Zip wires and Livewires with lots of pictures

First filling in the missed Saturday:

F and I walked into town - bumped into Dani Greenhouse on the way, with L. In town we picked up her glasses, bought some clothes, spent a couple of hours in the coffee shop with books. Think when we got home I had a bath and then we watched "the owl film" (Legend of the Guardians?), which we all had very low expectations of so were all able to be pleasantly surprised and find some aspect of it that was enjoyable. Did keep having a strange mind thing of going 'but why owls?' but enjoyed the basic story of attempted fascism vanquished by motley gang of heroes. And beautiful animation. (but why owls?).

Sunday I did blog - poetry mainly and lots of sitting in garden time. 

Which brings us to Monday when we went up to Spring Barn with J's mum and met up with C and co. Had a very lovely afternoon there, perfect weather and although it was busier than term time, it was still easy for the kids to do everything they wanted with no queuing. Grandma J went on the bouncing pillow and the zip wire. I had plenty of chatting time with C, which is always good. F, E and M (and sometimes D) went on pillow, go-karts, zip wire and the slides, swings, etc. J also went on the zip wire and so did C. I was norty and didn't. F managed to do zip wire standing up, which was a New Achievement! J hadn't seen her do so well on the go-karts before either so that was nice for him to see how she'd got the hang of it with pedalling.

I had only had 1 hour's sleep but didn't feel tired until the evening at all. Work has continued to be fairly crazy, and I've said 'yes' to a bit too much, but for all I know May will be completely different so it feels safer to keep going right now...

Tuesday and Wednesday I worked a lot and F was very good and I really can't remember anything about those days, which is crap. Think F played DS, watched films, chatted and snuggled now and then. I know we talked a lot about pumps because ours had gone missing and it should have been paddling pool weather, so we did a lot of looking at things that might work instead and trying to join things to other things in very Heath Robinson ways.

Thursday we headed off to Livewires (monthly group with a theme and parents bring activities and resources) for a Romans themed session. We made every effort to get there on time - I hate having to wake up to alarm - but the bus sailed past us 3 minutes early as we reached the top of the hill. At which I got very cross and really struggled with letting go of being cross - which is a thing I'm always trying to get F to do. So for the next half hour whilst waiting for the next one I found myself in a bit of a cycle of saying 'bloody buses, honestly, 3 minutes early' and then going 'no but I'm not going to go on about it' to try to set a good example. Then I'd forget again and get cross and go on about it, especially as far too many other buses that were no use to us went by and shouldn't have even been there. Quite funny because I hadn't spotted how bad I am at that - and obviously that must be partly why F does it too. Her anger is louder/more violent though because she doesn't swear. A good swear brings my level of anger down pretty fast, or a nice volley of sarcasm or heavy irony.

Eventually the next 29 came along and we got on and I started to 'do my homework on the bus'. I had committed to doing a Centurion helmet making activity and had been provided with a link to some instructions, which I was adapting a bit, using gold card and pipe cleaners. So having been in work work work mode, I did all my cutting out on the bus! *tuts at self* 

So we were half an hour late but hadn't missed anything, set my table and activity up and B talked to the children about a day in the life of a Roman citizen and soon had them putting on togas and making offerings at the household shrine.

After that I was completely besieged by children wanting to do my activity and just about managed to keep up with helping those that needed help, though I think a couple wandered off and came back. It went really well, I really enjoyed it, the energy that kids bring to something when they're keen is always very uplifting. 

Obviously having thousands of red pipe cleaners would have brought a greater degree of authenticity but I think the home ed creativity angle came in with the kids choosing their own colours and being able to add that personal touch! They were like hippy centurions dude...

All my card and pipe cleaners got used up and everyone that wanted one did one, so I was very pleased.

Other activities included: making mosaics; making bullas; making bread, crushing garlic in oil, eating the bread dipped in the oil; Roman use of herbs, medicinal and cooking; playing with a miniature ballista and building block city walls. It was a fab session, very active and engaging, the kids just soaked up bits of knowledge whilst having a great time running around in their togas.

Really liking Livewires very much right now. Think B particularly has brought so much energy to it, it's infectious!

F painted my face at the end of the session - was hoping she would just do a flower but she kept coming at me with a wayward brush that I just couldn't cope with, so we had a small skirmish about it, then she did a kind of rainbow flower on my forehead, which was fine, in fact I still have one red eyebrow and one blue.
She had beautiful daisies and foliage done by B, very pretty!


We then headed home and did battle with the paddling pool ready for E to come for sleepover - am going to change to calling her L actually as she prefers that - realized our hose connector/adaptor thing had lost its washer and had to ask C to whizz me over to Homebase, picked up another one and eventually had a cleanish paddling pool being used by F and L with slide (which today we find has inevitably made hole in pool bottom, oh well...). 
As well as going in the pool, F and L did a bit of playing with pocket animal toys, lots of Animal Crossing on DS, watching film and The Simpsons and making and eating puff pastry tart things, putting on whatever they fancied. This included such zany combinations as 'cheese and custard' and 'carrot and pineapple' - was pleased they managed to eat all of them and they very much enjoyed cutting out the shapes and choosing bits to put on.

They looked a lot messier than this when they came out, but yummy. They also had garlic bread.
J and I had curry and after we'd all eaten we played Pictionary as is traditional when L sleeps over. J and I won, as is also pretty much traditional. Some tricky ones!
The girls went up about 10ish and watched a film on F's laptop, had a midnight feast at midnight and were still awake and getting a bit noisy at half past one! So I went and asked them to lie down, which F was not happy about, though it turned out she was more worried that I was angry. I wasn't, just wanted them to get some sleep and not be overtired.


This morning they got up about half nine I think, I came down half ten and did croissants for their breakfast and they played a lot of Animal Crossing on DS again and are now in pool (punctured but slow leak!) for their last couple of hours together, playing with pocket animals in boats (tupperware boxes).
Having a non-working day today but will have to work at least some hours each day over the weekend as have fiddly Russian to do. Have planned with J to watch Planet of the Apes films in the evenings!