Settling back in

Well, it's two weeks since we got home from our holiday and have managed to continue with French a little bit, although not as much as I'd like, so I need to make a conscious effort to keep it up.

Something I forgot to mention about our holiday was that K & M wrote a few postcards to send while we were there.  Although they don't do an awful lot of writing, I'm always pleasantly surprised at how good their spelling is.  Unlike a few years ago, now when they ask me how to spell something, they are usually willing to have a go themselves and usually either get it spot on or close when they do.  One postcard they sent I found particularly amusing; it was sent from Eurodisney to Granny and Big Grandad and said something along the lines of, "We are having a lovely time with Granny and Big Grandad and Disneyland although unfortunately Big Grandad had fallen over and bruised his ribs and Granny's ankles had gone 'pouf'!"  Granny and Big Grandad received it a few days after arriving home; Granny said, "I've never received a postcard telling me what I was doing on my holiday before!"

On Monday, K & M were very happy to see friends who we hadn't managed to see since before the summer at Old Dalby and M in particular was pleased to see a new friend, S, who she'd met at the Not Back to School Picnic, was there too.  They spent most of their time playing with friends, but also did join in with the craft activity on offer.

Book hedgehogs by K and M.

K has been continuing with the quilling and puts an awful lot of time and effort into the cards she makes for people.  This is the birthday card she made for her friend A.

A was delighted with it!

M has been baking again.  One day this week when she wasn't happy with what was on offer for lunch, she asked if she could make cheese scones and proceeded to do so without any help at all.  Today she has made some more of the chocolate marzipan biscuits, this time she needed a little bit of help to bring the dough together in order to roll it out, I think it's just that her hands are a bit too small to squeeze it together effectively.  It's a recent development that she's comfortable putting things in and taking them out of the oven.  Some of the biscuits are to take with us when we go to see Barry Colenso to stock up on chocolate.  He used to have a stall at our local farmers' market and I had a chocolate lesson from him for Christmas a few years back and I buy chocolate in bulk from him.  He once bemoaned the fact that nobody bakes for him (because he's so good at making things himself), so M did and it's now something of a tradition.

Both girls, but particularly M, are in the throes of a major sort out/declutter of their bedrooms, it is a slow and painful process.  Neither of the girls is materialistic in always wanting more and more things, but they get extremely attached to the things that they do have (including things that most people would consider rubbish) and find it very difficult to get rid of the things that they do have.  I suggested and quite surprisingly both girls agreed to give it a go (K is doing it a bit at a time, M all at once), that instead of going through all of their stuff and finding things to get rid of, they start from the opposite view point and put pretty much everything in boxes/bin bags and go through and find what they want to keep.  I've been helping M and she's already managed to throw away a huge amount, just in the process of putting things in boxes and bags, so I'm hopeful that she will end up with a much more streamlined room.  Tomorrow we are buying her a desk, which has been the incentive she needed to do this, as there wasn't really space in her room with all the junk that she's got!

We are getting back into the swing of things with regular activities, including piano lessons.  The girls' teacher told me that they've stalled in their progress somewhat lately, so I asked him to talk to them about how to practise, as although they both play the piano quite frequently, they don't actually practise very much.  Since then I think things have improved somewhat, so I'm hopeful that that will continue.  M hasn't, however, been able to practise her French horn at all, as part of one of the valves has broken, so it's gone to be fixed, which is taking the best part of two weeks!

Finally, the girls and I went to a concert last Thursday.  We'd seen Mnozil Brass last year on the recommendation of M's French horn teacher and they were brilliant, both musically and comedically.  This time they did not disappoint either and we were delighted that along with all the new material they performed, they did this as their encore.