Having very successfully visited Kentwell on Sunday we decided that we really would like to take part, even if it was just for one day 🙂 Monday was accordingly spent finding costume and doing odds and ends, then on Tuesday we set off at stupid o’clock in order to arrive on the manor in time for breakfast. M wore J’s costume from last year, which was just about passable style-wise and fitted quite well, including the shoes (which were too late a style but nobody worried for just one day) while everybody else wore this year’s clothes. Since Bob wasn’t coming M was able to borrow his blade and accoutrements so that worked well too 🙂
Despite leaving later than planned and hitting surprisingly heavy traffic in places (mostly due to lorries determined to overtake at 3 miles and hour faster than what they were passing) we made it in time for the end of breakfast, which we ate in the courtyard and then fed the fish the leftovers. The cotte felt like home, although A and L in particular were sad not to see the girls they like so much 🙁 We found out that the schoolmaster was looking for new pupils, so I persuaded J that he should go along with M so that they could do something a bit different and we walked along to the house together, where Master Coneybear was willing to take them on (and happy to prattle to M in very fluent French – I mentioned that M should only speak English but it was no use – they were very happy together!) but K hid behind my skirts until we were safely out of the room 🙁 We stayed in the great hall to watch some dancing which all the remaining children loved – I think I need to look into how I can get L and K into the house next year; with only 3 children to make costume for it might be doable to make gentry…
Cotte life was pretty much as it always is, but with no school parties until about midday, since Mini Recs have a different route (better than the summer route imo) and we towards the end of it. There were several of us there and everything was well under control food-wise so lots of chance to chat and play. K and L played Alquerque with carrot slices and stones as counters (and M also proved to be a dab hand when he returned from the schoolroom) while A renewed her acquaintance with young Theo and begged bits of carrot and cabbage from the pottage chopping 🙂
The boys came back from the schoolroom in time for pottage, bearing booklets with an incredible amount of work to show for their 2 hours, and then spent the afternoon playing boardgames between themselves and with random school party children and lurking at the Butts in the hope of getting the chance to loose a few arrows – they did 😀
The day finished quite late and by the time we had cleaned and cleared it was time for tea and beginning to get dark. Tea was excellent as ever (glad K persuaded me to sign in for it!) but we then had to find all our bits and pieces in darkness (having just decided that we would like to do Michaelmas properly next time, I am now thinking we would need to invest in headtorches all round to supplement the lantern we already have) before setting off for home at what felt like an incredibly late hour, but was in fact only a little after 7. By the time we got home I was the only one still awake, even J having succumbed (very unusual) and Bob had lots of tired-child-ferrying to do. It was a lovely day though, and well worth the effort I think 🙂
Month: September 2009
Snow poems
This poem is brought to you by the letters / people: K, E, SB, M and L.
Here comes snow – tic-tic-tak
Tic-tac, tinkle shhhhhhhh
More snow coming – pit-a-pat
Tit-tit-tit-tit wacapac sploutch!
Pip-pip-pip cat tiptoes softly
Miaow! Miaow miaow miaow prrr…
People hurry through the snowstorm
Shiver brrr shiver brrrr…
Deeper and deeper shhhh
Paf paf paf shploosh crunch. Help!
Let’s go and play!
Wee weeee wheee splat!
Tac pa boom pan
Ssssh tic slip slide wahoo!
Weeeeeeeeeeeee!
By J
Snow begins to fall
Woosh woosh woosh
The snow gets stronger
Shoosh shoosh shoosh shoosh
A cat finds the snow
Riaw!!
People in the snow crunch
Scrunch crunch scrunch crunch scrunch crunch scrunch
Children in the snow
Wahoo woosh woosh floomp!
Pumpkins and history
My turn to blog for a change, but Katy will do Friday after I’ve done Saturday and Sunday.
On Saturday Katy was working and the big four all had music school. With one car that meant: take the children to music school, leave the big four and take Katy to the shop, drive back to music school with A and buy lunch on the way. Pick up the children, then drive to the shop and feed the children in a back room.
