Forgotten stuff again.

It’s been a bit of a haze, this last couple of weeks. I think i blogged till just before the Festival of History but i can’t remember wednesday (i worked some of it, Max did something quite meaningful with them – i know, geography of Europe, loads of different types and styles of maps and seeing what ocuntries they knew (lots, nearly as many as my sister!) Thursday i honestly have no idea but i know i was slumping quite badly downwards so it may well have been a day of playing. I say that, i would re-iterate that even on a day when i say we do nothing, the girls will normally all do 2 or 3 things out of maths, reading, writing,computer time and music – but i don’t bother to say it anymore.

Oh, we did have a mollusc moment and watched this snail on our window for ages, thereby discovering how he moves.

And we also had a good trip into town together (me and the kids) and bought books galore (including a decent dictionary for Fran who now requires one a bit more often) and happened to see the sofa we liked in the sale.

Friday i decided to go to work and mope and Max thought that was a very bad idea, so i went to Twin Lakes with them instead. We had a good time, but i kept falling asleep, which is something of a feature of my life currently. I’m either becoming narcoleptic  or turning into my Nana. 🙄

Saturday we hurled our camping stuff in the car and headed off to Kelmarsh for The Festival of History, meeting up with many friends from the MudPud days and more. The girls absolutely loved it, as did i and we’ll definitely being going back another year. Much as  ilike the days, my favourite bit of it was the parade at the end of the first day, when the Romans did a guard of honour for all the people involved – i loved the sense of respect and camaraderie.

My favourite, i love the colours.

Actually, i’m never so keen on Civil War enacting; it always seems to be mainly boys playing with guns and seeing how long the can prolong the banging for. So i did laugh when i discovered a good friend of MF’s had been on one of the Civil War Cavalry for the day 😆

As a family, we were literally blown away by the D-Day Drop Zone display; being buzzed by a Spitfire and Mess… oh, German plane or two was glorious and the girls were enraptured by it. Maddy made me laugh when i told her they were real planes from the WW2 – “What, they were really there? Shouldn’t they be in a museum?!?!?!?!” They got a big kick out of connecting it with the Imperial War Museum visit and adored the paratroopers; on the second day one had to cut his main parachute and use his reserve. Slightly heartstopping given how low they jumped from, i would imagine! We used to go to loads of airshows as kids, but i never saw that happen before.

Enactments of that period always make me think of a favourite book of mine, Light of the Moon by Elizabeth Buchan  which is about an SOE operative working with the French Resistance. It is an excellent book; Max and i visited the town it is based around, Riberac, on our pre-wedding Honeymoon.

Had a lovely evening with friends and were very grateful to the Beans for their loan of floor space in a tent; did more history the next day.

Last week the girls spent the week at a Summer Activity Day Camp at a local school. The big 3 all went and had a complete blast; 9-4.30 days for a full week was a bit tiring for them but they did so much stuff; tennis, quad biking, golf, archery, shooting, football, craft, bouncy castles, swimming, art – you name it, it was laid on. I got glowing reports about all 3 of them. Certainly no lack of social skills, that was for sure 🙂 It meant that Josie and i had a very quiet week together, which we really enjoyed. She accompanied me to work a couple of mornings and therefore got to play with LF once (and go home to Auntie Sue’s with her for a while) and also with PTF’s little boy one day and then one day we spent with Auntie Kate and Madison, where the little ones played gorgeously in the garden while we tried to solve all our problems and one day we went on a trip to a farm with MF and LF. Josie wasn’t too sure of the animals ( 🙄 ) but she and i had a cosy bonding moment on the tractor ride 🙂 She and i also spent a morning in town together and had “posh lunch” – ie, anything else but MacDonalds.

Was very odd to have hardly any child interaction for the week; i missed them, but really enjoyed my time with Josie and having a bit of a break – plus it gave Max and i time to do some talking and to do the VAT return (business so dire currently that he owes ME money 🙁 )