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Category : Wildlife
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
A parting of ways
I think my days of producing educational materials (at least for sale at any rate) have ended. Me and business just don't get on *laughs*. The problem is, as I put in a blog post a while back, I can't do my stuff as pdf any more because it gets stolen and fobbed off as being made by someone else. However, having attempted to try the other way recently (sellings as pre-printed) I can see that, that isn't necessarily going to work either as it just requires SO much of my time to produce and is incredibly expensive.
It's problematic as it was a handy source of extra income - ok, not a lot but certainly enough to mean that I could pay for the kids homeschool stuff myself (what I didn't make for them obviously!) rather than having to go to Tim for the money all the time which I LOATHED doing.
I'm not a particularly business-minded person anyway - at least not from the point of view of "being in charge" and I'm hopeless with the money side of it as I lose track too easily (a few months back I was doing incredibly well with sales but, rather embarrasingly, I've got nothing to show for it now). It's weird "shrugs", I was always a brilliant secretary - deeply organised, terribly efficient, could deal easily with accounts and whatnot - you'd THINK that would mean I could cope with running my own particular little show, but no. Obvisouly not! I'm better at "looking after" Mr Boss than being one myself I think!
This is not a cry-baby, self pitying thing, I'm just being realistic. It does leave me with a couple of quandries though - firstly, I'm not going to have any pennies any more! (that does want to make me cry if I'm honest!) and secondly, what on EARTH am I going to do with the folders and folders FULL of Montessori pdf stuff I have?!
Part of me wants to stick the whole lot in the recycle bin and hit delete but I'm not going to do that - too many years of hard work there!
I'm still going to do the free stuff because I like making things and it's fun. I'm not so bothered if those things get nicked .... not sure why, should bother me but it doesn't! Talking of which, I've been re-organising the Box.net account and added descriptions to things to make them easier to find. Will also be updating the materials page SOMETIME soon.
Anyway, what else today apart from my work-related decisions? Well, we've had HUGE amounts of birds flocking around our feeders! Not a minute goes past without someone shouting "hey! a robin ... or a blue tit .... or a nuthatch ... or a dunnock!" or whatever. Tim even noticed a rather cheeky dunnock perched on the tailgate of the car and peering in at us through the living room window! I had to go out in the rain today and refill all the feeders all the time being eyed up by a big fat pigeon who then attempted to get food out of the feeder hung on the washing line! Of course he was much too big and just ended up making an arse of himself before flying off looking rather crestfallen!
Finally, me and April have had a quiet afternoon as Tim took Rosie to her trampoline class and it was too rainy for the swing park. April, decided to have a little pretend tea party with her toys and I took a picture which I then played around with in Photoshop and gave it this rather nice drawing effect and put it in black and white - quite sweet I think :)
Tuesday, October 06, 2009
Bizarre bird feeders and lovely friends
I received a wonderful surprise in the post today :)
All this (apart from the Special K!) came from my unbelievably lovely and generous friend Nats .... maybe she read my last post and thought I was in need of a little surprise - the cat was gorgeous and the choccy and tea was EXACTLY what I needed *laughs* ... how could she know? ;) Whatever the reason ... THANK YOU Nats! x Jingle (as I've called the cat) has now taken pride of place up next to my pute :)
Yesterday (after the tedious start!) things got a little better and I cleaned out our birdfeeder which hangs outside the kitchen window and refilled it with fresh seed. Within minutes the thing was swarming (although I don't think that's the right term - should it be flocking?) with Nuthatches and Blue Tits. Some birds (like Dunnocks and Robins) won't use the feeders and need a bird table so I decided to try and construct something. I happened upon our old mini-barbecue ... hmmm. I stuck it on an old table - again, near the kitchen window so I can watch - and sort of decorated it with branches to make it more bird friendly. It looked ridiculous but I was rather proud of my inventiveness :) Then I put some food on the bottom tray and waited .....
