Park meet, Livewires Italy, New term activities

Saturday 14th
Freya came back from D's sleepover, having had a lovely time - swimming, pizza and chocolate ice-cream at Ask, travels in minibus full of girls and not much sleep of course. She looked very sleepy by bedtime and fell asleep flopped against J during an episode of Quantum Leap.

Sunday 15th
J was working again, can't remember what we did, but walked Freya up to local small cinema in the afternoon to meet L, M and N and see Despicable Me 2 with No Adults Whatsoever accompanying them. They enjoyed it. Will have to keep an eye on what films are on there, so they can go again once a month or so maybe.

Monday 16th
L (mum of R and R) had organized a park meet-up at Hove Park. I was taking Freya and L and M by bus. Discovered the new mobile tickets that you can get on your phone, very useful, got a Family Saver for £9, which paid for four buses for four of us all day. Sorry all non Bus Geeks but hey.
Had lots of chatting time with L, plus a few new and potential home-ed people. The children had a good play as it was a dry day and mostly sunny, and it's a good park, with a zip wire and interesting equipment. One of the Rs has gone to school this term, so that was particularly interesting to talk about with L.

Tuesday 17th
Little Green Pig creative writing, Freya walked there by herself and I picked her up later. Trying to think what else happened, did we watch a film? Or was that Monday? Whenever it was, it was Galaxy Quest, which I do very heart.

Wednesday 18th
Forest School was cancelled but CC didn't know, so arrived to pick Freya up - invited her in for a nice cuppa and chat instead anyway.
New group for French was starting, so Freya and I headed into Brighton on buses for that, seemed to go well and she brought back some vocabulary to learn. I had a nice hour of chat and knitting at A's.
Then headed back to Lewes, L and M's grandpa kindly giving us a lift, for Fencing for Freya, which means more chat and knitting for me. Home for J's yummy pasta, he had the sauce already cooking, was nice.

Thursday 19th
K gave us a lift to Livewires, which was on the theme of Italy. I took a bit too much wordy stuff really, about my favourite four famous Italians (Galileo, Fibonacci, Vivaldi and Leonardo da Vinci). The Vivaldi was the most popular - I had The Four Seasons playing on our iPad, which was enjoyed especially, and a sheet divided into four coloured sections for making up poems using the sounds of the seasons. I should have gone more hands-on with the Galileo I think, would have been fun, but this was easier to prepare in a busy week.
Other activities included: mosaic-making - nice pieces of china, etc. to use on wood bases; making a decorative Italian flag using different painted pasta shapes; making fresh pasta from scratch, including using the little shaping machine - definitely the most popular activity, C was kept busy non-stop for ages.
Next month's activity is Favourite Books, which will be a good one for some of the older children to do themselves if they want, as well as the usual adult input elements.
Freya was offered a lift by C and chance to play with friends there as they were all going to the same new dance group at 2ish. Although it worked out fine, I did feel weird that Freya was going to something new without me dropping her off, or meeting the people or anything. Not used to it. Other consequences too and then, when I went to pick her up, I went to the wrong (similarly named) place, arrrgh, so much rushing around in pouring rain and phone calls with C. All worked out OK I guess.
Anyway, she really enjoyed dance, apart from wishing she had trimmed her nails beforehand, as her friend J now bears some marks I think, as Freya's right hand doesn't always do what she wants it to. They did the first few steps of a jive and Freya has practised a bit since.
J (not dancing J, but our J) got home in time to cook soup and garlic bread before we had to go out for Guides. While Freya was at Guides, I went and saw my mum, who was in good health and happy. Showed her some photos of Freya and watched some telly with her. Guides sounded to have been a good session, plans made for things they are doing soon.

Friday 20th
Friday Club today is a foraging workshop, we had trouble getting there on time, but not too bad in the end, after me stressing poor Freya out too much really at the start of walking there. The rest of today is quite leisurely, hope to get caught up on washing and have a bath (except when I went to pick her up after writing most of this, she went back to play at N's with some other girls and half the afternoon seemed to go by!) and maybe play some Harvest Moon, which arrived this morning for me and for Freya.
J has made more bread, and is also making garlic focaccia, niiiiiice.
Saturday, Freya has new drama group starting, then in the afternoon a swim, party and sleepover. Sunday, will pick her up and we might go to the local woodfair.

Our usual week now looks like this:
Monday - Geography
Tuesday - Creative Writing (fortnightly)
Wednesday - Forest School, French, Fencing
Thursday - (Livewires monthly), Dancing, Guides
Friday - Friday Club
Saturday - Drama
As well as rollerdisco every other weekend, various swimming or cinema arrangements too.
Fortunately all except 3 of those things are in Lewes, and with various subsets of the same group of girls as Friday Club.