Busy Summer

Firstly- wow- Ive managed to post twice in the same month-I'm improving!!!
One thing I have to own up to -is being a bit of a charity shop fiend- find it very difficult to pass a charity shop without a quick look for 'treasure'- and above is a small selection- for about £3- which, actually thinking about it, is towards the top end of what I would normally get for six book- but most are pristine. I think that charity shops are, for me, one of the most importnat resources for HEers- after the internet. It is amazing the amount of pristine books that one can get that have obviously been untouched presents on peoples shelves- especially 'reference books'. Recently one of our librarians commented on the amount of factual books that we take out- later in the convesation I brought up the HE topic and she said arhhhhh knowingly- I knew that you were 'different'. Having said that they seemed slighly disapproving when SJ completed the Space Hop challenge in two visits- with quite short books as his 'chosen ones'- not appreciating perhaps that he had actually read the books-excepting one- and that the one he selected to feed back to them was a factual one about the plague!

Lego remains a favourite with the kids- even though I can' t progress much past houses/garages or square boxes. This was FIs horse which we were all very proud of. SJ produces great models-generally on a theme of transport-articulated lorries and variations on caravans.

My big boy recently stretched the apron strings far enough to spend three days with Nanny in MK. Nanny has been requesting this for a couple of years but he never seemed keen until this year- and I am so glad that we waited until he was 'ready' as previously he would say 'yes he wanted to go to Nannys - and we could go too. By all accounts he had a fab time- going to the cinema for the first time (poor deprived child!), digging for fossils and visiting a dinosaur park, baking and cooking, feeding the ducks and walking. He also made his sister a beautiful birthday present- as well as decorating one of the above biscuits as 'daddy' (guess which one!!).

Over the last couple of weeks my poor unsocialised children have hardly been in the house- lots of activities at the local leisure centre, meeting friends, park etc. One of the highlights was a visit to the local play day- where we partook in painting/drumming/crafting/model making/box building/gloop- mental note -to not dress in decent clothes next time and certainly not to put FI in the new dress G&G bought for her birthday!

SJ has just been put up on his Education City levels and has re-discovered it- I realise now I should have put him up a while ago- was probably too focused on trying to get activities 'ticked