This morning an inquisitive little robin turned up, looked at it as if to say "erm... what on earth?" but then seemed to take to it :) I grabbed a quick picture - not very clear as it was through the glass of the patio door but you can just see him stood on that branch at the back:
Other stuff - Rosie thoroughly enjoyed the Guide campfire last night - she said it was hilarious because the marshmallows kept bursting into flames! I'm just in the middle of making a cute pumpkin word match up game for April but will post it here when I'm done. In fact, I've got a load of materials which I need to list but I been sooo lazy!
Friday, September 25, 2009
Ummm...
I have no suitable title today! This is just a mish-mash of different things from the last couple of days.
Today I've been really busy - I decided to remove EVERYTHING from our kitchen and completely clean it from top to bottom! You know how it is, it gets to a point where normal day-to-day cleaning isn't enough and you feel the need for something more thorough. So it's done and I'm a bit weary now!
Also been getting ready for Rosie's birthday - buying presents (and hiding them!) and whatnot. Her birthday is on Monday but Saturday evening we're going to Pizza Hut (her choice) for dinner - haven't been there for ages!
Anyway, here are a few bits and pieces from the last day or two:
Fangs!! Tim found a disgarded spider skin so we put it under the microscope for a closer look *shudders* It was only a tiny thing but look at the size of those under the scope!
A couple of pet pics - no idea why but I guess they're cute :)
Hemmy, very slightly giving the evil eye here (probably disturbed his snooze)
Jeff! This is a better picture than the one I first put of him when we first got him.
April is loving Starfall! Here she is using one of the computer games - it's a really great programme
It also comes with printable reading books and activity sheets. Today she did "d" and we cut out some pictures to stick on it - dragon, Dipsy, Dora and ducks!
April is also doing an Autumn lapbook - today she made a leaf man :)
Rosie did some work on her Japanese lapbook and made some origami. I love doing origami so I worked with her. Here are our efforts (hers first then mine) - a yacht, a pencil and a cat.
That's about it. Off now to peel Tim off the living room floor where he has been lying pretty much since he got home from work a while ago - got to have tea :)
Categories: Crafts, Homemaking, Homeschooling, Life, Pets, Places, Wildlife
Comments [ 1 ]
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Nearly time ......
Soooo looking forward to this ... just check out these gorgeous animals :)
Thursday, August 13, 2009
"Mummy! I found a tiny frog!"
Edited: 15 August - It's a TOAD!! Carolyn mentioned it in comments, I looked it up and it is, indeed a toad. I guess he's not going to turn into a handsome prince - sulk, sulk - *laughs*.
This little pair of grubby, April-sized hands is holding the TEENIEST, TINIEST frog I've ever seen! It still had a bit of stumpy tail so was, not all that long ago, still a tadpole. Awww! cute!
On a different note, April has been very much entertained by a counting
game I made her based on the Montessori version. I made a (very simple!)
felt tree on a piece of card and wrote the numbers 0-10 on separate
pieces of card. She puts these face down, selects one at random and then
counts out the correct number of apples (or, in this case, red beads)
onto the tree. Here is a short clip of the game being expertly
demonstrated by my glamorous assistant 
She had done number 9, cleared the tree and was doing number 7.
PS - April also played this animal shadow matching up game which she rather enjoyed :)
PPS - I've got the prospect of a lovely peaceful evening with the kids in bed and Tim at church choir practice. Aaaaah!
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Mid-day blog post .....
....... in which we see that Sarah has spent the morning with a hurty hand, cursing the weather and being freaked out by hairy arachnids.
Yes indeed, so many feelings in such a short space of time.
This morning I woke up, stretched and went "ooowww!" My hand hurt like hell and when I looked I saw that my poor little pinky was all black and blue :( Now, this was a result of ... ahem.. silly play fighting type stuff between myself and my hubby last night. Let this be a lesson to you dear readers ...... all together now "it'll all end in tears!" ..... honestly, we should be old enough to know better *laughs*
So, I got on to doing the laundry, spent ages hanging it out to dry in bright sunshine. I'd literally got indoors and out of nowhere a tonne of black, evil clouds appeared and the heavens opened. There were Mutley like mutterings going on as I rushed out to get it all in again. Damn the bloody, freaky British weather!
