Birthday Survey

Because you have to be nice to people on their birthdays and humour them, and because I can never resist memes, quizzes and surveys ...

1. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE?
My middle name is Helen, after my adoptive great-aunt who I always considered to be my grandmother in all but name.

2. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED?
Saturday, over my domestic incompetence :(.

3. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING?
No. I never have. I tried to teach myself Getty-Dubay italic when I taught Angel to write, but it didn't improve it much.

4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT?
Wiltshire ham

5. DO YOU HAVE KIDS?
Yes.

6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU?
Yes. Most of the time I'm quite nice. I hope.

7. DO YOU USE SARCASM A LOT?
Sometimes. Despite lecturing Angel on sarcasm being the lowest form of humour.

8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS?
No. I had them out when I was ten after years of frequent tonsillitis.

9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP?
Absolutely not!

10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL?
Bran flakes with sultanas

11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF?
I'm embarrassed to admit it, but never.

12. DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG?
Ummm ... yes, I think so.

13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM?
Ben and Jerry's chocolate fudge brownie

14. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE?
I haven't a clue. I am the most unobservant person imaginable.

15. RED OR PINK?
Pink.

16. WHAT IS YOUR LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF?
Lack of self-discipline.

17. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST?
My Auntie (see 1 above)

18. WHAT COLOR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING?
Beige, with navy blue crocs

19. WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU ATE?
Cheese on toast

20. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW?
Silence.

21. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE?
Pink or yellow.

22. FAVORITE SMELLS?
Freshly baked bread, the sea, coffee.

23. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE?
My mother.

24. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU?
Yes.

25. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH?
Athletics, gymnastics, ice skating

26. HAIR COLOR?
Dark brown with a slight touch of grey

27. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED?
Pirates of the Caribbean 3.

28. WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING?
Light green.

29. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW?
What's Wrong With the World by G.K.Chesterton

30. DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT?
I can get a tune out of almost any musical instrument. Not sure how I would get on with bagpipes ...

Happy birthday, Sharon!

School

This is a post I have been putting off writing ... it marks the end of a chapter and I'm still getting used to the idea of starting a new one. While we were away in Greece we decided that both Angel and Star will go to school in September. A few weeks ago this was not even on the cards, but sometimes life moves fast.

For us homeschooling has always been a positive choice, made because we felt it was the best thing for our particular children at this time, not because we had a fundamental problem with school. We are fortunate enough to live in an area where the schools are generally good, so we have always seen school as an option.

In the end it was an easy decision to send Angel. We had decided a while ago that she would go to Upper School in 2008 (more or less the equivalent to American High School, but starting a year earlier at thirteen). She needs the stimulus of learning with others, and she is a mature, sensible girl who we think will cope well with the school environment. While in some ways I would have loved to have her home for another year, we have hit a wall with homeschooling and she would only have been marking time, so she is going to go for the last year of Middle School.

Star is a different matter. She is a quirky personality who may well turn out to be a square peg in a round hole at school and we are far less confident that school will be right for her in the long term. So why send her? Partly because we hope the structured environment will be good for her, and partly because she wants to try. This year is a natural starting point as her year group will be beginning Middle School, so if she is going to try school this is a sensible time. We are going to reassess things after a year, and it may be that she will come home again. If so, then it will be with a number of answered questions, both for her and for us. Watch this space!

So ... we have filled in the forms, the school has confirmed that they have places for both girls, and they are all set to go. As for Little Cherub, she will definitely be home educated for at least the first few years, so I am still thinking of myself as a homeschooler (I just had a slight identity crisis, but I think I resolved it). Starting again with a little one - and with the benefit of experience - will be fun.

Confessions of a Hopeless Housewife

There is no easy way to say it. Tevye and I are hopelessly mismatched. He is Born Organised. I am a Sidetracked Home Executive ... or just plain sidetracked. In the early, more affluent years of our marriage harmony was maintained by employing a cleaner, who prevented the gulf between Tevye's ability to keep a house clean and tidy and my corrresponding inability becoming too glaringly obvious. Since children squeezed the cleaner out of our budget we have muddled through, maintaining a precarious balance of working hours (I used to work part time) and housework between us. Over the past couple of years of crisis mode Tevye ended up taking on more than his fair share of domestic duties. Now we are back on an even keel I have a whole raft of bad habits to break. The time has come ... I need to get Organised.

