Some things change and some things don't.

I know i’m beginning to sound like a whinging parody of Joyce’s blog – but i’m ill again. 🙁 The low level chest thing doesn’t seem to have cleared up and by last nght i was sore, shivery, coughing and hot again. It doesn’t seem so bad today, although like Amelie i have earache, but i don’t feel well. Bah humbug. I just want to be well again.

That said, with Amelie spending her second day on the sofa and Josie with an upset tummy, not much is happening anyway.

We all spent this morning hama-ing with me continuing to feel rather impressed by Fran and Maddy’s improved pattern following skills. It was all very enjoyable; we are working on building a fairytale scene to put on BM. Then Kate came round and she and i planned a website for her dh’s business and leafed through house details (we’re contemplating a house move to gain more space.) The kids Fun Bloxed (see Flickr) and websited, Fran read a book, Maddy did a variety of stamping projects, Josie slept, Amelie lay on the sofa whimpering mostly, though she roused herself up for CBeebies website and Rainbow Rock.

Fran is still cheerfully doing some English and handwriting each day; i’ve laid off the maths and left it to EC to fill that gap for a while. Maddy has just read me half of P&J 3a really easily, which was something of a shock as i wasn’t anticipating her being able to carry words over from one scheme to the other particularly well. But she could. 3a is quite a step up from 2b, Fran never read it in fact so at least it makes a change. There are probably 30 words on the page and they are a good bit less picture-predictable than previously.

Fran has spent the afternoon teaching herself to play Settlers 4, a huge improvement on me trying to teach her before she could read. She’s got through quite a lot of the tutorials. I’ve spent the afternoon mostly on the phone about types of bulk mail sending, franking machines, collection services, houses and cars. Our car got picked up for its body work repairs today; it’ll be away all week and because the injuries were my fault, all i get is a Corsa! I probably could fit them all in, just, but i wouldn’t consider it safe, so Max is jiggling work to help me out for afternoon clubs. In fact, in a considerable reversal of attitude, i have just sent him out in it because i’m too scared to drive anything that small! (I mean, have you seen them? Weeny is not the word! How can it be safe to be that far down???? 😆 )

And now i need to work; the weekend was quiet, then it went mad and i have loads to do. I’m very short of stock and desperate for my delivery to arrive. *SHRIEK* On the other hand, i did start a business blog and anyone who wants to help me with my business planning is more than welcome to ask for the address. Come to think of it, you can probably guess it!

Can’t think of anything esle, we had a quiet weekend. Fran and i talked long and hard about fire safety and what to do in event of a fire. Found it a strangely hard conversation to have; obviously an essential but hard to manage to talk about something as terrifying as “what to do if there is a fire and mummy and daddy don’t seem to be coming to help you” while at the same time managing to be reassuring about the likelihood of it. Of course she asked me why we didn’t have a window ladder (hmmm.. good point, why don’t we?) and if i knew anyone who had had a housefire. Well, yes and no. Not in “real life” but SallyM and PaulaR do bump up the figures somewhat 🙁 Anyway we covered lying on the floor, not hiding from the fire in a cupboard, shouting loudly for mummy and daddy, getting to a window, blankets in front of doors, staying put or if you can see each other clearly standing very close together etc etc. Stay Safe with the Tweenies seemed to have done the ground work anyway. Made me cry though just talking about it; it is amazing how emotion-grabbing even thinking of your children in jeopardy is. Plus i felt bad that we’d not done it before but on the other hand i felt good that it started because she read a poster on the fire station.

Off for Nurofen.