Hello gorgeous ones,
Well it seems as if the area for school/house search is closing down and homing suspiciously onto Merewether Heights. We've finally secured a school tour with Hamilton South tomorrow morning 9 a.m. sharp, and that's really the last one we want to see. So far we're probably Merew. H. as no. 1, Junction as No. 2. However, I'm not sure how much the area to live colours how one perceives the school - I'm actually quite keen on the Junction and I don't know how I'd feel about it if it were located in Merewether Heights. Having said that, it seems quite remarkable how the living area colours the general feel of the school. If a suburb is sleepy and a bit backward, so will the school be. If the suburb is towny and full of shops, the school seems to be jumping and rather beady-eyed. Reserved and quiet, likewise. Today we only visited Kahibah, and it rapidly went to the bottom of the list and dropped off. The principal was an absolute darling and spent ages of time on us, and bless her kind heart and garrulous mouth she really did go on a bit. The school's obviously not as endowed as many others in resources of all sorts, and are making a good job of what they have but the thing that worried me the most was the 'academic' content (or lack of it) in the classes that we glimpsed. Not right in all sorts of ways.
So much has the search narrowed down by now that we're starting to trawl the net for locations. Now we are meant to be renting for 6 months at least but it seems so very galling to be paying 450 or more per week thrown at some landlord rather than putting it towards a mortgage that we've also been looking at properties to buy. We've got an appointment at the one the Whale saw in Merewether Heights I think on Saturday, or perhaps it was Wednesday - whichever one it is, one is to let and one is to buy, both in the Heights. Don't know how it'll pan out but we'll see what's on offer and crunch our numbers - obviously after deciding on the school. Mind you, the properties in Hamilton South are so very much more expensive (both to rent and buy) that although the school is recommended and sounds nice it'll have to be pretty damn good to induce us to spend at least 100k more on a house than in M. Heights. More on that tomorrow, no doubt.
That's more or less it. We went shopping, got a lovely leg of lamb which as usual went on the barby (lovely), Littles did her work (doing pretty well at her maths these days - for her that is - the very very very slowly approach seems to be finally paying off), then I had to take her to the beach despite it's howling a gale, managed to get off scott-free from immersion myself and instead stood at the side of the big pool in a denim dress, fleece, and a towel wrapped round my head to protect against earache (even with THAT the left one was going, it really was a gale) while she swam around first with her back-float and then without. The wind was so strong that even within the bath she was being carried along by an obviously sizable current - that's in the pool, so you can imagine. For once there was no one on the beach apart from a single solitary kite-surfer who was absolutely rip roaring along at a most tremendous pace. I have a feeling that the place was also crawling with bluebottles, as even in the kiddie's pool there were a couple washed up where the waves can sometimes overflow in without any filtering. When the Littles took off her float I did take off my dress and got ready just in case I had to dive in, but luckily she didn't sink at any point so I was saved. Not that it would have been exactly 'diving in' - that's a glamourisation of the possibility because any attempt at diving in this current swimsuit was written off a very many years ago - I had a think the other day and realised I've been wearing it for over two decades. 20 YEARS, that is, man and boy. That must be some of the hardest working few square inches of cheap jersey fabric the world has ever seen. But alas due to age and terminal deterioration of elastic properties, there's absolutely no resilience when presented with a headlong dive - I discovered this many a year ago. The swimsuit just gives up and is left bobbing on the waters. So would have been more a hasty feet-first plop. But I digress.
Many thanks to the Pie for the numerous posts, despite the poorly hands (hope they're doing as well as possible). I had no idea about Leo's problems you mention, ears or ticks, hope things go well with the new tactic. Ears? When?? Am I just very forgetful or did we never hear?? Anyway, sorry to hear he's having what sounds like a spot of trouble.
