Well, we’re back to school… at least three of us are. Thomas is at work, and Gary has taken the older girls to Kingston. Charlotte, although she has one more exam to take (màths), has officially left our little homeschool. She is school bound in September to study Theatre Studies, English Literature and History at A Level. When Thomas graduated from AngelicScalliwags, we bought him a scooter and took him out to dinner to celebrate. We also had an evening of prayer, praying for his future and the transition from home to college.
For Charlotte we have given her some money to fund a clothes shopping trip so she will have some new stuff for school. Today, Gary has dropped the two of them off to shop for five hours(!). He will go and visit an old work mate whilst they shop and then pick them up and bring them home. We will be taking her out to our local Italian in a few weeks time. She particularly wanted my mum to come as well as she had played such a pivotal part in getting her through her Latin, testing her on the required vocab every. single. day. for three months. Anyway, mum’s not available until the end of the month.
Tonight, they are all going to Thomas’ college for a display of all the student’s work. I think the girls are more excited about meeting all of Thomas’ friends, who they have heard so much about! Gary is looking forward to listening to some of Thomas’ mixing.
So today is me and the littles. They begged me to let them have the day off, but having not done full school for about four weeks, I didn’t feel I could say yes. Anyway, I was looking forward to everything going back to normal, and the littles needed some more structure to their days.
So after everyone had left, the girls started their workbooks, whilst I reacclimatised myself to the rest of their school work (having not touched it for the past month):
After the workbooks, we did some tables memorisation and Latin vocab. I read out the Mystery of History lesson on the Zhou Dynasty, began the lesson on flowers in their Botany book and read some more about Atoms and Democritus from Science in the Ancient World. Lastly, I read Scroll XIII and XIV from The Secrets of Vesuvius. This is how the girls were listening to me today…
I wanted to alternate a bit of home making into our week to try to return our home to some sort of normality after the chaos of exams. Becca went upstairs to clear out her art studio:
Abigail did some work organising some of the drawers in the bathroom and kitchen:
Meanwhile, I doublechecked everything was still spotless upstairs, and hoovered all the bedrooms, hallway and down the stairs. Things are definitely starting to look a bit better.
We only worked for half an hour, but the upstairs is looking great and the downstairs bathroom is almost finished… yay us!
Next we went outside to check on all our edible plants which have gone mad in our absence. There are lots of lessons to learn here. Our herbs aren’t doing too badly:
Although the sage seems to have a mould growing on it, which I shall ask Gary about when he gets home. Does anyone have any idea what it is, or what I could do about it?
Our tomato plants have gone crazy since the last time I took a photo:
We even have some tomatoes growing!!
I do realise that anyone else would expect tomatoes from a tomato plant…but me, not so much. I am astounded that the plants are alive, let alone producing crops!
The vegetable garden is looking pretty good:
Although the lettuce has gone to flower:
And is home to many many butterfly eggs:
And baby caterpillars!!
We are a veritable farm! I have crops as well as livestock!!
We have two apple trees and a plum tree. Our plum and one of our apples take it in turns to fruit. This year it is the plum’s turn:
The smaller and newer apple tree is fruiting really well this year:
The last thing the girls did was to begin to pick and freeze our black currents and raspberries for this years jam making fest:
Before lunch we replanted some broad beans as our other ones had dried out through lack of watering and attention (this is far more normal for me – I really struggle to keep any plant alive!)
We ate a lunch of olive bread, cheese and salad whilst watching Princess Diaries together. Just as the film ended, the girls and Gary got back from their shopping trip and we spent the rest of the afternoon oooohing and ahhhing over their purchases!
As Gary and I hadn’t seen each other all day, we went down to the local coffee shop and had a hot drink and chatted about our day. I do love my husband and I love spending time with him, especially if it’s just the two of us <3
Not a very very productive day, but good to somewhat be back in the swing of things, especially without the pressure of exams 🙂
I think that sounds like a very productive day!
Thank you!