Viewing Lights, Burning Clocks, Floating Santa

Thursday 20th

The day started with Freya being worried about things that might or might not happen in a couple of years time, which is something I struggle to be patient with, and usually means she actually has nothing to worry about right now so has had to find something. Anyway, it was not the best way to start the day.
Pollyanna Pollyanna Pollyanna moving on...

I can't remember much of the daytime, so I wonder if I was working. I know I popped to the shop with Freya and she had to go in without me to get something secret and surprising that J and I will find out about in good time. And I lurked around the outside in the rain in my black hoodie - some teenage lads said 'hello' to me as they got out of their car, which doesn't usually happen so must be something to do with the lurking and the hoodie with the hood up!
Noticed there is a little cross in the shop garden just in front of the big Christmas tree. Realized that it must be for the lovely black cat, Charlie, that used to be the shop cat. They have another white cat now - their cats always lie on the scales, which I realize probably isn't recommended health and safety but I do find it endearing. The guy who runs the shop is a grumpy sod on the whole but he does love his cats.

J made some cards from the photos he took of Freya writing letters in the air with sparklers.
They look like this:

And Freya made a cube santa, after seeing one on CBBC website I think, worked out how to do her own version and I helped with sticking:

Freya and I went into Brighton and bought a present for her friend L, then we did our Annual Xmas Lights Viewing Bus Ride, which is a Great Tradition. This year we opted to go to Tunbridge Wells and back (think last year it was more of an East-West coastal route. It was lovely, we had various snacks and looked out for the best Xmas Lights we could see, chatted away about all sorts including her asking what it means to say a person is shallow, talked about the Rocky Horror Show, transexuals, and much other stuff. Also played anagrams, whch is our current word game of choice, usually film titles. Saw some lovely lights, I think there are fewer houses with lights up this year, but where people have put them up they have really made a huge effort, there were beautifully adorned trees and hedges in places.

At Tunbridge Wells, we ended up in (Oh No!) McDonalds in the arcade, think Freya has only partaken of a McDonalds once or twice in her life. It was much as one would expect, but hey salty potato products always have some charm.
After that wondrous culinary joyfulness, we went to the loo and Freya was tempted by a photo booth so I gave her £2 and she got this:

but I think she was expecting something else, so wasn't entirely satisfied.

Then we admired the 'grotto' and in particular the robot snowman who sang his last two Christmas tracks for us, accompanied by teetering penguins. At 19:49 he suddenly lolled his head back and stopped, as if it had all been too much, slightly unnerving us. Freya hid behind me in case he was suddenly going to start up again, but we were giggling too.
Caught a bus back with only a 5-minute wait, and admired our favourites of the lights we had already seen, munched cookies (have been joking with Freya about my great nutritional provision when we've been out lately, largely consisting of sugar and salt it seems, oh and Coke, oops), chatted more and looked forward to Christmas.
We got onto words that sound the same but have different meanings and so I promised to show her the Two Ronnies Fork Handles sketch on YouTube at home, which we did, also watched Bill Bailey on Argos, as a friend had linked to it. Nice funny things to watch for a short late bedtime.

Friday 21st

Freya was trying to create secret writing systems using green cellophane and green and red pens, but the colours weren't quite right, so might be revisited later. Her friend L came at 11ish and they exchanged presents very happily, watched Barbie: A Perfect Christmas (very very Christmassy and about perfect Christmas being perfect because of the people you are with and unexpected things that happen, not necessarily the special things you might have planned to do), made and ate pesto pastry pinwheels, played on the CBBC site and played Sylvanians for ages.

Later Freya and I went into Brighton on the bus to go to Burning of the Clocks. We went straight to the Marwood for a hot chocolate. They have moved things around in there and I don't like it quite as much. Hot choc was good though and I don't know if they always had a mannekin hand as the door handle for going out, maybe they did and I never actually used it before.
Then we watched the parade, which was lovely as ever, followed it down to the seafront, dancing a bit here and there. Tried and failed to buy chips due to me getting huffy when the stall didn't have x, y or z that we had wanted with our chips and weren't apologetic about just having sausages. Also the pier was closed - we had wanted to eat chips on pier. We adjusted to crepes on the beach instead (more excellent nutritional provision from me) and Freya collected lots of shells and we enjoyed the fireworks, which seemed particularly good this year.

