Not much going on here today, shopping delivered early for a change and only one item out of stock. Robynne's still feeling rough, we have that awfully sweating body smell in the air, she's thankful she has a bunged up nose and can't smell it. Shall try to encourage her to shower when she's feeling a little better, until then febreze.

Fluff migration

The new cage for the chins arrived finally today and after a bit of fiddling around we got it all set up.


Then it took a little persuasion to get Squeak out of his old cage. None was needed with Tweak and Cupid as they had definitely outgrown the cage they were in. But, as it was just a nursing cage it was bound to happen.

Squeak is on his own at the moment but eventually when Cupid and he have gotten better acquainted then, our youngest little one will move in with his new roomie. We'll be getting another of these cages next month and then we'll be getting rid of the big monstrosity to the left of the picture. Eventually we will have 6 of these cages with only two chins in each - they have pop holes so that they can pop in and out of each side. - but, for the time being they are big enough to house 2 chins in each side.

Got the Asda shop sorted this morning so fingers crossed, no problems this time. Have also ordered some hair dye from Beeunique thanks to Nikki for the link to them, we'd been looking for a place that sold great hair colours and now we have found them. Really looking forward to them arriving and then getting our hair done. We have a few parties coming up in the next month so they should be fun.

We had intended to go and get Robynne's passport photo done today so that we could get her 16-25 railcard, but, she's not feeling so good right now, hopefully she'll not be feeling so bad tomorrow. Especially as we are meant to be going up to our Aunt's on Friday so that Robynne can show her how to use the Mac that we have sorted for her thanks to Jem. Hopefully she'll get the hang of it OK, Robynne will sort out a list of processes for her just in case. But, if not we'll have another Mac at home which is what were going to do anyway.

Been looking into shows to see for Robynne's birthday this year, looks like it's going to be Mamma Mia for sure. Tho' there are many more she and I want to see, so I guess we'll be doing those too eventually.

Odd day things

Andy's bank account got fixed so yay, after Asda rang he rang the bank and they delete the pending item. The odd thing is they could have done that it seems in the first place, but, every one he spoke to before couldn't do anything. Internet is "fixed" again so no engineer needed tomorrow, so they have cancelled that. Wonder how long the fix is going to last this time.

My nephew came back from spending the week at his dad's with his hair practically shaved again. It wouldn't matter so much if he liked it like that, but, poor kid wants to grow it and it had only just started to grow back again after the last time his dad decided to cut it for him.

Cat's still being weird and proclaiming her annoyance by messing where she shouldn't. Just when we think we have her figured out she changes tactics on us.

Andy's busy cooking dinner Spaghetti Bolognese with quorn for Robynne and myself and he's having chopped up sausages with his, because when he got his meat out of the fridge to cook it smelt and looked bad - we only got it weds from Asda so looks like we won't be doing that again.

Well guess that's it for odd things for today. Robynne and I watched Mamma Mia last night and again this afternoon thoroughly enjoyed it so looks like we'll be doing a trip up to see this at the theatre for her 18th in October. Still can't get over that, my baby, practically all grown.

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.

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.

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.

Coming to you via Wii

Well just a quick update today. After last week we had hoped things would be getting better round here, but, no the Gods have other plans for us it seems. Over the weekend our Internet went out again taking with it our old computer - well the Internet went out the old comp stopped working, so I drew the logical conclusion that the Internet was too blame - So now we are waiting for them to be fixed and so in the meantime, were having to use the Wii for email checking etc. thank the Gods for the Wii and wireless Internet. Unfortunately we can't do everything with the Wii - so no uploading off pics for the time being - poor Robynne is suffering withdrawal as she can no longer be on msn all day with her friends. It's a little sad ah, but actually it's been good as we have sat down and worked out what she wants to do next and how were going to go about it. She's going to be doing a mixture of Sonlight and OU courses until she's ready to go off to uni at 18. That's the plan for now anyway it may change later we'll see how it goes.

Our new chins Smokey and Rocky arrived Tues - pics in previous post - and are making themselves at home, it's caused a cage rethink, to happen, but when we get all the new cages we shall be converting their lovely 5' high cage into a play cage. Which will make things a little easier, well on Sox at least no more being chased by chins round the hallway, tho' personally she must like it or why else would she sneak in to join there play.

It was a great H.E. meet at the library again Weds, all about weather so lots of weather measuring equipment made by the children. Robynne was nabbed by the littlies and proceeded to read stories and play with them. She came over at one point with a huge grin and complained they had got her, then went back to them, methinks she doth protest to much as she was clearly having a great time.
While clearing up us mums worked out what to do for the next few meets, so that's May sorted. I have a few idea's in my head for later on, shall mention them to L next time. Robynne wants to do Blood typing, so will have to see how we go about that and what we'll need.

Well that's enough for now, as it takes quite a bit longer than usual doing this on the Wii and I'm not that adept at using it. Robynne would probably have taken less time, but, thats teens for you.

Well What a Week

As weeks go this past week has been a bit of a disaster, what with chin food deliveries that didn't happen, waiting for Robynne's new glasses. There was also internet going down, modem going wrong oh and yeah my handbag was stolen at our weekly H.E. meeting in our local library. On the plus side we are getting another couple of chinchilla's, Robynne has her glasses, the chin food finally arrived oh and I got my bag back and the perpetrator is now spending 3 months at Her Majesty's pleasure.

So where to start the beginning seems a good place Robynne went to specsavers three days running only to find her glasses hadn't arrived each time. The lenses finally arrived Weds morning so she was able to pick up her new glasses Weds afternoon.





I realised also that in my last post I mentioned she was getting two pairs of glasses, obviously my head was worse than I thought as I totally misunderstood. She only got the one pair with reaction lenses. Not two pairs one with reaction lenses and one pair plain, but we would of needed to pay another £40 and well she didn't really need two pairs.

