Back to School - the Past!

Good afternoon Company Girls, "come away in and find a pew" as my friend's Aunty used to say!

We're getting ready for back to school here - along with most other people on the planet! - my 5yr old starts next Thursday and my 13yr old moves to her new school on Friday, so I thought I'd share a couple of last years back to school photos so you can compare them next week! Lol!

Last September my 5yr old started fulltime in the Reception class at the school I used to teach at. Although she'd been in the Nursery class for 5 terms (she started early!) she was still really excited!

Here she was BEFORE she spent the day doing whatever it is energetic 5 year olds get up to! 

Take note please of the neat cardigan and the carefully tied tie (we'd been practicing all summer!) and the huge cheerful grin!

Here's Big Sis too, all cool and calm in the year before's uniform that still fit! (I only had to buy shoes and 3 new shirts all year for her! Whooo Hooo!) She was going into her last year at her middle school and was confident that she'd do as well as she had always done! (In actual fact she did even better and won the trophy at the end of the year for "best girl" .... not that I like to brag or anything!" Lol!)

Now, here's my 5yr old at the END of her first day!

About the only thing that's still the same is her big grin! She'd managed to get paint and someone elses yogurt down herself, and goodness only knows what happened to her hair!

                                     

But she'd enjoyed herself, and continued to most of the year (we had a few hiccups along the way!) ....... all the adults around though were frequently heard to say "She's NOT like her sister is she?" ...... As Sprog 1 was such a quiet bookworm, this whirlwind was a shock to the system!

I really feel for her Teacher this coming year. Fortunately we've known each other for almost 20years as we both started as new Teachers at the school on the same day! Lol!

We have similar expectations and standards that we expect from the children, so I'm confident that Sprog 2 will do well - although I'm expecting tears and tantrums as she learns that Mrs S expects her class to work! :-)

Next week I'll let you know how this years photos turned out!

Have a good week everyone!

AM

Christmas!

.... Yes I know, we haven't had that most sacred of days "August Bank Holiday" yet. That day that consisted of being crammed in the car in the pouring rain and a 5 mile queue all in the interests of "having a good day out" when I was small!

But I'm a (currently non-practicing) Teacher ok, so humour me! :-)

Back in the day when I DID have my own classroom, August was my time to plan and discover. To trawl though my collection.... my extensive collection thanks to my Mum (a former youth worker) and my Aunt (a former Reception teacher) ..... of craft books and ideas. To route around in the crisp enticing catalogues that came with the summer issues of "Junior Education" and "Infant Projects", coming with thigs to do with shiny blue paper and glitter in a miriad of shades!

Now I sit at the computer working my way steadily through a new cartridge of ink and ream of paper, creating a 'Christmas planner' courtesy of Organized Christmas :-)
I first came across this about 4 years ago, and found the 6 week 'Christmas Countdown' helped get me to Christmas a little less frazzled.
Last year I tried to graduate to the BIG 18 week plan, the 'Holiday Grand Plan'.
I did really well....... I managed the planning stage, the delegating, organising stage. Errmmmmmm, then it got to the "doing", and actions gradually pettered out!

This year I'm starting afresh, and I'm determined I'll keep going until at least my birthday in October.

.......Anyone want to take a bet on how far I get?!
AM

Gremlins......

I've no idea what I've done, but I lost the colour on my blog so I've had to faff about and learn what some of the other buttons on the posting screen actually do!

I still have an annoying little square that appears evert so often telling me that "this image has been deleted or removed" from when I tried to add the "Company Girls" button. Does anyone else have these hassles ........ or is it just me?! :-)

One or two of the many (too many probably!) Blogs I've been reading recently have been running some Blog "how to" articles.
I think the time has come to "read up" on how to sort this out!

Then maybe I can join in a little more confidently with some of the fabulous weekly "parties" that people host!
AM

Almost over

We've just got back from a few days in Deepest Darkest Rural Wales - where my Mum has a little cotage near the sea - and this morning I took down all the "days" from our summer countdown calender. Sadly I'm faced with the fact that I have only 16 days until the time we designated as "getting ready for school" hits us :-(

Why are the summer holidays NEVER long enough now I'm a Grown-Up?

As a child I remember long days of playing in the garden (it must have rained, but I don't rememebr that!) of wqalking over the fields to the next village where my Grandma lived, and spending afternoons with her baking. I remember our family camping trips where we spent days on the beach and sight seeing (I think I've probably visited almost every church in East Anglia! Lol!)

So WHY is there never enough time now?!
The days seem shorter, the days become weeks so much more quickly! Just a few days ago I was thinking about a trip I took to meet up with an old friend. It was before I fell pregnant with my middle daughter - who is now 5!!! Eeekkkk!

Ho Hum!

As for our trip to Wales? Well we had an absolute whale of a time - spending many hours on the most gloriously sandy beach. I'd post photos, but I was too busy building sand castles and paddling with the girls to take any!
But you can use this link to see where we were!
http://www.cardiganshirecoastandcountry.com/poppit-sands-beach-cardigan-bay.php

But here we are on the beach in Yorkshire the week before!

After a loonnnggg drive home yesterday, I've still got the car to unpack and sort out properly - and a daughter to go back and collect! My 5yr old decided she wanted to stay on a little longer and have her first "adventure" without us!
I'm glad she's having the same fun in her summer holidays that I remember in mine, but I'm really NOT relishing the thought of that drive to go and fetch her on Monday!
AM

Splashin' Good Fun!

Yesterday was an "odd" day.

I had to be up at 04.30 to get my eldest daughter, her friend (another Guide) and an older lady (a former Guider) to a coach waaayyyyy accross town for a 6am pickup.
They were travelling to Yorkshire to a HUGE one day Festival to mark the Centenary of Girl Guiding in the UK (around the rest of the world the centenary is happening over the next couple of years)

Despite them leaving late, I was still home by 7am and found the house still quiet, neither of my younger 2, nor my husband had stirred.

BLISS! :-)

I caught up on some blog reading, checked out routes for a trip we're making next week and read a few posts on Facebook (where I've discovered a lot of my old classmates hang out, it's good to catch up on life "back home" now I've been gone over 20 years...eeekkkk!)

Both girls surfaced within minutes of each other, with DH in hot pursuit downstairs to make breakfast (that's a novelty!) so we headed to a neighbouring town to the playground at the park (which is SO much nicer than anything we have locally!)
Because it was still quite early and the weather was not the nicest - warm enough but quite overcast - they had the WHOLE playground to themselves for almost an hour. AND I'd thought to take an old beach towel with me to wipe the swing and slide so they didn't get a soogy bum! (Mind you, CJ in her impatience DID sit on the only thing that hadn't been wiped, but she'll learn!)

ON the way home we decided to stop at McD's ...... and eat IN, (smallest was MOST impressed! hee hee!) so by the time we headed home it was only just after 1pm and we'd done everything! Whoo Hoo!


Then the Heavens opened, Oh Boy did it RAIN!!!!!!!

It was so wet as we pulled onto the drive that DH refused to get out of the car and sat reading the paper that we'd got on the way home until it stopped raining! (What a wuss!)

Not so the smalls. Oh no!
Mummy was dispatched to open the boot and find the raincoats and wellies left over from our trip north on Sunday - oh yeah, it's OK for me to stand there in just a T-shirt getting wet through, but the girlies want their kit! Lol!



Luckily we also keep a GINORMOUS golfing brolly in the boot, so I didn't get too wet, and it was worth it to watch them having fun!



Although I wasn't too impressed when they decided to catch the rain in their hands and then sprinkle it all over me!