What a month!
17th Nov: letter arrives saying Katie failed her 11+ by 14 marks. Shock. Everyone, from family to school, expected her to sail through it because of her strong verbal reasoning and writing skills. Tears(Katie)and stress(me)all weekend...why did we decide to push the decorating through to finishing that particular weekend...simply because we never expected the result we got! Still, the stress got the paint on the walls at a spectacular rate and did I take out my frustration with that paint roller!
We decide to go to the review panel and I hand in my review letter stating why she deserved to pass and quoting her Year 5 level 5s, and we start to visit selective and non-selective schools.
The very next day, I get a phonecall from the Admissions Manager at the council to say there was a software error and Katie did in fact pass, with 80 marks above the pass mark and with the maximum score for her writing. Relief! Joy! Excitement! Hurried up to school to give Katie the news, quick hug from her and off she trotted to tell her friends. Teacher opened a box of Celebrations chocolates for the class, bless her.
All sorted, visited half the number of schools now and Katie is ready to choose her favourite.
This week we found out that someone had cloned our credit card and had a whale of a time! What a time to have a credit card cancelled, right before Xmas. Thank heavens I signed up for Tesco's card a few months ago to save for OU courses! So now I am in a muddle searching for receipts so we can tally up what we spent and what is fraudulent.
The run of bad luck continued yesterday when I decided to put a tenners worth of unleaded in my diesel car! It took me a trip to Maidstone and a school run to notice it was spluttering a bit but I put it down to the cold. On my way to collect hub from the station is suddenly dawned me that I might have used the wrong pump. Oh dear, or as son said, " big do-do's". Abandon car in car park and ring mum to collect hub and get car mechanic's tools and some empty cans and a can of diesel.
Two hours later the dinner I left to keep warm in the oven is pretty much ruined while hub and car mechanic friend empty the tank and put in diesel. Car starts and doesn't splutter or smoke. I think I have been lucky, but I'm still wary when I start the car and when I am driving. Fingers crossed for the next few journeys.
What will the rest of the week bring? Hopefully nothing, if, as the saying goes, things happen in threes.
I'm staying home today and doing boring stuff like ironing and washing, and looking forward to destressing at hub's Xmas party on Saturday.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Thursday, November 08, 2007
Uphill all the way!
Not much time to blog lately. The pace of life is relentless :)
Katie sat her 11+ last Saturday. She had no trouble writing a good story with all the required elements, had a good bash at the Verbal reasoning paper, but struggled with the maths paper. Unfortunately alot of the things that I and school had practised with her did not seem to come up - fractions, percentages, ratios, means, modes, ranges and medians, bar graph interpretations, geometry, etc. Having talked to other parents I feel less concerned as many other children found it tough. We've waited almost a wek for the results, just one more week to go. She's convinced she hasn't passed and has been miserable all week. But I'm not so sure. She deserves to pass and I cling to that thought! I think she's having a bit of a mental melt-down. Every piece of homework this week has been like pulling teeth!!
Sam, having had a mature moment or two this week, bless him, settled down to some serious revision for an approaching GCSE science exam and some internal assessment tests. Topic - genetics. Yuck! He's got a good grasp of it all though.
I've made some serious progress this week in Spanish. I can proudly say that I am now getting to grips with not two but four tenses :)
Just to top it all, I've been getting up at 5am to drive hub to the station. I'm fine til about 8pm, then I kinda keel over and switch off! Unusual for me, I'm normally a bit of a night-owl.
Katie sat her 11+ last Saturday. She had no trouble writing a good story with all the required elements, had a good bash at the Verbal reasoning paper, but struggled with the maths paper. Unfortunately alot of the things that I and school had practised with her did not seem to come up - fractions, percentages, ratios, means, modes, ranges and medians, bar graph interpretations, geometry, etc. Having talked to other parents I feel less concerned as many other children found it tough. We've waited almost a wek for the results, just one more week to go. She's convinced she hasn't passed and has been miserable all week. But I'm not so sure. She deserves to pass and I cling to that thought! I think she's having a bit of a mental melt-down. Every piece of homework this week has been like pulling teeth!!
Sam, having had a mature moment or two this week, bless him, settled down to some serious revision for an approaching GCSE science exam and some internal assessment tests. Topic - genetics. Yuck! He's got a good grasp of it all though.
I've made some serious progress this week in Spanish. I can proudly say that I am now getting to grips with not two but four tenses :)
Just to top it all, I've been getting up at 5am to drive hub to the station. I'm fine til about 8pm, then I kinda keel over and switch off! Unusual for me, I'm normally a bit of a night-owl.
Thursday, November 01, 2007
What happened to October?!
