Thursday Thirteen #5: Random facts about Greece

Tomorrow we leave for two weeks of sea, sun and sand on the Greek island of Corfu, so this week's theme had to be Greek. Here are thirteen random facts ...

1. The Greek name for Greece is Ellas or Ellada (pronounced Ell-ah-tha)

2. The Greek prime minister is Konstantinos Karamanlis, leader of the Nea Demokratia (New Democracy) party.

3. Greek soldiers can wear skirts and pom-poms on their feet and still manage to look military.

4. The Greek sewage system cannot handle toilet paper :(.

5. Do not dither when waiting to disembark from a Greek ferry. You might find yourself being carried off to the next destination.

6. In 2002 the Euro became the Greek currency, after 3000 years of using the drachma.

7. Greece is the only place I have stood inside the crater of a volcano. To be honest, it is the only place I have ever seen a volcano.

8. Never, ever, go to Athens in August. The Athenians don't - they migrate somewhere cooler and less polluted.

9. The tallest mountain in Greece is Mount Olympus. Yes, it is real.

10. In the Greek Orthodox Church the sign of the Cross is made in the opposite direction to the practice in the Roman Catholic Church (touching the right shoulder before the left, instead of left, then right).

11. The population of Greece is just over 11 million. Over a quarter of the population lives in Athens.

12. Corfu is said to have over 3 million olive trees.

13. The Greek for "Good morning" (kalimera) sounds rather like the Greek for a certain marine animal (kalamari). Greeks are very polite, so when accosted by tourists with a cheery greeting of "squid!" they will smile sweetly and not point out the error.

Knit the Classics

For some reason Brideshead made me think of hats and Catholicism of course, but not being Catholic I was unsure how to go about knitting a rosary. So I knit a hat instead.

If you like books and knitting you have to check out this unique blog: Knit the Classics. As in knit Brideshead Revisted or Dante's Inferno, not "knit this classic sweater". Fancy knitting Charles' Beret, or a Lilliputian Sweater?

Oh, this is just ... classic!

My ecological footprint

I am reading a book about living in an ecologically and ethically responsible way (the title escapes my foggy brain) and was inspired to check out my "ecological footprint". Apparently it takes 3.6 hectares of land to keep me in the style to which I am accustomed. Not bad compared to the average for someone living in the UK of 5.3 hectares, but not good considering that there are only 1.8 hectares of productive land per person when the earth is divided between its entire population. I suspect the plus points in my favour are that there are five of us living in one house, I rarely drive alone, and I also walk quite a bit. On the other hand we eat a fair amount of meat, and are not very energy efficient.

Being the curious person I am, I input exactly the same answers but pretended I lived in the USA, somewhere with the similar weather to New York. Converting the European hectares (hectares? what are hectares?) to imperial acres, here is a breakdown of the two results.

UK
Average footprint 13.2 acres
My footprint
- food 3.7
- mobility 0.7
- housing 2.2
- goods / services 2.2
giving a total of 8.8 acres

USA
Average footprint 24 acres
My footprint
- food 4.9
- mobility 0.7
- housing 6.7
- goods / services 6.7
giving a total of 19 acres

If everyone lived like the real, British me, we would need 2 planets; if everyone lived like the imaginary, American me, we would need 4.3.

Take the Earth Day Ecological Footprint quiz here.

Good news for home educators

The government here has been reviewing the law regarding home education and considering whether to impose new regulations. Given the general trend in Europe - both France and Ireland have already introduced restrictive homeschooling laws - and that the current government has turned over-regulation into an art form, I was pessimistic about the outcome. Consultation documents suggested that various changes would be made, including compulsory registration for home educated children, more intrusive powers of inspection, and possibly the imposition of the National Curriculum on homeschoolers.

The new guidelines were issued today and to say I am pleasantly surprised is an understatement. No change! Everything remains as it was, and better still, the guidelines clarify the limits of the role of education authorities with respect to homeschooling families. This should make it harder for them to overstep their legal bounds. Those of us who form the silent majority of home educators here owe a big debt to those pressure groups who have worked hard to influence these guidelines. Good job!

Read the BBC News report here.

Where are you on the political compass?

Hmmm! Very interesting! Recognising that the old distinctions between left and right have blurred and become more complex, The Political Compass claims to make it possible to map your political leanings more accurately by using four points of reference - left, right, authoritarian and libertarian.

I find it increasingly difficult to define myself politically, as I feel uncomfortable with all the main political parties here. I generally vote differently in local and national elections and my vote is largely personal rather than ideological. We are fortunate to have a Member of Parliament who is pro-life and pro-family - a great rarity in British politics - so he gets my vote regardless of party. To be honest, if I had to vote solely along party lines I am not sure I would feel able to vote at all. From my position of political disillusion I was intrigued to see where I would fall on the political compass.

