Minute by Minute

We took the kids (and ourselves) to see a wonderful play last night performed in our little village hall by 10 girls from the Shatila refugee camp in the Lebanon. The play was called 'Croak, the King and a change in the weather' and the cast, accompanied by three local girls, put on a fantastic show. All this was very educational, in a moral and emotional sense, for all involved, but the highlight for my children was meeting the girls and their teachers afterwards and getting their autographs. In return we dashed home and cut a lock each of the kids' hair to give to the young Palestinians, as they showed a great and touching interest in all the children, but mostly in my youngest's strawberry blonde hair. We were able to deliver it to them, in a hand decorated envelope covered with drawings and stickers.We have exchanged email addresses with one of the girls and will correspond with all the girls this way. Can't wait.

Well, my right shoulder is a lot better now, but my left one came out in sympathy. It's been a bit frantic around here, settling the puppy in and getting a routine of walks going for him. Then it was Big Brother's birthday, with a party at an ice skating rink where he had a good go at breaking his arm. He only sprained it badly, it seems. Our Big Girl came down with her boyfriend and another friend of the family, so we've had quite a houseful and lots of fun being had. Then we all came down with a horrible cold. Yuk. Looking forward to feeling better, but it does drag you down when you're feeling ill. Was thinking of putting a longer post on Cabin Fever, but maybe I need to be feeling a lot better otherwise it'll be the illness talking and not the 'real' me.

Ok so the walks didn't get done. My memory's appalling, I can't remember what happened exactly. I do remember a lot of frantic rushing about trying to get kids ready to go out and being too late to go on the walk before we needed to be somewhere else. I also planned to go cycling with them but did my shoulder in, which threw all plans for active exercise out the window. Still, the osteopath, and nature, put me back together and we did at least manage a cycle ride yesterday. It's been a busy, up and down time lately. Some days I've felt like I could take on the world and get everything done, other days I could barely struggle out of bed, and when I managed to I wished I hadn't.

It's the Kielder walking festival this week and I'm planning on taking the kids on a couple of short walks, one to Hindhope Linn (waterfall) and one to see some of the artwork and sculpture around Kielder Water that we haven't visited yet. I'll also be taking little sis to the opticians, at her request. She's 5 and has convinced herself that she can't see properly.We'll also be meeting up with other home ed families that we know at a soft play place and taking Charlie, our black lab puppy to the vets for his last jabs. After that he'll be able to go out and mingle amongst people and other dogs. Can't wait! That's how I've managed to con persuade the children to do these walks this week as we'll be checking out walks that we think Charlie will be able to manage. Sneaky, eh?

I really think it's time I stopped reading/watching/listening to the news again for a while. Years ago I lived without a telly for a year and found reading the newspapers, which I did rarely, a really distressing experience, which meant, I figured, that I had become innured to the daily ration of horrific and distressing events dished up by the media. The latest pronouncement by the head of Barnardo's, Martin Narey, has thoroughly depressed me. And what depresses me even more is that so many people seem to agree with taking babies from their mother AT BIRTH! Have we learnt nothing as a society about how much it matters to a child be with their families in any but the most exceptional circumstances?

Well hello there! And welcome to my twog. (see title). In an attempt to publish posts a little more regularly I've set myself the challenge of writing in short bursts, which is why this twog is called Minute by Minute. I thought of limiting myself to one minute per post, but that might be a little hard to achieve, so each post will take no more than five minutes to write and when I've got a batch I'll publish them all together. I also have a blog, which is for my longer, more rambling musings. This one, my twog, is for shorter thoughts, ideas, quotes, plans and evaluations. Probably lots of other things too. Just as long as it fits into five miinutes.