Highly amused when, after we came back, F went to the loo, and emerged quite a while later and the first thing she said to J was "I had a crepe" and we teased her that we thought she was just pronouncing something else in a posh way...

Saturday 22nd

We went into town all 3 of us, buying various things still needed - for me it meant I had an excuse to go in the 3 shops in Lewes that are most full of gorgeous stuff of various kinds (Tizz's, Wickle and Bright Ideas). I don't often go in them, except for presents, it is very easy to spend a fortune in all of them, but they are bursting with little lovely things of all sorts.
We all met up at Costa for a drink and J and Freya played a game on his tablet - 100 Doors I think it's called, very puzzly and a bit mathsy.

Then we went on to the Christmas Rollerdisco, where we met up with C, K, L, M and little D. Freya made me very proud by getting to the point of being able to go round by herself for the last 45 minutes! She has been working towards that for about 3 months, am just bursting with pride at her determination and persistence. I don't think she gets that from me.
So Hoorah, what a great thing to achieve at the end of 2012!

Back home, we enjoyed a curry and Strictly Final, was all good.

Sunday 23rd
J's dad came and it was a particularly lovely visit, not least because of this moment when he gave Freya a huge box to open and as she undid it, a Father Christmas helium balloon came bursting out:

(sorry to everyone who has already seen this, I did post it everywhere, but had to have it on blog too).

He also admired the lovely card J had made, we all opened some prezzies - he gave me a DS game, Arthur Christmas on DVD and a TV series I wanted and Freya got a Mr Gum book, a Diary of a Wimpy Kid one and a David Walliams - and treated us all to a meal out at Pizza Express. All feeling very festive, and then the Christmas food shop came, and had a nice chilled evening, watched Mr Stink and generally relaxed.

Have lovely Christmases all, I do hope for 2013 to bring us all some good stuff, many of us have had a rocky few years and would like an easy one now I know. Here's hoping xxx

Kung Fu Fighting Monkeys and Lime Bunches

Weekend 8th and 9th - I had a worky sort of weekend mainly, unfortunately. I had had one of those little freelancer panics and said 'yes' to every job thrown at me. So there will be a bit of dosh in February, mostly to pay tax becoming due end of January, but right now I'm having to count the pennies and restrain myself a bit with prezzie-buying.
Enjoyed Strictly Come Dancing, watched The Dark Knight Rises with J on Sunday night and enjoyed that too. J and Freya got the tree up and lights on so that was luvverly.

Monday 10th we went to group and took jars again. Lots of jar decorating was done by adults as well as children.

Afterwards back in Lewes all 3 of us had dental check-ups, which went fine, allowing Freya to properly look forward to Christmas from then on without a dentist in the way.

Tuesday and Wednesday 11th and 12th were days at home, with me working in the morning and then in the afternoons we did:
knitting and learning to knit
a writing exercise that Freya planned - choose 3 objects in the room and write about them however you like but involving lots of descriptive words
watching Monsters Inc and other things
baking tasty but odd-shaped biscuits, a delicious banana loaf and some garlic flatbreads - Freya can now do almost all the stages of recipes herself
and lots of chatting and giggling and snuggling and basically all the stuff I really like about cosy days at home

Thursday 13th was Livewires Christmas/Yuletide/Festive/Seasonal session, we took jars again!

Usually I take an activity aimed firmly at the 8s and over end, but this time I had a lot of little crafters at my table and quite enjoyed it as a bit of a change. One little girl, who looked about 5 but had social/interpersonal skills of age 12, told me all about presents she was giving to her friends and who liked what so why they were getting the particular choices. And she was going to be an artist when she grew up. And a doctor. And a Christian. In fact she had her grown-up schedule planned - Artist on Mondays, Doctor on Tuesdays and Christian on Wednesdays. then repeat, with Sundays off.

