14th November
Grey, grey, grey, dull and grey! This weather is seriously affecting my mood. I just want to sit by the fire or hibernate, but in actual fact I feel better if I do actually go outside. I dragged myself out to feed the pigs and chickens and the usual stuff, but I’d really rather sit in the kitchen by the fire which has been exuding a pleasant warmth all afternoon. It’s on days like this I feel I would happily sell all my worldly goods and chattels and head for sunnier climes. I saw on the news yesterday that in Corsica it was 18 degrees and sunny! I said to James “what are we waiting for, let’s go and live in Corsica.” He, being used to my harebrained schemes, half baked ideas and constant hankering after adventure, just ignored me.
Today was maths and French day which means the boys are busy learning with their grandparents, so Lizzy and I spent lots of time together. For maths we started off with a page of a workbook which was all about euros and centimes. She quite enjoyed this and after we’d finished she spent a good half an hour making notes and coins out of paper and then she insisted I play a game of ‘shops’ with her. Sometimes I was the shopper and she the checkout girl and sometimes vice versa. It was sometimes difficult for her to work out the correct change and money to be exchanged, but she thoroughly enjoyed herself. She also painted a beautiful picture of a tree in autumn colours which she could see from the window, and we also read some more of her book. Finally, Grandma did some French with her. Quite a full day for a seven year old, but a lovely relaxed day too.
This evening a French friend Richard came round and James and the boys spent a long time practicing. They really are getting quite good. It was mostly folk rock, forced upon them by James I think!
Grey, grey, grey, dull and grey! This weather is seriously affecting my mood. I just want to sit by the fire or hibernate, but in actual fact I feel better if I do actually go outside. I dragged myself out to feed the pigs and chickens and the usual stuff, but I’d really rather sit in the kitchen by the fire which has been exuding a pleasant warmth all afternoon. It’s on days like this I feel I would happily sell all my worldly goods and chattels and head for sunnier climes. I saw on the news yesterday that in Corsica it was 18 degrees and sunny! I said to James “what are we waiting for, let’s go and live in Corsica.” He, being used to my harebrained schemes, half baked ideas and constant hankering after adventure, just ignored me.
Today was maths and French day which means the boys are busy learning with their grandparents, so Lizzy and I spent lots of time together. For maths we started off with a page of a workbook which was all about euros and centimes. She quite enjoyed this and after we’d finished she spent a good half an hour making notes and coins out of paper and then she insisted I play a game of ‘shops’ with her. Sometimes I was the shopper and she the checkout girl and sometimes vice versa. It was sometimes difficult for her to work out the correct change and money to be exchanged, but she thoroughly enjoyed herself. She also painted a beautiful picture of a tree in autumn colours which she could see from the window, and we also read some more of her book. Finally, Grandma did some French with her. Quite a full day for a seven year old, but a lovely relaxed day too.
This evening a French friend Richard came round and James and the boys spent a long time practicing. They really are getting quite good. It was mostly folk rock, forced upon them by James I think!
12th November
Today, as the sun was shining, I thought I would dig out the remaining carrots and store them in sand to see how long they would last. The trouble is, there were so many which were no good for storing ie they had damage or were too small, that I now have the most enormous bag of carrots in my fridge which need using up. I guess we might be having carrot and coriander soup tomorrow!
One of my chickens is missing. I’m a bit miffed because it is the ‘other’ baby chicken which escaped the dog when her sister was killed. She survived that only to disappear into thin air. I can’t find any holes under the fence where she could have crawled out and she is too small to fly over the fence. It’s a mystery. Lizzy swears she heard a cheeping noise coming from the woodpile. If she’s right then the woodpile is now home to an escaped chicken and an escaped rabbit. I hope they will be very happy together, although I’m not sure how safe from foxes they will be in there!
We have had no telephone for almost 48 hours which has meant no internet access to the house. The children, who normally spend a great deal of their time on their computers and on the internet, have had to find other ways to spend their time, hence they spent a good couple of hours at music practice (oh my poor ears!), an hour or so devising methods to ‘round up’ our new sheep (oh poor frightened animals) and more time than I liked on the play station. I mustn’t forget that Thomas wrote a short play for inclusion in our church youth service and we also read some of Robinson Crusoe. Thankfully, Mr Crusoe rescued his man Friday from the savages today which gave the story a much needed injection of action and interest. We will persevere with it!
Today, as the sun was shining, I thought I would dig out the remaining carrots and store them in sand to see how long they would last. The trouble is, there were so many which were no good for storing ie they had damage or were too small, that I now have the most enormous bag of carrots in my fridge which need using up. I guess we might be having carrot and coriander soup tomorrow!
One of my chickens is missing. I’m a bit miffed because it is the ‘other’ baby chicken which escaped the dog when her sister was killed. She survived that only to disappear into thin air. I can’t find any holes under the fence where she could have crawled out and she is too small to fly over the fence. It’s a mystery. Lizzy swears she heard a cheeping noise coming from the woodpile. If she’s right then the woodpile is now home to an escaped chicken and an escaped rabbit. I hope they will be very happy together, although I’m not sure how safe from foxes they will be in there!
