Carcassonne

Does anyone out there play Carcassonne? We were given this Carcassonne: Big Box edition for Christmas and have only just got round to trying it out - my God!! Complicated or what?? Emily and I puzzled over it for several hours this afternoon and couldn't really get to grips with it at all. Is it just us? It's a shame because it looks really good, if only we could "get" it. :-//

We've had a good weekend and Monday. On Saturday it was ballet and tap; while Emily was in her lesson my friend Margaret (Kate's Mum) and I hot footed it back to her house to try and sort out an internet problem (well, that was the official reason, lol, it had nothing to do with cups of tea, biscuits and gossip). Sunday morning was karate for Emily. Poor love tripped whilst running to the car (we were running late) and badly cut her hand and grazed her knees and feet, putting holes in her karate suit trousers and blood all up the jacket :-((( She was very upset, but brave enough to change into something different and still make it to the lesson. Which was quite something considering how traumatised she gets at the sight of blood. I'm not sure the karate suit's ever going to be the same, mind you - think we might have to get a new one.

This afternoon we've been to Kate's house to play and for tea. Kate gave Emily a beautiful medieval figurine as a belated birthday present, as they'd noticed that Emily collects historical figures. Margaret started teaching me Polish today, which was, um, interesting! She, Kate and Mariusz are going back to Poland for four months at the end of January, so that Margaret can work out her notice in her old job before they come back here permanently. We'll miss them until they come back; they're such lovely, genunine people. Still, we'll see them a few times between now and then and the two girls will chat on the phone while they're away. They've very kindly invited us to Poland for a week but I don't know that we'll be able to go, due to pressures of work. We shall see.

This morning Emily spent more time on Maths Whizz, which is working very well for us. We also spent a lot of time deciding on what to do next in geography and science. After much deliberation, we've decided we're going to look at rivers in geography and light/sound in science. Much gathering of resources followed and we're keen to get started, although since we were going out to Kate's this afternoon we didn't actually, um, start. Tomorrow. Maybe!