Progress, tricking and luscious lashes

1. After last week when Doris’ swimming teaching said she was going backwards (metaphorically not actually!), I was dreading this week’s lesson. But she finally relents and puts her face in the water and there seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel…
2. The concept of Trick or Treating is very alien to Doris. She can’t understand why people give you sweets just for dressing up and ringing their doorbell but she is very happy to put them in her bag. After about half an hour we ring a friend’s bell. She’s run out of sweets but offers us a cup of tea and a biccie.
3. My eyelashes are miraculously dark again after my bi-monthly trip to the therapy rooms. I look in the mirror and immediately think I look less tired.

Walking penguin, old tune and bargain remedy

1. Isla waddles penguin-style across dad’s lounge, a massive 6 steps in a row, beating her previous best by 3 steps. She is mighty pleased with herself.
2. The girls are asleep as I pull into Tesco car park so I have 5 mins to listen to the radio and sing along to Kirsty mccoll’s new England. It’s part of today’s ‘non-stop oldies’ though so I must be getting old…
3. I complain of a dodgy tum so Mat brings me some Actimel home from the Coop, a record knock-down bargain price of 9p for 12!

Elevation free, tea n bun and a warm catch up

1. Benefits of staying in a bungalow part one: no stairs for Isla to make a dash to climb up while my back is turned.
2. A cream doughnut from the jolly baker with a cup of ‘ashford sunrise’ (dad’s own blend of tea from his tea tasting course!)
3. A warm back from dad’s new wood-burning stove while catching up with the ashford Fletchers.

Paper mountain, egg family and comedy catch-up

1. In Birmingham The Sunday Times hits the mat and I still have yesterday’s Times and Guardian to read.  A drizzly day of paper reading and tea drinking. Oh and daytime naps.

2. Doris helps me make pancake batter, then she takes the rest of the eggs and draws a face and hair on them.  “This is Mummy, Daddy, Doris and Isla!” she says.

3. Watching the last of The Thick of It on catch-up. End of an era.

Fiver, free fun and balti night

1. I find a fiver in a hidden pocket of the change bag.
2. Too tight to pay £50 for an hour in the science museum, we hang around the free DNA exhibition outside. It’s very good and the girls love the interactive bits. Well, Isla plays row yer boat on the stripy benches and doris takes a picture of her skin cells but fun is had by all.
3. We go out as a four to the Ladypool Road for a balti. While we wait for Mat and Doris to come back from the offy with the byo, Isla stands at the plate glass window and smiles at the passers by. One man does a backtrack and turns back to have another look.

Genius, papped and midlands arrival

1. A breakfast Isla points to the cow on the milk carton and says ‘kau’. She.is.a.genius.
2. Doris makes the local paper! Her class is featured ‘first day at school section’ and she is sitting cross-legged at the front of the group with a big grin on her face.
3. A swift journey to Brum and a glass of red to mark our arrival. The girls wake and play in the lounge like it’s 3.30 in the afternoon.

Coffee n crunchie, pyjama sitting and street catch up

1. A coffee n fun sized crunchie combo helps enormously with the lesson planning for next term.
2. The logistical nightmare of how to pick the students up with the two girls in tow is solved by a kind friend and neighbour who takes a pyjamaed Doris in for twenty minutes while Isla and I collect.
3. Two friends from the street pop by for a drink, much to the French students’ amusement, and the next two hours pass by with great hilarity.

Daytime TV, knee in need and fashion faux pas

1. The guilty pleasure of twenty minutes of daytime TV while I eat my lunch.

2. The girls squabble over who is going to sit on my knee.  It’s nice to be in demand and I try to make the most of it while it still lasts!

3. I escape for a swim wearing my socks ‘n’ birkenstocks and a corduroy jacket that my stylist friend said I should under no circumstances wear anymore.  And who do I bump into in the foyer of the leisure centre but none other than said same friend, who immediately dials the fashion police. Oops…

float, picture and Spanish digits

1. At swimming, the teacher gives Isla a float in the shape of a crab to hold onto.  She holds it out while we zoom around the pool and doesn’t even try to eat it.

2. Doris’ self portrait hangs proudly in the ‘art’ exhibition at school.  The ginger mohican and big brown eyes is instantly recognisable.  A snip at £7.

3. I’m late for my Spanish class but am glad I still went as I missed last week and we do telephone numbers and email addresses – vital stuff.

coffee crisis resolved, les francais return and northern wit

1. We thought the coffee machine was bust but it turns out it just needed descaling. Thank goodness, as I was getting fed up with cafetiere coffee after almost two years on the Baby Gaggia stuff.

2. The first of this year’s French students arrive bearing gifts of (another) pottery cock, foie gras and raisins in honey.  They are actually really sweet* and love the warm custard with sponge pudding. One even puts his hand up to speak, as if I were his teacher. ‘C’est l’habitude,’ he confesses.

3. Lee Mack on Never Mind the Buzzcocks. Very funny.

* I reserve the right to change my mind if, by the end of the week, they turn into bed-bouncing, giggling, wrestling idiots.