We have had no telephone for almost 48 hours which has meant no internet access to the house. The children, who normally spend a great deal of their time on their computers and on the internet, have had to find other ways to spend their time, hence they spent a good couple of hours at music practice (oh my poor ears!), an hour or so devising methods to ‘round up’ our new sheep (oh poor frightened animals) and more time than I liked on the play station. I mustn’t forget that Thomas wrote a short play for inclusion in our church youth service and we also read some of Robinson Crusoe. Thankfully, Mr Crusoe rescued his man Friday from the savages today which gave the story a much needed injection of action and interest. We will persevere with it!
11th November
The pigs escaped today. The first I knew about it was when Lizzy glanced out of the kitchen window only to see two fat tamworths heading for the neighbour’s garden. Having been alerted, I grabbed a chunk of dry baguette (which was the only think I had to hand) and dashed out of the door to try and divert them from going next door. Luckily, my piggies love me and no sooner had I called them, then they were quite happy to come running back towards me. However, as dry bread is not their favourite, they were pretty miffed at my offering and immediately left me to see what there was in the kitchen. Luckily, Grandma, who was at the kitchen door laughing heartily, was able to bar their way in. Next they tried the utility door and had a quick rummage around, but finding nothing edible they headed back towards their pen. On the way they passed the outbuilding where their food is kept which is in full view of their pen. With a squeal of recognition (pigs are intelligent creatures), they rushed at the door, barging it open and headed straight for the grain bin which has a lid with a small opening to access the grain. Then ‘Big Face’ (the male pig) always the fastest, put his head straight into the bin through the small opening in the lid and started chomping, but when he tried to withdraw his head he found he couldn’t. It was stuck fast in the lid of the bin. He immediately started squealing and shaking his head. I tried to pull it off, but he was panicking so much he wouldn’t stand still. The lid was off the bin and stuck fast around his neck. He ran into the garden, squealing and shaking his head and tearing round and round the garden, much to the amusement of the rest of the family who had gathered to help. I managed to tempt both pigs back into their pen with some grain, but Big Face was not happy about his predicament. It took two of us to finally pull off the lid, but apart from a scratch above his ear, he was none the worse for his adventure.
The children had lessons in French and maths from their Grandparents today, so I was fairly free to do other things. The trouble is, those ‘other things’ invariably end up being things like: cooking, washing and cleaning. I made a tomato and lentil soup followed by lemon meringue pie for lunch, cleaned the kitchen and did three loads of washing. I did manage to read to Lizzy again, which I am trying to do every day. The books we read as a family are really a bit old for her.
10th November 2008
The weather was foul and so we have mostly stayed indoors today, except for the daily ritual of checking and feeding animals. The pigs are fattening nicely. The male is likely to go to slaughter this or next week once we have him tagged up, but the fate of the female is at present uncertain. Some folks have suggested that she shouldn’t be left ‘a pig alone’ as she will pine for her brother, but others say they have kept a solitary pig just fine. My inclination was to keep her as a breeding sow especially as she doesn’t seem to have much meat on her yet, but looking at her this morning she’s actually putting on weight albeit more slowly than her brother (He can be rather a bully and shoves her out of the way when food arrives!) Lizzy and I also went to check on our new ewes, Milly and Baa Baa, which arrived yesterday. They seemed to be happily settled in with the ram Gilbert, at least he was no longer chasing them round the field with an evil glint in his eye. Perhaps he’s already got what he wanted?
The Puppy, Tony managed to worm his way through a hole in the fence into the chicken pen this afternoon and killed one of my new baby chickens. J was furious, but although I felt sorry for the chicken, I guess it’s just the way of animals. The death toll due to our dogs now stands at 1 rabbit, 1 guinea-pig and a chicken. We’ll just have to be more careful to protect our small fluffy creatures!
‘Education’ today consisted of;
1. Reading together. At the moment it’s Robinson Crusoe (hard going) and we started a fairly basic book on the life of Shakespeare. We’ve already tried a couple of synopsis style booklets on some of Shakespeare’s plays which they found a bit boring. Their preferred style of book is action packed James Bond type. Still, we had to try. I’m hoping that by learning more about the man and the times it might be a bit more interesting for them and also help in a historical timeline way. Tom has enormous trouble with space and time awareness. He can’t seem to grasp the concept of 100 years ago, or 500 years ago. It means little to him and worse still he’s not interested! However, the boys then went on to research on the internet and write up a brief overview of Shakespeare and his life which I must say they did very well and very fluently. I naturally accused them of copy and pasting the information from a website, but they insisted they hadn’t! They also spent half an hour or so practicing music before taking themselves off to their computers to write stories and catch up on French homework for Grandma.
