Hula Girl

Only three weeks to the ballet show now (and only two more lessons) - methinks they're going to be scheduling rehearsals and more rehearsals all over the place as really the children are nowhere near ready. Emily had a bit of an Emily Moment at tai chi on Thursday morning - the instructor was taking them through something and said about releasing all their worries and watching them float away.....at which point Emily burst into tears because it reminded her she was worried about the ballet!! Gee thanks Mr Tai Chi Teacher, lol.

Anyway - she recovered swiftly and completed the rest of the lesson; they've finished the form they were studying now and are due certificates any time now - apparently they're now studying a different, longer form.

Back at home Emily tried on her Hula Girl costume for the show, ready for the photocall on Monday. That cheered her up no end:
She then spent an hour rehearsing to music as one of the dances is to music from Lilo and Stitch.

Some more French practice followed and then Emily got back to work on her Human Body project, finishing off the section about lungs and the respiratory system with a write up, answering some questions I'd set her and cutting out a pair of life size lungs to go on the life size skeleton she painted yonks ago.

The other day we had a small parcel from Lush arrive - I'd never tried their stuff before and we certainly did like the two bubble bar slice thingies we ordered....although I refuse to put the whole things in the bath at once as apparently you're supposed to (????) - we just use tiny slices and still get masses of bubbles and glitter all over the place :-)) Yesterday it was the turn of a Bath Ballistic that had rose petals in it. Now, it seemed like a nice idea at the time I bought the thing. And since it said to put it all in, just this once, we did. Ahem. I won't be doing that again!! It was like bathing in soup! It certainly smelled nice and Emily had a ball with the seive trying to get hundreds of tiny bits of petals out of the water so we didn't block the plughole....but it wasn't my cup of tea, shall we say - think we'll stick to the bubble bar slices instead!

Last night Jon and Emily finished reading Warriors: A Dangerous Path which is book five in the fantabulous Warrior Cats series (which you *must* read). Bless her, Emily was in floods of tears.......but still can't wait to start book six tonight. I must admit it was quite emotional....Thunderclan's leader, Bluestar, dies when she sacrifices her life to lead a pack of wild dogs away from the rest of the clan, which leaves Fireheart as the new clan leader. The depiction of Bluestar, who over the course of the five books had become elderly and weak, finally giving up her life and journeying to star clan was extremely moving. It was like saying a sad goodbye to an old friend. Fiction that does what fiction is supposed to do; it utterly draws you in, this series does.

Meanwhile in a life and death drama of a different kind, Merlin caught another rabbit last night. Sigh. Heaven knows where he's getting them from, we're a bit short on green spaces round here. And a few hours before that, Juliet nabbed an adult starling which was (very unwisely) sat on the low wall by the bird feeder feeding two perfectly capable but lazy youngsters. Fortunately I saw that happen so made her drop the bird which flew off apparently uninjured. The body count is definitely on the up thanks to the four cats and the warmer weather. It's what cats do, after all and just something you have to understand and tolerate if you have cats. I just wish they'd do it somewhere other than right under our noses!

This morning Emily worked on some maths, rather reluctantly it has to be said; both she and I ended up very frustrated with it. I've come to recognise that our home education adventure can mostly be categorised under two types of days: GMD and BMD, lol. Good Maths Days and Bad Maths Days. It still is and doubtless will remain an utter mystery to me how the same maths problems using the same skills can be effortless one day and the cause of WW3 the next. With The Great Maths Trauma taking up so much of the morning we didn't really have time for anything else before I dropped Emily off to play at Romy's house for the afternoon. She seems to have had a ball, as ever. Jon and I got on with work while Emily was out and I finally managed to get the gift vouchers working in the shop!!!!!

And so, the weekend beckons. Oh good, that means it's BBC deadline time again!