New beginnings

A quick update on what's been going on ....

Mstr A has been losing teeth like a six year old:-) Another bottom one gone, and the two top middle ones giving him the classic gappy look. He's delighted by th 50p the tooth fairy gives him each time (when she remembers - there have been some close calls where we've had to divert his attention for a few moments in the morning....), but apparently we woz done when we made the deal with our tooth fairy (that's what I told him when he asked if it would go up with each tooth!) as the average tooth is now worth £1.05. But since he doesn't actually spend his money on anything - possibly because we buy him everything he can possibly think of - it doesn't really matter!

He's also been growing non-stop - which means eating non-stop. He's now mostly in 7-8 year old clothes! Not bad for a 5lb baby that I was told (constantly) was underweight, not growing well enough, not thriving and would always be small. He'll be a junior in September, and despite being one of the youngest in his class, he's already one of the bigger kids. Shame he still reacts like a two year old to so many situations:-( Is nice to get hugs an kisses and know that mummy makes it better and he will believe everything I say still, but worrying to know that he still tries to get his own way by pushing other kids out the way. Especially as he has learned to lie like a two year old - ie: every time you do something wrong (or possibly wrong) lie about it, regardless of the fact that the lie is goijg to be found out immediately, then when found out, stick to your guns until your mother is ready to urder you where you stand. Of course, when you are two, you have the cuteness factor to mitigate this behaviour but Mstr A is nearly 7, and a hulking great monster......

Although finally we seem to be moving forwards with officaldom. He has a speach and language appointment on Thursday, and then there will be a professionals meeting to discuss the results of all the previous stuff. He does seem to be doing much better at school, both behaviourally (most of the time) and academically (in that he's doing the work at the right time and in the right place). Everyone at the school knows him by name, but they have a good attitude towards him - not allowing misbehaviour, but not expecting unrealistic behaviour either.

LMB is also on the cusp of growing up - she starts school in September. She will definitely be the youngest in her class as she only makes it into this year by a few hours, but again, she is such a lanky whatsit - already in 5 year old clothes even though she's not even 4 yet - that she will probably be one of the taller ones in the class. She went along to visit the school on Wednesday - which she loved. She can't wait to go back again. I couldn't attend - Aggie took her, but it is really sad to think of her at school already. I'm glad she's going, but time has really flown past! I still think of her as a little baby! 3 is not old enough to go to scho0l! Of course, she is even more impressed by the fact that Cousin G - nearly three months older than LMB - will not be startig school until January 2008. they have a two term intake in London, and Cousin G falls into the younger group so starts a term later:-)

Even LMD is growing up - definitely not a baby any more. Her vocabulary is exploding, and so is her stubborness! Although she certainly knows how to use her smile on adults to get what she wants! She looks like a tiny Dora the Explorer and is as bright as anything! No sign of losing the nappy's yet tho:-(

As for Aggie and me - same old same old. No answer yet from his work. I've booked in for my next year at college - although I don't really know why - I could earn more as a cleaner! I thought lawyers were supposed to be rich! The bloody postmen are on strike today because they only earn twice as much as me! Aggie has been getting on with sorting out some domestic stuff while he's een at home, so we are slowly getting the house a little bit sorted. But only a little! hopefully soon things will feel a little more settled.

Haitus

I know, blogging has ben a bit intermittant recently. But I don't feel like saying very much at the moment. Life is seeming a bit of a hard slog. Actually, I feel like I'm walking accross a tightrope, made out of fuse wire (lit behind me), slung across a chasm with a bloody huge cliff to climb at the far away other end.

We're still trying to appeal against the decision not to retire Aggie. His work agree that he is currently not fit for work. And that no treatments have been sucessful over the past 15 years. And that there is no cure for his conditions. But something might work soemtime over the next couple of decades so they won't let him go. Which means we still don't know where we will be in a few months time, neither financially nor logistically. I don't know if I have to spend £1000's booking Mstr A into play schemes all summer holidays, or if he will stay at home with Aggie. i don't know what we are suppposed to do about LMB starting school in Sept unless one of us is off work for the first term. She has a week of 2 hours in the morning, then a week of two hours in the afternoon, then a week of three hours in the morning, three hours in the afternoon, 4 hours across the day ect....

the summer holidays are going to be really depressing, as I do not have any time off left so will have to work right through:-( Whats the point of living at the seaside if I don't get to play on the beach with my kids all summer?

I'm really fed up of being skint all the time - although I did get a fabulous bag full of clothes for LMB (and LMD when she grows a bit) off freecycle the other day - full of almost new branded stuff and about 2 dozen pairs of shoes!!! But it's not the same as having enough money to do stuff myself. I have decided that I am going to have to try to find a way to requalify my first aid so I can keep making that little bit on the side to cover the costof anything that crops up which means there will be even less time to do all the stuff with the kids and round the house as I will be spending non re-enactment weekends teaching.

