Variety - the spice of life!

We've had quite a varied couple of days lately.  Wednesday was a very busy one, starting off with a French horn lesson for M.  This was followed by a bus trip into town, where we did some shopping.  I bought M some new trainers, some trousers for Granny (which she has been trying to find but not managed in various other M&S shops) and some wool.  The girls bought books; K bought the latest Worst Witch book - a series that she's currently reading to M at bedtime, I recently found out, and M bought The Curse of the Chocolate Phoenix, the sequel to a book she was given for her birthday and is half way through.  M also bought some wool and a notebook (she collects them), with her birthday money.  Both girls also considered buying more Lego, but decided not to at the moment.  In the middle of the shopping we had lunch and went ice-skating, before coming home briefly before heading out again for the girls' swimming lesson.

Thursday was quite a contrast.  Apart from M popping to the Co-op to buy an onion and a couple of other bits so I could get tea into the slower cooker, we didn't go out in the morning.  In the afternoon however, our friends E, C, L & J came round and we headed out to the park.  E & I chatted while the children headed into up onto the old railway embankment and played on the slope in the trees there and got (more in the case of C, L & J rather than K & M) delightfully grubby.  Once they'd headed home, I continued reading Ruby Redfort and also started on the next of the Usborne History of Britain series; Tudors and Stuarts.  In the evening K had Scouts, which she's still enjoying very much.

Friday was a bit stressy.  A was working from home in the morning, to do with the building work, which never works particularly well either for him or us.  As a result the girls and I went out, we went to the library and also trawled the charity shops in an attempt to find a shirt that I could turn into something vaguely Tudor for A.  We thought that we'd found something but unfortunately when he came to try it on it was clearly mis-labelled and too small.  In the afternoon we got back to the Ruby Redfort book, then M had cricket, after which we had a take-away while watching a recorded Springwatch.

Today was an unusual day.  For one thing I was out for the whole of it, on my own!  I went to the fantastic Blow the Dust Off Your Instrument with my viola and had a lovely time.  Meanwhile, A as is not so unusual on a Saturday afternoon at in the spring/summer was playing cricket.  This meant that K & M spent the afternoon with their childsitter (they are *not* babies!), Am, who they adore, and had a great time.

The viola that I blew the dust off!