Letter to a Fellow Blogger

Dear Here We are Together,
Thanks for asking how we are, so nice to hear from you. I hadn't realised how long it was since my last post, thanks for the nudge ;)
We might have been quiet on here but in real life, we have been very busy. Like so many other people we had Christmas and all the eating, drinking, shopping, visiting and presents that come with it :D Once again, we had a delicious Christmas dinner made by my lovely eldest DS and his fabulous girlfriend.
The next few weeks seemed to disappear in a whirl of birthday preparation as Boykin and The Girl have birthdays a week apart. This year, involved a Laserquest party for small boys and a super-organised sleepover for The Girl and her friends. She really has got great skills as a party planner and, if all else fails, I can see her making a living in something along those lines. Her friends enjoyed themselves and went home with packed party bags full of the usual tat but also with some handmade extras :)
In and amongst all this, we had the usual round of groups and activities. The Boy gained his Bronze Award in Beavers and has moved up to Cubs. The Girls has reached Gold 1 at Rookies at swimming.
- As I type, I'm looking out of the window, she is checking for weeds in her garden still in pyjamas and dressing gown :) -
We have rowed Cowboy Charlie, partly as our Five in a Row studies but also because we chose 'Westerns' as a genre to read for bookgroup. It was a book we enjoyed, especially as it was a biography about an artist we'd never heard of - Charles Russell. As well as looking at some of his 4,000 pictures, this also led onto lots of discussions about Indians, eating Cowboy pancakes (Oh yes, we did pancake day too:)), reading other books and watching a couple of old westerns. The Boy even wrote a letter to his Grandad to tell him about it :)
Both children have moved onto their next MEP maths books - yr 3 and yr7. That's going ok, lots of new things to learn and The Girl is keen to do the interactive tests on the website. There's still the usual complaining about not wanting to do Maths but more often than not, they get on with it and do 30 minutes with few problems.
Today though, we're having a maths free morning because my bright spark of a son swallowed a 1p coin yesterday and so we sat in casualty for a couple of hours, getting home about 2.30.We were seen quite quickly initially, but had to wait around to see the Dr before we could leave. the Boy was perfectly fine and the coin had already left his stomach. We now know what his insides look like. The staff were great and explained his x-ray to him. I took our bedtime book to read The Fearless Treasure and we sat and watched BBC2 clips while we waited. I'm so grateful for our NHS service, I would hate to live in a country where you can't just turn up in the middle of the night at the hospital for fear of the cost.
We've had a couple of themed local group sessions already this year, the last one being about machines. I found a series of interesting lenses for learning about simple machines which start here, the links to the rest of the series are at the bottom of each lens. This is something I want to follow up on with the Boy, he loves all this kind of thing :) He's just discovered Technic Lego and has spent quite a bit of time playing with that recently, he got a set for his birthday :)
- Boykin has finally woken up and has gone straight to his Lego box - I hope the lack of maths doesn't encourage him to swallow anymore coins ;) -
Life's been pretty good to us all in all recently. I've been given a lovely new computer desk by a good HE friend, which means I've been able to get on with some writing projects much more easily and I've done lots of decluttering thanks to the inspiration provided by both the New Year and your Facebook page . We are still a very cluttered household, and probably always will be, but there are now 3 much tidier bedrooms and a much improved living room. I just need a couple of sets of low shelves with built-in shoe rack to complete my living room vision......
Last week we went to Coniston with some friends to stay in an independent hostel. We were truly blessed by the weather and did some walking - The Girl went up Coniston Old Man while me and The Boy visited Coniston itself, a lovely little village full of slate houses complete with an Honest Shop.
This week we have enjoyed gardening and sewing while The Boy had a great day out with his Nana in Carlisle. I'm looking forward to seeing his photos when we get them developed :)
I just want to say that I enjoy your blog and the calm, relaxed feel that comes from it. It sounds like such a contrast to the hectic state of affairs at this end :)
Thanks for your comment and thanks for reading my blog.
All the best
Belzi xx