I think I'll have to resign myself to monthly blog updates from now on. I spend so little time on the computer now and am really very busy.
I find myself wishing for more days in the week. Don't get me wrong there are quiet moments then there are also moments of dashing to one thing, home again and back out. The beginning of our week tends to be relatively quiet. Then we have outings on Weds, swimming, french, dance; Thurs, drama, papers and guides on Friday. Weekends fly by especially as A is working towards the end of term production with her drama group, and D and M working towards the end of year dance show, so Sunday afternoon tends to be my free time when I walk the dog along the river for an hour or so. I would do longer and may do as it gets lighter in the evening.
I was talking to some home-ed Mums I know and one was saying she had cut back and is in 2 days a week now. In fact round here it is a good week if you have 2 days at home lol, but of course usually there is shopping to do as well.

I have been having a hard time emotionally this past month or so. I won't go into it but it involves heavy family stuff. I have reached real lows yet I am carrying on.

I had my sisters 2 lovely children (she has 3 but my eldest niece stayed home to revise for her upcoming GCSE's!!)come to stay for just over a week. A and D were great with the entertainment and I provided all the motherly stuff lol. It was a pleasure to have them here and reminded me how J at 6 is challenging yet a 3 year old is so much more demanding. I love kids but am glad not to have to do all that stage again!!!!

J has had his 6th birthday. M's 9th is on the 29th of this month. I shall then have a 6,9,12 and 14 year old and I only feel 21 myself rofl. Hmmmmmmm, what else???
M and D have just sat there twice yearly dance exmas. D has one more to go. It was great because D has learned to do a bun in her hair and M's is too short so I just have to clean everything and hand it to them now!

I have purchased our first GCSE! Yes we got on that train! I have ordered an English pack for A from Little Arthur. Not sure when she will sit the exam but we are going to see how it goes. She wants to go to college so we are aiming for the English an Maths and maybe one or two more, finances and planning dependent! She and D have been doing hours off maths tutorials on a cd rom we have and managing it. D asked if she could do the maths GCSE now (she loves it) but I explained I personally won't be paying for any until each child is at least 14. I have to budget!!!!!

I hope the photo at the beginning inspires you to look up into the sky. For me there is nothing like hearing the summer swifts and seeing them flying overhead. Truly magical.

Well my computer now mostly works with bits of freezing. It is better than it was but still not perfect.

The past week has been taken up with bouts of illness. The kids all have had a virus the symptoms of which seem to be loss of appetite, chesty cough, exhaustion and fevers. J's temperature reached 104 last Tuesday. They are mostly recovering now but spend huge amounts of time lounging around in pyjamas. They have been going to a few activities but then come home exhausted. I am fighting it myself. I have the heavy chest and cough and feel a bit spaced out and my eyes hurt. I am trying to take it easy but I still went for an hour walk along the river yesterday - I love that too much to give it up - the dog was very grateful too!
I did also manage to get to the allotment last week and spent hours weeding. I find it very therapeutic sitting in the sun with a trowel, weeding away. I still need to sort out wood to line my plots with. I am making slow progress but never mind, I'll get there.

A and D are starting a 6 week (2hrs weekly) radio training course today with a group of friends. That should be fun. We are also looking to join in with home-ed cricket starting up soon as we don't do much sport and yet we do enjoy bat and ball type games.

Hopefully this week the weather should start to feel more spring like. It was so cold here yesterday I had my heaviest winter coat on! I think we all need a good summer to boost our immune systems. I don't think mine have built themselves up completely from the whooping cough yet. I am off out to buy more Vit C, echinacea and acidophillus today. My cupboard is really like a pharmacy now.

I am still without computer which is liberating. I do need to unsub receiving e mails from lists though as it is filling up my inbox.
I come to my Mum's, check my mail then delete history before I leave which strangely seems to be enough.

So recently we have been doing all our usual stuff.

We had a nice trip to the cinema on Monday. The older girls saw step up 2 and the younger 2 with me saw Horton Hears a Who which we just thought was fantastic. So I am looking into more dance classes for the girls inspired by their movie!

Yesterday was D's friends birthday so they came over to our house and we had a birthday buffet lunch and much DS gaming went on. I have to sort out getting J one for his birthday at the end of this month. Then I can get mine back and game away on AC!

I have been getting on with the growing. My peas are doing well and other seeds are starting to come up now. I had a great time in y Mum's grrenhouse sowing all my seeds : parsley, fennel, cauliflower, cabbage, chard, spinach, beetroot, basil, squash, borage, calendula. there was more but I forget now! I love gardening but only when it is not really cold out!
Today I spent 2 hours in the garden, weeding and trimming back a bush. It was lovely being outside and was very mild. I may borrow my Mum's car and nip to the allotment this evening. I like going in the day when it is quiet but as my Mum's car is only free in the evenings that will have to do. I won't mind once my plot is sorted but everyone else's are and mine is still a work in progress - due mostly to the fact it is a 10 minute drive from here. Still I have found the rent will be approx £13 for a year which is very cheap so I am happy with that. It is small compared to others plots but I need it small to be manageable.

Right, well I'm off to take M for her swimming lesson soon.
Tomorrow we have french and dancing then yoga for me! After that most home-ed activities start running again. We are off to the police museum next week. I'll let you know how it goes!

