Dotty Old Professor and Wise Woman Heaven

Resolution of getting up earlier went completely out of the window this morning, so we managed to drag ourselves up only just about in time to make it to Emily's opticians appointment. We seem to have found Professor Kirk from the Lion, Witch & Wardrobe - alive and well and working in Specsavers!!

Never seen him there before, it's always been one of a very nondescript bunch that has done Emily's eye test, but today he took her under his wing, waved her straight in and generally was extremely.....odd...but very nice with it. Complete with pale checked suit, bow tie, white frizzy hair and glasses. Mind you, the fact that he nodded sagely and immediately said "Very wise decision" when I said that Emily was home educated - that may have gone some way towards my forming a favourable impression of him, lol. Don't think Emily's ever giggled so much in the company of a stranger! Turns out that her prescription is fine, and that with her glasses she has 20/20 vision. He sent us off in the company of a very surly assistant to choose new frames. Said surly assistant promptly left in a huff when Emily took too long to choose - mainly because she (Emily) didn't like any of the age 5-11 frames they had.

Not to worry, because Dotty Professor came to our rescue by leading Emily off to the teenage section and discussing with her which frames from there she could choose and which weren't suitable due to optical length (or something). She chose a very snazzy purple pair, which he went into potty old raptures about. Bless. Hope we get him next time.

Got some gymn mats from Tesco while we were out, which should help - every time Emily tries gymnastics inside on the floor she gets bruised and bumped and it hurts her head and neck because our floors are so hard. There's the garden of course, but as she says, "It's years until summer."

Picked up half the dispensary from the doctor's for Jon, and came home to find Jon and Grandad much relieved having finally found Romeo who - yep - had gone missing again and hadn't been seen since about 8am when I let him out. Despite the pouring rain this morning, when he finally came in he was bone dry and warm, with just a few splashes on his coat where he'd run across the garden. He's obviously found a nice hidey hole. He's gonna be trouble, that cat.

And so to work this afternoon, which after some English and maths has consisted of science in the form of this Perfume Laboratory Kit which has been a great hit. Emily dressed in her wise woman costume and spent a happy ages making mint, jasmine and mint/rose perfume. The kit included ideas for how to use it with petals, herbs and other stuff you've gathered yourself, so naturally our little wise woman is in seventh heaven. Tomorrow she wants to make orange perfume. Should be interesting.

Found a lot of nice experiments on this Science Spells site, which seems to appeal to Emily's frequent wise woman/witch mode. Some nice carbon dioxide experiments on the BBC Food Lab site too.

Emily's computer kept switching itself off yesterday (right in the middle, for instance, of the one single game of Pharaoh I got to start while Jon was doing bedtime reading. Pout.) which was cause for alarm. Turns out the fan's broken and it was overheating. Have ordered a new fan from Maplins which I'm ***hoping*** will be here tomorrow. Poor Emily's lost without the flippin thing. I know having a computer literate child is a v.v.v. good thing.....but when yours dissolves into tears when you break the news that her PC is unavailable for a day or two....you start to wonder whether there's too much of a good thing!