else that was very noticeable was just how confident and independent K & M can be.  This was particularly apparent when it came to going to the loo.  It didn't bother them in the slightest that they speak pretty much no German, they would happily go off to find it on their own.  I, on the other hand, found it slightly nerve-wracking when they did this!

Unfortunately the end of the holiday was pretty awful as K was sick.  Not just a bit, but copiously and repeatedly from 10pm pretty much all night to the point that we thought she and I might not be able to fly home and we had my parents on stand by to look after M.  Happily we managed to get home, but the journey did involve more vomit both in Berlin and Luton and was pretty horrendous.  Both K & M, who was very upset and unsettled by not knowing where she was going to end up that night, were absolute troopers, because without their efforts we might not have managed.

Back from Berlin - part one.

Last Tuesday the girls and I joined A on a work trip (which he extended so he could spend time with us too) for the first time.  Despite having lived in Germany twice, first for a gap year as an au pair in Dusseldorf (and then briefly Dortmund when the family moved house), and then in Tubingen for a term at university as part of my degree, I had never visited Berlin and it's somewhere I've wanted to go for a while but had never got round to.

We left home at 9.30am and got to the hotel about 6.30pm, via bus, train, bus, plane, local train and underground, all having gone pretty smoothly. We had a special guest with us for this trip, as K had asked if we could take her Scout troop's mascot Phileas Frogg.

K with Phileas Frogg and Arnaud on the train.

A's work meetings were on Thursday from lunchtime and all day Friday, so we had the whole day together on the Wednesday.  First we went to The Story of Berlin (although not the bunker), which was pretty good.  The girls were interested enough that we ended up having a very late lunch!  Both girls are at an age now where (depending on subject matter of course and the amount of written material) they are either happy to read information or have it read to them an awful lot more than they used to, so it's more interesting for me too!

At the Story of Berlin K, Phileas & M.

Later we explored a bit and headed in the direction of the Brandenburg Gate but before we got that far we decided to go up the Fernsehturm and although conditions weren't ideal we got a reasonable view of the city (certainly better than it would have been later in the week, when we couldn't see the viewing and restaurant area at all!)

Up the Fernsehturm...

....and in front of the Brandenburg Gate.

On Thursday we went to the zoo all together before A had to go off for his meeting.  The zoo sparked some discussion about the merits of zoos, since the enclosures of the big cats in particular looked really inadequate, versus the difficulties of protecting animals from poachers in their natural habitat.  We've been to Chester Zoo a few times and have sometimes not seen the big cats there because their enclosures are much bigger and have plenty of plants and rocks which means that the cats can frequently be hidden, which we all agreed is much better than the guarantee of seeing them in a small enclosure.  In the afternoon the girls and I went to the aquarium too and then to the Lego shop on the Kurfurstendamm, which was a 5 minutes walk from the hotel, for the second time (they have several areas where you can just sit and build things!).

A very unobliging blue-tongued skink that stopped sticking its tongue out when I got the camera out!

Phileas with some new friends at the Aquarium.

Friday A had to work all day, so it was just me and girls.  After a final visit to the Lego shop, where each of the girls chose the parts to make and then buy their own Lego figure, we went to the museum at Checkpoint Charlie, which the girls weren't too keen on.  They found parts interesting, such as the different way that people escaped to the West, like hiding in a converted petrol tank and hiding in two suitcases that were pushed together with holes cut in the sides, and they found it interesting to see a very small scale model of a section of the wall, with a fence, barbed wire, a big space with watch towers and search lights and a ditch on the east side and nothing on the west side of the wall itself.  The presentation is very heavy on written material, and after the part about the wall, there was a lot about what went on on the Soviet side of the Iron Curtain, which was too much for the girls.  We all certainly learned a lot before we moved on though.

At the Checkpoint Charlie museum.

To be continued...

More maths and making things.

It was Asfordby today and the children were making shoe box houses/rooms.  K & M really enjoyed this activity and spent most of the session on their shoe boxes.  They were each pleased with their results, although M is apparently planning a loft conversion (more extension than conversion though, I think).

K went for a room - with wallfeathers rather than wallpaper!

