Jacob Incomunicado

Jacob has informed me that he will not be blogging until he has finished building all the games in his gamesmaker tutorial book so I fear that it might be a while.  In lieu of contact from the boy himself he has instructed (not asked) me to put up some pictures of his gifts so here we are.

Art kit from Grandpa, Sandy and Tim

voucher from Nana and Grandad

build your own beam engine from Tam

Computer game building kit from Kathrin etc

Collective thanks to everybody, it was a successful haul.

We are in the middle of another heatwave here, it is 3pm and still 29 degrees in the shade.  I think the children and I must really have run out of holiday steam now that the end is in sight, none of us could be bothered to walk down to the beach this afternoon, even when I pointed out that we only have another 3 days left.  It is probably for the best, we are taking Jacob, Rose and 4 of Jacob's friends to mini golf tomorrow and I think I need to conserve as much energy as possible.

How time passes

So it is 8 years since the little scrub that was Jacob arrived on the planet.  I really can't say whether the time has gone fast or slow, it has just gone.  I used to be surprised when another birthday came signalling that yet another year had been accomplished but now it seems like the children growing up and getting older is just a normal part of things.  When they stop being children it will be the real shocker.

Just recently we have spent quite a lot of time with couples of our age who have no children.  Previously I have been through periods of being pretty envious of a lifestyle of spending all your money on yourself and having nice things and going to cool places and doing all the things that you want to do (like stay in bed after 6.30am) but now I've settled into it I think the role of Mum is ultimately very fulfilling and the right role for me, so I no longer even get a pang.  Family is worth so very much.

Well, enough of that smush.  Today was pretty quiet for a birthday.  Jacob got lots of good presents and seems very pleased with all of them, I shall not write them down here as he will probably want to do it himself in the next couple of days.  I feel justified in putting in a picture of his cake though.  Jacob superintended decorating it in a kind of folk style that I think is pretty neat and I have to confess to having been pretty pleased with my final outline template.  What do you think?

Extra-terrestrealty

Tom has recently been spending a lot of time online perusing Canadian real estate web sites.  Our lease is up in just over 10 months so obviously we've not got much time to get things organized.  I've been having a look myself in order not to be left out and because looking at other people's houses is always interesting.  So is the bizarre language used by realtors.  In the UK I always found it odd that houses for sale enjoy things and benefit from things, here they seem to be described using an excessive number of abbreviations.

Today I found a house that had all these amazing things listed under ***EXTRAS*** Mflau, Mffam, Jbath, Harfl, Cerfl, Lands, De/Pa, Fe/He, Ensui, Eatki, 9+clg and Sepbe.

I have to say that a Jbath would be very useful for Jacob, perhaps Dad would be cleaner if you could get one installed at Hopefield.  I am completely baffled by De/Pa, Decorated Partitions? Delicate Patio? Dented Paintwork? Delightful Paradise? (probably not for $349,000) and 9+clg, perhaps there is a limit to the number of Northern clog dancers you can get safely on the Harfls.  I am hoping that Fe/He is your very own housework robot and that Sepbe is not septic bedrooms.

Not only does it have all this but it is a "Quality New Buman Built Home".  Maybe it doesn't matter that I can't understand it as you need to be a Buman Heing to live there anyway.

Jacob Post: Animal tv

Today, I made a TV out of a shoe box. To make one, just cut a hole in the back. I also made floors for each channel. Each channel was called animal TV something. I started desighning a movie for channel 5 (movie channel). It was called Animal Agents I. Mine and Roses animals are performing it. You remember all the animals?

