Back to skool
Ho hum, there's the summer gone. September, it's raining, and it was dark by 8 pm!
First Small Person went back to school yesterday, and Second had his first day at pre-school (which seems to have been a success; he clung to my leg for the first hour - fortunately I'd arranged to take the day off work so I could settle him in! - but was very happy to be left later on) - he's still going to nursery 2 days a week, pre-school the other two. Which along with First's two afternoons a week at after-school club means I shall have to do a great big colour-coded chart or something and stick it on the fridge if we are not going to lose track horribly and mislay family members in the course of the daily routine! First has also had another front tooth fall out, which given that the previous one hasn't fully grown through yet and is coming up crooked anyway, means he looks more than ever like a reject from William Brown's Outlaws.
And work has suddenly gone into oh-crap-the-first-crop-of-new-students-turn-up-on-Monday panic mode.
Still, we had a wonderful last few days of the summer - my mother-in-law was turning 60, and so my in-laws rented a huge old farmhouse (described as a "cottage", but quadruple the size of our house!) nestling at the foot of the hills near Allerford on the edge of Exmoor in north Somerset, for the week and the entire extended family decamped down there. There were steam railways and beaches for the Small People (and willing aunties and uncles queueing up to take them there!), pubs and walks and cream teas for the grown-ups, and very sociable evenings as we all took it in turns to cook. There was a big lawn which was much used for croquet and cricket (admittedly, the fact it badly needed mowing added a certain amount of local colour to the play and the rules...); one uncle who plays cricket pretty seriously brought along a half-size bat, stumps and batsman's helmet and taught First Small Person to play quite creditably (including bowling Granny out for a duck!) Everyone had a wonderful time, so we'll just have to rely on those sunny memories to get us through the next few months as the nights draw in, brrr....
First Small Person went back to school yesterday, and Second had his first day at pre-school (which seems to have been a success; he clung to my leg for the first hour - fortunately I'd arranged to take the day off work so I could settle him in! - but was very happy to be left later on) - he's still going to nursery 2 days a week, pre-school the other two. Which along with First's two afternoons a week at after-school club means I shall have to do a great big colour-coded chart or something and stick it on the fridge if we are not going to lose track horribly and mislay family members in the course of the daily routine! First has also had another front tooth fall out, which given that the previous one hasn't fully grown through yet and is coming up crooked anyway, means he looks more than ever like a reject from William Brown's Outlaws.
And work has suddenly gone into oh-crap-the-first-crop-of-new-students-turn-up-on-Monday panic mode.
Still, we had a wonderful last few days of the summer - my mother-in-law was turning 60, and so my in-laws rented a huge old farmhouse (described as a "cottage", but quadruple the size of our house!) nestling at the foot of the hills near Allerford on the edge of Exmoor in north Somerset, for the week and the entire extended family decamped down there. There were steam railways and beaches for the Small People (and willing aunties and uncles queueing up to take them there!), pubs and walks and cream teas for the grown-ups, and very sociable evenings as we all took it in turns to cook. There was a big lawn which was much used for croquet and cricket (admittedly, the fact it badly needed mowing added a certain amount of local colour to the play and the rules...); one uncle who plays cricket pretty seriously brought along a half-size bat, stumps and batsman's helmet and taught First Small Person to play quite creditably (including bowling Granny out for a duck!) Everyone had a wonderful time, so we'll just have to rely on those sunny memories to get us through the next few months as the nights draw in, brrr....