Another busy one.

By the time I got up, K & M had already had breakfast and got started on looking at coding on Khan Academy some more this morning.  M had had a go first and then while K was on the computer, she brought the Flags of the World game upstairs and somehow managed to get me playing with her, before I'd even made it to the loo, by dint of setting up the game on my bed and starting the game!  She's gradually getting better, particularly at the capitals to go with the countries of the flags she knows, and beat me fairly easily.

After an early lunch, we headed into town for ice-skating and while in town we went to have a look for circus skills equipment, as I'd checked where to find the shop I remembered a friend mentioning going to for a new string for her son's diabolo.  They didn't have any stilts, but M had a look at the unicycles (as expected rather more than the money she had for Christmas!) and the plates and sticks for spinning (which she is thinking about).  We then went to the Victoria Centre, where I bought some black material, with the plan of making the girls a cloak for when they go to Hogwarts.  While there we saw a number of elephants, which we rather liked, so we went looking for more.  I also picked up a leaflet about them and, since they're in Nottingham for a few weeks more, we may well go back and see if we can find all of them.

One of the elephants in the Victoria Centre...

...and another one.

After a quick trip to Hotel Chocolat (they usually have something to taste), we headed home to get ready for the first swimming lesson since early December.  It turned out that it'll be another week before swimming starts back though, as there was a message on the answer machine, telling us that the pool water isn't quite back up to temperature following the repairs they've been doing over the past few weeks. 

So rather than having to have a rushed tea, we had another game of The Settlers of Catan, having agreed with our friends that we could keep it for another week and sending them The Big Fat Tomato Game to borrow in return.

Finally, M has been reading the Mudpuddle Farm books that we gave her for Christmas.  I actually bought them ages ago, but they'd been hiding in a drawer and I'd forgotten about them.  They're very much on the easy side for her in terms of the reading level, but she's really enjoying the stories, which is the main thing.  It's been a while since I finished the last book that I read to the girls (Pied Piper), but this evening, I started on one that's been on our 'to read' list for a while; The Railway Children.  We've also got a dvd of the 1970 film that we found in a charity shop waiting for when we've finished reading it.