Just a quick post to say that I am without computer for a while. It is not running properly and I don't know how to fix it! I am typing this at my Mum's where I have come for an hour to check my e-mails. I miss my computer .... it is a lifeline in our house.
I plan on doing research here and playing around to see how I can fix it! I shall keep you posted ... or start blogging again in which case you will know it's sorted.

For those with computer know how it takes about 10 minutes to get a page up each time. It has always taken 15 minutes to load all the stuff up when first switched on but it is now rebelling. So if you know anything that may help, please let me know!! Thanks xxxxx

Well what a beautiful day it was today and I managed to spend quite a lot of it outside.

I decided to make nettle soup for lunch so I went for a stroll through our local cemetery. The sun was shining on me, there was hardly any breeze and there is just a riot of beautiful birdsong at this time of year that just lifts me.
I collected the nettles from a wild area then headed home to make lunch. Of course only I ate the soup. A won't eat any green soup, D just looked at it but it was very yummy and I have some left for tomorrow. I took a (blurred) photo of it before it was cooked and blended - you get a smoother end product than what you see in this photo lol.

After lunch we headed to the allotment which was really busy. I think the kids were disappointed as they are used to it just having a couple of people there but there was a tree pruning course happening and both the plots either side off mine are now being worked and their owners were there along with many others.

I met one of my new "neighbours" called Mike. He has had the plot for a month and already all his beds are professionally built from scaffolding planks and ready to plant. It put my scrap wood, un-level ones to shame but as long as I get to grow some stuff I'll be happy. I dug in a square bed and managed to nearly finish my longer one. I say finish as it is quite un-level so I will adjust that when I next go back. I'm not too fussed about it being level really though. Nature isn't level and immaculately tidy. I'd like to keep that theme going with my plot.

I managed about an hour and a half there and the girls planted 12 potato plants so it is a start. The kids then got bored so we headed home. Next time I might go alone and with a flask and maybe my wind up radio.

There is some really good stuff on Radio 4 isn't there! I want to listen to this about Dyscalculia tonight!

We have now added home-ed French to our weekly routine. We love it. It is run by a Mum who is French and she mixes all ages and has us repeating things in French, singing songs, and doing a run around warm up with instructions in French. It is an hour long on Thursdays and I find it is helping me brush up on my school French.
Consequently with swimming, lunch, French, then me taking D to dance then out to Yoga, I have to be very organised on a Thursday. Last week I had a bad migraine by 9pm as I had just not had enough to eat. I am getting bored with food as I end up cooking what the kids want and eating a bit but it is not really what I want. I plan to resolve this by writing a menu for me from my cookbooks today.

On Friday I clocked up about 3 hours driving as I dropped a group of 6 kids at a pool 40 minutes from here for their friend's birthday. I then drove back to Manchester and repeated the whole thing an hour later. The girls both had fun and the friend's Dad presented me with a big piece of cream cake when I arrived to collect them. That fuelled me for the drive home lol!

Spring is definitely in the air now, hurrah!
Yesterday the girls helped me make lots of little paper pots with this (borrowed from a friend and now on my wishlist lol). Today we plan on sowing the beans and peas and I await my other seed order from the organic gardening catalogue. I hope to get some potatoes in on the allotment but have not discussed borrowing the car from R so fingers crossed on that. I have also been building more sides for beds for the allotment so I hope to bed those in ('scuse the pun!). I ran out of one nail though so am off to the shops in a moment as I don't like unfinished jobs.

Other than that the girls are planning their summer holidays. Well we did see the sun briefly yesterday so that must have set the whole thing off rofl!!!

Okay, so it's official I am now 35!!!! I had a nice quiet birthday and love my new radio. I invited 2 local friends over and they came with their kids and we sat at a table of nibbles for most of the afternoon chatting. I have photos but will upload them later as they are still on my Mum's camera. I made a nice vegan chocolate cake and sang to myself lol - well why change the habit of a lifetime.

D had a bad knee injury last week when she fell over outside. She has had to miss dancing again. The poor girl is rather accident prone as her drama teacher pointed out. She has been using a crutch but after nearly a week can bend her leg a bit and walk again. She wants to go ice skating tomorrow but I'm not sure that is a good idea.
In fact now we have stopped doing the home-ed trampolining we are going to the home-ed ice skating tomorrow instead. The beauty is we won't do it weekly it will be dependant on the finances.

The girls all had a go at making vegan sushi last Tuesday. They were running the Brownies' thinking day and were doing Japan and USA as their countries. So my kitchen appeared to have sushi rice all over and boy is it sticky. I still keep finding bits. It turned out rather well and I tried some. I loved the nori sheets but then I love seaweed - fab stuff. We are definitely going to make some again.

Friday was extra busy as we had drama in the morning and animation in the afternoon at a different venue. It went well. The young ones were making short animations and the bigger kids were mixing plasticine to make models they are going to animate. That is a slow process, slower then the animation as it takes so long to even get the stuff slightly warm.

I saw a great show at the Lowry on Saturday night by these guys. It was all about global warming. It certainly drew an interesting crowd as well which always makes for a fun night.

Other than all that we have been having sleepovers, guests, singing, quick draw art workshops etc. This week looks set to be as jam packed. I think I should just accept we now have a very hectic lifestyle and run with it!!!