Frozen

i saw this over at Mary Poppins and it is just so cool I had to share

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.

random tagging

I've been tagged by Em over at doing it all again to tell you 8 random things about me...

hmmmmm, what would be both interesting and not overly incriminating?

1. I rode a motorbike every day for 9 years. I was the first person in the family to have one (although two others followed me), and it was much against my mothers wishes. It took me a whole year of working every Saturday and every Sunday to save up the money to buy it. Despite commuting round London, travelling across the country, attending various bike shows and belongi g to a bike club for all those years, I never broke any bones or even damaged myself or my bike beyond superficial surface marks. I am the only person I know who can claim this.
2. I am incredably unco-ordinated. As a child my family learned never to even let me go into shops with breakables as it was guaranteed that I would smash them! I still have to be extremely careful in shops, and regulrly have "accidents". I stopped attending PE at age 12. The rest of my family are all quite the opposite - all three of my sisters were high class competitive athletes in artistic sports - one became the youngest qualified coach in the country and the other two both represented their country at various competitions. Despite this, i am the one who ended up working in the sports industry!
3. I was severely bullied as a child. i distinctly remember literally fleeing in fear if my life on a number of occasions and ended up in hospital with an injury that still affects me today. It never occured to me to complain to a teacher about any of this. I tried all of the remedies suggested in the anti-bullying literature at various times. None of them worked. I have no idea what the solution is, other than get a bigger gang of your own (which is what i finally did).
4. By the time I was a teenager, i knew I didn't want children. Or a husband. Or to be tied down to one place. I love single life, travelling and being my own boss and as selfish as I want. I have absolutely no idea how it is that i am married, with a mortgage, job and three kids. I still think I would have been perfectly happy and quite likely happier without the children, although I love them to pieces and would do absolutely anything for them.
5. I have travelled accross Europe, the Middle East, and to Africa (well, Egypt - it's offically Africa), Russia (the soviet union then), the USA and Mexico. it is nowhere near enough and I would love to go everywhere else. And back to those places again. And off world too if possible:-) Travelling is imo undoubtedly one of the best things a person can do - if they actually travel to different cultures, visit real places, talk to real people and learn about real things! I still think the very best way to travel is by thumb. I hitch-hiked everywhere, and met the most amazing people, saw the most fantastic places and discovered that despite media representations, the VAST majority of humanity are jolly decent people! Whenever I feel depressed about our species, a quick hitch hike, or even just a walk and chat to some strangers will remind me that on the whole, people are nice:-)
6. I honestly do not believe there is anything supernatural. No soul, no God, no ghosts, no demons or angels, fairies, elves, poltergeists, gaia, mother nature, after-life, pre-life, reincarnation or anything else spiritual, other or more. This seems to really upset an awful lot of people, even quite secular ones. Many of them either don't believe me, or think that i must be lying otherwise i would be a psychotic killer. I am not sure why poeple think we need something other than common sense to know that psychotic killing is not a good thing to do! Lots of them assume I do really believe in "something" but just haven't identified it with a name. Most ask me if I am really sure, and look quite shocked when I say yes. But the ones that really make me laugh are then ones that tell me I will go to hell for not believing in hell....... Like that is going to worry me?
7. I am a disgusting slob. I will do pretty much anything rather than do housework. Before Aggie came along and flaked everywhere, i was quite content with a once a month vacuum, and annual dusting. I am happy to live ina room that is full of "stuff" just lurking in corners. Much as I like the concept of a place for everthing and everything in it's place, i have not yet worked out how to achieve even a quarter of the first half of this! However, my slenliness mostly stays with mess, not dirt. I try to keep the place clean by using preventative tactics - no food upstairs, all messy jobs to be done in the garden, luandry and people washed often with good soap:-) In my defence, i am not a stuff person. I would happily live in a two bed cottage, with just the barest minimum of stuff. I spend much of my time moaning about how much stuff we have and that we should get rid of it. Sadly Aggie is a hoarder. He loves his stuff and can never have too much. Yet another battle I have lost in this relationship as we have a big house and a big garden, both absolutely brimming with stuff I don't want!
8. Everyone thinks I am a horrible partner. In fact, after a few years, even my sister asked Aggie why on earth he stays with me. However, despite the fact that i am the one who gives all the orders, seems to win every argument and choses what to do, when and how to do it and where it should be done..... I wanted to stay single, and we're married. I wanted to stay unchained to a specific place, and we've got a mortgage. I wanted to be DINK's (Dual income, no kids), and our income has halved since the kids turned up. I wanted a small house with no garden, and we have a big house and large garden one. In fact, on all the big issues, Aggie seems to be living his dream, and I have no idea how that happened:-)

Well, hopefully that's 8 fairly random and interesting things that i haven't specifically covered before. As always, i won't tag anyone, but if you want to have a go, leave me a comment and I'll link to you here.

Calming down

OK, I've taken a few deep breaths, and I'm trying not to be quite so frantic about things today.

Re the interview on Friday - I've looked at the blurb again, and it's not that much work. A two page write up of some idea's rather than actual lesson/session plans, so i should be able to bang that together, um, well, maybe Thursday lunchtime - which will give me Thursday evening to tidy it up. Plus, I've been thinking, and I'll probably stay where I am whatever. Bath isn't going to be the easiest communte, even if I get a school this side of town it's a trek, I don't think I can really afford a year at Uni, and the over-riding reason that teaching seems more appealing than law is the summer holidays - which is a TERRIBLE reason to become a teacher:-) If the law thing wasn't well on track then teaching would still be top of my list, but as it is.....

