Work for me today. Ady has some sort of issue with my mother at the moment so at the last minute decided to have the kids with him all day and take them to work with him doing price surveys. It all seems rather cutting off his nose to spite his face (not that spending time with his own children is any sort of punishment) but I’m staying out of it.
The banking was out this morning but just under £10 which always makes me feel terrible. Given I wasn’t even working yesterday there is no reason for this but I always used to feel guilty and consider confessing at school when something went wrong and we were all kept in ‘until someone admits it was them’ even though it was never actually anything I’d done wrong. When I worked on the checkouts at B&Q in the evenings when I was 16 if our tills were out we had to ‘go and see Barbara’ who was this terrifying buxom woman who ruled the admin office and scared the life out of me. Spookily she came in the library later today – she must now be in her 70s and is in a wheelchair and all elderly and not at all scary any more. It’s nearly 20 years ago and I doubt she remembers me at all but I did feel she had been summoned somehow by the banking being out today! 😆
I went to the bank and as I’ve been a bit shy of contributing to the tea money the last couple of months I bought milk, tea and fancy biscuits to cover my subs for the next couple of months as well as backdating them. Then it was Baby Rhyme time. I’ve not done it for 6 weeks due to being ill one week and then on a training course two weeks later. We had a lot of toddlers wandering about rather than singing today and it was interesting to notice how some of the regular attenders are suddenly looking quite big and probably getting ready to think about nursery now. I had two of them trying to sit on my lap – I really am quite crap with other people’s small children.
The afternoon passed fairly uneventfully. I spent ages trying to find some good books to read aloud to Davies and Scarlett. We’ve really moved on from picture books unless they have fantastic illustrations and I’m finding it hard to find stuff that is both interesting and enjoyable for me to read aloud, has enough of a storyline and characters to grip the children and contains subject matter than it interesting. So much of the fiction for 7-9 year olds seems to be about either school, fairies or cute animals. It’s all Horrid Henry and Captain Underpants or Magic Kitten and Monica the money making fairy. All of which are great for kids to be reading to themselves as first chapter books but not something I want to sit and plough through particularly. There is loads of stuff set around classrooms, schools and teachers which is totally irrelevant to Davies and Scarlett plus I think we have just finished a string of really good books with Olga da Polga, Humphrey and of course the Mr Gum books that nothing else is really living up to them. Famous Five were good but after about 8 I started to get fed up with them but at least they were about adventures, fairly timeless and set in school holidays.
I’ve bought home some Allan Ahlberg
I was warmly welcomed home by the kids who had had a good day with Ady and were about to eat an ecclectic dinner made up of various things that had been in the freezer when the defrost button had been accidentally pushed meaning they needed using up! They were watching Cat In The Hat, The [DVD] [2004]
Meanwhile the Asda food shop had arrived so the kids carried on dancing while Ady and I took it all in and put it away. It took ages and my methodical system didn’t like being messed up by an additional helper ;).
I read Iron Man to the kids and then they went to bed. Davies reappeared about an hour later with a notebook retelling the entire story in pictures spanning about 35 pages. I was staggered, both at his recall ability and his simple but very effective drawings. He does astound me quite regularly that boy.
I dug out the sleeping bags and camping mats ready for tomorrow while Ady cooked dinner and now having done a fair bit of charity work on the wine drinking front (we have comic relief wine, I drink for a good cause ;)) I need to go to bed!
what about Michael Morpungo or Dick King-Smith? I hate all those reams of money making factory produced, churned out the same story as many times with different character names as possible books. The writing is just so terrible.
Comment by Em — 04 April 2009 @ 7:43 am
As long as what I am read is pleasant to read (i.e. well written) I don’t care whether it interesting or enjoyable for me – cos it’s for them. That said Em”s suggestion of Morpurgo is an excellent one. Kensuke’s kingdom is wonderful as is, of course, War Horse. Just read Farm Boy to them which they all enjoyed.
I’m currently reading Desperaux which they are enjoying to.
Comment by Chris — 04 April 2009 @ 10:14 am
I was going to suggest Morpurgo too. The Butterfly Lion (does feature school but not in a good way) may be a starting point?
Comment by Michelle — 04 April 2009 @ 12:49 pm
Michael Bond also wrote Paddington – there are quite a few of those. Then there are Wombles and others by Elizabeth Beresford. I’ll have a think – I’m sure we have lots of stuff that might appeal.
Comment by Jan — 05 April 2009 @ 6:51 pm
i love reading morpurgo – and the green knight is particularly well written for reading out loud. we have enjoyed reading the narnia books, and SB has read herself the ordinary jack of the bagthorpe saga, but i would have been happy reading it to them. and i actually find it funny [particularly absolute zero]
Comment by HelenHaricot — 05 April 2009 @ 10:23 pm
Ooh excellent, thanks all, keep ’em coming!
We’ve got Butterfly Lion somewhere as an ex library book I picked up and I think S listened to Adolphus Tips on audiobook a while back so will check out some more Morpurgo.
Comment by Nic — 05 April 2009 @ 10:31 pm
Kensuke’s Kingdom is fabulous, I really enjoyed reading it. Rats of Nimh was fun to read too.
Comment by layla — 08 April 2009 @ 8:00 pm