M has four rooms in her house, so far.

After having something of a struggle yesterday to get K to finish a maths worksheet, today she did two!  They were rather easier though being on bar charts and pie charts.  In each case she had some questions to answer about a chart and then some data to present using one.  There's only one page left in Basher Maths, which I'm half way through making a worksheet for, but K spotted that we managed to miss out a couple, so has requested that I go back and do one for each of those.  I'm not quite sure I can get a whole worksheet out of zero or infinity though!

M went to Brownies for the first time in a while, having missed quite a lot lately due to her 'under-the-weather-ness' from which she finally seems to be getting better.  She has been saying for a while that she's not really enjoying Brownies much lately, as she was finding it boring and everyone who she was particularly friendly with has now moved on.  We had previously spoken to Brown Owl about her probably stopping at Christmas (although she still can go on the Pantomime trip in January, which I've already paid for).  I wasn't happy about M just stopping, so we agreed that she would go this evening to give it one last chance and she could decide at the end whether she wanted to continue or not.  If she decided to stop, she'd be able to let them know herself and say thank you, and that is what she decided to do, so M will be having a break now, until she can start Scouts in September.

A little bit of History, English and Maths.

Having taken about 4 1/2 months to get through the Tudors and Stuarts book in the Usborne History of Britain, we finally moved onto The Georgians and I read the whole book in one afternoon on Friday!  We also had a visit from a friend, K, who at the girls' request brought a game with her for us to borrow again; The Settlers of Catan, which we had a game of in the evening.

K and I had a discussion about this and how it could mean different things if you added punctuation to it.

I wrote two possibilities:

Bless this house with friends' laughter and love.

Bless this house with friends, laughter and love.

and K correctly identified the difference in meaning between the two and then giggled about the difference between 'Let's eat Granny!' and 'Let's eat, Granny!', which we'd talked about previously.

K has also done another worksheet that I made for her to go with the Basher Maths book, this time on Per Cent.  The worksheet went a bit further than the info in the book, which was very basic - pretty much just turning fractions into percentages and how this is helpful to compare things.  She did this part of the worksheet very easily but then went off and eventually we got back to it this evening at my insistence.  The worksheet also covered increasing and decreasing by percentages, for example if something that costs £20 is 25% off in a sale, how much does it cost.  This initially caused a bit of a problem, because K worked it out quickly intuitively and when I tried to encourage her to work out how she had got to the answer we both ended up quite stressed.  With a couple of questions that were a bit trickier in terms of the numbers, we talked things through together and I think by the end she'd got the hang of it.  

We did have words somewhat when K wanted to leave it and finish it another time, but with only a couple of questions left I insisted we complete it before watching Strictly Come Dancing results.  She was somewhat grumpy, but after she'd finished I reminded her that she had asked me to insist on getting on with things sometimes, like I had done here.  When I asked her again if I had been right and she did want me to do this she said yes, so all ended well.

Baking, baking, more baking and Brum.

On Monday K spent the vast majority of the day in the kitchen.  She was doing a practice run for this evening's 'Great British Decorate Off' at Scouts on the theme of 'the movies'.  So in the morning, she made three different shapes of cake, using the standard recipe provided, then in the afternoon cut them up and assembled and decorated this...

Lord Farquaad's castle with Shrek's swamp and Donkey.

Granny came to stay for a few days and Big Grandad brought her in time for lunch, for which he joined us before heading back home. 

At this point I perhaps should mention that since M spent Saturday night in her own bed (rather than in with me) by necessity, as since we had visitors A couldn't sleep in the spare room (three in a bed hasn't worked for us for a long time), she has continued sleeping there on her own by choice.  Before she moved back in with me when she broke her arm, her habitual sleeping place of choice was in with K, which K was fine with, but just as happy to sleep on her own.  We have on previous occasions had brief bouts of M choosing to sleep alone, but they haven't ever lasted very long, but this time really does feel different.  I'm sure there'll be times when she feels the need to come back in with me, but this may actually be the beginning of the end of co-sleeping!

