Show and "Tell"

One of the things I'd really looked forward to about working at the playgroup was that they do Show and Tell. I never did this as a child and I'd envisaged children bringing in beautiful shells found on their holidays, pet rabbits and red shoes. (I read that last one in a story once.)

Sadly the reality of modern day Show and Tell is very much removed from this...I've seen more plastic boats and trucks than shells. The closest we got to a pet rabbit was a slug (today). And as for red shoes - instead I've had yet more plastic trucks.

So the Show part has been a bit of a downer. The "Tell" usually isn't much better - when asked "What do you have to show today?" most children have to have a good think before (after prompting) they mumble "A truck." It's not what I'd imagined.

But today's Show and Tell was quite amusing. The slug was thrust in the faces of most of the other children by its fascinated owner. There was also a cricket bat and ball - "I know that sport - baseball!" was the first guess. Not sure where that came from as we live in England but ok. Another girl brought in a book about butterflies prompting an animated discussion which culminated with this story from a very excited boy...


"My mum..." [Long Pause]

"Yes...?"

"My mum....Her mum..."

"Your grandma?"

"No! My Nana. My Nana...when we went to her house - I saw a baby caterpillar."

It's gripping stuff. It really is. Prizes and glory* for the first person who can tell me which book this caterpillar is from.

*Actually just glory. There's no prize.

A Lovely Weekend

Six people filled up our little house this weekend. We spent Saturday enjoying some beautiful weather and scenery with a long walk around the park...


We had a late lunch and dropped by a local artists exhibition. We were a bit late so we only got a quick glance at the paintings before they started to clear up, but it was fun anyway. The girls had some school work to do so T and I introduced Mum and Dad to our 3D Settlers of Catan set (a wedding present from some friends). We had Chinese takeaway for dinner. On Sunday we went to church and then came back for roast dinner and an afternoon of playing games.

It was lovely to spend a whole weekend with my family, just relaxing. Last year when we'd see them there was often wedding planning/discussion to be done - this year we don't have anything to do but catch up and enjoy ourselves. It really felt like a holiday, a very lovely weekend...

Today we are back to work after the Easter holidays. I'll drop by Besom before I have to go to my first afternoon session of playgroup. It's a beautifully sunny day, and as we only have a week at work before we're off on holiday again I'm feeling very relaxed.

An Update

The Easter weekend was lovely. Sunny and beautiful. This is a photo taken on a two and a half hour walk on the first day. It was a bit long...my ankles spent the rest of the weekend creaking. Which was strange. But it was a lovely time. We were also given a baby strawberry plant. It only has four leaves and is currently residing in an old fromage frais pot. I'm hoping to graduate it to something better and bigger this weekend.

We've been home two days now and I've only just got around to checking in on all the blogs I read. A lot has been happening in blog world, some good and some bad and it feels nice to get back to it. I like blogging and reading blogs.

Over the weekend I borrowed The Glassblower of Murano from my Mother-in-Law. We actually gave it to her for Christmas and it looked good when I was shopping so I was very pleased when she brought it out and suggested I borrow it. It's good, I'd recommend it. It's got one of those split plots - half in the past, half the present - that run alongside one another. It's an easy read and good storylines (enough historical and personal stuff to hold your attention in both halves of the book). The main character goes to Venice to follow in the footsteps of her ancestor, a legendary glassblower. The reaction from locals is varied - she is welcomed, ostracised and taken advantage of in equal measure, and eventually creates herself a life in Venice apart from her famous ancestor.

I have this week off (from both jobs) and so far I have used the time to catch up on some house jobs. As of next Monday I'll be working four sessions a week at the playgroup. I have to get to know a new set of children (the younger, afternoon group I'll be working with on Mondays and Wednesdays). Besom time will be reduced which will be very sad but it is only for one term. I'm hoping that by the end of this term I will have some plan for what to do next. That would be good. On the other hand I spent three years at university hoping that by the end I'd have some plan for what to do next and look how that turned out. Watch this space.

This weekend my family are coming to stay. That means six people crammed in our little house. Hopefully the weather will be good - I really want us to go and see the beautiful park nearby. In the last week trees outside our house have come into leaf and are looking lovely. It's so much nicer to look out on than bare branches.

Easter

I am so excited. This weekend we are going to Anglesey. It feels like ages since we last went (New Year) and I'm very much looking forward to it. Sure it's a five hour journey but for three/four days of games, walks, prettiness, and food it's definitely worth it.


Plus its Easter so there will be treasure hunts, eggs and lots more good stuff.