Also on Thursday I did some more work and my prep for Friday Book Club and typed up a 3-chapter story Freya had written. Here are a couple of extracts:

“Now we shall proceed,” said Barney. “Snowmen are made out of sand I tell you, sand!”

And so they proceeded up many stairs, really like more than your grandma and grandpa’s ages put together (you may have quite young grandparents, but surely they must be over thirty). Before they even got to the top, they once again ran into nasty old Brendan Cole, who said “I tried to stop you as hard as I could, but now it’s all up to Mr Bald Man. Though of course I can put you through to a certain somebody. Follow me!” And so they did, for when they got to the top, Sertine Sumbodey was waiting for them, lime bunches and all."

"And so they went through to the bald man. The atmosphere was shaking from fear, business and kung fu fighting monkeys, a lot of which decided they were already too bored to see how our story finishes, so decided to skip the entire week and go to the rollerdisco in ballet frocks, therefore missing out on the GREAT BIG SURPRISE in this next bit here."

On Friday 14th it was Book Club, where we had 2 new girls attending so we now have 10. We discussed Mr Gum, The Boy in the Dress and Daisy and the Trouble with...(books). Then we moved on to our next theme of winter, snow, Christmas and had prolonged discussion of questions on that theme, e.g. Does your family have any special traditions at this time of year? Would you like to spend Christmas in Australia? etc. I sense some of the members love the discussions and others aren't sure if there's a point! Might try and attach the discussion more to books. With 10, if everyone is getting the opportunity to speak, any question takes ages! Our next month's book choice is all snow/winter themed: The Wolves of Willoughby Chase (Joan Aiken); The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (C S Lewis); The Long Winter (Laura Ingalls Wilder). After the discussion bit and a snack break, I gave them some comprehensiony stuff to do and we discussed that, then a game to find out what the 3 books would be (snippets of text, blurb, picture of cover, title, author - all folded in a bowl and they close their eyes and pick one out and gradually see what the 3 are).

Then yoga and home.

Saturday 15th Freya and I went into town and bought beads and makings for her to make bracelets for friends - unfortunately we chose the wrong sort of thread stuff, which turned out not to work well, will know another time, had to improvise with ordinary thread and decide that they could be room decorations or charms instead. 

Then we looked for puppet-making scraps and trimmings but didn't like what we found so will try Brighton.

Then a drink and snack, before heading over to the leisure centre, where Freya had a swim and a few goes on the inflatable obstacle course thing with her friend L, then came out and into the rollerdisco. Rollerdisco was very good as by the end Freya's confidence and ability had definitely improved a lot. She finished by going round twice on her own and not falling over, Hooray!

Sunday 16th I had to work and work and work. And it's been like that mostly since. J and Freya made a cool set of photos to turn into a Xmas card, with Freya doing sparkler writing in the dark and J using long exposure to capture each letter.

But we did get to Monday group on Monday 17th - however Monday group is only getting 7 families most weeks, which isn't enough, so we're thinking we will not book the hall through January and try a monthly meet from February onwards, see how that goes. There is so much more available now to home-ed families locally that Monday group isn't always going to be the thing they choose to do. Hall rent went up this year, so we went down to 2 hours from 3, but we are still coming in under what we need.

Back home, I helped Freya make some of her bracelet presents, then was back to my work.

Tuesday 18th L's grandad D kindly gave Freya a lift to and from creative writing group, as I was near the end of a work marathon by then. She also got her own breakfast and snacks and entertained herself, as I was just completely 'in it'. Was a relief when I finally finished that one.

Wednesday 19th today - after one of my lovely post-workathon sleeps we stayed in and I did some chores that needed doing (washing and hoovering in particular) and then we watched the original Miracle on 34th Street, which made me feel very Christmassy and I enjoyed chatting idly about it too.