One thing that seems to be the case with M sleeping in her own room, is that she is tending to get up earlier and on Tuesday she appeared by my bed at 7.30am, asking if she could do some baking.  I told her to go away, have breakfast, get dressed, brush her teeth and make her packed lunch for later and then come back and we'd see.  She was back having done all of the above by shortly after 8 o'clock, so I sent her downstairs to start getting things ready and hauled myself out of bed.  To say I'm not a morning person is playing things down somewhat and she was not only expecting me to help her with the little bits that she couldn't manage alone, she was also expecting conversation!  She didn't get much of that, but did however, make some very nice chocobanana and raisin cookies, most of which she took to Fun Club as this month is was the annual table-top sale.  We also took quite a few things that we'd sorted out as having grown out of or no longer needing in various ways, including the girls' dolls' house, although this was slightly reluctantly in K's case.  She decided it was okay, as long as the baby could still be called Lucy.

As well as the sale, we had an outside provider come in this time, a "Curious objects man" called Stephen (unfortunately I forgot my phone, so don't have any pictures, which is slightly annoying as there were some very interesting ones).  The children were split into 7 and under and 8 and over, and while the younger ones had a look at some curious objects, the older ones (including K & M) went upstairs and tried to identify objects in bags by feel alone.  Then they had a look at some curious objects, which included:

A clockwork roasting jack

A 300 year old knife used for blood letting.

A tonsil guillotine!

A strigil

A beetle-shaped boot jack

With the help of some clues for most of the objects the children guessed, came close or not in different degrees, but they all seemed to enjoy it, and the adults found it interesting too.

After Fun Club we went home and left Granny to have a rest while we went to have a play and tea with friends and then the girls had korfball, so a really rather full day!  While K & M were playing with their friends, I had a good catch up with my friend S and also had a look at First News, which is a weekly newspaper for young people and we've borrowed a copy to have a look at (chosen because it has an interview with a woman who worked at Bletchley Park during the war) and if K & M are interested then I think we'll probably subscribe, as it looks really good.

On Wednesday morning M wasn't up quite so early, but still much easier to get up than she has been recently, for her French horn lesson.  She even had time to play for Granny before leaving for her lesson at 9.15am.  After her lesson we came home and then K, M, Granny and I got the bus into town for some shopping (Granny needed some things and we also got M some new slippers) and lunch.  Then it was back home for K to bake the cakes that she needed for tonight.  She just about managed that before it was time for K & M's swimming lesson.

Today we were up even earlier, as we were supposed to be getting a train to Birmingham at 8.12am.  Unfortunately things didn't go too smoothly to start with, as we missed one bus by about a minute and then the one we did catch, which should have still got us to the station in time, sat at a stop for nigh on five minutes, so we missed the 8.12 and had to get the next one.  In addition to that I also forgot to take the memory sticks that we needed for one of the workshops, so had to buy some en route.  However, we just about managed to get there in time for the first session at 10.30am (although did take a taxi from the station, not something we'd usually do, which the girls found very exciting!) and after that it was all fine.

The reason for our trip to Birmingham was Thinktank's home educator day, this was our second time at one of these and we'd all really enjoyed the last one.  K & M had chosen (and fortunately were in agreement as you need to have an adult for each activity) their three activities, Gassy Explosions, Smarty Plants and So You Think You're Game Enough.

Gassy Explosions was a hands-on lab workshop about acids and alkalis.  After some information about lab safety, and some questions and talking about acids and alkalis in general, the children got to use universal indicator to test various chemicals.  They chose an acid and an alkali to mix and 'caught' the gas that was given off in a balloon.  They got to show what happens if you make a reaction that produces a gas and trap that gas (mixing an acid and alkali in a film canister - it goes pop quite spectacularly).  Next they dropped some mints into bottles of lemonade, which although it seems to be a similar reaction isn't, which was pointed out briefly.  Finally, to end the session with a bang, we all stood well back while the session leader set fire to a hydrogen filled balloon.

In the lab!

There wasn't that much in the session that we couldn't do (and indeed haven't done) at home, but K & M still enjoyed it and got something out of it.

We then had a couple of hours to have our lunch and having met various friends there, we spent some time inside and out.  The outside area is particularly good.

