Here we go again…

Amy’s teacher has planned an end of year party in the classroom. Yes, a very nice idea.. if it wasn’t for the fact that it’s a themed party, and they have to make costumes!

I’m just NO good at that!

The theme is ‘Under the Sea’, and Amy being Amy, she wants to be a mermaid. So, today I’ve been shopping.. I bought a black and pink sarong in an adult size, then a gorgeous pink kids top, which has sparkly silver over it. The idea being with these two items is that we can get some use out of them at other times.

I’ve then added a a pink flower hair band, which she can wear on her wrist, and a flowery hair band; plus some silver crepe paper to make a silver tail.

I’m actually quite pleased with myself, and I’m praying that it all works when she tries it on!

Wednesday…

Girls dropped off at school – check
Shopping done and unpacked – check
1st lot of washing out on the line – check
2nd lot in machine – check
Coffee made and drank – check

An exciting Wednesday morning, huh? Still, I’m now catching up on some Voyager episodes, and I’m about to pull together the 1st guest post for the BCF Blog.

By the way, the new header to the blog is the view for just below my grandparent’s garden in Wales – lovely, isn’t it?

The Hunt for a New Car

I did love my car, but it was getting rather old – services were starting to get pricey, as there was always something to sort, the heating was rubbish in the winter, and there was often a worrying whiff of petrol!

So, we set ourselves a budget, and went looking.. with not much luck! We then started to look at using the scrappage deal, pushing our budget, and getting a brand new one.. with not much luck!

After our holiday, we decided to look again at used cars, but with that higher budget.. and I chose a 3 year old Fiesta…

It’s a 1.25 Climate, which means I get air con for the first time.. as well as a heated windscreen, and the all important CD player! :0)

The only downside is that I’ve gone from a Ghia, so the inside does feel a little more plasticy – but it feels roomier, and it drives very nicely! It’s also rather ‘black’.. both inside and out, so it will need some personal touches.

A friend of mine has informed me that it needs a name, and that it’s a ’she’.. but Beth tells me it’s a boy! lol Does your car have a name and/or gender?!?

Wales 2009

Thursday 28th May
Believe it or not, pretty much the whole day was spent packing and preparing! Although the weather forecast was promising, I know it can’t always be relied upon, so I was trying to plan for all eventualities.. without overdoing it.

Friday 29th
We set off about 9:30, and drove down in lovely weather. Unfortunately the traffic was rather rubbish, plus hubby got us lost for a short time, so we didn’t arrive until about 5. We unloaded the car, then Glen and I drove back to Carmarthen, to do some shopping. A long day, but happy to be there.

Saturday 30th
I woke in the morning, looked out the window, and saw some baby rabbits – how cute!

After a trip into Carmarthen, we spent some time with my grandparents – still amazed by the wonderful weather.

Sunday 31st
A trip into Ferryside, where we had a lovely Sunday lunch, then played on the beach for a while. Whilst waiting for lunch, the girls made friends with 2 rather cute dogs in the pub garden.

Monday 1st June
Whilst mum had a quiet day, Glen and I took the girls to Saundersfoot. Smothered in sun cream, I was still worried about us all getting burnt – it was that hot! Amy loves digging in the sand, and they both had a great time playing in the water.

Tuesday 2nd
Today was our trip to Folly Farm – this is somewhere we’ve been visiting for years, and it gets better every time we go. They have various animal areas, outdoor play, indoor play, and an old fashioned fun fair. Usually we need the indoor areas to escape from the rain, but for once it was the sun we were escaping from! Highlight of the day for me were the meerkats who came creeping up begging when they realised I had ice cream!

Wednesday 3rd
Our second trip to Carmarthen, and then my grandparents – it’s been lovely to see them, but always sad to walk away. During the early evening, Glen and I took the girls to the local beach – they collected shells, and I relaxed!

Thursday 4th
A nice relaxed day – a further trip to Ferryside, then organising the packing etc

Friday 5th
Our journey home.. and for the first time we saw clouds and rain!

I know it doesn’t sound like a particularly exciting week, but it was very relaxing, the weather was unbelievably wonderful, and I spent time with my grandparents.

Photos can be found here.

Randomness…

Ok, let’s see if I can make an effort again.

Not a good start to my morning today, as I woke with a migraine. Thankfully my triptan worked, but it took about and hour and half.. during which time I had to get dressed, get the girls ready, and take them to school.

Anyway, the sun that was shining when I got up has disppeared, and it is COLD. I came in from shopping, put on the heating and a cosy cardigen, and settled down with a coffee and a cookie!

Talking of coffee.. I somehow managed to lose part of my dolce gusto coffee machine over the weekend. I have NO idea where it’s gone, but it unfortunately means that I can’t use the machine. Considering I love it so much, I had no choice but to raid my savings, and buy a new one…

Cappuccino anyone?

Is Facebook taking over from blogging?

Once again, I haven’t blogged for over a month! Yes, I’ve been busy, but I have to admit, opening the dashboard, writing a post, and publishing it all seems like too much hard work! On facebook, I just type in a quick status, and I’m done!

There’s also the issue that I probably get more comments on my facebook statuses than I do on here.

Maybe, however, the biggest problem is that my life doesn’t really feel exciting enough to blog about! I have had quite a few thoughts about swine flu, but I think you’ve probably all heard plenty about that! LOL

Who knows, maybe I’ll suddenly start finding things to ramble about again soon, or maybe I’ll be lazy and stick to facebook!?

An interesting time.. (part 2)

It appears we weren’t quite finished with the good and bad. Once the usual weekly routine started, it felt a little better without Beth, and we had phone calls each evening, informing us that all was well.

