T-Bird Anni Rides Again

I’m planning on getting bak to "school" on Monday, the kids all go back next week so ti seem s a good time to start back here too.  We are launching into SL Core 1 this time, I looked at it this time last year but decided taht we could pad out "K" as it was called (now Core C i think) for another year to give her reading a chance.

So, we have all the core books. 

I have replaced the supplied Bible study book with something more our style (the one supplied was just a bit, um, well, not sure how to explain it really, just not "us" I suppose!) 

We ahve the Science kit all ready to go (plus extras, we still like to play with some of the K science bits!) 

We have all the reading books poised and ready… but we aren’t ready for them.  I’m not using their learning to read stuff, we’ve tried, it’s just too many words to a page.  However I am going to really, really plug away at the MFW phonics stuff which is really gentle and seems to be helping, along with the Reading A-Z stuff which comes in and out of favour.  The RAZ stuff has puzzle sheets for each book which she likes so I’m calling that our "Literacy".

She finished Early Bird Maths but I decided against MY Pals are Here as it’s a lot of money.  We have MEP but I need to trawl through taht and edit it a bit - it’s overly thorough, she doesn’t need that much repetition but if it’s there she will insist it needs doing.  We have Miquon which we play with sporadically but I think I would like to make our main books for a bit.  We have Wizard Whimstaff fora  bit of light releif! I’d like to add in something else colourful but have lost the bookmark and can’t remember what it was I’d linked to….

We need to do a bit of yoga or suchlikes as I know she enjoys a bit here and there but wails at the full "work out" - need to make some sort of flashcard system so she doesn’t feel the need to do a full video’s worth!  I know I need to do my yoga more - I’m getting all creaky in my old age and I’d like to keep her flexible if I can too!

On top of that I want to do a bit more music with her, we fell out of the routine of doing violin together and it seems a shame when it’s something she really wants to do and I enjoy doing taht we don’t!

 And finally… art and crafts!  She does loads of informal craft stuff but I wnt to get hold of Drawing wtih Children or similar and help her along a bit.  I think she would do more crafty stuff if it were more accessable so i need to work on keeping stuff esay for her to access but also on hleping her to clear it away afterwarsd (right  afterwareds not the next day…) so we get less damaged stuff.

Hmm, seems like I have a plan for the year…. can’t be having taht surely! 

I was informed today that the bloke who ripped off Duke earlier this year is trading again, under the same name as before.  Was told where he was trading from.  I said I already knew thanks and no I hadn’t already been up there  to extract money with menaces, I just couldn’t be bothered wasting any more time or effort on the little ****.  The person concerned then looked at me somewhat curiously and demanded "who are you and what have you done with Anni Cameron?"  Seems he expected me to go up there all guns blazing and not leave without the money Duke is owed.  But you know waht? I’m just sick of fighting Duke’s battles as well as my own.  He doesn’t owe me, I have no legal right to demand what it not owed to me and if Duke can’t be bothered then that’s his problem not mine.

having now had a crack at the braiding I saw at the weekend I wonder if it’s one of those things taht emerged independently in different parts of the world, it’s so simple I can’t see how it can’t have really.  I made a disc from cardboard, cut a lot of slits round the side and made a hole roughly in the middle (very roughly!)  Result is really rather impressive!  Here’s the disc from the top - it’s very simple, 2 sets of threads, idealy in 2 contrasting colours. 

Describing how to do it sounds really complicated so I’ve deleted that and I’ll try to photo-blog it over the weekend.  It’s very vrey easy to do.  here’s the braid as made by Aprilia after me showing her how to do it for less than 5 minutes (and that included the time it took to cut the threads!)

 It took her about half an hour to make that much braid so it’s fast as well as easy.  Perfect craft for small girls really!

She’s desperate for us to join a re enactment group now so she can sit with me in period dress making braid and play acting at being from a different time.  Specifically she wants us all to join the Sealed Knot who only do Civil War stuff.  Not sure on that one, it’s a lot of money to then need to travel up and down the country to sit in fields making braid! 

Several weeks after starting to clean the evidence of camp off the Hobbit Hole it’s finally all packed back into the bag and stowed away.  I’m vaguely concerned that the poles for the main dome can now be bent without doing myself an injury, I’m hoping this is just because they are getting used to being bent rather than because they are about to go twang….. was nice to be able to put it up on my own wtihout collapsing in a sobbing frustrated heap though.

Still not started the essay, I’ve misplaced my specs which is making trawling through the texts a bit hard (I’ve got the PC screen far enough away that I can focus on it….. I don’t need specs, just VERY LONG ARMS! )

Tired and grumpy sort of day today so I’m off to bed now (yes, now, as in before 10pm FFS!!!) in the hopes of better mood in teh morning.  Nighty Night! 

there used to be enough hours in the day for me to do everything i needed to do.  And i had the energy to do them all too.  Wonder when it all started to slip?

The tent is still in the bath, although it’s much lighter now so will probably be safe to lug down the stairs tomorrow and pitch up to finish drying   Turning it to expose more soggy bits periodically seems to have been working!

My essay is still unwritten.  I’m formulating a plan to write about anything that will fit in with part 3 of my exam and just nod in passing at Byron, not exactly what the question asks for but then if she gives me a big fat zero my overall coursework average (OCAS) will still be 71% so does it matter (well, yes, obviously it does because I can’t work like that but…)

Got lots of washing done today, most of which is now dry and in heaps round the kitchen and stairs waiting for me to sort.  Somehow the washing always grinds to a halt at this point!

Dumped loads of clothes at the charity shop this morning - Aprilia seems to have grown out of everything all at once and we emptied out her cupboard the other week of everything that was getting small, leaving her with about 5 outfits that still fit.  Ah well, Asda do cheap clothes….  

