Smoothies and other recent activities

Today, somewhen in between watching Supermarket Sweep ( boy did that bring back memories!) and Jamie's (probably not) 15 minute meals on TV the idea suddenly came to us to make smoothies. So we hauled out the 3-yr old frozen raspberries from the bottom of the freezer and bought yoghurt from our favourite corner shop.

Lots of sugar later, plus addition of some very pippy blackberries (this year's), a glug of milk and a couple of unripe bananas, and we had something resembling a spontaneous smoothy. Not quite Jamie's 15 minute meal, but good enough.

Meanwhile other things have been going on. We (sis and I) cleaned the bird table and seed holders and tried to mend the table  roof with a bit of brush fence and a staple gun. It's been months and months since we last fed them, so it may take more than a wonky new roof and dried mealworms to tempt them back from the neighbours' gardens.

Ds1 has now finished all his archaeology for the year. His last mission was a geophysical survey of a local park in sub- zero temperatures. I guess he's still keen. The group leader said he was 'welcome back anytime', which could be because there aren't many adult volunteers willing to freeze their wotsits off in a field for no apparent recompense.

There could, however, be an alternative reason. The leader did comment:

 'I've taught some very uninterested undergrads and it's a pleasure to find someone keen and who asks sensible questions'

( a small SMUG HOME EDUCATOR MOTHER moment to add to the collection).

Over the past few eeks dd has spent a little more time on her bat lapbook. I did say to her that simply printing out photos from Google was all very well, but how about actually doing some of the bat information content of the lapbook? We arrived at something I'd like to call a compromise. Some might call it a mother's too knackered to argue solution.

The boys have started Conquer Maths (have I mentioned that before?) All seems to be going smoothly. Ds2 discovered that there is a very good reason why you should do the different sections in order when he unexpectedly encountered algebra in the geometry section.

Ds1 is still plodding through IGCSE Geography and Chemistry. The former is proving the most difficult of the two due to his general 'dyslexic' tendencies. We are encountering difficulties that I had not foreseen and that seem, so far, impossible to work around. I'll be writing a separate post about this in the near future.

Spurned on by me browsing USB microscopes and wondering if we can afford them, dh got out our microscope.  He'd neglected to inform me he'd fixed the light on it 18 months ago (I'd been waiting all that time, not daring to nag about yet another thing that needed 'fixing'.) Anyhow, he found a way to fix the web cam to the microscope so we could get a picture on the pc. It needs to be refined, but it looks cool :)

Dd has received a package from her new penfriend in Israel. The package contained lots of sweets which was dd's idea of a perfect delivery! We're yet to receive a package from the recipients of our last worldwide culture swap ( a mini winter swap) but hopefully it will arrive soon.

And now, onwards to Christmas!
(Our first sprinkling of snow, last week)