Better

Thanks to everyone who left comments yesterday. I am happy to say that Yesterday was a much better day & today is shaping up nicely too:-)

There was no real reason for being in such a foul mood on Wednesday, just lots of little niggles coming together at once really. Add in lack of sleep & throw in some hormones, and it's a recipe for moodiness:-(

For those of you worried about the state of my marriage, rest assured we did discuss it before going to bed that night & he apologised for being such an idiot. On the whole, I know he does tons & tons of stuff for me, but being a selfish cow, I usually want more;-)

The weather has improved a little bit again, so the girls spent some time playing in the garden, which gave me a couple of minutes quiet time - more laundry as they got themselves soaking wet & covered in mud - but quiet time nontheless.

Today is supposed to be quite sunny, so maybe we'll wander down to the beach later - or try out one of our newly refurbished parks, which are supposed to be quite nice now. I was going to go swimming, but don't think I can face all that effort today.

I've got a quiet weekend lined up - Mstr A's school fete tomorrow (I went and collected some stocks from the re-enactment group stores yesterday, so we can throw wet sponges at our children - what fun!), then a couple of friends are coming round for the evening to drink & play Talisman. We used to have Talisman evenings with another couple every week but they stopped socialising when they became dog-owners! This is our first attempt to re-start the tradition:-) Before the children came, we used to play quite a lot of board games, but now we just slob in front of the TV in the evenings:-( Time to change again I feel:-)

Thursday Thirteen - How annoying

Thirteen Things that annoyed me yesterday Yesterday was not a good day for me. Everything pissed me off! Here's just some of the little annoyances..... Aggie was home all of Monday & Tuesday. I asked him to do two DIY jobs around the house: Seal the bathroom floor (maybe 30 min s work), and complete the half done shutter for Mstr A's room (anything up to an hours work). Did he do either of them? Did he ****. He didn't even pretend to start them. Every time I walked into the bathroom (and with LMB being potty trained ATM, that's alot of times!) it pissed me off! The kids incessant chatter. JUST SHUT UP for 5 minutes. The pedestrian crossing over the three lane main road on the way to playgroup. The green man stays green for 3 seconds. I counted them. THREE! It used to be five seconds, which wasn't long enough, but now the summer season is here, with all those young and old holiday makers wandering around the town, they've changed it to three. How am I supposed to teach my kids to cross the road safely? Washing up. Why is it NEVER done? I mean, i have a dishwasher and everything! Yet asquickly as I clear things away, there is more washing up to do, lying around the kitchen looking messy. Cooking. Once upon a time, I quite liked cooking. When I did it occasionally, for me. Now I make three meals and two/three snacks every day, most of which i don't eat, and it's just a continual chore. The minute I finish one meal & serve it up, it's time to start the next. And it all has to be on time. Yesterday, i wanted to just say no, but sadly the kids cried:-( LMB's whinging. She whinges all the time. It's her only tone of voice ATM. She can whinge that she's really happy and loves playing with her toys! The weather. It was really muggy yesterday, without actually being warm or sunny at any point. Until bedtime, when the sun promptly came out and shone through every window in the house, making it impossible for anyone to sleep! I felt like crap all day - just generally under the weather & tired & miserable, so went to bed at 7pm (although I didn't sleep very well cos of the sun & stuff). I came down to see Aggie at about 9.30, just to make sure he was ok & to watch a bit of TV before trying to go to bed properly, to discover that he had spent the WHOLE evening playing with his new phone, so i had to clear away all the supper things, tidy up the dining room & kitchen, pick up all the kids dirty clothes off the front room floor & put them in the washing basket........ Despite all the thumping and banging and stomping around that this involved, he remained completely oblivious of the fact that I was doing all this while feeling crap! And I twisted my back while doing all the thumping & stomping & now that hurts too:-( There wasn't even anything on the telly to watch anyway! . Links to other Thursday Thirteens!1. (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)

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The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!
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How cool!

I've just checked my referrer stats. No sexual ones:-) And I'm no. 4 on google if you look up "Moben Wankers" how cool is that?

Of course moben are complete wankerws & shouldn't be allowed to take anyones money - I'm not sure how they haven't been shut down by trading standards yet, along with their sister companies dolphin bathrooms & sharps bedrooms, but I've never written up my little diatribe against them here, so I was a bit surprised. It's amazing what a search engine can pull out of a blog isn't it?

All grown up

It seems only days ago I was moaning how lazy LMB was & how she wouldn't walk anywhere.

Today she ran all the way to playgroup, & LMD walked too. No pram required!