 

you remeber these

Here is the script and credits so far:

ALL GOOD FROM NOW UNTIL YOU ARE TOLD ABOUT IT  Inishals of owner J or R 

Agent DI, Digey                                                                                              J

Agent NB, NB                                                                                                 J

Agent QU, Quackers                                                                                       J

Agent DU, Duck                                                                                             J

Agent PL, Patchwork Lion                                                                              J

Agent SU, Snuffles                                                                                         J

Captain of skydive plane, My Little pony                                                      R

engineer of skydive plane, lion                                                                        J

copilot of skydive plane, Bagpuss                                                                   J

Captain of Robots, Snowiger                                                                          J

Robot engineer, Triply Dog                                                                            R

Robots, The lego ones from a couple of blogs ago                                         N/A

Spy, Dolphin                                                                                                  J

Mission control, Tampsin, Unicornia, Scrobbled dog, Giraffe                      J, R, R, R

Plane fixer, birdy                                                                                            J

Gaurds, Kissykiss, polarbear                                                                          J

Nurse, kooey dog                                                                                            R

mascots, Green snake, Pink snake                                                                   J

AS OF HERE, BAD GUYS!

Gaurds, Dubly dog, dog                                                                                   R, R

main caractors

Count, rabbit                                                                                                    J

Oby, dubly rabbit                                                                                             J

Any, triply rabbit                                                                                             J

clon, quodly rabbit                                                                                           J

Nurse, Leapord                                                                                                 R

spy, teddy                                                                                                         R

mascot, snowman                                                                                             J

Animal TV introducers, Nooneem, Handbag                                                  J,R

Camera artist, fish                                                                                            J

 

Thats it. I don't have any more time, so a last little sentence ; The animals have been having meeting.

Not Fall Yet

Well so much for autumn/fall (whatever) approaching, right now it is 29 degrees at 6.15pm and I've had to put on the air con so the children stand a chance of sleeping on the super-heated top floor.  Heaven knows what temperature it was earlier this afternoon.

Today we all went to the beach for some Parker family fun.  Gary and Tom came so I was able to have a brief swim then lie on a towel and soak up the sun without having to squint out at the children and make sure they were still safe while trying to pretend they aren't mine.  A tricky skill that I ought to be able to put on my CV.  Rose came out with a wonderful understatement when she rushed into Lake Huron, the world's fourth largest lake with a water surface area of 23,000 square miles, and pronounced "I've found a wet patch!"

Unfortunately my camera has run out of batteries so I have had to include a photo of the children from scooter sessions on Wednesday...

no, Rose isn't wearing trousers under that

Fortunately for the privacy of the Huron Woods bug population this means that I was unable to take voyeuristic photos of the 4 pairs of mating stick insects that had congregated around the outside of the master bedroom window this morning.  Still I'd rather have those than the terrible giant orange slugs we had in Arnside.

Lost the Plot

Today we went on a little excursion back to Exeter.  Jacob has been pining for the Morrison Dam conservation area ever since we left camp last Friday so we went for a picnic in the hope that he would realize that it isn't half so much fun without his friends and he would stop nagging me about it.

We accidentally went on a walk that was about 4 km long and quite pretty.

Jacob spent the first 15 minutes saying "How far have we gone? I can't believe it's so far I feel like I've only walked 2 steps, I could walk for miles and miles". Then he suddenly switched to "How much further is it, my legs really hurt I can't believe we've only been walking 20 minutes, my batteries are at 15% already, when will we get back".

I have been led to believe that there is nolonger any dangerous wildlife in this area of Southern Ontario.  I was therefore quite alarmed to find this on the path

I'm sure it was very old but I made an effort to chivy up draggling, tired children after finding it.

Rose spent most of the time bemoaning the fact that she had left her pretend dog 'Plot' in the car.  Plot appeared last week not long after a conversation about having 'lost the plot', last time he was in the woods and she couldn't find him, this time he was supposed to be in the car.  When we got back to the parking lot, surprise surprise, he was not there.  Fortunately the lure of a trip to the shoe shop was enough to banish a mere imaginary dog and we managed to leave without too much imaginary-dog-loss induced misery

Jacob Post: ABC (not preschool related)

Today, we went to Exeter. In Exeter, we went to ABC (Ausable Bayfield Conservation). First, we discussed what we were going to do and the smell of dog poop. Next, we went on a trail. There were posts up saying kilometers. The first said 5.8. The next said 5.6. They were counting down how long to go untill it ended. There was a junction up the trail. It was about 5.3 km. we went right. about .3 km later, there was another junction and a post saying 2.4. It was for the track on the left. Then there was a bridge over the river. Mummy was going to take a picture, but the bridge was only stable enough to look at the tadpole shaped fish for a minute. After that, we went across the bridge and to a boardwalk across a bog. Then, we saw a field.Next, we went down a trail with old play equiptment scattered around. Then, we came to a car park. Next to it was some benches and a big rock.