I can't even get very riled up about anything at the moment. every now and then I see/hear a news topic that I discuss/debate for while, but I can't seem to keep enough interest to blog it.

Hopefully I'll find some more enthusiasm soon. Until then, I'm still visiting everyone's blogs, but my posting and commenting are in a bit of a haitus.

Hacks & birthdays

Well, the media frenzy died down as quickly as it blew up. I'm not suprised. I expect it was partly due to the fact that most of the feedback received probably said that I was an awful mother for allowing my children to do anything unsupervised! Although I know I didn't help by refusing to lumbast the school, and stating that I was very happy with their general attitudes and actions in every interview. I went to see the head teacher on Monday afternoon to explain what was going on, and to apologise that the school had been named - I never gave them the name or permission to use it. Bloody hacks!

It was Aggie's birthday yesterday, so we're having a BBQ this afternoon. Well, we are if it ever stops raining. Nature is getting her own back for such a lovely spring by flooding the country! The rain has also meant we have not had a chance to mow the lawn, weed the veg patch or tidy up very much:-( Oh well, most of our friends know us by now:-)

I've been pretty knackered this week. Well, exhausted might be a better desription to be honest. LMD has taken to waking up each night at about 3am yelling for me. I've stopped going in to her now, because it's just manipulation, but I still wake up! Add in that work has pretty much doubled at work because one of the ther girls has changed roles and is now out of the office most of the time, so I have acquired all her typing work, and it's all been a bit much. Hopefully I'll get used to it. At least I've caught up now, so next week should start to settle into a routine.

It will be nice to spend a weekend at home for once.

I am NOT a media whore

But me and Mstr A are apparently going to be on the radio this afternoon. I'm not too sure how this happened - I really didn't court the publicity this time! In fact, I don't really want it - I like the school, Mstr A is getting on really well there, LMB will be starting there in September. I don't want to antagonise them, or start getting into arguments with what they are doing - i think they are a very good school, and the Head teacher has worked brilliantly with us as a family to help Mstr A settle in well and to really enjoy going there!

But Radio Bristol have been trying to get hold of me all weekend! They really want to do this interview, and it is an issue that I think is important. Which is why I felt compelled to comment on the original story (now changed to include the schools rapid back-peddalling statements). There are few things that I feel are both importnat enough and that i have the knowledge to comment publically on (not publically like this blog - which has a readership of a dozen or so, but publically like on the BBC!), but this is one. It is the only time I have put a comment on the BBC website! and it would be wrong to NOT put my opinion forward when asked for it now.

Plus, there seems to be an element of sleaze entering into this story now - with the school apparently claiming that Mstr A was upset & crying when walking alone - and that other 6 year olds would be OK to walk to school, just not Mstr A. Which I had not heard from anyone before - not from the other parents, not from Mstr A and definitely not from the school. If he was upset, and they failed to tell me, surely THAT is a breach of their duty? Still, I find it extremely unlikely thta he was. He was certainly upset when I told him he was not allowed to go on his own. And today when I said that the school had decided that 6 was old enough, he immediately asked if he could go on his own from now on.

I suggested he wait 'till September when he is a junior - which was always my intention anyway! Oh well, as Radio Bristol want to speak directly to him, and I am confident that he will both be able to explain road safety and describe his route to school and how he wants to go off on his own - in fact the problem might be getting him to stop talking:-)

wedding belles

We're back again - absolutely exhausted. The hotel was nice - we had a two bed apartment, which in theory meant we could put the kids to bed in the early evening, and still stay up chatting/watching TV/being adults on Friday night.

Of course, in practise, the flight was delayed, so we didn't get to the hotel till bed time, then we had to sort out food with Sister S & cousin G, and my cousin her hubby & baby J, by which time the kids were so over tired and over excited that getting them all to sleep in one room was a com plete impossibility! Finally, after I had threatened, cajoled, yelled and contemplated gagging them, we separated them into different rooms and they dropped off about 10pm. We then had to wait a while before putting them all back into the one room. And even then, one or another of them woke up fairly regularly through the night. Combined with the fact that I never sleep that well in a starnge bed, and that the hotel had left th heating on all day so it was sweltering, I was pretty knackered by Saturday morning.

