So what, I’m still a rock star

well Baby Rhyme time singer at least 😉

Work all day for me today. I found it hard to get up this morning as rather than going to bed when I finished blogging I got distracted by a commotion outside of something squeaking and looked out the window to see a fox chasing what I assumed was a bird all over the road and up and down walls into people’s gardens. I opened the window a bit and watched it for a while as it caught whatever it was.

The fox was aware I was there and kept looking at me, all Fox and the Child stylee and I was incredibly tempted to actually talk to it and see what it did but I felt a bit silly leaning out of a window in the dark at 130am saying ‘Fo-ox, Fo-ox’ so I just sort of smiled at it instead. I do like foxes :).

It then totally shocked me by coming closer and climbing onto the wall infront of our window and then taking a flying leap straight into a very densely covered tree. The tree is a good 10 foot at the base of the leafy bit and touches the telephone wires at the top so it’s pretty high. It’s actually a dead cherry tree that is now covered in ivy and has at least 2 sets of birds nesting in it every spring. Sadly that is what the fox was after and having been in the tree for a good few minutes with leaves falling and lots of noise and fuss I leapt down with a baby bird from one of the nests in it’s mouth, spent some more time gazing at me and then ran off.

I felt quite sad as we’ve watched the birds pair up, make nests, sit on eggs and go in and out of the tree feeding chicks but I’m guessing the fox equally has young nearby she/he is feeding. Plus I know foxes are very single minded and unless I’d been prepared to sit up all night she would have come back as soon as I wasn’t there even if I had tried to scare her off. Amazing to watch so close though, like my own personal Springwatch :).

So, back to today and work. It was Rhyme time in the morning and we had quite a crowd which was nice. We are about to lose them all after the summer as most of the bigger ones will be off to nursery, which will be nice as the babies will take over again and we’ll have less grabbing of instruments and wandering about while we’re singing and more mums with babies on laps jiggling them about to The Wheels on the bus.

I don’t think anything at all exceptional happened at work worthy of mention today really; I arranged to do a kids poetry event in October and spoke to one of the librarians about book groups for children, or storytelling sessions or something on a weekly / fortnightly basis and offered again to run them on a voluntary basis on the understanding Davies and Scarlett would be attending. She was very enthusiastic and wants to try and push something regular through. It would be good for me as I’d get to add something else to my CV, D and S would get the benefit of a group like that and I think I’d enjoy it too :).

Ady was home this morning and my Mum was here this afternoon. I know the kids did some painting as I was proudly shown all their work including some Fathers Day pictures for Ady when I got home, not sure what else they go up to though.

I’d brought home a couple of OS maps to show Davies following on from talking about coordinates and geocaching and grids at the weekend so we opened them up and had a good old look at them. Davies worked out all the little symbols on the various keys and looked to find places we go to that would be nature reserves, gardens and so on. We live right on the cusp of two maps so I need to get the other one to match up with this one so we can have the whole surrounding area of where we live to look at. We talked a bit about scale too.

Ady was home in time for me to leave Davies with him and walk Scarlett to Rainbows. She had decided to take some of our stag beetles with her for show and tell along with some information Ady had printed off for her about them. They went to the park and the only show and tell they had time for apparently was Scarlett’s 🙂 Not at all sure a room of 5-7 year old girls would have been that keen on a box of beetles but Scarlett claims they all liked them ;).

Davies and I sat and watched all the dvd extras on a double disc set of which I’d brought home for him and correctly assumed would be his sort of thing.He loved it and had already started watching the first episode when I came back from collecting Tarly.

Then we went off to give blood.Normally they are very organised and we get a letter or even a phonecall about 2 weeks before hand to arrange an appointment but this time the letters came through on Wednesday about a session today. Unfortunately when we got there they had been running late and already had more people waiting than they thoguht they could get through in the half an hour they had left 🙁 I got my free coaster for having given blood 3 times in a year last year and a keyring with my bloodgroup on and I’ve made an appointment for next week instead.

Back home I read the first few chapters of which we’re liking so far.

Things we learnt today included: stag beetles live as larvae for a few years but only a few weeks as beetles, they are now an endangered species, you can make excellent cordage from nettles, foxes can jump *really* well and a couple of other little gems.