Where did that day go...

... yesterday totally disappeared on me. OK no, it didn't, but, getting onto the computer proved a little difficult and that's my story and I'm sticking too it.

Robynne was having a couple of friends over yesterday so we were up early attempting to tidy up some before the guys arrived J rang about 12 he felt ill so wasn't coming, so a little grump and then back to tidying up. Then all of a sudden P turned up so to get out of tidying she grabbed him down town to help her pick out a present for A, who's having his birthday party today - have just realized something Robynne's friends has a higher ratio of guys... mmm should I be worried, well maybe later. - so Andy and I got back to the tidying only to be interrupted yet again. This time by a nice lady doing a survey of people in our building with children under 19 - something to do with accessing services that are available - felt sorry for her really as she'll have no hope of people in this building being helpful. Later when Robynne and P returned with a very interesting present for A - lets just say I'm glad that his parents have a sense of humour - Robynne was most surprised to find that I had let the survey woman in. I can see her point as I wouldn't normally do that, but, I guess I must have been looking for an excuse to put off the tidying. Anyway the survey lady left and we finished off just enough that it could be left for later - tho' when that will be I don't know - and Andy and P played Wii games for the next few hours.

We had Andy's homemade pizza's for tea, he brings a whole new meaning to "Fully Loaded" with them lol. Robynne spent a while making some emotes for msn and then made a card for A. Movies were watched, pizza's eaten then time for bed.

This morning Robynne went off and caught the 11am bus to Chelmsford, to be met by her bf S and then there going to the monthly H.E. meeting before going off to A's, she'll be home sometime tomorrow.

P was dragged off by Andy to play a PS2 game, until it was time for him to leave. Unfortunately he couldn't stay too long as he had to get home to his mum, she was recently misdiagnosed as having Alzheimer's but thankfully after further tests it's only mild Dementia, which as long as she looks after herself shouldn't be too bad. Which in a way has helped P to appreciate her a little more and I think they may be getting on a little better now than they had been.

Oh Tuesday night Robynne informed me that she wanted to go to college in Chelmsford, she can't remember which one it is, but, her friend M already goes there and it looks like a few of her other friends will probably be going there next year too. Also they do Japanese at this college, which is a major bonus as she has been wanting to learn that for a while now and the nearest place we had found before was an evening course in London. So the plan is to find out which College it is, get a prospectus and see what courses etc they do. She doesn't want to go till next year, but, we'll need to get it sorted out, she's still planning to do the GCSE's at the Southend Adult College this Sept. I was thinking OK with going to Chelmsford, as it's not too far and she can go there and back by train everyday. Though that's not the plan, Robynne wants to move to Chelmsford. I was well lets say surprised, but, not as surprised as her when after a few deep breaths and a little panic I agreed with her. Robynne told me that she had been thinking about it for a little while, but, was worried how I would react and had said anything in her words she expected me to go "Ape sh**". Well considering everytime she had every talked about moving the places she wanted to go where Scotland, America and Japan. I can cope fairly well with her being an hour away in Chelmsford. Though I did say that I thought I wouldn't see her that often what with almost all her friends being in Chelmsford she'd never want to come home, she patted me on the head - grr - and told me I was a silly as that would never happen. We talked about the practicalities etc of moving away and then she went off to bed only to find that Sox had just left her a very unwanted present in her bed. After a Little ranting at the darn cat and clearing up, Robynne turned round and said "I think she's mad at me for daring to talk about moving out". Personally I think the cat's just mad, that Robynne forgot to clean her litter tray. Anyway Robynne ended up sleeping in with me as she didn't want to sleep in her room.

I am actually a little weirded out by her wanting to move out, but, she's growing up and it's time for her to go out and do what she wants to do. It's not that I want to keep her my little girl for ever, well OK I would love to keep her my little girl. But, that's just crazy obsessive talk and well frankly that's not great and well I have known that this would happen sometime, I just hoped it wouldn't be yet. Ah well life has to go on and I need to go do some more washing.

Plans

Well, I finally gave in and changed this blog over to the new customizable layout, didn't realize when I started how long it would take me - almost 2 hours - but, it's done now. The only thing I'm going to have to do now is change the Sewing Friend link picture, as you won't fail to notice it's the wrong size and well it might mean that Robynne might get my new logo finished soon then I won't have to mess around and resize the old one.

Today wasn't quite as productive as I had intended, I meant to go down to both the Council and the Housing offices today to finally get everything changed over name wise, and also get sorted out so that we get onto the transfer/mutual exchange lists. Ah well shall do it tomorrow, I did get the grocery shopping done online and to tally with what we had to spend for the week, which means Andy only has to nip into town for a couple of items. Mind you Robynne will have to put it all away and check it when it arrives tomorrow as I plan to get the jobs done that I meant to do today.

