Petits Haricots

1.driving home late this evening, the smell of strawberries from the pYO was delicious.

2. I passed a man earlier in the drive who had 2 bottles of beer in his back pockets of such baggy jeans that they wre below his crotch! YUK [he was clutching the front - rofl]

3.I had my first redundancy consultation meeting. It seems odd to be blogging it openly, but I guess it is now. the deal is 1 redundant now or a further 10% paycut each with no reduction hours. it seems likely that this conversation willr be repeated a number of times. we will end up I predict with 2 redundant having taken a further 10% paycut. [tries to shrug nonchalantly]

IMG 6028

Originally uploaded by Scrumbledelicious.

bed-den made for two

mostly a day talking tactics for the future and gardening. its nice to have some help in the garden. Dad gave the topiary a good trim, mum and i weeded, SB watered and BB pulled up to veg - sigh!

SB did do some obvious home ed stuff - she did some explode the code, read some raiders and rioters book, and then some history with mum - mostly mediaeval bits and pieces. She is starting to read words out and a bout - which is nice, even if it was predominantly shed [garden centre] and getting more and more proficient with mental maths of adding and subtracting over a ten. She did some nice singing for my mum, and lots of maze books.
Most of the day was playing though. I think my uncertainty is not helping the girls, as SB more waily at the moment, and mimicking BB for the attention.

BB also had fun today. pottred around, started undressing upstairs as poopoo - so we might start potty training in the good weather. she enjoyed the sandpit and the brio track the most.

We have  a built in cupboard in the playroom, which is being used to store jigsaws, games etc. It’s at a nice toddler friendly height…
Earlier I tidied variius things away that had been out and played with, and been ‘Butterbeaned’ - aka spread around as only toddlers know how.

While i’ve been in the kitchen she has emptied out varioius things, emptied the boxes out and now carried some bits into the kitchen just for extra effect - arggh!!

The room needs sorting and reorganising a bit anyway , looks like now might be the time….

I’ve been avoiding tidying the kitchen by reading posts over on the 4th  Homeschool Country Fair (started up  recently as an alternative to the longer running Carnival of Homeschooling. No links to blogs on Home School Blogger - becuase of the boycott, no posts re corporal punishment, and a more secular bent really).

This post is one of those ones that reminds you just how different a country the US is.

kind of day. did some trrying to sort the veg garden - weeding, a bit of watering where desperate. the peas in their entirety didn’t survive us being at kessingland - very sad!

SB read to me the 9th ladybird phonics book, and did some explode the code. We also did some singapore maths thinking skills, and read a book all about how the body works. Mostly we played out in the garden though. SB definitely turning into a trapeze artiste.

i feel the need to be expanding on her home ed with resources we have, but not quite doing it. Luckilly she is very good at finding things to read/do, but I’m not keeping up with the piano, and would like to do the getty and dubay, latin and story of the world more regularly.

BB and I did lots of shape sorting and jigsaws before mostly playing in the garden. lots of running under water! [no hosepipe ban here, though this is the first use of hosepipe as most water butts now run out - unfortunately noticed one was full after i had watered! [we are metered]

chris made flapjacks, but neither girl really helped!

i am finding it difficult to keep my head in one place at the moment. Need a haven of tranquility - rofl! No news yet.

Helen has already blogged on Kessie, but I was reminded of things looking at the piccies.

So here are few of my personal snippets, in no particular order.

Ducks - One of her words of the week. Butterbean was endlessly running off to the bridge to look for ducks (which was rather tiresome at times…), and would look over both sides either commenting on the ducks she could see, or hopefully calling out ducks if their weren’t any. When they came into the campsite she was ecstatic I do think my plan for tethering her down in the middle of the camopsite had merit though
Dik-dik - BB’s word for biscuit which she used endlessly.