 

 

Then, we crossed the road and went on the 'morrison trail'. There was signs next to some trees. I saw an interesting, rare squirrel in the woods next to the trail. It was white. We walked a lot next to another river. Then across a giant, sturdy bridge across it. Mummy was going to take a piture of a snake, but it crawled away. I was egsausted by the time we got back to the ABC biuldings. I had just enough energy to look at artifacts. Mummy says they're just tiles or pieces of pipe.

 

 

 Then we went shopping and got me new shoes, new pants (or trousers in England) and a sweater. Rose got some markers. I also got a ruler. Mummy got more than 50 items at the food store

jacob post: I forgot about yesterday!

Yesterday, in the morning, I made some duplo robots.

under construction

All of their names started with z.

finished

I also made a train track.

About a month ago, Rose made a picture on the white board. It was cool.

Anyway, yesterday afternoon I went to the beach. I played in the freezing water a lot, but I also made some sandcastles and a big hole. I used a steering wheel type thing to play a game where I had to catch Rose. We had to swerve around the hole car style. We also jumped over the hole alot. I collided into Rose once.

 

Today, me and rose played for hours with the playdough ice cream factory. Then we played on scooters. Then we went to get the post. After that, we skyped nana. Then, we played animal olympics. The snow ducks won the ball toss. The hypersnakes won high jump etc. Lastly, Grandpa came over and we started the comic Quacky Club (used to be Quacktonaughts.)

Holiday Fireplace

Another quiet day today, just mini golf and ice cream...

can you get in close enough to see how filthy Jacob's face is?

I think the autumnal feel to the weather is making me gear down ready for the school term to start.  Its good weather for a fire in the evening so in the absence of any notable incidents or activities I shall tell you about a bonkers channel on our cable package.  This may go someway to illustrating how dire TV is out here.


Channel 150 is called Holiday Fireplace.  It is a looped recording of a log fire burning complete with crackling sound track.

I must confess that I became slightly obsessed with knowing how it works so I watched it all the way through.  Now I know that the visuals are on a half hour loop but the crackling sound track is on a rather obvious (and very annoying once you notice) 20 second one, and sometimes when it was not burning fast enough the flames have been sped up to a rather alarming and not very relaxing pace.  It must be very popular as it is on all day everyday despite the info clearly stating that it will only be available until 2010.

Tom says it is so that people who own country cottages without log burning stoves can put it on the TV in the evening and pretend.  It seems a little bizarre to me but whenever I mention it to a local they just sort of nod and say "yeah" as if it's normal.

Jacob Post: Capture the Flag

Capture the flag is an old, military game. Players: even number 6 up. Age: 7+. Rules; to prepare, find a big location, all-terrain recomended. Create teams and flags. Recomended flags: unique sticks, balls. Create border line. Create jails for 6+ people in each team. To play; look away from the other team while hiding flag*. Do not send out spys to find the flag before other team ready*. Shout "ready!" when your team has hidden your flag and wait until other team ready exept if you are last to say "ready!"*. Some people stay to protect your flag by tagging anyone in your property. They either go back to their base (part surrounding flag) or go to your jail if present*.To get out of jail, you must get tagged by one of your team mates*. The other people try to get the other flag by not getting tagged. If tagged with a flag drop the flag then pretend you didn't have the flag and do what's listed before*. The winner is the first team to sucessfully bring the opponent's flag back to your base. No cheating and arguing*.

*cheaters dont follow these rules! Naughty...

