Ongoing things that have happened all week and are current favourites most days:

F reading Hans Christian Andersen and Brothers Grimm stories, sometimes out loud to me/J and us reading them to her. She found Clever Hans and made the connection with the Willy Nilly story that Nic told us last year and became a bit of a favourite. I think they're great in terms of encountering all sorts of unusual vocabulary and concepts, so they generate some very interesting conversations, covering such subjects as morality, hell, the devil,

Trampoline - F was finally allowed back on it after post-op ban (metal plate removal from arm) and has been bouncing several times a day most of the week

E-mails/laptop - F is now fully competent (with unorthodox spelling) at e-mail and has a few people she is exchanging them with, so probably checks her mail most days now. She's pretty confident with it. I also bookmarked the link for watching CBBC live on her laptop, so she's been using that on and off.

Grand Designs - we've been watching these this week, got some recorded and F has got into them.

So, with those as a backdrop, the main events of the week were:

Today
Local home-ed friend E coming to play for a few hours here, dropped off in the morning, staying for lunch and then C, M and baby D came to pick her up at 2 and stayed for a cuppa, which we had outside in this lovely spring weather. E and F played really happily together, with My Little Ponies, Pixel Chix and DSs. They also went on the trampoline and had lunch outside with F's baby dolls. They seem to be getting on well, they really listen to each other and chat. F is certainly getting a lot from the newly developing friendship - they e-mail each other now too.

Thursday
Had a great time at the cinema, we went to see Monsters Vs Aliens 3D with the MonsterTeenies (appropriately). It was Nic's birthday prezzie from me, so I was really glad that she, in particular, and all of us in general, very much enjoyed the film. I can't believe how good 3D is now - I don't know if it was particularly because we were sitting right at the front, but it was fantastic! The cinema that we went to doesn't sell ice-lollies or cornets, only tubs of ice-cream, which are the least hemiplegia-friendly form, really. So about 5 minutes after the film started, I tore my eyes away from the amazing 3Dness to look at my daughter, to find her completely covered in chocolate ice-cream - she'd been as entranced as I had, but had also been dealing with tub-holding and sillyplasticspoonthing-holding issues, plus very large 3D glasses!
The film was excellent - lots of very funny bits, amusing references, intelligent and appealing. Loved it!

We went by bus - F brought her rucksack with her DS, her Disney Princess Book of Secrets (also still going strong, despite barely having any blank spaces left in it) and her Hans Christian Andersen, which she read some of on the bus (think it was the Frog King) and we discussed a bit.
I think maybe I shouldn't have booked seeing an old friend and her girls later that day, as we just got home, made a picnic and headed straight out again. After a while at the park, F got into a bit of a meltdown about nothing very much and couldn't get herself out of it properly - she's had a few times like that this week, not sure why, but we just get past them and move on each time really. Very public ones in front of people who see you as representing home education are not my favourites, but never mind.


Wednesday
We spent most of the day at home - I finished some work and sent it off - then went up to C's in the late afternoon, for F to stay there for tea, whilst I did a run-through of the treasure hunt that K and I had prepared for Woodcraft. Then K brought E and F down to Woodcraft at 6pm and we did the treasure hunt, which went pretty well. We had planned it the week before, walking round the area, K taking pictures of anything that was distinctive, or could be used for a question clue. Then she'd e-mailed me the pics, I'd put them in a Word doc and sent it back to her and she'd printed it out. Mainly the teams had to find the items in the pictures, sometimes answering a question about them or about bits of the picture that I'd blacked out. It seemed to work for the age range (6 up to teens). I was tired afterwards, having effectively done the route twice. We went back for F to have a very brief last half hour with E, they watched The Snowman, then K gave us a lift down, which was very very welcome, as was the smell of pasta bake that greeted me as we came in, thanks to J.


Tuesday
We went and met my mum at the station at midday, then spent half an hour in the park in the sunshine before all going to local home-ed group. The dynamic there was slightly tricky, as F wanted to spend time with her grandma, but also had the newly developing friendship with E (they had both brought pony things as arranged between them by e-mail!) and then T was there too and she and F got on quite well the other day. It was interesting for my mum to see the group and nice to see people again, although I do find with groups that I never get to spend enough time with some people, bit like parties. I really like our local group though, it works well and seems to promise much for the future.

Monday
The main thing I can remember apart from Hans Christian Andersen, trampoline, laptop, etc. is that F had arranged with A to meet up (virtually) on Club Penguin and they did. They spent a happy hour or so, following each other around, sending messages to each other, etc. all without any need to type. It was the first time I'd really had a proper look at how it works and I think it's pretty clever, in terms of safety and providing a lot for kids to explore.

Last weekend
I felt crap on Saturday and half of Sunday, like I was coming down with something nasty, so I just rested, really really rested. By Sunday evening I started to feel better and have been OK since. So the weekend was mainly lounging around, having a long soak, doing very very little, with F bouncing a lot on Sunday.