Monday, May 23, 2011

This Week: 23rd May 2011

This Week ...

The weather ... grey and windy. I hope the wind is coming from the right direction. There is another erupting volcano in Iceland, which threatens a repeat of last year's air chaos when UK planes were grounded due to volcanic ash.

I am wearing ... purple t-shirt and cardigan, jeans, blue nail varnish on toes

I am reading ... When the Lights Went Out: Britain in the Seventies, by Andy Beckett, and North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell, though I haven't done any reading in the last week - or rather, all my reading has been for my course rather than pleasure reading.

I am creating ... cotton socks (just need to kitchener stitch the toe of the second sock) and cotton cardigan.

I am listening ... to builders drilling outside.

I am watching ... the new series of The Apprentice, So You Think You Can Dance, Doctor Who (still have to catch up with Saturday's episode) on TV, and Upstairs, Downstairs Series 4 on iTunes.

I am enjoying ... life!

I am planning ... to book a spa break for Angel and myself to celebrate her finishing her exams (and also as a belated 16th birthday treat).

Learning notes ... last week's GCSE exams apparently went well, apart from one biology paper. This week is the worst - English literature, PE theory, chemistry and physics, all of which are revision heavy. She is taking separate biology, chemistry and physics GCSE's (as opposed to combined science), which means that for each she has to take two papers - one is the same as the combined science paper for that subject, the second is an extra separate subject "triple science" paper. Due to a combination of poor teaching, disruptive classes and being put in the wrong science group she hasn't actually been taught most of the extra stuff for triple science and is having to try to learn it herself from the revision book. Biology she managed to muddle through, but physics and chemistry don't look good. Fortunately, she doesn't need good science results for anything she wants to do in the future, but she is a bit aggrieved that is likely to end up with a couple of poor results through no fault of her own. There will be a huge sigh of relief once this week is over. After that there are just maths, graphics, ICT and a final RE paper to go, which she thinks should all be fine.

Cherub ... slept in this morning, and I had to wake her at 8 o'clock. "That's funny!" she said, "it's usually me that wakes you up!"  Indeed it is. Sometimes I forget that there was a time in my life when a lie-in didn't just mean being able to sleep later than 7am.

On the calendar ... 

Wednesday: Cherub's first sports day
Saturday: Round the world meal with neighbours (our turn to make the starters) 

On the menu ...

Today: Marinated lamb and beef steaks (eating up oddments from the freezer) with sweet potatoes
Tuesday: Chicken and mushroom casserole
Wednesday: Lamb kebabs with potato wedges
Thursday: Burgers
Friday: Pasta with pesto and creme fraiche
Saturday: Meal with neighbours
Sunday: Roast beef

On my to-do list ... getting as much studying as possible done this week so that I don't have much to do next week when the girls are on their half-term break from school.

2 comments:

Romany said...

Hi Kathryn! This is the first time I've had a chance to check back in at your blog. It's been great catching up!

I feel for your poor GCSE student doing the 3 single sciences without adequate instruction. We felt a bit like that with Jack, but in the end he only needed 2 sciences at B (which he got, plus a C for Chem) to get onto the Psychology A Level course.

It was interesting to see that Cherub hasn't grown much, but it still growing. That's good!

Melanie Bettinelli said...

"Sometimes I forget that there was a time in my life when a lie-in didn't just mean being able to sleep later than 7am."

So true! Hard to believe now that I used to regularly sleep till nine or even ten.