Small boys - Small boy ‘holding up’ another boy with his water pistol. ‘Show me your willy or I won’t be your friend’ - ‘victim’ was happy to oblige

Playing - the endlessly playing was lovely to watch, the big space opposite us was well used once the other tents had departed. Having friends and space and time to just play and play like that in the sun must be some sort of kiddie heaven.

Water pistols - well it was perfect water pistol weather/territory

Small Girls - one minute sitting playing with dollies, playing babies etc. then arming themselves up with water pistols for a battle

Layla’s rants - I particulary liked the ‘come near this cake and I’ll chop off your arm’ one to assorted children desperate for chocolate cake.

Biggest embarrasment  - Knobbling Emma’s BMW. BB got her keys and dangled them into a mug of juice - which wasn’t very good for the remote keyfob/immobiliser thingy. Only discovered it wouldn’t work of course once they were all packed and the kids hidden by lots of gear….. Arrghhh! - Luckily the RAC man was able to dry it out with much blowing inside with his airjet.

Teapot - tea is designed to be made in a pot, not dangling a tea bag in a mug. So how can you not take a teapot camping. It also makes it much easier to keep your neighbours supplied

Chillin’ - so which tent shall we go and sit outside (and drink aforesaid tea) now….?

Gazebo’s  - you can never have two many gazebo’s at a Muddlepuddle camp. What is intriguing about them is the magnetic effect they havee on people - they even collect under them in the dark when there is no shade benefit to be gained.

Small children and shops - Well it probably was a bad idea  to let Big, Small and SB go to the shops by themselves - Big to get bread, Small and SB to get sweets.  Poor Small didn’t get his sweets, Buig did get bread, and her and SB each got  lolly, though apparently Big took the one SB wanted - she is still complainign about this. Just what confusion they sowed in the shop can only be inagined

The day after we had got back from Kessingland, so feeling mostly like just being at home, but got ourselves together to get out.

Monday was a monthly gathering of one of the local HE groups, CHEF. normally there is a theme with activities, crafts etc. This meeting was a bit different. Everyone brought some vegatables and we all sat down and prepared them together - which was all very sociable and cooked them up in a big pot into soup. Some bread rolls were also made.

While the soup was cooking we had a ’show and tell’ session, with a bit of prompting she decided to take stuff she had made at Muddlepuddle camp - the needlefelting, the basket and the kite.

she did a good job of talking about them and showing them round, in fact most of the kids did. Kessingland Tie-dye was also in evidence,

So some good plugs for MP camp. some people were quite impresed by the quality of the stuff produced.
Once that was over we spent the rest of the time eating soup, fruit cocktail and some cake , yum. Soup was fairly tasty, in a slighty nondescript vegetabley way, there was a good variety of veg in it, onions, leeks, courgettes, celery, peas, broad beans, broccoli, carrots, potatoes. Though these faces may not be a recommendation……

It made a nice change from the normal HE group stuff, i’d recommend it to other groups.

Came home via Sainsburys , where SB demonstrated why pushing a trolley a bit fast and then sliding to a stop is bad idea by crashing it - luckily into me rather than someone else. Oh for the little kiddie trolleys in Waitrose, just right for littlies, then summoned home by SMS as parents popping in, so got home to have a chat/play (as appropriate) with them.

Tuesday happened as well somewhere, filled with normal things such as storytime/library visit - which ends up taking up pretty much all of morning in the end, once we have got up, found books, read a few of them again etc. Dealt with lots of post camp washing, and other post camp sorting, some Explode the Code, got organised to go early to swimming lessons so we could go to the playpark near there for a bit first, quite a nice little park, with a few different bit of equipment - SB liked the little roundabout thing you worked by sitting on it like a bike and pedalling to make it go round. I’ve given up tryimg to watch the lessons, BB just wants to run about climb up and down the seating area etc. so I don’t really gte to watch so now I just go to the cafe stick BB in a high chair, and we drink coffee and nibble things, and I get 20 odd mins quiet time - which since on Tuesdays Helen is often lateish to very late home from work is very welocme by 5pm. Afterwards se wanted again to watch the Circuit Training session for a bit - she seems fascinated by this for some unfathomable reason. I think she probably fancies having a go at it.

