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.

Plan B (by alaric)

I've hired a car to take up to the Lake District this weekend.

A Peugeot 308 with 350 miles on the clock that smells of new, picked up in London Euston, drop off in Gloucester, four days, for £166 from Avis at zero notice and with nothing more than a debit card and a clean licence with the same name on and a photo that matches my face - not bad at all. 1car1 was offering £200 for the same thing, but I'd need a utility bill, which by some miracle I don't happen to normally carry with me!

The van will stay here until I return next week and then I'll transport it to a place of fixing.

I broke the van! (by alaric)

While in London with the van, I had to deliver a server to a data centre - (InterXion London)[http://www.datacentermap.com/united-kingdom/london/interxion-london.html]. There's parking at the DC, but it's £20 to park a van there, so I decided to try and get into the car park marked just north of it on the map, in Quaker Street.

While I could find the car park, I couldn't find the way in - I could see cars all parked behind a fence, but no sign of the entrance. But while navigating the narrow little roads, I had to turn around in Grey Eagle Street:

View Larger Map

The road was narrow, only a single track, but with a wide pavement, so I opted for a three point turn. I turned hard right to bring the front of the van up onto the pavement, and the right wheel went up, but then I heard a grinding scraping noise. I was a bit surprised to be bottoming out on a not-particularly-high kerb, but I reversed back and found a place further down with a dropped kerb (but less pavement, since there was a car parked up there) to turn.

However, I noticed that my steering was suddenly a bit funny. I had to hold the wheel at about seventy degrees left to drive in a straight line. And the suspension felt odd - I could feel every little stone in the road, and if I went over even the slightest bump, I heard a funny creaking sound.

BAD NEWS!

After a quick check for visible signs of damage as soon as I had parked (none), I did the business of the evening, and then drove carefully back to Highgate for a closer look.

I parked with the wheel perfectly straight, then got out and looked at both wheels.

Here's the left one, pointing nice and straight ahead:

And here's the right one... pointing twenty or so degrees to the right:

Looks like the tracking's totally out, then.

And by the scientific method of placing my hand in the gap between top of tyre and wheel arch then holding it still while I walk around and try on the other side, the right hand side seems an inch or so lower than the left, too.

And all this when I'm supposed to be doing a five-hour drive up motorways tomorrow evening. Eeek.

I'm going to see if I can find a place to look at my tracking and suspension first thing tomorrow... but I'm dreading what it'll cost, and doubting I'll get it fixed the same day...

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.