Project 52 2018 week 44 – romanesco broccoli

There’s not much been going on this week for Project 52. The clocks went back which means I’m leaving work in the dark, and while mornings are a great time for photography, I’m always doing the school run and needing to get to work so don’t have time (or anywhere to pull in and stop) for photos.

Sunday was for getting ready for work and school after half term. The school week went ok, although N’s getting a bit frustrated with having to wait what he says is a long time to get help in class because others are getting more detailed help. I’m not sure what he’s wanting help on, but they have a larger than normal class thanks to his year group being over the normal year group capacity, and new children in the other year in his class, so obviously the teacher and TA will be more stretched.

He’s had a bad forgetfulness week which is driving me nuts (and probably his teacher). After never leaving anything at swimming the whole of last year, this week he left his swimming trunks behind. Luckily they were picked up because when I checked the name label had come out. Last half term he’d left shoes there. His teacher rescued them so I hope N is grateful when he gets things back. He also managed to lose his homework diary for 2 days then it miraculously appeared in his book folder again. Phew.

He’s got lots to look forward to the next few weeks.  A choir practice and performance of a local schools concert, and 2 day trips. He loves going out of school, so he’ll be besides himself in November.

Halloween doesn’t really happen here. We didn’t even carve a pumpkin this time. And we had a bit of an argument about not trick or treating, and whether N would ever be allowed to go. It seems he’s not in agreement with my promise that he’ll never be allowed to go.

Work’s been as usual, same old same old. Although we did have a very good meeting with our new  project steering group so lots of positive progress will hopefully be made.

Week 44 has finished with not much happening part from a swimming lesson. N’s been way ahead of the rest of his mammoth group since most of the others moved up a group in the summer. His front crawl and backstroke is strongest and fasted, and pretty good technically. His breast stroke (they only do legs in his Saturday classes, although he does lengths of it with arms in his school swimming group), is slow but ok. And he was asked to demo his butterfly kick – he was the only one who could actually do it (again with school they do a length of it, so doing a width on his front and back doing it was easy for him).

But at the end of the class, the teacher moved up a second girl this term due to her breast stroke legs being good. She’s not far behind N on her crawl – she’s older and really tall so it doesn’t take long for her to swim a distance, but her backstroke isn’t as strong and she can’t do butterfly, and is wary of swimming away from the side in the deep end.  The teacher said that she’s trying to get N to flex his feet more in breaststroke because so she can finally move him up. She didn’t want him to fall behind the kids who’ve been in level 5 for a long time because his breast stroke is slow. But N can’t see what he’s doing wrong with his feet. He practises his leg movement out of the pool loads much to my amusement, so why it doesn’t translate into the pool is perplexing.  I was hoping he’d get moved up at Christmas because he’s so far ahead in everything else and isn’t learning much compared to previously before all the 7 new kids moved up. It sounds like as soon as his feet are better, he’ll go up straightaway.

Any tips on how to get kids to flex their feet more in breaststroke are welcome! The teacher says she’s been trying to explain in different ways. N says he finds it much easier with his arms like they do in school swimming, but in his level they only do legs, so he can’t prove what he can do with both. Frustrating. But then most of his swimming journey has been quite painful.

This week’s photo is a bit random. I bought this romanesco broccoli the other day because I wanted to try something different. Actually, I lie, really I wanted to take photos of it.  The OH and N weren’t impressed eating it, and it tasted just like broccoli. So I’m not sure we’ll be buying it again.  It still looks cool though.

romanesco broccoli

Also linking to My Sunday Photo


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16 Comments

  1. Oh wow thats a pretty cool looking broccoli…didn’t realise they can be shaped like that.

    Sorry no tips re swimming as can’t swim!

  2. Ooh the broccoli does look cool. I think it takes time for to learn, it can be so frustrating x

  3. The broccoli does look cool. No real tips on the breaststroke, but I understand that children take a long time usually to master breaststroke because of the kick.

    1. It feels unfair that hes bejng heldback on a tiny technical thing for 1 stroke when others are moving up less able on all 3 other strokes.

  4. lol I have a pic of the same type of broccoli somewhere on my 365 from a previous year, and I bought it t photograph as well.
    I do not believe in trick or treating and my daughter knew I would not take the kids so their daddy had to be home from work for them.
    Oh no at keep losing items of clothing.

    1. I think there’s still a lot of people who don’t like trick or treating. Was talking to a couple of parents at after school club saying the same.

  5. They’re a nightmare aren’t they. Maybe it’s a developmental thing at this age. I’m hoping it returns to normal soon.
    I’m a project manager for a sustainability charity.

  6. are you able to take N swimming during the week outside of lessons. I swim breast stroke, it’s quite tricky just using arms or just legs, the motion comes together much easier when done at the same time, tell him to bring his heels together and up to his bum before kicking out and try it on his back

    1. We don’t really have any time as there’s only Sunday. He’s.been taught on his back first, then front. They’re taught how the leg action goes by squatting out of the pool and then going forwards to see the feet come right up to the bottom. Yesterday she even got them to imagine they’re swimming between 2 walls and they should be.pushing their heels out to hit the walls. But he just says he forgets what he gets told. He’s usually pretty good at following instructions exactly. But for some reason she’s not happy with it even though he’s as fast as the others in the group at it. I’m a breast stroke swimmer too. But I do a much longer streamlined stroke than they all do so it’s hard to know what o do in the water. I tried to get him to lay on his back on the floor and show me what he does but he looked at me like I was nuts.

    1. For this level that all they need to do is show good kicking technique across the 4 strikes. So frustrating when he can actually do all of the skills the next level up states.

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