A Quiet Saturday

There is definitely a feel of coming Fall here now.  It is still warm and hasn't rained since the day I panic bought wellies on the way to camp but the humidity has gone and the sun doesn't feel so fierce at midday.  In the morning it feels quite fresh when you are not in the sun so instead of the beach today we went to the splash pad in town.  Not much splashing was done as Rose decided the water was too cold so she went off to perform hair raising feats on the climbing frame and Jacob opted to sit on a picnic bench in his swimming trunks and draw an elaborate diagram of a dangerous cave with a very patient Uncle Tim.

While we were in town character specific books were taken out of the library.  Rose has a pink book called "Princesses around the World, Elizabeth I and the Royal Pony."  Jacob chose 2 Canadian Government publications for kids about Citizenship and Government and the "Scholastic Book of lists" and that's what it is, a book of lots and lots of lists.  He told me many interesting facts in the car on the way home and I can remember none of them, I just found the book to check on the title and he is up to page 132, classification of living things.  I really hope he does not expect me to know the order, species, family, genus etc of anything at all as I haven't got a hope of blagging that one.

This afternoon it had warmed up enough to go to the neighbourhood beach, so we did and here is a typical scene.  Rose 'laxin' on a towel eating a cookie, Tom gazing soulfully across the lake and Jacob messing about with a big hole and a pile of muddy sand.  Shortly after I took the photo a large Labrador wee'd on the pile of dirt so we went home before the kids could carry on playing in it.

Roads

Well, we are coming to the end of Jacob's week of environmental camp and although halving the number of children in the house has been a great relief I shall be heartily glad to see the back of the daily commute to and from Exeter.

It takes 25 minutes (4 x per day in a car, oops, sorry environmental camp) and there are 3 routes I can take on Highways 83, 10 or 5 that are all the same.  Today Rose and I came home on Highway 10, Crediton Road.  This is the view up the road...

and this is the view down it...

I have discovered that driving in a sraight line is both boring and surprisingly difficult.  If I concentrate really hard on the horizon I can do it, but if I'm thinking such rivetting and important thoughts as what's for dinner, shopping lists or do I need to do laundry/post the letter thats currently riding in my hand bag etc etc, I weave about all over.  Fortunately the lanes are very wide so you would have to have far more important thoughts than me to get into trouble.

If you are very observant (pedantic or Dad) you will notice 2 things about the road other than that it is very straight.  First there are yellow lines in the centre and white ones down the sides which took a bit of getting used to.  Second that there are broken avenues of trees down the sides.  Interesting Canadian historical fact coming up here.  In Lampton Museum we read a rules of the road document from 18something stipulating that all settlers with a road crossing their claim were required to plant lines of trees beside it, presumably so you could find it.  I guess tradition lives on although some trees have been replaced by hydro lines which are not so pretty.

And so to the children.  Rose has been busy at the help desk again

and Jacob has been working on my self esteem.  He is currently in the habit of demanding to know what is for dinner before he will wash his hands and come and eat it, tonight when I asked why this is necessary he replied "So I know how disgusted to be."

I could make some pithy remark about this but that would require wit and articulation and I find I'm all out of both.

Finishing Touches

Today we found the perfect boots...

And got some 'duckie projects' done too...

'Goat projects' have been requested for tomorrow but I'm not sure my atistic talents are up to that.

Jacob Post: camp for a week!!!

Today, I went to day camp for the first time. Rose wanted to do ducky projects when I was gone. When I first got there, we all made name tags out of a chopped up log and dry alphabet soup letters. After that, we got to play. I played tic tack toe (or naughts and crosses in England). I won all the rounds exept the ties. This is the scoreboard: games 34 J win 32 Tie 2 opponent or O win 0.

Then we  learnt or learned about insect body parts. Then we played a game about insect mouth parts. In it, you got 2 containers, a straw and clips. You had to fill 1 container with water and the other with marbles. I won with both containers spilling. Then it was snack time.

After snacks, we went outside and played a game while some stayed in to do somthing different. We played a game to see if we could fill up the bucket with chopped up logs. It sounds easy, right? It wasn't. You had to carry them on your head. Some were hidden. Some were in trees. If you drop a log off your head, you have to freeze and wait for someone else put it back on, still balancing the log on their head. In the last few minutes, a predetor was indroduced. The predetor would take your log, hide it and try to invade the bucket (we were bees and the bucket was a hive, and the chopped up log is nector).

