I made it to Wimbledon on Monday, court no 4 - I know, I was disappointed but I was only number 3648 in the queue, despite arriving at 6am. We watched two matches in the sweltering sunshine, not able to leave our seats to go the the loo as you can't save them, and someone in the queue below the court would come and pinch your seat. So, an endurance test of no drinking and lots of sweating. Anyhow, the day was lots of fun and very long. The queue was very well organised and involved 3 hours of sitting on the grass in the sunshine snoozing and reading the papers, then a polite trundle across the golf course to pay £20 to get a ground ticket. We had strawberries and scones, as would have been rude not to, and didn't leave till 10.45pm, as we were on 'Murray Mount' for the game that went on into the darkness. I got home at 1am. Thanks to Granny Mary for driving, paying for the parking and my ticket and making the picnic.

On Wednesday, R and I went to Wembley to see Take That. Judging by the trend, I should really be somewhere in London beginning with W right now! I was intending to be in Wimborne, doing an Aquathlon this evening, but Sarah turned up to take me having not eaten for 48 hours and looking rough, and I have had a throat thing (swine flu?) and sore glands for two weeks, and my legs felt like lead so I was not gutted to throw in the towel on that one. I haven't trained for 2 weeks, swimming or running, and feel run down. Getting to bed at 2.15 on Thursday morning probably didn't help. 3 of the mums of my class were at the same Take That gig, and numerous other school friends and colleagues. I didn't bump into any of them! 85 000 people, it is an awesome building which would be interesting regardless of the show. The show was fabulous, I am not the biggest Take That fan ever (would struggle to tell you their names - lets try.. Gary, Robbie - no, he left - Jason maybe? ) and am ashamed to say I could not sing along to many of the tunes, but the other 84,999 could so it didn't matter. I won't say too much in case you are going, but it was a spectacular Circus themed show which featured some amazing performers - and Take That. Afterwards there is a clever herding system to avoid overcrowding in the station, with police horses. You could not hope to be in a more polite or cheerful crowd than a Take That fan crowd. There were 25 women to every man, no one was drunk, everyone was smiley and nice. The crowd was about 95% white british heritage, which I thought was interesting but not suprising, and it felt quite liberating to have so many women in one place and somehow the absence of men in any number felt less oppressive and hostile. I am not complaining of men's existence, jut remarking on what a safe experience it was, crowds not being anyone's favourite thing, being in a crowd full of people like me.

One weird thing was how much people were texting - even during the show - and taking photos - it was beautiful just watching all the flashes. I thinks its weird taking photos or video at events, cos you don't live it at the time, but store it up for some time in the future when it is not real anymore. I am not very good at capturing the moment in photos, and gave up taking cameras to weddings etc a long time ago. I never look at the pictures anyway. I like taking photos of flowers.

I had tennis lesson number 2 tonight, when I would have been doing my Aquathlon, I though a mild tennis lesson would be an OK substitute for a endurance activity. I bought some of the kit today, pleased to have planned my trip to the shop to coincide with a sale on tennis clothing, so I now have one of those little skirts with built in shorts, and some proper tennis shoes. I have always given R a hard time for having to have the right kit for his sports (he bought a cricket helmet and wore it for one season, he has special pedals and special pedal specific shoes, and so on...) but here I am, taking part in new sports at a rate of one a month and needing to have the right kit to do it. So I confess that I can no longer complain of his obsessive equipment purchases, I am even worse, having got him to buy a new boat which suits me better than the Topper. I am intending to try horseriding next weekend, and tapdancing is on my list. Will not purchase anything for the horse riding. It costs enough to have a couple of hours on a horse. I thought they wanted me to be the whole nag when they told me the price!

We have sailed the last 2 weekends, and I have enjoyed it. I have done some of the steering and not done too badly, and it is fun and peaceful and challenging all at the same time. I am hoping to do a race with R at some point soon. He decided last weekend that H and I were competent enough to go out on our own on the Mirror. Now, I have an aversion to boats that look like boats as they are too wobbly. I was panicking and H was so calm, suggesting that she take over and she was oozing confidence, despite us going round in circles to my untrained eye, she was absolutely in control and suggested that I 'show some enthusiasm with the gyb ( thats what daddy says)'.

At last my class took their reports home tonight, as it has been a headache fiddling around with them and getting the right one saying the right thing for the right child! Luckily - or maybe I played safe - no parents came back to complain about anything. Yet. Wait till they read them!! I have had a work experience student in our class all week, she is great, really hands on, great with the children and happy to do little tasks which leave me free to teach, and my LSA free to be an LSA and not do all the chasing round. We did maypole dancing today, which was organised chaos but they seem to like it. Weird. I found specific things to praise, but after saying 'I like your careful skipping' several times I jut turned the music up louder and danced on. Nearly decapitated by the ribbons on many occasions. One of the hazards of the job that NO ONE mentions at teacher training college! One of the perks is August - especially an August with pay. Sadly I won't be getting one of those this year, so am having to rein in my sports related spending slightly to make the last month's pay last through many camping/sailing trips we have planned. Somehow, despite my organisation and buying things to take, we always buy more food away than at home. H has been camping with the school last night, and is camping tonight with R and A at the sailing club, while I do the Mum thing and stay at home.

Amanda goes from strength to strength, via the odd dip in the road, but can see a positive attitude coming through more days than not, and she is making her own life happen a bit more now. Still making mistakes but at a slower rate and with learning outcomes. She describes R as the only dad she has known, and said she loved me more than she loved her mum, which I think is a bit much and I wouldn't want her saying that to her mum! But she is getting the boundaries she never had, and children of whatever age, thank you for boundaries in the end, a la Supernanny. I guess we are like a Supernanny for 20 year olds. She looked after the girls for us on Wednesday, did bath time and got them to sleep, with only a tincy bit of help from Hattie.

So, I leave you this night with only a slightly drippy nose. Goodnight, America.