In the event, Heklen didn’t get home until 11pmish, so a beear infront of CSI once they were both alseep in bed was very welcome.

at the moment I am trying to seize the moment with the girls, and banish the dark side as it were.

so today we watched some cbeebies together, played imagination stuff, geomagged, read books - SB read 2 red nose readers and an apple tree farm with a bit of help. i then read why the sea is salty, and we discussed beaches and seasides. SHe then spent a while on jump ahead maths while I played allsorts of toddler things with BB.

when bB slept, Chris set up and experiment for SB, and we watched how cooling gas in a glass makes the water level rise - well I’ll show a picture. We used the DK picturepedia explanation of molecules - really good - to help her understand what was happening, and she enacted molecules in various states!!

BB and SB have both made plaster of paris foot and handprints [well, C and B’s respectively at Kessingland were so good!]

When BB woke up, we did a great deal of sorting out of the hayloft, as someone locally is putting a few boxes of hers in there. If my future becomes less than pleasant, I guess we could rent that space for storage… BB played in the car, and I rescued my box - see previous post!

we played outside a bit, and then listed to little toe whilst eating tea, and discussed real vs totally made up stories.

in the circumstances, I shouldn’t really be looking through a keepsake box bound to make me cry - it did. I have a box my dad’s dad used to show me, and the keepsake I have of him and granny. the box is fairly uniteresting, but in it, he kept his momentoes of his father - who died as a merchant seaman when he was very young. he went into a home at that point as did his brother. larer his brother was a transport to NZ, and died there aged 16. in the box is his fathers seaman cards, english naturalisation and letters to his mother. there is one letter back. also flowers pressed from the grave of his brother, sent by the vicars wife to his mother. He had so little of a childhood, and valued these things hugely.

Also various pictures from his and gran’s childhood - some identifiable, and some not. Will flickr these as the canadian family can look and see if they can identify themselves [well, their parents/grandparents] in grans.

i then thought how poor my keepsakes will be. I have both too much and too little.

was great, but no blogging facility in my brain. Hopefully Chris will do it.

here are the photos.

actually, we are probably both not feeling very bloggish, so while SB does jump ahead maths on the other computer, I’ll do a quick blog for posterity.

I loved all of it, there were no bad moments - wellllll, OK, I WAS a bit stressed before my craft as sure it would be a failure, and when an eager beaver child knocked a whole cup of plaster of paris over me I DID have to take some deep breaths! And I guess BB’s constant desire to run away as fast as possible, or lean throuh bridge to see ducks did get a bit much…

There wasn’t enough time, and inertia stopped me from actually being good enough to explore hookups, even though friends there that I wanted to chat to more [sorry]. And to be honest, my life so spiralling out of control at the moment, the opportunity to sit and let it wash around me was very tempting at times.
however, I was really happy to have put behind shyness to introduce new people [though not very good at it!] I loved meeting them too, as don’t want camp to become cliquey - although when you see people you know the temptation is to catch up on life and everything!

i think the crafts worked really well, getting everyone to hook up and have a good reason to say hello and chat. Although no sandcastles made, the beach expedition too was good for non-stressful meeting and socialising, and getting the children all together.

SB was much more into doing the crafts this year as well, so not me doing it by proxy. SB and Big concentrated so hard on their felting - though i do think there was a bit of pride in who stabbed themselves the most! SB made a great basket, and I made a lid for it.

I was proud of SB for learning to make compromises with her friends, and giggled at her hero worship of violet [who bought her a slinky] and her resilience when violet prefered to play sometimes with the older kids. Though also giggle at the various slaves games initiated - i think - by violet.

the africa alive trip was fun - though wouldn’t hand around to see the lions fed again! Enjoyed the swimming - i love swimming! weather was mostly great.