We went inside while the other people played that game. Inside, we played pin the stinger on the wasp. I got closest. I was still on the wasp. Most other people accidently placed the stinger on the other people. One stuck it in the washroom! We all won the bucket thing. The other team didn't even have a predator and we still won! Then it was lunchtime.

After lunch was playtime. Me and Eric D, my friend at camp, played get the flag against Jackson and Nathan M. You try to get the other team flag once you've hidden your own. Then we went bug collecting in the field. I caught a praying mantis, 2 green jumpy bugs and a grasshopper. Someone else caught a toad! It wasn't a bug, but it was very interesting. Then we went back and made bees. Last, we painted our name tags while waiting to get picked up. Rose hadn't done any ducky projects, just playdough and shopping.

The Queen Bee!

Stars and Day Camp

Last night the Perseid meteor shower was visible over Ontario so I had a go at star gazing.  I tried to start viewing at about 9.30 but it was cloudy and not a star was visible so I watched a bit of the London Olympics closing ceremony.  I found it all a bit baffling really but quite funny watching the Spice Girls teetering about on top of taxi cabs, in fact clinging on for dear life when the cabbies took some of the corners a bit fast.  At risk of becoming an old fuddy-duddy I did briefly wonder if as one of the richest and most advanced nations in the world we could offer a bit more than re-done Oasis numbers.  On Tom's behalf maybe a bit of Maiden instead of Queen?

Anyway by 10.30 the sky was miraculously clear so I settled down in a deck chair on the driveway to enjoy the cosmic show.  I sat there for about an hour and a half in the end and saw just 5 meteors, not many but 2 of them were really spectacular.  Guess it was not the peak period.  I came in when all the rustling noises in the woods started making me nervous and I was being repeatedly circled at surprisingly close quarters by a large bat.

Jacob started day camp today so this morning was a frantic lunch making, coffee drinking nightmare, I had to be on the other side of Exeter by 8.45 so out of the house before 8.15.  Even worse than swimming and earlier than school.  He seems to have enjoyed himself and has come home with some nice crafts that he will blog himself.

Rose and I took the opportunity to begin organising her autumn wardrobe.  Guess what colours she chose.

just need boots now

Bargains and Hoovering

This morning we went to Grand Bend's famous Sunday flea market.  This is a big thing around here, so many people come that it disrupts traffic along highway 21 and there has to be a traffic cop to supervise the turning lane.  It is a real mish mash of a place, you can buy junk, real antiques, knock off designer gear, many pairs of socks, home made cakes and pretty much anything else you like.  There is a permanent "antique" store where Dad could find some really useful stuff, I found a box full of worn out brake pads, another box full of mis-matched wooden chair spindles, some old skis and a gigantic old commode which made me gag.  I could spend hours wandering aimlessly through all the stands, but alas, with Tom and the kids in tow we were done by lunch time and all I had bought were 2 spiral bound notepads for $1 each.  It's probably for the best.

Now I have some really good housework stuff to blog that nobody but my mum will find remotely interesting, if you choose to keep reading don't say you weren't warned.

I have a central vac.  It is new to me and the oddest concept, I can't decide whether it is better than a normal vacuum or not, or just different.  There is a giant cylinder that lives in the garage...

And in almost every room of the house there is a vac outlet point.  So instead of wheeling a Hoover around I have this huge length of plastic concertina pipe that I drag from place to place.  It's a bit like an enormously long elephant's trunk and I always seem to be tangling it up and tying it in knots and running out of 'trunk' just before I run out of room which is very frustrating.

Oddly, if I use it for too long (thats figurative, any amount of time spent hoovering is too long) it makes the garage smell of dog poo.  I'm sure I'll get used to it eventually although I'm not looking forward to emptying the humongous bag.

Raining Again

It rained again today, consistently this time and I have worn jeans all day for the first time since June, apparently it will rain again tomorrow so I will just have to think hard about how good it is for the garden and even harder about rainy day activities for Jacob and Rose.