As it was Katy’s first go completely on her own at the shop I stayed around for moral support while she tackled the burglar alarm, a troublesome cash till, hoovering, counting money and I made sure she had a cup of tea at hand before I left.
When I got back to music school J was out as he’d forgotten his recorder and so didn’t want to do the last session. (They all do a communal sing, then music games to do music theory, then the last session is using instruments in groups.) K and L are in the same group for the last session and used random percussion, M got to play piano but J sat it out. I think M finds the singing hard due to language problems, so we’re seeing if he can drop that one and I’ll do English with him.
Katy survived her first solo bit at the shop, nearly managed to sell two slings to a dad-to-be before his partner talked him out of them 🙁 , and then after lunch we headed off to the Pumpkin Fair in the sticks that we’d been to before. (All in the name of broadening M’s cultural horizons, of course.)
There were lots of pumpkins, a display of training puppies to be hearing dogs for the deaf, the scouts were doing a throw-wooden-balls-at-crockery stall again which M liked, various stalls selling things, a fire engine and nice fire fighters who talked about their equipment and gave out stickers etc. to the children. The fair’s publicity said that they were moving with the times and so had some Sealed Knot people. (Only a few hundred years off the pace – maybe they’ll be up to Regency next year.)
The Sealed Knotters were good – a nice encampment to wander around, M, K and I got put in the stocks, and then they did a display of soldiery. This was pikemen (I resisted the urge to join in 🙂 ), drummers showing the various tunes they did to signal different things, musketeers and a cannon. The MC was good and explained everything (flash in the pan, plain as a pikestaff, the muskets not being rifled etc.) and apart from the loud bangs everyone enjoyed it. The cannon was a weird double-barrelled type I’d not seen before: it had two separate barrels next to each other on the same carriage which were loaded and fired separately. Also, they were made of a normal metal barrel wrapped in leather for extra strength (the leather goes on wet, then shrinks as it dries). I got chatting to the Sealed Knotters afterwards and they said they also have a 6 barrelled cannon, where you fire them by lighting a small trough of gunpowder (like an old-fashioned camera flash) which goes to each of the barrels’ touch holes. We then bought loads of pumpkins and went home.
Today we were a bit late getting organised, so couldn’t take advantage of the lift offered by a friend for M to go to the Catholic church. So we drove there ourselves and I went in with him and K while Katy got lunch sorted. Our favourite shoe shop (where each of the children’s first shoes, and about half of the children’s shoes in total, have come from) was having an extra day for its closing down sale, so bargains were snapped up. This made us a bit later than planned to go to Kentwell for the Michaelmas mini recreation. We managed to all get in free despite me not being able to find my participant’s passport, and wandered around for 3 hours or so.
It was very nice to see friends – I hope M didn’t get too bored with us chatting – and the weather was glorious. First stop was the Military Pavilion, then the woodsmen, where M got to have a go at sawing a log with a bow saw. The potters were next, where the potter’s creation went a bit wobbly. He cut it in half from top to bottom with a cheese wire thing to show how he’d got the thickness wrong. One of the kilns was firing, with a lovely big fire underneath. Next stop was the foundry, where unfortunately they had no furnace as it had cracked and so they were rebuilding it. I explained as best I could to M about how they made moulds in sand boxes, or by carving blocks of plaster or soapstone.
The pigsty still had a giant old pig, who looked like it had got stuck in the doorway and then fallen asleep. Next door to it were some very nice looking black piglets. On to the Cott (more chatting) where A was re-united with some of her favourite people in the whole world (who had grown since the summer), the wool shed, the dyers and the house made of horse poo. (Explaining to M how the wattle and daub walls were made was interesting!) There was a pole lathe being operating by a spooner that J’s friendly with (who is a very nice man and usually has a group of boy participants around him making things with his help). K wanted me to make him a pole lathe, and lovely though I think they are I doubt that will happen any time soon!