Friends

So we all know that our friends are great. Some we're closer to than others, they belong in different groups, to different parts of our lives but overall they're just great.

This story on the BBC news website claims that the average number of friends a person has is 150. You may be thinking of your Facebook friends counter and disputing that it could be so low but here they are defining "friend" to mean:

"the number of people that you know as persons and you know how they fit into your social world and they know how you fit into theirs. They are a group of people to which you have an obligation of friendship."

The writer goes on: "They usually consist of an inner circle of five "core" people and an additional layer of 10. That makes 15 people - some will probably be family members - who are your central group and then outside that, there's another 35 in the next circle and another 100 on the outside. And that's one person's social world."

So thinking about my "social world" - I can immediately think of about nine people I am really close to. People I would pick up the phone and call anytime of the day or night and who I know would be happy to drop everything and listen. So that sounds about right - I can definitely add more to work out my "central group". The next circle - 35 sounds about right for that and then 100 sounds pretty reasonable to complete my social world. And then there are probably others who come and go depending on where your life is. One important thing that I've learned is that friendships are for seasons in your life. Some will be lifelong and I'd like to think I can pick out the people in my social world who will still be in it in 10 or 20 years. But others will come and go as people change jobs, move away or just grow apart. And that is ok.

But this does remind me that so many people are really isolated - for some reason or another their lives have been hard and they have lost those connections to others. So when you're walking down the street - smile at people. Because you may be the only person that day who does acknowledge them. How lucky are we to have those people in our lives who do pick up the phone, give us a hug and jump up and down with excitement when they see us...

Recycling and Being Grown Ups

You wouldn't believe the crazy amount of packaging that wedding gifts come wrapped in. Obviously some things are breakable but Denby - is it really necessary to pack each mug in its own cardboard box? One gift we opened was wrapped in a plastic cellophane bag, then bubble wrap, polystyrene, a cardboard box, and then beautiful wedding paper. You might be wondering why I'm talking about wedding gifts now. Well, as we were unwrapping ours all those months ago T and I decided that the rapidly growing mountain of cardboard in our living room should probably be recycled. Except that this was eight months ago and we still haven't quite made it to the tip (our council doesn't collect cardboard recycling). Over the last few months of marital bliss, we've been adding to our collection and it has now grown to epic proportions. So finally this weekend we set aside our precious Saturday morning to take it to the tip. It's probably about time...


The weather has been beautiful today so we rewarded ourselves by going to lay in the park all afternoon, and this evening we're going out for dinner. Having a weekend at home is such a rarity at the moment we're definitely making the most of it.


Incidentally, before this very responsible and grown up bout of recycling we'd spent Friday evening playing poker, which felt just like being a student again. Except that this time the poker finished at about 11.30pm rather than 3am. We really are growing up...

T

T and I met at the CU freshers' barbecue after I'd been at university about four days. He was a second year post-grad student and we ended up going to the same church. We got to know each other more in the run up to a mission trip to Brazil which happened at the end of my first year.

Entirely ignoring the "rules" of the mission trip we got together after the first week and by the end of the trip Brazilians who didn't speak any English were using sign language to ask how long we'd been a couple. We were together a year before we got engaged, engaged for about another year and then married in August 2008.

Being married to my best friend is the best thing that could have come out of going to university. He always listens, makes me laugh, even when I'm feeling grumpy, is kind and thoughtful, eats everything I cook, and many more good things! We're both very lucky that we have such supportive families as well - they were really happy when we got engaged (and married) and their support and advice is so valuable. As are the dinners we get taken out for. Awesome.

I'm not a big music person but this song was our first dance at our wedding and I love it. You're going to have to click on the link because I don't know how to embed videos in my posts yet! We weren't going to have a first dance but this song was perfect for us so here it is: Feels Like Home.

Room 101

A little break from being Kreativ today to fill you in on an interesting discussion we had in our home group last night. It started as an ice-breaker which we don't normally do in our group, and was completely unrelated to our study. The question was "What would you put in Room 101?" In case you don't know, Room 101 is a TV series in which celebrities are invited to discuss their hates with the host in order to have them consigned to the eponymous chamber from the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. (Yes, I just copied that straight from the Wiki page).

So these are a few of the things our group consigned to Room 101...

• Noses
  

• Algerian font
• Bruce Forsyth
• Milk
• Capers
• When people cut off songs part way through
• Money

It hasn't escaped me that in the middle of my "Things I love" series I have a post about "Things people hate". Oh well. So what would you put in Room 101?