Old McDonald had an Alpaca (by sarah)

On Saturday we started our outings in the Lakedistrict by going to see the Alpaca's - these are cute little camelids from Pure or somewhere and they are so lovely - I never thought I'd find something I liked more than the Llama.

I have decided that even though they are like £7000 each or something I want to bread them when I retire, I already want Llamas when I retire - I hope they'll get on with goats:/

Jean loved them too - they were a variety of colours from white to carmel brown to dark brown and grey - there where mixed ones too. In the shop they had lots of alpaca rugs which looked suspicously like the pelts skin and all but they where so soft and in lovely geometric patterns. For £30 there where teddies made out of the stuff which was soooo soft - I got Jean a little knitted alpaca from Peru for £3 instead - she has called it Paca/Packer and has not stopped carrying it around with her.

We asked the ladies what sort of noise it made as Jean was asking for Old McDonald - apparently they hum so we now have a verse that goes:

Old McDonald had a farm e-i-e-i-o And on that farm he had an alpaca e-i-e-i-o with a hmm hmm here and a hmm hmm there her a hmm there a hmm everwhere a hmm hmm!

(we already have verses invovling such things a Llama's and dinosuars, tractors and chainsaws)

I will post the photos shortly though they aren't very good due to where the sun was in the sky and the fact that I only had a phone camera to use.

Journey to the Lakedistrict (by sarah)

Alaric's Dad and Step-mother Lynne are in the country at the moment and took us on holiday to the Lakedistrict - Penrith to be precise. Unfortunatly it is like a five hour car journey and I managed to have a back spasm Thursday night.

This ment that a car journey that would have been very uncomftable for me was not really very pleasant but I managed to get some reading done on the Moon and thanks to Lynne had a great time teaching Jean set theory in the back of the car with some Gruffolo stickers. After the first hour and a half of counting and catagorising stickers and off course sticking them I asked Jean if she was bored of counting and numberrs - 'No want more' was her answer - followed by a belated, 'please'. Great as this was it did mean that I had to keep thinking of new ways of looking at the stickers and which groups could over lap and things.

How many owls are there? Owls are a type of bird, what other birds can we see? Woodpeckers - how many? Oh and there's odd birds too? So how many birds do we have? Oh look there's a damsely fly - how many? Oh look it can fl, yes so can the butterfly - they are instects - whow many insects? Some of the insects can fly but not all - how many can fly? So if the birds fly and some of the insects fly how many things are flying?

And on and on and on.... there was fungi arithmatic to conjur with too!

(to the last question Jean answered 'all' which was true as well due to the way she'd stuck the stickers to the page :/ But once I said which ones would we see in our garden flying she answered the question correctly.

After this it was time for a rendition of Old MacDonald and the like.

I was exhorsted by the end of it.

But there was a lovely cottage with baconies and everything - not to mention a pool at the accompanying hotel! Jean was transfixed by the swimmers. We had a lovely meal in the hotel resturant which has these lovely blue and turquoise ceramic abstracts up all over the place. I mad the med veg.

We then went back to the shalleee and watched a film.

After that I stayed up to await the arrival of Al and Simon (Al's step brother). I read alot of my moon book whilst doing hot and cold treatments on my back - the pain was affecting my breathing and had affected my eating as swollowing had become supremely painfull 🙁

At about 2 am they arrived consumed Jeans leftover tea and was all went to bed.

Pooey Betsy (by sarah)

At lunch we were sitting eating falafels when Jean's looks down at her hands and says, 'I know Betsy's dead.' This was very quiet and subdued for Jean. 'She's in a hole, a bigger hole.'

'Yes Jean that's right,' I said.

Jean stared down for a while and then said, 'Betsys a silly pooey, pooey, poo.'

She was looking at me seriously with no mischief in her face - this is very unlike Jean - I said calmly, 'No Jean Betsy's not silly she was just very sick and died. It's not nice to say that she's pooey.'

Jean's face crumpled (that is the best descriptive term I can think off), 'But she's gone, in hole but gone, all gone?'

'Are you sad Jean?' Little forlorn nod, 'About Betsy?' nod - she then flung herself into my arms for very clingy cuddle.

This is the first time that an entity she has grown up with and interacted with has died but she has known of the concept of death for a while - not because of all the funerals as they are a bit far removed from her comprehension but because the cats kill mice and birds - something she tells them off for (well only when its a mouse actually she doesn't seem to mind the bird getting the chop).

I don't know if we handled this correctly but death is unfortunately a part of life and I hope this will help her come to terms with things easier than if we hide it all from her - still it was heart breaking to see her little face as she realised that Betsy really was gone. I think the pooey Betsy bit was her going through the angry stage of mourning.

From South Africa to Gloucestershire (by sarah)

Alaric's Dad Lionel and his step-mother Lynne are currently over from South Africa where they live. They arrived in depested darkest Gloucestershire last night and for Lionel it is a return to the place he was brought up. Tonight we made them a three course meal along with Barbara - this is the first formal entertianing we have done since moving back into the house after the flood.

So I brought out the table cloths and napkins and the nice butterfly napkin rings David and Michelle got us at Christmas. We made yummy lentil cakes with sage in - yesturday Alaric made some of the same lentil cakes with what he thought was the coriander but it turned out he doesn't actually know the difference between my lovage plants and coriander - he thought the lovage were lemon corriander and thats why it tasted odd :/ - still both types of lentil cakes were good 🙂

They sat upon a bed of salad from the garden and we had various dips. We then had ground nut stew cook using the cabbages from the garden (well what were left off them due to this years cattipillar uinfestation). Desert was home-made yogurt and local honey with hazel nuts (I'm afraid these were bought as Jean had eaten the ones from the hedge row I'd gathered.).

The interesting thing to note was Jean's interactions with Lionel - her langage was completely different from how she speaks to dad - eg:

To Dad, 'Ferfer nut?'

To Lionel, 'Grandfather would you like a nut?'

I thought this comparison was very interesting as was the fact she called him grandfather when Al had introduced him as Granddad but Lynne had said Grandfather. I think little bobble has worked out that you can interact differently depending on whats expected of you!

Anyway I did take a photo of the Snells but haven't got round to uploading it yet - I will also shortly be sorting out my cooking blog which I will link to so that you can see the recipies etc... of the fabled lentil cakes!

Jean’s Second Anniversary (by sarah)

The church here in Cranham gives the children presants on the anniversaries of their christianings and today was the chosen day for Jean to recieve her presant. But unusually for Jean she went mega shy and hid in the pew and didn't say anything for the whole service. She got a little board book and becuase they haven't had a children service since the beginning of summer she also got a birthday candle which we have put into the candle stick holder she got last year.

It was a nice day and we walked there and back even if dad did moan the entire way.