One Last More

This nicely constructed photo was taken today for facebook, where all is aligned and presentable. To the top right of this shot was a tent with camping chairs, homemade crochet blanket, scatter cushions and Trangia where we cooked our lunch in the hot summer sun. What you can't see are the wasps and boys begging to be allowed back inside to the cool and the X-Box.

One last more day of my summer holidays- I am back for staff days tomorrow."One last more" was what the boys always wanted at the park. One last more run around, one last more climb, one last more go on the rope thing that turns. We still say it now, mostly Prince Charming and I now that they are grown and cool and X-Boxed.

Last week we also experienced some sunny sun. It's not a summer requirement here in the Frozen North, and we do like to pounce on it with shorts and a determination to be outside. I dragged drove the boys all around Strangford Lough last Tuesday, starting our newly re-opened Aquarium. They have cleverly incorporated the area's Viking history into the first few rooms- Strangford is Old Norse for strong fjord. We were all of us, even the teenager, impressed. Exploris is right at the tip of the Ards Peninsula and the best thing to do next is to take the little car ferry across the Narrows to Strangford village.

This little ferry powers across the  lough. Because we were the lucky last car on, we couldn't see ahead, so we jumped out of the car to watch Portaferry surging away behind us. Prince Charming doesn't usually let us out because the crossing is so short, but the sunny sun was sunny and the holidays were coming to this end, and out we popped. Mattman was standing right in front of me, leaning back into a less and less frequent public hug, and I told him that this would be the last summer when he would be shorter than me. Another one last more!

Then next Tuesday, Jo will join his older brother at Big School. This has been his one last more summer as a Primary School boy. Goodness, how poignant has it all been! One last more cup of tea before bed, methinks- or maybe I should find some of my school clothes...

Not still Advent, but in fact Lent!

My goodness, doesn't time fly when you're doing Christmas, New Year, back to school, school exams for Sun 1, looking at new schools for Sun 2, hibernating, stretching and breathing on occasional bright days when the real sun shines blue, organising the gamut of everyone's appointments for approaching half-term!


Time flies. I embraced hibernation between Christmas and the end of January. There was little else to do with everyone so busy! It was a revelation, though, to stop fussing about what needed done, about what wasn't being done, and just reconcile myself to a month in the house surrounded by one revising boy, one Victorian project researching boy, and one very work-stressed daddy! There were cakes as well as revision timetables, it was warm and dry inside, and the weeks whispered past into daylight.


Prince Charming cleared the garage and declared it a boat shed. He and the boys and our farmer neighbour and a school colleague have been sawing and filing and surveying and drinking tea for many cold weeks now, and apparently the bits are ready to be assembled. This has been most exciting!


I cleared my head and declared a Year of Ants and Elephants. I'm still not entirely sure what this means, but it came from friends with whom I was discussing my myriad of unfinished crochet projects. We were weighing the relative merits of clearing big things or small things first. In their house they call this squashing the ants before you can squash the elephant- or something to that effect! Maybe you know of this concept already? Anyway, I am determining to squash an ant or an elephant every month: January saw the completion of my Africa Blanket, and this month I really must finish the tank-top that was started two Springs ago! In fact, the trousers with which I envisaged wearing said tank-top are long past their best!


I also hit on a reading project. Last year a friend made it to the end of 52 books in 52 weeks- impressive. Knowing from past experience that I wouldn't make it past this point in the year, I  thought I would try to read an Alphabet of Authors instead. So in January I read Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, made all the more poignant by Alan Rickman's death mid-way, and Saul Bellow's Him With His Foot In His Mouth.  I am coming to an end of Chris Cleave' The Other Hand, and have Vanessa Diffenbaugh's Language of Flowers lined up and ready to bloom.


The reason why I have not blogged any of this is partly because I have no camera bar the one on a tablet, and partly because I never find the time. Jo's preparation for the transfer test has been replaced by Interesting Homeworks and Days in School. So once a week for more than a month now I have been racing about with him making and sourcing Victorian costume (visit to Folk Park), snow items (Book Day: the Snow merchant), baking and decorating many, many, many buns (P7 Fun Day), and reading all about the Irish Famine, the Victorian Workhouse, Victorian toys....


Conscious all the while that time flies, and that my high octane suns are becoming their own men, circling their own orbits now, and providing sources of energy in other places as well as in mine. Thank goodness for books and crochet!


Wishing you all a gentle end to your winter, or summer! I'm hoping to post some photos and some book reviews and some tales of life outside the Meadowplace, but in the meantime, Happy February x

Advent Hope

Oh dear, I was so hoping to do my first Advent post actually on the first Sunday in Advent, 

but now I'm just hoping to squeeze it in before the end of Monday!

I am sincerely hoping to get my 1500 word essay finished tomorrow,

as I am also sincerely hoping to be ready for Thursday night's Advent event.