Now I feel all nostalgic for the baby days;-)

LMB has really grown up in the last few weeks actually. Both literally - she's grown about 2 inches in height and another inch across the chest, completely growing out of all her renactment dresses I spent so much time & effort making!, and figuratively - she has suddenly started understanding all sorts of concepts that were beyond her previously and will "look after" LMD, is totally potty trained & well on her way to being toilet trained, can play board games with Mstr A & has learned loads of letters/colours/shapes etc. She's desperate to go to pre-school & can't wit until she is three and allowed to start. I'm quite looking forward to a quiet hour every afternoon too;-)

Home Again (briefly)

Well, we're back.

We had a lovely time down in Cornwall. we went to:

Flambards - my first trip there & Aggies first for many years (decades really). It was kindly paid for by those all-useful Tesco vouchers, and was a really good day out for everyone - despite the rain that threatened all day long. Mstr A went on a few of the rides (he's a right coward most of the time) and there was plenty of indoor stuff for when the showers came. Aggie spent plenty of money winning the kids cuddly toys that will only be sold in the next car boot sale we do, but it made him happy....

Lappa Valley Railways - we've been here a few times and always had fun. All children love trains, and there's crazy golf to keep Mstr A amused for hours, an adventure playground which all the kids enjoyed, boats to get wet in (Mstr A managed his own pedalo while i took LMB out in a canoe - we didn't subject Nanny A to the waters following her hilariously aborted attempt last year) and an old mine to climb up and a water wheel to watch, which makes any day good:-) I reckon it'll be the last year we take Mstr A though - it's really best for under 5's and I think he'll neeed something more stimulating soon.

Blue Hills Tin Mine - not the best or most famous mine in Cornwall (although the only one actually still working as a mine), but a good one for us as the whole family could go together. Mstr A was fascinated by all the machinery and kept Aggie busy asking all about everything. I think that next year Aggie will have to take him to one of the big mines where yu can go wandering around underground & trying things out for yourself, while I and the girls go and find somethiong a bit younger to do:-) They had some noce stuff there too, and I was tempted to buy some for re-enactment, but they were a bit expensive *sigh*. Maybe next year....

St Michaels Mount - I went to the French one when I was about 12, but have never been to the English one before. we walked over the causeway there, then by the time we'd climbed up & looked around, the tide had come in, so took a boat back & ate Cornish pasties on the beach:-) The house & gardens were pretty, the view beautiful & I could certainly understand why it causes such awe for so many people over so many years.

We also spent a day on Perranporth beach - it wasn't really the weather for a day at the beach, but Nanny A doesn't feel it's a holiday without a beach, and the kids all had a great time. I had wondered if living so close to the beach meant that they wouldn't feel that magical thing I get every time I see the sea, but I guess they still do;-) and some time in St Agnes too (Perranporth is a bit surfy & touristy for our tastes). And managed to squeeze in a trip to the cinema to see X-Men 3, which I quite liked. I agree that you could tell that it was lacking it's groovy director (who buggered off in the middle of filming to go play with Superman! Huh, any proper superhero fan would've finished one film before swanning off to the next IMO! - although I am quite looking forward to seeing Supes too).

The site that we were staying on was OK. And that's pretty much the best you can say about it! The accomodation was OK (a 2 story chalet - I'm too old to stay in caravan's with my mother-in-law any more!). The pool was OK - a nice, but small free form pool. well kept, but open at inconvenient hours, and with no special features. The site facilities were minimal, but that was all we expected. The kids club was poor - badly trained & pretty uninterested staff, following a script that had been written for 8-12 year olds, when there were only 2-6 year olds staying there! We won't be going back, but then again, we won't be complaining either - which is not unknown from us at the end of our holidays;-)

The weather was also OK. Well, it would have been ok normally - it stayed mostly dry (a couple of showers), not too cold (no frosts or snow, or even need for heating) - if it hadn't been for the fact that last week was fantastic weather. I blame my mother for making us change our holiday dates! grrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!! Hmph, well the weather was OK - it would've been better if it had been hot for a couple of days for the kids to play outside & give us some peace & quiet, and maybe for the beach, but really, we did get everything done that we'd planned to, so I'll just mumble and grumble a bit under my breath like.

We all made it through the week without any major rows. I don't think Nanny A will be coming to live with us in the too near future though *grin* I don't think she remembered what a moody cow I am sometimes! I don't think Mstr A lost out too much by being taken out of school for the week (we didn't get permission - i asked, but it'd not been granted by the time we left!), in fact, I reckon he learned loads while we were there. If I didn't dislike the idea of home-schooling so much (for many reasons), I'd seriously consider it for him.