 

Cow poo, Cookery and Ice

Monday
We went to Monday group and it was a quiet one, I took glass jars and decorating stuff and tea lights to go in them, but not many people were there, so will do it next week with more, hopefully. L brought lovely little cakes in for her boy A's birthday, though we're all in denial that he could seriously be that 12+1 age. So he's not going to be. But nice cake anyway.
Afterwards we met up with J and went to Infinity cafe, where delicious food was chomped.

Tuesday
I took Freya up to drama (via a 5-minute practice in the park), then didn't see her again till after writing, as C took the 3 drama girls on to that. All seemed to have gone fine, they had done a bit of play writing. Not sure how the rest of our day went, all a bit of a blur now.

Wednesday
Freya had Forest School - it was snowing as they headed off, but didn't last or settle. They did a very long walk, including cow poo and electric fence investigations, so fine work there.
In the afternoon I think we watched something but had some technical glitches for a while.

Thursday
Freya went off to cookery and I headed off later to pick her up with L. I saw (and first smelt) the delicious party food they had made. It was lovely to sample the food, and chat a bit with V who runs the cookery sessions. It's a shame F will miss next week's as it clashes with Livewires Christmas party. Freya had been particularly responsible for the very delicious bruschetta garlic bread thingies with various combinations of olives, peppers, tomato, basil on them. There were also cakes, quiche, mince pies and vol-au-vents. 
We didn't leave till half past, as there was a lot of sampling of food to be done. I helped a bit with some washing up. Then our buses were a bit poor, so didn't get back to ours for L to play until getting on for 2.
Met up again with L and co, and with N and co, early evening at Lewes late-night Christmas shopping, which was as usual graced by rain. The girls enjoyed it, adults had various stresses, but was OK. I think the highlights were the 4 of them all having rainbow face paints done, with sparkles, and the nice grandma who reassured Freya that she wasn't too big to see Father Christmas at all, because she was going to go herself and sit on his knee.

Friday
Friday Club was ice skating, most of the usual people were there, was nice to have various chats (as I can't think of many things I'd like less than trying to move on ice, I took on various glove-keeping, phone-holding, picture-taking obligations and chatted to any pausers by the wall). Freya was allowed to use a penguin, which really helped. Treated the girls who stayed after to hot chocolate, was a lovely morning, glad it was sunny after the rainy night.
Then bus back for yoga, more chatting for me and a harmonious walk back, has been rather a good week.

Cookery, Puppetry and Consequences

Thursday I waved Freya off to:
cookery class (one of three for the 10+ age group over next few weeks) - they made a complete vegetarian Christmas dinner, her team was the veg team and did peeling, chopping and cooking of potatoes, sweet potatoes and brussel sprouts (I think). Her friends L and M were there and a few others she knows.
playing at L's house in the afternoon and then sleepover there - they made and decorated cupcakes, did some writing and played variations on hide-and-seek in dark, amongst other things then on Friday
puppetry workshop - part of new Friday Club (I will stop calling it 'new' after Christmas), for Friday club some sessions are provided free by home-ed parents, others are provided at a payment by outside professionals/experts, this was one where a puppet man came in and brought lots of fab materials, showed them how to make stick and rod puppets and they all made them - it seemed to go very well, Freya enjoyed it and wants to make more puppets now
I came in at the end, then we were off to yoga, via K and N's house where a group of girls stopped for a short play
Yoga then, I had a good chat, as ever, with K and M (yes it does seem we know far too many people around the middle of the alphabet).
Saturday we were going to go to rollerdisco and some other things before it, but I had to withdraw that as a Consequence, oh dear.
Have a couple of busier weeks ahead, with writing, more cookery, ice skating, Livewires, book club and all the usual things as well.