I am hoping that Jo's cold and very sore nose will get better,

and that no-one will need a doctor this week.

I am hoping that we all get out to work and school

on time

for the rest of the week.

I am hoping that now that Jo's transfer test is over, over, over

he can get back to enjoying school,

but I hope that I will not forget to help him with his craft homework

tomorrow

and I do so hope I can do that and finish my essay and get

ready for Advent.

Our daily bread

 Mattman baked his first loaf of bread this week. It was Savoury Irish Bread week in Home Economics this week and he came bolting out of school brandishing his box and a smile. There were three mouthfuls left! Two were buttered and left for Jo and Dad.

 I have been soaking lots of fruit in lots of brandy and ginger wine for Christmas cakes, but I haven't got much further than that, despite today's great plans, because Prince Charming has had the fire lit in here all day, and it's very hard to leave!

 Jo did the second of his three transfer papers for Big School this morning. Two down and one to go, and then it will be Christmas! So we're all at very humble stages of getting things done this week- all very ordinary, common activities that don't set the world alight, but that are nonetheless filled with lots of personal satisfaction. They're the sort of things that warm the house in gentle ways.

This weekend winter wanted to make sure that we knew it was here. We had lots of stormy snow last night, that didn't lie, but left us with low temperatures and the stark beauty of November in all its fullness. I do continue to love November! It is my time of my getting ready, quietly, gently, humbly.

What I have discovered this month though is the website of Our Daily Bread. The photography is lovely, the resources are extensive, and the readings are very helpful indeed. Love to you all, and to you all a good night x

Lesons still unlearned

So here we are in May. It feels somehow momentous. Mattman is into his last number of weeks at the end of his first year at Big School. Jo is well into the AQE process of getting ready for The Test that will determine his Big School. Summer is ahead and plans are being made. Another whole year gets ready to add itself to the accumulation. Years are still marked in school ones here!

I gave up on the 52 books in one (school) year a while ago. MK's recent post on whether or not we are still readers was interesting. I know that my attention span is definitely going the way of all my grey cells. So I have decided to get a grip!

I am 46 years of age and not at all proficient in lighting a fire. My mother was the protector of the fire, as of all other things, when I was at home. Then when I had my first house, Prince Charming would motor down to the little country town where I lived and show off his fire-building skills, and I was quite happy to let him do his cave man thing.

Our first house together had a gas fire, which I loved. Switch on when wanted. Switch off when done. Phone Andy's Stores (local purveyor of everything you could possibly need ever- including home removal service) and order new cylinder when necessary.

The Meadowplace however has a real fire in the Book Room. PC lit it often through the winter, usually on grim Saturday afternoons if we'd bought the weekend Irish Times and could hide from Minecraft with tea and the magazines.

Yesterday it rained all day and the boys had friends round from church. I decided to pull a chair right up to the fireplace with one of the remaining unpacked crates of bumpf and resolved to light the fire. I was nearly there. I did need some cave man assistance to make it properly secure. I was there the whole afternoon thereafter, supplementing with peat and old paperwork as came to hand. One crate down, x to go.

I'll have a photo of my first solo lit effort by the end of the month. I also want to have a photo of a clean car. Last night at friends' C. told us that if they are just in from school and her son is pottering and she still has her coat on she'll just nip out and wash the car. Just nip out and wash the car? Is this normal? I'll soon see....

First Views from an Autumnal Meadowplace

I woke up in the spare room this morning. A beautifully misty morn nearly compensated for a night of bed swapping. I live in hope that one of us will grow out of this soon!

You just can't see the golden sky. But it was golden! There's one little pear on the one little pear tree out there.

Conkers are starting to fall from the chestnut tree up in the corner. Mattman wants to line his windowsill with them, and Jo is filling a vase.

Same view from my room, when I had re-united myself therewith. Can you see the cows? They were very quiet this morning. Obviously also enjoying the bodings of a fine day.

This is Mattman's new school route. He cuts through the university campus just below us which joins a little lane down to his new school. I drove him to the lane this morning. Heavy bags after a week of new routine are starting to take their toll!

And this is part of my new-ish school route. Next month I will have been a classroom assistant for a whole year.

The view coming home. Where the leafy suburbs open out onto Belfast lough and you bask in the splendour of a genuinely hot and sunny day. I went for a walk to the post box when I got home. I wore my shorts and a summer top. It was a pretty exceptional way to start Autumn!

A Pause in Advent

Mattman did the last of his three big tests on Saturday morning. This was a huge blessing! An end to many months of hard work on everyone's part. He wanted to go to Pizza Express for lunch afterwards, which happily lives in Belfast's very swish and lovely Victoria Square.