We're off to Cosmeston tomorrow for a re-enactment. I really wanted to do this one as Cossie is one of my favourite places & it usually costs us a fortune to go visiting, so that's another reason I'm annoyed at my mother guilting me into changing the holiday dates. Oh well, one day is better than none!

I'm sure Aggie will get around to posting some piccies eventually. When he does, I might write a more detailed version of the week.

You're HOW old?

We went out to celebrate Aggies Birthday last night. All the usual suspects turned up (CrazieQueen, RCA & her partner K, Bionic Dwarf, - but no CyberKitten this time), along with a couple from our re-enactment group who braved a night out with the Crazies for the first time - I hope A ggie warned them what they were ltting themselves in for!

We went off to our favourite restuarant again - but, shock, horror - they didn't have any dauphanoise potatoes on! I had the most fantastic piece of bef though, so i suppose I'll let them off;-)

The wine flowed freely & the conversation ranged from inappropriate subject to inappropriate subject;-) I had a fabulous time, and I think everyone else did too. There was a slight fainting incident at dessert, but other than the peron who fainted, nobody was upset - we all understand tht life throws some crap at you every now & then - and the faintee recovered pretty quickly.

Then we all came back here and made some really good inroads into the georgous Apfelkorn that CQ brought back from Germany for us, and most of a large bottle of Port. Even Nanny A got to indulge, as she had baby-sat and was staying over night ready to go off on holiday with us today.

Aggie hasn't made it out of bed yet;-) but I'm ok! Time to get packed now & ready to go. I'm not sure how much internet accesss we'll have during the week, but I'll try to update at least a few times.

See ya

Thursday 13

Thirteen Things about the Aginoths I haven't done a TT for months! I couldn't keep up with doing it every week, cos I'm much too disorganised, and also like to get up on my soap-box whenever I hear something to rant about. I did intend to keep up with it irregularly, but life seems to have got in the way of any regular blogging recently. I have made the decision to start being a better blogger, and get back to posting something every day, as i know i'll just end up forgetting to do anything if I don't keep it up properly. Today's TT was inspired by Aggie's Birthday TT posted today. be nice & go say happy birthday to him;-) Despite the fact that our bank account is completely empty & I have no idea how we are going to buy food for next week never mind anything else, we are off on Holiday to Cornwall on Saturday. I'm really looking forward to it. We're staying in a Haven site in perranporth, so hopefully it won't cost too much, as there is plenty to do on site Nanny A is coming too & has kindly got tickets to Flambards Theme Park for everyone off of Tesco. Tesco's is also hopefully going to be paying for next years holiday, as we've discovered this great site where they give you the codes for extra points! Aint blogging wonderful? :-) Mstr a has had a really good couple of weeks at school. I'm feeling really guilty for wanting to change schools now:-( But I really don't want the girls to go there as I have actively campaigned against allowing church funded faith schools at all! He has actually made some real friends & been invited to play at their house! And invited back again!!! He has also lost his first tooth. He has been desperate for this to happen since his first classmate lost theirs over a year ago, so is very happy. I finally feel that i am starting to get a litle bit of me back, as the children are now (occasionally) playing together without my direct supervision, I have finally made a few friends of my own, and my baby-sitting circle is up and running. It looks like I'm going to get a distinction on my para-legal course (if I manage to finish my last couple of essays next week). yay me. But I still can't earn enough to cover the child-care costs:-( it's not right! Links to other Thursday Thirteens! Aginoth Chaotic Mom Megan (The Colour Purple) fatedhearts CrazieQueen Dave

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!
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Being true to my roots

Jewish Atheist had an interseting post a while ago about passing on his Jewish Culture to his (hypothetical) children, while bringing them up as secular atheists. It caused a heated debate in the comments section about how he was failing his community and all that, so I asked what is the "Jewish Culture" we are trying to preserve, and why?

Apparently 2006 is the 350th anniversary of Jews re-admission to England. My father has always claimed that his family fled to scotland after the York pogroms of 1190, and although his father came to live in London in the 30's, the rest of the family are still there. Am i Scottish? I don't consider myself so. The Scots certainly didn't think so either of the times I lived there.

My parents both claimed atheism (mother) and agnosticism (father - although he is definitely getting much more Jewish as he gets older!) yet sent us all off to Sunday school to learn about our Jewishness. Mostly we learned the Old Testement, which certainly is not secular culture, and Hebrew, which wasn't much use even when I went to Israel!

I was brought up with stories of the geat Jewish community, (although I never saw it in action as I didn't attend synagogue regularly), and how Jews accross the world are all the same. I recently discovered that my great grand-parents family were some of the first (and most misguided) zionists. At 18 I went off to Israel, initially on a Kibbutz, full of pre-conceived ideas about pretty much everything.

