Thursday photo #313

The weeks are starting to blur into one now. Schoolwork gives us some sort of routine, but I don’t really know how many weeks of home schooling we’ve done since the end of the Easter holidays. Two, or is it three? We’re looking forward to a shorter week of it with a day off on Friday for VE day. I’d quite like to have a little VE day party for the girls, but I’m not sure whether I’ve quite got the motivation.

Groundhog day

Writing a weekly blog post while we’re all at home seems a bit like groundhog day. Especially this week, when nothing of note has happened. It is Lia’s birthday at the weekend, but our plans are of course very low key. We’ve ordered her some nice presents online, luckily her request for her main present was relatively easy to get hold of. She was after an Echo Dot, for the simple reason that she wants to be able to talk to it and ask it to play songs for her in her bedroom.

Lia started singing lessons earlier this year, first with a group and then individually. I think she realises she’s quite good at singing, but she doesn’t really understand how good she is. After a few weeks of individual lessons, she was ready for her Initial exam, which Libby took last year. Lia would have taken it in June but because that isn’t happening now, she has moved straight on to Grade 1. Libby is in the process of taking Grade 1, I need to send off the video of her singing to the exam board soon. Libby is clearly very good for her age because she recently won a county singing competition. Despite this, her sister is catching her up. All the other girls taking Grade 1 this term from their school are a year older than Libby.

Lia has already learnt the first of her Grade 1 songs and sings it easily and perfectly in tune. Despite not having any appreciation of how good she is, Lia adores singing. I know that after her birthday, she’ll spend hours in her room just singing along to the songs she asks her Echo Dot to play for her. She is quite a shy person so she gets nervous about singing in public. I do hope this doesn’t hold her back from doing something she enjoys and is clearly very good at.

Writing

My work at the moment is a little hit and miss, as it is for many of us who are self-employed. I’m very lucky that I do several different types of work so it seems that when one work stream falters, I’m able to pick up work from another area to keep me going. In my downtime, I have been thinking more about getting around to writing a book.

I have written a few short stories on here but struggle to find the time to write anything longer. It’s also so important to have a workable idea that people would enjoy reading. The extra time kicking around at home has given me chance to contemplate what I might write about. Now I just need to find the self-discipline to get on and do it.

Thursday photo #313

I don’t think I’ll ever take our garden for granted during the time we’re all at home. The girls absolutely love playing on the swing and the trampoline. During breaks in schoolwork I often insist they spend a few minutes outside. They seem to have so much more energy and attention when they come back to do their work.