The result? I am mildly left and libertarian. Left? As I was almost exactly in line with Pope Benedict XVI, I will settle for that - though he was authoritarian where I was libertarian, courtesy of a distaste for overbearing government. The political figure closest to my position on the chart was Gandhi, another figure I admire.

So, where on the political compass are you? Take the test and find out.

New look

My blog has a new look, thanks to a new blog ... Moms Who Blog, where a generous group of experienced bloggers are passing on tips and tricks. They inspired me to move beyond my profound ignorance of html and tackle a new template. I think I am pleased.

They also include advice on finding copyright free photos to use on blogs. I'm afraid I haven't been doing this correctly, though I have been avoiding photos from private sources and sticking to those available on public sites such as the BBC and Wikipedia.

Thursday Thirteen #4: England in May

1. May (hawthorn) blossom

2. Maypoles

3. Ice cream vans

4. Ducks

5. Lambs

6. The Padstow 'Obby 'Oss

7. Picnics

8. Bluebells

9. Cricket

10. May fayres

11. Cow parsley

12. Well dressing

13. The Helston Floral Dance

Slightly late due to technical issues! Glad to report that my internet connection is now fully, wirelessly restored :)

And no, everything in England isn't quaint and rural, but I thought it would be fun to share a few things that are.

A candle for Heather

Like many other homeschoolers, I enjoyed taking part in the recent Homeschool Blog Awards. One of the organisers, Heather, was recently diagnosed with a brain tumour and is undergoing surgery today, May 3rd. Alice at Cottage Blessings suggested "lighting a candle" for Heather, by including this picture in blog entries along with a reminder to pray for Heather and her family. Please join us.

You can also find the code for the "praying for Heather" button in my sidebar here.

I'm wired

... though not yet wireless. Thank you St. Isidore! And also thanks to a nice, helpful young man from the Tiscali helpline in India who gave me advice and even called me back to talk me through setting up a borrowed modem-router on the Mac.

More good computer news ... in a perverse sort of way. Possibly. The DVD drive on my new, much unloved Windows Vista laptop appears not to be working. Could I be looking at a refund on yet another machine? Surely not! But if so, then I will be looking for a used MacBook rather than go through more pain with Windows Vist-grrr! I'm trying not to get too hopeful.

The good, the bad and the ugly

The good ... I am managing to do a reasonable number of workouts. I have decided I like the Taebo one much the best - it leaves me feeling fitter and stronger, rather than tired and achy. Every other day seems about right for now.

The bad ... while exercising yesterday, I stopped for a drink and knocked my glass of water over the wireless router. Our wireless connection disappeared.

The ugly ... several wasted hours and much frustration later I can't resurrect the router, or find any way of getting an internet connection on either of our computers. I can like get a connection using my old broadband modem and my neighbours' laptop, but can't load it on to either my iMac or the WindowsVista (grrrr!) laptop.

Who is the patron saint of computers? I need help!

Voices from the past

Karen E posted a link on her blog to an internet poetry archive where you can hear poets reading their own work. It reminded me that a while ago I turned on the radio and caught a snippet of Hilaire Belloc reciting one of his poems, in an old, crackly recording that sent shivers down my spine. I wondered what else might be lurking on the internet. I couldn't find Belloc but here are ...

• The only surviving radio broadcast by C.S.Lewis, from 1944.
• The voice of G.K.Chesterton

Any shivers out there?

"There are timetable things everywhere!"

Indeed there are, Angel. Indeed there are!

Most unusually, yesterday was a free day for us. We went to Mass on Saturday night in anticipation of doing something yesterday that didn't happen, and Angel and I decided to miss our brass band rehearsal as we were tired.

So I spent the day getting organised. This past week I finally realised why I keep feeling as though I am wading through glue. Doing anything with a high maintenance eleven month old baby is like driving across the Alps - you have to assume it will take at least twice as long as you expect. I'm a slow learner, but I get there eventually. Faced with this realisation I picked A Mother's Rule of Life by Holly Pierlot off the shelf to browse through in search of inspiration.

While I know I will never manage to fully implement a Rule in the way she recommends, I did find myself inspired to put things on paper, trying to work out a routine that will allow me to fit in everything necessary without that paddling like fury feeling. I now have copies of the following in a nice neat binder and displayed in the kitchen ...

• Daily schedule for all five of us, in half hour increments. Yep. Even Little Cherub has a schedule (along the lines of "with Mum", "with Dad", "with Angel", and a slightly optimistic "nap")
• Weekly schedule, in morning, afternoon and evening blocks
  
• Evening schedule of who does what when and who drives them. Again even Little Cherub is included ("go with Dad to take Angel to dance" for example). This schedule alone made me realise why my brain was hurting trying to remember everything - and why one child ... ahem! ... got forgotten at dance one day.
  
