A weird weekend.

The weekend before we went to London, I had a weekend away at a meeting in Manchester.  It was apparently weird and wrong without me at home, although everyone seemed to get through it fine.  This weekend was once again weird, according to M, but this time it was because K was away on Scout camp.  As anticipated M missed K quite a lot, particularly when she wasn't occupied, but fortunately there was plenty to do.

We dropped K off on Friday in the rain and then M had gymnastics as usual, so that was fine.  Saturday was Nottingham University's Mayfest and M and I took a packed lunch and spent pretty much the whole day there.  There was lots to see and do and we also managed to meet up with friends for part of the time.  As is often the case with both K & M, M wanted to return to certain things that she'd done previously, so we did do that, but also coincidentally started off with one of five activities that were part of a trail, which you could get stickers to go on a page in the guidebook, so worked our way through those too.  The event is also a fundraiser, raising money for the university's research into dementia, which is something that is relevant to our family anyway, but particularly at the moment, as my father-in-law, who suffers from Alzheimer's, is moving into permanent residential care next week. 

Some things we did include:
Taking part in an experiment about the effect language can have on financial risk taking.
Taking part in an activity that demonstrated the effects of overfishing.
M went on an exercise bike for about 8 minutes, contributing to the target (I can't remember what!) that had been set for the day.
Various quizzes and puzzles on different topics.
Looked at a tiny fly using my phone as a microscope, on a stand with just a small lens.

The fly!

I really liked this freebie postcard we picked up.

In the evening it was just M and me, until A got home from playing cricket and at M's request we had pizza, profiteroles, hot chocolate and the Dad's Army film in the evening.

Sunday morning, A & M cleaned the rats' cage out and after lunch she and I cycled to Funky Pots, where she painted what will be a name plaque for her door and a very slightly chipped penguin from the seconds shelf and I painted a spoon rest. It wasn't much longer after this to wait until it was time to collect K, who had had a really good time at camp.

On Sunday evening, we watched a dvd of an adaptation of Carrie's War, having finished reading the book.  We've since started on and are now about half way through Terry Pratchett's The Wee Free Men, which we are very much enjoying.

In other news, M has made me a maths workbook.  She used one that she finished a while back to make up her own puzzles and exercises to give me.  It is now my turn to do the same for her.

K is currently doing another FutureLearn course, this time on her own rather than with me.  It is called Start Writing Fiction.  As ever she's very reticent on the subject, so although she has said that she's enjoying it, she hasn't shared much information about it and I don't know if she has started writing any fiction as a result!

Both girls have been doing some writing though: letters.  M has written and sent one and K has nearly finished hers to their respective penfriends.

K has also been doing some maths.  At her request, I have done a couple more worksheets, although this time as part of one of them, I have set her some work on Khan Academy.  So she has been watching videos and doing exercises on multiplying fractions, so far I think she has done multiplying them by whole numbers, but will be moving on to multiplying fractions together next.  She told me that she thought the computer had got something wrong and proceeded to explain that she thought that 3/4 x 3 was 2 1/4, but that the computer had said that was wrong, so she'd got cross and stopped.  She did then go on to say that it was possible that she'd typed it in wrongly though!