Home school/making/baking

I had a phonecall last night from the Home Ed inspector, who has arranged to come and assess us on Wednesday week. It's worth having him round just to see the look of panic in the children's eyes when I tell them ;-) Anyway, I thought we'd better tidy up the bookcase:

I wouldn't want him to think that such a chaotic mess was in any way indicative of the way I home-schooled...

So, after a good deal of sorting and numerous trips to the recycling bin:

Ta-dah!

We decorated the tree yesterday evening to the not-remotely-festive background of the X-Factor semi-final [not my choice] but anyway, it looks jolly nice with all my handmade trinkets and baubly stuff:

I got some solar lights which are really pretty for the 20 minutes they are on for but I have some back up, plug in ones too.

I made banana bread as per Slow Living Essential's blog recipe - it's proper bread rather than cake, and it's really nice, not too sweet, and even Tristan (who can normally detect banana in anything at 50 paces) ate a slice without realising it wasn't actually cinnamon as I'd let him believe :-)

Rosie loved it:

That's Molly the guinea pig tucked up behind her head, not some strange hair extension thing.

I also made bagels, presuming that Tristan would not touch the banana loaf and perhaps it wasn't the best thing to make a ham sandwich with.

So, it has been quite busy, and I am in real danger of being able to mop the kitchen floor this evening! We did do some home-school work too, although T is finding the Biology GCSE textbook extremely dull, and I wimped out of going through the section about puberty with him :-/ but Amber is writing up her farm research and Rose picked out an English workbook.

The Christmas arrangements continue to be a bit of a problem, although I must take my hat off to my ex-husband for coming up with the best nonsensical comment yet: the children have to go to him before lunch on Christmas Day, and if they go at 4 in the afternoon (as they want to) it's too late. Why? Because, and I quote, " Christmas finishes at half past 3..."

Priceless! :-D