Another thing I had to do this morning was put the rubbish out for the bin men. I was irritated at doing this because it's generally Tim's job but he forgot last night. It was bad enough that I had to do it with my poor, hurty, bruised pinky (yes, I'm piling it on now) buuuut I also got a NASTY shock! As I lifted one of the bags a HUGE (ok, about 2.5cms across if I'm honest), black, hairy spider ran out, then stopped dead and stared at me! Now, spiders and I just don't mix and this one was EVIL! Very bravely (for me) I got a stick and prodded it and it ran off under the side gate but it didn't stay there - nooooo, it ran back and parked itself on the side of the house right under the patio door! I've never seen a spider like it - it had a sort of armoured head bit *shudders*. Here it is - not a very clear picture as I stood at a safe distance and then had to zoom in with Photoshop as there was no flipping way I was getting too close!:
IT HAD FANGS - BIG ONES!!!
Oh and ...
PS - the spider is STILL there!
PPS - the rain has vanished in a flash and the sun is beaming down again! Aaarrgh!
Edited later: I've got to take back the bits about being irritated with Tim for forgetting the bins. He's just done a HIDEOUSLY long day at work so doing the bins was probably a picnic in contrast.
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Decisions, decisions!
Hello! Been a few days since I last blogged but I've been terribly busy putting the finishing touches to September's homeschool stuff for the kids (ooo! so many great lapbooks coming up!) and trying to sort out activities for them both (more on that in a minute!)
I've just got to start by posting this lovely pic that Tim took in our garden (seeing as he clearly isn't going to post it himself even though I said he should coz it's lovely!) We think this butterfly was fairly newly hatched because it sat on the bench in sun for ages before flying off.
Anyway, kids activity stuff. You know, I always thought this was going to be a problem ... finding them stuff to do. For us, there are several criteria a) it has to be fairly cheap b) it has to be fairly local c) it has to offer them something other than just "socialisation" (uggh! I hate that word) and d) we have to take into account Tim's working hours so that he can help out with taxi service if required.
Well, it's not turning out to be a problem finding stuff (I can't believe how much there is going on!), the problem I have now is choosing which ones to go for! They can't do everything because then we'd be out all week at activities and never get anything else done. Rosie is still doing her trampoline class (and in fact this is the most expensive thing we do - it's horrendously expensive!). April has been trialling (is that spelt right?!) a local gym class over the past couple of weeks and, hmmm, what can I say about that?
Potentially, it's a wonderful thing - it's very local, low cost and just long enough (45 minutes) to give the kids a good workout without being over-tiring. HOWEVER, several things I'm not happy with. Firstly, it's in a school hall which has THREE openings to outside and all are left open for the whole session (one of them opening out to the area where the car park is). The hall is completely crowded with a TONNE of people that aren't even related to the class going on at the time (kids from previous class, kids from next class, parents, teachers and cleaners wandering in and out!). Occasionally, you get people wandering in from the carpark and just strolling through the hall on their way to somewhere else. It's just ... I don't know, the security is somewhat lacking! We're supposed to be able to leave the kids and pick them up later but I really don't feel I could do that - yesterday, I had to retrieve April THREE times as she wandered off in the direction of the exits because none of the coaches had noticed! (I'm assuming because it's just so hectic and crowded in there). Then, there's the fact that although this is a class for 4-8 year olds, April is by far the youngest and smallest and, bless her, she really struggles to keep up. She's terribly uncoordinated (still retains a little of that toddlerishness where they tend to be all over the place!) and has a hard time doing some of the stuff. All the other kids are older and more advanced than she is and I really don't think the coaches take this into consideration enough and try and get her to do the same sort of stuff. This means they have to "help" her over the vault or do backward rolls or assist her through the hoop off the trampette ... a few times they just make her sit on the mat while they did stuff with the other kids (which is usually where she got bored and wandered off and had to be fetched back by me!)