Exploring pulleys.

On the big hamster wheel!

The next session was in the theatre, Smarty Plants.  It was fairly basic, but again still interesting.  First volunteers were asked to decide whether various things came from plants or not and while most of them were straightforward there was a silk tie included along with coffee, chocolate, wool, leather, wood, metal and more.  Then we moved on to how to classify things (very simply), what plants need to grow and reproduction.  There was a nice demonstration of pollination using an inflatable paddling pool with a bucket of 'nectar' (red balls) at the end, but the 'bee' (girl wearing a fleece on her legs) had to wade through the 'pollen' (other coloured balls which had something sticky, double-sided tape or velcro, I'm not sure) before she could collect the nectar.

Finally we went to So You Think You're Smart Enough, which was basically an introduction to coding using Scratch.  The children were talked through how to make the basis of a very simple game of a shark eating a fish, although both K and M decided they didn't like that and had the fish eating the shark.  I think that they will want to follow this up, as they both said that this was the session they enjoyed most.

We didn't hang around for long after our final session, even though we could have stayed another hour.  I did spend some money in the shop on various science kits that will be Christmas presents before we left though.  The trip home was less stressy in terms of timing, but ridiculously crowded on the train for the first few stops.  Unusually A was home before us and had started tea, which was good, because K needed to get ready for Scouts and M had a friend, I, (whose older brother also goes to Scouts) coming so they could bake, as they were both a bit envious of the activity at Scouts.  They had fun making and decorating cupcakes.

The decorating.

The end results.

Rather disappointingly the special guest judge, Jordan, one of the contestants from this year's Great British Bake Off, didn't turn up (not sure why, there was the suggestion that he was stuck in traffic), but K enjoyed herself very much, which is the main thing.

A bits and pieces sort of catch up.

We've been pottering along in a pretty laid-back fashion recently.  
K has finished writing her thank yous, still putting in lots of thought, time and effort into the designs.  She has also done a bit more maths, doing a worksheet about ratios, which we then followed up looking at a couple of maps which were to different scales. 
We've continued with the final Wombles book and both girls have been reading to themselves quite a lot lately.  K was given David Walliams' latest book Awful Auntie, which she really enjoyed.  Both girls have been getting Helen Moss' Adventure Island books out of the library and devouring them.  We have also finished the Tudors and Stuarts book of the Usborne History of Britain set.  

It's half term for schools round here this week and K & M spent a day doing gymnastics, which they really enjoyed.  I wasn't entirely sure whether it was a good idea for M in particular, but she was so adamant that she wanted to do it, having missed out on two of the days she was supposed to do during the summer because of her broken wrist, that I agreed and she did really enjoy it, although she was pretty wiped out afterwards.

This weekend we have had a busy one with a Halloween party for the girls on Friday, which they dressed up for in their own unique way.  M & I spent quite a lot of time painting a t-shirt for her costume, which we were rather pleased with. 

K & M, the vampire giraffe and the vampire polar bear!

We had friends visiting this weekend and met them at Calke Abbey for the day on Saturday, which we all enjoyed.  We explored the house and gardens and some of the grounds and watched the deer for a while, which was particularly interesting as the rut is in progress.  Although there were no major clashing, we did see one of the stags in particular seeing off some of the others very effectively.  

In the grounds of Calke Abbey.

K got very upset at one point and was in tears, after a couple had a go at her and M, because she passed them without saying 'Excuse me'.  I'm aware that, although according to K & M (who were round a corner out of sight at the time, so I didn't witness it) there was 'loads of room' to get passed and K 'didn't even touch her', children's (including K & M) judgement of how much space they need to leave people isn't always what an adult would consider appropriate, you do not teach children manners by being rude to them! 