I'd best knock off. Lots of love to all, V xxxx
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Thanks as always! Just come back from S Monica with the car where they ripped off 500 bucks for repairs; sob. It's a downside of having an old car I guess but they patted me on the shoulder and assured me "he's good for another 10 years!" - don't worry, won't be here for so long. In one way one year has zoomed past already, one only just gets established, then knows that in another year and a half they'll be already thinking of carting you off to the next unknown quantity destination. Moving brings a thrill of its own and I don't like staying in one place the whole time but 3 years each time especially with kids schooling is nowt to joke about. THANK YOU for getting the sofa- in my name please- and get that account to me as soon as possible PLEASE! It's frightful that the Non's birthday is what, next week?! And I haven't as much as peeped my finger in any honey dipping pots. Terrible terrible, please get that account up pronto, I know I'm a just a pie but if I can make the cutest girl happy with a small token... where was I, I keep on getting sidetracked. Oh and while I was in S Monica where the Listening center was I went for a consultation- where they really got me down, since it all seemed wonderful and the success rate is 90 percent which is quite high, but it's 2 times a week for 4 months then a months rest and then another 3 months, which is not the problem, but the innicial assessment is 300 dollars, plus EACH session (about 30 minutes) is 100, I don't want to even start and calculate. Sigh. You don't remember about the ear-cutting? Well with all of Leo's colds and sicknesses it's not bloody surprising- yes after the second terrible ear infection when he was about... two I guess, he had it "cut" - which means that they slice out the damaged tissue and let it try and heal- one of the worst experiences at that time, they tied him up in nets and so on to hold him steady. Ugh. Anyway, although I never saw that as one of the leading reasons for his relative concentration difficulties, since I had them too- they claim it to be so. Oh definitely some of his ticks have to do with stress at school; but then some of the others, like slurred speech which I always attributed to being in a bilingual household- slurred speech I mean as a lot of urm,urm, not getting sentences out, mind always obviously joggling from one thing to another- at this age and his knowledge of the language itself should give him enough to properly formulate and string in one breath more sentences together, whereas he gets.. so sidetracked that he gives up and says "never mind I forgot". It's not too bad, but I feel sorry for him as it takes him SO much longer around everything that he actually does know and is quite clever about, yadaydaadada. Let me bore you no further, most of the things till now have cleared up that I feared before like him crisscrossing his eyes for a long time, reading things upside down and generally showing dyslexic symptoms, he's even got his Bs and Ds properly now... that took us about one and a half years of training. But I just thought if I could help him in anyway, I know I would have liked to be helped out in concentration if I could but no one believed me- still, it does seem an awful lot especially when one is not certain of the outcome.
ReplyDeleteNow that was a long Leo one. On one hand though he's gone from reading 10 words in English in September to reading grade 1 books without a problem and now likes sitting down and actually reading by himself which IS HUGE progress, I know Lara at her age 8 level would be left unimpressed but for him it's a real achievement. Also has recently grown to love the pianika at school and yesterday spent practicing at the piano by himself for 3 hours- even played three tunes with his eyes closed which he was immensely proud of, after years of me trying to coax him into playing around with me, it's actually someone else's suggestion that works, much like swimming; I tried and tried all sorts of ways until I gave up, plomped him in a class where they were no-muss no-fuss, learned to swim in two sessions.
ReplyDeleteThere I go again. Hands very much better thank you, there are certain sores and I look a trifle close to a hazardous disease person on my right hand but it's stopped throbbing and generally on the road to recovery.
At least you are narrowing down on the schools, if they were all perfect it would be a job to decide- and the funding seems miraculously quick! OOh and Mako would LOVE all your scrumptious Lamb barbies and ALL of them actually, I wouldn't even PRETEND to know how to do a whole leg of lamb on a barbecue, that is ours isn't gas so I guess that I'd probably ruin it by burning it on the outside and raw in the inside, I stick to smaller slices. Mmmm.
Gosh look at the time- have to go out before Leo finishes with his self-defense classes, (yes
we tried one for one semester, doesn't seem particularly interested, they do some lessons in obedience and running and whatnot then learn about the almighty "KI=YA"- don't ask me, all a load of rubbish if you ask me but at least it wears down his overflowing energy levels just a bit) - and all I seem to have written about was Leo, such is the day I guess. Still have to rush to the bank too, and since Nea always causes a havoc as she insists on putting in the pin number and "finishing a deal" (very determinedly) -can you imagine at two she already knows it by heart (always does it at supermarkets as well)- but always ends up pushing buttons (also deftly) for "cashback" and "do you want extra so and so-s" at the end, and then quickly pressing the large "cancel" button at the end and looks at me and says "Yeah!"happily, knowing she'll be able to exhaust me with doing the whole process again. ALthuogh with all this she generally impresses all the cashiers and the other day one of them actually gave her an entrance ticket into Disney world- of course we are not what you would call Disney world fans (thank the lord Mako has a deal of Japanese properties but never had the Disney fever, or baseball fever come to that, both of which I am rather thankful for) - anyway so I gave them to my Finnish friend who visits at least 4 times a year, hmm. There I go again. Lots and ltos of love and let me cut you loose before you drop off the chair with boredom- XOXOXOXOXXOS