Had a go at the German tonight. That's the language, not a native I keep handy for ranting at. I have been struggling with my commitment to 15 mins a day since the start of term. In fact, regular listeners will observe I have been struggling with blogging since then too.

On Saturday we had a little tea party for S, a friend who I met in the library, and who lives with her 3 year old son and comes originally from Ivory Coast, English is her fourth language, so my pathetic attempts to learn German look even worse compared to her superhuman grasp of 4 languages. Anyway, she invited her friend (met in Bitterne Leisure Centre - a friend of mine already) and she ( friend A) was married to a man ( good start) who translates bibles. In Sholing! I thought it was just a zig zag of roads to get lost in, not a hotbed of bible translation. This gentleman comes originally from Niger, and I mentioned that I knew of a missionary in Niger ( from the 1980s in my church in Surrey). Anyhow, against all odds they know each other well! I seriously only know of one missionary in Africa, and it was one of those conversations that Americans are supposed to have with us, assuming we know the Queen. Actually, bizarrely on that subject, we had a wonderful lodger from Oz once, called Hamish, and he went to Great Dixter to visit the old guy who lives there, who was friends with his mum. The chap is dead now, but was famous for his garden at Great Dixter, and Hamish didn't get why it was funny that he should be personally visiting the owner of one of the great gardens of the south east, when the rest of us pay and eat cream teas on his terrace.

Which brings me nicely to my cream tea, not on the terrace due to the inclement weather, but at the Rhinefield house hotel, near Lyndhurst, which was a gift on leaving my church job, and which R and I enjoyed on Saturday. We ate loads, scones and sandwiches and cakes and meringues and moose or is that mousse? The chocolate kind, not the wild kind. Anyway, more fatty foods consumed in one hour than in the rest of our year. We read the papers and did our books and watched the fountain and it was very chilled. Busy day on Saturday, as in the morning we went to the Nuffield theatre for their children's show, which was awesomely brilliant. The one this Saturday is even better, Andrea tells me! We went for free, as I was reviewing it for a magazine (Solent Families) so got freebie tickets, and it was a great show and I can wholeheartedly recommend you go along to the Nuffield on a Saturday at 11. Before that, the girls and I did Aldi and M and S, two ends of the shopping spectrum, but it saves doing anything in between. We were waiting outside Aldi for it to open, having been banished at an early hour for the men's breakfast. Somehow we stupidly asked for some swaps and have some women's breakfasts coming up, instead of our usual Friday night wine fest. Will have to have vodka on the branflakes.

Back at work today, with the angelic Year 3 s charming as usual - I am not being sarcastic, they are adorable! We were doing measuring, and I had set up some weighing and capacity and some games and worksheets, for them to do on a cycle, working with a partner to get through all the jobs. At our meeting in the morning, I volunteered my children in my maths group to cut up 9 pieces of string each, 50cm long, for an activity we are doing later in the week. Oh, joy! They got in such tangles! Assessment was easy, just line up the pieces of string and see if any dangle down longer than the rest. It was a brilliant maths lesson, if I do say so myself. Everyone was learning actively and I had time to teach specifics of reading scales to pairs of children. And the cutting up string is for a real purpose, and they are learning how to measure. I love maths.