A quick stop at the stables and forge, a look at the monster carp in the moat, the Great Kitchens (where preparations were nearly finished for the harvest feast), the scrivener next door who wrote everyone’s name nicely and then out into the courtyard for some festivities.
One of the gentry girls had been crowned Queen of the Harvest and arrived in a decorated cart. She was received by the senior gentry with many a Huzzah! One of the washerwomen (a lovely woman who turns into “a scrubber” – her own words – in Tudor times) was also crowned Queen of the Harvest, and they both sat on thrones most regally. The alchemists had been lurking with bowls and lit matches (the Tudor kind – a length of rope soaked in saltpetre, that smoulders for a long time when lit), and they turned into slightly anti-climactic fireworks. (Obviously lulling the gentry into a false sense of security for next time 😉 .) There was a random race where four blokes had to run off and fetch a goose that had supposedly been stolen, the monk / priest (who used to be J and K’s school master) blessed and prayed and then all the participants had a feast.
This was followed by follow-the-leader style dancing around the courtyard, and everyone apart from J and me joined in (including A, under her own steam). I sneaked off with J and M a bit early so we could catch some of the other bits before they closed. This was the cedar lawn with tree carved into the Tower of Babel, butter being made in the dairy, the bakehouse where they were just clearing up, the still room where J and M helped with grinding the herbs into medicines and the camera obscura which worked very well due to the bright sunshine.
The alchemists were sort of open, and had some cow and sheep skulls. I learned that cows take up grass by wrapping their tongues around it and pulling rather than biting as they have no front teeth. Sheep have hard bony pads at the front so they can cut the grass shorter (so you can graze cows then sheep on the same field, but not the other way around). Trying to explain what an alchemist is to M was a bit of a challenge, but I think he managed to not misinterpret all the skulls as occult paraphenalia 🙂 . Back to the front gate just before closing time via the stocks, the dove cote, the Military Pavilion and the market, then home.
I fell asleep (fortunately Katy was driving), so she told me afterwards about the reaction to a nice sunset.
L: Look, a shepherd’s pie sky!
K: (correcting L) No, it’s an angel pie sky!
K: (correcting himself) No, it’s a shepherd’s delight sky!
Photos on Flickr in due course.
5 minute challenge!
Very quick rundown – two days to cover and 5 minutes to do it!
Wednesday was not a Latinetc day but Gina and co came over and we made it a Geography day instead, with some map work, giving and understanding directions and a little bit of treasure hiding 😉 We all played frisbee and various other games in the field, then J, J and M did maths while K, L and E made some plasticine figures for a French game we didn’t quite have time to play.
Cello was cancelled at short notice (unexpected hospital appointment for teacher) so Gina supervised a brief session for K and E here, then we all went to Baby Music, where K bewailed the fact that he is too big to join in but got on with some work instead once he had been reminded that 7 really is too big to count as a baby 😆 He and M did some spelling worksheets from a book Gina has lent me and then a page of Draw Write Now, while J and J decided Latin was to happen after all and got cracking on some Galore Park – I guess that means it’s time to step the Latin up a notch, at least for that group 😉
Afterwards we went to the park, where the children had a great time racing around on the bike roundabout thing and E learned to do somersaults round the bar again (she used to be able to, then her proportions changed) – and then let go too soon and gave herself a spectacular nosebleed 🙁
We came back and did piano, recorders and tea, in varying proportions, then all trooped off to Cubs to watch M’s induction 🙂 He has to be a full Cub to do the Challenge Day he and J are desperate to do, so Arkaela very kindly leapfrogged him up; he’s already working on his first badge so should be able to return to France with a souvenir uniform 
The Cubs session was karate, which they both enjoyed very much, apparently. K keeps reminding me that karate is one of the things I promised to look into when we only have three children to worry about…
Today was Tots and Nots, with an early start planned so that Gina could do a decent piano lesson for M. Traffic intervened somewhat 🙁 but we still fitted in 30 mins of lesson – it just meant the others were whizzed through a bit afterwards. J and J did French while M was busy 😉 then I did some poetry work with all the Nots there by then (J, J, M, SB, K, E and L) based on last week’s poem, but this time collecting sound words to do with snow and then using a framework to create a poem. J and J each did their own, while SB, E, K and L decided to work together but then got disheartened (it was a year 5 piece of work!) so I helped them to pull all their ideas and M’s (lots of lovely French sound words!) together into one poem (will try to type it up tomorrow so Gina and Beans can see it too as I currently have only copy) and then we read it out together to check it worked. Next week I think we may try getting them to perform the poems in the same way as they did the Weather poem last week.