On Tuesday, Amy came home with a letter, and the wonderful news that about 5 children in her class had been sent home after vomiting! The evening progressed fine, and we breathed a sigh of relief, but at 11:30pm, we were woken by her throwing up!

The poor little thing spent 2 days clinging onto her bowl, sometimes not even able to keep water down. We discovered that on Wednesday, there were only 9 children in her class.. and there are normally 30!

By Friday, however, she had bounced back, and was completely back to normal – but of course not able to go back to school. So I had to stay off work with her.

Having believed that I had escaped, I was dismayed to find myself feeling unwell Friday afternoon. Glen went down to the school to pick Beth up when the coach came in because I didn’t feel up to it.. and about 10 minutes after she was back home, I was running to the bathroom!

I am NOT a good sick person, so I spent most of the weekend in my bed, feeling very sorry for myself. I even had to miss Amy’s little performance at her theatre school.

Mind you, I think it was needed! I was not well!

Thankfully I’m doing much better now, and am just trying to get some energy back, but I have had to take 2 days off work, due to the potential infection risk. I don’t suppose I’ve been very popular!

So, hopefully the rollercoaster is over for a while, and life settles down. Glen has finally finished his jury service, so that should also help.

An interesting time…

Well there have been some interesting things going on recently.. some good, some bad! Starting off with a definite bad, last week I was rather pleased with myself that the day was going well.. I intended to get the girls in the bath, cook dinner, then have a peaceful evening. Instead, I started running the bath, then forgot about it. A short while later I got up to find out what the strange noise was, and found a waterfall coming through my kitchen ceiling!

Sigh..

Thankfully it actually wasn’t too bad – the water mainly came through the light fittings, even though it looked worse at the time, so we were saved from a collapsed ceiling. And thankfully the light fittings dried out, and worked perfectly. Phew! The only problem is that the bathroom carpet was ruined, so I now have to wait for hubby to find the energy to fit something new.

Then came good.. Beth and I went to see a ‘shakespeare4kids’ production of Romeo and Juliet, and we both very much enjoyed it. Highly recommended for a fun evening out.

The next day though we flicked back to bad, as I discovered that some *&%$ had gotten hold of my credit card details, and was trying to use them! I’m very grateful to Halifax for picking up on the warning signs quickly, and the account has been shut down.. but it’s not a nice feeling, and it will cause some disruption.

I also had some more worrying news after that, but it’s not something I can go into here.

Back to the good, I had some sweet gifts from the girls for Mother’s Day, and some lovely home made cards. In Amy’s she said I could relax whilst she tidied her room.. but I don’t see much sign of that so far!  We also had a nice meal at the Harvester on the Saturday.

Sunday was a tough day, as Beth climbed on a coach at 11am, to go on a week’s school trip.. she of course was very excited, and very happy, but I was surprised just how much I missed her as the coach pulled away! It feels as if it’s going to be a very long week. I’m so looking forward to Friday afternoon, although of course she’ll probably be miserable that it’s over, and she’ll be handing me a big bag of muddy clothes!

So a mixed time at the moment.. hopefully my baby will be back with me soon, and there’ll be no more bad news!

The 11+ prep has started…

I’ve bought some books and some practice papers, and I’ve downloaded some revision sheets and question sheets.

Beth is generally doing good at the Maths ones, which is good, but there are some glaring omissions – it’s quite obvious that she doesn’t understand fractions or percentages.. whether she’s not been taught, or whether she wasn’t paying attention that day, I’m not sure, but it’s missing.

Thankfully her dad is good at all things mathamatical, and he’s also very patient, so this weekend he’s been working on these areas with her.

(What’s really sweet is that Amy has a ‘Learning to Add’ book, so she’s sitting there with them, doing her own work! Still, I guess it’s never too young to start! lol)

On the English side, which I’m helping more with, the main section will be ‘Verbal Reasoning’ – we have a good book which shows you how to work through the various types of questions.. and thankfully once you go through that with her, she understands, and so after that, it’ll be a case of practising, so she gets quicker and more confident.

We’re lucky that she understands why the 11+ can be important, and why she needs to do this work. It’s obvious that most children will need to do some extra work, and it would be a struggle if they were battling against it!

I have to mention a site that’s been very useful, with lots of good information, content to download, and a useful forum.. http://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/

The minefield of the 11+ process..

In the year above Beth, they’ve just found out their secondary school allocation. We live in an area with 2 good grammar schools, and when you look at the results, the remaining schools in the area don’t come close. Beth  is quite clever, and is the top set in Numeracy, and second to top in Literacy, so we are really hoping that we can get her into one of the grammars.

However, the whole area of the 11+ exam, and grammar allocation, is turning out to be complicated, and scary! I always assumed that if the intelligence was there, you stand a good chance, but I’m now seeing differently! I’ve started to download and buy some practice papers, and it’s quite worrying that many of the questions Beth has looked at, and doesn’t understand.

If the primary school hasn’t prepared very well, then it’s down to the parents. I’m not sure I want to go as far as a tutor, so Glen and myself are going to keep working with her – I’m hoping that just practicing will help her feel comfortable with the exams, plus we can try to help her with those areas that she’s struggling with.

However, even this isn’t simple. It would appear that there are different types of exams/papers, and so it’s important to get the right ones. We’re in an area which use NFER, rather than Bond, and they’re multiple choice. That means I’ve already wasted £10 on a Bond book!

I shall keep blogging as we go through this process, and I’d like to hear about your experiences, and also any advice that’s out there!