Picnics no more

The poor picnic bench sits alone. No more the beautifully hot sunny days when hour upon hour people lazed upon it. That time is gone, and now the Autumn comes creeping in. So long to sun and warmth, hello to frost and chill and rain. There will be picnics no more until the Spring.

Autumn's Arrival

Friday

As I said in my post earlier in the week we visited my Dad's Parents in Melton Mowbray on Friday. In the afternoon we went to the Melton Country Park and I took control of the camera. This is my Mum, Grandad and Dad as we walked along the top path.

Nothing much about anything

I'm enjoying my half term holiday. On Monday my Mum and I did lots of sorting and tidying out of kitchen cupboards. Just generally wiping everything out and throwing away things that were past their use-by dates. It was good fun and we had a great sense of achievement when it was done.

Yesterday I was looking after 16 month old S and in the afternoon I took him and 3 other children to one of the Lea Valley Park sites near Waltham Abbey. It has rained in the morning but in the afternoon the sun came out and it was beautiful. All four kids had great fun running about, playing football and frisbee. We were only there for about three quarters of an hour as we had to get back to take S home, but it was long enough for them to get a bit of fresh air and have a great time.

Today I am looking after S again, and at the moment he's napping, hence being able to get on the computer ;-). Tomorrow I'm having lunch with a couple of friends from university. They both live in London, but since London is a big place and we all live in different parts we don't get to see each other as often as we would like.

On Friday I'm going with my parents to visit my Dad's parents in Melton Mowbray (origin of pork pies and stilton cheese). I've got no idea what I'm doing at the weekend. I'll just have to wait and see

Things to do, people to see

Ok, so the title of the post possibly made it more exciting than it actually is. I'm going out babysitting tonight = people to see. I want to take something with me to do = things to do. I may take some more pegs with me to decorate as that's fairly gentle on the brain in terms of thinking.

My excuse for not wanting to think is that I'm now on my half term holiday and want to take a proper break so that I can be all refreshed and ready to go for the next half term at school. So I've only had a week at my new job, but I didn't get early nights last weekend, becasue of seeing Bekki, so I was tired at the start of the week. I'm going to try to have lots of early nights and get myself onto a proper schedule so that when I do go back to school it's not too much of a shock. I'll let you know if it works!

Pegs Pegs Pegs

These are some of the pegs that HP and I made Bekki for her birthday. By make, I mean decorated and varnished, rather than cutting down the tree...
We made some for HP to take back to uni (the project I mentioned, but never featured a few weeks ago - cos we didn't want Bekki to see them!)
(It took me about 15 attempts to upload the photos, so hopefully it really has worked this time!)(In fact, this is probably time 16....)

Update: Ok I never want to look at this post again, but I'm determined to get this picture on if it takes all night...

Update 2: see here for a picture of all the pegs before they were put back together.

All of a sudden it's Wednesday. Where does the week go?

Well I started my new job on Monday at 9am (and then was formally interviewed on Monday afternoon - it's a strange world!). It was a lovely way to start to get to know the two boys I'll be working with. I think after we've done a few sessions and they're both comfortable about working with me we (the class teachers and I) will start looking at how I can best help them, and what would work best. In the meantime we'll generally be sticking to what the rest of the class are doing and I will be helping them to access the work (assisting with reading and writing). I think that all made sense!

Today I am child-minding and S is down for a nap, so i thought I'd better stick something on my blog having not had the time for a while :-)
Yesterday I took S and another boy, J, to the park. S is 16 months and J is 2 1\2. They had great fun playing football, at least J is good at kicking the ball, S just wants to pick the ball up and hold it most of the time! We also went in the play area and went on the swings, slide, roundabout and seesaw. I say we, but actually I was the one doing the pushing, lifting, turning, and bouncing rather than actually going on the equipment.

That's about all I can think of at the moment. I could quite happily lie down for a nap as well, but there are several things I want to get on with, so I had better go and do them.

Happy Birthday to my Big Sister

I've been thinking about putting this photo up for quite a while, so what better opportunity than on Bekki's birthday :-)

Proof that I don't find jobs, they find me

I've been child-minding two days a weeks for a while now and that came about through a chance conversation with a lady at church.

Previously I worked as a teaching assistant in a primary school and that was through being in the right place at the right time (I was on a PGCE (teacher training) placement and decided that wasn't the right thing for me. They (the school), however, decided they liked me and offered me a job. Initially for a few weeks, and turned out to be for the whole year).

Through my TA job I got a chance to tutor a girl, M, from that school, and I'm still doing it. I suppose the one job I did do something about myself was working with N the autistic girl and her homeschool program. But even then all I did was reply to an advert in the local paper that was titled "We need you", so even then I'm not going to take full responsibility for getting the job!

And now, starting Monday I'm going to be working the other 3 days a week (weekdays I mean, so no funny comments about that) in the school that my Mum already works in. My Mum has obviously talked to the headteacher there about my current job-less-ness and She knows when she's onto a good thing (sorry, couldn't think how to phrase that sentence without sounding a bit arogant). Today I had a chat with the Head and she wants me to start on Monday. I think she also wants me to up it to 5 days a week in January.