I have my doubts. Tim and I both feel the kids should be doing one sporty type activity a week which is why I chose this. However, I'm beginning to wonder if something else wouldn't be better - for example (much to my shame!), I have 2 non-swimming daughters :( We are considering finishing Rosie's trampoline after the autumn term (already paid for) because she's getting a little bored with it and we feel that, perhaps, she should have swimming lessons. This led me to start thinking well, why shouldn't April do that as well - if she starts early we won't have the same problems with her not swimming at 11! This is part of the "thing" with activities for us - to be financially worth it they have to serve a purpose as well as socialisation - them both learning to swim is a vital skill for life, not just a fun, social class. If I'm going to spend my money I'd rather do that than the gym tbh.
There are plenty of other things to keep April busy in the meantime (kids club at the local church, Badgers and her name is down for Rainbows). Sooo, I'm wavering with the gym and thinking of just enrolling them both for swimming at the start of the spring term. In the meantime, April can do all her other activities.
Oooo! and there's also free tennis coaching they could do at a court not far from us!!
Aaarrgh! see what I mean? Too much choice!
As for Rosie, well, she's starting Guides in September. Or possibly Girls Brigade. Again, we have a choice to make - they could both do Girls Brigade on a Monday and they could go at the same time and Rosie would wait for her session (apparently they've got loads of sisters and the ones that wait all go off in another room and do crafts and stuff while they wait for their group to start). It is going to involve a little running around on a Monday night but I have been informed that Girls Brigade is generally better for being "nicer" (don't know how else to put it!) and I think that would be better for Rosie who is a little quiet and shy.
Goodness me! Thank goodness we've got the summer hols to work all this out!
PS - one week today until my birthday and Sims 3 ....... how childishly excited am I?! *laughs*
Friday, July 03, 2009
All aboard!
April was off out in the garden early this morning and was delighted to find LOADS of snails on the garden path. They'd presumably come out for a splash after the bit of rain we had overnight (I say bit because, despite what the weather forcast predicted, it has been gloriously sunny and warm all day ever since). Anyway, she collected them all up and sort of .....erm... took them for a ride on her toy Dizzy. Then she let them go, collected another load and made a garden for them out of bits of grass, leaves and old buckets which she kept nicely wet so they'd be cool! She played with the molluscs for three and a half hours!!!
I've been making a sort of moveable alphabet for her for September. We have actually got a very nice, proper Montessori alphabet but the font is wrong for us (bit Century Gothic as opposed to Primary Sassoon) as we are going to use the Jolly Phonics books from the autumn. So, the Montessori one is going on Ebay and I had to put together a homemade version out of loads of little boxes mounted on a sheet of card. Ok, it's VERY homemade but I think it looks kind of cute and (possibly due to the girly pastel colours), April thinks it's the best thing ever *smiles*. I downloaded and printed the alphabet from here.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Creepy crawlies
April had a fun day today :) She spent ages outside this morning hunting for ladybirds (I got a photo of a newly hatched ladybirdy on her hand but it came out too blurry) and released one that had hatched in our bug box. After lunch it poured with rain but she still wanted to go out so she put on her rainmac and went off. She'd been gone a while so I went to check on her and found her playing with a GIANT slug! Bleeeuurgh! I think it's fair to say that she's following in Rosie's footsteps for liking bugs!
My brother and his wife popped over just before lunch with some homemade meringues and fruity icecream which we later ate for tea and were very yummy indeed :)
April also had her first gym club today - we've been on a waiting list for ages and I thought they'd forgotten us! She was her usual confident self and ran off and joined in, listen to the instructor well (which was a surprise because that's something she has difficulty with sometimes!) and was really quite good at it for a first attempt! Tomorrow it's Rosie's turn for the p.e lesson (heehee!) at her trampoline class at the Littledown - me, Tim and April will be out playing in the swing park while she's in there.