Re the re-enactment clothes, I'll just do what I can do when I can do it! I'm going to prioritise the girls overdresses, and if necessary they can wear modern clothes underneath for the first event! We're off to a medieval amrket on Saturday, so i may well buy myself a dress, just to be sure I have something to wear, and I'll see if they have any hose to fit mstr A too. They're such a pain to make!

Re the college work. Pah! One thing at a time. I managed to do a couple of questions for homework at lunchtime today, so i have soemthing to hand in. Maybe next week I'll try to take the folder in on Tues & Thurs and read through it at lunchtime then. It's a start. I guess I'll panic enough about it eventually:-) I'm fairly confident that I will pass one of the exams, and that's pretty good considering. Although as they cost so much money, I'll be well pissed off if I don'y manage to pass through the whole year each time, low pass rate or not!

Re the garden. It'll happen when it happens. When the kids have time to play out there, I'll have to go out & supervise them, so i'll get on with it all then.

Work has been fairly slow recently, so I should hopefully be able to catch up with some things at lunchtimes on Tues & Thurs. Whatever - everything will get done somehow. it always does.

so much to do, so little time!

Deadlines are fast aproaching for everything, and i am not ready !!!

Here's my urgent to do list:

• Finish clearing the play area of old bark & re-lay it with rubber chippings. It's currently not safe to use, so this needs to be done, well, today really, so the kids can play outside.
• Re-read Dracula, and write up a term's session plan's ofr 14 year olds, plus study it well enough to be able to talk authoritively on the book and the lessons by this FRIDAY
• Sew all the re-enactment clothes by EASTER: still To do (at least):
• Two Under dresses for LMB, Two over dresses for LMB, one underdress for LMD and two overdresses for LMD, Four hose for Mstr A, Two hose for LMB, Brais for LMB, Brais for LMD, Brais for me, Two underdresses for me, one overdress for me, one cote-hardie for Aggie, one cote-hardie for Mstr A, One tunic for Mstr A.
• Still to finish: One tunic for Mstr A, one tunic for Aggie, one overdress for me.
• Read up on last weeks college notes (as I missed college) by WEDNESDAY
• Do some homework ready to hand in on WEDNESDAY
• Read through the four chapters that we are not covering in class, but will be covered in the exam!
• Make revision notes of the whole course
• Read and learn the revision notes!
• Go bridesmaid dress shopping with my mother & sister (and the three girls)
• Go dress shopping for me & suit shopping for Aggie.
• Tidy the house - it's a tip!

I'm sure there are loads more really important things too. Not to mention the fact that I have a hen night in Brighton in April, a wedding in London in May, a re-enactment in Italy in May and my sisters wedding in Ireland June to get oganised for!

Help!

It's something to do....

Because I'm short of things to do with my time:-)

Yesterday we travelled up to a big reenactors market in Warwickshire. Having recently spent a small fortune on ebay, we didn't intend to buy a lot, but there were a few things needed. We returned with plenty of nice new material to make the rest of the clothes, a couple of pins, and Aggie got himself a new longbow, so I get to play with his old one this season.

Today was a sorting out day. We tidied up the garden, finally shifting the broken Gazebo and rotten cardboard boxes lying around. We set up the new(ish) archery target & net so we can have the occasional practise at home. It's all very well telling the public that every male had to practise archery for 1 hour a week (on a Sunday after church fyi) from the age of 5 & therefore were all practised, experienced & trained archers, but it looks pretty rubbish if you then fail to hit a single target on your demo shoot:-) Aggie discovered that his new bow was going to be too difficult to string on his own, so had a quick practise with mine. I tried hard to remember what I was doing and shot off a couple of arrows, as did Mstr A, but I think it'll take a while to build up the muscles and the callouses to practise for any length of time. Now I have to braid a stringer for Aggie's new bow before the season starts!

We also tried to work out how to weave a belt for Mstr A on the new loom, but we're obviously thick, 'cos we can't work it out. I guess we'll have to wait till we can see someone who knows what their doing. There are a couple of people in the group who have used them before, so we'll get it sorted eventually.

however, Aggie also made me a flour riddle out of the new linen I brought yesterday, which I sucessfully tried out on some granery flour. Now I just need to source some whole wheat, and I'll be ready to grind flour from scratch:-) Looking forward to pancakes over an open fire this season:-)

I've nearly finished Mstr A's tunic now - it just needs finishing touches around the neckline & buttons on the sleeves - I've made the buttons already, and he only needs 3 per sleeve. Plus three button holes oviously, which are really quite labour intensive, but still, it's well on it's way. I'm hoping to get on with the girls dresses this week, and to finish off Aggies tunic, which will just leave hose (horrible things to make), underwear (quik & easy) and, of course, all my clothing.

It's half term here this week coming, so fortunately Aggie has been able to get Mon, Wed & Thu working from home. he can drop off & pick up Mstr A at the local leisure centre, allowing me to just do the girls & so get to work on tme. I'm not sure how I would've managed it otherwise.

Half term also means I have a week off college. I really, really want to use it to get some revision sorted out. I have got quite a lot of homework to do to, but I need to get on with making up some revision cards if I want to have enough time to actually revise from them! I'm starting to get pretty stressed about the exams now. I so don't want to have to retake them next year, it seems such a waste of my time;-) But with an average 40-45% pass rate, and the knowledge the memorising is n ot my strong point, May is starting to feel very very close & scary!