Midweek catch-up and some book recommendations

F had a lovely time at L in Btn's sleepover - they decorated T-shirts and watched Strictly, so no complaints there. Picked up with C mid-afternoon and bid L's family a fond farewell as they are all off to Australia and New Zealand for 7 weeks now.
Can I remember much of Monday? Nope. We didn't go to group, but Freya did go to drama. I didn't visit mum - as it turned out a good thing as the care home has the Norovirus.
I was working I think, apart from that, and stayed up later Monday night into small hours of Tuesday morning with a large French job and a small Russian job, all completed and delivered on time, so hooray.
Tuesday I printed off some KS3 maths questions from this site as I felt Freya was having a bit of a crisis of confidence/motivation with maths - she's always had a good feel for numbers and other maths stuff, but had lost her way a bit just lately. She really enjoyed doing a greater variety of questions, rather than repetitive practice, and found she was quite able to successfully complete questions in many different areas. She particularly liked the questions that were based in real-life situations too.

I have done a bit of resources ordering recently and can now thoroughly recommend the following books:
"The Murderous Maths of Everything" for some fun bits and pieces about mathematical concepts and history
"How to be the Best Bubblewriter in the World, Ever!" for playing with different arty writing for posters and cards 
"The Multiplication Tables Colouring Book: Solve the Puzzle Pictures While Learning Your Tables" for a very visual/puzzle-based approach to practising tables 
and 
"Write Stuff: Creative Writing for Girls" which I put off buying for ages due to the gender focus but then went with it as 3 of Freya's friends all had the book and it looked right up her street 
so am feeling a bit renewed and invigorated in terms of looking ahead and secondary ed. Also have a plan for a project that I hope to get on with and report back on.

Today Freya went to Forest School, a nice bright day to be out. We spent a lot of the afternoon watching episodes of I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here and she was doing various writing and other things at the same time. We've also recently watched Young Apprentice and Gadget Man.
Tomorrow she is off to a cookery workshop, then playing at friend's and sleepover, then Friday puppetry workshop at new Friday club and yoga. 
 

J's birthday, Victorian Livewires, Children in Need, Book Club

Lots to catch up on then

Saturday 10th
Freya and I made a cake for J's birthday, combining sticky toffee cake with chocolate cake, all vegan and actually very good. Freya did a lot of the weighing and measuring and mixing for both cakes. In the evening I went all grown-up and whisked myself off by taxi to see a play - Freya's LAMDA drama teacher Margo was in a Pinter two-hander, Ashes to Ashes, performed at a local old large house in the parlour, and the lady of the house prepared chilli and garlic bread for us to eat afterwards! Wow, a very unusual night out (well actually any night out on my own is very unusual!). The play was dark (I was amazed how different M looked, she is a very sunshiney person naturally), very cryptic and thought-provoking and subject to much discussion afterwards, which was really enjoyable. Also there was wine! Nice!

Sunday 11th
J's birthday, Freya and I iced the cake, she did the top by herself - I am still too interferingish in the kitchen with her, I need to let her loose a bit with recipes now I think - with caramel icing.

J was very pleased with his presents - his mum came for the afternoon and he had quite a few to open including a vegan Japanese cookbook from the cats, a Nexus 7, some games and films and vegan truffles.
After J's mum went, we had a delicious curry and watched a film I think - wonder what it was! Oh I know Men in Black 3 in 3D, enjoyed it.

Monday 12th 
At MMs the children played almost all together in a group in the hall (must have been wet weather) - they did some variant of Strictly Come Dancing, complete with judges, I think Freya was 2 of the judges, Darcey and someone? In the meantime I tried to draw C, but she turned out looking like me, which was all a bit psych. Then got the bus (Pollyannarizing bus journey), headed back and dropped Freya at drama and movement, while I went to mum's care home and had a sort of reminiscence session with the activities coordinator, partly to find out more about mum for them. It was lovely to hear that she has done a little bit of painting since she has been there, though I have even let that go now - in a way, when someone has dementia you tend to want bits of them back but you tell yourself it's for them, they would be happier if they did such-and-such, but in fact if they are happy as they are, that's fine and sometimes a relative saying 'oh but you always loved your garden' is the most unhelpful thing. So I have let go of 'can we get mum back to painting?' as she enjoys some completely different things now. Nevertheless if she does some at the Wednesday art sessions and enjoys it, all well and good. She has been for short walks, afternoon tea out, cat santuary visit, pamper sessions, etc. She seems very content there on the whole, definitely liking the company, pointing at one of the residents and telling me he was naughty, giggling at various things and helping to make smoothies. I am booked to go on the Christmas Lunch at local hotel this week with them, should be fun!