Got the letters sent off today to the education authority about April not going to school now. Very glad we did it. Very glad we finally reached this decision on what has been a very trying few months. Y'know how I considered school, partly because it would give me time alone? Well, it would seem I'm almost certainly going to get more time if she's homeschooled! Tim is being absolutely fab with wanting to help me out with this so not only does April get the fun of homeschool but I get a whole bunch of me time. Perfect :)
On the subject of homeschool, I've been really busy getting organised for the new year - got such a lot of really fun stuff planned that we almost can't wait to get going!
Categories: Cooking, Homeschooling, Life, Places, Wildlife
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Tuesday, June 02, 2009
What?
Is this pigeon doing for goodness sake?!
(Bigger pic than usual so you can see clearly) I took this in the garden yesterday afternoon. The pigeon flew down off our house roof, landed on the path, waddled a few steps and the sorta flopped down on the path and spread itself out! At first I thought it might be injured - it stayed there for about 10 minutes and then got up, had a shake and few away!
This is where I need the highly knowledgable Chris Packham (or "gorgeous Chris Packham" as one Googling person who showed up on my site stats wrote - *laughs out loud*). I have 2 theories - both along the same lines. One is that the pigeon was exhausted (perhaps from chick feeding - we do have a nest of pigeons in the garden) and was taking a bitofa nap. The other is that is was HOT and, basically, trying to cool itself down by fanning its wings out.
Any guesses?
Also (non-pigeon related), I had to share this totally cute pic of April in the sandpit looking very cool and funky :)
Off out to Christchurch after lunch - gotta feed those duckies :)
Monday, May 25, 2009
Sunny :)
What an absolutely gorgeous day it was yesterday :) All of us spent pretty much the whole day outside in some form or another - it was just such bliss to feel proper hot sun!
I pottered about hanging up washing to dry (got loads washed and dried!), did some gardening, played with the kids and just sat for a bit - about 10 minutes - and got a rather red back as I was only wearing a little strappy top! I should have been more careful really - I'm very fair skinned and having been under wraps for months on end I don't think it knew what hit it :(
Tim got the foul job of cleaning the old sand and rainwater slime out of the kids sandpit in readiness for refilling (last year I did it and it was gross so it was definately his turn!) April had a bowl of soapy water and a sponge and washed all the buckets and spades and stuff and left them on the path in the sun to dry.
Rosie, my little naturalist, was bug hunting and found millipedes, a
dead beetle (which she's brought inside and put somewhere to view under
the microscope), woodlice and a funny little thing called a click
beetle. 
This little bug made us laugh because, if it feels threatened, it
pretends to be dead (for aaaaages!) and then lets off a loud "CLICK!"
and jumps straight up into the air *laughs* She put it on her hand and
we all had to wait and wait and wait for it to jump :)
Anyway, after all that lovely sunshineness yesterday, today ..... it's raining .... hey ho.
PS - Oooo! don't forget - tonight, BBC2, 8p.m SPRINGWATCH!! Hmm... Springwatch with Chris Packham instead of Bill Oddie .... Hmmm.
Sunday, May 03, 2009
Millipede
Rosie found a tiny, dead (and very solid!) creature in the garden and didn't know whether it was a millipede or a centipede. She put it under the microscope and we could see that it's got 2 little jointed legs per segment. Looking this up on Wikipedia we found out that it's a millipede and here he/she is under the 'scope - cool eh? :)
Monday, February 02, 2009
Picture roundup
Hello lovely people :) Feeling a bit more refreshed after the short (very!) break. So, what have we been doing over the last few days? Well, we've .....
