Now, where was I?

Oh bother! I was just about to post when we had a power cut and I lost my draft!

What I had said, was that I have been on tenterhooks all day waiting for the phone to ring with news of my sister in law. She is currently 5cm dilated and has just had her epidural. She has a heart condition, so is being closely monitored.

Hopefully by the morning, I'll be an Auntie for the first time!

This morning I was expecting our new volunteer to come and see us, but they never arrived. I am sure I had the right date. I rang the office but couldn't get through.

Today J spent one and a half hours on Brainpop. Our free 14 day trial is about to end and I am seriously going to have to think about subscribing as he has got so much out of it. As a result of one of the clips he watched, he then decided to make his own game of Risk. He sat and faithfully hand drew a map of the world. I am so proud of him - it looks fabulous. Tomorrow he wants to make pieces out of paper, which we will then harden with pva glue.

I spent some time today adding a few more monthly resources to our Resource page. I am saving all the past months and hope to put up a full calendar year of seasonal resources soon.

The power cut fortunately came about half an hour after we'd eaten and washed up. Dh is at work, so it was left to me to sort everyone out. In the fading light we tidied the bedrooms and the front room of the toys (plus the ones on the stairs - safety first!). I then found as many candles as I could, and safe holders. We put one in the hall, one in the bathroom, two in the kitchen and three in the front room. I also had a box of glow sticks, which we cracked and the boys had two each.

Thank goodness for mobile phones - at least I knew I wasn't going to miss out on a birth announcement! I text dh and called Mum to tell them.

With no heating, and a strong north wind on the back of the house, I made the boys wear their dressing gowns over their clothes to help keep warm.

W and S looked a bit lost without the tv. However, I thought it was great! I told them some stories from when I was younger. In 1973 a miners' work-to-rule led to regular power cuts and the imposition of a three day week. I remember a bit of that, but I clearly remember the power cuts too during the "winter of discontent" in 1978/79.

I suggested that we played a story game. Each of us gave a sentence or two of a story, then passed it on to the next one. We made up two lovely stories with even W (3) joining in.

In one of the stories, the mum got the children to have a science lesson by showing them how to create fire using flints (nice that even in their stories, Mum is a hero and they are homeschooled! I must mention also that the Dad in the story cheated by using the matches in his pocket!) and using the fire to heat up milk for hot chocolate.

I can take a hint with the best of them. Fortunately our hob is gas, so I was able to boil water and milk and make us all a hot chocolate.

Just as I poured it out the electricity came back on. I guess it had been off around an hour and a half.

It was quite nice that J was disappointed - he was enjoying the story game. However, S ran straight over the switch on the tv...

It would have been more useful if the power cut had been nearly at bedtime - then I could have got them to bed early! Still, at least it means I won't have to read by candlelight.