Tuesday 13th 
I had to work pretty much all day, which was a shame in J's week off, but there we go. Freya huffed about a bit in a 'don't know what to do' type of way for a while but then ended up doing some reading and made a thing with geomags attached to a big metal ball, sticking out like spokes around a hub, then used other geomags to make it rotate freely (just like a motor!). So that was very cool.

Wednesday 14th 
Freya went to Forest School and came back with a lovely basket she had woven

I really like it, it has a slice of a branch as its base, with holes that she drilled in, then verticals pushed into holes, and longer thin branches of different shades woven round it. She had a bit of help with holding things steady as it was a very 2-handed process.

Thursday 15th 
We had Livewires on the theme of Victorians, which was a great big one to tackle and the 8 or so families that came along did a great job, bringing a good range of activities covering the age range well. I brought some A4 card and lots of small pictures and bits of text printed out and cut out to be combined to make posters or collages on child labour, fashion and inventions. I suspect I will do that again as it seemed quite a good one for the older children, they each ended up with something that was theirs, enjoyed choosing their bits from the sources provided. And edumacational too.
But the bit I liked best was this Meccano steam engine that a parent brought in and got working, with a proper little boiler and everything:

Coo.

Friday 16th
Local parent K, over the last few months, has been planning a Friday Club primarily for the 9-13s - there is a cluster of girls in this age group in particular and they already see something of each other at various things several times a week, so he thought that a regular weekly session that most of them might come to most of the time would be a good bonding thing for them and a chance to try various things at their level. Obviously this is great for us! Originally the first session had been planned for the 9th, as a chance for us all to discuss what sort of things we wanted from such a group. That couldn't happen after all in the end, unfortunately, but in a way, this was better as we had the first Friday Club session as preparing cakes for Children in Need, watching an information video on the CiN website, then selling their cakes in the high street straight afterwards. It was a brilliant positive experience for all involved - in previous years a few of us, also organized by K, have done this (also for Red Nose Day), and it has always been a great thing to be part of. This time round we had a lot more participants from further afield! The children went off in small groups with trays of cakes and sold them in shops all around where we were based - it gave them a terrific experience - independence and contributing to the charity themselves. It was fun for parents too, usually there are only 3 or 4 of us hanging around the stall, but this time about 8, including people I don't see so often, was nice to chat. If I had chatted a bit less during making and selling of cakes, I'd have got a picture while there was still a tableful of goodies!

The venue for the new Friday Club is also a great find I think, more on that in a bit.
We raised just over £200.
We then met J and all 3 went into Brighton to see Madagascar 3 (enjoyed it) and go to Yo! Sushi, so that was a lovely Friday!
Freya and I watched CiN until 11:30ish, having waited a bit longer than hoped for a new total at that point.

Saturday 17th
Rollerdisco - we do this every 2 weeks with a few other local home-ed families, a nice idea organized by M - I normally sit on the bench, but I walked round with Freya a lot this time as she is at the stage of still needing someone with her - C has very kindly skated with her a lot of times previously. I am not keen on getting on wheels myself, so I just walked around as a relatively stable escort for her. By the end she was going further without needing to grab me, so she is getting there. A hard hard thing for her and her confidence took a knock earlier on with a couple of falls, but she has such admirable determination overall, despite the odd 'I can't do this!' wail about it. I couldn't/wouldn't bloody do it, so she amazes me.

Sunday 18th
I think this was a day of nothing much, which I needed, mainly some work and a bath.

