Freetime

I know I know I've been really lax lately with my posting, see that always happens when I set myself goals lol. I really want to blog at least once a week, but, well basicly I forget then I think ooh must blog about such and such and then I get distracted.... which isn't that hard for me to do.

So since I last blogged we have had lovely weather, we've also had some lousy weather. We also had one of our chinchilla's die too. We had a lovely family time at HESFES our darling nephew greatly enjoyed himself, tho' he may have been a little annoyed at Robynne occasionally for daring to go off with her friends without him, but on the whole a great time was had by all. Now my sister is considering Home Ed for S when he gets to Senior School age. Right now he's at a lovely small village school, that caters for him extremely well, sadly when he gets to 11yr he'll end up at a very large school and the worry is that he may get lost in the crowd so to speak. We never know he may love it and thrive there. We are all just thankful that through H.E. there is another option if it is necessary, tho' he's only 8yr nearly 9yr so a few years yet to prepare.

Oh while we were at HESFES, we had to come back to Leigh for the folk festival, as Robynne was performing with the Leigh Mummers shall just hunt for a pic, it's not of the best quality so please bear with me....



.... obviously Robynne is the one wearing the very fetching cap, about to hit the poor guy on the chair around the head - it was part of the script - sadly we have no idea why the picture is so blue, it wasn't when taken. Strangely most of the pics that we had taken that week with my parents camera have all gone blueish when my sister sent them through to us.

We had a day out at Colchester Zoo while at HESFES too, which was great it rained a little, which frankly with the way the rest of the week had been if it hadn't rained a little while at the Zoo we would never have made it round. A couple of Robynne's friends came with us to the Zoo and we got a very interesting pic of a Daisybird not sure if I'm allowed to show that so will check later with Robynne before posting it. Anyway a couple of pics from HESFES and the zoo coming up next..



... myself being glomped by my lovely nephew...



...... Robynne and co .....



..... now somewhere among my old pics, I have a very similar photo to this of Robynne at the same age as her cousin - in the front - on the same tortoise statue with some school friends, taken on a school trip obviously about 8yrs ago. I remember taking the picture, but can't for the life of me find it anywhere...



..... that lab coat was bought just before we went to HESFES and I think she wore it everyday, actually she did wear it everyday...



...... oh and a red panda pic just because .....

I do have a few other animal pics and some of Robynne and friends on my cam somewhere, but right now not sure where I have put it away too lol and well frankly right now I don't fancy hunting for it.

Oh and well now I shall confess to why I haven't kept up with blogging lol, it's silly really but, well I am a Sim addict there I said it I am a Sim Addict ... yes it's sad I know but, well what can you do. You see after we had to rebuild our comps into one all our sim data was lost and we had to borrow Sims 2 to get it all reloaded back onto our machine, - we do have a copy of Sims 2, but to keep a long story short the first disc doesn't load so we can't use it - and all the expansion packs we have and well we bought the new one Freetime and well frankly it had to be played and played and well played. So there you have it if it takes me a while to reply to emails etc, or Robynne is away from msn for days at a time it doesn't necessarily mean we offline again lol, we could just be playing the Sims.



..... where else would you get a heavily pregnant lady doing ballet exercises....

A Eureka Moment

Well, internet is fixed finally, our two computers have been taken apart and rebuilt into one computer. So we now have a working computer, with a few minor bugs to sort out as some items were not quite compatible, but a few downloads and we should be all sorted, thanks to a friend of Andy's. So we have a happy child again lol, almost once we have the usb ports fixed and all that's needed to sort them is a card which Andy is gonna pop out to get sometime today.

We had a great time at our first local Home Ed camp the other week, I will admit I felt like a fish out of water to start with and compost toilets aren't as hard to get used as one would think - the hard part was the walk up to them lol - were looking forward now to the next one in September. Especially now we know how things work.

The whole family is looking forward to HESFES, even if there not into all that goes on there, it will be great to have a family holiday, we haven't done that in years.
While were there were taking it in turns with W to come back and check on all our animals between us we have 17 Chinchilla's, 2 rabbits, 2 rats and 4 cats. There's also the 3 dogs, but they come along to HESFES and we may be taking Sox, it just depends on how she copes with outside, she's getting on ok with her harness and lead but you never know, the only reason for taking her is she has the tendency to not eat while we are away.

Also while at HESFES we will be coming back here as Robynne is performing with The Leigh Mummers at The Leigh Folk Festival on the 29th June. There going to be at the Strand Wharf.

Well I better get on loads of things to be catching up with now were back in with the technology.

Best Laid Plans

Well so much for those, see I had planned to be more regular with blog posting, but, well somehow something always came up. Then when I finally get some time to blog, my darn internet kept cutting out, it seems to be sorted now, but, you never can tell.

So anyway looks like I'll be doing another catch up post. Nothing that interesting has been going on her really, Robynne's been enjoying our local Home Ed meets, one of the dad's has been doing art classes which she has found quite helpful with her art. She had a free trial with Photoshop Elements 6. She enjoyed that and was quite sad when it ended, unfortunately it's a little expensive. But, she did a search around the net and found a lovely program very similar to it called Paint Tool SAI from what I have seen it's very good.

Also she's been having great fun, with the Leigh Mummers, she comes back from rehearse ls tired, but happy. It's good to see her having fun and doing what she enjoys.