By the time snack was done it was time for Gina to head off with the 3 older boys to Multisports, while I did songtime and then said goodbye to the Tots and sat E, SB, K and L down for some French. A was happy playing with a late-staying Tots mum (this is the second week they have stayed very late, but no problem because they get ready to leave then just stay and play quietly until we need to go – A likes both mum and daughter so it works really well 😀 ) and BB was making strange noises under the table so may have absorbed some French – who knows! A quick scoot round and tidy-up and we too headed off to Multisport, E, K and L plotting on the way about going to Gina’s afterwards… When we got there it was clear that M in particular was having a fantastic time, so we stayed for the second hour, K watching avidly through the window in the door, but adamant that he was happy just watching. Lunch happened somewhere in there…
We did indeed go to Gina’s afterwards, and much recordering happened, including M having his first lesson (he now has a recorder borrowed from Gina and has already spent a fair amount of time working his way through the book on his own – this will be an incredibly musical exchange experience for him, I think!) with children dropping out as their limit of expertise was reached and coming through to do English and Maths with me, thus ticking lots of boxes 😉 Then we threw them all outside for a few minutes before letting them loose on the Wii to make a Mini-M 😀
Home rather late, frozen pizza in oven (bad mother!) accompanied by nuked veg (really bad mother!) and then Ikea Daim tart (how bad can you get?) – quick violin/cello while it all cooked and then off to bed without passing Go…
Okay – so I can’t do 5 min posts!
Slacking!
Three days to catch up!
Sunday was a bit of a disappointment really. K was asked to be in the colour party to welcome the Mayor to a civic service at the local parish church, so we all decided to go along and support him rather than going to usual services. Lots of standing around at the beginning and a service at the end to which we were not given the impression we were invited (so we went home instead) but enlivened by some jolly clothes and a man with a big sword in the middle (also spurs – the original heelies?) so not a total loss 😉
Lunch and a spot of baking and we set off to visit Grandad, aiming to arrive at the hospital during afternoon visiting hours so the children could see him, then go from there to Grandad’s house to see my dad, leave Bob and children there and get an evening visit for me in too. That bit of the plan worked, but Grandad was clearly tired and a bit confused and generally so unlike himself that J ended up in tears more than once 🙁 He did know who we were though, and even remembered A’s name without any prompting (he does like babies!) so definitely better than he was a few months ago – just sad to see him going downhill again when he was so much better when living at home with my dad. I think the biggest problem is that he is bored – they were going out every day to keep him busy and now he’s stuck in a bed with eyes not good enough for reading and ears not good enough for radio 🙁 If only we could get him home I think things would improve dramatically again, but he needs too much physical care at the moment for my dad (who is nearly 70 himself ) to manage and social services are dragging their feet over assessment meetings – when pressed they finally arranged one and then failed to attend 🙁 My aunt has applied to the local Methodist home, for which he should be eligible as a local preacher of very long-standing, but it all has to be cleared by HQ and then depends on there being a place. In the meantime he is giving up and deteriorating with each passing day, despite the fact that the doctors say there is nothing in particular wrong 🙁
The evening visit was far worse, as apparently it often has been (Daddy drew the short straw, I think, as my aunt usually does afternoons and he does evenings) and Grandad was tired, crotchety and distracted. At least my being there meant my dad could take a break and run away for a few minutes (while I got closer to various sanitary and continence products than I ever thought I would) – it was hard enough for me on a once-a-week basis, but it must be incredibly hard to be there every evening, especially having already nursed him back from the brink once 🙁
While I was out, Bob and the children did a bit of catch-up work and made the most of the very large tv screen (colour too!) for Scrapheap Challenge and Last Chance to See… 🙂
