Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Alison Lees' LiveJournal:

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Friday, July 25th, 2008
7:04 pm	Holidays Showed Hannah that she could chalk on the brick wall outside, which is another easy and mess free way to get them artistic, if you don't mind coloured chalk on the walls. A Barnaby Bear I hadn't seen before, at least not all the way through.  Chester, with Romans, races, and the Chester plays, for which Barnaby Bear dresses up as a rabbit.  Also, to Little CupCakes, the new Mums and Tots group at Springhead Community Centre, which we find has a party: Hannah was photographed (presumably for a publicity article: she has already been in the Chron to advertise the music group that she has now left), played with the toy cars and ride on, had her face painted, played Musical Statues and Musical Bumps and won a bracelet, ate cake and sausage rolls, joined in a singsong session, and brought home yet another balloon, Current Mood: bouncy Current Music: The Okey Kokey, The Grand Old Duke of York (Comment on this)
Thursday, July 24th, 2008
7:54 pm	Holidays This afternoon, to the playscheme that they are doing at Leesbrook Park.  Hannah painted, crayoned, made a card with flowers (now withered up), sat on her favourite 'Giraffe' tree, and swung in hammocks. Current Mood: relaxed (Comment on this)
Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008
9:47 pm	Holidays Soapy water in the paddling pool helps to clean Hannah while she plays, and mitigate the effects of any 'accidents' in the water. Also, she had a go at grating the cheese for cooking tea, Also, she had a go at listening to Sam on the telephone; she laughed, but was clearly a bit confused; removing the phone from her ear in order to look at it. Current Mood: smug (Comment on this)
Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008
6:42 pm	Holidays Since Hannah is not fully toilet trained, I am preferring to let her potter around the house.  The house is a tip,  and she can load a DVD by herself, but never mind.  While I'm working at my desk, she can sit at the little desk and draw, and I made her a paper aeroplane and a paper hat.   For cooking, she tried some of the red pepper I was chopping, and while everything was cooking in the pan, we danced to the songs on Space Pirates. Current Music: the television (Comment on this)
4:07 pm	St Mary Magdalene A lady who came with a reputation...  I know how I propose to celebrate her feastday, and it's entirely secular. Current Mood: frisky Current Music: seductive whispers (Comment on this)
Monday, July 21st, 2008
7:39 pm	Holidays Grandad came round at lunch time.  Also, bed making, which can include bouncing on pillows, pillow fights, etc. Also, I got my deadline put back 3 weeks, which helps. Current Mood: hopeful (Comment on this)
Sunday, July 20th, 2008
7:45 pm	Holidays To my mother's house for lunch, and to leave Sam who is stopping with her for 10-14 days.  Grandmas are fantastic... Current Mood: relieved (Comment on this)
Saturday, July 19th, 2008
7:43 pm	Diet update Finally put a new battery in the scales: haven't been dieting much, and am still at about 10 and a half stone.  Really need a new impetus; it's been a year since I started trying to lose and I've somehow lost interest.  Current Mood: indifferent (Comment on this)
Friday, July 18th, 2008
8:48 pm	Holidays This morning, we went into town to buy a present for Emily Whittaker's party; which Sam was more interested in ELC's train layout, but we managed it, and then we had lunch at the Salt Cellar http://www.saltcellar.org.uk/ .  this afternoon, John looked after the children, before taking Sam to the party. And I am cursing myself for not thinking 'Oh that's a lot of money; it must be a harder job than it looks', or asking about tables and difficulty of editing. Current Mood: frustrated Current Music: BBC prom (Comment on this)
Thursday, July 17th, 2008
7:18 pm	Holidays In the morning we took the cat to the vet, who has gerbils (they were asleep); after much questioning about stress, the vet diagnosed a flea problem, leading to itching and over grooming, so we have got more flea exterminator.  Hannah kept switching the light off, but the vet said she used to do that when she was little. In the afternoon, we were going to go to Rhymetime at the library, but when we got there, discovered the library was closed because of the strike (and I hadn't thouight to check), so we just bought some flowers (florist), a pencil sharpener (post office), sausages (butcher) and milk (Co-op), and posted some letters (pillar box, just before the post office). Sam wouldn't co-operate on his homework, the little tyke, but very nicely telephoned Grandma, who is going to have him stay at her house for a bit, which is an excellent plan. However, the new book (a year one nursing textbook) has arrived and is more complicated looking than I thought it would be, so I am a bit stressed about that. Current Mood: stressed (Comment on this)
Wednesday, July 16th, 2008
