Getting outside.

On Sunday we met up with friends at Chatsworth.  There were three families, with six children (three boys, O, N & A and three girls, K, M & E) ranging from K, at 9.5 to nearly 5 year old A.  We started off in the very good adventure playground, where the children got reacquainted and, in the case of E in particular and M to a lesser extent, rather muddy.  After lunch, the occasional light showery flurries were threatening to get worse, so we went into the house, where the children looked for the Easter eggs, which were hidden around the place.  We didn't exactly linger in the house and pretty soon we had headed out into the very extensive garden.  More boisterous fun was had and the mums and kids all eventually (it really did take rather a long time!) found our way to the middle of the maze, which the dads lounged in deck chairs and chatted (and in A's case fell asleep!).

This morning, as well as some tidying, so I could do some hoovering, I continued reading Anne of Green Gables.  It's not going to be long before we will be watching my dvd as we're probably about 2/3 of the way through already!  K & M both also wrote a couple of thank you's for Easter eggs to send to their Great Auntie A and Nana and Little Grandad, along with one for our neighbours across the road, an elderly couple who always give them something at Easter and Christmas.  We stopped and had a chat when we delivered them on our way out.

This afternoon we finally did what M's been asking to do and complaining that we haven't done for ages, that is go to the park!  They took their skipping ropes, as well as playing in the playground and around the park.  I had a nice chat with a mum who used to come regularly to LLL meetings, who lives just down the road.  K & M ended up playing football with her two boys, who are a bit younger than them. 

We popped to the library before coming home for a rather rushed tea to make it to Brownies.  As it was the first meeting of a new term, which means a reshuffle of sixes as the older girls have moved on, K has now become a sixer. 

From one orphan to another.

It was not a good start to the day, a disagreement over a marble run escalated somewhat, the most obvious result of which was a black eye for K, having been hit in the face by something that M threw at her. 

The bruise has spread more under her eye since this photo!

After some time to calm down, during which I gave K her first lesson in cribbage, which she took to well, harmony was restored.  K & M decided that there was a good thing about having had a fight, as now they look much more like they've been in a battle for when they are being Tonks and Mad-Eye Moody when playing Harry Potter!

Harry Potter will be an on-going obsession for some time, that much is clear, and since I refused to start reading the whole series from the beginning, both K & M have started reading the books to themselves.  They were keen for me to read to them anyway, even if it wasn't Harry Potter, so today I started on a book that does have one very evident similarity, the eponymous hero/heroine being a orphan, but in pretty much every other aspect is very different.  It's one of my all time favourite books, that I have been looking forward to sharing with K & M.  It's Anne of Green Gables and I'm happy to say that so far they are loving it.  It's already provided some interesting topics for discussion, gender roles about a century ago for example, and it's great to see that both girls have already picked up on a couple of literary allusions (Shakespeare and Alice in Wonderland).  I'm not sure if we'll carry on with the whole of the series this time, as I think the subsequent books are better suited to an older audience than a 9 and nearly 8 year old, but we'll see.

Not just Potter - a bit of Dahl too!

This afternoon, was a bit of a rush at times.  We managed to squeeze in an hour of gymnastics, at which K & M both completed everything they need for Level 6 Proficiency Core Gymnastics (it goes from 8 to 1).  Then we dashed home with friends, who left their car here, before all heading off to the bus stop to go to town to see James and the Giant Peach.  There was much wand waving and spell casting en route, but everyone settled down nicely for the performance, which was excellent.  I think all of the eight cast played at least one instrument, often while dancing, the songs were great, as were the puppets.  The costumes were fantastic and there was just the right amount of audience participation.  All in all a great show.

The centipede.

Finally, I forgot to mention that while we were in Stratford, inspired by L (a HEing FB friend who is also in the throes of Harry Potter), I asked my girls about their patronuses (see under Expecto patronum).  K didn't know what her happy thought would be, but told me that her patronus takes the form of a pygmy marmoset.  M's happy thought was about hugging me and her patronus takes the form of a nit!!

Together again.

Well all went well with K's visit to Granny and Big Grandad, I'm happy to say, she had a lovely time.  Granny took her swimming one day and she did some colouring in the club house while Granny played bowls another.

M and I joined them on Sunday and in the afternoon we went into Stratford and went to Shakespeare's Birthplace again (our tickets to the 5 Shakespeare Trust properties last until early July and we have certainly been getting our money's worth!).  We also found somewhere else that both K & M want to return to, just a couple of doors away from the birthplace.

On Monday K, M & I went and had a mooch in the local charity shops, where K bought a furry monkey back pack for 75p.  Then M spent some money in the old fashioned sweet shop that is in the back of the card shop.  In the afternoon K, M & Granny swam while I sat and read my book.