We got back very late, which meant a slow start on Monday. We got music things done, then went to the park, where the children stayed and played (with a babysitter) while I went to another meeting about breastfeeding peer support, an individual one this time. We talked about my experience, what I hoped to get out of the course and so forth and I said that I thought it would be easier for me to do the course next time around, assuming it runs again, when I would only have 3 children for the creche (I am seriously impressed that they were happy to lay on creche/kids club for 5 children so I could do a free course though) and was reassured that there will be another course and my name will be on the list 😀
By the time I got back to the playground Big Alice was there too and she came back with us, which helped a bit with dividing children up to do jobs 😉 After lunch Alice read them a Story of the World chapter and then we did the activities together, ending up with some science as we tried out Newton’s theories about gravity and inertia 🙂 Then I left Alice looking at John Locke’s ideas with the older 3 and A while I took L to gymnastics. I got back to lots of lovely pictures (their selfless acts having been to do pictures for me) and made a quick tea for K and Alice so that they could get off to Beavers nice and early (field trip to find fossils at Grafham Water), Bob picked up L and the rest of us had our tea, then J and M had some ‘puter time before bed.
Today was a work day for me, with a sling coffee morning which meant taking lunch with us as not enough time to get back home before violin. We took lots of work with us and the children sat round a table in a back room (behind a curtain, anyway) and worked their way through a fair pile of normals while I talked slings. One young mum was fairly obviously there because her parents thought a sling was a good idea (go parents!) and only tolerating my explanations, with no real interest, but another, also there with her mum (and I still have slight pangs of envy over mums with mums 😕 ) wanted to know all about supportiveness, best fabrics, carries, positions and newborns. Talking it through she opted for a woven wrap, learned FWCC with my weighted doll and then with her baby and left with a lovely new Hopp and a smile on her face. That’s when I really like my job 😀
Violin was good – J has been making progress such that M may not catch him up after all (or at least not yet) but M is now only a few pages behind L, who is going more slowly mostly because of her age. She doesn’t seem worried about it, fortunately, and is still really enjoying playing 🙂 We certainly got a good value lesson this week – we only just made it back in time for K to run and change into gym clothes then nipped into town to see if the £ shop had exercise books (sadly not) before dropping him off at gym. Two lots of piano and a quick tea later it was M and J off to gym and K back home – Tuesdays are a nightmare in terms of feeding children!
Farming Friday and Singing Saturday
I stayed out rather later than I should have done on Thursday, which meant Friday found me tired and not in the mood to deal with distracted children. We decided to declare it officially a Saturday and the children all agreed that they would do weekday things on Saturday instead 😉 We were going out to see friends anyway, so it worked well as a Saturday; we started with a trip to see Susan, where the children spent lots of time on the trampoline and Susan and I talked chickens 🙂
Then we went on to Gina’s, a bit later than planned so only in time for a leisurely lunch rather than box ticking and then lunch, then went on with them to a farm where we were meeting up with a friend of Gina’s for a tour and a meet the animals session 😀 A for some reason decided she was terrified of everything 🙄 so spent the whole time either trying to climb up my back or clinging to my front (good job I’d taken a MT) but the others all had a lovely time petting sheep, pigs and cows, admiring horses, watching bees (and looking at unspun honey on the comb) and chatting to chickens. I think the ferrets were the highlight though – which reminds me that I still haven’t looked up ferret in French for M – he didn’t know what they were and I didn’t know what they were in French… Okay, apparently it’s le furet…
We came home via Waitrose and lots of special offer Seeds of Change pasta sauce 😉 (it’s so nice to see a shocking total suddenly drop at the end when they apply the special offers 😆 ) then had chip shop chips for tea, with fish for M and home-cooked veggie sausages for us. M’s music has arrived now and although he was reluctant to start his piano practice once he got going the negotiated 10 minutes soon turned into nearly an hour 🙂