4:17 pm	A lunch date; and holidays Because UNISON are on strike, Sam broke up for his holidays yesterday, but Hannah had an end of term party today, which meant she was at playschool from 9:30 am until 3 pm.  So Sam and I went on the bus, train and tram, just to see Daddy at work and have lunch with him.  We went to one of those Chinese buffets, where you pay and help yourself, which is very convenient with smaller children, as they can see what things look like, and there isn't any waiting, which that is good for at lunch time as well. Now we have 6 weeks and 5 days more of Summer holidays to get through; even though this is shorter than last year, somehow it seems just as scary... Current Mood: full (Comment on this)
Tuesday, July 15th, 2008
8:46 pm	St Swithin and it rained, but not all day.  So maybe it won't rain completely for 40 days.  We can live in hope.... Current Mood: worried (4 Comments |Comment on this)
8:36 pm	Youtube recommendation ( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. ) Current Mood: amused (Comment on this)
Monday, July 14th, 2008
3:56 pm	that end of year time again Sam has brought home lots of work: 3 maths workbooks, 1 workbook for letter writing, exercise books for RK and literacy, and a folder of 'topic work'.  And everything off the walls.  I am going gooey over his writing in French (I didn't know they were writing in French) and his attempts at writing 3 + 3 = 6, and have proudly put up all his artwork.  Current Mood: touched (Comment on this)
Sunday, July 13th, 2008
7:32 pm	Seaside! Went to Lytham (or was it St Anne's, I'm not sure which is which) for the day, taking in Mass at there church to give us as much time as possible there.  Had a nice ride in a boat, the children enjoyed the sand and the paddling pool and the donkey rides, Hannah's new kite that she got for her birthday flew nicely.  Still as nice as ever: but note that the toilets have been made worse; instead of lots of completely free toilets, with sinks, very convenient when you have small children, sand, water, and the like, there are now 3 of those cubicles with the coin operated locks, one of which seemed to be taking money but not opening.  Most of the day, you just queued up and held the door open for people to go in without paying.  What do we pay our taxes for anyway? Current Mood: sleepy Current Music: Classic FM and a fan (Comment on this)
Thursday, July 10th, 2008
7:39 pm	Dentists Sam has lots of fillings, so obviously I am a bad mother, because I do not adequately supervise him brushing and give him sweets.  He has had toothache, so I took him to the dentist, who referred him to the dental clinic, where I thought they might be able to fill the cavities with the right anaesthetic, but no.  I am just going to get lectured all over again by one person (here is some colgate family toothpaste, fill in this diet sheet), and have to take him another person as well just to get him used to going to the dentist and persuade him to sit on the dentists's chair, (he burst into tears as soon as he saw the dentist) and even then she is only going to paint his teeth with fluoride, which 'will make them stronger' until they fall out and are replaced with his secondary dentitition, and which I can't see why she can't give me a prescription, and let me do it myself.  So now I have two appointments, for two different people, on two different dates, neither of which appointments is actually going to stop him having cavities, or toothache, because they couldn't make me a single joint appointment before the 9th September, by which time he will be at school, and I'm not taking him off school to see the dentist again.  And they wonder why they had 97 missed appoinments? Current Mood: annoyed Current Music: the screams in my head (Comment on this)
Wednesday, July 9th, 2008
9:22 am	Photography is cool I have a fantastic new digital camera.  It has 10X optical zoom.  It is compact.  It has auto-shoot functions.  It has special settings for different photos.  I can even take short videos.  It is very exciting.  I have put some photos on facebook.  It is free and easy, but for some photos (e.g. of the children), I shall make it so that you have to be my friend on facebook to see the photos.  Sorry about that, but facebook is free to join. Current Mood: excited Current Music: bouncing (Comment on this)
Tuesday, July 8th, 2008
2:55 pm	sports day Was very good.  They split the entire infants department into teams of mixed ages and had them go through a circus of events, with year 6 taking scores and timings.  There were running, throwing, jumping, stepping, hurdles, and sack races, and it was all good fun.  And I took some good photos with my brand new camera, but I must get a memory card for it, and maybe a system for storing and organising all these large quantities of photos I can take. Current Mood: pleased Current Music: cheers (but not many) (Comment on this)
10:15 am	Try again What I was trying to say was: Cavalorn, in his livejournal, draws my attention to Miss Tianwa Yeung, who appears on You tube.  I haven't worked out links, so you'll have to visit his journal.   Anyway, it is this kind of playing that makes me sigh over my own feeble attempts.  In my wilder dreams, I think maybe that if I played for 10 hours a day for 50 years, maybe I'd be that good, but somehow, I know it will never be.... (Comment on this)
10:07 am	beaten by a kid cavalorn Current Mood: discontent Current Music: Paganini, with all the technical virtuosity of Paganini (Comment on this)