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For some reason many moons ago when we (worship committee at church) were talking about harvest festival this year it seemed a good idea to take the topic of trees – just for a change, you know!
Anyway, my dad and his partner are involved with forestry stuff in Wales so I suggested that they might be able to come and do something for us and this was taken as a good idea. I contacted them and they agreed, so we left it that I’d tell them more when I knew more… Nothing more was said about harvest festival, so nothing more was done…
Then on Wednesday or Thursday of last week I had an email form the minister saying that I had offered to do a talk on trees and could I make it all-age and do it on Sunday in the harvest festival service please? 😯 Errm, no I didn’t!
Obviously too late for my dad to come but I managed to get him to email me some info, then we all sat up late making lists of interesting things we get from trees that we could find about the house. Collected them all together and sorted from most unexpected (things like aspirin, chocolate and moisturiser) to most obvious (wooden toys etc) so that I could get them out a few at a time and ask what they had in common… then the minister introduced my section of the service as “Katy will now talk to us about trees” 🙄 ho hum!
Anyway, it worked okay, even though the element of surprise was now missing *sigh* and after that I talked a little about good forestry practice, clear fell versus continuous cover and so on and got the children to sit very close together on the floor and then try to grow up and spread out their arms without moving their feet – demonstrated beautifully the necessity for thinning as they clung to one another and fell over!

Later in the service we also had a talk about hardwood trees and heartwood/sapwood. It was really interesting to see that a coconut tree has no heartwood (because it’s really closer to being a grass, with a hollow stem) and that the wood in the centre is totally different to the wood near the edge. The speaker brought in three planks, one from centre, one from edge and one from in between, and showed us that the centre is very light (pulpy rather than solid) while the wood at the edges is incredibly hard and heavy. In fact the centre plank would float with 3/4 of it out of water, while the outer wood sinks!

Not sure exactly what it had to do with harvest festival (other than general awe at and care for creation) but it was a good service, with lots of learning thrown in 🙂

This morning K discovered half a dead mouse indoors, that had probably been left there by one of the cats. He asked why they did it and I said that it was because the cats thought that we were really special and so wanted to give us a present, and they would like a mouse as a present so they think we would too.

He said “Can’t we train them to bring us a present that we’d actually like?”

In other news, after a late start, L slept through again last night. This could be habit forming.

J and L clocked up milestones this week. (I think J’s happened a few weeks ago but yesterday was the first time I noticed.)

Yesterday I took all the children to the park and J was eager for me to play football with him – L’s buggy as one post and a shrubbery as the other. This was occasionally tricky as K and L needed attention too on the swings and things. During half time when I was play equipment assistant I noticed J could swing by himself completely! Probably not a major thing and maybe even late compared to his peers, but another sign to me that he’s growing up and another way he’s able to enjoy himself without needing my help.

L may be messing with our heads, but one night this week she slept through completely, in her own bed :shock:. It was a bit of a shock to not feel v. tired the next day (just tired). She hasn’t done so since, but tonight was encouraging too. She went up to her bed after the boys were asleep but before she seemed sleepy. This normally lasts about 5 minutes and then there are footsteps coming downstairs :roll:. Tonight she didn’t come down at all. Hurrah!

while I went to an MSLC meeting, leaving her with Bob 🙂

Dance sister dance

I work for a large American company (this wasn’t my choice – it bought the small UK company that I had joined). My limited experience of large American companies is that they worry about Diversity – note the capital letter and have directors dedicated to it, training courses for all staff and so on.

I’m sure that this is well-intentioned at least by some of the higher-ups, but sometimes – too often – comes across as lip service and window dressing. I know that Brits can be just as insensitive as Americans and any other group, so I’m not going to claim the moral high ground. The people from the German company we’re selling to at the moment say they have Diversity too, so maybe it’s all large companies these days.

Anyway, I was in Germany on business and got an excellent illustration of it done properly, i.e. with a small ‘d’. It reminded me that reading books on ecumenism is all well and good, but the proper way to be God’s family is to just chat and get on with people who go to different churches from you. Back to diversity. There were many of my US-based colleagues on the same trip, and so there was American, British and German in the mix. Actually one of the US-based people is really Venezuelan, and one of the Germany-based people is actually a Pole, but that just led to interesting accents.

So, I had an American colleague telling me where the rest rooms were in the office we were visiting (not the toilets or even Toiletten). We had Chinese takeaway for lunch (a bit random, but nice) and one of my US colleagues had stuff in a satay sauce for the first time (“peanut butter sauce”). One of the Americans was dying for some water that wasn’t Mineralwasser and so the satay eater said “Why not have some tap water?” which made me puzzled so I asked him what he called the thing it came out of. He said “spigot or faucet” – I had come across faucet before, but apparently a faucet gives out tap water, which was new to me. As was the fact that sandwiches in the US don’t usually have butter spread on the bread – you’re much more likely to have mustard, mayonaise or something else. I discovered that to get an outside line from a German switchboard you have to dial 0 rather than 9. I spread enlightenment by recommending (and describing) cream teas – this is apparently now on the list of things to do/eat when the Americans are next in the UK. Hurrah!