Today the weekday plans were thwarted somewhat by it being the first day of a new music school just down the road, so Bob took the older 4 to that and they came back full of what a fantastic time they had had doing choir and music games 🙂 I stayed at home with A, since she was sick last night; everything now seems fine, but I’d rather not give anyone anything nasty if we can help it. We did Humpty Dumpty lots of times, with her trying different ways of falling off my lap, then she sat down carefully, arranged her skirts, patted her lap and told me it was my turn 😆
After that it was a pottering kind of day, with lots of music to top up the music they had already done and a few normals when we could squeeze them in. Everything stopped for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang on the TV, though, and we watched it whilst peeling and chopping apples to stew and preparing fresh corn cobs for teas. A slept through most of it (which might explain why she is now running round trying to get Bob or me to play with her) but woke up in time to eat a whole corn cob and then assemble her own sushi for tea. I suspect that the giant sushi rolls this lot make are a far cry from the delicate little shapes you’re supposed to serve, but at least they enjoy doing it 😉
Not Back to School…
Wednesday was Latinetc, but with a slight departure from the norm (and no Latin!) – I’m going to be very lazy and just link to Helen’s blog
During the picnic I dashed off with K to cello and A to Baby Music, then we came back to the tail end of the picnic, blew more bubbles and took pictures just to show we had been there 😉 and came back for a quick tea before Cubs. Despite his and our best intentions J had not learned to ride a bike in the week since he discovered the next badge was to be Safer Cycling, so he did the session on his scooter while M rode his bike. In fact, if J manages to finish the homework for the badge and make a poster then he may be in the slightly odd position of earning a Safer Cycling badge before he can actually ride a bike 😆
Today was Tots, with a nice turnout of friendly He-ers and a couple of HE-interested young families so a good mix 🙂 Gina had brought a poem full of onomatopoeia and sound words for the older children to read and perform so we divided them into groups (J, J and M together, then SB, K, E and L) and they worked out how to produce poem and sound effects and then performed it for the Tots after song-time. Piano happened too (although M was very nervous so Gina decided not to do a lesson but just a supervised practice and has given me a list of useful words and phrases for him to learn before next time) and lots of recordering 😀 M by himself, then M and L and then M and K did lots of KS1 English and then J, J and M got stuck into some Maths while E, L and K did French with me. Sadly SB had left by then – I will try to fit French in while she’s there next time, if at all possible 😉 M played (and earwigged) while J and J did French, then we pootled for a bit, tidied up and came home rather later than planned, with Big Alice in tow. Hot chocolate and yummy orange cake (made by Alice) revived everyone enough for violin/cello practice while I made lasagne, then J and L threw together a quick (packet mix) cake to make the most of a hot oven – icing to be added tomorrow to make Devil’s Food cake, hopefully.
Some fun video clips and games and the children are now all off to bed, except A who is sneaking a feed after I should have left to sort Tots toys…
Just a quickie to catch up!
We sat down at the beginning of Monday (albeit not the very beginning as we had a late start after a late night) and jotted down a list for the week, with booked activities planned in and then normals plotted around those. Then the children chose things they wanted to use to fill in the days, should there be any time left. It looks a bit busy, but I don’t suppose we’ll stick to it anyway, apart from the booked activities 😉
Monday was a fairly free day, apart from gymnastics for L and Beavers for K. Oh and then I remembered I had a BF peer support course meeting too. Still, we managed to get all the normals done – Maths, English, music practice of various flavours, lots of playing with Octons, a little time on the computer (Tutpup and games) – and still fit in lots of playing (there was a creche during my meeting, so the children all had an hour with nice adults on tap and a room full of toys 😉 ). I took K to Beavers, which was a nice (and unaccustomed) chance for a walk and chat by ourselves 🙂 and Bob read large parts of a KS2 science book with M and J.
