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Sunshine and showers

It has quite literally been a weekend of sunshine and showers, with an awful lot of the latter over both Friday and Sunday. While many children might take to the sofa, Abi's first thought when she sees proper rain is to head outside. She just loves playing in a downpour. Izzy probably wouldn't be the one to suggest it but is happy to be a partner in crime and so off they went on Friday afternoon to "check on the horses and get those with rugs in from the fields...". This is the continuing process of gradually trying to wear us down to the point we accept defeat and buy them a pony. Not happening! Abi is convinced that if she can prove to us that she is willing to be out in all weathers we will see sense and go pony shopping. Regardless of her love of rain I keep telling her she's just not ready, and nor are we! I'm sure this will continue, although to give them their dues they spend hours in the garden playing and looking after make believe horses. Glenn has built them a wooden pony out of an old stool, some casters and other bits and pieces. From a distance its vaguely horse shaped but with stuck on paper tail, headcollar and blankets to keep it warm, it clearly does enough to capture thir imagination in an amazing way. Who needs technology?!? Actually they do, mainly to bombard me with random information about why they should keep horses.

The other growing use for technology is music. While we've bought them iPods its not the same as the iPad which allows them to access music videos. At this point (I think) their selections are pretty tame but I don't check religiously and I'm dependant on them telling me if anything is a bit too much. We've ben through the basics of what is and isn't acceptable to watch, but I'm allowing them to use their common sense, I hope it's not misplaced. The good news about girls seems to be that they 'fess up immediately if they've seen anything they either don't like or don't understand. They understand about putting information on line (ie don't), and not to connect or talk to anyone. At this stage things like snapchat and forums are way beyond them so I think we are on safe ground for the moment. It will change though. The trouble is its hard to police - I'm relying on just continuing to reinforce the need to be sensible. The love of music videos though is easy to understand and we sat at the table yesterday with Kerrie each taking it in turn to find a song we love and the play the video. There was some cross over but everyone's a critic and I think my music was getting sidelined!

The girls have settled into holiday mode and are going to bed later and lying in longer. Teenage habits obviously start pretty early! This means I leave a household in the morning that's pretty quiet and it's all I can do not to turn straight round and climb back into bed. This morning it was my turn to lie in and I got until 8am - a 3 hour improvement on a normal week day - result! Even once a week makes a difference. Just a few more weeks and then we have some time off again - fingers crossed work quietens down a bit by then.

The other advantage of having later nights is that there's time to do a few things with the girls when I get home from work. Their favourite at the moment is badminton. We bought a small net when we were in France and it's been great. Abi is getting pretty good (although can't serve for her life) and so we take it in turns to see how long we can keep the shuttle cock in the air. This is normally dependant not only how it's hit but which of the dogs has wandered across to where we are playing, only to stand straight in front of you when you are taking a shot. They just don't seem to get the fact that we are playing a game! It's this or they try and join in. One of them is going to end up with a racket in the face soon. Izzy is equally as rubbish. I have a 2 minute video of her saying repeatedly saying "and this is how you hit the shuttlecock", while repeatedly missing it. All while dressed in nothing but a pair of thick pink tights. No, I don't know why that was either! Maybe she'll come into her own next year....

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