So the weekend went like this

Friday I left home at 7:30 am and got home 12 hours later – I was bushed!  Saturday morning it was up and off to the soccer club for the annual team photos.  Let me just say it was FREEZING!

The boys both jumped in the car without jackets.

“Get your jackets, it is freezing.”

“No, we are fine.”

“OK, you will live and learn.”

It turns out that despite having arrived last winter, they haven’t quite worked out that bright sunshine doesn’t necessarily mean warm.  Here, it can be sunny and DAMN COLD!  That would never happen in Nigeria!

We ended up having to wait for one member of the team to arrive, so we were there longer than anticipated.  Mr O Jnr 2 asked if he could borrow MY jacket.

“No!”

Next time they will take jackets!

Back home, Miss O 1 and I headed off for the fortnightly (yes, we have it down to a fine art now) food shopping.  I was still cold.  Miss O 1 is not so naive about the sun – she rugs up!  We actually rugged up even further as we bought woollen hats for all, including me!

We decided to venture to another market this weekend, just for comparison.  We got capsicums very cheap, but that market was a little short on our favourite meats, so we headed back to our old hunting ground.  That is after we found the car.  Don’t ask me how, but we managed to misplace it in this new very strange car park.

Proposed Hair Style

Amidst all this, we received a text message with this picture from a friend who had taken the boys for a hair cut.  “Would the school permit this cut?”

Miss O 1 was horrified.  I think I was, I’m not sure.  All I knew was Mr O would be horrified!   He is fairly traditional, really, and this was NOT a hair style he would want his boys sporting!  I sent back a message saying, “Not sure about the school, but Dad would have a heart attack!”

They came home with a very standard cut!

We got home about 5:30 pm.  Effectively, Saturday was gone.  Cook, eat and watch a bit of TV.  Suddenly I got the headache from hades and was in bed by 9 pm!  I think it was the cold – I just didn’t warm up after the soccer photos! No night on the town for us!

Sunday was a little more relaxed.  Mr O and I had a well deserved sleep-in and even thought about going to a movie for some “mummy and daddy” time, but we thought about it too late in the day.  By the time I cooked the roast for dinner and Mr O did the supermarket shopping, the day was almost gone and we both had to be up early this morning.

Somewhere in amongst all this we have to start packing to move! Mr O keeps saying, “I can’t wait, I love that house.”  I hope it lives up to expectations!

I’m dreading the actual moving.

There was no writing this weekend.  I really want to get deep into the second draft of our book.  I think it has marinated long enough now.  Time to get the editing happening properly.

We are organising maths tutoring.  We have discovered there seems to be a huge gap in the kids maths education.  We think they have been reluctant to let us know how much they have been struggling with mathematical concepts.  In other subjects, they are managing really well, but maths seems to be an issue for all of them to varying degrees.  They certainly have the ability, they just seem to have missed some of the basics which makes it hard for them to leap ahead to our system.  Mr O is really quite shocked, as he did the hard maths at high school and passed very well.  We had been concentrating on English (on the basis they needed English for ALL other subjects), but realise we need to concentrate a lot more on maths now.  Both of us believe maths is necessary for life generally, irrespective of whether any career needs them.

Mr O hasn’t used his maths for years, but as I explained to the kids, he has to use them in his new career.  Making sure he mixes chemicals correctly when spraying weeds is very important.   Being able to calculate square metres to organise soil, mulch and plants is all maths.

One of the teachers told me the UK has a more “general” level of General Maths than we do – ours is actually quite difficult.  Sadly, we are not in England, so tutors it is.

Busy weekend.  To be followed by a busy week.  Here in Australia Friday was the end of financial year.  So this week is the final processing of all transactions at work, closing off the year and annual reporting.  Which is why I was up at 5 am this morning doing “stuff” I can only do when everyone is off the system!

Life is busy!

Related articles

• City & Guilds CEO: Maths education needs overhaul (telegraph.co.uk)