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.