Some home days.

Thursday and Friday we had a couple of days with nothing on the calendar apart from Scouts for K on Thursday evening and cricket for M on Friday evening.  We had a list of things to try to get done, most of which we managed, including some piano and French horn practice, workbooks, more of the shared story for M and me, as well as some housework (some got done) and making a cherry pie.

It was very tasty!

For K in particular having a list of things to get done in her own time seems to be working well, so we've talked about continuing with that.  I asked if she thought doing one for each day would be better or if she thought one for the week would be better, to which she replied that she thought either would be okay and that I could write one for her and then she could add things to it.

M started one of the workbooks we bought on Wednesday, looking at nouns ending in vowels and plurals of words that end in o.  The latter was really rather tricky and I didn't get them all right - plural of domino: dominos or dominoes?  M took some convincing that using a dictionary (or other reference book) to complete an exercise isn't cheating, in the way that it might be if you were doing a test.  She insisted on having a go (or guess probably more accurately) first, then I said whether I agreed with her or not, before we used a dictionary to check.

We also watched the penultimate episode of The Human Body, which is about ageing and once more fascinating.  We also continued with The Wombles and while I read K & M were busy with their new Lego.

M's monkey/toucan chimeras!

A arrived home on Thursday evening, just in time to come with us to take K to Scouts, which was at the local Scout campsite for 'wide games' (i.e. games played over a wide area).  It's right next to a fairly new (still under construction) county park on the site of a former colliery.  A, M & I had a lovely early evening walk there, before returning to pick K up.

Today, Saturday, A went to the England v India test match at Trent Bridge with a college friend and his young son.  They had another child ticket anyway (it works out cheaper), so since M has started playing cricket, she was offered the chance to go.  She didn't want to go for the whole time, but I dropped her off pretty much straight after lunch, expecting to be summoned to pick her up an hour or so later (partly because she'd already been moaning about being too hot and their seats had no shade).  She stayed until they all came back though (it had clouded over somewhat, so that probably helped), not quite the close of play, so that they could go and play a bit of cricket themselves in the park, before the friends headed back up to Durham.

K & I had an afternoon just the two of us, which is unusual.  We played The Game of Life Adventures Edition, which I haven't played for a while, although K had played it by herself earlier this week.

Tomorrow the girls are going for a sleepover with C, which they are very much looking forward to.  It'll be very strange without either of them here!