OK rather a lot to catch up on, will do it in bits starting from the weekend of 25th/26th...

25th/26th:
Relaxing weekend - I ordered 2 children's encyclopedias and an atlas for F. In the end I chose an Usborne atlas, and The Ultimate Book of Everything and A delicious Usborne Encyclopedia. I expected her to use them occasionally, e.g. to answer a question she'd thought of or something. I wasn't imagining that she would sit and read them cover to cover, but that's exactly what she's doing. They arrived on Tuesday I think and she sat and read the atlas for an hour or two at a time and soon finished it, then she moved on to the next one and she's now on the Usborne. She's absolutely loving them (as now seen on TV!). She tells us bits of information from them and we've been chatting and looking together - generating many interesting conversations. Will be following up the links in the big Usborne one too. Interestingly, the first thing she did with them was to count the sections in all 3 books and also weigh them!
On Saturday evening, I noticed a bit of 'secret' plotting going on by F, with a bit of collusion with J. F and I went out for a short walk late in the afternoon and shortly after we came back, F summoned me to her room where she and J gave me a surprise early birthday party - all F's own idea and mostly her own work! She gave me flowers she'd picked, a balloon, a card she had made, showed me a film clip of her singing Happy Birthday, with Dozy Mog singing 'bum' instead. And she gave me a drink of water and put some music on so we could dance. Very sweet! She lovely, that daughtery person. My birthday was still 3 weeks away but am quite happy to start early.
A member of our local home-ed group popped in, as his family are hopefully going to move into our old house just up the road!
F started working on a series of board games, somewhat inspired by Mario Party 8 on the Wii - they're rather nice. I helped out with some of the drawing at first but she got the hang of it - different coloured spots mean different things, you can get sent somewhere else by the roll of a dice if you land on special spots, etc. Satisfyingly complicated but not to an obscure degree. Her mission was to finish them in time for taking them to my mum's on Wednesday.

Monday - poor J had to sort out something due to me having done something a bit dim on the phone a few days beforehand. Not going into details but unscrupulous phone contract renewal practices that apparently require no paperwork would cover most of it. J had to make so many phone calls to sort it out, and the company concerned were so resistant, I felt really crap. He eventually resolved it by the end of the week - elusive people.

Tuesday - can't remember but I know I bought us a curry so yum! Was probably working to get decks cleared for going to Maidstone to stay at my mum's for a few days.