I met Jews from around the world, and Sabra's aplenty. I had absolutely nothing in common with any of them! The American Jews were American's. The Ethiopian Jews were Ethiopian. The Russian Jews were Russians. The Iraelis were arrogant, bigoted, war-mongerers. In fact the two people I got on best with were a Dutchman & Brazilian who were converting - in other words, i empathsised with the gentiles, not the Jews!

I spent 16 months travelling around Israel & Europe. it was a fantastic experience, and a real journey of discovery. What I mostly discovered is that I am English through and through! With nearly 1000 years of family history in the UK, what else should I be culturally?

I have absolutely no intention of passing on any jewishness to my kids. Other than a few interesting recipies I do not see what i am supposed to pass on! They will be secular English Europeans. It sounds like a perfectly acceptable culture to me - all the good bits from hundreds of diferent cultures and various waves of immigration combining into a modern secular world-view. If more people accepted the culture they were living in & stopped trying to "preserve" one they left behind generations ago, the world would be a much happier place IMO!

I've got me a new thingy on my sidebar over there ----->

It's a daily quiz. Stolen shamelessly from Stacy's blog, cos I keep losing over there, so thought I'd try to be a winner on my own site:-)

It's open to everyone, so have a go. You get scored depending on the number of correct answers combined with the time you take to complete the quiz (it's only 10 questions), plus how many other people played that day. At the end of the month the top scorers get rewarded with some shameless pimping of their blogs:-)

It's a bit Americanised, but then again, maybe our US friends need all the help they can get;-)

Paarrr-taaay

More birthday's, more partying:-)

On Sunday we braved the North Circular to go into Beckton for cousin G's birthday party.

WHY, WHY, WHY, and WHY do people live there? The N. circ was backed at the Ilford junction, so we thought we'd be clever & go straight through East Ham high st. BAD, bad idea! It took over an hour to go the 9 miles from my mothers house to the gym, through some of the most depressing places I have seen in a long time! And I could understand living in cramped squalour if it was cheap, but every single one of those tiny 1 bed flats and bedsits cost at least double the price of our 5 bed house! WTF?

Anyway, we got there late, but so did everyone else;-) The poor owner (we've known him for about 25 years) was browbeaten into giving us some extra time in the gym to make up for it (well, there was no-one booked in after us, and it's good customer service as well as being a bad idea to annoy the most powerful person in London gymnastics - not sure which one was most important to him tho *grin*). All the kids had a fantastic time, and Mstr A behaved wonderfully considering all the other children were 2 or 3 years old:-) Sister S had seriously over-catered (it's a trend in our family), so there was plenty of food for the adults too.

We headed straight home afterwards, expecting the kids to sleep in the car after their exhausting day. Mstr A was snoring happily within a few minutes, but the girls both stayed awake the whole 3 1/2 hour journey home! Brats!

Now we're back it's aggie's families turn to have birthdays - with BiL S's tomorrow & Aggies on Thursday! A busy (&expensive0 few weeks, but fun.

Birthday's galore

We're back in London again this weekend. We should have been going on holiday to cornwall, but my mother threw such a hissy fit that we were going to miss cousin G's 3rd birthday party, that I gave in and changed the dates. Which is annoying as the weather is not likely to be so good in another week's time, it means we'll miss most of the Cosmeston re-enactment, which I really wanted to do, and my sister didn't even want this party to go ahead anyway!

Still, here we are. Today we had a BBQ & family get-together for my mother's 65th. Except sister A couldn't get here (she lives in N. Ireland & is a teacher, so a bit busy at this time of year anyway!), and my brother & BiL all refused to come during the England match all afternoon, and my father phoned to say that his normal taxi firm wasn't taking bookings today cos of the footie and he couldn't be bothered to look up any other numbers, so he didn't come, my baby brother isn't in touch with anyone (occasional intermittant text messages only), so he wasn't there, and SiL was on a course today and couldn't make it until the evening.....

So all us aginoths were here all day. Brother I turned up at 1pm & watched TV. Sister S, BiL, cousin G & sister H all turned up after the footie at 3pm. The kids spent all afternoon nagging for cake:-) My mother tried to sort out her brand new BBQ hrself, without having any idea of what to do, so when Aggie went to check it at 5pm (when she brought all the rest of the food out), he discovered it was cold, mostly unlit, and only had half the coal it needed anyway. Sister H started mumbling about train times back to Brighton & leaving soon.....We ate the buffet food & waited an extra hour for the BBQ!

