Last minute table decorations, rag-rugging, Christmas 'stocking' decorating, the Christmas tree, and other December activities

Just time for some last-minute making of table decorations.

During a quick trip to the local park this morning we - er - "borrow" some holly, leylandii and ivy.

Using a potato as a base (instead of florist's foam) the potato is wrapped in foil. The kids use a barbecue skewer to make holes before poking in the greenery.

Some garden wire and bows made of leftover ribbon give it a more professional look.

While scrabbling around in the loft I re-discovered some rag-rugging attempts.

This week the kids have started their own rag rugs. These will probably end up in the loft after Christmas, but perhaps one day they'll be finished.

In the afternoon the kids decide to decorate small hessian onion bags with felt and ribbon shapes to make Christmas 'stockings'.

And yesterday we celebrated ds1's 14th birthday. No photos allowed on here (by his request. Where did my little boy go? ;)


In the past week or two...

Dd decides to make a cat tile to go with our others that reappeared during our pre-Christmas tidy up.

We sow cress, mustard, broccoli and alfalfa sprouting.

The Christmas tree gets decorated

Ds1 makes this year's Christmas cake. Now marzipanned, but still to be iced.

The kids open some discounted body parts (models)

Intestine-man causes some problems, but eventually we jam in all his internal organs and shut them in with his ribs. (No doubt at some time in the near future his ribs will give way and fire his guts across the room).

More microscopy

And at the beginning of December, a Christmas fencing team competition

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)

 

Life after price comparison websites and contract surfing

Ds2 spent the afternoon painting Warhammer, while I wrestled with price comparison websites trying to fix us a better phone/broadband and electricity/gas contract.

Three hours later, square-eyed and comparisoned-out, I think I might have sorted it.

Over the years with TalkTalk we have had numerous bizarre phone conversations in that loud monosyllabic voice that we English adopt when we can't understand someone's accent. Even the simple task of asking TalkTalk staff the most basic of questions (NO-I-DONT-WANT-TO-UPGRADE-I-WANT-TO-KNOW-WHY-YOU'VE-STOPPED-MY-INTERNET-CONNECTION) felt like Livingstone trying to swap underpants for frog poison with some obscure tribe who have never encountered people from the outside world. (YOU-GIVE-ME-INTERNET-CONNECTION-I-GIVE-YOU-MARMITE. EH? MARMITE. M-A-R-M-I-T-E. YOU'LL LOVE IT.)

I thought I'd never say it, (I don't like to feel that I'm a failure at multicultural communication),  but I am looking forward to a provider with a UK-based call centre.

So, this post, apart from documenting the ordinari-nari-ness of our day, is also a sort-of prior warning.

If I don't blog for a while, it may mean that my contract-swapping has all gone belly up.

Most likely it will mean that the guy at  the UK call centre with the lovely Glaswegian accent couldn't get the wee woman on the phone to understand a word, and that I'm without internet access. [btw it is common knowledge that it's useless anyone north of Milton Keynes trying to communicate with us over-anglicised southerners.]

[Apart from that, this was our day:
 
The usual chores, then 'tick-box' stuff from their folders, chemistry reading, touch-typing, blah blah. Then to the interesting stuff: dd made chocolate cookies, while ds1 made microwaved steamed pudding (that was his breakfast) and did some drumming and guitar. Then, some time in the garden, and ds1 off to IGCSE geography, picking up dd's friends on route. Dd and friends playing for the rest of the day. Then dinner and ds2 to scouts...etc etc.]

Browsing blogs, I saw a lovely post A Moment in our World  for making quick pencil cases.  The original instructions for making the pencil roll are here on the My Poppet blog.

We have rather a lot of random bits of material and I need to find some genuine uses for it, apart from its current employment as loft insulation.

And what else...

...has been happening with the children for the past few weeks (apart from all the art!)

Ds1 plays drums at Rock School for a week. (The staff praised him on his talent and were gobsmacked he'd never had any lessons - just a teeny proud mum moment :) ). Meanwhile ds2 went rollerblading in the local park, and dd went for playdates with her friends.

We go to a local festival, held at a large allotment. Dd stays at the festival with friends for the rest of the day, while we made our way home.

We pick courgettes from the garden. (Note the closeness of the yellow football. Plants in our garden have to be hardy to survive!)

Ds1 continues with his IGCSE chemistry and Geography reading

  Blackberry picking, to make crumble and wine.

Ds2 empties the counties' libraries of books about manga. Then teaches himself.

He makes a short list of equipment he needs to do animation 'old school', then goes onto the internet to do a price comparison.

 Ds2 decides he wants to make shortbread.

We move paving slabs to make a base for the new chicken coop that we're making out of a packing case that was being thrown out (our 10 hens need more space).

 And discover a huge ants' nest:

 Lots of reading - Guinness World Records, British History, The Aztecs, and a 4-inch tome called "3D Game Development"...

Lots of talk and plans for the kids' new Minecraft server:

 Thoughts on design:

We took down our posters and information about Australia and New Zealand:

 And replaced them with posters on space and art:

We started a chart of moon phases. The moon decided to hide behind cloud for the next three nights :)

The children caught flies and fed them to the garden spiders, overcoming their fear of spiders and experimenting with size and type of fly.

We walked to the park intending to pick blackberries. But came home with elderberries for wine.

 Swimming in the lake (bit chilly, but fine once we got over the initial shock!)

And catching crayfish

Ds2 took the screwdriver to the waterpistol to try to fix it.

Wine, all bottled up and fermenting happily under the piano.

Dd and I have a discussion about wine-making, fermentation, yeast, gas and the similarities with the chemistry of bread baking. So that's chemistry, biology, self-sufficiency and home economics in one 5-minute conversation.

Dd continues on her reading journey. Having finally decided she wanted to learn to read (or at least was willing to give it a go), in a matter of weeks she has gone from simple words like cat and bed to reading words like 'couldn't' and 'everyone'. She seems to have an excellent memory for sight-recognition of words, less tendency I think towards phonics deciphering. Each of my children has been different and found their own combination of what works for them. I haven't been teaching her. I just sit with her while she reads. She'll do it at her own pace when she wants to. Being, at the peak of "reading readiness" (which she, herself, has recognised) I expect there'll be no stopping her now.