1. Success of the week: Little Cherub worked out how to pedal her bike (with stabilisers). The bike was a lucky find - someone was having a garage clearout and put out old bikes and scooters for sale just as we walked past the house. Cherub fell in love with the larger of the two bikes, which is really a bit too big for her - it is meant for age four and up, and Cherub is not four year old sized, but it has a dolly seat on the back, a pink bag on the front, and glittery tassels on the handlebars, which all made it irresistible. She has been trying very hard to pedal, but couldn't quite make her short legs reach until a few days ago when she cracked it. She can still only manage if there is a slight downward slope, which means I have to push her up the road so she can cycle down. She is very proud of herself!
2. I enjoyed this post on risk at MacBeth's Opinion (there is also a follow-up post here). It was interesting that both MacBeth and a number of commenters were more inclined than their husbands to allow children to take risks. Tevye is definitely more risk averse and more inclined to worry than I am, so the same applies here. I am rather more in the mould of the father in Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons: "Better drowned than duffers; if not duffers, won't drown".
3. Another successful school visit for Cherub on Wednesday. This time she was particularly taken with an "office" area, with old keyboards, phones and calculaters, filing trays, paper and pencils, and with an ice cream stall set up in the seaside area. She actually spoke to one of the teachers this week, and accepted staying on her own quite happily when the parents went into the school hall for a while to listen to a talk.
4. Angel has been just given her coursework task for her Design and Technology Graphic Products GCSE. She has to choose one of these assignments:
(a) An international Board Game manufacturer needs you to design and make a new prototype board game using the "race and chase" format. It is important that the game is presented ready for sale.
(b) A well-established local Italian fast food delivery service called "Milano" requires a new menu, a card counter dispenser for the menus and a box for their new 250mm pizza. The pizza box needs to have some form of smart indication of the temperature of the pizza on delivery. Design and make the required products.
My guess is she will choose the second option as it takes less imagination and more technique (cut-and-fold boxes are a geometric challenge).
5. We have been testing out a range of World Cup flavours produced by the major crisp (potato chip) manufacturer over here has launched a range of World Cup flavours. My favourites so far are Japanese Teriyaki Chicken, and South African Sweet Chutney. Angel and Star like Australian BBQ Kangaroo and English Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding. I've yet to find a crisp Cherub doesn't like (which is useful as she eats up all the cheese and onion ones from multipacks than nobody else wants). Anyone else in the UK have any favourites?
6. More brass banding this week ... we'll be playing in the bandstand in the park on Sunday afternoon, with a programme including this piece of music that has become something of a theme tune for the England football team (the recording quality isn't good, but this was the best played version of the setting we use I could find on YouTube):
7. Found on the kitchen side this morning ... a note from Tevye reading "Urgent: No tea bags", to which had been added "Urgent: No make-up wipes, no hairspray".
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