It also embarrassed me how poor my German has become, and my French. Then there’s Spanish, Russian, Mandarin and Hindi etc. – I suppose that’s the problem being a native speaker of the de facto international language – which foreign languages do you choose to learn?

I intensely dislike the word meme – it’s a pretentious alternative to idea as far as I can see, invented to make some people feel clever, and to spawn other pretentious words like “memepool”. Rant over – I was tagged by Jax, and I thought I’d do what I normally (OK, I’ve only done one other) do with these spread-the-love things: grudgingly do it, find it’s quite useful for me and then not pass it on. I started this ages ago, forgot about it, and now I want it done so I can properly forget about it.

1.Things that scare me:

• George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld et al.
• Government unquestioning belief in IT as panacea, such as in the ID card scheme in the UK.
• Global warming.

2. People who make me laugh:

• Katy.
• My children.
• Robin Williams.

3. Things I hate the most:

• The stupidity and hence skewed priorities of the current US government, and their supporters.
• My own failings.
• Halva – I think I’d rather eat Oasis, which it resembles.

4. Things I don’t understand:

• Bridge (the card game).
• The attraction of golf.
• Japanese.

5. Things I’m doing right now:

• Listening to music thrown at me randomly by my computer.
• Err, typing this.
• Lots of really amazing chemistry that keeps my body functioning.

6. Things I want to do before I die:

• Finish this list.
• Live in a place where I have finished unpacking from the last time we moved.
• Lots of other things.

7. Things I can do:

• Tell a shaggy dog story involving a cute squid with a mustache.
• Tell you meaning of the word “cran”.
• Make my lower lip into two little horns and wiggle them a bit.

8. Ways to describe my personality:
This is v. hard to answer without sounding like you love yourself to bits or hate yourself. I give up!

9. Things I can’t do:

• Put my ankles behind my ears.
• Knit.
• Solve differential equations.

10. Things I think you should listen to:

• Your children (if you have any).
• Your spouse / partner (if you have one).
• God, however you interpret this. Failing that: Silence.

11. Things you should never listen to:

• People who make you feel bad in order to make themselves feel better.
• Jazz, if it’s the kind where you can’t tell if they’re playing the right notes or not.
• That impulse to buy a pink fluffy toilet seat cover.

12. Things I’d like to learn:

• How to play the sax, drums or piano.
• How to speak German or French better.
• How to fly a plane.

13. Favourite foods:
This is a bit too MySpace for me, so no answer.

14. Beverages I drink regularly:

• Tea
• Water
• More water

15. Shows I watched as a kid:
Too many!

• Bagpuss
• Bod
• Jackanory

We had expected to be away on a HE camp this week, but it didn’t happen, which was probably no bad thing in the event, as the weekend was rather full anyway and Bob now has to go to Germany for a few days (which would have meant him leaving us at camp 😕 ). Instead we spent Saturday morning travelling to Horsham to visit an imaginary friend (from Hunnybeez and ukparents) who has just had #10. We handed over three frozen lasagnes (batch cooking doesn’t go far when there are that many mouths to feed every day!) and some new baby gifts and in return got lots of lovely newbaby cuddles 🙂
After that we continued down to the coast, arriving (starving) with just enough time to buy some chips, get lost, have a row, find the house we were aiming for but miss the people, eat some chips, thereby raising blood sugar enough to stop rowing 😉 , get lost again, find the hall and still make it to Monster’s party not too horribly late *phew!* 😆 Had a great time both there and afterwards, chatting, eating and generally relaxing. Thanks for having us, Nic and Ady – it was fab! L particularly enjoyed doing all the girly things she never gets to do at home, having two big brothers and a nude-faced mother. Her application of lipstick was enthusiastic to say the least!
On Sunday we thought we were setting out with plenty of time to get to West London for the second birthday party of the weekend, but ended up taking 4 hours to travel 80 miles 😯 Even worse was that the first 50 or so miles were at 60 most of the way so it was really a case of taking over 3 hours to travel 30 miles 🙁 We had expected to arrive with time to get some lunch on the way, but in fact found nowhere we could stop to eat and ended up finishing off the cold chips from Saturday…
The party was worth it though and the children very much enjoyed decorating t-shirts, making crowns, doing a treasure hunt, icing biscuits – and perhaps most of all reading stories on the settee and kicking a football around in the garden 🙂 Thanks Elizabeth and co – it was great and the sandwiches etc were all eaten within a few minutes of leaving London!