Cosy time with Mumminka

 As of midnight tonight, we are not allowed to go into the houses of anyone else in the area.  After a really lovely impromptu Friday night visit to my Mum about 3-4 weeks ago, she'd talked about me coming over to stay the night on a Friday.  Alas, it didn't happen, mainly because I was paranoid that I could inadvertently pass something onto her accidentally, but also because I was quite tired and just went home.

However, as things are changing, and I might not get to spend any time with her in the next few weeks or months, I went over there tonight.

Actually, the day has been quite a nice one.  

My year 2's, whilst they weren't all up to scratch with using the correct vocabulary that I'd been teaching them (cue gentle rant- they discovered they DID know what I was talking about when I told them they needed LOOK AT THE WALL for support, clues and guidance),  did well in their music lesson and my 3rd Year 1 class, did really well with their listening skills at listening to moods in music.  In the afternoon, I had asked a Year 5 teacher if I could give his class an extra extended music lesson during my own PPA time because they only get a lesson half as long as the other two classes and they are behind and I wanted to wrap up their work on the Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra with all 3 classes and begin their proper Year 5 curriculum now.   This is a class which contains a few of the more problematic characters from last year's horror year 4 class. Whilst they are improved, they are highly unpredictable in group work situations as they cannot bear criticism of any sort, no matter how positively, constructively or gently it is given to them to help them to improve their work.  And today's task was to create their own variation on Benjamin Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra theme in small groups.  I was apprehensive but it needed to be done.  But would it go well on a Friday afternoon....?

Yes, it bloomin well did! Honestly, I was SO proud of them- cooperation, they listened to and carried out the task EXACTLY as I had explained they should, their timing was immaculate, the pieces were recognizable as variations on Britten's theme, they listened to all the feedback given and didn't get stroppy, accepted it, listened to each other's music and everyone felt really good about themselves.  The LSA who was with me was utterly amazed by how well they did too! It was a really lovely ending to the week.

And then, I headed off from school (I asked permission from my Deputy) before the school gates opened (as it was my PPA time) to try and avoid the school crowds on public transport so I could get to my mum so she could avoid the traffic to collect me from the station.

I arrived to Mum's station at 16:17 which was brilliant timing and she drove me back to hers. 

I'm still quite worried about passing anything onto her so I wore my mask pretty much all the time I was with her, except when I was drinking tea and eating.

When I arrived, she put the kettle on for the ubiquitous cup of tea and we went out to the garden so she could show me how to cut down my Cucamelons to try and keep them going over winter and did the customary examination of her garden- she still has peppers, sweet potatoes, sungold tomatoes and a few other bits growing and I enjoyed seeing her Loofah plant's one large fruit.  Her lemon and satsuma trees have ripening fruit which is exciting.

We went in and exchanged items.

I decided I wanted to take her some treats in the form of useful and edible items so I had gone to Lidl opposite school and gleefully looked for things.  I brought her:

A enormous butternut squash which was on special or 69p

A gargantuan Turban squash since we both hadn't had loads of success with growing them.

A bunch of loose Beetroot as she has been pickling her own homegrown ones.

A Hereford aged Sirloin steak- she enjoys one as a real treat occasionally.

A pack of Tunnock's Caramel wafer bars.

A box of Paprika smoked crispy Yellow Split pea dried snacks from the Refill Room (bought in advance)

As well as a bag of craft papers for her and my sister.

She, in return, gave me:

A historical peasant's cap, 2 handkerchiefs and 4 Lavender bags she had made out of an old ripped shirt of CBC's that I had attempted to hack into handkerchiefs

A Scented Geranium plant.

A pair of my gardening gloves and a compost sack which I'd accidentally left with her after the great Horse Manure escapade of early September.

Some old packaging with cute bee design on  she thought I could make into cards.

After tea, we headed off to KFC with a cool bag to pick up a naughty dinner.  The lovely older lady in there was so helpful and kind and we returned home gleefully with our naughty feast.  We sat watching Pointless, chatting and enjoying each other's company at a distance.  We both really enjoyed our treat.

It was SUCH a lovely time and I felt really sad that I may not get to do this again for a while.  I love spending time with just me and my Mum.  It's nice to go round there with CBC but I really do love and prefer 1:1 time with people in general, especially my parents.  It would have been so lovely to stay round and I only wish I'd done it in the Summer holiday whilst I could and felt confident that I would not accidentally be passing on anything. (I'm pretty sure I've had Covid, back in March, but you worry about getting it again and having no obvious symptoms anyway) However, that just wasn't to be. At least I had this chance to spend a bit of time with her before the changes. I'm glad she has a bubble with my sister who lives near by her.

We had another cup of tea and then, at around 7.15pm, we left, to get my back to the station to get home.  I was fairly lucky with my first train though, because it was 4mins delayed, I missed the connection at the other train station (there's a 400m walk/cycle between the stations) and had to wait 20minutes.  

I got home to find CBC conked out on the sofa.  He's still there now. I can hear snoring from downstairs!  I've done some useful putting away and washing and now I'm off to bed.

Night, night!x