When I feel the need to kickstart myself out of Hopeless Housewife Syndrome, I turn to FlyLady. Her routines, control journals and reminders about the most basic of daily duties work for me - or at least they do if I'm feeling sufficiently motivated. Without lists and routines I get nowhere. Either I don't notice what needs to be done, or I get so overwhelmed that I don't know where to start. I now have a nice list of daily and weekly routines up in the kitchen, along with my Mother's Rule of Life Schedules. Tevye thinks them very funny. Surely I can't forget things like "change and dress Little Cherub" and "shower and dress"? Don't bet on it! I do get there eventually, but I'm ashamed to say there are days when I suddenly realise mid-morning that I have forgotten to do one or the other.

Now I need to work out a foolproof system for remembering to press Start buttons. If I had a pound for each time I have loaded the washer or dishwasher and then forgotten to press the vital button ...

Summer is here

Today we went to our first Sunday afternoon band concert in the park. Our town park still has an old fashioned bandstand, where there are weekly free concerts during the summer - mostly brass or wind bands. We go as often as possible, often with our neighbours. The adults take folding chairs, find a shady tree, listen to the music, read and chat; the children play in the park, paddle in the pool, listen to the music, chat and eat ice creams. It is all very old-fashioned and traditionally English, with tea and homemade cakes available and the concert ending with the National Anthem (a rarity these days). Once the Sunday park afternoons start we know summer has arrived, whatever the weather ... though today we had suitably warm, summery weather to enhance the effect.

Happy Birthday Little Cherub!

Hard as it is to believe, yesterday was Little Cherub's first birthday. Our little miracle has given us so much joy over the past year. How very blessed we are.


When she was born, she was tiny and loud out of all proportion to her size, and she is still tiny and loud. For perspective, the dress and cardigan she is wearing in this picture are sized 6-9 months. The little shoes are size 3-6 months. We measured her yesterday and at 27 inches she is only half an inch taller than Angel was at seven months. But oh ... is she cute!

Thursday Thirteen #7: Thirteen Things About Me

I have been tagged by Michele of The Family Centered Life for an 8 Things About Me meme, and by my Multiply (and real life) friend Sharon for My Five Things. Which to do? Aha! Both! Eight plus five makes thirteen, which gives me my Thursday Thirteen theme.

For Michele ...

1. I went to boarding school from just before my ninth birthday until I left school.

2. I hate getting my hair cut and put it off for as long as possible. Maybe I have a Samson complex?

3. I love to have vases of flowers around, but I am dreadful at remembering to throw them out when they wilt. I'm sitting here looking at a bunch of dead carnations.

4. I am allergic to animal dust, which was very inconvenient as I grew up on a farm. Horses are worst. Cats, surprisingly as they are an allergy trigger for many people, are not bad at all.

5. My lovely husband once took me on a surprise day trip to Berlin. It was just after the Berlin Wall came down and we were among the last people to go through Checkpoint Charlie.

6. In my office days I used to grab a breakfast of prawn and coleslaw rolls with hot chocolate on the way to work.

7. My grandfather survived being gassed during World War I.

8. I always sleep with at least two pillows, and often three or four.

For Sharon ...

9. I first learned to drive when I was about thirteen by bumping round a field in an ancient Austin Cambridge.

10. If I am feeling stressed I love to escape by re-reading The Chalet School Books by Elinor M.Brent Dyer.

11. When I was about 12 I tried to teach myself Dutch. Why Dutch, I have no idea. And no, I can't remember any. Not a single word.

12. I used to come home from primary school, run up and down the length of the house several times, then settle down at a little desk and play school, complete with timetable.

13. When the children are grown up and Tevye retires I would love to go and live in Cornwall.

As I am combining two memes from two different places it is far too complicated to try to tag anyone. If you would like to join in, pick eight or five things as you choose.

[A note to people who have left comments on the Multiply version of my blog - I wasn't ignoring you, but I wasn't getting notifications from Multiply. Tesco seems to have bounced the email address I was using there thanks to an unpaid bill of 87 pence which I don't owe them anyway!]

New knitting projects

Last night I finally made it to Hobbycraft to spend my Christmas gift from my mother (yes, I know we are already into June!) and bought two new knitting projects. The first is a bag with a wonderful vibrant mix of colours - pink, plum, orange and lime - and textures. I can't wait to knit it and use it, though sewing the lining will be a challenge as I am a non-sewer who doesn't even possess a sewing machine. The second is this jumper with a funky fur trim for Little Cherub. I bought the furry wool, but will probably knit the rest in a plain pale pink (the wool used in the pattern has multi-coloured speckles, that may not show in this picture). I haven't knitted since I finished Little Cherub's shawl, and I'm looking forward to getting on with some new projects.