• Schoolwork and daytime activities for this week
• Menu plan for this week
• Basic weekly housework task list

Now, I am not by nature a "schedule every half hour" person, but I found it a surprisingly useful exercise. Drawing up a detailed schedule allowed me to see just what was realistic, and how to overcome the logistical problems in my day. Today I put the schedule to the test, and had the calmest, most orderly day we have had for longer than I care to remember (at least until Star had a five star bedtime meltdown).

I noticed that two things made a very big difference. Firstly, I was focused on what I should be doing at any given time and didn't let myself get distracted by what I wanted to be doing. Secondly, I had a couple of planned times to get on with practical tasks while someone else was responsible for Little Cherub, which meant the amount I could do increased exponentially.

Will it last? Watch this space!

Ooh! I want this!

Doesn't this Salve Regina prayerbook look gorgeous. It includes some prayers from the pre-Reformation English Sarum rite as well as the full twenty mysteries of the Rosary illustrated with medieval art from the collection of Stonyhurst College, founded in exile by 16th century Jesuits. Recommended by Joanna Bogle, who also makes some comments on homeschooling in this post.

We have been out and about

At least, Star and I have. On Thursday we went for a nature walk at a local country park, where Star took these photos of primroses

a solitary bluebell (there were more, but not in their full glory - I wonder whether we were too early, or whether this warm April has already seen them past their best)

and mallards asleep and awakeLittle Cherub came with us and found the fresh air exhausting, particularly after the weather caught us out and we got a little damp (you would think I would have learned by now not to be fooled by meteorological appearances).

Yesterday we went further afield and saw some more wildlife
.... made of Lego. We also saw Romeo and Juliet's balcony at Verona

Sacre Couer in Paris
and even made it as far as Houston. Being a Legoland model maker must be a great job ... and they really are masters of their art.

We also ate ice cream, rode the Jungle Coaster nine times (the advantage of going on a school day in April is that there are no queues!) and got rather more than a little damp - or should I say very wet indeed - on a water raft.

Thursday Thirteen #3: Games

Our current favourite card and board games .... some we have played off and on for years, others are newer. Card games first, then others:

1. Uno ... simple enough for younger children, still fun for older kids and adults. The basic principle is matching colour or number, with special action cards to add a twist. We also had a Uno Extreme machine for a while, which spat out random numbers of cards mechanically, but the numbers were always too random and when it eventually broke we didn't miss it.

2. Duo ... similar to Uno, but requires matching of two characteristics out of three -shape, colour or number.

3. Blink ... yet another card matching game, but this one relies on speed. Rather like Duo, but with two players racing to get rid of all their cards.

4. Numero ... a maths game originally developed for people with Alzheimer's and memory loss. It can be played at a number of levels, starting with basic addition up to 10 or 15, then adding in subtraction, multiplication, division, and later fractions, squares and square roots.

5. Categories ... bought for 50 pence at a charity shop, this has been Star's favourite game for a while. You pick cards to get five categories, then pick five letters and spend two minutes trying to find a word for each category beginning with each letter. We ran out of the printed forms included in the game and are now having to write our own.

6. Monopoly ... enough said.

7. The Hobbit game ... Star and I both enjoy this one, though Angel is less keen. Travel through Middle Earth trying to collect enough jewels and adventure points to defeat Smaug and win his treaure.

8. The Dickens Game ... another charity shop find. Each player chooses one of four books by Dickens to "write". To write an episode you have to match a plot card with a character card and take them both to a writing desk. The winner is the first to finish all six episodes in their book. Includes suitable Dickensian characteristics as inns, stage coaches and a debtors' prison.

9. The Cooking Game ... I have grown to loathe this, but it is one of the girls' favourites. It involves a lot of time going round and round a kitchen collecting heaps of ingredient cards and not doing much else - apart from having to stop to do the washing up, stir the pots or lay the table. Exciting, huh? I suppose the interest, such as it is, is in the opportunity to take cards from other players. Collect all the ingredients for a main course and either a starter or a dessert to win. The game always lasts at least twenty minutes too long for me.

10. Anatomix ... educational! Answer questions about the human body to win pieces and build an anatomical jigsaw. Can be adapted for different levels.

11. Rummikub ... similar to the card game Rummy but played with tiles. Good for thinking skills as you have to manipulate the tiles in order to get rid of tiles from your hand. Like Monopoly, we have played this for years and it is still popular.

