Gulp

We attended Kit's teacher consultation earlier this evening. No matter how sure we are that he is a bright, cheerful, polite contributor to his class, it's always a bit of a relief to hear it said. Yes, he's doing well, yes, he needs maths homework that is more challenging, and actually his handwriting is not the worst in the class after all. Phew. Now we are waiting on a consultation with the Nursery pending Beri's leaving that class to go up into Reception. Oh the stress.

Jeremy and I will be spending tonight up to our elbows in woodstain. The final bookcases for the library were delivered, and they need treating before they are installed at the end of the week. It's not a big room, and the fumes are really not pleasant. It's not like it was glue, or anything fun.

We were back in the Royal Elephant on Saturday, celebrating Jeremy's birthday (a little in advance, as we will be with his parents next weekend). It was another extremely jolly evening, but I think we may be Thai'd out - its been the third visit in about five weeks. Jane very kindly came all that way to baby-sit for us, and stayed for Sunday lunch. (As far as I can work out, instead of the most delicious home-made (by ME ! Who did you think!) bolognese sauce and pasta for her supper, she had chocolate cake and white wine.)

It's uncanny!

Look what I found in Sainsbury's! Jeremy and I are so proud . . . We think they got the likenesses just perfect. Ok, so they may have overstated the amount of Jeremy's hair, and the svelteness of my waistline, but otherwise its us to a T.

Update - BLAST! You can't see the label properly! It says, I kid you not, 'Mr and Mrs Valentine Gingerbread men'!

Stuff Sid Says. (I don't expect this to interest anyone else, but I need to remember it somehow, and this seems a good place to keep it.)

She calls the PC the 'pompicuter'. She doesn't jump, she dwumps. And she doesn't go to church, she goes to twert. Oh - and butterhlies hly!

And, and, and, the word of the last few weeks has been 'Ratselass'. Sometimes 'Ratselats'. If she dances, it will be the Ratselass dance. If she whispers in your ear, the word will be Ratselass. The songs she sings are about Ratselass. NO idea what that's about. Absolutely none.

Until today, when Kit pointed out that it's her attempt to say 'Gracias'!

Party, party party . . .

Golly, out again last night. Will this madness never end?

We were invited to Chris and Anna's. Jeremy had done most of the arranging on this one, so I only had to follow instructions, though I did buy the flowers. Julia turned up to look after the little'uns, and we left. The other two guests had already arrived, and Anna explained to us the basis of the evening. She told us that Brian had made the starter, she and Chris had made the main meal . . . at this point my heart stopped. What had Jeremy omitted to tell me! We weren't supposed to provide pudding, were we? Oh no! Clearly the bunch of flowers we had brought was not going to go very far around six! Even it you did put cream on, and add a slice of bread each! Jeremy was destined for a terrible death, probably before we even sat down to dinner.

To my enormous relief, no, Gill had made the pudding. Our roles were strictly confined to being guests. A duty we discharged admirably well, might I add. Well, someone has to.

Dinner was delicious - watercress soup, trout with avocado and pistachio, and rhubarb brulee. The company was engaging, and it was midnight before we even knew it.

Guesting - we could do that again.

It also occurred to us that that was the second time we had left the children for someone else to put to bed. This is HUGE. Imagine choosing a sensible movie time! Imagine not missing the first half of a quiz night! Imagine getting to wherever we need to be before 8:45!

I'm dizzy just thinking about it.

The Royal Elephant, part deux

Those of us who could make it, had a ball at our wonderful Thai restaurant, the Royal Elephant, to celebrate my birthday. (Oops - just noticed I didn't tell you about that. In brief - 12 of us, a mixture of village and not-village friends, enjoying a wonderful meal. Jeremy preordered from their splendid set menu, and feeling that the Tom Yum might be too hot for some, asked for six spicy soups and six mild. NO! Big mistake! We all ended up fighting over the spicy soups, and the strangest of deals were being struck so everyone could have a taste. Nevertheless it went very well.) So we decided that we'd like to do it all again, with a different guest list, for Jeremy's birthday.