SB danced and sang at the caberet - though BB didn’t. And all children worthy of claps and cheers. Both my girls appeared to have a fantastic time, enjoying the increased freedom of camp, and SB was fairly responisble about it [well, mostly!] playing with a mixture of children and minimal grumps.

Also great was the last minute suggestion by Merry that why not stay another day and go to the beach in lowestoft - why not indeed?

So a perfect week indeed, and now am over initial brain stopping panic of where my life may be going, i can look back on it and think fantastic again.

Life at work goes from worse to, well, thoroughly awful. It looks like there are going to be redundancies. I am last in…

O today I chilled. After all, if the worst is going to happen, worrying about it for the 6 or so months before I know, will just make them that much harder, and not actually make it any easier then.

SB spent half of the day doing jump ahead maths - its the easy one, and she is desperate to get to the giants birthday, as she gets it to 90 odd candles, and then the computer goes funy and the hard drive replaced etc etc, and she has to start again. So today she got 50 of the 100 candles. [reminds me a lot of me on games such as civ…!] Anyway, well impressed by her ability to stick to a task!

other than that, we were mostly playing in the garden.

I did get to play a lot with BB so we read, shape sorted, ran, cuddled, tickles, and whatever else a mummy and an 18 monther could think of! As Chris mentioned, her continuous monologue on the world is rather cute.

oh, and I think our bees swarmed again. there was a huge buzzing noise, and a veritable ball of bees flying near the chimney, so I tooke the 2 girls in, and got distracted, so I think the main lot must have flown off before I got back out a couple of hours later - so the photos are of perhaps the remainder going back in? there has been a lot of flying activity, and also a fair number of bees dying on the lawn, so i wondered whether it was a swarm or a mating flight??? i just don’t know that much about bees. There’s still a lot of bee milling about going on anyway. They arrived May 9th last year

websiteasgraph phblogOriginally uploaded by Scrumbledelicious.

as seen first on Sarah’s blog

and yes, I did do the garden blog too!

And so says Butterbean, or some such thing anyway, endlessy throughout the day. I love toddler pre-speech (well more than the odd real word) babble, it seems so full of meaning for them - as they point and wave at something, or give you something and then chatter away. No doubt about when she want’s you to read a book as she plonks it on your lap and says ‘book’ repeatedly Her fave as the moment is Ten Little Ladybirds which she seems to BE endlessy dragging around, followed by That’s not my dinosaur . We were reading this earlier this morning and she was rather cutely getting my hand and putting it onto the textured bits to feel them

Monday we went to the monthly sports session for one of the Home Ed groups, which Stringbean seems to enjoy. It’s only an hour, and starts at 9.30, which given it’s a fair journey for us, means a prompt start, but just about made it in time. We never leave in hurry though, SB likes to have play afterwards with other children, and i’m happy to sit and drink tea and natter so it makes the journey sem more worthwile anyway. So by the time we got back home, stopping for a bit of shopping) and had lunch and BB had settled down for her nap it was well into the afternoon.

Can’t really remember what else we did then - SB did some of the old DK World Explorer CDROM we have ‘New Version two - fully updated for 1998…….’, She needs a bit of help with where the places she needs to look for are, so it is probbaly helping her learn the continents etc.

Sspent some time in the garden, SB investigated the pond with a net we found - she was trying to catch the ‘pond monster’,

but when Helen got home from work she came bearing gifts of a couple of water pistols, so we all had good fun trying them out in the garden in the sun.

Had the Panner that SB and Helen made for tea in a curry. It wasn’t quite firm enough to fry, as it just melted and started to stick tot he pan, but was nice pooped intot he curry at the end, though did start to fall part then. Probably need to be pressed with a lot more pressure to make it firmer.
Yesterday was an long one for all concerned, SB was awake, waking up Helen before 5 am, BB was awake again (after waking at 3 ish) at about 5.30, neither really went back to sleep and me and the girls were all up early. Not good start when you are going to have a long day and possibly night at work

Did mean i had two lots of washing on the line by about 8 though.