Monday 19th
MMs again, not sure if they were doing a bit more of their Strictly Come Dancing game. Enjoyed chatting with various adults, can't remember much else about it. Then took her to drama and I went for a nice cuppa with friend M as wasn't in the right frame of mind for visiting mum as I usually do. 
Watched the girls perform their dance pieces at end of drama, Freya is enjoying this looser more informal drama/movement group and the plan is for it to continue on, now the first 6 sessions have run.
Had good news on work front as 2 medium jobs came in to add to November money, which needed it.

Tuesday 20th
Walked Freya up to LAMDA drama, then had a few hours to myself (achieved a bit of mum-admin-fimance stuff, hooray!) as C was doing the transfer of the 3 girls from that to LGP writing group in town centre. Then my turn to pick 3 up to come back to ours where they played in Freya's room and M had to go at 4:30 but L stayed for tea, which was lovely as we haven't managed that for ages. I think Freya and L played Sylvanians for part of the time, which sounded fun from bits I heard floating down the stairs.

Wednesday 21st
Freya had Forest School and came back excited about a big new shelter they are building, almost Yurt-like, following on from enjoying the basket weaving I think. They had made holes and put verticals in and would be continuing hopefully in following weeks. Sounds fab! Every now and then with Forest School it seems their interest and engagement slumps a bit, but then something like this picks it right up again. In the afternoon Freya and I watched Madagascar (the first one), and she went on to watch the second one too, because we were going to

Thursday 22nd
We were taking L to cinema with me and Freya to see Madagascar 3 in 3D (we had all seen it in 2D but had planned this too), I knew C would be rushing like mad to get L to cinema, but we had nothing to make us late - annoying then when Freya stalled when asked to start getting ready. Turned into quite a hoo-ha and meant we were on the last of 3 possible buses instead of the first, which I had planned for. Grrr, but never mind. We did get there in time, didn't miss any of film, but I felt crap in terms of causing worry to C and L and with C having rushed back for it, etc. One of those ones.
Film was fun though, 3D bits were good and it was lovely to take Freya and L together - hope we can do it again at Christmas or before.
We all met up again with C and L's siblings afterwards for drink and snack, lovely afternoon.

Friday 23rd
Friday Club second session (the idea is that not all will come to all sessions but a core of children will come to most and younger/older siblings also able to come to some) - My Very Own Book Club!
K had approached me a while ago asking me to consider running a monthly bookclub in his Friday morning slot and I didn't take much persuading to be honest! 
I had prepared (after finishing work at midnight, oops!) a session of introductory getting to know each other stuff and a focus on humour in books. I had 9 girls in the group and I think it went really well. I had a beaker with folded up bits of paper in (an old favourite for me and Freya for choosing activities at one time in particular) - each piece had either a quote about reading/books or a question about reading/books, so we took it in turns to take one out and read/ask it to the group. Everyone seemed quite happy to do that, not too shy, etc. Lots of great discussion on our favourite books, whether we like sad books, memories of early books, favourite places to read in, etc. I used that to begin and end the session. In between we did a 'put the right bits of book blurb together with title and cover picture' game, and I read aloud some supposedly humorous children's literature (Pippi Longstocking and Just William) to lead into discussion of how authors make us laugh (we didn't go very deep, it being a first session), then gave them all extracts from James and the Giant Peach, a Daisy book, a Mr Gum, a Mirro-Belle and a Jeremy Strong to analyse a bit for what made them laugh, gave them 20-30 mins on that, then we discussed it.
We also had a break and devoured some profiterole pudding that D had brought as a surprise.
They are (early days but) a lovely group, plenty of discussion and seem able also to listen to each other when not too excited. 
Am excited!
Had to rush home too soon afterwards to send some work I'd forgotten to deliver, then back to meet up for end of yoga, K having walked Freya to yoga with others.

Yesterday Saturday 24th
L in Brighton's birthday party, and Freya stayed for sleepover - about to pick her up with C very soon!
Stopping there now, phew.