There’s something about this time of year, the diary seems to be filling up rapidly. All but one of my children are making a Big Transition in September, Ben starts school, Charlie goes into the Juniors, and Ruthy makes the big leap to secondary school, even Kate who thinks she isn’t making a big jump, really is, as she enters her last year in Primary. The result of all this right now is Meetings. Just when I’d legitimately got rid of lots of church meetings for the duration of my training, the school ones seem to be coming thick & fast. Attending my 4th and last Reception Year welcome meeting was amusing though rather than emotional Ben has the rather wonderful teacher that Ruthy and Charlie both had in YR so I’m very happy, and she doesn’t seem too worried (yet!). Ben’s certainly not 
Everyone tells me that your last child starting school is emotional, that I *will* be there sobbing at the school gates. Well, they told me that when the first one began, 7 years ago, and I wasn’t sniffing into my hankie then and I really am not expecting to this time – ask me again in September. Starting secondary school however is another matter – no! I am not old enough to start with, nor can she be! for goodness sake, I remember her only yesterday learning to walk!
She’s ready though, tiny as she is, and I’ll wave her off in September trying to ignore the Abba soundtrack in my head.
Slipping through my fingers…
June 12, 2009 at 8:00 pm (children, family life, school)
Rocking my world
April 23, 2009 at 10:36 pm (children, family life, friends, holidays)
On Easter Monday we packed ourselves up ( tight turnaround after EasterSchool given how busy Sunday was… all good practice!!) and did that traditional clergy (in training) post-Easter getaway!
We were on a narrowboat for 4 days with friends from church here for her 40th celebrations, with us were other friends of hers, he a vicar, also doing that post Easter escape thing! 6 adults, 11 children, 2 boats!
It was a lot of fun, the weather ( bar Thursday when it poured down) was gorgeous, the children, two groups of whom had never met before, were fantastic ( even Ben, source of much pre holiday angst for Mr FF, understandably, 3 year olds + boats = stress, but no, he was fantastic ) Keeping the close in age siblings on separate boats helped of course! 11, 12 and 13 girls on one, 8, 9 and 10 year olds on another – bliss! Feeding all 11 of them together on one boat was fun, but did enable the 6 adults to have civilised evenings together later.
Many locks ( 17 in one day on the Wednesday) and hot cross buns, cups of tea and glasses of wine later we parted company, the hosts to welcome more friends on board for the weekend, the rest of us back to real life (and in Mr Ff’s case to an early morning flight to Las Vegas). I’ve been home alone with all four for a week now, with a ski tan, post-motion vertigo ( hence the title!) and an essay to finish. I am pleased to report that the tan still exists, the PMV has almost worn off a week later, the essay is in the envelope and Mr Ff is at the airport
Assorted pictures follow – taken with an inadequate camera phone!
ranting
January 30, 2009 at 10:51 am (children, rants, school)
Generally I love the school my children go to, it’s ten minutes from our house, part of the village community, a lovely happy caring school, and the Outstanding OFSTED report is the icing on the cake. Occasionally though I need to RANT!
Like this week, Charity Fun Day – excellent! Fun and Charity; what a great mix, a chance for them all to go mad with silly clothes and baked bean footbaths, what could be better?( and that’s just the teachers!)
But why oh why make the dressing up part a competition? Just WHY?
All the pressure is then on, children put pressure on their parents to sort their hair or costumes, they get upset at the thought of not winning, or turn on their friends in a spirit of ” Mine’s going to be better than yours”
Where’s either the fun or the charity in that?
We don’t even have a competitive sports day for the Infant children, and then we get this…gah!
And we all know that the prizes ought to go to the parents anyway… there’s always one hanging round by every classroom asking you 4 days ahead whether Little Billy’s got his costume ready, and by the way is he on level 937 of the reading scheme yet as Little Lucy is!
See the pressure isn’t even coming from the school, it’s other parents! and then it just gets infectious, but making it a comp in the first place gives those parents the chance to get all hyped about it in my opinion. But then again maybe they’d get uber competitive anyway? Whatever, can’t bear it!
I shall step off my soapbox and make room for some of the large queue of other parents who are waiting to step up to the mike, while hearing all my home-edding readers say “told you so..”! Well maybe… but then it would be *me* in the baked beans, and that I think is a step too far!
Creation to Extermination!
January 22, 2009 at 11:53 am (children, family life, food)
Not a post about eschatology – just a birthday cake!
7 is always a special birthday in our family:-) this one was no exception!
Blue Monday? could have been here!
January 19, 2009 at 11:59 pm (children, family life)
Today is supposed to be the most depressing day of the year – it’s based on some calculations about light and time since Christmas, and credit card bills and general malaise – oh and it being Monday. I have heard of it before but today I wasn’t aware of it being today until I was recounting my day to a friend and she reminded me -
Anyway, nothing of my day has anything to do with credit card bills or daylight or even it being Monday – and it hasn’t sent me into the pits of despair, but it has been one of those days you’d rather not repeat in a hurry.
