Practising for school

Me practising for the 'first day of school' photo

The playground / playforest

We can all see through your tricks. You're forgetting we've been brought up on Derren Brown.

We went to an Open Day this morning at Orla's new school - the one she'll be attending in September. I had been worrying a little bit about how she would feel about going there, especially as Stevie has been asking me how I would feel if we stayed here longer. It's hard to make that decision at the moment because both kids have their ups and downs with it.

Every time we go on holiday Orla comes back complaining that she doesn't want to speak German anymore. And Hamish, well, he just likes a good moan anyway, and even though he says every day that he had a great day at Kita, he still likes to have a real good moan in the morning about having to go.

So, I have told Stevie that I couldn't make a decision about staying longer until Orla started school; because if she hated it, then I wouldn't want to stay longer. So it was nice to go again today and for both of them to love it. And it reminded me how much I love it and want to go back to school (there).

From the outside it doesn't look impressive at all, but it's just great the things they do with the kids, and the atmosphere and the people, and really, that's what it's all about, isn't it? Today there was lots for the kids to do: bead making, tomato planting, painting and drawing, music making, dancing, a clown that did tricks that all the smart kids spoiled. That bit I loved: "It's got a pocket in it! You've put the hankie in the pocket!!".

I even met someone who I want to force into being my friend. She's a teaching assistant whose husband works over here temporarily. They are due to return to the UK around the same time as us, so that was the first thing that I liked - something in common. But she also has a 4 year old daughter, and she looked an awful lot like a girl I was friends with in school who was really lovely, so I liked her even more for that. I spoke to her for ages, and afterwards when I told Stevie I liked her, he tried to encourage me to just go back over to her and ask her if she wanted to meet up sometime. But you know, I didn't want to look too keen. But next time I see her, I am going to pounce!