Cooked (and ate of course!) cupcakes and scones:
Counted:
Made strange, no-sew ... er caterpillar"y" creatures:
I made a maths mini office for Rosie (not finished):
Enjoyed the blank mini-books:
...and had a bit of this:
Oh, and we didn't forget to feed our feathered friends - Tim took this, very sweet :)
I also went and filled in the question for the latest home ed consultation - I was in two minds because I'm not that great at those sorts of things. I know what I want to put but it never comes out quite right and I get frustrated. Anyway, I did it. I also wrote to our local MP - he's a conservative - is that going to be a help or not I wonder! *laughs*.
The other thing on my mind at the moment is April going to school. I'm really torn over this again for one main reason - basically, I think she'd love school all the time it was part time. However, I think she'd get pretty fed up pretty quick once it was full time because she only can do "focused" stuff for a certain amount of time and then she needs to run about and let off steam. She's also doing REALLY well with her learning at home at the moment - she loves counting and doing her phonics workbook. I'm really bothered - Tim won't get involved, he says it's my decision and, of course, that's probably true as I'm the one that does the actual homeschooling. If I could find, or get together, a decent enough homeschool group then I'd definately keep her at home. I'm actually thinking along the lines of getting together a sort of homeschool nature group - going for nature study walks, taking part in conservation work, going to activities at Moors Valley/Avon Heath, that sort of thing. Anybody from Dorset/Hants might be interested in that?
Finally, sorry, still got the rubbish comment anti-spam code thing going on. If you can't read it, just refresh the page (about 100 times!) and you should get one you can read eventually. MUST do something about it soon!
Categories: Cooking, Crafts, Homeschooling, Seasonal, Wildlife
Comments [ 2 ]
Friday, January 16, 2009
Lush!
Last day of Tim's holiday today .... holiday? what holiday? We seem to have spent ALL of it trying to sort things out and get things mended. Yesterday (finally!) we got our car back, and it cost us precisely no pounds whatsoever (bargain!) This meant that we had a little spare cash because Tim had put money aside in case of expensive repairs, so, we went to Lush! We've not been there for AAAAGES so it was gorgeous to go stock up on some of my favourite stuff - their "The Blonde" shampoo is absolutely brilliant for bringing out all the natural reddy-gold highlights in my hair. We came back with allsorts - for all of us - smellies for me and Tim (and my shampoo of course!), bubble bath slices and shower jelly (yes, it really is the consistency of the sort of muck you used to eat at kids parties!) for Rosie and April.
On the way to Lush we decided to stop off at Poole Park because the kids wanted to feed the ducks (and the enormous great, honking Canada geese!) Large mistake - it was FREEZING! Even April was visibly shivering and she doesn't normally seem to notice the cold. Then there was a bit of a comedy moment when I let go of the empty plastic bag from the bread and had to go chasing it across the grass - it kept moving in the wind every time I reached it! It was lucky I had my boots on because the grass was swamp-like .....
Tim's back at work tomorrow - for ONE day and then he's off again for 4 days and then back to work normally from next Thursday. It's nice to have him around but I shall be glad to get back into our normal routine because we can't seem to get into a good homeschool groove with him about!
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Goldcrests!
Here's a new visitor to our garden! Today we saw a pair of goldcrests and we've not seen them before so it was very exciting. We had no idea what they were and only identified them after zooming in on the photos I took. What's particularly lovely is that these are classified as an "Amber" species meaning that they are slightly in decline so it's very nice to see them indeed!
They are the TINIEST little things and hop around madly all over the place so it was very difficult to get any good pics, but here are my best efforts (check out that bright yellow stripe on the head!)
Love this last one - look at the HUGE eye!
Friday, January 09, 2009
Baby, it's cold outside
It SO is, isn't it?! I honestly don't believe it's been this freezing for YEARS - we've had a real spate of mild winters recently so this is a bit of a shock to the system! Yesterday, it was a bit warmer but today we're back to arctic conditions again with a very heavy frost this morning.