Tuesday is our busy day, although I have now bitten the bullet and taken the children out of swimming, for this term at least, on the basis that the money we save will almost pay for Center Parcs in January (so we’ll just have to fit a whole term’s worth of swimming in there!) and the time we save will help me to keep my sanity and the children to keep a little more on top of normals without losing out on free time to just play and be 🙂 Normals took up most of the morning, but quite pleasantly, and interspersed with free time, watching Magic School Bus DVDs and cooking (as well as the tomatoes Bob mentioned we have loads of cooking apples to use up, some from Grandad’s garden and more from the Freecycler who picked up our old bed frame and gave us apples as a thank you 🙂 ). After lunch was violin, where the amount of practice all the children have put in showed, particularly M who looks set to catch up with J and L in a few weeks (even bearing in mind that L has had about 10 lessons and J only 5 or 6 that’s still good going!). On the way back we bought apples, pears and, at J’s request, runner beans from the stand we love outside someone’s house, so that kept the children going for a bit.
J and M have decided that they are happy to be left here while I do Gymnastics drop-off (which takes about 20 minutes) and M was very tired so he took himself off to bed for a bit while J watched Magic School Bus and played on the computer. Timing is really awkward for the older boys gym, as K finishes at 5:15 and the others start at 5:30 but don’t finish until 6:45, when we normally eat at 6. This week (and last) I ended up cooking for about 5 and then giving the older two a small portion to eat in the car on the way and then more when they got home. It sort of works, but it makes for an odd mealtime and a late night 😕
I’m going to have to start hassling M a bit more about piano, I think. He does huge amounts of violin with no prompting, but piano takes more reminding, and I need to keep an eye on the time or he doesn’t make it to the 30 minutes he’s supposed to do. It’s hard as he doesn’t have his own music so nothing familiar to practise, I guess. Perhaps we should get him to choose some music to work on and see if that helps…
Sunday
We went to church with swimming gear yesterday. No, we weren’t going to a Baptist church, but yes we were going to not our normal church, with a swimming party afterwards. We went back to where we used to live, to the Catholic church that some friends go to. In fact it’s between our old house and my old office.
We were a bit late, but parked nearby. I’m glad they’ve had a porch put on in the last couple of years so you go in through the back of the church rather than coming in at the front! (I’ve only been there once before, pre-porch.) F, our friend who goes there, was waiting near where we went in and took Katy and the children out during a hymn as the other children had already gone out for Sunday School. A didn’t want to be left, so Katy returned in a little with her. The children rejoined us later on for Communion itself, but unfortunately Katy had to pop out for some fresh air as the incense was not agreeing with her eyes and nose.
After the service was coffee, children running around outside, but only for a bit as we had a party to go to. I hope that M feels OK to go back there with F and family but not us at least some of the time, so that we can all go to a church where we feel most at home.
We picked up a little food to keep the wolf from the door (and not so much as to trigger cramps) on the way to the pool. The pool itself was weird – the air was very warm but the water cold (as it always seems to be there). But all the children enjoyed themselves – ours and the others. I’m glad that ours are all now water-confident enough to enjoy things like that, even if they’re not swimming the channel yet. They played with friends, random adults (friends’ parents) and so on for an hour. A didn’t quite last the distance as her lips were going a bit blue after about 50 minutes but she was still happy.
Then to the dry bit of the party. Lots of delicious food in a gym with balloons. Katy asked me to make sure our lot had something other than just crisps, which I did apart from for A. She had sat there for ages before Katy spotted the still empty plate in front of her and sorted her out 😳 . I was too busy having a techie / business conversation with one of the many dads involved in IT. Finally it was time to clear up and pack away – fortunately there was lots of food left over, some of which we took with us.
