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.

Surprise

Ok it wasn't really a surprise we new it was going to happen sooner or later, but, well it was still a bit of a surprise.

What am I babbling about well, I shall tell you. In the early hours of yesterday morning our chinchilla's were all making a lovely racket, which kept us awake lovely animals. Anyway we left them alone then in the morning - at a normal time - I heard the unmistakeable squeaking of a new baby. Went out to check on them and saw, what I thought was twins, but, when Chicca moved a little more we saw three little heads. So we know have three more gorgeous chins swelling our herd to 10. The new babies are two male Lt Ebony's and a female Beige. So the boys look like there dad Joe and the girl is just like her mum and big sister Pumpkin - who was born Oct last year.

Here's pic's of the three of them held by Andy, just after we weighed them this afternoon.

Drexl

Ninja

Tweak

Yes I know the names are interesting but, they do fit them very well. Drexl is the biggest of the three today he weighed in at 50g, with Ninja following behind at 48g and Tweak brings up the rear at 46g. We shall be weighing them every day just so we can be sure there all getting fed ok. Especially Tweak as her brothers do seem to push her out of the way, but she fights back. We may have to take them to one side a couple of times a day to give her a chance to get in there. But for now we'll just wait and see.

Oh and if anyone's interested in seeing Robynne, when performed with The Leigh Mummers. Click the link and then click video's it'll take you to the right page and it's Jack and the Princess.

Positive Thinking Finally

Yes, finally I have gotten my finger out of a place it shouldn't be lol and got down to getting things sorted out. Today after much procrastinating I have finally gotten my Etsy shop up and running admittedly there's only one item up for sale and there's no pic, but once the camera's batteries are charged I'll get the other items photographed and uploaded to the shop too. I think things may finally be looking up on that side of things. Mind you if I hadn't had that conversation with Shirley the other day it may have taken a lot longer. Sometimes I forget that talking to other people can help lol, I really do need to stop brooding on stuff on my own and just have a little more faith in the world. Also thinking more positively works too. Robynne's going to work on some designs for me, she has done some I know but, they don't always get passed to me when I ask lol, wonder if it has to do with the selective hearing thing that she suffers from.

So on the H.E front things seem to be slowing down a little round here, she's still not sure what she wants to do next, tho' we are looking into the possibility of an art course that can be done by correspondence as she still doesn't really want to go to college. Plus there's also the problem that I suffered with when I was at school, she can only draw when she's in the right frame of mind. Not that she doesn't still draw practically all the time. It's just that if she needs to draw something specific that's when the mood has to be right. Her doodles don't count.. her words not mine lol. Tho' personally I think her doodles are sometimes some of her best work.

Were off to the Palace Theatre Monday afternoon, with the local H.E group, for a backstage tour. It could be a great afternoon. Speaking of the Palace Theatre, they had auditions there last Sat for a 9 - 19 yr olds for a production of Bugsy Malone which I think there putting on in the Summer. Robynne found out about it when we were down at the Cliffs last Fri to see Danny the Champion of the World - again with local H.E group - it was very good, anyway Robynne was all excited about the Bugsy audition lol, she comes over to me and I had to burst her bubble, you see she couldn't go to the audition as that was when she was of to Colchester with the Leigh Mummers to perform at The Leaping Hare Conference, which incidentally went really well and she thoroughly enjoyed herself and can't wait for the next time. Tho' no idea when that will be.

Well I'm gonna sign off now, the internet went out for a couple hours again today and that held me up from doing some things like blog posts lol, and well Robynne's been home from Deep Readers a few hours now and she wants to be on the comp... ooh I really need to get my finger out and get the other comp fixed. Apart from the lack of memory on this comp it's a real pain having to share again lol.

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.

Absence of Sound

So yesterday Robynne and Andy, went to the Science Museum with the Chelmsford H.E. group. Leaving me to enjoy the quiet that is an empty flat.
I got quite a bit done, considering I'm still feeling a little run down. I tidied up this blog a little, sorted out my other blogs. Decided on a format for the business blog, which once we get the other computer fixed or retrieve all the data of it which ever happens first, I'll get right on with that.
I also started on cleaning the bathroom - tis one of the jobs I hate, but, someone has to do it - bought some DVD's from eBay starring the lovely Gary Oldman, my collection is growing slowly, one day I will have them all. I'm sure I did other stuff, oh yeah downloaded and printed off Robynne's script, she's joined the Leigh Mummers and has her first performance with them at the Leaping Hare Pagan Convention in March at Colchester. She's very excited, but, she's being very cool about it lol.
Then I had a good look through the English GCSE folder, I can see there's a few items that Robynne will enjoy doing and quite a few that she won't lol. But, then again she's only going to do the ones she's interested in.

All in all it was quite a productive day and Robynne and Andy both came back after having enjoyed themselves thoroughly. - I can never be sure with the two of them who's learnt more, but, frankly I don't think it matters - Sadly there return heralded the end of my lovely quiet day. You see our cat is in season at the moment and she had been hiding in Andys room all day but, as soon as he walked in the door out she came and started up her very loud crying. It's the only time that she likes Andy lol, the rest of the time she avoids him and his large feet. Silly really he's only ever tread on her paws once, he did more damage to himself trying to avoid stepping on her. - namely a tv aerial spike in his foot, he wasn't a happy bunny.

We were off to Priory Park this afternoon, to meet up with members of our local H.E group, but a phone call received five minutes ago mean were needed elsewhere. So must dash and grab a bus.