I slept in this morning. Davies and Scarlett had got up, fed themselves and were watching the TV. They got dressed, I sorted out the birds and made the most of the lovely sunshine by hanging some washing out and then the kids took Sploosh and Lucky out into the front garden to play. I took loads of photos (will upload later) of them. They are going on Saturday to live at Tom’s Dad’s house. We’re taking them and their house to reside on a little island in the middle of a large lake. I think they are going to love it there and Scarlett can do plenty of visiting them before we go and when we come home again too. Maybe one day we can even have them, or some of their babies back to live with us.
I let them have a good hour or so out there and then I was starting to get hungry. We needed some bits for dinner tonight and a few other things from the supermarket so I wrote a list (in careful, easy to read writing, my usual script is claimed to be too curly and fancy to read), gathered up the kids and Davies read the shopping list on the way. He did really well – it had easy items like milk and rather more complicated things to read such as ‘red onions’, ‘tomato puree’ and ‘mozarella cheese’.
I pushed the trolley and the kids were responsible for finding stuff off the list and putting it in. We got all unpackaged fruit and veg and checked where stuff came from too, we looked at price per 100g on things like cheese comparing different ones, checked whether sugar was fair trade and tuna caught with pole and line. We discussed the hierarchy of choice for food and I told them mine – welfare first, only free range, welfare assured meat and animal produce, next local – as few food miles as possible so British always favoured, if something is from far away then it needs to be fair trade, we looked for the sign on bananas, sugar, tea etc and talked about what that actually meant, we looked at packaging options on things – is one plastic bag better than a plastic tray and cellophane on grapes, is it better to buy one large bag of mozarella cheese for a couple of pence more than two small cheap bags with twice the packaging. We also looked at price per weight, in tiny print on shelf labels to tell us whether highlighted bargain prices really are a good deal or not. We looked at multi-buys and decided whether spending more was worth it and whether we really needed it or were being persuaded to buy things we didn’t need at the moment. It was really interesting :).
Back home they helped me put stuff away and they both had questions I couldn’t easily answer. Davies wanted to know more about sugar – how we get it and what we do to it while Scarlett wanted to know about tinned tuna -how many cans can you get from one tuna fish? I said we’d find out answers after lunch.
I got them to help with lunch too, opening tins, mixing with mayo for Scarlett and the tuna and then we ate. Then we looked at sugar, finding this website quite helpful. Funnily enough in a totally unconnected way I had clicked a link from Julia’s blog earlier today about making sugar crystals. When we got to the sugar making bit about evaporation to create crystals both Davies and Scarlett remembered making crystals before (from a kit, not even sure what solution) and asked if we could do it so I had fresh in my mind how to :). We finished learning about sugar cane and sugar beet, read a bit about the history of sugar and growing, processing and refining processes, including some interesting info about the environmental impact of the two different types and then headed to the kitchen to thread string onto pencils and suspend them over glasses filled with saturated sugar solutions with food colouring in. They are now on the bathroom windowsill waiting for magic to happen :).
Scarlett wanted to make some cupcakes with duck eggs and I’d promised Davies I would come and make a start on his bedroom clearing so I supervised the beginnning of cup cake making, got the first batch in the oven and left Tarly doing the second batch. Unfortunately she over filled the second batch and as they rose they caught on the top but she insists they are delicious ;). We’ll ice them tomorrow.
Davies and I, joined after cupcake making by Tarly set to on his bedroom. We cleared all the clothes and he tried everything on. We now have a hug bag of outgrown or unwanted stuff to bring to Okehampton for smaller boys, the rest is either stuff that fits now or is too big and worth hanging on to to grow into. We then worked our way around the room clearing stuff. This brought about a few tears and a cold hard reality check about just how much stuff can be kept and just how much can’t. We had a long chat about whether the sacrifice of stuff is too big and if we really want to go Wandering next year and concluded we did, but it was tough. Davies did really well at letting go plenty of things and although we still have a bit to sort through I think the worst is done. Phew.
Ady came home while we were still in the midst of that so he got dinner on for the kids and put the birds away, lit the fire etc. We came downstairs and I ran a bath and poured a glass of wine while chopping up veg for our dinner (roasted root veg and sausages). Ady and I watched Hugh and kept bemoaning his ruining perfectly good food by shoving chick peas and lentils on it 😆 before watching An Idiot Abroad which we’re really enjoying. It had been bugging me why I knew Karl Pilkington’s name until I googled him and realised I’d read his book, Karlology last year.
I’ve enjoyed answering questions on Wondering Wanderers and now, as it’s singing tomorrow, I really should be asleep!