As we were pulling out of the car park, Katy suggested we phone her dad to ask about her grandfather. He was still in hospital after his fall, and up to seeing Katy plus a small number of children. So we made an impromptu change of plans and drove 70 miles to her grandfather’s house where her dad is staying to look after him. Not long after we arrived, Katy and David set off for the hospital in David’s splendid red Morris Minor Traveller (smiles from M), leaving me with all the children and instructions to pick tomatoes from the greenhouse and give them tea (the children, not the tomatoes). The seats in the Morris weren’t right for taking children easily, which is why they all stayed.
Fortunately it was just time for the start of Scrapheap Challenge. Our English lot all like it, and M liked it when he watched it on our tiny black and white set, so watching it on Poppa’s big colour TV was great! It was about water-powered cars, so I learned about Pelton wheels, which was handy later when David talked to me about how he showed his neighbours that hydro power just doesn’t work where he lives.
Anyway, I just managed to hold the show on the road with Scrapheap Challenge, creating tea and sending the big 3 out to the greenhouse with a saucepan. (I showed them how David had wanted the tomatoes picked, which were the various containers of nasty chemicals to not touch and left them to it.) Shortly afterwards Katy and David arrived, sooner than I expected, as Poppa had been very much improved but still tired. She joined in the picking and we now have loooads of tomatoes plus some cooking apples.
David then produced a learner bagpipe thing he’d bought for himself. It was a mouthpiece directly on the top of the chanter (the recorder bit), rather than having the bag in between the two bits as normal. We all had a go, looking a bit like Indian snake charmers and sounding much less tuneful! He then also produced a child sized full set of bagpipes he’d bought for the children. Unfortunately there was a leak somewhere that defeated us, so will need fixing before they make noise.
By this time it was getting late, so we all got back in the car and headed off. We got quite a bit further through Kenneth Branagh reading The Magician’s Nephew by the time we got home. Who needs in-car DVD players when you’re driving through the darkness a bit after bedtime, listening to an excellent story read very well?
Saturday
After I had dropped Katy at the baby shop to follow the family tradition, I drove into town to try to take all 5 to Stourbridge Fair. I’d heard about it for a while, and driven past the Leper Chapel many times, but somehow never got to either.
We managed to arrive there 2 hours early – we had somehow been told the time for stallholders to arrive rather than proper opening times. The air cadets were being stewards, and their nice officer told me about a playground that was only a few minutes’ walk away. It happened to take us by where we got the cats a long time ago – the swings was more of a draw than going round so we pressed on.
It was a good playground – a nice small people’s bit and a bigger people’s bit. Occasionally an eight would row by or the big tourist boat. I kept them happy and occupied until it was time to go back.
(I’ve now had 2 attempts by WordPress to eat this entry, so I’ll keep it short and quit while I’m winning.)
We saw quite a few Kentwellies, one of K’s nursery school teachers who’s also a story-teller in her spare time so she dragged the big 4 off while I wandered with A in the sling. A colleague turned up in full 13th century gear (chainmail, sword etc.) with his partner as they do SCA and thought they could show some sword stuff, but there wasn’t room for it. I encouraged them to visit Kentwell, and I hope the bigger scale and variety will appeal more than the rules and strictness might put them off.
There were some proctors, who had nice equipment from the past police / weights and measure duties (a halberd, a big book of statutes, and a set of weights). They claimed to be the oldest police force in the world; I just thought that they were some nice blokes just short of retirement in fancy clothes with a couple of polearms. Very Cambridge.
I also had a nice chat with a traditional woodworker – encouraged him to visit Kentwell too. He asked me which of his tools would be used at Kentwell, and quite a few would: spoke shave, pole lathe, brace and bit, adze, bow saw and a huge axe and wedges for splitting wood – all lovely, lovely things – beautiful, nothing manly or powered by electricity, and able to produce excellent things in skilled hands.
Then off to the car via a stall I had spotted selling homemade plum and X fruit leather. At the car I turned the raw materials that Katy had packed into cold hot dogs (with ketchup 🙂 ), and then crawled through the traffic to pick up Katy late.