K & M particularly enjoyed a game that C had brought with her, that she used as an ice-breaker with students at university.  It's based on the idea that there's been a drought and survivors have to hunt and gather to survive, there are food cards and at the end of each round you need to 'eat' one of your cards.  Each round you draw a card that tells if you have succeeded in finding food, which means to receive 1-3 cards, lost some or just not managed to find any.  If you run out of food you will starve to death unless one of your group can and will help you by giving one of their food cards.  The aim being to survive for 'two weeks' (each round is a day) but also to keep as many of the group alive as possible.  There were tears the first time they played when K 'died' and M had a spare card and initally chose not to give it to K, but after they had settled down (M changed her mind), they wanted to play repeatedly.  K rarely survived because she would always save others if she had a spare card, as would M the vast majority of the time, whereas some of the grown ups were somewhat more pragmatic!

Today we all went to Green's Mill for a visit this afternoon, visiting both the windmill and the science and discovery centre. 

The windmill.

C found it particularly interesting because, as a professor of material science, she occasionally uses Green's function in her work, but knew nothing of the man who had discovered it.  We spent some time in the mathematically themed playground, there are various maths signs either on the equipment or the equipment itself is a maths sign, for example the see-saw is a division sign.

This evening we had a bit of unwanted excitement! The girls spotted a small fire out of the bathroom window by the neighbour's backdoor. Standing on the loo, I could see our neighbour sitting at the kitchen table oblivious, so bellowed his name repeatedly as loudly as I could (that's pretty loud!). His wife had smelled smoke at about the same time and was also shouting. Happily it was quite easy to put out, although a bike will probably need a new back tyre. M was really upset this point though and worried that another fire would start, so I popped round to find out what had happened so I could reassure her. The wife had accidentally set fire to a tea towel in the kitchen and had thrown it outside, thinking it was out and it must have still been smoldering and it caught the edge of some cardboard. Both girls were reassured and were soon happily listening to Daddy reading a William story.  Phew!

Things that have been happening.

Things have been pootling along quietly here lately.  We've been taking it pretty easy and not really doing much outside of the usual weekly things (piano and French horn lessons, swimming and korfball, ballet and Scouts for K).  M's still very much under the weather, to the extent that she hasn't been going to Brownies mostly (she tried last week but I had a call that she was feeling dizzy and grotty again and wanted to come home after half an hour), I think we will be paying another visit to the doctor soon, who said to come back if she wasn't better in a month or so about three weeks ago.

Things that have been happening: 

K has been writing her thank you cards.  She always puts a lot of thought into the design and from the glimpses that I've seen of the inside, and the occasional questions how to spell words, she's also writing more than just 'Dear X, Thank you for the Y.  Love from K', which is definitely progress on previous years.

The car has 'Pull Me' written on it - to reveal the Thank You.

K & M have both starting using www.studyladder.co.uk, which quite a few folk had recommended online and a friend had said that her children were enjoying it.  There is quite a lot that you can do on there for free, so I asked the girls to have an explore and see what they thought.  Initially M wasn't really interested having looked at one small section, but after K had had more of a look, they have both got quite keen and indeed have continued to be so.  I don't cough up for many things online, but have done so for this.  Time will tell if it continues to go down well, but for now they are asking me to set them tasks each day.

I've been continuing with The Wombles with M and we're now on the final book in the set The Wombles Go Around the World, so I think we'll be having a look on our globe to see where Orinoco, Bungo, Tomsk and Wellington visit.

K has also been doing some more maths, continuing with worksheet that's I make to go with this book.  We're onto the final section 'The Data Gang', so she's done a worksheet on average, including the brilliant rhyme that I saw on Facebook a while back and made a mental note about.

Hey diddle diddle, the median's the middle

You add and divide for the mean

The mode is the one that you see the most

And the range is the difference between

We have also, finally, picked up again with the Usborne History of Britain books, with Tudors and Stuarts.  It's been so long since we started it, that we went back over some of the pages we'd already read, but have now read about the English Civil War and Charles II has just come to the throne.

M has decided that she does want to learn French, which is something that I am very happy about, but also find very difficult.  As an ex-French and German teacher, unlike with other subjects, I have preconceived ideas about this that makes it tricky for me to see things in a different way, but we will get there!  

Today is my lovely mother-in-law's birthday, which has sadly gone completely unacknowledged by my father-in-law, who is ever increasingly living in his own little bubble with dementia.  Our parcel did arrive in time though (I only got it in the post yesterday afternoon, so was a bit worried it wouldn't), with home-made chocolates (by me), a card (by K) and crochet decoration (by M) and a cousin of A's called round and took her some flowers too.