It whizzed by!
It was a busy month.
There was a ton of GCSE and Year 6 homework and some 11+ practice for Katie, the beginnings of my venture into tutoring, gathering the last of the carrots, tomatoes and spring onions in the garden,
and the holiday paid for with the last of my earnings this year!
We all got to dabble in stuff we enjoy...for the kids, playing with the dog and exploring on bikes..
for Lee, chatting to the owners with a few beers,
for me, a spot of sunbathing with a good book, swimming and a bit of amateur photography..
my god was the water cold!
It was warm, but cool enough to venture inland, unlike in the summer, to Ronda:
for a take-away pizza on the steps of this beautiful church...
to see Puente Nuevo and the bandits museum for a bit of history on the region.
We experienced a wonderful drive through the Sierra de las Nieves National Park where we spotted a few eagles flying high above some great rocks (the eagles kept the kids happy, the rocks fascinated me, hub just drove and drove and avoided the goats!)
Decorating the conservatory followed the holiday. First it needed emptying, new flooring went down, followed by 6 coats of paint (yes 6, and I can still see a tinge of orange under the new 'Mint Crisp'!) Still to do are new balustrades, and blinds to keep the room cool (yes, that can wait, no chance of heat now!) and some furniture to buy (we had hand-me-downs-for everything..sofa, table and unit, can't wait to choose my own furnishings!)
More photos to go on Flickr soon.
Having finally logged onto the OU's First Class system after all the painting I read of the death of Hilma Miles, a super lady, a smart cookie, who gave me advice on courses on more than one occasion and whose website has been really handy at times. What a loss, and at such a young age. At least she died doing something she enjoyed. RIP Hilma.
That's brings me to November.... GCSE Science revision for Sam, 11+ day for Katie, Xmas shopping (ugh!), an ECA to begin while the kids are at school, and completion of the conservatory decor.
Finally, as some readers might remember, hub has been desperate to change jobs as a result of the shifts that are, in his own words, "killing" him. Well, he has the opportunity to try changing to a 4 nights on, 4 days off, 4 days on, 4 days off pattern. It has it's benefits...more time off and less nights in the long run, but also has it's disdvantages...shifts running into weekends and longer shifts (as if he needs longer shifts...he's already gone from the house 14 hours a day!) He's giving it a trial run anyway, let's hope it's a bit easier on him.
It was a busy month.
There was a ton of GCSE and Year 6 homework and some 11+ practice for Katie, the beginnings of my venture into tutoring, gathering the last of the carrots, tomatoes and spring onions in the garden,
and the holiday paid for with the last of my earnings this year!
We all got to dabble in stuff we enjoy...for the kids, playing with the dog and exploring on bikes..
for Lee, chatting to the owners with a few beers,
for me, a spot of sunbathing with a good book, swimming and a bit of amateur photography..
my god was the water cold!
It was warm, but cool enough to venture inland, unlike in the summer, to Ronda:
for a take-away pizza on the steps of this beautiful church...
to see Puente Nuevo and the bandits museum for a bit of history on the region.
We experienced a wonderful drive through the Sierra de las Nieves National Park where we spotted a few eagles flying high above some great rocks (the eagles kept the kids happy, the rocks fascinated me, hub just drove and drove and avoided the goats!)
Decorating the conservatory followed the holiday. First it needed emptying, new flooring went down, followed by 6 coats of paint (yes 6, and I can still see a tinge of orange under the new 'Mint Crisp'!) Still to do are new balustrades, and blinds to keep the room cool (yes, that can wait, no chance of heat now!) and some furniture to buy (we had hand-me-downs-for everything..sofa, table and unit, can't wait to choose my own furnishings!)
More photos to go on Flickr soon.
Having finally logged onto the OU's First Class system after all the painting I read of the death of Hilma Miles, a super lady, a smart cookie, who gave me advice on courses on more than one occasion and whose website has been really handy at times. What a loss, and at such a young age. At least she died doing something she enjoyed. RIP Hilma.
That's brings me to November.... GCSE Science revision for Sam, 11+ day for Katie, Xmas shopping (ugh!), an ECA to begin while the kids are at school, and completion of the conservatory decor.
Finally, as some readers might remember, hub has been desperate to change jobs as a result of the shifts that are, in his own words, "killing" him. Well, he has the opportunity to try changing to a 4 nights on, 4 days off, 4 days on, 4 days off pattern. It has it's benefits...more time off and less nights in the long run, but also has it's disdvantages...shifts running into weekends and longer shifts (as if he needs longer shifts...he's already gone from the house 14 hours a day!) He's giving it a trial run anyway, let's hope it's a bit easier on him.
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