Lots of variety.

Bank Holiday Monday was fairly relaxed and included a family game of Monopoly.  K & M have rather peculiar ideas about games like this as they don't want to be unkind to other and in Monopoly they each have a particular property that they always want to have.  They don't mind if they lose all their money and every other property but whoever they end up being bankrupted by generally has to agree to let them carry on living in the property and that generally avoids any upset.  On this occasion M went out first, following by me and then K finally succumbed to A, although it took longer than might have been anticipated.

Still fairly even at this point.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, we had to get up early to take K to gymnastics on the other side of town for 9 o'clock.  M was a bit down about not being able to stay and join, but we then went straight to the house of friends who live not far from the gymnastics venue, as M was doing another couple of drama days with A, and gave her and her mum J a lift there.

After picking K up from gymnastics and then M from drama (fortunately the timings worked pretty well), we went with A and her dad W to the library, before going back to theirs for a bit of a play before heading home on Tuesday.  On Wednesday, the drama involved a 'show in a day', clearly a shorter one than the 'show in a week', that they then shared for the last 15 minutes of the session.  Unfortunately, although we would have arrived in plenty of time on the Tuesday, the traffic was much worse on the Wednesday, so K & I only got there for the last five minutes.  It was based on the book War Horse (and on realising that there was death involved, K immediately left the room) and from the little I saw looked very interesting.  Although M had said in the morning that she didn't want me to come and watch, she did seem rather disappointed that I hadn't been there for the whole thing unfortunately.

While the girls were out all day, I got my sewing machine out and finally got round to mending a favouite top of K's that she had torn badly a couple of months ago.  I had already cut off the bottom and pinned it ready to hem into a somewhat shorter version.  I also got on with my crocheting and did various jobs around the house and also caught up with a Coursera course that I had signed up for, but hadn't started about learning how to learn, which is really rather interesting.

Mending K's top.

Both girls enjoyed their contrasting days, although K was a bit upset on Tuesday when I picked her up.  It turned out that they had been filming some of the things that the children had been working on in groups and K hadn't realised this.  If she had known she wouldn't have joined in, but having already been filmed doing a routine that she and something she had become friends with, she didn't want to then ask for it to be deleted, because she knew that they had liked that it was filmed.  We talked about some of her options and I asked her if she wanted me to speak to the coach in charge and she said that she didn't and that she would do it herself.  I did have a quiet word with him at the end of the next day to find out if she had said anthing and she had and had decided to sit out the parts that were filmed.  It's not uncommon for K to decide that she doesn't want to take part in an activity for some reason; I know that it has happened at Brownies in the past (I think that was Wink Murder, because she doesn't like the idea of murder, although she has since got over it in the context of that game!) as well as at various HE groups.  She doesn't make a fuss about it, but just quietly explains to the organiser if necessary and sits at the side or goes and does something else.  I think she is very self-aware of what makes her uncomfortable and she has the maturity and confidence to deal with it in a way that doesn't disrupt others.

Yesterday morning K finally got round to continuing with the bunting that she had almost completed at the workshop a week ago, as I had got the sewing machine out while the girls were doing their gymnastics and drama.  M ironed some of her material that has been scrunched up in her sewing box for months in preparation for making something using the sewing machine too.

K sewing and M ironing.

She didn't however manage to finish it, as L their new friend who moved in opposite a couple of weeks ago rang the doorbell to ask if they wanted to play at about 11.30am.  We already had plans for the afternoon, but I said it was okay for an hour before lunch.  As it turned out they had lunch over the road too!

In the afternoon we met up with our friend R & A.  As we have done previously, we decided to go for a 'kiddiwalk' and so we went to find the Hemlock Stone.  Initially we found the nearby trig point instead, but with a helpful point in the right direction we did find it although the none of the girls were particularly impressed!

The Hemlock Stone.

They preferred playing as we walked through the woods and disappeared off for into them, while R & I sat on a tree stump and put the world to rights.

Playing in the woods.

We then went back to theirs for a play and tea before heading home to see Daddy, who'd arrived back from a trip to Paris and Amsterdam, having left early on Tuesday.

Today we had plans to meet up with our friends Ka, Ma & Am at the library and D (the dad) came too.  The reason was that Imagination Gaming (they're in the process of updating their website - so come back and have a look in a week or two if that link doesn't work, or check them out on Facebook) were coming again, which was definitely a good thing.  K spent most of the time working on Katamino, she was really focused and did really well with it getting up to level 9.  Chris, the bloke who ran the session, noticed her and commented on it.  Interestingly he said that she was what he would remember from the session and would want to try to engage her in some of the other games for more than one person next time.  I did ask K if she was wanting to be on her own and that was why she concentrated on that puzzle, but she said it wasn't that, she just really wanted to crack the puzzle.  The rest of us tried out and enjoyed various other games, a couple that we'd played last time, but mostly new ones.  A really good mathsy game was City of Zombies (although I understand it might be better to wait for the second edition as some of the instructions aren't as clear as they could be, which is something that will be improved), which combines strategy and numbers.  You have to use three dice to kill off zombies which have different number values, using any of the four arithmetic operations (+, -, x, ÷) and squares and square roots of the numbers on the dice.  A complete contrast was Anomia which involves quickly coming up with something that fits in with a particular category in a sort of duel with another play who has the same symbol on their card as you do.  There were a couple more, but we ended with Concept which was a fascinating idea.  It involves trying to get across a word, phrase or name by placing markers on various icons which try to describe the idea, appearance or things to do with it.  It's always good to try out new games and this is a great way to do so, not just because of the variety that are available, but also because Chris can get you playing really quickly with a clear and succinct explanation, so you don't need to plough through the instructions trying to pick out what you need to get going.  We were very pleased to hear that he'll be back again later in the year.