 And somehow that took all day.  How I hvae no idea but it did.  How do people find time to work?

Think twice before using wash-in waterproofing on a large tent…..  That stuff you have to paint on, rub in and leave to dry may sound like a lot of work but it can’t be much worse than bathing several miles of "canvass"

Tiny Tent is thoroughly waterproofed now so hopefully won’t "sweat" if it’s really wet next time, took minutes to dry outside - most of teh water just sheeted off as I lifted it out of the bath which I consider bodes well for water resistance!

Hobbit hole is still in the bath laughing at me   It took huge amounts of effort to wash and re-proof it because that much fabric is just so damned heavy when it’s wet and got tangled round itself very effectively.  I’m resorting to just pulling it about every half hour or so to expose a different bit of fabric to the air in the hopes of getting most of the water out before I attempt to get it downstairs let alone outside and pitched to finish drying!  Aprilia wanted me to take a picture of the washing water (I washed it before proofing it) but I thought some of you may be eating whilst browsing and it could have put you off!

Have really struggled to stay awake today and I’m planning on a *really* early crash out and a more awake day tomorrow.  I do still have that **** TMA to write after all (and 2 weeks to write it) 

you would think really that by my age i’d have learned?  yesterday the sun shone and I was outside for a good chunk of the day in a sleeveless top.   usually wear teeshirts taht cover my arms down to my elbows, but yesterday I didn’t.  i now have a nice (not!) bright red band reaching from my shoulders down to just above my elbows on both arms.  Wouldn’t mind but I have sunscreen in the car, I just forgot to put it on

It made getting comfy lsat night very, very hard as my overalls kept rubbing winge moan grump….. 

fantastic day out at the re enactment today, still no idea who won though (oops, that’s one to ask Duke then…) Lots of men dressed up and pretending to fight each other, some death throes worthy of Oscars, gunpowder going bang all over the place and a finalee of a whole line of them "charging" the spectators wtih full battle cry - very startling even if I did know it was all in jest - those pike look serious when they are pointed right at you!

Had a bit of trouble explaining to Aprilia why both "sides" were English troops but was rescued by one of the Sealed Knotters who explained pretty well what was going on without missing a beat from her braid-making. 

Took some pictures but my camera is really not up to much in really bright sunlight (or rather I don’t know how to override the general setting to set it up properly for really bright sunlight!) so nothing much to show for it sadly.  They are all here if you want to look at them though.

I did come away with several craft ideas including Lucet braid making and another form of braid which a net search seems to suggest is far from 16th Century European but more like Oriental in origin although she was using a wooden disk not a poly one.  There was also Stick Weaving which I thought I could sacrifice a set of double point needles to have a go at and she was rather excited to have had a go at writing wtih a real quill - I am so glad pens have come on from then….

Off for the 3rd and final night in a few minutes, still faintly smelling of woodsmoke but I’m sure no one will mind! 

had one of those pleasant sorts of days that just slide by gently.  Wandered over to MILs for lunch then to garden centre on teh way home to amble round the display gardens and enjoy the sensory garden (which sadly is not as lovely as it once was, doesn’t look like they are maintaining it properly but the plants are still fragrant adn all touchy feely)

Bought stuff to clean and re-proof the tent to keep it going for a few more years, there was a lovely tunnel tent there but to be fair, we really don’t need to replace the Hobbit Hole for a few more years, nice to know what the options look like though!  Never again will i buy a tent un-seen…. i genuinely didn’t think the Hobbit Hole was going to be THAT big! 

Off to Oulton in half an hour, hope there’s less ruccous than last night.  Very badly behaved punters last night - giving Security a hard time because they were too arrogant to read their paperwork and arrive in time but were furious that the gates were locked at the stated time.  They were trying to lift gates of hinges to get in….. these, incidentally, are classic car drivers so "glassy eyed Lords" in teh main and we get more trouble with them than all the hairy bikers combined.

Saw this article on TV this morning.  Basically it’s a scheme to provide children in teh developign world with PC access trhough robust, low energy laptops.  They are aiming for a cost of $100 each but so far it’s $170 which is still pretty good.  I can see the point of this sort of thing, not so much of "bringing these poor people into the 21st Century" etc but in helping them access services from remote places rather than having to go and access them elsewhere.  There are the "nay sayers" who have stated…

(quote from article) 

"The big priorities for all these countries need to be to get all children into schools in a manageable class size," said David Archer of Action Air International.

"That means employing more teachers and having some fundamentally basic materials in schools. I am afraid that putting laptops into the schools is not the first priority for these countries." 

(end quote)

To which I would point out taht paying for a teacher to travel to and live in a remote village in the middle of no-where is an expensive business. So is building the schoolhouse and all those books ad up very quickly (don’t we know it!!)  Obviously we could just patronisingly tell these poor uneducated dears to move to less remote places to access education or insist that their children travel miles evrey day to school.

How much better to supply the families in that village with these laptops through which they could access "school" by wi-fi with teachers living in a more central location and being able to provide their services much more easily and accessably to a lot more children.  Books provided in e-book format are a lot cheaper than printed material and don’t get dog-eared nerly so fast thus saving on replacing them every few years.  Typing and e-mailing a bit of homework requires no paper or pencils (and of course, the dog/monkey/pet pig can’t be blamed for eating it….)  So over the course of a couple of years the laptops would pay for themselves.

Okay so someone needs to teach the families how to use their new "toy" but knowing how quick your average child picks stuff up, the basics could be demonstrated by a handful of techs on decent salaries moving from place to place rather than the huge cost involved in putting sufficient people through teacher training then their salaries.

I like the idea…. can you tell?