I've been faithfully feeding the birds through all this and putting water out for them in our little bird bath. Yesterday, Tim got a quick snap of a robin having a splash around - it looks like the water is frozen but that was the water from the previous day! So although it got warmer yesterday, it clearly wasn't enough to melt the ice! I just tipped the fresh water on top! Sorry, bit blurred but I think Tim was trying to do it quick before the thing scarpered!
Today, I put water in the birdbath and some more in an old biscuit tin lid a bit further up the garden. I went indoors and about 5 minutes later, looked outside and it was already freezing up!
Yesterday, in celebration of a slightly warmer day and (if I'm honest!) because we're heartily sick of fruit cake, I made a raspberry and fresh cream sponge - ooooo! yum! It really did make a nice change after all the rich Christmas food. I've also been steadily working through getting the homeschool stuff sorted. I'm going to start easing Rosie back into work on Monday and I want to have everything ready for then. April's already been asking for work!
We're off out in the chilliness this afternoon - got to go to Tim's work to collect his wages (he's officially on holiday but doesn't go back to work until a week Saturday and we still need money!) and then we're going to "big-Tesco-near-hospital" as it's commonly referred to round here. Need a whole bunch of general food shopping and some other bits and pieces beside, iincluding laminating pouches - I told you I was busy with homeschool stuff!
Right, off now to brave getting dressed - got the heating on full blast and I'm still shivering - roll on spring!
Categories: Cooking, Homeschooling, Life, Seasonal, Wildlife
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Sunday, November 30, 2008
A spot of breakfast time murdering
Was just enjoying my morning cuppa when I was disturbed by a loud ... well, how can I describe it? ... erm... "KE KE KE!!!". That's a rubbish description of the noise but the best I can do. It was clearly a bird noise so I rushed to the kitchen window and looked out JUST in time to see a brownish, fierce looking bird, talons out, swoop down on a small bird (dunnock I think) that was on our lawn. There ensued a rather stomach churning few seconds of "ke keing" and pitiful tweeting by the small bird before the intruder flew off with it's breakfast.
I got a good look at it - it was one of these (not my pic btw, it flew off too quick):
Yep, don't need to compile any dodgy photofit pictures for this murdering so and so - it's a sparrowhawk! Never seen one in our garden before.
I know it was justing "doing what it does" but even so it was horrible. I could see it swoop down on this little bird and wanted to shout "QUICK!! move!!"
The sparrowhawk was beautiful though and the whole thing was incredibly slickly done. Astonishing.
PS - got another interesting bird-related tale for you but that can wait till next time ;)
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
A hat and some birds
I made a little stocking filler pressie for April today - a rather funky purple fleece hat complete with huge pink and white flower!. Here's a piccy although, for obvious reasons, the young lady who it's intended for couldn't put it on so my kitchen roll rather obligingly became my model ;)
After blogging about the bird food this morning, we've had a LOT of feathery visitors today and I managed to get a new bird picture! This, I believe, is a juvenile dunnock and he was VERY difficult to photograph on account of moving very quickly! This was the best I could do in the end:
I also got pics of some of our more regular visitors - a blackbird pecking berries off the bush by our side gate and the robin, in rather agressive, "this town ain't big enough for the both of us" stance *laughs*.
I also took a short video of a HUGE pigeon on the same gate as the blackbird, again pecking at berries, only he toppled foward as he was eating them and I ended up with a video of a pigeons backside. You don't want to see that do you? Thought not ;)
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Catching up
So, it's 9.30 and I'm blogging - April is sat at her little table behind me practicing her letters in a wipe-clean book. Rosie and Tim are still in bed but they both have good excuses - Rosie has a cold and Tim is catching up on some sleep after a spate of (very!) early starts at work. He always starts early but he's doing extra time now (makes it sound like he's in prison!) because two of the other inmates ... er, sorry ... STAFF, had a fight which ended up in a full scale punch-up with one saying to the other "take your glasses off, I'm going to hit you" ... and the other one did - HE DID!! I'd have said "erm... no" Anyway, he did get hit and had his front teeth knocked out and the one who did the punching got sacked. Hence Tim doing extra days - still, it's all good what with Christmas coming up, the extra pennies are helpful.