I did get Robynne booked onto the course that she wanted to do down at the Adult Learning College, it's a 10 week course on Psychology Forensics. Not my cup of tea, but, it's something she's interested in. Later this week we'll nip down to the Community College and get her sorted for the courses that she wants to do next.

So since I decided yesterday to stop looking backwards and to get on with forward planning, I worked out a plan for getting the Chins all sorted into new cages, we have a new one arriving sometime this week, and we shall be getting a few more, but I worked out that getting just one more for the time being means not only can we get rid of the old bulky cages, but that Robynne won't have to have the tall cage in her room. Eventually this one is going to be fitted out as a play cage and they will all at separate times get to make use of it.

I shall also get on with finishing off all the items that I want to put up for sale and get on with making more. I need to learn to manage my time a little better, have been spending far too long lately on fun projects which aren't going up for sale. Though I have been working on designs with Robynne for an interactive story quilt, which if it works could be a great idea and hopefully make us a bit of money.

I need to get more organized in general, I'm a terrible ditherer, I come up with plans and rarely follow through so this year I'm going to get things done. No more dithering, well maybe a little. We've talked about sorting the living room out, so that's going to be done next week have decided so if they don't like it tough.Next job will be too box up and catalogue all our books, videos etc and sort through all Robynne's old toys. Most of which are already boxed up under her bed, but, I know there are a few items that she wants rid of. I'm also going to sort out my only Sim Story blog soon and get some new stories written, just a bit of escapism, but, well we all need that sometimes. Oh and I must find a quilting/patchwork course to do, and I'm gonna dye my hair some fun colour haven't decided for sure what colour yet, but, it's going to be different lol.

It's been a while

It's been a while since I posted, things have been going well with the new Home Ed group, were now having a session of Mad Science going on over the next few weeks, with more possible in the new year.
Robynne is having fun at college, tho' she's now only doing the one course as all the others ended up cancelled or she found them irrelevant. Andy has started college too and he seems to be enjoying it.

And I am removing my dreads and shaving my head for Children in Need, I decided I had had enough of them, especially as have been having no end of neck problems, due to the weight of them and well I fancied a change, so new start all off and shall have some fun with wigs and hats till it grows back. So if you would like to sponsor me then please do. I have a link just below for you to click on and you'll get sent to my page. Oh and if you really want I'll send you a dread lol.

More College Madness

Just when I thought we had got all Robynne's courses all sorted out, we got a phone call today saying that some had been cancelled due to lack of numbers. So after a lengthly phone call we had Robynne moved to other dates and lost one course - Maths GCSE - which Robynne wasn't to sad about and we gained a new course - Science GCSE - which Robynne likes far better. The only downside tho' is that after getting a couple of tickets via EO for Joseph next week we now can't go, so before I email the organiser and let her know I shall see if a couple of Robynne's friends would like to go. If it wasn't her first night on the Art AS course we would still go, but, it's not worth going when it takes us two hours to get there and we would have to leave London by 4pm to get to Rochford for her to start her course at 6.30pm. It's a shame but there you go at least we hadn't paid for the tickets.

Well tomorrow is Thames Kids Club time again, I'll be taking along some wool and some French knitting dolls so we can try obviously French knitting and finger knitting, both are great fun. This time I shall remember my camera just in case there are any impromptu performances. Also I have printed of a sample of Zoom which is a musical based on the Hare and the Tortoise story. As Robynne and some of the others want to put on a musical and this one looks like a good one to start with and lots of parts for little children as well as the older children. So fingers crossed everyone will like to have a go. Then maybe next time we can do the other ones that Robynne wants to do. I'm so pleased that even after all her courses have swapped round to different days that she still gets to continue coming along and doing the things she wants to do with the Thames Kids Club.

TKC and College Madness

Well things have been interesting round here over the last few weeks. The launch party for Thames Kids Club went well, tho' it ended up being along day for us as we popped round and spent time with our elderly aunt afterwards. Which will now be a regular happening as the club is held just round the corner from where she lives. anyway, as I said first club meet went great, the second one which took place on the 12th wasn't so well attended, but we had great fun anyway. The highlight was when all the children plus Robynne put on there own interpretation of Little Red Riding Hood. For some reason they made Robynne the wolf, tho' I guess not really a big surprise as she was the biggest there. It was very sweet, they raided the dressing up area to get themselves all dressed up. I think the woodcutter was a little over enthusiastic in killing the wolf, Robynne had to run to get away. Sadly I didn't manage to get pic's of the play, shall be more prepared next time. Tho' I did get a couple from when they were dressing up.





I seem to remember taking a pic of Robynne dressed up, but, it appears to be missing from my camera, Shall check but it looks like Robynne may have sneakily deleted it. Ah found it some how it ended up in the pics I took when we went to see Wicked.