This afternoon we were visited by Aunty Sandy, Uncle Tim and Grandpa, it is always good to see them but especially on rainy days.  Uncle Tim had just flown in from Seattle and brought gifts.  A my little pony sticker book for Rose and an enormous robot shaped eraser for Jacob that is so big that Jacob had to weigh it (164g) and Rose thinks it is a dinosaur.

Today also saw the conclusion of a past rainy day project, this is news as Jacob's projects are not often concluded.  Last week he drew a lovely picture with the intention of making a jigsaw, I diligently stuck it onto a piece of card for him and he cut it into 115 pieces.  Yes, One Hundred and Fifteen Pieces!  When we talked about it before the fact I tried to steer him towards 20 or 30 but clearly he had other ideas.

Unsurprisingly he was not able to put it back together, especially as he couldn't remember what it looked like and we didn't have a picture of it.  This afternoon Sandy very heroically sat down with him for about 2 hours and somehow managed to piece most of it back together, I spent another half an hour on the final 10 pieces.  So for posterity (and because he is going to send it to England as a gift for Nana) here is a picture.

You'd better not lose it Nana because you will be expected to present evidence of its completion on British soil.

Jacob Post: Random

Today, I'm being random. First, an unfinished story called no no! Once there was 2 babies, one called Jackalope and one called Mariull. First is a boy, second is a girl. They had a babysitter called Kiya. The babies didn't like kiya at all. They learnt their first words from here. They were no, naughty and go away. They had learnt lots of bad words since. Their mother had just left. It ment trouble(or atleast to Jackalope and Mariull). The babysitter had just arrived. "NAUGHTY NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" they yelled. At once, they both went to get pieces of wood from the backyard. They blocked up the door with them all. Then they went and got some chairs, Tables and all the furniture downstairs. Atlast the babysitter gave up attempting to open the door and knocked. Mariull moved a chair and threw a screwed-up piece of paper through the keyhole. It flew back. "NAUGHTY NAUGHTY NONONONONONO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" they yelled. Suddenly, silence fell. They flew to the back door and blocked it up. Then they shut and locked all the windows. They were satisfied.

 TO BE CONTINUED 

Next up, Today's events!!!

First, we went to swimming lessons. I need to work on front crawl and front glides. If I do that, I will be at level 4 !!!

Next, we bought me new swimming shorts, Rose a dress and a ball and me a giant spade.

Next, after lunch, we washed the car.

Then, me and Rose played a game on scooters.

Last, but not least we  had supper and I writen this long, random blog entry.

Good night everyone!

Stories with Attitude

Today we went to Timberwood Trail to see Grandpa and Aunty Sandy.  The kids got temporary tattoos imported from Seattle.

While we were there I found Jacob's missing story book from school.  Here is his report of the school trip this summer, you have to imagine it being read with many many long suffering sighs and eye rolls:

On June 25 we went on a class trip to the Pinery then Rock Glen.  First we went on the bus to school.  My Mum thought it was pointless going to school first because I live 1 minute away from it [the Pinery].  Then we waited for our team leader.  Then we got in our groups and got on the bus.  I saw my house through the trees.  We got to the Pinery.  We all went on the Cedar trail.  It was 2km long.  I saw a very interesting snail and an h-shaped log.  I climbed on it.  When we had gone around the trail we went on the bus to the picnic area.  We ate our lunch.  Then we went on the bus again to Rock Glen.  We went into the museum with a tour guide.  She told us about insects.  Then we went on an insect hunt.  We found 7 beetles, 5 flys, 25 ants (mostly from an ant colony) 8 moths, 4 caterpillars, 1 mellepede, 11 spiders and lots more bugs.  Then we went bug collecting with nets and found lots of bugs.  It was fun.  Then we went back to school on the bus.  Then we went home on the bus.  I was completely fed up of the bus.  It was still fun.

It seems the children are developing or refining attitude.  Rose stomped down the stairs this morning after a muffled conference with Tom and announced "I have come downstairs because I am fed up of listening to the silly things Daddy is saying that I don't like."  She's 3, what will she say at 16 when one of us suggests she tidies her room or wears different clothes.