Tuesday we got even more out of our Shakespeare properties ticket, first with a return visit (our 3rd I think) to Mary Arden's Farm.  We got there almost as soon as it opened at 10am and when we arrived at the farmhouse kitchen they were still lighting the fire, as they would have in Tudor times, which wasn't particularly easy!  The women were using a flint and charcloth (old worn out aprons, that have been sealed up in a tin and heated in the fire), but having problems, probably because the hearth fairies weren't happy with them.  We learned that the Tudors not only believed in fairies, but in the case of hearth fairies, tried to keep them happy, leaving food (a 'fairy cake'), ale and water for them to wash and linen to dry themselves every night.  Sometimes the offerings would have disappeared in the morning other times not and if the fairies were pleased then it would be easy to light and keep the fire going.  They were making lunch, which was pease pottage and griddle cakes.  I asked the girls if they fancied having a go at making and trying these and they said yes, so we'll have to see if they are still up for it when it comes to getting the ingredients.

Preparing the dinner.

Griddle cakes ready for cooking, plus some fairy cakes on the left.

Frying bacon for the pottage and cooking griddle cakes

Previously both K & M have always liked going round and looking at the animals, including watching the falconry display.  This time they did join in with the Easter Egg hunt (looking for hens' eggs for the kitchen), but apart from that they mostly wanted to stay in the kitchen, watching them cook and talking to them.  We had a quick lunch in the cafe there and then went to watch the Tudor dinner and learned about some of the rules of the time and there were many, as well as the origins of some of our expressions.  Pretty much anything with the word 'board' in it, such as bed and board and boardmeeting, date from Tudor times before the word table came along.

Serving dinner in strict order of importance.

After this we headed into to Stratford and went back to the Birthplace to say a quick hello to some of our old friends in the garden.  Then we went to the Creaky Cauldron, which is the place that K & M really wanted to go back to.  We had a hot chocolate and cake in the cafe behind the shop part (they serve butterbeer, but K & M decided not to go for that once we'd found out that it was fizzy).  Then paid to go upstairs in the 'attraction' part.  K & M liked most of it, but K found some of it far too scary.  It's obviously cashing in on the whole Harry Potter, magic thing, but was mostly pretty well done.  It lead to a discussion about trademarks, when the girls couldn't find Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans but something similarly named.  After a walk around town, we had one last visit to the Birthplace and, since it was not far off closing time and pretty quiet by now, we had a nice chat with some of the actors again.

K & M were invited to tea at Great Grandma's, which was, to quote K 'the treatiest tea they've ever had'!  They started off with tinned peaches and ice-cream, then had double chocolate cookies (which Grandma had won in a raffle!), Swiss roll, jaffa cakes and then some bread and honey!

This morning we managed to get packed up and away in time to get home for ice skating.  Then this afternoon, we watched a fairly dire adaptation of A Little Princess and we talked about how it was a bit like in Dumbledore's notes on The Tales of Beedle the Bard, which mention a highly sanitised version written by a witch for small children, which takes out anything that could be considered unpleasant and thereby loses the whole point in most ways.

Missing her big sister.

M has said on several occasions (particularly at bedtime) that she's lonely without K here and that she misses her.  I don't play right apparently, because I'm not good at imagination games.  When I asked M about her going to stay at Granny & Big Grandad's on her own, she said that she's not sure about going on her own, but that she'd really like to go with K.  I'm not sure if Granny's up for that though!

She did enjoy the Faraway Tree workshop at the library this morning though and came home with a some things she'd made, in the various lands they'd 'visited'.

A sweet tree from the Land of Sweets

A little toy train magnet from the Land of Toys

We also had a game of The Game of Life card game, which is something we haven't played for ages. (M won).

It's finally warmed up a bit, so A had some time in the garden and M went out there too.  There wasn't any really obvious place in the garden for the bee hotels, but M picked one of A's suggestions and he and I put it up for her.

A adding the second screw.

Ready for the bees to move in!

This evening M made me a present...

A little broomstick, Hufflepuff quidditch player and quidditch cup!

One down!

It's been a few days since my last post and we seem to have done rather a lot in that time!  A took a few days off work and on Wednesday, his last one before going back, he, K & M took me on my first go at geocaching.  We just went looking for a couple of very local ones, one successfully, one not (although I hadn't quite figured out the app on my phone, so hopefully we'll manage a bit better next time!).

On Wednesday evening K & I went to the ballet with friends, R & A.

A & K dressed up for the ballet!