2. Lizzy and I did a couple of pages in her CGP English book, learning about headings and subheadings. Later we looked in some of our normal reading books and she noticed the sub headings (without my asking or pointing them out). We also read one of her reading books and spent quite a while on Gridclub website which Lizzy rather likes. It’s a good job she does too, because I had to pay to subscribe which is something I rarely do. They have games covering all sorts of games and subjects and the most of it is good fun as well as educational; essential if the child is to stick with it. Lizzy also did a jigsaw puzzle and decided to teach herself how to play the drums. I’ve suggested she might like to ask Tom for a lesson some time.
The pigs escaped today. The first I knew about it was when Lizzy glanced out of the kitchen window only to see two fat tamworths heading for the neighbour’s garden. Having been alerted, I grabbed a chunk of dry baguette (which was the only think I had to hand) and dashed out of the door to try and divert them from going next door. Luckily, my piggies love me and no sooner had I called them, then they were quite happy to come running back towards me. However, as dry bread is not their favourite, they were pretty miffed at my offering and immediately left me to see what there was in the kitchen. Luckily, Grandma, who was at the kitchen door laughing heartily, was able to bar their way in. Next they tried the utility door and had a quick rummage around, but finding nothing edible they headed back towards their pen. On the way they passed the outbuilding where their food is kept which is in full view of their pen. With a squeal of recognition (pigs are intelligent creatures), they rushed at the door, barging it open and headed straight for the grain bin which has a lid with a small opening to access the grain. Then ‘Big Face’ (the male pig) always the fastest, put his head straight into the bin through the small opening in the lid and started chomping, but when he tried to withdraw his head he found he couldn’t. It was stuck fast in the lid of the bin. He immediately started squealing and shaking his head. I tried to pull it off, but he was panicking so much he wouldn’t stand still. The lid was off the bin and stuck fast around his neck. He ran into the garden, squealing and shaking his head and tearing round and round the garden, much to the amusement of the rest of the family who had gathered to help. I managed to tempt both pigs back into their pen with some grain, but Big Face was not happy about his predicament. It took two of us to finally pull off the lid, but apart from a scratch above his ear, he was none the worse for his adventure.
The children had lessons in French and maths from their Grandparents today, so I was fairly free to do other things. The trouble is, those ‘other things’ invariably end up being things like: cooking, washing and cleaning. I made a tomato and lentil soup followed by lemon meringue pie for lunch, cleaned the kitchen and did three loads of washing. I did manage to read to Lizzy again, which I am trying to do every day. The books we read as a family are really a bit old for her.
10th November 2008
The weather was foul and so we have mostly stayed indoors today, except for the daily ritual of checking and feeding animals. The pigs are fattening nicely. The male is likely to go to slaughter this or next week once we have him tagged up, but the fate of the female is at present uncertain. Some folks have suggested that she shouldn’t be left ‘a pig alone’ as she will pine for her brother, but others say they have kept a solitary pig just fine. My inclination was to keep her as a breeding sow especially as she doesn’t seem to have much meat on her yet, but looking at her this morning she’s actually putting on weight albeit more slowly than her brother (He can be rather a bully and shoves her out of the way when food arrives!) Lizzy and I also went to check on our new ewes, Milly and Baa Baa, which arrived yesterday. They seemed to be happily settled in with the ram Gilbert, at least he was no longer chasing them round the field with an evil glint in his eye. Perhaps he’s already got what he wanted?
The Puppy, Tony managed to worm his way through a hole in the fence into the chicken pen this afternoon and killed one of my new baby chickens. J was furious, but although I felt sorry for the chicken, I guess it’s just the way of animals. The death toll due to our dogs now stands at 1 rabbit, 1 guinea-pig and a chicken. We’ll just have to be more careful to protect our small fluffy creatures!
‘Education’ today consisted of;
1. Reading together. At the moment it’s Robinson Crusoe (hard going) and we started a fairly basic book on the life of Shakespeare. We’ve already tried a couple of synopsis style booklets on some of Shakespeare’s plays which they found a bit boring. Their preferred style of book is action packed James Bond type. Still, we had to try. I’m hoping that by learning more about the man and the times it might be a bit more interesting for them and also help in a historical timeline way. Tom has enormous trouble with space and time awareness. He can’t seem to grasp the concept of 100 years ago, or 500 years ago. It means little to him and worse still he’s not interested! However, the boys then went on to research on the internet and write up a brief overview of Shakespeare and his life which I must say they did very well and very fluently. I naturally accused them of copy and pasting the information from a website, but they insisted they hadn’t! They also spent half an hour or so practicing music before taking themselves off to their computers to write stories and catch up on French homework for Grandma.
2. Lizzy and I did a couple of pages in her CGP English book, learning about headings and subheadings. Later we looked in some of our normal reading books and she noticed the sub headings (without my asking or pointing them out). We also read one of her reading books and spent quite a while on Gridclub website which Lizzy rather likes. It’s a good job she does too, because I had to pay to subscribe which is something I rarely do. They have games covering all sorts of games and subjects and the most of it is good fun as well as educational; essential if the child is to stick with it. Lizzy also did a jigsaw puzzle and decided to teach herself how to play the drums. I’ve suggested she might like to ask Tom for a lesson some time.
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