Myself I have recently bought six DVD's from eBay starring the lovely Gary Oldman and I'm enjoying them sooo much lol. My collection is slowly growing and what a lovely collection it is too. Also my parents bought a trailer tent from eBay too, ready for us all to go to HESFES. Which were all looking forward too, well maybe not the cat lol, tho' she is slowly getting used to her harness and lead. We have a provisional booking for the Chinchilla's at a Chin Hotel, hopefully that will be ok as I have no idea what where going to do with them other wise.

Well I guess I better get on things to do and all that.

Busyness, H.E, Holidays and Pets

Time's been a flying by again and if I don't stop to get my words down now, I'll probably forget everything which is what usually happens. I finally worked out what direction to go in with regards to the business, and was starting to get everything implemented, when lo and behold the computer with all the relevant info on decided that enough was enough. So we now have the problem off how to retrieve everything and I mean everything and hopefully get it fixed. It wouldn't of been so bad if it had been our old geriatric comp that had given up, but, no it's the good one the one that we hadn't backed up anything on because well it's new - well newish - and well frankly I didn't think about it. Am seriously kicking myself now and vow to always back up if and when it's back up and running.

Next on the agenda as it were is our Home Ed group, which really seems to be going well at the moment. We seem to have a permanent home in the Library lots of trips are organized, for the next few months or so. I'm even thinking of repeating the trip that I organized a few years ago to go Paint balling.
At the moment Robynne is enjoying going to the library each week, but, I know that can change at anytime so I shall just have to keep an eye on her moods lol. Park meets are starting up again next week and those go down well with us, well especially Andy lol.
We picked up the coursework for GCSE English from my sister at the weekend, and after looking through the large folder. Robynne has decided to work through it even tho' she has no intention of doing the exam. Myself I'm going to put it all on the comp and make PDF's of the different modules which can then be taken out with us - easier than lugging that big folder and helpful to share with others in the group.
We had our reminder flyer come through for HESFES last week too and so we showed it to mum and dad at the weekend. As after visiting us at the site last year, they liked the look of the place. The up shot of that is that now, not only are mum and dad coming our sister is coming too and taking Simon out of school for the week. Oh and the parents are paying so even bigger bonus.

Going on holiday then brings us to our animals, last year Andy stayed behind and looked after not only our pets, but Willow's small animals too. But, this year Andy is coming with us, so plans have to be put in place for the animals. So Robynne is going to attempt to teach Sox to walk on/tolerate the lead, as the plan is to take her with us. We tried once before, but the harness we had then wasn't a good fit. The new one we bought yesterday is much nicer and it also helps that this week she's in season and will let Robynne do anything to her.
That only leaves the chins to cater for. We have been doing some rethinking with regards to their cages at the moment and were going to be investing in six new cages to make a bank in our hallway where our bookshelves are at the moment. So that's going to be fun, especially as some who shall remain nameless really don't want to come out of there cages lol, tho once out he has a lovely time. So back to what to do for holidays, we either needed to find someone to come in everyday and check them or have some one else take them in for the week. We have found a chin hotel in Kent, which charges £2.00 - £2.50 depending on the food per chin per week. Which isn't bad all we need to do is find out how far away they are and whether they have space that week, for our 7 darling little fluff balls.

So was there anything else that I needed to update on, mmmmm can't think of anything ... oh yeah chin food, it's been a bit of a nightmare lately getting there food, we went to two big pet stores yesterday. One up near our parents in Suffolk, and the big one here in Southend and neither of them sold Charnwoods pellets, which is what our little ones all eat. The helpful girl at Southend said oh these pellets are the same you can just give them these. Which we could see weren't the same by the shape. So now we need to work out how to get the food, Andy does a trek up to Leigh every couple of weeks for a few bags, but we really need to find a way to get a sack which would by my reckoning last 2 months at a time and be far more economical. Mind you it'll be better once we have all the food bowls attached to the cages so they can't take them out of there holders and fling the bowls around the cages. Which is quite funny I'm sure, but it wastes the food and I'm hoping this behaviour isn't a symptom of something else.
Oh Robynne picked them all out new toys for there cages yesterday, a cargo net thing for the boys which is made of string stuff, they'll have fun ripping that up lol. A couple of large willow twig nest balls, for the girls, Chicca and Joe which they too will eventually chew up. Then lastly something new which we hadn't seen before but is designed for chins, but we'll see how it goes a swing ledge for little pumpkin's cage with her being the smallest and the only one on her own at the moment - we are going to get her a mate later on - she has the smallest cage which doesn't have too much room for extra toys. Were getting a new cage next month for the boys so she'll move up into what will be our cage for nursing/sick chins and her cage will be for temporary stays.

.....

Well what have we been up to lately, we went to Tropical Wings on Monday with Shirley and the gang. It was a lovely place to visit we shall be going there again.

Robynne's blue hair dye arrived yesterday, so yesterday we lightened her hair ready to put in the blue this afternoon, once she gets back from Oakland's Park, where she is with some of her H.E friends from the Chelmsford end.

Also yesterday our new tent arrived, ready for HESFES - she had tried to deliver it on Tuesday, but we were swimming with Willow and assorted children -, just a couple more things needed and we'll be all ready. Were both getting really excited now, and counting off the days and outings we have till it's time to go.

Tomorrow were off to pick up two more Chinchilla's, these will be our breeding pair shall post some pics of them in a few days when they are a little more settled in, oh there names are Joe and Chicca and were getting them from the lovely Kelly.

Oh and I have lengthened my dreads, and they look very cool even if I do say so myself....

... also have been knitting head/hairbands, long wristbands and shall be doing some hats too, these will all go into our handcrafted shop. Which I have now sorted the shopping area out - when tested all links went to where they should do so yay -, just need to add some products now lol.