Hit the town for once last week and had a browse in The Works, a wonderful shop that sells cut price books, games, stationery, musical instruments and art supplies. Their prices are always fabulous, but this time they had reduced most things further due to a looming refit. Picked up some lovely glittery wrapping paper, 5 different colours for £1.00 which the kids immediately "bagged" for backgrounds to various projects that they're interested in doing (like horses and space!), Engraving Art (where you use a special pen to scrape off the black layer to produce a silver or copper picture) for £1.45 and 99p each and some art supplies to replenish K's fast disappearing stock. The Engraving Art was fun. K chose a shire horse and B an underwater theme and although the package said 8 years +, B produced a wonderful picture. They were both so careful with their strokes and took time with their work. K hasn't finished hers yet but B's very proud of his underwater picture.

B has made all this characters for his film project as well as writing a brief outline of the story, and character descriptions. He's also painted three backgrounds to cover the story which is to be based in Greece, Spain and Finland, so he's also looked up these countries to find out a suitable background to paint! We've borrowed Grandma's camcorder so we can later edit the film on Windows Multimedia. K has been doing her own filming which we have yet to see, it involves her model horses and riders.

Our little caterpillar has now emerged as a lovely Great White butterfly. I checked on the chrysalis on the evening of Friday 1st September and had noticed that he'd "hatched" but I decided to leave him to settle overnight before telling the kids in the morning. The whole process, during which I, especially, learnt an awful lot (see previous posts), has been an eye opener for us all. K and B have finished off their diaries which not only told the story of our caterpillar but included poems, informative websites, drawings and computer generated images. Unfortunately however hard I tried to photograph our little butterfly, the camera just couldn't focus properly so we haven't caught a good snap shot of it. We do, however, have our second chrysalis nearing it's time to transform, so we'll try again!

Jasper is responding well to his thyroid tablets, although it is a struggle to get them down him twice a day! He's filling out already and appears brighter in himself.

Sunday we all went off-roading again, this time at Loddington, just past Kettering, in a disused wood. We thought we'd have fun with this, driving through the trees, alittle different for the ups and downs of the usual off-roading courses. Actually it turned out to be a nightmare! When we got there the chap at the entrance said we'd have to choose our course well as we are a long-wheel base Landie (rather than short, which means we're longer in length than some) and may not get round some of the bends! Anyway, we started off OK. Parts of the wood were quite muddy but we had fun driving through the dirt getting the car really dirty! We took a turning which was fine to start with but the tracks got deaper and deaper and we were finding the Landie tilting more and more to the side (which I hate) - kids thought it fun (to start with). At the end of this were two bends, a left or right, neither of which our Landie could cope with, however hard we tried she kept sliding in the mud. At one point, although the kids and I had come out to view at this point, I really thought she as going to topple onto her side! We had to back all the way back through the squelchy mud only to find at the other end she could take the hassle no more and got completely stuck! We had been told when we first arrived that the wood was old and neglected, not to hit a tree as it would probably crash on top of us, dead rotten wood everywhere. Here we were stuck and K was reminding us that the trees are creaking in the wind! Luckily with lots of dead wood around it meant we could throw lots of it under the wheels to help them get some grip in the swirling mud pools. Unlucky for P and me that we had to wade through the mud first (we had relatively old clothes on but hey, we looked a mess in the end). Eventually we got out (without any help from passers by or from two lads in a clean Discovery who decided they didn't want to get dirty), went a little way further and ... got stuck again! Wasn't even a bog this time, just no traction left of the wheels! After trying to get out of this one for about 10 minutes with me slidding down the bank twice, crashing on my hip at one point, we got pulled out - thanks chaps! Decided enough was enough, we wanted out! Finding our way out of a boggy wood with no directions was a bit hit or miss but we did it eventually. Nearly had one more mishap when the wheels hit a mud sunken tree stump and I had to guide P around it, once again nearly seeing the car slide down a bank, kids 'n' all! By this time B was in tears of fright, the three of us picked our way through mud and followed P who drove back to normal ground! The kids liked this bit, getting dirty! Lunch and home with mud flying off the wheels for most of the journey and strange looks when K and I headed for the loo at the services as we were caked in gunk! One last scare, lost the use of our brakes at a roundabout, luckily the car coming to our right side was driving slow - sorry mister, we didn't do it on purpose! Was glad to get home, throbbing head and bed! P, bless, cleaned the Landie, sorted out the kids and put the washing on. All night I kept dreaming I was being crushed by a toppling Landrover - so not the best of experiences!

Offroading coming up this weekend - not so sure we'll be attending - let you know!