A day in the life.....
I often thought it would be good to set down what I did on a given day - understanding that there is no such thing as a 'typical' day and that today is only being chosen because a) I THOUGHT about it and b) I had a minute to set it down before it was entirely forgotten....
This morning I was awake late - at 7.15. First stop, the dairy. After feeding Victoria washing up and getting dressed I was determined to start the day with the juice of a lemon and water - that fell flat when I found myself picking up the kettle and making coffee - I spied a flapjack which had been left from a trip to sailing two weeks ago, and made that my breakfast. All in time (almost) to start schoolwork at 8am (can't quite remember whether Victoria had already gone back to bed by this point or not....) with Calculadder. After this we all did the next step in the LEM phonics program and then on to Omnibus. Wanting to finish off this section (it seems to be taking a VERY long time to work through) I dictated the 'questions for factual recall' then it was 9.30 - time to return to the dairy. I was back, in the lounge, feeding Victoria by 9.55 and called everyone to continue schoolwork. The next step was to get the children to look for the answers to the questions and then put in the teacher disk so I could check out the answers they had written. Apart from the fact that Thomas still can't write because of his sprained wrist (gained last week when valiantly tackling the unloading of a peat lorry - using the forklift)we were ALL actively involved in answering the questions which amounted to an overview of 2 Samuel. That having been almost completed we went on to discuss the characteristics of a good leader of state. I told them about what I had heard on the Rushdoony MP3's about Richard the 3rd not being as Shakespeare would have us believe. It is always, after all, important to remember that the VICTORS are the ones who write the history. The only private possession of Richard the 3rd which remains is an evidently well-used copy of Wycliffes New Testament. At some point someone asked me what we were having for dinner so by 11.30 someone had retrieved a ziplock bag of mince (cooked) from the freezer and we hastened to cook some pasta and prepare salad to go with it. Dinner was early because Ron wanted to go out on his lorry delivery as early as poss. AFter dinner, back to the dairy.... At 1.30pm it was time for The first lesson in the 'Gift of Music' newly arrived from Australia - actually we did the first two lessons - while Victoria was sitting on the settee next to thomas, trying to get hold of his paper or pencil, or just tasting him.... That took an hour then it was time for our Latin lesson - with the DVD. That also took an hour. Next we had on a DVD documentary on the Zulu wars. With a trip to the Leeds Royal Armouries planned soon I thought it expedient to refresh our memories on some of the details. Then it was time for the little children to eat tea (while I went off to the dairy....) and when they had finished it was time for the bedtime story. Being convince that James doesn't know NEARLY as much of the stories of the Bible as his older siblings did at his age, I decided it was time to begin reading through a Bible-story book - today we got up to Noah. As well as that Joanna was quite keen to recite to me the 'evening hymn' which the three youngest have been learning over the past few weeks - it turned out that I needed to look it up and refresh her memory and everyone ended up reciting it. Then there was new poem for memorisation to be read through with the children repeating each line after me. and there was a request for the pew-story on top of that, then prayer. They were all finished with by 5.30pm (later than I would really like James to be going to bed but where does the day go?!!!) and then I could go on with Victoria's washing up while Richard took Victoria to the kitchen where is (even as I write) making more of his ever-popular flapjacks. The house is quiet with Thomas and Samuel out at work, David still away in Manchester, Timothy and Philip still not home from work and simon, Joanna and James safely stowed in bed. Now what I would really LIKE to do next is have a nice hot bath but I fear that I ought at least to make a start on book orders from the USA for the pallet which is still waiting in New York to be completed and then despatched (and with a day-conference towards the end of July already arranged, I feel a bit of motivation to get on with the job). There are also a few little book orders to get out and pack which I had planned to get in the post today. It may also be that I should go to Tesco (which I strongly dislike because a) I don't like Tesco and b) they have such big profit that they are able to use it for expanding and re-arranging the store to make it harder to remember everything you wanted before you get out of the shop - and almost inevitable that one ends up buying somehting one didn't really want....). Before tackling the book orders, however, I will check emails...