End of term

 

Spanishgirl has been and gone. She was easy to have but I felt the absence of Spanish in the family: perhaps our lack was her gain as she spoke much more English than our earlier French visitors. Youngest was put under strain: Spanishgirl lives in Madrid and Youngest found it difficult to explain our country slow lane life! But our trip to London went down well with everybody - yes, even  the art heathens among us loved the trip to see the Hockney exhibition! - and a hanging out and paddling in the river evening with a little gang of girls was deemed the 'most fun'. They had to make more flapjack and she took home the recipe.

I have made a cushion for the Church Fete raffle (I was instructed to make red white and blue but in a Kath Kidson style).

And I have made progress with the new chair (but not with the old ones). 

It's the end of term and we are off to Dorset tomorrow for an even quieter bit of country life.

No need to translate flapjack!

When little French girls came to stay I developed an e-mailing habit with Maman, based on my O level French, long before they arrived. If the girls didn’t understand I fished out ancient vocab and we managed. At midnight yesterday we greeted Youngest’s Spanish exchange girl. My Spanish is minimal, of the hola/gracia variety. I am hoping her English will be good enough for us to manage the week. I have had no contact with Madre…

We do know she was very pleased to discover flapjack which you may remember Youngest took as a gift to her hosts. Spanishgirl had hot chocolate and flapjack on arrival and has had the same for breakfast – and taken some to school for snack. She left with Eldest to catch the bus; some careful organization has resulted in a clash of the Spanish exchange with the Work Experience week so Youngest is not at school to be followed today.

This week has been all about my taxi. Youngest has had to be in Chippenham for work from 9 to 4.30. She is loving working in the Swindon and Wiltshire History Centre where she’s been tasked with writing a timeline for our village for their website. I did look at the bus, but it takes an hour and she'd be leaving at 7.30... so that means two round trips a day for me. And then I do the ballet run three nights a week for Eldest.

We will go again tomorrow to catch the train to London to show off the capital and visit the Hockney exhibition. I’m hoping Husband might drive.

Packing

This week we’ve been madly planning the church fete and panicking about the appalling weather forecast. By Thursday lunchtime it seemed obvious we must put up tents, if only so we could set up during the day: no good the sun coming out for the evening if we weren’t ready to go. The clouds looked billowy and grey periodically on Friday, but in fact I now have a ridiculous T-shirt tan that will take weeks of sunshine to loose. I’m not complaining you understand: the glorious weather brought out the village and its surrounds en masse and we had a great evening (well, I expect we did. I don’t know how much we made yet, was busy running my allotted stall and hoping the llama had turned up, but you know what I mean.) The llama was much admired ‘though I never met the kind owner with whom I now have an e-mail relationship. Must thank him! Packing up this morning everyone was congratulating one another on a great evening.



Also this morning I have packed Youngest off on her French Exchange. She suddenly got tearful and has been worriting. I suspect she isn’t sure she can keep up good or even merely tidy behaviour for a whole week. But I’m looking forward to hearing she’s having a lovely time and managed not to be sick on the journey. The photos are the two sides of a tea cosy which I have sent to the French mummy. (Her daughter bought her a teapot when she visited us.) I am very pleased with the ‘ensemble unique’ of it all!

Vote now!

She has gone. Youngest is exhausted from the constant company, but they have had fun together. They got a lot of practice of vocabulary playing Uno using a Duplo train set to pass the cards! Lots of giggles. They enjoyed one another’s company, but there is no let up, no space. Youngest missed her chill out time prostrate in front of the TV scoffing yoghurt or biscuits between meals.

And I have a new friend with whom it has been fun exercising my school-girl French via e-mail. Nuance is a very tricky thing, and translation via a dictionary isn’t always what you meant to say! We are working on exchanging our big girls once they’re through their exams…


I have always voted. I don’t take my vote for granted! Women went through hell to get the vote for me, and I shouldn’t waste it. But what if it is wasted?
It seems that we are being asked to vote for who we’d like to be Prime Minister, not which party we’d like to be in charge. I fear we’ve got what we deserve: none of the political classes can say anything from the heart. It might be right, it might be wrong, but it will still be news and they’re bound to offend someone whatever they say. If they’re not spinning for themselves, they’re being spun by the opposition or the media.
Tomorrow will be interesting! I wonder if anyone will win?
I have performed my civic duty: I've voted anyway.

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.