The life and times of a couple of little beans......
You are currently browsing the monthly archive for October 2006.
Well, I guess it would make an interesting HE project:
How to make an LED rat throwie?
Note for the squeamish, this page does show shots of skinning and stuffing a rat etc.
I’m slighty disturbed by the thought that Stringbean would fine the whole process fascinating.
HT to Crunchgear
Friday
got home to find the kitchen table covered in Fimo - had to explain to SB it was expensive, and stamped out houses and butterflies in the future would be done in playdough… lovely pig and mouse though modelled.
They had also been to another home educator in the morning for a playdate and to bake jam tarts.
Saturday
Basic explode the code and maths done. we are holding a while on adding and subtracting crossing a 10 until SB competently bored by it. She was so proud of her writing in explode the code that she asked me to take a picture of the page!
She spent ages on the latest webland - and that had a wild mushroom bit, so I got out our dried ones and looked at all their diff shapes, and also a nature book. This of course led me to make the mushroom risotto… We are prob going to go up to the webland 5-7 for a bit, and are still debating the education city. Oh for a bit more ready cash!
She coloured in a volcano page and we then looked a volcano book and then got distracted by the ‘universe‘ book we got from the book people. She’s getting good at UNO now. A fair bit of colouring in as well.
The rest of the day was spent playing outside and harvesting things, being ‘messed about’ - ie thrown up and around and using me and Chris as climbing frames.
BB and I played with the lego, did some pegboards and jigsaws, fuzzy felt and she really enjoys a good sing and dance, and also a tickle.
The evening ended with watching 2 epsiodes of ‘the trials of life‘ with david attenborough from the tesco’s rental [3 months for the price of 1 - not bad!]
Sunday
started of with very early cbbc dose, where i was requested to stay - aargh! BB brought me some toast though. both girsl did some playdough play after the glorious pancakes [second breakfast - turning into a hobbit!]
Out into the garden to enjoy the rays of sun when we get them. I did some pruning/hacking back whilst BB and SB ran about. SB did then help me with some de-ivying. Horrid job, spiders, dirt, dust and woodlice. SB enjoyed the woodlice though.
Lunch and BB having a nap and SB doing maths. Dding 10’s onto things - so easier than crossing the 10. Having basic conversations in French at the moment to spark an interest in learning. Still feeling we should be doing more with languages and music. [and perhaps even something!]. BB still napping so have struggled over origami and now we are jointly making up a story and enacting it with the origami animals.
BB awoke and the mayhem began! SB decided not to bake and went out to play, so i baked cookies with BB. When SB realised [despite being told] there was a mega wailing session, which didn’t really end, so she was quietened down with explode the code - I know, mean of me. BB and I jigsawed, built towers and steps with bricks, and then they both wailed! So I read some stories, and then popped them in the bath whilst Chris cooked tea.
om our return, Sb insisted on doing a bit more maths. then tea, and now she is screeching now into my ear for going up to bed, so so be it!
They were all lazing around in the lounge, Helen enjoying (…?) Sunday morning kiddie TV, Butterbean had had some toast earlier, came back carrying plate and saying ‘toast’.
So she took a plate full back for her and Helen, quite cute really
And i’ve just made us all American style pancakes, which has gone down well. Greek yoghurt and Bannana on top was yummy.
I made a gorgeous mushroom risotto with dried wild mushrooms and chestnuts [not dried!] and parmesan cheese.
It smelled and tasted delicious.
unfortunately, when I became pregnant with BB I had to stop eating quorn as it brought on the most amazingly hideous stomach cramps that felt like labour of the stomach and lasted 4 hours [note to people we might be visiting - no quorn please!]. Had it 2ce and stopped then realising the common ingredient.
Now, last night almost as soon as I had finished the delicious repast, the same happend. Initially i presumed I had eaten a deadly mushroom [I don't ever overreact!], but as CHris seemed fine and stayed fine, and I had the 4 hour stomah labour, eased marginally by maximal doses of all the various antacids/proton pump inhibitors and gavisocn I could find, I presume the curse of quorn.
Aaarrgh I love wild mushrooms. hmmm. Can’t be the porcini ones though as I have them alot
way late blogging, but the host has been very variable so i hven’t had access either.
so in summary. we have done particularly well with butternut squash and the festival squash [or was it celebration?] and 1 courgett plant has been great, 1 ok and nothing from the other. the pumpkins don’t seem to have done anything at all. The festival squash has loved rampaging across a trellis that was supposed to have peas on it.
The sweetcorn was OK, but not brill, but have just harvested the now dried out strawberry popcorn sweetcorn, so will give that a go later on.
