Another catch up with stuff.
But here I have to start editing more carefully, cut to the chase, remove the extraneous detail.
OK – Jk’s birthday was great. A bit more?  Well, pressies in the morning, pick up his sister from her sleepover at a friend’s, opening a mass of presents, evryone cooking stuff, D and S round to play PS2 games and then to his "Football Party".  We think this may be the last of these big 15 + guests, organised parties.  When he”s 11, maybe see a film with friends and then a civilised tea and some stuff for adults.  For now, Jack + peers and great food and the White Stripes playing on the CD player – well, he was in heaven. 

Subequently wrok, work, work, Lots ofvideo editing, amazing dedication from the student teachers, overcoming the glitches that arise from editing video on a PC.  I’ve tried to get Apple Education to get interested in the projects and research and think abot some donations or matched funding.  Until they do and we use iMovie, Garageband and the rest we will continue to do slightly less than we could.  And we simply don’t have the budget (even for a roomful of Mac Minis.  No money means no money no matter how cheap the equipment is).

Another day dominated by preparation for inspection and a complete mind numbing tiredness.  I’ will have had four early starts and an evening session this week.  Great discussion about the video projects – what a nice group of MA students!

Cycle home.  Which I’ve been doing much more of.  Easier on the way down the hill.  Sail past everyone, round the back of the shopping centre and straight into a swarm of gnats by the river.  Never mind, it’s still great.

Thoughts turning to the routes to and from, the colour of the sky, the movement.  Had to drive today.  Only bad thoughts in slow traffic.  I know which I prefer.

Now what do you do?
When it is going to create an even bigger retrospective post?
When you have left it so long and yet so much that you wanted / needed to remember has happened?
OK – I guess – just some impressions, with imprecise dates and times???
Saturday just gone – Take Jk over to Charlton for a new football trial.  He wants to be in this team because his schoolfriends are.  There are not many spaces left for boys to be signed up for next season.  Coach seems good.  I leave him there and come back.  As I approach I can see him running the game, playing and passing like he hasn’t for ages.  The coach wants him.

In the pm my dad and aunt arrive for dinner.  I cook and simultaneously listen to the football on the radio, the worst way to experience the tension of the match.  0 – 0 Palace, Newcastle.  We may still stay up.  Still too close to call.  Great debates on message board about this.  J comes in with her dad and we sit in the garden for a bit.  First time this year for any length of time.  Great light and my dad snapping us all on his Cybershot.  Still v happy with this and going to use it on his upcoming singing tour in North Italy!

Friday just gone – Video project closing session.  Interview the children who took part in the school house.  They havea kind of green room with a tele, where they sit on a sofa watching John Wayne.  Call them up in groups – Sue R interviews in one room and me in the other.  They’re proud of their achievements.  But many think they could do more / better another time.  If I do another project here, they want to be in it.

Sunday just gone- spend the day to-ing and fro-ing between home and Greenwich, mainly on the bike.  Give up on the way home up Point Hill.  It’s nearly vertical.  Feeling better for all the cycling though and seeing things from a different perpsctive.  It makes you never want to be in a car again.  At some point, run into JH on the side of the road and we talk about his musical projects.  Swap things we’vre  heard recently that are just great.  I’m still raving about Vic Chesnutt’s latest.

In the evening to the party from Daisy’s Baptism.  See lots of old friends – R and C very proud parents. Sit in their house and drink champagne and eat good food. At this point it becomes J’s trn to drive us all home.  Last time I was the designated driver. But really, given the distance, we should have cycled.

Mainly obsessing musically about two or three tracks from the new Go Betweens album (Boundary Rider, Lavender) and the whole feel of Ghetto Bells by Vic Chesnutt, esepcially Rambunctious Cloud.

Yesterday – Monday – was a holiday.  But most of us worked a bit.  J on school planning, Jk on homework and A on revising for her KS3 Science which she is doing a year early.  Strange that no one of us was rushing off to anywhere else.  We finished the day together, playing tennis and then swimming and then staying out for some dinner. 

Reading the Philip Pullman Dark Materials trilogy with Jk.  Great stuff.