All Aboard!!!!!!!!!!!

The Polar Express, not a film easy to describe really. I’m at a loss to know whether it was good or bad. Storyline, not too predictable but strangely unrounded, animation – would have been breath-taking 10 years ago but they got the people as wrong as the first Toy Story. Interesting article about it here On the other hand, Movie Gazette surprisingly forgiving really, given its normal no holds barred approach. Film made me cry at least 4 times, rating it high on the schmaltz factor but the scenery and roller-coaster effect scenes certainly made up for anything it lacked. And i do like Tom Hanks. It’s just not cool to fancy him though is it? He’s been 40 since i was at least 16.

My kids still don’t seem to be up for anything particularly scary; Fran held my hand, Maddy and Amelie both shot into my lap but they all professed to like it in the end. Both were delighted to spot various mates among the school kids – it was only 2/3 full, a shame given some people didn’t get tickets for it who would have liked to. I found myself wondering why it reminded me of Back to the Future, only to discover at the end it was the same director! That’ll be why then. Josie did really well, though thank goodness for breastfeeding as she snuggled off for a feedy-sleep for 2/3 of it. Now her feeding has reduced to ‘convenience’ level, not food, i don’t see myself bothering to wean her really.

Still, all hail Film Education for the free film, can’t beat that.

Popped home for lunch then delivered Ammi then came home for some “work”. Mindful of yesterday; Fran managed to do her 100’s addition flawlessly, an example of how sensible hands on maths is really. She’d been doing vertical addition but because it was adding something like 543 to 61, she decided to dump the 5oo completely as there was nothing to add it to (wtf?) – as we had the base 10 stuff out, it was easy to physically show her just how much she’d decided to discount. Today, she didn’t have the problem. She also did another “crossnumber” puzzle (like a crossword but with sums) this time doing double figure subtraction in her head. I can’t quite work out how i’ll show her what to do when the numbers need swapping up and down but at least she’s getting the idea. She read a book, Maddy and i reviewed her flowers and she wrote another sentence too.

All that actually went on with considerable enthusiasm, especially Maddy who really likes the Singapore maths. She’s started with 1B; it’s almost too easy but it is giving her some ground work in maths she can do in her head and didn’t ‘recognise’ on paper. Most of all, it gives us some time together, which i like and so does she.

That left us some time to go back to SOTW; we coloured the Roman soldier and looked at some source books to see how they were dressed, then did the Roman pages from The Great History Search and the Homes and Houses one.

Finished up with 15 minutes recorder, then legged it out to get Amelie.

Pboro is having some freak weather this afternoon. The sky was extraordinary as we drove out; murky, yellow grey, with a deep purple-grey band in ‘boiling’ cloud streaking across it and most unnervingly places where there was a brightly lit “turret” going up into the sky. In fact, by the time we got to nursery, i was having a complete “Day After Tomorrow” moment and took everyone in with me. And then it started to hammer it down and hail and thunder and there was a rainbow too, mainly due to the fact that the freakish weather, clouds utterly black by now, was sitting like a scull cap right over town, with bright white sky behind it. It’s an effect we get quite a bit here, you can often see the edges of a mini weather-attack that seems to lurk over us for ages. But the only other time i have seen it quite so dramatic was the day of the tornado, which happened just the same and we were on the same road! So i muttered “lightening doesn’t strike twice etc etc” a lot and hurried home. Its now as grey at 7pm and we have howling wind, driving wind and the temperature has dropped 3 degrees.

Utterly peculiar.

EDIT: Tooth the 7th now under the pillow 🙂