Rain and Beer

This morning it rained.  This is big news as although we have had quite a few good storms it hasn't actually just rained for ages.  So we got out the Mister Maker sock puppet kit.  Rose made a dog and a zebra and Jacob made a duck (no surprises there).

They are very nice but if I didn't own a glue gun they would have been destined for failure and rainy day children disappointment.  Why anyone would produce an everything-you-need-included kit with pritt stick to glue felt to socks I don't know.  Oh well.

Yesterday the kids and I had our first trip to The Beer Store.  This is a good bit of Canadiana for you.  In Ontario you can only buy alcohol for consumption at home from government run premises.  There is the aptly named The Beer Store where you buy beer and The LCBO (Liquor Control Board of Ontario) for wine and spirits and stuff.  The Beer Store reminds me a bit of Marshes pop factory in Barrow when I was little.  You go in through the In door (obviously) and there is a till and a little metal conveyor belt where you take your empties and get given 10c/bottle!  Then you either take your money away or use it towards your new purchase that comes whizzing out at you from another little metal conveyor belt by the Exit door.  Neat.

Jacob was very taken with the conveyor belts and wanted to know how they were powered.  I told him monkeys on bikes but he wasn't buying that and told me "it is probably electricity Mummy" in a very patronizing tone.  He also wanted to know if they give you back the bottles you just brought in but although its efficient I'm not sure its quite that good.

Same Old, Same Old

I have entitled this same old, same old as I didn't really think anything notewothy happened today but thats not really fair.  Jacob trod water for 2 minutes and 30 seconds and swam 125m back stroke today which is brilliant considering he couldn't swim at all at the beginning of July, and Rose managed to get through the day with only 1 t-shirt, 2 pairs of shorts, 1 set of underwear, 2 swim suits, flip flops, high heels and a pair of trainers.

Same old, same old can't be too bad when its 28 degrees and you're sitting on an empty beach for half the day either.

Also, look what I found on the garage door yesterday morning...

arghhhhh

and wasn't I brave doing this just so you can see scale...

I hope they don't move fast

A Day of Culture - mmm

Only the second day of this 2 week course of swimming lessons and I am already fed up of having to be out of the house by 8.45am.  What a drag.  That only gives me 2 and a half hours to come too in the morning and it is barely enough.  At least I'm not making packed lunches as well.

Jacob has already gone into detail about the local museum so I shall just say that it was a proper museum full of huge collections of victorian vehicles, agricultural implements and cast iron tools that look slightly gruesome and make you feel a bit itchy and want to wash your hands repeatedly.  The rescued buidings were quite neat in a decrepit sort of a way and the school was really cute.  It very much made me think of Laura Ingalls.

Hows that for a spanner collection Dad?

The medieval exhibition (referred to by J as the arts and crafts gallery, he obviously learnt a lot) was excellent.  Not a genuine artefact in sight and the kids could have played there for days.  Needless to say we returned with all sorts of tat that will blight the house until it can be discreetly recycled, including 2 cardboard knights helmets, 2 cardboard stained glass windows and a massive assortment of word searches, quizzes and things to colour in.  Also inexplicably a toy writing slate and a pink plastic snake, I must have had a weak moment!

Brave knights

Of course, there was also a rather passed it, but nonetheless enjoyed play area.

Jacob Post: At the Museum

This Afternoon, we went to a museum. First, we went to a place where there was lots of restored furniture. We had a sheet of paper where you could find stamps around the museum and put them on. We found 2 in there! Then we went outside to look at all the old biuldings. First we went to the old blacksmiths shop. Then to some new biuldings with lots of old interesting things in them. The Mary Ellen Meeting House was closed due to likleyhood of completely falling down and making a giant fire. The old church was open, so we went in. Next was the old school. Last was an old house. Then, we had a snack and went on an all-important playground. After that, we went in an art and craft gallary. It was fun. At home, I said "I am SO blogging this!" The pictures are on our flicker page.