Mondays are one of Ben’s full days at preschool, so a full work day for me, however I knew that today would have a couple of hours out of the middle to take Kate for some repair work at the dentist,, only I’d forgotten that I’d booked a Pilates class, so I had to cancel that:-(
Next Ben woke up with a small spot on his face having got infected – gah 3 year olds and their ability to lick their chins! That means no preschool for him. Already my day was looking more complicated than I’d like, and all thoughts of study are floating out the window. Ruthy said she felt a bit sick, but ate breakfast and went off to school anyway. Charlie was way too excited that it was now only one sleep till his birthday, so that was ok.
At home I managed to write about 3 sentences, none of which bore any relation to the previous one, while entertaining Ben, then we went off to fetch Kate and drive to the dentist. The highlight here was finding a parking space that didn’t involve a 3 mile uphill walk, or scraping my car along unseen 6 inch walls. Out we came and found a message on my phone ominously labelled “School”. This can only mean Ruthy isn’t well. She was still feeling icky and school with as much phobia of vomiting as I have ( and that’s saying quite a lot) wanted her gone. Kate was feeling very sore now as her anaesthetic wore off, plus she faced another 2 hours before she could eat anything, so I collected Ruthy and took them both home. Pretty good going by 1.30 on Monday to have 3/4 of the children at home!
At 2 I had to phone the doctors to get an appointment for Ben, praying it wouldn’t be at 3.30pm I hung on hold for a nice longwhile, and then got one for 5.30. Great Mr FF can do that then, he’d said he could get out of the office early ” if needed” well he is!
By this time Ruthy had eaten something and was feeling miles better, Kates lip was back in contact with her nervous system and Ben was playing bowling on the Wii. I snuck into the kitchen and iced Charlies birthday cake while peace reigned…ooh for 5 minutes until they realised I’d trimmed bits off the cake to get the right shape ( no you can’t see it, it’s not finished!) I got it hidden before Charlie arrived home with a neighbour -result!
Mr FF got home about 5 and whisked Ben off to the docs – it was that or cook supper, I managed supper and some more essay, and have managed a few more words this evening – it’s not flowing well, mainly I think because it’s last terms leftover assignment ( yes I do have an offical extension!) and I’d just like it done now.
I’ve got Ben off tomorrow at least now, and most probably Wednesday, so there’s more midnight oil to be burnt. Tomorrow, as they say, is another day though, and I can’t believe it’s 7 years since Charlie was born on the bathroom floor – but that, as they also say, is another story!
Bagging up the chaos
January 15, 2009 at 12:53 pm (bags, children, sewing)
I made these storage bags out of some FQs I had sitting around, they hang under the shelf in the hall and contain all the chaos that otherwise sits *on* the shelf; hairbrushes, scrunchies, sunglasses, hairbands etc…
They are ridiculously quick to make, about 10 mins sewing time each; unlined, french seamed. so they kind of counted as study breaks!
I also made Kate this lunch bag – she has a Laptop Lunch box which is great, but doen’t fit things like apples in it, so she wanted a bag that would hold her lunch box and her fruit, they have to put their lunch on a cart that gets taken to the lunch hall, and loose apples don’t go down well!
I made a very similar simple bag, and added a box pleated and elasticated pocket on the side which nicely holds an apple and a juice box job done. The great thing is that if it gets messy it will wash & dry in no time. Fabric by Ikea!
Sometimes life just isn’t simple
January 7, 2009 at 8:59 pm (cars, children, family life, study)
It’s the little things that eventually get to you – like today, I had a clearish day, except that I had to take Kate to the dentist in the middle of it. So a little bit of work, go and collect her from school, hold her hand under drill fire and back to work for the afternoon. Yes, well that was the plan.
My car won’t start.
The dentist is 12 miles away
There is one bus an hour if you’re lucky, it takes over an hour and then there’s a 20 minute walk.
The appointment is in 55 mins
My car still won’t start.
So I came indoors and phoned school, and the dentist, and the garage.I cleared up the kitchen, and did some laundry and thought I’d sit down & work. Then the phone rang, it was my friend G telling me that pre-school was shutting because the loos had frozen!! ( yes it’s funny, Ben thought it was hilarious when he was telling me later)
I must have sounded slightly stressed because she offered to have Ben for the afternoon – I told her I shouldn’t even have been at home if my car had started. At this point I’m still waiting for the garage to call me back.
So back to some work, but my concentration has been shot, and it’s not very effective, so I do some more laundry so that I am at least achieving something out of the day.
