SCHOOL SPORTS DAYS ...

...Or, It's not whether you Win or Lose but how you Play the Game.  But it's nice to get recognition when you do win :o)

Where do we stand these days on competition?  Is it still a bad word?
Me, I've always enjoyed it.  Not that I'm one of the world's Shiny People who always seem to win everything ... although if I could get paid for Enjoying Pictionary and Being Quite Good at Quizzes that would certainly solve a few cash-flow problems right now.  (Yes Dog, I am talking about the enormous drain on the family coffers you are proving to be with your expensive drug habit.  But that's another story.  Aaah, bless her).

Any excuse to put a poochy pic up.  Aint she adorabubble?

WORLD BOOK DAY ...

... Or, Really?  Again already?

World Book Day - it's a laugh, innit? 

I wonder, actually, if this is - as the name would suggest - a Global Thing?  Are there parents World - Wide stressing themselves sweaty wondering how on earth they are going to fashion a Book Character Costume for their Beloved Offspring?

I know many people hate and despise World Book Day.  I was listening to one woman complaining about it yesterday morning in the supermarket - but she was also banging on about her 'fat feet' and 'this awful weather', so maybe she was just having an off-day.
I actually quite like Book Day, I love seeing the kiddies racing around the playground in their costumes - and it does seem to get them talking about books...for a bit, at least.

SNOW IS FALLING...ALL AROUND US...CHILDREN PLAYING...HAVING FUN...

Or...as in the case of Child No.3 - Smashing their Hands in Iron Gates and Spending the Rest of the Day with a Cold Compress and a Calpol Drip 

It is snowing.

Quite a lot.

We had some snowfall on Monday too.  Enough to excite The Dog beyond all reason.  She was bouncing around in the couple of inches of snow like a spring lamb - then she'd bundle in the house and bounce around some more, stopping every once in a while to fix me with her 'have you not seen what is out there?! Bounce woman!!' look.

There was sufficient white stuff around to warrant leaving the car behind and walking No.3 to school.  It's quite a stretch (half an hour each way at a good pace) but I feel sooo virtuous when I get home.
Right up until I stuff my silly face with Dairy Milk.

It's for energy, you understand

INSTRUMENTS OF TORTURE...

...Or, Learning a Musical Instrument at School.

( Oooh!  Talking about music on the day that, Google informs me, would be Clara Schumann's 193rd birthday.  Spoooooky.)


The start of another school year - and once again it is time for the Curriculum Meeting with the teachers.  Just one meeting for me this year as, for the first time in about a trillion years, I only have one child at Primary School.

I quite enjoy these sessions - reading down the list of planned trips and projects I'm my daughter is going to have to do over the next few weeks,

And I'm such a nostalgist (is that a word?) I love harking back to my own projects on 'Milk' and 'Beethoven' and...actually, that's all I can remember.

IT AIN'T OVER TIL THE FAT LION SINGS...

I have just eaten a slice of toast and marmalade and am the right side of a Hot Chocolate with Marshmallows (pink and white) even though I was neither hungry nor thirsty
I am a comfort eater. 
This is not news to me.

I've just got back from No.2 Son's Primary School Leavers' Assembly. The event I've been dreading since No.1 Son's Leavers' Assembly three years ago.

I DON'T THINK MY SON'S TEACHER LIKES ME...

Our Secondary school uses a 'platform' website (I have no idea) to send email message alerts and to set homework etc.

This week I got one such alert informing me that No.1 Son 'may have been marked absent' and that I should check on the website for more details.



I found a few bits of homework that should have been completed several years ago, but could I find anything on the website about attendance?  I could not.