The Last Post.

I've been terrible at blogging this month, haven't I?

The last two weeks have been a bit busy. Mum is in Australia visiting my brother and new baby leaving me to look after Dad. Hubby was away in Alaska but is back now. And this week I have been to A-Ha concerts and spas and stuff! Will do a separate post about that.

Today we went to Jack's funeral. It was an extremely moving service with a huge attendance of family, friends, neighbours and army cadets who provided the guard of honor and last post. The Johnny Cash (or Nine Inch Nails) song 'Hurt' was sung and played live by Adam who I don't know but assumed maybe Jack's friend from the band that they played in. But I'm not certain. It was an awesome performance, though. There were thought provoking tributes read out about this remarkable young man and the comical stories provided some laughter through all the tears. It seems he spread joy and happiness everywhere he went and made me think about how a person can influence so many in a short lifetime. As he was known to his friends as 'tractor Jack' for his tractor driving abilities, and for his sense of humour, he departed to the song 'Combine Harvester' by The Wurzels!

Half term.

Bit late with this post, but never mind.

Half term started early with an INSET day (staff training day). I love INSET days, especially when they are on days when everyone else is at school. It gives us the opportunity to go places when it is quiet, or even cheaper than during school holidays.

We began the day with pancakes for breakfast! Well, Hubby and I had been watching 'River Cottage' the night before and HFW was urging us to do it. Who are we to argue?

I had saved up a little money from some tutoring that I have been doing recently and so booked a horse riding lesson for Honor and Henry. They LOVED it! I was surprised how much they learned in just one lesson - so I booked another one for a few days later.

In the afternoon we visited The Canterbury Museum which incorporates the Rupert Bear Museum. Even though we had to pay (boo!) the kids spent a lot of time on the interactive activities before asking 'where's the gift shop?'! I've been teaching kids non-verbal reasoning for the past few weeks and got quite excited by some of the activities which were great for developing these skills. For example, there were Viking runes for code work and pattern matching with Roman tiles. My favourite exhibitions, though, were for Bagpuss and Rupert Bear. Lovely.

For an exhilarating end to the day, my Mum treated Honor and I to a trip to the ballet. We saw 'Swan Lake' at a tiny, old theatre in Margate. It was a really old theatre like the one in the film 'Mrs Henderson Presents'. And it was fabulous.

Later in the week we met up with my ol' friend Glenn. He is Hope's godfather and we used to teach together. Glenn made us a lovely lunch of marrow bolognaise (which was great - and made a very good finger food for the baby) and then we headed off to Brockhill Country Park for a nice walk. Well. It was a good job we had Glenn with us because it was not easy getting Hope's pushchair around it.

As we stopped for a long chat, catching up on all our news, the kids got busy - taking their shoes and socks off for a paddle in the stream. It was the end of October!

Hope's face says it all!
Eventually, we made it back to the cafe for a nice cup of tea and a kit-kat.

Then we took Glenn back home. Henry made him sit in the very back of our Zafira with him. These pics show him getting stuck trying to get out again!

I took some of the frozen marrow home with me and had some today with my lunch in a creamy chicken pasta dish. It was lovely. Thanks, Glenn. See you soon.