March

This month was very busy for me at the start, work-wise. I had two meetings in Coventry on the 2nd and the 4th. Each day I got the 6am train from Rochester and arrived home at 8.45pm on the Monday and a more respectable 6.30pm on the Wednesday. These were exam meetings and everything went OK. The train journeys allow me time to chill and to read. I finished "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Kaled Hosseini (who wrote "The Kite Runner"). This was one of the most beautiful books I have read for a long time, being a great insight into life for women in Kabul throughout the reign of the shah, the Soviet occupation, the Mujahideen and then the Taliban, and a gripping story of the lives of two women.

On the Tuesday (3rd) I went to the Hi5 Awards ceremony and dinner at Westminster College in London, with Carol. Carol and I had been nominated for a joint award for innovation in eLearning. It was an 'oscar' style ceremony with the golden envelopes and the winners names in each category read out. I was astonished to hear our names and very pleased to receive a silver star paperweight engraved with my name and the award, and a notebook computer for us to use with our students.

The dinner was cooked by students at Westminster College, minimalist portions but quite tasty, especially the dessert - Apricot nut crumble with custard.

Our nomination was for our use of new technologies for teaching and assessment. I have been podcasting some of my lessons so that students can download these to their MP3 players, using blogs, wikis, glossaries and movie making with students to make the work that they produce more interesting.

It was a good evening but a shame that we weren't allowed to take partners. I would have liked Brian to have been there.

On the 10th March we all went to a quiz night at the scout hut, run by the explorers. Helen came down for the afternoon and Dan came straight after work. Mum and Sue came along to the quiz and our family table, with Beccy and her friend Reece, was full. We had eight people (nine if you count Alexander, although he didn't answer any questions). The evening was really enjoyable and it was nice to spend some time with Alexander.

He now smiles back at you when you smile at him. He spends long periods looking around and is becoming more and more aware. Helen talks to him all the time and he responds well. He had a big smile for his dad when he arrived.

13th March - Comic Relief. I did a 'Race Event' with my students and raised £20. Brian took a collection jar to the pub to get his card circle to donate. Ben made the collection jar and Brian started it off with £5. He managed to get them to donate another £5.50 but he said that it was really hard. It is great that he tried.

On the 14th March Brian and I went to the annual dinner for those who help on the scout committee and in fundraising. The meal, at the Robin Hood pub, was really nice. Afterwards we called into the Bridgewood Hotel to the 65th birthday party of one of Brian's clients. It seemed to involve a lot of singing into microphones and not really our sort of thing. We stayed for a while but then made a swift exit.

March 17th - Ben went up to Battersea Park with the school to compete in the National Indoor Rowing Championships in the relay team. His team came ninth and Ben said that it was the hardest thing physically that he had ever had to do. He was pleased that, although he didn't qualify in time to compete, his time in the practice at school would have placed him 50th in the country.

March 18th - Ben's GCSE ensemble recital. His group played 'Viva La Vida'. Let down a bit by the singing but generally good and they got their recording done. There were some lovely group pieces. Unfortunately, the Ben's piano wasn't loud enough throughout the recording and he had to record again. They are going to record an instrumental next time.

Beccy went to see The Lion King with the gifted and talented group at school. She said it was brilliant and now wants us to go as a family. I'm sure I couldn't get any interest in this when I wanted us to go last year and we went to see Spamalot instead. I think I would like to Priscilla Queen of the Desert now - just need to work on convincing everyone else!

On March 20th we travelled down to Devon. It was Brian's cousin Marc's wedding and we had managed to find a home exchange with a family who live just north of London and who have a holiday cottage in Down St Mary near Crediton. We drove to Devon after school and arrived at the pre-wedding fireworks and barbecue just as it started.

Afterwards we drove to the cottage, which was a lovely old cottage, nice and warm with a nice kitchen and everything we needed. We went straight to bed without seeing our surroundings and so, when we opened the curtains in the morning and found we were looking out over the churchyard and gravestones, we were a bit surprised. Once we got used to the idea, it was a nice outlook and very peaceful.

We went for a walk to a neighbouring village, getting very muddy on a farm on the way there. The farmer helped us find a path through the mud. At Zeal Monarchadum we found an indoor market in the village hall. We bought some plants, sweets, cards and cakes (from the farmer's wife). From there we walked to a place called Waie Inn, a purpose built tourist place. It had a skittle alley, snooker tables, pool tables and a dartboard. We played skittles and darts and had lunch before walking briskly back to the cottage as we were running out of time to get ready for the wedding.

We changed and drove to the wedding venue, Stoodleigh Court (a large house with extensive gardens). The wedding lasted the rest of the day and we finally arrived back at the cottage at around 12.30am.

We had forgotten to bring a map and had to rely on Brian's phone for satellite navigation - very stressful as you don't know any landmarks and can't tell whether you are getting any closer - won't forget the map again!

On Sunday we drove over to see Marion and Alan at the cottages they were staying in and then headed home, firstly using the sat nav and then using our intuition and sense of direction to allow us to travel a bit faster. We planned to stop for lunch in Warminster but there wasn't anything there. After an attempt to find a pub or cafe to eat at, we ended up at Burger King at a service station on the A303, not pleasant but we were hungry.