Next we had the problems with our chinchilla food delivery, I made a mistake when it was first ordered, as they got the money, but not what was ordered so that delayed things that end. Then we had the delivery drivers who couldn't find us, which was really annoying we had to have someone stay in three days straight only to have no sign off delivery. Finally on Friday the 20kg sack of food arrived, hopefully it will be less drama next time round. Speaking of chinchilla's we are rehoming two more chinchilla's with us, so our little herd is now swelling too 12. I haven't seen them as yet, but Andy and Robynne went round to where were getting them from and spent two hours there and brought me back a couple of pics of them both. Till I see them better I'm not quite sure what colour they are, but, they look to be a female standard grey and a male beige or silver. Named Smokey and Rocky.

Smokey

Rocky

Smokey and Rocky

As usual they are really cute, Smokey is about a year old and Rocky is about 15/16months old. Smokey is the female and Rocky the male. Really looking forward to them coming over. We moved the other chins around yesterday as well. Harry has gone back in with Sally and Charlie, they all seem really happy to be back together again, tho' this is only temporary till our new cages arrive. We also moved Pumpkin in with Squeak and they are getting on brilliantly too. So now we have a small rat cage that is off down to the rubbish bins, I did think to keep it for maybe a sick chin's cage, but well Pumpkin as pretty much killed it lol. Besides with the new cage bank that were making we will have a couple of spare cages anyway for well new babies and separations if needed.

Then Tuesday evening the internet went down and what with power outages and modem problems, that didn't get sorted till late Thursday. Fingers crossed there'll be no more problems with the this well apart from random power outages. Which thankfully don't seem to happen that often.

I think that's about it for our stinky week oh well apart from the theft of my handbag on Weds afternoon, that was a fairly harrowing event. I was more worried about the loss of some. picture of Robynne than the money really. I mean it's a pain in the backside, but losing those would have been awful. Thankfully due to the quick thinking and brilliant observation of a couple of people in our group. The police were quickly called and the guy was chased down by the police. I got my back bag with everything in but my £50, but, I may still get that back eventually. as for the guy who took it well...



......... he's not going anywhere for a while.

Mmmm I really am hoping for a better time this coming week, you never know.

You would have Thought...

.... that a simple trip to Specsavers would be a nice simple thing to do. Pop in have eyes tested, order new glasses, then home for a cup of tea. Well that was before you add in my cold and stupid rules and regulations.

See I was feeling fairly crap anyway, what with the pounding in my head, lack of sleep - cute and fluffy don't cut it when you feel bad and they are keeping you awake - and feeling just generally urgh from this cold which now appears to be going to my head.

We get down to the Specsavers, and sit down so they can do all the form filling on the computer. Firstly Robynne's 16yr so supposedly she still goes in the student section, only we Home Educate and there's no slot for that. So we have no school to put her down as oh dear you have to pay for the eye test, I'm like what why, then remembering my lovely NHS Exemption card in my purse no we don't I said she's covered by this. Ummm actually she's not cause her names isn't on it. But, you can still use, just if they won't accept you get a £500 fine, mmm let's see pay £20 for test or use card and possibly get a fine. Ok we payed.

Now I suppose really I should be spending the afternoon getting intouch with the relevant people to complain, but, I just don't have the energy today. I'll get to it tomorrow honestly, just as soon as my head clears.

I guess the worse part was, that I only had a little money on me so we could pay extra if she need on her glasses. Tho' on the plus side for Robynne, she gets two new pairs of glasses - yes I fell into the £75 trap - one with reaction lenses, so get got what she wanted prescription sunglasses. Which she will have to wait till next week for us to get, but that's no biggie really. Mind you she has picked some really nice glasses, tho' on the way home she was a little worried that she would have no clothes to match with them.

I was fuming in the end tho' and Robynne said she felt guilty for costing so much money. So then I felt bad too lol and well as I said to Robynne it's not your fault how the rules are made. There's a smug person somewhere thinking they are real clever, but you know what someday I'll find them and rip them a new one...... or not.

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.

Fun and Games with Wii

A couple of weeks before Robynne's birthday last year we bought a Wii, we had been wanting one for a while and thought it would be great fun at Robynne's party as it turned out we never used it at her party. Need less to say it has been used many times scince then.

It has become not only a source of great fun and much amusement, it seems to be quite educational, which I suppose those of us in the H.E. circle know that this can be said of many every day household tasks and activities. Though I was quite surprised at this event tho' I shouldn't have been really. Anyway as I was saying it has been used alot, at first it was mainly Andy, then when we looked after K monthly while his mum took Robynne, T and J to H.E.Y - Home Ed youth group for over 12's - they really enjoyed Wii Sports, tho' as we have gotten more games this has changed lol.

Then it got to the stage where Robynne would play more often, then we got My Sims and I too started to play, mind you Andy still plays more as even tho' My Sims was a game that Robynne and myself wanted he completed it first. Super Mario Galaxy is another one that we have all enjoyed again Andy has almost completed this one too.

Our latest acquisition is causing the biggest stir tho' Robynne loves this one and has been asking for it ever scince the oh so charming advert, I'm sure you will know the one I mean when I say tht the game is Guitar Hero III, I just love the image of Slash wearing someone as a skin lol. It's not really helping Robynne learn her guitar lol, but it is helping her timing and rhythm. Even Andy has benefited even tho' he plays the guitar in the most unconventional way across his lap, for myself I like the game but every so often I have to pass to Robynne to get past certain levels. All in all the Wii has been a good buy lol, tho' now we need to get another guitar as playing dual player with the Wiimote is flaming awkward, it really messes me up when I go back to playing with the guitar. You can probably guess this, but, I think Robynne is going to complete this game first.