M's freehand crochet decoration.

Finally, we (A, the girls and I) went to a concert, as recommended by M's French horn teacher.  It was a brass ensemble he had been recommended.  They were absolutely brilliant, both musically and in terms of the entertainment value.  They're called Mnozil Brass and are an Austrian septet, who play, sing and are just hilarious.  Do check them out on youtube, here and here for example.

Yet another long weekend away!

That makes the fourth in the space of a month and a bit, so after a Christening in Durham, a wedding in Dorset, a visit to A's side of the family in Kent, this time it was a visit to my side of the family near Wokingham.  The reason for the trip was the La Leche League GB National Workshop, which I've missed for the previous two years (it's always around this time of year, so there's always the possibility of it clashing with K's birthday).  It was on Saturday, but A took the afternoon off on Friday and we travelled down then to my Uncle B & Aunty R's, who were putting us up.  While I was at the workshop (which was excellent, and I met two online friends for the first time), A, K & M walked and then took the train and the bus to spend the day at Legoland, where they had a fantastic time and although they got rather damp from various rides were very fortunate not to get wet from above.

Over our evening meal with B & R, I found it very entertaining when M was talking with R about some little glass pebbles that R had in a couple different places.  M has a few and she was telling R about the ones she had, which colours and that she didn't have any in the colours that R does.  She was so clearly hoping desperately that R would give her one of each colour; fishing, but not asking outright as she would have done a couple of years ago.  R did indeed give her a few of the pebbles and M was chuffed to bits.

On Sunday B & R were leaving us for their annual meet up with B's siblings and spouses (so my parents and other aunts & uncles on that side), so we said our goodbyes in the morning.  We were off to meet up with one of my oldest 'computer Mummy friends', another K (I'll call her Kd here to differentiate) and her family, along with our mutual friend, C who we met for the first time a few years back.  When Kd mentioned on Facebook that she was going to celebrate an old friend, I's, 40th birthday about 18 months ago and the friend had the same name as my cousin (Uncle B's son), who I knew was about the same age and was pretty sure lived where she was heading for the celebration.  You will probably have guessed that it was indeed my cousin, who it turned out was the best friend from school of Kd's husband, ex-boyfriend of Kd and had introduced them to each other.  Kd and I have 'known' each other since our eldest children were tiny and they are now 11, and as toddlers they looked freakily similar and even now you might take them for siblings.  It was so lovely to meet them all and after very little time indeed it was as though we'd known each other 'properly', and not just online, for years.  The children got on really well too (always a bit of a relief!) and we were particularly taken with Kd's absolutely gorgeous cats.

C, me and Kd.

On Monday, A had a work meeting not far from B & R's (he stays with them a couple of times a year when he has meetings at the head office of the company that has just taken over the one he works for) and was then heading straight to Brussels.  The girls and I had agreed that we would go (again) to the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre, fortunately we had checked the night before, as we found out that it's not open on a Monday!  After some searching online and looking at where was near our route home, I found that Bletchley Park was not far off the motorway at a sensible distance between B & R's and home, so slightly reluctantly the girls agreed we should go there instead.  It turned out to be an excellent choice.  I think K & M are probably the perfect age to take at 9 & 11, as they still get in free being under 12, but are old enough to get a lot out of it.

There were multimedia guides to use as we went round, which had a family tour option as well as the adult one, and it was excellent.  As well as description of the what happened in the different buildings around the place, there were clips about various different people and others to put the work done there into the context of the war and various puzzles and codes (admittedly mostly fairly easy ones) to have a go at too.  Among other things we looked at all of the stages that it took to get from the coded Morse Code messages that were picked up to the decoded and then translated from German and then sort of disguised to look as though the information were gathered by a spy (code-named Boniface), so that the Germans wouldn't realise that the Allies were able to decrypt their messages and about how that information was used.

The office in the library of the mansion.

K in the Post Office.

The Memorial to the works at Bletchley.