Yesterday was a slow start day with me caught up in online stuff while the children played. Davies X boxed but played about 4 different games rather than staying infront of the same one for hours and Scarlett played some elaborate game with soft toys and plastic animals. I did do a load of washing and put loads more away though and deal with the chicks, who are looking less chick-like daily.
Scarlett and I did some baking, we made some cheese scones for lunch. We were planning on doing more but ran out of time. We had the cheese scones with butter (yum) and then got ready to go out. We had an interesting conversation in the car about eating meat. Scarlett had found a chicken bone and identified it as a chicken and was concerned it was from one of the chicks. I explained it was from our roast chicken dinner the night before which led onto eating animals generally and whether it was sad or not. I explained that most of the animals we eat are bred specifically to be killed to be eaten so probably wouldn’t be born in the first place if not in order to be eaten eventually and we talked about the fact that we attempt to only eat meat that we are assured of having lived in good conditions. We also talked about the food chain generally and how we are ‘supposed’ to eat meat and are designed to be omnivors. We also talked about different creatures and whether they are herbivores, omnivores or carnivores and how their design shows us that (something they are familar with from dinosaurs – four legged walkers, big, long necks and long legs means they eat plants, two legged walkers, with sharp teeth, smaller bodies etc.). We then discussed people we know who are vegetarian and vegan, and why someone we know (mentioning no names) is a crap vegan because they eat things like honey and milk chocolate ;). There is a display of animals jaws showing how they differ depending on their diet at a park that is fairly local, we must try and get there again soon as I think it would interest them both given the conversation about it all.
I was off to Worthing library for training and D&S were off to my Dad’s for the afternoon. We stayed in my car and Dad dropped me off (no parking at the library and parking in Worthing town centre is an expensive nightmare) which led to an interesting dilemma for him when the children wanted to know why he wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, resulting in them all deciding he was silly – him included 😆
The training was ok, all stuff I’ve already covered working in the branch tbh but interesting to meet other people from other branches more than anything, it was training about equal access services, so things like our schemes for delivering books to residential homes, housebound readers, items for visually impaired borrowers and hearing impaired readers, making libraries accessible for disabled borrowers generally and a bit about the library service we run at Ford prison. There were some interesting statistics given such as only 4% of visually impaired or blind people can read braille. I’m there again all day tomorrow for information services which should be interesting as it will help with training to get me ready to man the enquiry desk which I’m keen to do as it’s more varied (and you get to sit down 😉 ).
Ady came and picked me up and we went back to Dad’s to collect the children. Home for a speedy tea before Davies went off to Beavers and Scarlett had a very long bath on her own. When I collected Davies from Beavers there was a big card they’d made to send to Shoreham airport to say thank you for their recent visit. All the boys had drawn a picture of something from the airport (so that’d be planes, mainly) and they’d stuck them all inside. Some of them weren’t named, and they varied loads in terms of how they drew / coloured in etc. but Davies’, although unsigned was instantly recognisable, and really good :). I dropped Davies back home for his bath and headed back out to go and get some pallets to make a chicken coop from the industrial estate. I found a load piled up outside the unit I’d got them from before, so that was good cos he’d already told me to ‘help myself’ last time. I brought 5 home and toiled over dismantling one with a hammer and screwdriver before giving up at about 830pm when I decided it was getting a bit late for making so much noise.
Ady and I watched Hot Fuzz, well Ady watched it, I fell asleep on the sofa so went to bed at about 1130pm before the end of it.
Today has been super productive, helped no doubt by me being driven by anger at an online spat which I (very admirably I think!) walked away from although I feel inclined to rant about lengthily I won’t. We went to Tesco’s first thing, where we got various bits and pieces including 4 cheap collapsible crates for our clothes at kessingland and some preserving sugar for making jam from all the strawberries going yucky in the chiller from the PYO last week and bits for dinner this week as we seem to have been left with five portions of chicken breast and nothing else due to messing about with the menu this month a lot. I also got the children a new water pistol each (Tesco own 87 pence each) for camp. They were really well behaved all the way round, playing with the water pistols and being quite helpful until we got to the checkout where they helped load all the shopping on the conveyer belt. The cashier looked at them both and said to me ‘No school today then?’ to which I replied ‘No, they don’t go to school, they’re Home Educated’ which they took as their cue to act like lunatics for five minutes hence being a great advertisement for HE – not 🙄
Home again and I pegged out all the washing (four loads, all the dirty washing in the house, and it all dried before the storm started today, hurrah 🙂 ) before Lucy dropped Rebecca off to play for a while. I’d planned to do baking with them but they disappeared straight off to play so I waited until Lucy arrived and then made cheese scones with the girls and snickerdoodles with Davies. All of which got eaten this afternoon – best sort of baking, in place of other food and not kicking around for ages afterwards. Dad arrived shortly after Lucy, followed by Ady popping in between stores, so it was all a bit hectic here for a while until Ady went off again, Dad went outside to start pallet dismantling (found it was far quicking with a crowbar / wrench) and we kicked the kids into the garden so Lucy and I could have half an hours chatting. Lucy and the Rs left, Davies and Scarlett came back inside to play (although they spent most of the time hanging out the lounge window ‘supervising’ Dad and I with Scarlett asking helpful questions like ‘Mummy and Grandad, what the heck are you doing?!’ :lol:.
We’ve made some headway with the coop – it is rather rough and ready and unlikely to be the finished item tbh, Ady is on the case to get a very cheap damaged shed from B&Q next time one comes up and I’ll keep looking out for suitable wood on freecycle, but for now, particularly until we know how many chickens we’ll actually be keeping we’re fashioning an extension of the run we built, triangular with a door, so that Dad can herd them in and out fairly easily next week when he’s here chick and cat minding while we’re at camp. The design is mine again, with Dad providing the brute strength and the power tools and we got the two sides built today. Dad has some wood for the floor and door at home so I’ll be cutting the rest of the wood to size for the front and back over the next 2 days and then we’ll get it completed either Thursday or Friday.
Dad left, Ady came home, I fed the kids and then spent hours in the kitchen making strawberry jam and dinner, while Ady brought the chicks in and tidied the house and he children went to bed. Strawberry jam has come out really well – I got three jam jars full from our leftover strawberries which were only otherwise fit for the bin really (probably no more than about £2.50 worth from the PYO) and a £1 bag of preserving sugar, so cheaper than posh branded jam and loads nicer :). Thinking of other recipes I can try out maybe in D&S decorated jars as gifts for family at Christmas / birthdays, must start collecting screw top jars.
Have you requested small shed/wooden playhouse on freecycle? We often have them come up on ours.
Comment by Roslyn — 20 June 2007 @ 4:48 pm