I go up to school and pick up 5 assorted children, only 3 of whom are mine, deliver them back to their homes and pick up Ben from G’s, bumping into one of his pre-school teachers on the way who cheerfully tells me that pre-school is shut tomorrow too and ” we don’t know about Friday yet”
The men from the garage eventually arrive to pick up my car, they get it to start (typical!) but want to take it in to check it over, in theory this is fine by me as I don’t want to be stranded somewhere when it won’t start again, but I’ve just realised that tomorrow is fairly scuppered too – no car = can’t get to library, no preschool = have Ben home anyway. Mum and Dad are planning to come down for the afternoon to field children so I can work. I won’t be escaping to a quiet library but maybe I can salvage something!!
12th Night – back in the box?
January 5, 2009 at 5:28 pm (children, faith, family life)
I just loved these colours all together as I was packing away the tree decorations – and I realised I hadn’t taken any pictures of the tree over Christmas, so here’s the tree, back in the box. The poor tree is back in the garden, it’s SO cold out there I feel a bit sorry for it, it’s a bit of a shock even from our “on the cool side” house to the “below freezing” garden. I hope it grows well again this year, it’s had a lot of new growth since last Christmas.
The girls & I had an interesting conversation as we were putting away the nativity advent calendar, they were arguing about how many wise men there had been, Ruthy was adamant it was three, Kate equally sure there had been four. “Go & look it up” I suggested. Ruthy demurred (I have a feeling she knew what was coming!) Kate took the bible off the dresser and we looked up Matthew’s gospel, where we found that the number of Magi ( “that’s wise men,” I said, “yes mum I KNOW what Magi are, I’m not stupid”… – the ” durr” was implied! ) is not specified. We decided that the traditional three came about because of the three gifts named. They were quite thankful that they weren’t having to wait till tomorrow for Christmas though!
I’m always mindful of not packing Christmas back in the box along with the decorations at this time of year. I like remembering that the longer season of Christmas goes on until Candlemas, February 2nd, by which time Lent & Easter are in sight (though not this year as close as they were last year!)
As ever, as the shops clear up Christmas, out come the Easter eggs, while I dislike the commerciality ( is that a word?) and the constant need to be onto the Next Big Thing, it does me no harm to be reminded that Easter & Christmas are inextricably linked, and that the Newborn Christ of Christmas is the source of the new life of Easter.
A rarity
October 18, 2008 at 6:55 pm (children, family life)
Today was the first Saturday I have spent at home since the start of term – and only the 3rd since the end of July! Holidays can account for August, and a stream of family birthdays, college and a lovely weekend a deux in North Devon make up the rest.
Mr FF was out today from about 7am as he has been at a Mens day conference in Ealing with a bunch of guys from church, so I got to know what it’s like for him when I’m in college! ( though I did already have just a bit of an inkling what with all the travelling he does 
So swimming lessons, some light food shopping, and a constant stream of homework help, producing more food, refereeing, cleaning, tidying and laundering, of course you’d think the house would be gleaming and all the children virtuously packing away completed projects by now, but you’d be wrong! – the house however is marginally tidier than it started off, so that is a bonus!
Off to college for a rest next weekend
Life!!
October 11, 2008 at 9:42 pm (children, family life)
so, other than some word arty stuff that isn’t posting properly ( darn 3rd party hosting!) how has it got to be October without a post since the summer?!
plenty reasons – but here’s a whistle stop tour
End of term shenanigans – the children’s of course and then
SUMMER!
Ruthy had a week of dance school and then we were off to the New Wine Summer conference at Shepton Mallet -given the summer we’d had so far the prospect of a week in the Uk in a tent was not inspiring every single member of the family it did have to be said! We got the tent up in the dry, and after that the best that could be said about the weather is that it didn;t rain all the time – in fact some days the sun even shone, but never for long enough to dry up the MUD.
All that aside we had a fantastic week with two other families from church – all the children really enjoyed their groups and learnt loads, the older ones revelled in the amount of freedom they had to come & go on their bikes, and we adults were encouraged, challenged and thoroughly blessed! It’s been 14 years since MrFF & I were at New Wine so this was the first time we’d been en famille.
Home to dry out and 2 1/2 days to turn around and then off to France with tent again. This time the weather smiled on us, we had ten days of warm and sunny weather, on the Vendee coast, days on the beach, BBQs with friends, showers at night or in the early morning, and the whole time the raincoats never made it out of the bag in the car We all came back browner and more relaxed, the site was small and friendly. We were camping with John & May and their children, and later in the holiday some other mutual friends joined us. Uncle Si was there for the first 4 days too so the company was great. A Good Holiday.
Back home and this time it was Kate’s turn to be active, with a week at the stables riding from 10 – 4 every day on an “own a pony” week. She had a fantastic week, won Best Showjumper in her group and was devastated when she had to say goodbye to Henry, “her” pony!
and then it was back to school… Year 6, 5, 2 and the last year of preschool…oh and me, back to college!!
