The week in brief...

This week was a testing one at work. My immediate boss, who's position was mooted to be mine when he moved on, handed in his notice.
For various reasons, and after some 'little chats to self' I realised that I wasn't ready to step into that role yet. I declared this to his immediate boss, and he agreed that I wasn't ready...a fact that made me all the more relieved that I'd made that choice and saved myself the process of being turned down.
I wonder if they'll actually replace him though, and I suspect that I'll just get the elements of his job that I am up to, and they'll probably live without the other bits.
The budgets were finally approved this week too, and I derived an immense satisfaction for my part in getting various people's salaries up to a near acceptable level for the work they do.

Matilda got her report this Friday, and some chocolate.... We were happy that she'd done so well. She seems to take it a bit for granted, and we find 'certificates' of achievement in her bag sometimes, that she's forgotten to mention. Under the brash full on façade, there's a shy kid trying to stay in! I asked her permission to put this on:


Phoebe is also doing good stuff, and has suddenly got the basics of word construction... in an almost classic example of they'll learn when they're ready. She's seen that Matilda is getting a lot out of words, and decided that she wants in. Phoebe reminds me a lot of Molly at this age, and has some of the preoccupations that Molly had like counting the number of friends she 'has' and an obsession with what she's wearing.

Indeed Molly is still like that.. and sent me some pictures from her photography project about a film called 'This is England' about some skin heads in 80's Britain. She assures me the cigarette is a prop:





...I quite like them actually, and they are self obsessive enough to be considered art , or certainly art(y) even! She does seem to be too concerned with the rebel side of her nature, but I think she's still quite 'earthy' when it comes to things that matter, like judging people. Only a few weeks now till we see her over here.

Josh is in India, but we've heard nothing from him this week.

The girls all went to the coast to 'Sea World' yesterday (Sunday) and I did fencing. Matilda was really made up that they had a Dugong (Sea Cow) there. She's been doing a sort of project at school about them, how they are shallow grass grazing, and how they are damaged by outboard motors. It was their cousin's birthday (Lilly) and the trip was part of the celebrations. Next week there's more. Andrew and Fran are split up, and the kids have the same kind of deal going on that Josh and Molly had to put up with. Its not ideal, but you have to make it work. So next week there'll be a party at Andrew's house with a bouncy castle and lots of kids.... I cant wait! (No really...it would be better if the kids weren't all there...thats all! Ha ha) JOKES!

This is a late posting, I was up making sure the tooth fairy came...