Pigs, Plays, Parenting, Presents and new Projects.........

And obviously procrastination as it is taking me sooooo long to write this post!!! Now in panic as tomorrow we go on holiday so I'll have to start the next post!

Yet another busy week (edit to say I'm talking over a week ago), Daughter with E and O are Tudors again for the whole week so as usual R moves in with us.

Last Saturday Daughter was home briefly with O for drama as it was their final rehearsal day, then they left to return to the year 1593 while I stayed to watch R's performance. It was very good, especially as they had lost many of the cast, had very little rehearsal and were tackling The Tempest to just an audience of four! Starting the play telling the story with shadow puppets was very clever.

That Saturday afternoon was our street party to celebrate the Queen's 90th. Thank goodness for large gazebos as it got wetter and wetter the tables and chairs got closer and closer under shelter, but everybody stayed and we had a great time.

We didn't do a great deal all week but did go out every day. Wednesday R had her college induction day ready to start September. She loved it.

Another day we went into town as pigs had invaded our town centre along with yarn-bombing

Just a few of the 69 pigs.

I've been busy crafting for babies. NieceVJH received her parcel by post

Now I'm busy working on the baby gift for my friend's newest grandchild who caught me out as she arrived five weeks premature (no photos until they've received it). And there's another family baby due in September I need to craft for next.

The following Saturday was O's first drama group performance, thankfully to a larger audience. Here he is in costume

Amazed at these flowers that were bought for me a month ago. I had them a week then as we were going on holiday (that was the Wales Holiday) I gave them to my neighbour to enjoy, when we came home so did my vase of flowers, and today, four weeks after they were bought, they look like this

We fitted in a visit to nieceVJH (long drive to Surrey and even longer drive home) but all worth it for lots and lots of cuddles. Big boy just four weeks old and so snugly! 

Hubby had decided to fix the shed which is letting in water by recladding the outside, and he decided to do it six days before we go on holiday. Monday we had our usual coffee morning so he lost half a day. And our trip to Surrey lost him another whole day. He removed the planks from the front to discover lots of the frame was rotten making twice as much work! I didn't get close enough to take before/during/after photos as I was a bit peeved he hadn't waited till after our holiday so I didn't have so much to do by myself, like setting up garden coffee morning (beautiful sunny day) which means moving lots of furniture etc, and all the washing ironing and packing, which then took on some urgency when I discovered we were going on holiday Friday and all along I'd thought we were booked for Saturday. So lucky I noticed in time not to keep our friendsN&T waiting on the drive while we frantically packed lol

Also today we had a lovely lunchtime meet up with friends

Hubby finished and secured the shed 10 mins before leaving home for this lunch and tomorrow we go on holiday! This evening Hubby is out on a bloodrunners fundraising event and I've finished packing, charged up and packed all our gadgets, emptied the fridge and all the bins round the house and put the wheely bin down the drive for the morning, watered the house plants and spent a little time with Daughter when she came here to teach a recorder pupil....and write this. 

Phew, think I've caught up at last. 

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Very proud grandma moments.....

We're coming to the end of the school year and although my grandchildren are home educated they attend various extra groups that run term time only, so we have a little group of performances that we look forward to.

Thursday evening E's choir had their concert which Daughter and I both went to (thanks to Hubby offering to entertain and feed O) and really enjoyed, they came on after the guitar group and the junior percussion group. The choir had quite a varied programme of songs and they all looked the part too.  Friday evening, however, E had her South Suffolk Youth Wind Band concert at the same time as R's Wolsey Youth drama group's performance, so Daughter went to E's and my friendKK and I went to R's. It was great seeing these young performers on a real theatre stage. The whole evening was Shakespeare based and R's group did "How many Shakespeare plays can we fit into 10 mins), so a lot of very abridged dialogue and running around all done with great humour. R only had a few small parts to play which she did very well although I know she was a bit disappointed at not having a part a bit bigger....but friendKK and I both enjoyed it, as did the young dad who sat beside friendKK who was there on his own to see his daughter and was obviously not used to theatre going, so KK went into her usual befriending inquisition and had his whole life story in 10 mins!

We dropped R home. (along with the big bag of dried washing) and went home and friendKK came in for a cuppa but as it was such a lovely warm evening we went straight outside again to the garden with cold drinks. Hubby joined us out there soon after as he'd been out on a blood-run. KK went home and we came in then I noticed the video Daughter had uploaded to her flickr account. E is a percussionist and of course spends most performances running between instruments at the very back of the orchestra and because she is small can be heard but often can't be seen. Well during this concert E and another slightly older lad were right at the front and played a difficult xylophone duet AND Daughter was in a really good position to capture it all on her phone. IT IS AMAZING :-) very very proud of her. Daughter said the applause went on and on for a long time!!!

Saturday morning Daughter then went to see R perform with her other drama group. Unfortunately I couldn't go to that as I was on my way to London, however Daughter said that R was brilliant in the two different sketches she was in and "owned the stage" in one of them :-)

How wonderful that they each have special talents and the opportunities to use them and really  enjoy using them as much as we enjoy being entertained by them, I can't stop smiling and showing off to others... I'm a very proud grandma :-)
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Granddaughter diary, last days......

Yesterday was a definite show of home sickness for R, with a total lack of enthusiasm. After the morning's quite forceful cajoling into the bathroom for some personal grooming it was pretty much on the sofa with minecraft and skype. Although her head came up a couple of times saying "I really fancy doing something" but after my very long list of suggestions her shoulders shrugged and her head went down again.

We had to leave home at 4pm to pop R home to change into her dance stuff (she'd packed her shoes but not black leggings etc). M opened the door and immediately apologised for the mess (and it truly was), he's moving the bedrooms around and it's not going exactly as planned. R needed help to even get to her clothes!  R agreed with M to come home for the weekend even though she may not have anywhere to sleep!

Then off we went to her dance class. It's a very odd bunch of people that sit and wait for their children (not watching at all), I was one of the first there so took a chair off the stack and put it on the left (where I'd sat once before when the chairs had already been set out) then as others arrived they sat on the right of the hall, which I'm guessing is where they always sit but did make me feel awkward. Well there were only about five together, three mums the dance teacher's sister who had finished giving her private lesson and wasn't involved in the main group class,  and the teacher's mum who sets out chairs and takes the money....and they got sooo noisy and distracting for the class, their own children kept calling across too when they should have been dancing! And then one of them went into the kitchen and yelled through the hatch right behind me "do you want tea Linda?" and came out with three mugs without any acknowledgement I was there. The dance teacher did come over for a chat though which was lovely. So home around 7pm and dinner out of the freezer for just the two of us as Hubby had met old work friends for lunch and was out all evening at a stag do!

R did get quite animated though about 9:30pm when she noticed the hedgehog out in the garden again so went out to investigate like she did the night before. Eventually she went up to bed.

Today is her drama group morning then I'll take her home after gathering up all her belongings that have spread out around the house. Gonna miss having her here!
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