Barefoot baby

Little Cherub is beginning to find her feet, and as we found ourselves near a Clarks shoe shop today I decided to get her a pair of "cruiser" shoes. (Aside: I wonder what proportion of British toddlers get their first pair of shoes from Clarks?) Little Cherub is built on a miniature scale, and I knew her feet would not be large enough for proper "walking" shoes, which start at a UK size 3*. The "cruiser" shoes - lighter and softer, and available from a tiny size 2 upwards - sounded ideal. Little Cherub proved surprisingly cooperative and let the sales assistant measure her feet. Size 1.5. Or rather, they would have been a 1.5 if the scale went that low. At least it was a first for the assistant, who had never measured feet so small they were off the scale before. Not very hopefully, he tried some very cute, very tiny shoes. Her feet slipped out. For now she is just going to have to stay a barefoot baby.

* I googled, and American infant shoe sizes are half a size smaller than UK sizes.

LOAFing Update

My organic fruit and vegetables arrived today. There were lots of green leafy things - cabbage, spring greens and lettuce - which as Angel and Star love green leafy things is good (if I believed in reincarnation I would think they had been rabbits in a former life). Not quite sure how fennel will go down. At least the supplier's website supplies recipes, or I would have had no idea what to do with it. One tiny cucumber will not go far - Star can eat that quantity as a snack! - and I am now overloaded on onions. The aubergine is something I would not normally buy, but Tevye and I at least will enjoy it roasted. There were also potatoes, carrots, mushrooms, tomatoes and some interesting looking sprouting seeds. We ate the cabbage, sauteed with butter, for dinner, and it tasted good. Overall, I think the vegetables are going to be a success. Even the "large" box is no going to see us through the week, but I think there is a fair amount for the money. We haven't tasted the fruit yet, but the price difference seems larger than for the vegetables. To buy the amount of fruit we can eat in a week would break the bank!

Little Cherub says no!

Vehemently. With much head shaking. More food? No! This toy? No! That toy!

If we say "no" to her she shakes her head merrily, beams at us triumphantly, and then carries on with whatever she shouldn't be doing!

Timing - or mistiming

Yesterday morning Tevye took Angel to an orthodontic appointment to be fitted for a retainer (all those years of thumbsucking ...). They arrived nicely in time for an 11.00 appointment. A bit too much in time. The appointment was for next Tuesday - June 5th, not June 2nd. This may tell you something about Tevye's handwriting.

In the afternoon I took the girls to confession. Again we arrived nicely in time. Nobody there. It turned out confessions were cancelled yesterday due to a wedding.

Oops! Angel was beginning to take it personally ...

Using my LOAF

I have been thinking about shopping more ethically - whether I should, and if so, how? I am very unsure as to what is useful, healthy or important, and which criteria are more important. Is organic food flown half way round the world better than non-organic grown in the UK, or vice versa? Is organic food significantly healthier than non-organic, or tastier, or both? And is it worth the extra cost? How important is it to buy fairly traded products? And so on.

When we came home from Greece I decided to experiment with more ethical grocery shopping. I usually do a weekly supermarket shop online, but last week I a made a couple of real life shopping trips and tried to weigh up the pros and cons of individual items. After Mass last week I spotted a poster in the Parish Hall from Christian Ecology Link which set out succinctly the principles towards which I was blundering under my own steam. Apparently, I am now using my LOAF by looking for items that are:

* Locally produced
* Organically grown
* Animal friendly
* Fairly traded

I am not worrying about an all-or-nothing approach, and simply trying to do what I can. Given that I am starting from a near-zero base anything has to be an improvement! My budget will not run to a complete switch, and I am trying to balance costs and benefits. This is my LOAF progress so far ...

Locally Produced
No major cost implications here, just a little effort to check the place of origin on produce, and I like the idea of buying seasonal local produce. I opted for British salad vegetables instead of Kenyan green beans, for example. I shop at Waitrose, a smaller supermarket chain which stocks good quality products. The prices are higher than the big chains, but by shopping carefully and making the most of special offers I find I can keep the overall cost similar. British produce was all clearly marked and they had a separate display of local East Anglian produce, from which I bought some tomatoes and some very yummy looking strawberries. I was shocked that certain basics were only available if imported from far flung places - onions (New Zealand), apples (New Zealand, Chile and USA), and pears (South Africa). Tevye has reminded me that I can buy locally produced and reasonably priced meat from a local butcher. It means being more organised and is less just-press-the-button convenient, but it is also cheaper than buying from the supermarket. I'll probably go and stock up the freezer with meat in the next week or two.