The runners have bean OK and a good crop of broad beans, given their late start, but nothing much from french beans and peas disasterous - but they did coincide with a lot of missed attention, so probably down to us.
the onions and shallot harvest was good, but the garlic non-existant - not sure what happened to that.
the brassicas are still doing well, as sequentially cropping. the romanescu is a particularly smelly plant, and since we placed in the fruit bed near the house, are garden has smelled of cabbages all summer, so won’t do that again! they have had both large and small cabbage white caterpillars. The younger daughter has happily called them snakes and fed as many as possible to the waiting goldfish in the pond - so organic control there.
Potatoes were put in late, and since no sign of blight yet are still growing, and we will do a harvest later.
We had a surprisingly good carrot harvest considering the overgrowth with weeds. Both daughters have been particularly happy with this, mainly eating them raw.
the figs had a good harvest, and we had a few fruit on this years planting apple [but didn’t let it do too much so establishes. Ditto strawberries. the grapes on our vine are just ready to harvest, and we are harvesting bunches as we use them.
care of the greenhouse could def be better, so no aubergines, few chillis but did get some toms.
A lot of things suffered due to pressures at work really, and these aren’t likely to let of much next year. I think we will concetrate on just a few things next year, and half the patch perhaps, covering the rest wiht cardboard to minimise weeds.
pictures to follow
OK, should have used silver for iron rather than bronze, and when Mrerry supplied her book I realised tht it wasn’t actually perfect, but hey, I can cope with imperfection [not!]
SB sis maths before we went and got excited by crustal kit purchase from ecay.
once there much racing around of children and a small bit of fimo. Much fimo by adults with negligible racing around. Must upload some pics.
BB had sudden fall apart predipitating our departure. She has a cold and earache.is now calpoled and nurofened and wailing/ feeding and sleeping in short bursts.
have left handbag at merry’s which has all my work stuff in it, so chris will have to go and collect it and then drop it off - aaarrgh
we have bought some and made stuff. It is fab!
maily to catch up on blogging as we are well behind on flickr!
SB had CHEF sports and a romp in the park with friends today [chris can elaborate?]
I got home from work early while chris went to dentists. SB did explode the code 4 whilst BB used me as climbing frmae and trampoline - nice! She also had fun with a generic builder kit toy, particularly the hammering - ouch! Chris came back, and I retired for a short nap before dinner having take some migraine tablets, SB I think did some maths.
After dinner/bathes, we explored my naughty book people order. SB was very taken by this atlas, and looked through it whilst I plaed with BB, and the we read this roman flap book together, which had been the real reason for the order. As predicted SB loved it. romans and flaps, what more can a girl ask for [she has the castle one already!]. She also impressed me by trying to read some of the flaps [after I had, so very scaffolded, but a definate interest in reading now]
So we were late to bed. For the last week when at home I have been reading poetry to her [at her request] as bedtime stories. We have now finished the book, so wonder what she’s going to go for next! Oh, and we ended the day with an ebay purchase of an abridged story tape of the railway children, which she very much liked. I have the book somewhere!
as already mentioned by Nic, we have been down to Sussex and back. SB has been reading about the Romans a fair bit, and so, remebering Fishbourne Palace from a school trip, we decided to go camping in chichester. And yes, we did get there!
Thursday
An early start meant we got to Fishbourne Roman Palace in time for an early lunch before the school trippers, and then could get to the museum part whilst they were lunching. Sb really enjoyed it. She looks with massive concentration at everything, so we can’t do things quickly any more, we looked at every artefact, read every label and discussed everything. Of course BB went wild over this! Chris took her for a run about.
We then went into the Northwing of the palace and looked at the mosaics. Having recently buillt a paper town house, SB good remember a few of the names, and also compare the palace with a standard small villa. Also, the city through time has been read a fair amount, and a few books about romans we have around [though not there with SOTW yet]. There is a centre bit for children to do rubbings of roman coins and tiles, and also make mosiacs etc. The gentleman in there called us over, as he had been watching us and said how well behaved and good and interested SB had seemed to be compared to the school children [proud mummy moment - of course,had she been in a group of 5 home-ed friends with only one parent, she would probably have been as noisy and running about as the 6-8 year olds]. Anyway, we got the bit to ourselves for a bit, and SB rubbed some coins ant tiles, and put some roman pots into the right categories [real roman too, so she was impressed - but it feels like todays pots!] She was confidently identifying samian ware anyway [though by today has no doubt forgotten]. She spent ages doing a mosiac with those plastic cuboids you stick in holes [there was one at melrose one year? proabably Sarah's] and when another boy asked if he could have a go too, confidently directed him and his friend as to how to do the pattern.Another bit of boasting, but more cos it was fun, is that there was a match up todays and ancient roman itmes pairs game. We were about to start this, and a mother of a school group came with a daughter and just took over [so I was grumped] but got the first 2 wrong, and SB corrected her. SB had remebered the oil and scraper [even calling it a strigil] to clean with [courtesy of the city through time series] and that sponges on sticks wiped bottoms [though neither of us know what they were called!]
