The Easter Holiday starts....

.... and so of course the sunshine has gone!

Miss Megs had a sleepover with the scouts last night - 

though apparently there was little sleep to be had due to "snoring boys" - 

today she was helping out at car coffee morning and car wash!

{My car was washed by the scouts - it's about 95% clean with a large mucky patch on the boot!}

It's fair to say that Miss Meg's wasn't the keenest car washer in the world -

 but she pulled her weight and worked hard.

Meanwhile Mr Ben had the usual morning of pool and air hockey with daddy 

before joining us at the coffee morning.

Still sunny on Sunday....

... so we took the bikes over to Crow Wood Park.

What Miss Meg's got up to yesterday....

.... off at her friends 14th birthday outing - a day at Southport beach.

Another great show at Gauntlet

Over the  years we've seen some fabulous shows at Gauntlet Bird of Prey 

But yesterdays was one of the best  - 

a juvenile bald eagle, a raven, 3 vultures, an eagle owl, a lanner falcon and 12 kites!

While the sun is shining...

..... we took advantage of the unusually warm March weather

 and had a lovely afternoon at a very crowded Tatton Park.

{Miss Megs was off on Southport Beach with friends - celebrating a 14th Birthday}

 After a time at the playground - we moved onto the mere.

The blossom was beautiful...

... and the light on the water was stunning.

For Sport Relief

The children in the School Council decided that all the teachers should be sponsored to run (walk!) the mile for Sport Relief.

I knew I was in meetings all of Friday, and couldn't join my class. 

What to do?

I promised them that if they sponsored me £15 I would ride my bike to school on Sport Relief day - in the end my lovely children and their parents raised £39!

4.5 miles there - 4.5 miles back - fortunately it was a beautiful day - the birds were singing - and it was actually really enjoyable!

I

When Mr Ben met Craig Fallon....

 ... Mr Ben was so excited to go to a coaching session 

with former under 60kg world champion Craig Fallon.

He practised some turn overs and a new throw... got his belt signed, held a gold medal.... and finished off with a photo!

Flowers for Mother Day

 Mr Ben and Miss Megs were up and out early  -

 handing out flowers and cards to the ladies at the early service.

A boy and his plasma ball....

 Mr Ben saw this little plasma ball at the toy shop....

.... He thought it was awesome....

.... Al thought it would make a great visual aid for a talk at church....

.... I thought it was very reasonably priced at £14....

..... Now we have a plasma ball in our living room!

edit: 4 hours later and he's still playing with it!

Freedom of the School

Mr Ben has his Freedom Badge! 

He is so pleased with himself - and so happy to have the rewards the badge brings -

 for example you can leave the classroom without asking permission first.

 This is a big deal - the badge is is only awarded to Year Six pupils - 

you have to work really hard, and show that you are trustworthy, responsible etc.

 He tells me that he is the first boy in the class to get the badge - 

he's been near for a bit - but has has to work on not calling out in class

 (which is obviously very hard for him).

 I am so proud!

ps - Miss Megs would like to point out that she got her Freedom Badge at the 
October half term of Year Six :)

When a Daddy and a Daughter...

... spend the evening together, watching TV and playing scrabble...

....that's love.

Take two steps to the left....

It's been a busy week....

.... meetings and conferences for school...

... lesson observations...

... evening meetings for church....

.... a first meeting at WD discussing Mr Ben's transition statement - an ok start, negotiations to be resumed at his annual review.

The work on our back years is virtually done, so Al and I spent the morning sorting out the the shed {utility room?!} and clearing space.

By lunch time we'd had enough.

Richard had kindly offered Al a ticket for the Everton match in the early evening - so we went to Liverpool One for the rest of the afternoon for lunch at GBK and a little shop.

 It was pretty busy - we ended up parking on the rooftop carpark by John Lewis.

 Mr Ben has discovered Ninjago - I talked him out of the £50 set and convinced him that the smallest set was cool!

Miss Megs was entranced by this owl chalk board - I should be a share holder in Sass&Belle!

Oh - and two steps to the left?

The speaker at the conference on Thursday was Dr Andrew Curran - 

he was a quite brilliant speaker.... his explanations of neurobiology clear and enlightening....

.... I remain to be convinced by his statement that stress is just perception - hence

"When faced by an immovable object just take two steps to the left 

and it's not in front of you any more."

But it's worth considering!

The Comedy of Errors - National Theatre Live

We'd been looking forward toThe Comedy of Errors for a while 

{Al has never quite forgiven me for failing to get tickets to Lenny Henry's Othello a few years back - so he was certain he was going to get to see this - and I just love this play, it was one of the first Shakespeare productions I ever saw - way back when at the Octagon}

It didn't disappoint - modern setting - very funny - and a band of buskers singing pop songs in Romanian - what more could you ask for!