Organically grown
Organic fruit and vegetables in the supermarket were just way out of my price range (50-100% higher than non-organic). I have decided to test out an organic box scheme which looks more economical. My first order will be arriving on Tuesday - a large vegetable box and a fruit bag. The contents are chosen by the company, but there are few vegetables we don't eat so I'm happy to take whatever comes. I will have to be careful to adjust my menu plan to accommodate whatever comes in the box. I'm hoping that if I get a weekly box delivery of fresh produce I can cut my supermarket order from weekly to fortnightly and the savings in delivery charges will offset some of the extra cost of buying organic. At the supermarket I did buy organic milk, as Little Cherub is just beginning to drink some, organic minced (ground) beef, an organic wholemeal loaf - cheap because it was near its sell-by date - and organic wholemeal pasta. (I switched to wholemeal bread and pasta before we went away in a bid to move towards healthier eating. There has been a certain amount of complaining, but I'm hanging in there!)

Animal Friendly
As an old-style farmer's daughter I despise cruel farming practices, although I'm no would-be vegetarian or vegan - I have no problem with eating responsibly produced meat and animal products. I very rarely buy meat from the big supermarkets where low prices are achieved at too high a price in terms of animal welfare. One of the reasons I shop at Waitrose is that they are more careful about sourcing their meat. I already buy free range eggs, but the organic free range chickens were way out of my budget at nearly three times the price of the ones I usually buy. Organic free range eggs were also too expensive.

Fairly Traded
Both our town and our Church have "official" Fair Trade status, which means that fairly traded products are easy to find. Do I normally buy them? No (apart from bananas). Why? Habit and economy. I decided to try a few, and came home with choc chip cookies and organic Ethiopian coffee as well as my usual bananas. Our Church has a monthly Traidcraft stall, so I should start to make use of that.

As well as LOAFing, I looked at environmentally friendly products. I now have a bottle of ecologically sound bathroom cleaner, though I haven't tested it yet. I'm also planning to try out various Ecover cleaning and laundry products as I need them (Ecover is the best known and most widely available eco brand here). I have recycled paper products on order. I looked at biodegradable "natural" disposable nappies, but couldn't quite bring myself to pay the extra or risk leaks. (I confess. I'm a Pampers / Huggies person.)

So ... can I keep up the ethical shopping? Will my budget stand it? Or will I lose the will to LOAF as time goes on? At least I am trying!

Thursday Thirteen #6: Favourite English Churches

I am an inveterate Church visitor. Even Tevye has come to appreciate exploring Churches we come across in our travels - or at least, to enjoy the peace and quiet while I explore. Here are some Churches I love - some for the their beauty and historical value, others because they have spiritual significance for me.

1. St.Michael and All Angels, Stewkley, Buckinghamshire. My father's family are from this village, with branches going back centuries. It gives me shivers to realise that my ancestors would have worshipped here in pre-Reformation days. The Church itself is an unusually fine example of a Norman Church, with very few later alterations. This is for the prosaic reason that after the 12th century there was no rich land owner to make any!

2. St.Gregory's Minster, Kirkdale, Yorkshire. This tiny Church is even older, originating as a Saxon minster; parts of the building are over a thousand years old. My mother was baptised here, and many of her forebears are buried in the graveyard.

3. Our Lady of Grace and St.Teresa of Avila, Chingford, London. The Church in which I was received into the Catholic Church.

4. The Slipper Chapel, Walsingham, Norfolk. After the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham was destroyed by King Henry VIII the little Slipper Chapel (where pilgrims removed their shoes to walk the last Holy Mile) survived, used as a barn. In the late 19th century it was rescued and returned to the Catholic Church, and is now the national shrine to Our Lady. I first visited as a non-Catholic child of six or seven staying with relatives nearby, and fell in love with the place.

5. Westminster Cathedral, London. The premier Catholic cathedral in England. Byzantine in style, it was intended to have a complete mosaic ceiling but it remains unfinished. I love that it has a busy, prayerful atmosphere - by busy, I mean many people making purposeful visits, to light candles, attend Mass, go to Confession and so on, in contrast to Westminster Abbey and St.Paul's Cathedrals (both Anglican) which are so swamped by tourists as to make prayer difficult if not impossible.