Monday 23rd - I travelled to Westminster for a conference and managed to skip out at lunchtime for a while to meet Dan for lunch. Dan treated me to a panini at a little cafe near where he works in Euston.

Thursday 26th - Beccy's GCSE options evening. We found out that she is doing really well at school in all subjects and is in the accelerated learning group for English, maths and science which means that she will take a total of 6 GCSEs in these subjects and will start taking them early. I just hope that this doesn't mean that grades below A or B are acceptable if the exam is taken a year early, she doesn't want to be disadvantaged. She also has to take a level 2 Diploma (the new government flagship qualification) and has chosen to take Creative and Media which will allow her to extend her music and some aspects of art. Overall she was only allowed to choose 2 GCSE options and, thankfully, chose French as well as PE. I think she has ended up with a good variety even though it didn't seem as if she had much of a choice.

Saturday 28th - Went to Dan and Helen's for dinner. Dan cooked us a lovely dinner and Helen made a lovely pudding. Alexander entertained us with his babbling. He makes a good variety of noises and, at one point, we thought he was saying 'thank you'! He is interested in looking at books while being read to and seems to be incredibly aware and alert.

Sunday 29th - Ben helped out at the tennis club with the young players. He seems to be enjoying it and seems to work well with the younger children. On Saturday he took a session on his own and got paid!

Tuesday 31st - Medway Youth Biathlon. Ben and Beccy both took part. The field for Ben's competition was larger and tougher and he came ninth. He set a personal best in the swimming and the running and his lack of tiredness when crossing the finishing line after swimming and running suggested that he could have done it even faster. Beccy won her event and qualified for the national biathlon, apparently to be held at Crystal Palace.

February

After one month of keeping a diary I have managed to miss February completely and it is now March. We have had a very busy month and its 28 days rushed by like lightning.

At the start of the month we had snow for a couple of days. It was great snow that we could make snowballs and excellent snowman straight away, rather than having to wait for it to start melting. We had two days off school and it was a brilliant rest. Needless to say, Brian went to work - nothing could keep him away!

6th February was Ben's 16th birthday. He had an expensive bike for Christmas and so didn't get much for his birthday. We got him some reflective clothing and Beccy got him a steering wheel controller for the Xbox. We had a family get together in the evening with burgers and sausages in buns and a fruit and cream birthday cake.

Ben is making good use of his bike. He cycles to tennis on Saturday mornings (9 miles) where he does two hours of coaching younger players followed by a one hour squad, paid for in lieu of coaching payment. He then cycles the 9 miles home and often then plays a full hockey match in the afternoon! He plays for the men's 5th team who are doing well at the moment.

He will also often cycle to explorers and to hockey matches as long as they are at home. Due to his high level of fitness he has been selected at school to compete in the district biathlon, where he has to swim four lengths of the pool and then run a mile. He has been practising tumble turns and front crawl in order to get his speed up.

7th February was Sue's birthday and we went bowling and then back to Sue's for a chinese take away. It was a shame that Dan, Helen and Alexander were unable to get to Sue's as they were going to a christening in Oxford and couldn't do both, otherwise the whole family would have been there (Sarah, Ian and Amelie were at Sue's but couldn't make it for Ben's birthday).

9th February - parents' consultation evening at Ben's school. It is always nice to get so much praise from all his teachers. He seems to be doing really well and is enjoying school. He has been accepted for the sixth form as long as he gets the grades and all his teachers had very high expectations, so he should be reasonably confident at least. He has chosen PE, Biology, History and Physics for his A levels. A good all round choice. We're so proud of him.

10th February - visited Helen and Alexander. He is growing fast and I want to make sure that I miss as little as possible. Managed not to take any photos (no camera) but have this photo on my wall at work. He is still gorgeous and smiling a lot now.

We all visited again on 20th Feb during half term week. Brian seemed to have the knack of calming Alexander by keeping him upright and looking out of the window. He was better than any of the rest of us at keeping him content.

We managed to get this excellent picture of Helen and Alexander with a big smile from both.

Our plan after visiting Helen was to go to Ikea for a picture frame, then to go to Bluewater on the way home if we had time. After Ikea we tried to start the car and got nothing at all. Luckily (as there were enough of us) we managed to bump start it and drove towards home. Unfortunately, we were low on fuel and got stuck in a traffic jam at the Dartford bridge so had to pull into a petrol station to get fuel and then bump start again. Brian fiddled with the battery and alternator when we got home and it has worked ever since, although he said he didn't actually do anything other than wiggle the wires and test the connections!