What I can't understand in this whole saga is why on EARTH no-one else there noticed that this full-on fight was going on and put a stop to it before anyone ended up needing a trip to the dentist?! Anyway, Tim was most disappointed - he was off that day and missed it *laughs*.
I'm in sulk mode at the moment because after Tim's promising remarks about them doing a Christmas dinner, it turns out that it's just a lunch thing and only for staff (I wanted to go somewhere nice and wear a pretty frock! *sulk, sulk*). So anyway, I shall spend the day with the kids putting up the decorations (which I love doing anyway) so it looks pretty and festive when he gets home .... and try not to drink all the Bailey's whilst doing so. Ahem.
Talking of Christmas, I've got to unwrap my cake and put some extra brandy on it because, due to the cracking up fiasco (the cake, not me!) I forgot before I put it away. I'm loathe to go near it because I've got a baaaaad feeling about this cake - I've never had any problems with them before but this one seems hexed. Still, I shall do it in the next day or two because at least I've got time to do another one if it is knackered.
We've been faithfully feeding our little feathered friends every day (especially now the weather is colder). We made up our own wild bird food from porridge oats, crushed almonds, chopped up sultanas, crushed weetabix and some bits of bacon (chopped into tiny pieces). We keep it in a jar in the kitchen so we can put some out every day - we get a lot of birds but frustratingly, every time I go to get my camera, they've gone by the time I get back. This morning I saw the robin, a male and a female blackbird and a bluetit out there all at the same time!
Me and the kids are going to get started on some Christmas crafts soon - the first thing we're going to make is our winter wreath to replace the autumn one that's still hanging up (will post pics) and redo our nature table with a more wintery theme. I love the winter nature table, it always looks so pretty and sparkly :)
Categories: Cooking, Crafts, Homemaking, Life, Wildlife
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Tuesday, October 07, 2008
A jumble of pictures
Have been dreadfully slack with the "blogging about interesting stuff" lately (shame on me!) We HAVE been doing things (particularly homeschool-wise which has really taken off again thanks to some serious re-thinking by me - more on that in another post though). I'm just in a bit of a planning/thinking/sorting mood at the moment though. We received the school application forms for April and I'm not keen on even bothering to fill them in now. Tim said "well don't then" but I'm going to think about it some more. I've also been digging out some extra things for Rosie to do and, as from November, she'll be starting a once a month, 2-hour long art session at a local craft centre. I think this will be fun for her as art is one of the things she enjoys most.
Anyway, here is a random collection of pictures from the last few days ....
"Don't play with your food!" Oh, ok do then. April mucked about making faces with her carrots at snack time (please ignore the fact that the carrots actually look slightly mouldy in this pic - they certainly weren't!)
She also snuggled up on the sofa with Hemmy and watched telly - cute!
Rosie did some map work in her lessons
April play-doughed
I made apple muffins today
...and took a (rather blurred!) photo of the dear little robin and a blackbird together on the back lawn in amongst the fallen leaves. I took this about 10 minutes ago when Tim spotted them.
Tim and I have been planning half term week when Rosie is off trampolining. There's loads of activities going on locally that we want to go to with the kids. Two at the top of our list are making ladybird hibernation boxes at Moors Valley and (oh god this will be fun!) spooky Halloween going's on at Lulworth Castle (face painting, fancy dress, creepy treasure trails and so on). Problem is, we're having to fit this all in around him doing a load of overtime at work because people are off - most of all I don't want to miss the castle malarkies so we're going there on the 26th (the first day!) and (hopefully) squeezing in the ladybird boxes on the following Wednesday.
Right, better go - kids going to bed soon!
Categories: Cooking, Homeschooling, People, Things, Wildlife
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