6. St.Mary's Chapel, Lulworth Castle, Dorset. This private chapel was the first new Catholic Church to be built in England after the Reformation, and is still in use.

7. Lincoln Cathedral, Lincolnshire. I decided to limit myself to just one of the great medieval Anglican cathedrals, which meant a tough choice. Salisbury, Winchester, York Minster, Durham and Gloucester are all favourites, but Lincoln won on points for its beautiful Angel Choir. (It also loses points for allowing filming of The Da Vinci Code to take place there.)

8. Church of St. Julian, Norwich, Norfolk. The home of the anchorite, Dame Julian of Norwich, where her cell can still be visited. Or rather, a recreation of her cell - the Church was largely destroyed by bombing during World War II and subsequently rebuilt.

9. Chapel of St.John the Evangelist, Tower of London. This is the oldest of the chapels in the Tower, at the heart of the White Tower built in the 11th century by William the Conqueror. Tiny and thick walled, it resonates with history.

10. All Saints, Hillesden, Buckinghamshire. I could have picked any number of country churches, but chose this for its sheer unlikeliness. Known as the Cathedral of the Fields, this late medieval church in the perpendicular style dwarves the tiny village surrounding it. It also boasts bullet holes in the door dating from the English Civil War in the 17th century.

11. The Round Church, Cambridge. Because it is ... well ... round. And old, built around 1130.

12. Magdelen College Chapel, Oxford. C.S.Lewis worshipped here regularly during his years at the College, and it is a great example of the many college chapels at Oxford and Cambridge universities.

13. Oxford Oratory Church of St.Aloysius Gonzaga. A Victorian Gothic gem tucked away at the edge of central Oxford. Run by the Oratorians, it has beautiful liturgy to match.

Computer problems

I am still fighting a battle with electronic gremlins

• The DVD drive on my new laptop is faulty. This means I should be able to return it under the warranty, but first I need to find a Mac friendly home finance programme so that we can abandon Windows for good (all our money stuff is currently on MS Money).
• Our wireless router is dead; the spare one we were loaned is faulty. I have a wired internet connection thanks to a modem scrounged from my Mum, but we can't use the laptop on line. (No DVD drive and no internet connection renders it almost entirely useless - though it can still run MS Money!)
  
• My email is playing up. Some mail sent to me is bouncing, but not all. A friend who uses the same ISP said that some of her sent mail is not going through and the ISP say there is a fault they are "working on". I have a suspicion that the same thing may be happening here ... so if you are trying to contact me or don't get mail from me, the great black hole of cyberspace may be swallowing it. (Catherine, I did get your note; Karen, I didn't get the email you were trying to sent me. Ugh!)

Pirates of the Caribbean

We saw it ... myself, Angel and Star, and Next Door, as our neighbours are generically known here (all five of them - two adults, three children). We took advantage of it being Orange Wednesday - our mobile phone service provider has a "buy one, get one free" deal for cinema tickets on Wednesdays.

It fell short of the other two - half the time I couldn't fathom out who was trying to do what and why, and at nearly three hours it was over long - but hey! it had pirates, special effects and Jack Sparrow, so we all enjoyed it, despite A-next-door managing to get her foot wedged in the seat and limping out of the cinema, and Angel blundering around in the dark for five minutes after the film finished trying to find one of her shoes. You remember how in the old days pen knifes had assorted unexpected but useful blades? It seems mobile phones are the modern equivalent. Angel's has a built in torch. Who knew?

Cottage Economy

I have no idea where I got this book, but must have picked it up because I am intrigued by the author, William Cobbett. He was the subject of much admiration by G.K.Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc, and the inspiration behind distributism, the economic system they championed. Chesterton wrote a biography of Cobbett, which I half-read a while ago. His Rural Rides is considered a classic and back in the olden days of the 60s and 70s appeared on lists of set texts for public examinations. I remember seeing piles of the book in the literature section of our school stockroom, though I never read it. (I had an intimate acquaintance with the stockroom due to ... ahem ... repeated punishment duty sorting and mending books).

Oh boy, was Cobbett opinionated! Cottage Economy is his attempt to educate cottagers and labourers in how to use a small amount of land to increase their standard of living. He can't resist digressing into purple passages on his pet hates and loves. Tea, potatoes, and Methodist preachers are out; home-brewed beer, home-baked bread and fat bacon are in - beer, because of its significant nutritional value, not its alcoholic content!

For your delectation and delight, a touch of Cobbett on tea ...

