Day 1

well, I think i passed. A good pass on the first exam, and a scrape through on the second. Ho Hum.

Just one more day to go - that is the hardest one though.

And I've got a blister on my finger from spending so man ours writing with a pen, on paper. Who does THAT any more?

Passing time

Yay me. I passed my exams. The results came in today - two days early! I hit a nice mid-range pass mark, which is pretty much what I expected. Now I am half way through the first half of my qualification:-) just another decade to go until it's all over!

Mstr A turned 7 yesterday. We had a bowling party for him at the weekend - which went pretty well. My mother stayed for the whole weekend, and I managed to only yell at her once, which is pretty good going with my mother;-) LMD got over her chicken pox nice & quickly - much to her disgust! every time I tell her she is all better now she tells me "NOT better - look, spots" and shows me the scars. i think she is determined to milk it for all it's worth!

LMB is growing up fast too. Its her last week at pre-school this week. We're off on holiday next week, then she has a week at home with daddy (hopefully learning to ride her bike) before starting big school. Well, for a couple of hours a day anyway. For 5 weeks! I'm sure it must be discrimination against working parents. 6 months ago I was really worried about her starting school just a few hours after she turns 4, but now I'm feeling much happier about it - I reckon she'll hold her own no problem.

LMD spent the whole day in big girl pants today! Yay yay yay! No more nappies? Or at least a start towards no more nappies:-)

and now we wait

Two exams all finished. There is nothing to do now but wait until the 16th August and see what the results say.

I think i've passed. I spent all weekend cramming - well, except for Sunday where I was too hung over, so researched some historical stuff instead! And I read trough all my notes beofre the exams. I have a very short term memory, so most of that stayed in my mind for the required two hours - it will probably be gone by next week. Thats my reasoning for not revising much troughout the year anyway;-)

Now I've got writers cramp! All that writing! With a pen. on paper! It's a skill i never use any more - actually, I never used it much even when I wasyoung - i just made it inot the computer generation and typed all my school work from age about 14! At Uni, we had to type our work - handwritten stuff wasn't marked! I can't believe that ILEX couldn't manage to allow us to use stand alone computers. they wouldn't even need to ahve any storage capacity or upload/downlaod ability. They would prabably be nearly as cheap ans paper answer booklets, and would make my life easier and the examiners lives LOADS easier.

I finished my exams in 1 hour 30 mins and 1 hour 20 mins respectively. This is not something I am particularly proud of - it probably means thta my handwriting wa just a little bit less legible than necessary - but I didn't want to run out of time! And once you've written everything you can, thre is no real point in staring at the questions you didn't know for a further half hour:-)

At least it's over. Today is our wedding anniversary so Aggie is taking me out for a meal. My sister S is always so good at remembering our anniversay and each year sends me a card with a little something of the corect material. Today I got a tiny bronze bell (well, it's brass really, but we'll call it bronze cos she thought it was), which was lovely. I don't know which year is which, but sh always makes the effort to find out and send something:-) For those of you who are interested, this is our 8th anniversary.

Tomoorow it's back to work for a day, then Thursday we're of to Italy. So much to do!!!! All the kit has to be packed and delievered to the holing garage tonight as the truck will be leaving tomorrow lunch time. IT has to drive ll our weapons & heavy stuff over there, and for some reason they don't like us taking swords, axes and bows and arrows on the aeroplane:-)

Time is fleeting...

where did the time go? It seems that only yesterday my pencil was telling me I have a month to do my revision, and suddenly the exams are on top of me! I'm trying hard to shovel three months worth of revision into five days - around work, kids and re-enactment! argggghhhhh!

Do you think it's really irresponsible to pin my hopes on my ability to "blag" exams? :-)

Aggie has promised to take the kids out over the weekend and let me read through all my notes. I have written up most of my revision notes at least! The poblem is, that I remember it all perfectly while I've got them in front of me, but I have a VERY short term memory, so it will all be gne by the next morning! I passed my A levels by revision on the morning of, and the 30 mins before going into the exam, then scribbling everything down in ote form on scrap paper in the firts 15 mins, and using those notes to write essays around. This is a practical exam - i won't have the option of scribbling notes. In fact, they have specified that no scrap paper is allowed!

Oh well - I take a very pragmatic approach to these things nowadays. i will do as well as I do, and we'll see what happens then.

On the positive side, the year may have slid past so fats that I didn't see it, but it does mena there are only a few days until we're off to Italy for the battle of Caserote. Here's a video of the same event in 2005/6 (I hope - I've not tried this vlogging lark before!)



Looking forward to guaranteed warm, sunny and dry:-)

Don't worry, be happy

Hurrah! Aggie's happy pills are starting to work again after the Doc upped his dose a while back. This week he has finally started to get involved with family life again and do stuff around the house, as well as go to the gym! My life has got drastically easier, as he takes Mstr A to school in the moring, so i just have to take the girls and don't have the same sort of rush to get to work on time. he also has started cooking again, which he loves, is pretty good at, and again, releases me from a really tim consuming chore. yay!

Of course, it also means that I'm not getting much exercise any more, as I walk the girls to school at 2 year old pace, then it's only 1/2 mile cycle to work. But that's ok:-)

In theory, this should be giving me a bit more free time - maybe to do some revision? But it doesn't seem to work like that! Although part of that may be because work has been absolutely manic this week, so i've been pretty exhausted. I have managed to read through most of the syllabus, and it all seems so obvious and memorable when the book is in front of me, but in the exam it's just me and what I remember! Of course, i'm a bit annoyed at my lecturer, because I have now done three mock exams as home work, and he has lost two of them and not marked the third yet, so I have no feedback whatsoever on what I'm doing *scowl*. And because the exams were handwritten (bloody stone age lawyers), I don't even have the exams to re-submit, or read through! I'm getting a bit panic-y now. 18 days to go *gulp*