Music and mess.

Well K came back from camp very tired and rather sunburnt, but having enjoyed it.

She did have suncream - but clearly didn't use it (properly).

She was, as is her wont, not particularly forthcoming about it, but happy to answer questions.  She enjoyed the craft tent, bouncing (they had bouncy castle, slide and various other things) and archery in particular.  She also went swimming and tried fencing.

M was very pleased to have K back and the two of them disappeared to make birthday cards and presents for one of their cuddly toys.

Yesterday was Fun Club, with the theme of music and dancing.  M took her French horn and I took my viola and we started off, while the younger ones were downstairs doing English country dancing, looking at and talking about various musical instruments and how they work.  Along with another of the mums, I took the lead with this and talked about how all the instruments work by creating vibrations, but they do so in different ways.  M played some notes on her French horn and demonstrated that you can get different notes in two different ways, by using your mouth or by using the valves and that the valves make the tube longer, which we also compared to a recorder.  We then looked at string instruments and again looked at how making the string shorter or longer by lifting or putting down your finger changes the note, with a longer string giving a lower note and I showed them that making a string tighter or less taut changes the note too.  Then it was time to swap and I helped out with the country dancing, working the cd and doing some (rather dodgy) calling!  K didn't really join in with any of this, she clearly needed some time on her own and having found some hama bead things in a cupboard isolated herself, mostly just in the corner of a room, but also taking herself away to another one.  After a weekend surrounded by people at camp, I think the ideal for her would have been to stay at home and not do anything, but Fun Club is only once a month and both girls really enjoy it.  M enjoyed doing the country dancing too.  After Fun Club, M went to the park with some others, while I stopped to help tidy up and K stayed too.  By the time we joined the others, K was ready for company, and K & M played with various friends, mostly L & A.

Yesterday afternoon we started a new book, which we borrowed (along with most of the series) from a friend several months ago at least, and this afternoon we finished it already and I think we'll be continuing with the next one (although there are rather a lot of them, so I'm not sure whether I'm up for reading them all).  It's Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events.  We also continued with the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings book.

M had her second French horn lesson today, which went well.  She's been practising regularly usually without any suggestion to do so from me.  Both girls have also done some piano practice too.  K told me that she practised for nearly an hour today, while I took M to her French horn lesson.  They also had their swimming lesson.

The disruption from the building work is continuing, which is really quite stressful, even with incredibly helpful builders who have kept as much useable as possible for as much of the time as possible.  As much as I'm looking forward to having the new kitchen, I'm looking forward even more just to it all being over.

No floor - but we can still use the sink, washing machine and oven!