Project 52 2020 week 29 – house martins

This week has whizzed by. The last week of ‘school’, in our case home school finishing on Thursday. Now it’s 6 weeks and a bit off, with no holidays booked. I guess we’ll see what happens by the end of the summer. We could book somewhere to go for a few days, but as we usually go out for the day and cram in 2-3 places to visit, dropping in as we fancy it, our holiday would have to change substantially, with needing to book in advance for many places. We’ll probably end up just doing a few days out, and maybe meeting up with friends in the park etc.

Here’s our project 52 week round up for week 29.

Sunday was another quiet day. We had the rota sent round for junior tennis club summer sessions. Because they still have to socially distance, and can only have 4 kids on a court with 1 adult, they’ve tried to split them by age and days they can do. N’s down for every Sunday and the 3 Tuesdays I’m on leave from work, so I can get him there. The rota is amusing because there are two 5 year olds (one who can’t hit a ball at all, and has no focus), but then the next age is 8, with most age 11-15. So one week N is in with the 5 and 8 year olds, the others he’s in with 11 year olds+. He’ll be pleased with that, because he can just play up a ball with no issues. But the 5-8 year olds would usually play over a mini net with much bigger balls. Could be interesting to watch.

Monday was back to work and home school. The year group card one of the mums organised for the teacher and TA were shared in our Whatsapp group. They were brilliant – pictures of each child with a colourful word each which spelt out a message of thanks. It was really effective.

Tuesday was more of the same. N has been whipping through his work, although I’ve struggled to get him to elaborate more and improve on his story flow. Bare minimum boy should be his nickname! When the puppies are let out, they always find their way into our garden. This time it was he german shepherd appearing at the patio door for a stroke. She will now lift up her paw as a hello and not try and eat you at the same time. She’s definitely calming down a lot – no more nipping so much thankfully.

On Wednesday I finished another Wasgij puzzle. I tend to do them in the evenings after tea for an hour or so, and then a couple of hours morning/afternoon at the weekend, and I’m mostly getting through them in 3 days. Now I just need to get round to taking photos of the ones I have so I can sell them on. They’re taking over a bit so I need to clear out.

We also had a call from N’s teacher about summer school sessions. Our school offered 4 mornings in the first week of the holidays for the year groups who weren’t in the 3 years due back in school til September. At our school 80% of the children ended up back, but it was nice for them to offer those in their holidays for a booster for maths and english. I was hoping it would be with next year’s teacher, but N was put in with the current class 2 teacher while all the others I’ve spoken to in his year, were put in with the teacher they’re going into. I think all of those children are already in school, whereas N would need to go into a new bubble. Given he doesn’t need a maths booster, only the English would be of particular help, he wasn’t happy going into school with younger children and going to a teacher he was with 2 years ago. Not being in with any of his year group was the deal-breaker. So I had to tell them thanks for the place, but he wouldn’t be going in.

Thursday was a quiet work day. It’s been forecasting this week and compared to normal, much calmer than usual. It was the last day of Year 4 for N. Sad times but hopefully as planned, they’ll all be back in September with a few adjustments for whatever might happen wraparound carewise. At the moment while I’m working from home I don’t need any, but once I’m back in the office, I’ve no idea what to do, especially if school can only provide cold lunches. I certainly need to stop my childcare vouchers for work because I’ve got a stack of them which I’m going to lose out on unless I can use them up. N’s really too old to be going to the nursery which is the only after school club that’s open long enough.

Friday N mooched around at home and on the farm. I had a half day flexi, so had the afternoon off although I didn’t do much. I did finish a book and start another. With my puzzling and blogging, my reading has reduced since the start of the year, so I want to catch up to keep up with my GoodReads challenge. I had my INR prick test which was in range again, and bumped into a former school mum I’ve not seen in a while, so we had a bit of a chat in the car park.

It was tennis in the evening. There’s just the 3 boys in their lesson and they had their old coach for this week which was nice for them. She was impressed with N’s ground strokes – nice to see all the work with the main coach he’d put in has stayed with him over the lockdown months – and very pleased that he’d been asked to the county training squad. One of the other parents was impressed with N’s footwork. I always think in drills he’s a bit heavy on his jumps, but I call him the Duracell Bunny because he just keeps going. It was lovely to catch up with the other dad – I usually see their family quite a bit due to tennis and sharing lifts, but obviously haven’t for months.

Saturday I was meant to be at Canons Ashby National Trust. But the OH wasn’t around for N to go with him and N wasn’t feeling well either. Yes, tonsillitis seems to be back again. Spent the day pottering – I had to make a cheesecake for tomorrow as we were due to be at the sister in law’s to celebrate the mother in law’s birthday. Except with N being ill, we might not get there. Maybe the OH will still go.

This week’s photo is of young house martins. We’ve had so many around this year (plus I also spotted a couple of unexpected swallows). They’ve all been out learning to fly this week, taking lots of breathers perched on our fence and gate. The adults don’t usually stop, they just fly all the time.

Posts this week:

• Back to tennis and a bit of normality
• Tangy beef hash recipe
• Wasgij Typical British BBQ puzzle
• Peppermint fudge
• Visiting Upton House