The wedding went well. Sister A looked beautiful (of course), my mother cried (of course), the kids all behaved really well (amazingly) and everything went pretty much to plan. The ceremony itself was oly a few seconds really. They have taken out nearly all the legal stuff that used to be in the civil marriage vows, and as they did not add in much of their own stuff, it basically went "Do you want to get married?" "yes" "your married" Done! It's good that the civil ceremony no longer includes half the christian marriage vows as it did back when we did it (we were one of the earliest secular weddings outside of registry offices), but it seemed a bit of a let down after all the organisation to only say a few dozen words. We wrote 2 pages of vows, and it still seemed a bit quick:-)

Here's a rare chance to see a picture of me (and others) with the bride & groom, and the rest of the family. It was taken by a 9 year old child, so i think he did rather well - even though the bouquet seems to feature rather prominently:-0

Then there was a lot of hanging around, and a lot of photo's and a lot of hanging around and a lot of drinking. The official photo's are not ready yet (obviously), but I've posted some of our own to give you an idea of the day. The girls looked georgous - although LMD would not pose for any of the official pictures:-( And Mstr A was a cutie in his little waistcoat. He did pose for two photo's and then said he had done that, and disappeared for the rest of the time! Here's LMB, LMD and Cousin G looking away from camera! It was terribly difficult to get all three of them to stay in one place, and look at the camera AND smile all at the same time!

Next we had the meal - we were on the childrens table! OK, most of the children were ours..... but we also got sister S & cousin G, and the groom's son (a little older than Mstr A), which was a lot of kids for only three adults to keep an eye on. Of course, it did mean that we had all that wine for just three of us....... Actually, it went rather well. Clever sister A had given each child a little box of toys and games and bubbles etc which kept them fairly occupied, and we found a spacious corner for them to play in so they were not stuck sitting down through the speaches and stuff.

Then, finally, after a bit more hanging around, the disco started and the kids finally realised that weddings were fun:-) Here they all are bopping away - you can just about see baby J at the back tooThey had a lovely time dancing & sliding arund the dance floor until they pretty much dropped where they stood - here is LMB and cousin G asleep under the table:-)

Aggie took them back and put them to bed, and I carried on dancing till about midnight. That's pretty late for me nowadays - especially after little sleep the night before and even more so after drinking! We did get a lie in till 8am - but I'm feeling just a litle fragile now. I'm looking forward to an early night in my own bed - and rather surprisingly to getting back to work properly. It's been a month since i did a full week at work for various reasons, and it will be nice to settle back into normality again.

Although, it's Aggies birthday on Friday, so we've got another party weekend coming up..... ;-)

Wedding bells

My Sister A is getting married tomorrow, so we're all off to Ireland for the weekend. Mstr A is going to be an usher, and the girls are fower girls, with cousin G.

I don't get to go to many weddings (no-one seems to bother!), so it should be fun!

Back on Monday.

And the Aginoths strike again

We're in the news again today:-)

Following a comment I sent in to the BBC website yesterday (the first one I've ever bothered to send!), they contacted me and asked if they could run an article. Never one to shy away from publicity I said that was fine. The school were obviously not so keen as thy have not commented:-)

Lets hope it will have a small impact!

Busy, busy, busy

It's been extraordinarily busy here recently (and it's always busy here!). The Milton Keynes event went well. It was actually a very relaxing event for us, as we were really only on show for a couple of hours a day. The place didn't open till late morning, and then everyone went and watched the horsey display & joust before wandering over to us. Although I didn't get to relax too much as i was doing all the cooking for the group for the four days. It's a fun job, but a hard one - it's pretty much non-stop. Cooking three authentic meals a day over an open fire means I had to be the first one up each day, light the fire, cook the breakfast, start the lunch before breakfast was cleared aay, start supper immediately lunch was served, tend the fire throughout the day to keep it at just the right tempreture and still be working ready to serve supper at the end of the day after the public had gone home and everyone else was finished. Whilst keeping an eye on the kids too of course, and trying to still do my domestic chores display. And watch the joust & chat up the yummy knights:-) They took a while to warm to us - I think they were a bit confused by us to be honest, but then us girls went down to the banquet on Saturday night, got outrageously drunk, and made good friends with the nice muscley stunt riders:-)

It was very interesting watching the stunts. The organising group is a very famous one, and does lots of film work etc. And even I, with absolutely zero knowledge of horse riding, could see that they were doing some very clever stuff. But On Sunday the owner attended the display, and I have to say, you can see why he is so in demand. He was in a different league, and obviously had a fantastic talent with horses, making the others just look like good riders:-)

We had lovely weather for pretty much the whole time, which was nice. But by the time we finished, took down the camp, packed up the cars and drove the three hours home it was about 9.30pm. Then I had to put the kids to bed, unpack the car, reload the car with work equipment, and get cleaned up ready to head off to tutor a course up in Huntingdon this morning. That's a good 3 1/2 hour drive away too, so I left at 6am. The course went well, but I didn't get home again until nearly 7pm! Now i've got three days to sort everything out, befre we fly out to Ireland for my sisters wedding!

Phew! perhaps my best bet would be to just forget about sleep for this week. That way I might just about fond enough time ot do half the things that need doing!