It is notorious that tea has no useful strength in it; that it contains nothing nutritious; that it, besides being good for nothing, has badness in it, because it is well known to produce want of sleep in many cases, and in all cases, to shake and weaken the nerves.

... It must be evident to every one, that the practice of tea drinking must render the frame feeble and unfit to encounter hard labour or severe weather.

... The tea drinking fills the public-house, makes the frequenting of it habitual, corrupts boys as soon as they are able to move from home, and does little less for the girls, to whom the gossip of the tea-table is no bad preparatory school for the brothel. At the very least it teaches them idleness.

... The girl that has been brought up merely to boil the tea-kettle, and to assist in the gossip inseparable from the practice, is a mere consumer of food, a pest to her employer, and a curse to her husband, if any man be so unfortunate as to fix his affections upon her.

Perhaps I had better stick to coffee. Or then again, I suspect Cobbett might have been able to find a fair few things to say on that subject, too!

What are you reading right now?

I promised Faith I would do this meme when I got home. I'll cheat a little and include my holiday reading as well as my current reads.

Fiction
I rarely read fiction these days. I remember a friend saying that as she got older she read less fiction and more non-fiction. The same has definitely happened to me. I did however read one fiction book while I was away: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon, which had been sitting on my shelf for months (or maybe years?). A teenager with Asperger's syndrome finds a neighbour's dog killed and decides to solve the mystery. As a result he discovers more than he bargained for. This book won a number of literary prizes for the way it uses the first person to show how the boy sees and interacts with the world. Well written, but I'm not sure I liked it.

Non-fiction
Two holiday reads: Notes from a Big Country by Bill Bryson, and Give Me Ten Seconds, by John Sargeant. I enjoy Bill Bryson, and this collection of articles originally written for a newspaper magazine made good light holiday reading. The second book was a biography of a former BBC Chief Political Correspondent, borrowed from Tevye's holiday pile. One of those books I finished more or less in spite of myself. Too much about the internal workings of the BBC, and not as many insights into journalism and politics as I expected. Tevye felt the same, so why I bothered to start the book in the first place I'm not sure!

Today I started reading Cottage Economy by William Cobbett, with a foreword by G.K.Chesterton. This is a gem! Written in 1821 it combines instructions for labourers wishing to improve their standard of living with commentary on contemporary life and politics. Want to know how to make beer, 36 gallons at a time? Or rush lights? Or how to fatten a pig? All there! His comments on the virtues of beer and the evils of tea are priceless. Quotes to follow.

Kathryn needs ...

I couldn't resist trying this one. Type "(Your name) needs" into Google and see what you get. Ignoring the less savoury results ...

1. Kathryn needs help. (You bet she does!)
2. Kathryn needs to execute her plan to stop the train very precisely. (Oops! Really shouldn't have clicked on that link, but it did look intriguing.)
3. Kathryn needs to be self-motivated, organised and able to get on with a wide range of people of different ages. (Well, yes ... that would apply to most homeschooling mothers. Or most mothers, come to that.)
4. Kathryn needs pieces of cheese. (And chocolate)
5. Kathryn needs time in the sun. (Which is why I feel so much better for that holiday.)
6. Kathryn needs to go down for her first nap three hours after wakening. (I wish!)
7. Kathryn needs an earlier bedtime. (That would explain number six then.)
8. Kathryn needs to stop thinking of herself as only a mother and wife. (Why?)
9. Kathryn needs to lose about fifteen more pounds to get to a healthy weight. (OK. Though if I'm honest twenty five would be better.)
10. Kathryn needs one more ticket for Friday. (Not for Friday, but I do need to get tickets for Wednesday and Saturday - Pirates of the Caribbean III and Angel's band concert, in that order.)

HT: Elizabeth at Frabjous Days

We are back

Back in the land of good plumbing and bad weather! And yes, we had a lovely break. Very lazy, with a shamefully large amount of time just spent at the pool.

I tried to take photos, really I did ... but someone who shall remain nameless (but is older than one and younger than ten) launched a snatch-and-grab "let me see!" raid on the camera, managed to flip open the battery compartment, cut the power, upset the memory card and rendered it unreadable. As I am a very erratic photographer who forgets the camera half the time, and then forgets to take photos for half the remainder, this was not a disaster of any magnitude. I did manage a bit of last minute catching up ...

Gone away!

Back in two weeks, when I will catch up with the "What are you reading right now?" meme for which Faith has tagged me.

Picture by Mafleen, from Flickr