Tuesday was a home/chores/games kind of day.

Wednesday we met up with some local home-ed friends, A, T and H, who took us over to a park in a nearby village, where we had a lovely afternoon. T is 11, but she and F seem to get on quite well. They played together quite a bit. At one point, when I was pushing them as they sprawled on the bowl-swing looking incredibly relaxed, I said to them 'wouldn't you really rather be at school now, girls?'. Giggling and indignant negatives ensued. T went to school for a while, so she was able to say exactly why she'd rather be on a swing in the sunshine, in some detail!

Thursday I had an old friend over with her 4-yr old, at the same time as F had E over to play - I prepared myself for all sorts of problems with this double-booked scenario, but it actually was fine. Friend's little boy was very happy with Gears! Gears! Gears!, trampoline and kittens, who really took to him and fluffed contentedly by his side. F and E played together for 3 hours requiring no intervention whatsoever. Think I'm out of a job here! They played Animal Crossing on DS, made up a story taking turns, went on trampoline, not sure what else.

Today we had B, the EOTAS lady, for her not-quite-annual visit. She had already seen my 'report' (actually just a lot of raw data extracted from my blog, divided into months and broken down into categories - this year I did it as: Reading + Writing; Numbers + Science; Pictures + Making; Thinking + Talking (covers a multitude); Creativity + Imagination; People + Places; Fitness + Health and of course 'Other'), so we just chatted really. She's always very positive about home-ed and about the way we do it. She was here for about half an hour. Showed her some photos, on the Media Centre, of our holiday and various activities.

Last year, when B came, F decided, completely on her own initiative, to show B her diary and talked her through it, very chattily. This year she barely said a dozen words to her, but sat next to her on the sofa, reading the last 10 chapters of George's Secret Key. She has really enjoyed it, even had a go at reading it in the bath yesterday. In fact, she's having a bath right now and I can hear her chatting with J about it - about tides, the moon, gravity, etc.

Went out to the park for an hour or so with neighbour, who was going with her daughters, C and S. F and C don't exactly play together but they can manage an hour at the park OK. F made a 'black hole' in the sandpit and had a leaf being 'Eric' getting pulled in, then escaping.
The kittens have got used to their cat flap now and are getting more confident with it. I've had most of the week off but am about to start the next lot shortly.