Library day/storytime today, so morning passed in breakfast, some reading of the library books some tidying up, watching a bit of the kiddies Springwatch on CBeebies. Off to the library - they both took Teddies there for soem reason, so both looked cute/funny carrying these teddies up the road, nice that BB is giood enough at walking places now that she can just trot along with us and doesn’t need a carry (to short a journey for the pushchair). Tried to get soem books out for Helen, but not sure how successful that was really, at the same time BB was going round pulling books of shelves (just such a handy height you know…) and re-arranging them. SB wanted to choose a couple of books, so not quite sure what she choose or on what criterion.

After that, lunch - including more Little Toe Radio Show, napping BB, some Explode the Code, some more of the World Explorer CD, I’d cooked loads of beans earlier, so made some up into a nice Bean Salad to go with dinner later. finally managed to get the playroom back into some sort of order, havng been a mess for days, read some of the library books, played out side for a bit, went to swimming lessons

(via a shop, got to the checkout and didn’t ahve my cards, so could only pay for little bit of what I’d got….. Very grumpy woman had to take all my stuff off and put in a trolley to put back on the shelves- yeah like I really wanted to waste my time getting a load of stuff and then not being able to buy it….)

- SB insisted that we watch the circuit trainers for bit afterwards - not sure why they are so interesting, home again, dinner finshed and eaten. I dozed off when putting each of the children to bed, and was dozing off again when H finally got home at about 10.30 . so evening was a bit of right off.

So of course we went to bed at about 1am….

sitting in garden with laughing children running about - ahhhhhhh.

thats mostly what we did. SB did some computer games and the whole of the new webland as well. She helped me plant out the runner beans - as did BB. Hands off to those of you who regularly garden with two such avid helpers! mostly she climbed, swinged and jumped. we played a lot of hide and seek together - BB usually gives my hiding place away though! Chris found the very old pop up tent and tunnel - so a lot of fun with that. Oh, and we read half of the usbourne greek myths book.

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SB and I had a practice run at our Kessingland craft - see below and leave feedback.

IMG 5180Our paneer has worked well, and plan to eat it tomorrow - we were too tired to cook anything inventive this evening.

IMG 5176BB is singing and doing the actions - she likes twinkle twinkle, wind the bobbin and peter perkins
We have a ‘pond monster’ It was flailing in the shallow muddy bit, and I went to investigate - i could only see the tail end, which seemed long for a fish, and wrong shaped - @ small eelish? broen coloured. disappeared fairly sharpish, but don’t think long enough for eel - I wonder what it is? Maybe its the culprit for the declining goldfish numbers?

is rapidly undergoing a rethink. Polyfilla taking ages to harden being thought 1 - so prob plaster of paris instead. It looks nice tinted, so will bring some paint for colouring. Making a mould out of playdough [whether home made or not] was not something SB skilled at. took me ages to get her to understand, she pressed things in half heartedly, and then wailed she wanted to stick shells in the top - so prob not doing that. [i want something relaltively simple as a number of the crafts are definitely with a fair bit of adult help/supervision.]

IMG 5113So, at present polyfilla is in margarine tubs [have piccies will flickr] Sb found it easy to mix the water and paint in, and then stick shells in without me doing anythng at all. She enjoyed it. As I said, polytfilla taking a while to dry out much!

So I think this is what I’m going to do - bring plaster of paris and apint and stirring things. Suggest people bring a margarine tub or 2, and collect shells/stones from the beach and bring them. It might be as cheap as 50p a tub.

if enough fo you think your children would prefer making moulds then either I can bring playdough and charge a bit more [or alike] or you can bring it.

thoughts please?