Irritatingly, two couples could make neither date, so last night the six of us headed Elephant-ward for a very jolly evening. Greg ordered champagne to celebrate a successful departure from his current company, and we all got happier and happier.

As had happened last time, at the end of the evening they had to push us out of the door, and nano-seconds after we hit the pavement the restaurant lights went out. Well, they'll recognize us next week when we do it all again, won't they?

And then we spent the ride home shrieking Bohemian Rhapsody at the tops of our voices. The taxi driver thought it was just wonderful.

Charlotte, the head groom at Julia's stables, babysat for us. Slightly nervously, we left all three up and about, which we had never done before. Everything was, of course, fine, and the kids are all clamouring to know when Charlotte can visit again.

One step forward, two steps back

Dunno why Sid's potty training should headline, but it does. Or rather, it doesn't - one day out of nappies was clearly enough to prove that she could do it, so she demanded a return to the old smelly, landfill-filling, environmentally-incredibly-unsound days of nappy wearing. Bugger.

Beri, hooray, was eventually successfully bribed (by a Dr Who Sonic Screwdriver) to have his hair cut by the barber. I'm so sorry I don't have a picture of his last shaggy days (he looked adorable!) but the blimmin' camera has been eating batteries and there is never a charged set when you need one.

We spent the day at the Lookout Discovery Centre, where all the children had a ball. Both Beri and Kit were in bed asleep by 7:30 tonight. All this half-term excitement is clearly taking its toll, and they are looking forward to returning to school (!). Just one more fun-filled day to go.

And finally I just want to show you what my lovely husband gave me for Valentine's Day -

Isn't it beautiful?

Potty training

Eek! Sid announced yesterday that she would rather go without nappies from here on, thank you very much.

Actually, after this, any information I give you about her progress will be too much.

Suffice it to say that, while I will not miss the nappies one bit, I will miss the tiny girl who was in them.

Snowy Day

Yesterday was covered in snow. The schools were closed, the roads empty, the air thick with snowballs and the advantage of having a long thin garden with a bit of a slope became, once more, apparent.

We were joined by two sets of friends - nine children between us, which meant a LOT of shrieking - not least from Jeremy sliding downhill head first straight into the snowman. (The picture was taken before the snowman was built, at the top of the steps.)

We were invited back to Greg and Elaine's for the afternoon (parents of Rosie of the Big Stick), to watch It's a Wonderful Life, and for Greg to cook us supper. The movie was, as always, perfect, the supper delicious and the company thoughtful, amusing, and generous. They are, of course, very excited about their impending move down to Somerset, and we are happy for them, but by golly we will miss them.

Sunday School

For my sins, I teach three- and four-year olds in Sunday School. There are only three of us who do it, so there's quite a lot to do. And it's a distinctive group of children too, very few of them given to paying much attention. Isabella and Millie are very happy to listen to the stories, play the games by the rules, and do the colouring in. Beri, Lawrie, and twins William and Daisy - we-e-ell, less so. So far, the only instructions they will reliably follow have to include the words 'run', 'fast', 'shout' and 'loudly'.

So far, it's been fine. We've had Solomon building his temple for the people to worship in - 'So how did the people worship? That's right! By dancing around wildly and shouting loudly PRAISE THE LORD!' We had Elijah who was good for a few sessions - 'King Ahab was so cross with Elijah that Elijah had to run away, very fast, and shout loudly HELP ME LORD!' And of course the priests of Baal were a gift - 'What did the priests do? Danced wildly around the altar shouting loudly BAAL! LIGHT OUR FIRE!'

This morning it was blimmin' Nicodemus. What did he do? Tip-toed, is what he did. Tip-toed in the middle of the night to visit, undetected, that undesirable rabble-rouser, JESUS. Tip-toed extremely quietly. Had a whispered conversation with The Man, then tip-toed away, equally as quietly, to have a Good, Quiet, Think.

The shout for us to pack up and go back to Church came as a bit of a relief, to tell you the truth.

I think we need to emphasise Muscular Christianity more in our teaching.