It was Matthew Bourne's Sleeping Beauty.  It departed somewhat from the traditional story and at one point K, who was sitting 4 seats away from me, next to A, got really rather worried and several times whispered rather loudly "Is it going to be okay?!"  Fortunately it was, since as K says, she's okay with sad, scary things when she's prepared for them, but not if they're unexpected.  We all really enjoyed the evening, the production was fantastic and the costumes gorgeous.  I'd be happy to take K to the ballet again if she was keen to go, but it did confirm to me that ballet isn't really my thing.

Most of the activities that K & M do stop during school holidays, but the two that don't, gymnastics and swimming are both on Thursday, so we had a fairly busy afternoon.  One of the books that I'd ordered arrived - Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, so we had a bit of a look at that.

Today, K was up at 6.30am - I realise this may be the norm for some folks, but it really isn't normal here.  She was very excited about going to stay with Granny and Big Grandad for a couple of nights on her own for the first time and got up to pack.  Granny, Big Grandad and Uncle M all came for lunch and took K away with them shortly afterwards.

M and I had made plans, to soften the disappointment of being left behind (even though she knows that Granny and Big Grandad will be inviting her to stay on her own too).  We had a lovely afternoon with L & E, who have recently started HEing and who we met up with a month ago at a soft play place.  We'd been planning to meet up again before now, but unfortunately illness had got in the way.  We went together to Ferry Farm for the afternoon and had a lovely time.  M & E and a great time on the trampoline, the various obstacle courses (L & I had a go on some of these too) and in the soft play area.

We fed goats...

...and a llama (plus some donkeys).

We saw a *very* newborn lamb, so new that it was still wet.

And some slightly older triplets.

This mum had a bigger brood, but only one ventured out from under her.

Shortly before we came home (pretty much when they were about to close), there was a rather strange incident when a small boy came and asked me to help his mum, who was holding the tiny newborn lamb and which had slipped between the bars of the pen, but she was reluctant to put it back in the pen with the mother as she was stamping her feet rather a lot.  I took the lamb and quickly and quietly put it back in the pen with them mother, assuming (correctly as it turned out) that the mother was stamping at the woman rather than the lamb!

In other news, the seeds/beans that we planted at Asfordby a few weeks back are doing pretty well!  Unfortunately K's sunflower didn't make it, but M had lots and gave K one of hers.

M and K's sunflowers.

K's bean.

M's bean.

Busy bees!

Today was Fun Club and it was a cracker.  The theme was loosely based around the garden and there was plenty to do.  Something that had been agreed previously was that it would be good to have name badges, M did hers (with a picture of Mad Eye Moody, which is who she 'is' from Harry Potter and a speech bubble saying "Constant vigilance!"), K didn't actually do a name badge, but she did make this.

It says Hufflepuff and that's a badger.

At the moment anybody, adult or child, who the girls talk to, who has a reasonable knowledge of Harry Potter and is amenable is expected to 'be' a character from the series (people do get to choose as long as the character is not already taken), as I said M is Mad Eye, K is Tonks, I'm Professor McGonagall, various friends are Bellatrix Lestrange, Kingsley Shacklebolt and many more.  Today they recruited another friend, who has chosen to be Hagrid, not that she bears any relation to him physically!

Both girls had a go at pyrography.  As you might expect the results were Harry Potter based!

Mad Eye Moody by M

Tonks by K - she added the pink hair at home later

The girls each also made a miniature garden.

K's garden

And M's

 We also had a guest come in to do an activity, which was great!  The children all made their own bee hotel.  He explained that not all bees are social creatures like honey bees and that there are some which are solitary bees, such as leafcutter bees (he showed us some pressed leaves with almost perfect circles cut out of them), which live alone, as their name suggests.  These hotels provide an ideal place for these types of bees to nest.

I'm not sure how much had already been done for the older children, but for the 7-9 year olds, he had made the basic shell, but with only half the screws put in.  With a bit of help, the children used cordless power drills to add the remaining screws.  Then they filled the box with bamboo (I think!) pieces, biggest pieces first then smaller ones, finally hammering the thinnest ones into the gaps, to wedge them all firmly in place.

Next the back was covered with clay and a back nailed on.

Next some roofing felt nailed to the top ensured that it will be pretty weather-proof.

They were finished off with a bracket to hang it in a sunny spot at least 90cm from the ground.

 After lunch the older children (from about 7 up) played some team games, including a sort of human ludo, which was quite interesting!  Unfortunately the last game ended in tears for K & M, who were on different teams and accidentally collided resulting in a split lip for K and a bump on the head for M.

In other news, we've had a few lovely games of Happy Families recently, using a really lovely, if rather battered, set of cards I remember playing with when I was little, that my Mum brought for us last time she visited.

M got out the Banangrams tiles again and came up with this.  The only thing there that isn't as she did herself is reconciliation, which was a very good stab at a very long word!