I'm going to be a special needs assistant and support two boys one-to-one. One in the morning and the other in the afternoon in case anyone wondered how that was possible ;-)
Hurrah, a real job with real money (Not that I haven't loved all the babysitting etc that I've been doing, but it would be nice to be able to contribute to things like household costs etc even if I am living back at home.)

And most of all a big Thank-You to God who I know is the real brains behind me getting all these jobs :-)

Music Meme

Here’s how you play - Choose a band/artist and answer only in song TITLES by that band. I picked the Beatles, but freely admit I completed it with the help of the internet and good old google. I've included the album in brackets afterwards.

Are you male or female: Another Girl (Help!)

Describe yourself: I Am The Walrus (Magical Mystery Tour) [Not quite sure what i mean by that, but it just made me smile] Maybe this would be better: Long Tall Sally (Past Masters Volume 1)

How do some people feel about you: Good Day Sunshine (Revolver)

How do you feel about yourself: [right now] I'm So Tired (The Beatles - The White Album)

Describe your significant other: Got To Get You Into My Life (Revolver /Anthology 2)[as in don't have one at the moment!]

Describe where you want to be: Getting Better (Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band)

Describe how you live: Helter Skelter (The Beatles -The White Album)

Describe how you love: I Want To Hold Your Hand (1962-1966/Past Masters Volume 1)

Share a few words of wisdom: Mailman, Bring Me No More Blues(Anthology 3) or maybe Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except Me And My Monkey (The Beatles - White Album)

I tag anyone that wants to do this. Hmmm, Bekki and Kathleen especially, if they've got time!

Oh, and this was the first meme I've ever done, and the first time I've used bold in a post!

Time for a picture...

... we haven't had one for a while. Proof that HP fits in the boot of my mum's car. Hmmm, after trawling through the photos on this computer I think it's time to get the camera out and take some more.

I get by with a little help from my friends

My diary has suddenly filled up. A few weeks ago I wasn't really doing much apart from housework and helping HP get packed for university. During the last week in particular I've suddenly found lots of things to do, and even better some of them will be earning me some well appreciated cash. I'm child-minding the delightful one year old two days a week, and this week I'll be babysitting him one evening as well.
I'm tutoring M again (I was working with her last school year and had stopped over the summer). Today I agreed to babysit for a friend of a lady at chuch so that she can go on the alpha course that our church is running starting this Thursday. That'll be a long term commitment for the next ten(?) weeks - for as long as the course lasts.

On Saturday morning at our church prayer meeting a lady came up to me and said "I've heard you like looking after children" and asked me if I would be able to look after her two children some Saturdays (she works shifts and will sometimes have to work on a Saturday). I agreed that I would.I haven't got any firm dates from her as yet, but I'm sure I will soon.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly the Headteacher of the school my mum works at has asked if I would like to work with a couple of her pupils. She's willing to let me work around the child-minding that I do already, so I'm going to ring her tomorrow to say yes and find out when I can go in for a chat about hours and a contract (the magic word!).

I'm sure there's a couple of other things I'm meant to be doing as well. Oh, this Friday it's Bekki's birthday and I'm hopefully going up to Cambridge to see her and go to her party. I think so long as I remember to write everything in my diary I'll be ok, and next year's tax return shouldn't be too hard [My Dad helped me to fill one in for the last financial year - I'm lucky to have my own accountant on hand :-)]

Home

I'm home, but not awake [it was tiring, but also a certain 2 year old seemed to be doing his best to keep me awake last night]
Will post more soon.

Away

I may not be around on my blog till Saturday. (Away from home and limited access to computer) Enjoy yourselves while I'm gone :-)

You give a little love and it all comes back to you, da da da....

UPDATED TO ADD: Find the lyrics to this song here

I've realised I've become one of those bloggers who does spend a fair bit of their computer time reading other people's blogs, but that I've failed to share many of them with you, dear readers [all two of you, or so it seems sometimes, but hey :-)]
So here goes...

Blogs I like reading

Girl Talk - a blog written by a mother and her three grown up daughters. A great place to go if you're looking for some encouragement, sound Christian advice, or just some 'Friday Funnies'.

Blest with Sons - Blest is just really good at making her readers feel welcome. She's a Christian home-schooling mum of 4 boys, and I just love looking t osee what she's gonna post next!

Random Acts of Reality - This is a blog written by a guy working at an EMT for the Lndon Ambulance service. Can't remember what EMT stands for, but go check out his blog. And he's just had a book published of his blog. He works in London fairly near to where I live and his blog reflects what it can be like round here (but don't let it put you off coming to London ever again!).

I may put up a couple of other links as well, so just go explore.

(Bonus points to anyone who can spot where my title comes from)

Feeling Uninspired

I feel like I ought to and want to post something inspiring and fresh and anyone who reads it would say "wow" and "I've never read anything like that before". Instead I feel unispired to write any much at all apart from sentences that go on and on and have at least 3 uses of the word 'and' and, oh I've forgotten what the end of that sentence was going to be.

So rather than continuing to write rubbish I will ask can anyone guess what\where this was taken?

[BTW I expect most people either knew or guessed that I was doing stuff on miracles in sunday school today, including the feeding of the four thousand (which is similar to, but less well known than, the feeding of the five thousand).]