Noris

This was the scene last Tuesday, the day before the kids went back to school, when I was looking for every usable pencil I could find. Fortunately there turned out to be a decent stash of my old favourite Staedtler Noris, once I got them rounded up. Those yellow and black stripes with the red end just scream 'school' at me! In a good way, of course. I love 'em, with their bumblebee cheeriness, pleasing smoothness and hexagonal cross-section. There have probably been minor changes in the look of them since I was at school, but to me they look identical. And although I didn't always like school, I always liked the stationery.

The kids were fairly happy to go back to school, though we all agreed that the summer holidays had seemed really short this year - they weren't short, they were seven weeks long, but it did just seem to fly by one way and another, yet we didn't even do an awful lot. I had plenty of ideas and backup plans for stuff to do if it was a rainy summer, but actually there was a lot of good weather and we spent a lot of time mooching around at home. Miss M has a bunch of friends from our street and the one behind so she spent a lot of time playing with them and also falling out with them, seemingly inevitable with little girls, and equally inevitably making loom bands. The Boy was mostly happy bouncing on the trampoline, playing on the computer or reading, and more occasionally playing with friends.

We had a great week in St.Andrews which I will undoubtedly blog about when I've sorted the pictures and got my brain going again. This is just a short post to get me back in the way of blogging after an unexpectedly long break. I don't really know why, except that I just didn't get much computer time or peace and quiet while the kids were at home. Not that they're noisy but I find it difficult to write blog posts when there are interruptions or someone leaning over my shoulder asking what I'm doing. I should be a hermit really. A hermit with wifi.