Another week? Already?

HE:
I have a sacrilege to confess - er, we've sort of used lego brick towers as cuisenaire rods. I know, I know, purists may shudder. We've made the transition to small fiddly 'proper' lego - God, I Love Lego. And it lends itself to towers of different numbers of bricks, then you can make stripy high-contrast towers for odds and evens and steps and patterns and... OMG suddenly it's maths! I suddenly saw the potential, when I was constructing a few steps, alternating colours and adding one brick each time, and F copied me and followed the sequence. So there's a game. Sits back slightly too smugly and waits to find out that actually, Ali, everyone on the blogring has been doing this since HesFes 2003. Ah, well it's new to me anyway. And fun. Can see potential for areas, volumes, etc. In fact my mum tells a great cringemaking 'my genius daughter' story about me, teaching myself how to multiply using a green lego base at some unlikely age.
More water play, putting things in water, observing, etc. More track, lots of lego of the less mathematical kind - good practice for F's 'difficult' hand, which is what we've come to call her 'difficult' hand. A couple of walks, a bit of drawing. Not much, but it's been so hot. And we have hayfever, at least I have and I think that's what she has too. Some CBeebies online, but no Headsprout or other such items.

Life:
Nic, Davies and Scarlett came to visit again, and F has now decided fairly definitively that she likes them and that it is worth going with at least some of Davies' suggestions of games. I'm really pleased to see this. They all seemed to get on pretty well, with the odd 'moment', definitely getting used to each other now. Nic and I seemed to manage to get a bit further with our chat, as we do each time, finding out the stuff before the stuff before the stuff... and speculating about the stuff after... Nic and I both have the experience of attempting to spend a block of time on the computer, which then gets continually stretched, because you never actually get more than 10 or 15 minutes of concentrated time, sometimes only 2 minutes at a time, before being called on to do something else. So an attempted hour or so on the computer turns into what seems like 5 hours of leaving and returning to the computer, without ever having the time that allows you to do the thing you need to do. And you still get all the guilt of feeling that you've spend much of the day sitting at the computer, when actually you haven't really had more than a few minutes at any one time. That's our story and we're sticking to it.
Which reminds me, I am gradually getting a 2-week rolling schedule organized, that's really coming together now. It's nothing micro-managementy, just that we have some regular pattern extending over a 2-week period to be repeated. And it starts with Nic on the first Monday of each fortnight so it's bound to work! Am trying to include regular slots for work and other activities, such as a walk/park visit/swim. Basically it's an attempt to make sure that most essential things for both of us happen on a regular basis.
Jack came over yesterday, allowing me to work - yes, work is still hectic, pouring in, but that's still a really good thing overall. His visits and my mum's will also go into the 2-weekly cycle now.
And my dad, who I've been thinking about a lot: got a postcard, they should visit sometime soon, and we might go to them again in Autumn.
J came home for lunch one day and we also met him near the park after his work finished one day.
This weekend I am away visiting some other Internet friends, for a BBQ and a gossip, some of which will feature Big Brother. I'm finding I'm quite enjoying BB this year, but I just don't want any of them to win so far, which is a bit sad. Three new housemates are going in this evening, maybe one of them will be 'deserving'!

Lowlights: hayfever, short-term cash flow

Highlights: cuddles, strawberries, better prospects ahead.