An interesting couple of weeks (Long, 1/2)
Things have been busy -- this weekend is the first one since 9/10 February that all four of us have been around in Newcastle! So we've tried to get back into some sort of routine, but awful weather disrupted my plans to do the Parkrun yesterday (and I ended up doing 5km on the treadmill instead).
I've finally finished working through the book revisions from my editor, and now we're pondering what the best Introduction/Afterword format would be (we don't like what is currently there at the publisher's suggestion...) So there's a bit more work to do, but we're very nearly ready to go into the copyediting and proofreading stages, which is all very exciting. We're also hoping to get a free sample chapter available for Kindle within the next few weeks.
Dan continues with all his activities; he's moving up to Orange Belt at karate next week, and is pretty impressive at his current "form" (i.e. a string of moves chained together for display purposes). He's still loving his extended dance lessons and is entered for his standard three dances at Under 6 a Really Big Ballroom Competition run by the Northern Counties' Dance Teachers' Association next month. Katy continues to spend much of her time reading and messing around with computer games (she's a big fan of building castles in Minecraft at the moment). Both of them had glowing reports when I met their teachers last week; K needs to work on handwriting and spelling, which we knew, but is progressing well -- and her teacher thinks that K is an excellent story-teller, praising the creativity and perceptiveness of her English work. D is, somewhat to my surprise, 'the most helpful boy in the class,' often staying behind to tidy up, although he still blurts out answers rather than putting his hand up. And yes, although he can be very silly sometimes, to give him credit he always does his chores and homework with no fuss. Very proud of both of them. K has been a bit cold-laden (missing 1.5 days of school) but has perked up a lot over the last couple of days and we're hoping for a return to school next week.
Neuromancer survived a skiing trip to a pretty extreme resort, where, once she got over her terror, she enjoyed herself a lot! Can't pass up opportunities like that. Now it's busy at work, with her normal commitments and also interviewing for her new team to work on forthcoming projects; exciting times.
Another lovely development is that we've finally started a D&D group, playing with the Starter Set rules! (These are slimmed down considerably in terms of combat options, fine by me!) It's settled down to our two, and two of their friends; we gathered around the dining-room table yesterday for two manic hours of extremely overexcited children rolling dice and shrieking. They got through two small fights, and I was genuinely impressed by their grasp of strategy ("No, no, attack THAT goblin, then we'll be flanking him!!" "I'll use my Action Point to finish him off rather than saving it for later!" "Help! Help! Someone heal me!!") and, after they started taking damage, their teamwork. We'll resume after the Easter holidays, when their enemies will be a fledgling White Dragon and a mid-level evil cleric, who will require real coordination and luck to take down (I expect at least one character to end up unconscious, which will test their emotional and strategic resources...)
The weather is being horrible again today (no actual snow, but a bitterly cold wind) so N will take D swimming instead of to an Easter Egg hunt. I and K will do chores and homework (I have marking to do), then one of D's friends is coming to play this afternoon. Her dad is a colleague of mine so we can have a good natter/gossip. Then dad is coming round this evening for a roast dinner. Busy, but happy!