Good Start to the Week

Today's been really nice :-)

Got up at a reasonable (ish) time this morning and Emily did some maths whizz without fuss or complaint, which was a good start. After breakfast she came up with one of her infamous "what if" pretend plays, so we spent half an hour play acting what might have happened if Harry Potter had actually been Lily's son with Remus Lupin (don't ask) instead of James Potter, and and how that may have changed the story. Apart from being highly bizzarre and really rather funny, I thought it was an endearing way to mark "literature appreciation/understanding" off for a few days, anyway!

Downstairs we got back into our science work on light. Emily read about refraction and diffusion and tried some experiments with a pencil in a glass of water, and using a torch and prism to create a spectrum. We used a torch through a glass of water to the same effect too. She's done this various times before, years ago, but it didn't really sink in then. Today I think it did, and she was able to explain to me confidently about white light rays splitting into spectrum colours because of the different colour rays being refracted at different angles. Did some nice diagrams of it too. We also spoke about how come we see colours, i.e. different objects absorbing all but the green (or whatever) light and reflecting that back to us so that we see it green. Emily found that harder to grasp, but it is a fairly tricky concept. I think she understood *what* happens, but she wants to know *why* everything happens, which is a lot harder.

This afternoon, we started our work on rivers. Emily used her globe and atlas to look up some of the world's most famous rivers, their sources and which sea or ocean they flow into. We also traced the route of the Trent (since it's our nearest major river), looking on various maps to find the source and it's eventual connection with the Ouse forming the Humber. We have loads of river stuff planned including lots of experiments, so that should be good.

Time then to get ready to go out - we went to meet friends at Cheeky Chimps, a big soft play centre near here. There were three parties going on and it was absolutely packed, you could hardly hear yourself think - but Emily had a fabulous time for several hours. It highlighted to me how she's growing up. We haven't been to a soft play centre for quite a while and normally we used to go during school hours so they were pretty deserted. Once 4pm arrived and it started to get busy, we'd normally leave as Emily hated these kinds of places when they were full and even when they were empty she'd be back at the table for some reason or other every ten minutes or so. Today though she wasn't bothered in the slightest. From the time we arrived until the time we left, the only time we saw Maisie and Emily was when the food arrived, since we'd decided the girls could have their tea there too. It gave me and Janette time for a long, uninterrupted chat and she made me feel tons better about recent events too, so it was a lovely few hours.

No snow as yet. Jon's gone off to his psychic circle tonight; once he's driven back safely from that I hope it snows like mad. Unlikely, I know, but we live in hope. I don't have to drive anywhere tomorrow (apart from yoga) so it'd be nice to have a day in the snow.

Business wise, it was a less great day, since our franking machine finally gave up the ghost this morning and wouldn't allow itself to be refilled down the phone line as it had reached it's maximum use. We've got to get a new one, but that'll take five working days. Good job the local village post office knows us well, since we'll now be dumping approx a hundred packages a day on them to be weighed and franked instead of doing it here. We ought to get a daily collection from here sorted out really, since we're way over the threshold for a free collection in terms of volume and value.

Still, that little blip aside, it's been a really good day and a positive start to the week. Off to watch project catwalk with Emily now.