12. Pictionary ... really needs at least four people, though theoretically can be played with three. Two teams take it in turns to pick a card, then one player draws whatever is written on the card and the remainder of the team try to guess the word before running out of time. No need to be a great artist, and probably more fun if you aren't! We also have a Junior version of the game with easier words and two sets of graded cards, but have found that the adult game can easily be adapted by just skipping any cards with words the youngest players may not know.

13. Pit ... last, but not least. Loud. Fast. Great party game. Try to collect a set of eight stock market commodity cards by dealing with other players. Dealing means swapping cards by yelling the number you want to swap until someone else shouts the same number. Needs at least four players and can be played by up to eight. Danger of cards getting torn in the excitement.

Oops! Latin again!

This time she mixed up periculum and pecunia.

Star's translation of in periculo magno sumus ... "we are in big money".

What it should have been was "we are in great danger"!

Thinking Blogger Award

And there I was, thinking I was still suffering from baby brain fog ... thanks to Mary G. of St. Athanasius Academy I'm flattered to announce that this is officially a Thinking Blog. Mary is one of my very favourite types of blogger - a thoughtful reader who shares lots of book suggestions and reviews. She also has a link to the coolest bookcase ever ... or is it the coolest chair ever?

So what is the Thinking Blogger Award? A fun tag, with three simple rules:

1. Write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think.
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme.
3. Optional: Proudly display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award’ with a link to the post that you wrote.

It's a tough choice, but here goes ...

1. Willa at In A Spacious Place. Willa articulates the needs of her children and the way she tailors their education in a way that always helps me to focus my own thoughts.
2. Karen Edmisten. Reading Karen's blog is like going out for coffee with an intelligent, well read, humorous friend.
3. Lissa at The Lilting House. I could choose her blog for many reasons ... thoughtful posts on Waldorf education, unschooling and Charlotte Mason will do for one.
4. Kristen at Small Treasures. For posts like this one on hospitality (and because I have a fellow feeling for families with small girls - though two of mine are no longer small).
   
5. Dorothy at You Did What? Witty commentary on life as a homeschooling mother sinking gradually into decrepitude (oops! delete that! ... I meant scrumdillyumptiousness).
   

For St. George's Day ...

Prayer to St. George, patron of England

St. George, special patron of England and great defender of the faith, we invoke your intercession for our country in these times. St. George, defend our people from the error of trying to live without God. St. George, defend our people from the wiles of Satan. St. George, protect our families from sin and division. St. George, protect our young from all who would corrupt them. St. George, protect the unborn from the evil of abortion. St. George, protect the old and vulnerable from the threat of euthanasia. St. George, defend the Church from all spiritual, moral and physical danger. St. George, intercede for faith to return to the heart of our land, family life and government.

St. George we pray to you, our beloved patron and implore your powerful intercession for the conversion of England, once Mary’s dowry and land of so many Saints. Amen.

[from Walsingham Prayer Book]

Mean, but not lean!

Faced with the realisation that I can no longer put off doing some sort of regular exercise I have been looking for inspiration at Lean But Not Mean, a fitness blog kept by a group of Catholic homeschooling mothers.

My last push for fitness took the form of joining the gym at our local leisure centre. It worked! I went regularly two or three times a week and felt much better for it ... then came pregnancy and that was the end of that! Right now, I honestly can't see how I could fit regular visits to the gym or exercise classes into my week, so I'm trying out exercise videos and DVDs that I can fit into my normal day. My main criteria for choosing is cost. Given that I have no idea what sort of exercise routine I would like, having not done this before, I'm trying to pick up a selection of cheap used or discounted tapes and DVDs to try out. Hence the "mean, but not lean" title of this post (the "not lean" part speaks for itself!).

So far I have three workouts ...

• Rosemary Conley's Whole Body Programme 2 - too easy, which is encouraging! I think I may recycle this one back to Oxfam.
  
• Taebo: the Future of Fitness - as recommended by Leonie, so I was pleased to spot this for a pound at a charity shop. It combines a Taebo Live workout with instruction for beginners (that's me!). The girls think mummy kick-boxing is very funny. It is a stretch, but I can just make it through the 30 minute routine.
• Kym Ryder's Burn and Firm Workout - promises "four weeks to a firmer, fitter you". Hmm. I guess that depends how often you do it and how much you eat. I'm not holding my breath. I tried the basic routine for the first time this morning - easier than the Taebo, but still felt like good exercise. There are also extra segments I can add in if I'm feeling inspired and have the time.

I did the Taebo work out four or five times the week before last, but last week went by the board as I struggled to get going after a weekend fighting a virus. No excuses this week, so I'm aiming for at least four workouts again.

Look at me!

... having fun at the farm. Am I cute or what?