W411 ACE

On the way home yesterday, I was briefly behind a black mini with the numberplate W411ACE. So it does exist!

Sean was lucky to get to go to the cinema with Finn on Saturday. He was on a digital ban after Sharon caught him pinching wads of her paper to take into school. All the boys have been increasingly hard work since the term has started and the renewed influence of their peers and the rebellion against doing anything other than play during their free time takes hold. The riot act has been read and they have a timetable-cum-checklist that they need to review each morning instead of standing at the door saying "Where's my blah?" or "I need blah-blah" or "I've left my blah-blah-blah at school."

Angus has been playing off the others and is a nuisance at mealtimes, forever standing in his chair and refusing to use his cutlery when he is eating. Him and Rowan have had various spats, as have Rowan and Finn, with the latter constantly winding up the former, leading to keening wails and yells at all times of the day. Finn then loses the plot when he is told off. Admittedly, Rowan wades in at times and Finn is only standing his ground but the squabbling and bickering gets tiresome.

Rowan is starting to learn his letters and form words using the letters from his bag. T-A-P were the first three, followed by I-N and now M-S. He likes it when he can form or read a word but we'll need to work with him more to get him into the way of concentrating and learning and not just playing all the time. Sean needs to work on his times-tables: he hasn't progressed at all since last year. Finn's reading is still good, but he just will not read for pleasure. When barred from doing anything else, Sean will always turn to a book (even if he keeps re-reading the Harry Potters just now, rather than turn to something new) whereas Finn will just flounce around protesting that he is bored, then start teasing Rowan for entertainment. Rowan always rises to the bait.

Finn restarted Beavers on Monday ("I don't want to go to Beavers!" "Why?" "I just don't!" "What is it about Beavers you don't like" "I just don't want to go!" This is a sample of a typical conversation with Finn) and seemed to enjoy it. Sean was back at Cubs last week and swimming lessons ("I don't want to go to swimming lessons!") and golf lessons (ditto) have restarted too. The wild weather has continued as the tail-end of Hurricane Katia swept through on Monday, uprooting one of the trees in the Meadows but leaving our house relatively unscathed. What was a poor summer is segueing into an early autumn. At least the winds saved us the job of picking the plums off the tree. The boys picked up the windfall. Angus has eaten too many of them. As Rowan said this morning, "Angus, your mappies are a disgrace!"