Half term

As we had decided not to ski this year (too expensive when we weren't sure if Brian's business would be a success or not) , we had two days in London as our mini holiday. On Wednesday we travelled up to Victoria on the train, went swimming at the Queen Mother sports centre in Westminster, had lunch at KFC and then spent the rest of the day at the Science Museum. We were kicked out at 6pm when they wanted to close and we had a really good afternoon. Ben and Beccy are still really interested in the exhibits, even thought they have seen a number of them before, and the Launchpad exhibition (for which we had to queue for over 20 minutes) was probably more interesting as they both had much more background knowledge of physics than they had before and were able to answer questions about what was happening in each experiment. Ben and Brian had fun making handprints on different surfaces for detection by a heat sensitive camera. They managed to make two prints that seemed to be hanging in the air, confusing to anyone who didn't know what they had done. After the museum we got the train back to Rochester and went to Blue Rays restaurant in the High Street for a lovely Chinese meal.

On Thursday we cycled to Rochester station and got the train to Victoria. We had to wait for a train with less people on it so that we had space for the bikes but this only meant waiting for the slow train (15 minutes). At Victoria we got a map of the London cycle routes from the travel information centre. it was completely useless and seemed to have missed all the routes we had intended to cycle. So we headed out onto the roads and across Lambeth Bridge. From these we were able to cycle along the Thames Path towards Waterloo and the South Bank. We had tickets for the IMAX cinema so we locked the bikes in the cycle racks outside and went in to watch 'Fly Me to the Moon', an animated 3D film about three bugs that stowed away in Apollo 11. There was a message from Buzz Aldrin at the end of the film assuring us that no 'contaminants' had gone to the moon, in case we were at all worried (didn't mention the human contaminants but perhaps they don't count!) After the film we cycled along to the Millenium Bridge and then back along the Thames on the other side. At Westminster we had to cycle the one way system with the traffic. Both children coped really well and we were soon back at the station. From Victoria, Brian and Ben raced home. The race was clearly too much for Brian, who was rather pale and sick looking afterwards. Beccy and I cycled leisurely and called into the shop for some supplies for dinner on the way home. It was a good day.

Our final family outing for half term was to the Odeon at the dockyard to see Slumdog Millionaire. Beccy stood on tiptoes to help her look old enough for a 15 film. We all enjoyed the film and it raised a number of really good questions from the children about slums and the exploitation of the poor. Of course, Ben has seen this first hand from his trip to South Africa in 2007, from which he learnt a great deal, but it was reasonably new to Beccy.

Ben and his poker nights

As his birthday treat, Ben wanted to invite a number of friends round to play poker for money (they are all 16 now after all). In the end there were 7 of them. They played until around 2 or 3 in the morning and Nathan and Rob both won most of the money (we have taken both these boys on holiday and showed them how to play poker - hope we haven't taught them bad habits - and wonder how the luck missed Ben!) All stayed the night and got very little sleep but still four of them managed to get to hockey practice at 10 the next morning!

As they had all enjoyed the night, Ben was asked to organise another one and he had six friends round a couple of weeks later for the same again. This time we moved Beccy into our room so that the noise didn't keep her up all night. Apparently neither of our neighbours heard anything so maybe they weren't making as much noise as I had thought. It was a good idea to make them all sleep downstairs though!

Other things that have been happening in February are Applied A level marking, this went without any major problems, and some research into my family history. I started to get into tracing my immediate family and started with Mum's side (easier than Dad's as they are all in England and Wales). I managed to trace them back to all 16 of my great-great-great grandparents on Mum's side and, at the same time, found some interesting things about what life might have been like, including the number of people who went into service in local houses, and both great grandfathers who fought in the First World War. Both received the British, Victory and Star medals for bravery. Ernest Seymour was killed in action in July 1916 but Ronald Cole managed to survive the war. I also found Sarah Hadaway (my great-great grandmother) who was born in Kent, married a local farmer, and was widowed at 23 with two children under the age of two. within four years of becoming a widow she remarried in Yorkshire. How did she get to Yorkshire in the 1870s with two small children? I also found Margaret Paget (another great-great grandmother) who, after being widowed, supported the family by becoming a coal merchant, how hard must that have been? I want to do some more investigation and try to find out more about life at this time, also to find all the family on Dad's side at least as far back.

Other notable events

Beccy captained the school girls football team in the district schools football tournament. They won a couple of matches but suffered from having had no practice as most of them had not wanted to play. She seemed to enjoy it. Luckily it was on a Tuesday and I was able to watch the last two games they played.

Beccy has started to train at the athletics club once a week and will be encouraged to enter a number of races, both cross country in the winter and track in the summer. She is a good runner and, hopefully she will enjoy it.

Both children continue to play their respective instruments, Ben the piano and Beccy the drums, although increasingly they seem to be swapping over with each taking a greater interest in the other's instrument.

Brian's business is holding its own so far. They have been able to pay the wages for the last two months and there seems to be enough work at the moment. So far, so good.

Dan has been offered a new post with Transport for London which he has accepted. This is a promotion and hopefully will be an enjoyable one. He is now a councillor on the parish council as well as the UK expert in his engineering field on the European standards committee and the British standards committee. As far as I know, he has finished contributing to a book edited by someone at Sheffield University and we are looking forward to seeing it when it is published (although, I suspect, few of us will understand it technically). Three children to be immensely proud of, not to mention a daughter in law, who seems to be a totally natural mother, and a beautiful grandson. Couldn't ask for more!