Speaking of Wicked we had a great time the show was awesome, tho' as we had already read the book it was a little confusing, but you can't really expect them to do everything that's in the book when making a musical. It was nice to see they had the Witch survive along with her fella tho'. Here's a couple of pic's of Robynne and her friends before the show.






Oh and sadly some of our friends who wanted to come with us couldn't so were going to try and arrange another trip to see Wicked later probably in the New Year now.

Ok now on to the College Madness, sadly Robynne didn't make it onto the course that she applied for - tho' she was told to ring in 6 weeks to see if anyone doesn't make it after the probationary period - so that meant we had to find something else for her to do until she can re apply next year. So we managed to get her on some Adult Learning courses she'll now be doing GCSE Maths and English on Tuesday and Wednesday Mornings on Canvey Island, a Drawing and Painting level 1 on a Monday afternoon in Basildon and an AS Level Art course Tuesday evenings in Rochford. Tho' she may drop the drawing and painting one as it's only equivalent to a D/F level GCSE and well if she gets on OK with the AS level course that would mean that instead of having to re apply for the course she missed out on this year she can skip to the next level next year and will be on track again. So here's hoping, I can't really see her having any major problems, but you never know.

Something Wicked this way comes....

So yesterday was Robynne's college interview. She had spent the last few days before hand getting her Portfolio together and with a little help it was all finished Weds evening. It seems she likes leaving things till the last minute. She had a lovely image on the front cover and as were walking through town, we got some interesting looks. Some of the pictures used for her portfolio can be found here

Anyway we got to the college about 3.30pm, as it's enrolment time we had no set appointment and well from experience going after 3pm is a quieter time. So we get signed in and waited for all of 5 mins, then it was up the stairs to talk to a tutor.

The course that Robynne is hoping to get onto is "Introductory Diploma in Art and Design". The guy we saw is the tutor for the next level, which if she gets in she will do next year. Anyway he was very impressed with her work and said he looks forward to her being on his course next year. Only thing standing in the way of that is her getting into this years course.
Basicly we now have to wait and see, the tutor doesn't get back till Tuesday as she's on a cruise. She only takes 25 students and at the moment we went there were 24 on her list, with quite a few waiting. So on Thursday next week they start the induction and if people don't return on the Friday, the tutor goes to her waiting list to fill up the course. So now we wait and see - and secretly hope that people drop out or get places elsewhere - which as Robynne said "it's the worst part". Which it is, I know if she doesn't get on the course it's not the worst thing in the world, but, it may feel like it and well there's always next year. It's just if she doesn't get in, we may have problems with WTC, but, will deal with that later. Were going to sign her up with connexions on Monday which will give us 20 weeks to work with with regards to WTC.

So College aside things are looking good, well apart from friends of ours moving out of the area, were sad to seem them go, but, at the end of the day it's what's best for them. I just hope that everything goes well for them all. The launch party for Thames Kids Club is all organized for next Friday 5th. Library meets start again on Wednesday 3rd - which incidentally is my birthday - and the week after on the 10th were of to see Wicked, not sure who's more excited about that, but, Robynne would probably beat me.

Well better go get on with something, not sure what yet, but, well lots to do.

Thames Kids Club

We had another meeting Monday evening in regards to the new H.E. group Thames Kids. Robynne showed all her designs for the publicity and they went down well as did the logo that I designed, we also agreed on the colours for the logo which is below.



Also that evening we sorted the money for the first month's hall fee's and I'm sure they have gone off to the relevant person now. The hall people wanted to see any advertising/publicity that we would be doing so copies of the poster, leaflet and bookmark were sent to them via email, the other day. I think were just waiting for the OK with that then we can advertise properly.

Everything seems to be going well with regards the group, have spoken to a few people so I know we will have some people there the first week. So fingers crossed for a good launch party.

OK also this week, Robynne received her interview for college, which is next week so hopefully she'll get onto the course that she wants to do. Were also hoping it's not going to stop her coming to the H.E. group as she is really looking forward to that. She has alot of ideas for the group that she wants to help with.

We have also decided that we are going to save up to move, as well as another of our friends has found out it's nigh on impossible getting a transfer with the Council, it's a shame but well the final straw has been broken. We live in a tower block and in the summer the drains are pretty awful and the smell flows up from below and comes out from all the plug holes, the toilet and the waste pipe on the balcony. This year has seemed worse than ever, add in that some charming people in the flats above have been throwing things out of windows - to smash windows open below - it has been happening before, but now the items have been becoming increasingly worse. I'm sure no-one wants me to say exactly what has been thrown I shall leave that to your imaginations. Needless it's not pleasant and I really don't want to have to put up with it anymore. So it's time to move on, even Robynne who has been totally resistant to moving has agreed that enough is enough, plus I'm sure she's hoping that we can get a dog again at some point.