Steering Wheel

Little French girl is a delight! She understands lots and responds with short English sentences or phrases. She’s a year older than her sister was when she visited, but I still think it’s pretty brave to come and live with a bunch of foreigners.


We mothers put up with a lot don’t we? Monday’s request went something like this:
“I need a steering wheel for the bus.”
“?”
“We’ve agreed it will look better, and I need it for Friday at the latest, ‘though it would be better for Wednesday’s rehearsal.”
“Rehearsal?”
Then the Look! I produced a wire ring from a lampshade that for some reason I had thought might come in useful, but it would need a transformation, and a proper wheel would be better.
The lovely man at the Mini restoration garage on the edge of the village produced a grubby white leather steering wheel and said it would cost me 15 quid unless I promised to bring it back. Eldest looked down her nose, “It’s very dirty.” I wiped it down and offered to do a more thorough job if they decided to opt for it rather than the ring.
The rehearsal was OK I gather and the gang want the real thing. Their GCSE performance for the examiner is on Friday. I’m washing the costume shirt. Fingers crossed.

Anticipation

I seem to be busy but have few excitements to report!

Eldest passed both her ballet exams – Grade 7 and Intermediate – a consequence of which is that she has moved to the Advanced class on a Friday evening instead of Inter on a Monday. As you can imagine this has thrilled the family! At least the whole Grade 7 class took the exam so they have simply become the Grade 8 class.
We are about to be visited by Youngest’s French exchange student. She is the younger sister of Eldest’s exchange student from 3 years ago. Eldest’s FES was a delight! She understood some of our English (and even some of our French), could say “Yeuss”, “No sank-youze” and shrug a wonderful shrug while sporting a beautiful smile. We loved her! Incredibly brave at 13 to come to the UK for a week without her family and take on a bunch of foreigners who’ve been advised by the school not to speak French as ‘they’re supposed to be practicing their English’!
Eldest was most grateful that the French father spoke good English, and at least she knew something of the Family having spent a week with her opposite number. Eldest and her FES still exchange e-mail from time to time: not bad I reckon.
We await the arrival of little French girl with interest.

Everything in the garden is yellow

Everything in the garden is yellow: there are daffodils and primulas in every direction. But when you get up close there's my favorite blue!

From top to bottom: omphalodes, pulmonaria, viola, muscari.

holidays

We’ve had a good time in Dorset and staggeringly fair weather, but it’s nice to be home. We walked every day, read lots of books, ate out several times and went to the pictures twice. Alice in Wonderland was wonderful – even Husband enjoyed it – and How to Train Your Dragon was OK. Youngest had a friend to visit and has come home exhausted from too much chat and too little sleep... she’ll learn one day that beauty sleep is essential.

Poor Husband is busy taking exams, two last week and five more this. He’s been swatting hard and I’m crossing my fingers as he’s anything but confident – most unusual for him. If nothing else he’s setting a very good example to our GCSE student!
I’ve had a lovely weekend catching up with all the laundry and pottering in the garden. There’s something very satisfying about piles of freshly laundered clothing – not ironed of course, just smoothed when folded - and it's amazing what a week of warm weather has done to the plants. All the excitement of the dentist and shoe shopping this week to look forward to. I wonder if the girls will get up today?