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