Oh well. She probably had fun. She got her pressie (a PVR), and the kids played in the paddling pool together. Everyone has gone home & all the kids are in bed now. Phew.

Tomorrow we get to go to cousin G's birthday party, at a gymnastics centre a few miles away. Along with 2 dozen or so 2 and 3 year olds. ooooooh, fun!

Wednesday is BiL S's birthday (Aggie's brother), and Thursday is Aggies, so it's gonna be a busy week.

What did you do at school today?

I spent this morning at school. Not college, but observing Mstr A in his own environment as it were. I suggested it last term, as a way of me finding out exactly what they do all day & so offering more constructive advice on his behaviour management, and also so when I say "I'm sure you don't do that at school", I can know what I am talking about;-)

It was interesting to see him in class. Generally i don't see him in group situations, certainly not large groups, so I did get a better idea of the problems his teacher has - although apparently he was behaving comparitively well for me.

He is a terrible fidget, appearing unable to sit still, or even in one place for more than a few seconds. He also never put his hand up to answer questions, even when I know he knew the answer. A bit of an anathema to me, who likes to show off my meagre knowledge at any opportunity & actually have to restrain myself from going "ooo, oo, me sir, here sir, I know it sir, pick me, pick me sir!" to every question on some courses I attend:-) I know he can put his hand up, as he is happy to do so to ask a question, and he seemed delighted to talk to the whole class about his groups work, so it's not fear of being in front of his peers..... I can see why the teachers originally thought he couldn't do the work (rather than wouldn't), as he does occasionally not only not do it, but deliberately do it wrong!

However, other than a complete inability to line up at break time (they don't even bother trying to make him any more apparently - even though I did give them a few options on how to do so. I make him line up every morning before school!), he didn't seem to be unmanageble at all. Annoying at times, but he happily got on with his work most of the time, and didn't causse too much disruption with his fidgeting. He even managed to sit through the whole 10 minutes of service quietly & properly (I learned all about Pentecost LOL).

His awareness of physical space and appropriate physical behaviour is definitely off though. I think that is the thing we will really have to work on at home, as school are, understandably, more interested in his ability to follow commands & complete his tasks.

All in all, it was reassuring to see him intermingling with his peers, completing schoolwork and taking an active part in the school day. I thought his teacher did a good job of keeping 30 5 & 6 year olds occupied & educated & interested, although I was amazed at how many adults ther were to help: 1 teacher, two classroom assistants, one student, one learning support assistant (some of the time), plus me (I listened to some reading & such like while there)!

But I would still prefer him to go to the other school. Although now I am a bit more confident that he will settle in well:-)

Happy days

The weekend went wonderfully - the sun shone the whole time, the kids (mostly) behaved themselves and we even sold some soap:-) Mstr A spent most of his time off playing with another lad, so was hardly any trouble. The girls ran around all day long playing with stones, rag balls & any members of the public silly enough to smile at them, and LMB managed to stay out of her nappy for the whole time - even finally pooing in the toilet! I got to try out my new job of storyteller for the group, and it went ok. i forgot a couple of bits (Mstr A lost my print-out while we were unpacking the tent, so I couldn't revise, and medieval storytellers couldn't read, so no notes allowed), but ad-libbed well enough that nobody noticed:-) I have to learn some more stuff for next time now.

Mstr A also had a really good day at school today - much to my surprise as he was tired from the weekend. I didn't realise how stressed I was getting each day at 3pm as i wait to hear how awful he's been, until today when I just felt so joyful that there'd been no problems. So we took him swimming as a reward, and his swimming is really coming on. Actually he could probably swim a couple of metres, and only needs a finger's support as reassurance.

I got his report from the Paediatrition today too. It basically just wrote up what happened while we were there, but finished up with the comment that he's weird, and needs further investigation by a group of specialists, so it looks like things are really moving along there too.

The only down side is that aggie dosn't think he did very well at his job interview today:-( And I just got a letter saying I have not got into Uni next year:-( We're crap, but our kids are doing well;-)

We're off again

Back to 1370 for another weekend, this time at Farleigh Hungerford Castle, which is our home castle, since we are all part of Lord Hungerford's Retinue:-) It's also our closest re-enactment, less than an hours drive away, so if we really wanted to we could come home in the evening, shower & sleep in real beds, but where's the fun in that?

Anyway, it means I'm far too busy, packing, tidying, sewing (still), and keeping the kids amused to writie anything interesting. I'll tell you alkl about it on Sunday evening, until then, why not nose around the archives (which I think are much better written than the newer stuff - why is that?) or pop on over to my tenant, Panthergirl.

have a good weekend. We will - it's going to be warm& dry all weekend - unheard of!