we discussed pulleys and levers again at the roman lifting device., and then as we went out into the walk around the garden, announced she would be the roman lady in the peristyle [the previous mum was close by and nearly died] I have to say though that today SB couldn’t name a peristyle, but instead the triclinium so its swings and roundabouts, and I don’t imagine she will remember any of these words for long, its just a flavouring to learning about and hearing about romans.
where were we, oh a run about the garden, joining up with BB and ghris and then a mosey around the shop. I bought some books for half price, SB bought some colour in roman sheets and a multi colour pencil thingy - the one where you have to push the plastic bits out and pop them back in the top to get the next colour. She lost one in the car 30 mins later!
tent up, SB scootering and playing around wHile it tipped it down. She did some colouring in of her pictures too. nice flat site and minimal wind so OK. Dinner cooked and girls to bed, shortly followed by parents! I got about 6 million mosquito bites in 30 secs [only slight exaggeration] and SB got one on her forehead that blew up and gives her an ‘unusual’ look for all our photos subesquently!
?Friday
The next day we got up bright and early, after a very poor might with BB [she can smell the milk at that close a proximity] but still were much later to Nic’s than we intended. The children had great fun, dressed up and ran about. we gossiped and were ably catered for. Had the added bonus of Lucy being there as well, and reassure her that Melrose not that scary, but she needed to bake!!!!!! [well, ok, not necessary, but very nice] We stayed much later than planned as well, and only just got back in time to the campsite before gate closure. girls asleep, but another dreadful night.
?Saturday
SB played with a cheap optics kit I got from the one stop shop across the road, and made a perisocpe, played with the mirror bits, and looked at the various supplied pictures with paddles of different colours, and then ones that diffracted the light wierdly. She enjoyed it, we did a bit of tlak about light, but mostly made each other look wierd through the difractor thingy!
We had been going to go to arundel castle, but Ady and Nic persuaded us that the tariff was extortionate, and Ady sang the praises of chichester walls and cathedral and market. So we went there instead. We did enjoy going round the walls, SB pointed out there were no arrow slits and we discussed lack of them and crenellations etc. There was a good playpark, so we ran down to that and had a good play, and then a picnic a bit later on. SB now can proudly do that monkey swinging thing. I have never been able to do it, so my 5 year old has now surpassed me [before sniggering, I was thin until I met chris!]
As we walked past the cathedral, she decided to visit that, since we had planned to anyway… Its very nice and welcoming, whoever he is in the red cloak gave us a leaflet, and a child’s one for SB, and we were off. In true form, we had to read and look at absolutely everything, so BB and Chris had a running break outside! She was particularly taken by the chapel for the royal sussex regiment, full of poppies, so we discussed the wars and the meaning of the poppies. We looked at the various bishop’s tombs, at his ‘crown’ crook and dog or lion at his feet. [hmm, I am a bit low on the religious symbols here. home ed for me before another cathedral visit!] She liked the kings portraits, but we were bored [yep me too] by a kindly old lady going on about how they had rebuilt part of it. A small talk would have been welcomed, and we looked polite, but probably too much so, and I find it difficult to edge away. SO I allowed SB a bit more leeway in investigating the choir stalls, and lying on the floor to look at windows and ceiling arches than I might otherwise have done. And having done it, it didn’t seem at all irreverant, just a child wanting to see, so i’ll let her do it again.
the cathedral has a lovely cafe BTW, we treated ourselves to a coffee and cake as had had a picnic lunch. it has a nice garden for running about children, where other children were also running about.
Went through the market and only bought olives - so not too bad! We went to the beach at East wittering, must have been high tide, and pebbly. Huge waves and surfers out there. SB wants to surf one day. BB flaked out in car, so CHris and I took turns to watch her [have some peace]
For a change, I tried a sort of camping mexican, and it worked really well. the tortillas are easier than rice to do, so another one pot meal to my repertoire! And very quick. SB, BB and Chris went for a walk to explore while I did this, so 20 mins of pleace - bliss! We read one of the roman books as bedtime story [her choice]
Sunday?
on our last day [after another awful night!] we went to the weald and downland open air museum. absolutely fantastic. we were there about 5 hours, and didn’t get round it all. There were various enactors and workers. SB as always fascinated by the smithy, and the lovely chap there talked to her sensibly about horse shoes and smithying. It was the herb weekend, so quite a bit on strewing herbs, washing herbs and recipes, herbal remedies and cooking herbs about the place. SB loved exploring, and talks more to the enactors now, and BB loved the clmbering up and down steps and looking out of windows. SB bought henry the 8th’s ring in the shop, so is very happy! its too big though.
Dreadfull drive home…
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