Sometimes I sit here for ages, trying to think what to start writing about, and other days it just flows. Today is a 'sitting and thinking and coming up with a blank' day... So, with apologies for poor literary style or continuity or flow, here are my random thoughts about the past few days.

Bill had all last week off due to 'you-know-what', and would have gone back to work on Monday in reasonably fine fettle except that, yes, he did break a tooth but I'm not entirely sure it was due to gritting his teeth so hard... anyway he woke up on Monday morning in fair oral agony, phoned the dentist immediately and took some strong painkillers, which sent him so woozy that I ended up having to drive him to the dentist in the afternoon. In Oxford. Where he had a triple root canal filling. And today he looks like a hamster storing his food in a pouch in his cheek ..... poor love!

In the meantime, there have been some nice positive learning times with Tamsin. This morning, for instance, she found her scrapbook and some pre-printed pictures that Granny had given her, and asked me to sit with her while she invented a story with them. So she chose and stuck pictures and dictated the story to me which I wrote. She did manage to write one word - iron - but she's really not too keen on writing much. Still, no rush! She did write a birthday to a card as well today.

Yesterday she pulled out some maths workbooks which we have on the shelf, and I suggested we try the 'Simple Adding Up' one, which went down pretty well - I think we did about 8 or 9 pages of that and she seemed to be getting the hang of it. We've really done very little maths stuff, but I think it would be nice to do a bit more of that while it's still in her mind, to consolidate it, if she's willing. She's done some more Dot-to-Dot, using numbers up to 50. She's counted up to 100 orally quite a bit, but not done much written work with those higher numbers, so it was quite good to go over those and have her actually recognise that thirty-two is 32 and so on.

This afternoon we've had a couple of girls age 4 and 6 and their mum over - we met them at HE group and it was the first time they've been here. It went really nicely, with the girls running down the driveway shouting, "Tamsin, Tamsin ....!" excitedly, which was encouraging! They all played very well and happily together. I showed T, their Mum, my box of Sonlight stuff and she was very taken with Handwriting without Tears. She doesn't have internet access at home but is going to go to the library to try and find a UK supplier - anybody know of one?

Today's most exciting moment, however, came when we went to the local park after dinner because I was roped in to helping to paint the railings round the new play equipment in advance of the Grand Official Opening to be held on Sunday. We met my friend Kate and her girls there, and they had their bikes, so Tamsin had a go on a bike without stabilisers for the first time! She did fantastically well - it was so exciting. She managed 10 metres or so on bumpy grass before wobbling and falling off! She did that several times, and was so thrilled that after the 3rd or 4th time she jumped up after falling off, and ran towards me giggling and laughing so much she just couldn't stop, and threw herself into my arms in utter joy!!!! And of course I had the biggest face-splitting grin and tears in my eyes too! Perfect moment.