Everything starts far too early

And so we are embarked on the tidal surge of the winter term, a relentless and unforgiving beast.
When Freya went to the last Fencing session of December and they said 'new term starts on January 5th' I thought they would be the only ones that would get going that early. In particular I thought the home-ed only groups/activities, as opposed to the mixed ones, would be slowly heaving themselves out of their Xmas beds, constructed of home-made tinsel and organic pine needles by about Jan 13th say. But oh no, everyone has decided that 2014 needs to get going early and at top speed. Which means I am behind in blogging again.

January 2nd we went to Nigel's panto at The Emporium in Brighton which was excellent. Old-school fun, with proper magical puffs of smoke and flashes of light and all that and a lot of archness and campery and sheer madness. We all 3 enjoyed it very much.

January 3rd and 4th were home days, making the most of the last bits of not having to go places and do stuff and see people. And chances to take the title of the Starfleet Admiral of Catan of course.

January 5th was Freya's first Fencing session of term and I had a nice chat with M for 90 mins, so not too bad a start. 

Monday 6th Geography for Freya, I came home and then she, L and N came here for the afternoon to watch the Strictly Come Dancing Final together and have lunch - N was away when it was on TV. Then we had a dentist check-up appt, which was fine. I still need a repair done to a filling (feel I've delayed it successfully now for a while so will get it done in a few weeks), but J and Freya didn't need any treatment. We celebrated with wraps and chips.

Tuesday 7th Creative Writing (LGP) for Freya - I had the task of opening up the venue and therefore switching off the burglar alarm - last time I had to do that I disgraced myself completely, so that was a scary responsibility. I was fine this time, phew. But there was a new padlock on the cupboard that the table lives in, so that was a quandary. Various options were attempted but not entirely successfully. I left them to it in the end and went home for a couple of hours before picking Freya up afterwards. also picking up L, who came back briefly before her dad picked her up.

Wednesday 8th Forest School (yes even you, Forest School, where once I could rely on you to not realize the new year had started till mid-January, here you are inviting everyone up when the month is still in single figures!), for which lovely CC kindly gave Freya a lift there and back. I actually did some writing! Then a quick demudding bath for Freya and we went off to French, arriving in good time. I had a nice chat and cuppa with A and M and then we got the bus back, which is much less stressful now that we don't have to get to Wednesday Fencing, phew.

Thursday 9th a leisurely morning, hooray, though Freya was working on finishing her magazine (3rd issue, monthly, title Peace) then took Freya up to Dance, had about 8 different text/phone/e-mail requirements/arrangements/interactions suddenly attacking me in one hour at that point, which makes me streSSed. Nothing too horrendous, but just everything seemed to need sorting at once and each sorting required at least 2 different communication action attempts, etc. I not good with all that. Picked Freya up from Art at 6 (she walks down from Dance to Art with D and J) - she is doing some lino printing and about to start a still life - and got her quick panini in Costa, then she joined a big group of Guides going into Brighton on the bus for ice skating. Much excitement! I joined them later as a helper (no, NOT on the ice). Freya had her best ice skate yet in terms of progress as she really let go of the rail and moved away from it and went across and out in the middle. Fantastic! She is an amazing person, with her determination and perseverance. All back on the bus together. Really nice evening.

Friday 10th
Book Club, but only a short introductory. First the girls had a session on our new guidelines, which seemed pretty good from what I heard. The new guidelines strike a really good balance in my view, positive and practical about ways to be more welcoming and friendly, as well as defining the parent volunteer role more and dealing with a few other things.
We did a book swap, which I think went OK, and a rather rushed 'talking about books we read over the holiday period'. Am always mystified when I say 'talk about one book' and a person immediately mentions several books. But there we go, am easily mystified and indeed baffled.
Afterwards, Freya went shopping with friends and then back to L's.

Tomorrow LAMDA drama in morning (just done a bit of practice with Freya, she seems to know her 2 pieces pretty well, they are meant to have learnt it now, but exam isn't till end of March) and Rollerdisco in late afternoon. I have some work to do over the weekend, am already so knackered though from all the logisticals. Freya is also really tired, our next chance for a lie-in is Tuesday.