Various things

Toby's first week at school went very well overall. He never got upset about going and came home everyday talking about all of the things he did with his friend Thierry. The only cloud is that there's a little girl in the class who isn't very nice to Toby and keeps calling him a fat-head. I actually saw her being mean to Toby one day when I went to pick him up. She seems to be a very unhappy child and was using phrases that I would guess are said to her at home like "Look what you've done! Can't you do anything right!", etc, etc. It's really upsetting Toby so I'm going to talk to his teacher about it on Monday. I'm not too worried about it but it is unfortunate that it started his first week of big school. My main concern is that it taints his feelings towards St Margaret's. We'll see.

I got the date for the second lot of filming for the TV programme. I start using the patches on Monday and will let you know if they are the miracle answer to weight loss. I'm guessing not. I keep meaning to tell you about the first day of filming. I'm just in a small part of the programme and so do my own hair and make-up. I turned up all ready but did take my make-up bag and hairbrush so that I could freshen up once I got there. The funny thing is that there were eight of us filming that day and not a single woman brushed her hair, powdered her nose or even looked in a mirror as far as I noticed before we started filming (except for me, of course). Now, if that was in Texas the place would've been covered with cosmetics and I would guess at least once straightening iron or set of hot rollers. The cultural differences never cease to amaze me.

Now that Toby is settling into school I've been looking forward to having more time with Rosie. We decided to take her out of Monkey Music and put her into a class at the conservatoire here in Blackheath. Monkey Music only goes up to age 4 but, with the conservatoire, she can keep going until adulthood if she wants. I've put Toby down for an instrument class at the conservatoire where the children learn the basics of seven different instruments over a year. It's to help them decide what they enjoy and what they would like to take further. Toby loves music so I'm hoping he does decide to learn an instrument one day. There's a long waiting list for the class though so it'll probably be next year before he starts.

We're having a lovely weekend. Yesterday I took the children into the city to have lunch with J. We visited his office and then went over to Borough Market to do some browsing and shopping. There's a salt seller that I've always wanted to try. He sells Noirmoutier salt harvested from marshes in France. You can get plain fleurs de sel or sea salt mixed with various spices and herbs. I bought some sea salt mixed with herbes de Provence and used it on some duck breasts for lunch today. It's delicious. We also bought some English asparagus and some of the most beautiful prosciutto di Parma sliced so thin that you can see through it. You can see why I love the market so much.

Today we've been hanging out in the village, going to Costa, the library and J has taken Toby to the heath twice. I think we'll have some very tired children tonight.