 

 

Christmas Starters it said on the menu, though I only realised this after I had taken the picture. It did however strike me as nicely appropriate on the first weekend in Advent. Starting  to think about something that has been hidden from view by many other big issues in our Strawberry land lately.

 

So I am more than usually happy to be Pausing in Advent. I really didn't expect to be thinking positively about Christmas at all this year. Mum so stricken by challenge, Dad needing to be so brave and independent, Mattman studying so hard, life just so busy, the house so chaotic, time so squeezed.

 

Something wholly unexpected occurred though. Burst from the dark sky in the midst of mundane sheep guarding and illuminated the landscape. Not only, to quote the Grinch, "Maybe Christmas doesn't come from a store." But also maybe Christmas doesn't even mean family. If I believe that Christmas means Jesus, means God incarnated, means peace, hope, joy and love, then maybe that's what I have to try to live. Christmas standing immutable, regardless of everyone's circumstances or my feelings or how many lights we string around the tree. Every day.

 

These thoughts are my Christmas Starters this year. And if I'm going to quote Dr Seuss, then you'll know I have to quote  Jostein Gaarder:

 

 

"I can't see why a little lambkin should be in such a hurry."

The angel helped her to her feet and said confidentially, "It's going to Bethlehem."

Elizabet had stopped crying, "To Bethlehem?"

"Yes. To Bethlehem, to Bethlehem! For that's where Jesus was born."

Elisabet was very surprised at what the angel said...

"Then I want to go to Bethlehem," she said.



 

Catching up

Saintly Sandra left me, amongst many other generous gifts that she trailed round the whole of Ireland before she finally arrived here, a set of Resolution Cards. Sandra, I hereby confess that this was a new concept for me, and I opened it with no small sense of wariness!

The first card out of the little box said, "I will embrace my current season of life and live with a sense of contentment." It is now prominently stuck to the fridge door as a daily challenge. Many things are happening this week, the most important of which will be Mum's move from hospital, where she has been treated and therapied beyond anything I thought possible, to a local nursing home. This will hopefully be a short-term solution while we all work on finding an appropriate apartment for both Mum and Dad. I don't think I've been able to tell you hitherto about her very terrible stroke in August.

Other news includes Dad's selling their house, on the market less than two weeks, and my special boy approaching the last of his three transfer tests with the same level of happy trust as he did the first two.

The verse on the back of Sandra's card is 1 Timothy 6:6, "True godliness with contentment is itself great wealth." I'm still working on it. Pretty ineffectually actually. I'm also still working on catching up with all you fabulous daily November bloggers. Thank you for the rich insights into your worlds!

Come Sunday I'll be catching up with Floss's Pause in Advent participants. That will help with missing Pom Pom, MK, Kezzie, Ang and Dormouse! It's time to be looking South-East now, from here anyway! Running down the roads and the centuries, under sharp winter skies. Yes, we'll be reading this again come Sunday too! See you somewhere along the path x

View from my keyboard

Sorry, Jane. I could have had a spectacular view of Belfast Lough under cold, fabulous winter skies today. Or a possibly last golden views of the most resilient autumn foliage outside. And one of these days I'll charge my little camera to have a spectacular view of Cave Hill from my new place of work.  But here it is. The dining room, again! Complete with laundry, vestiges of dinner, and an aspirational monument to ironing in the corner. Installation art, I like to think of it as.

Today I:

Got up, got boys out, got out. I'm getting better at this in week two of being back at work. I've got to Thursday before crying at the cold, dark monotony of getting out of bed early EVERY day. I know. Pathetic.

Went to work. Worked. Good grief, did I work today.

Came home from work to my glorious big son.

Took him with me to collect my glorious smaller son who been eco-clubbing in the school garden. Sounds like an environmentally-friendly version of going out and having a blast. They were out. And he did have a blast.

We went to the least swish of our three four Loughside cafes and watched dusk come down over Belfast Lough with a little plane bound for the airport.

When it was time to go to the solicitor's we walked through the cold village and Jo managed not to be knocked down.

I signed a very important legal document, and came one step further to being/having Power of Attorney along with my brother.

Got home to find my brother on the doorstep, and we had a needed debrief on being/having Power of Attorney. (I did bring him in off the doorstep.)

Made dinner whilst conducting a long telephone/text/facebook exchange with my friend and mother of my children's friends who keeps me sane in the realm of homeworks, preparations, and all things needing to be done that I may not be at all aware of.

Ate dinner with Prince Charming, allowing the boys to eat in the other room because they could NOT miss this episode of Scooby Doo Something. I know. Pathetic.

Left PC struggling manfully with aforementioned homeworks, preparations and all things needing to be done.

Took Dad to hospital to see Mum. She is poorly, at the minute, despite having made some wonderful progress from a Very Bad Thing that happened way back in August.

Took Dad home and made him dinner, at 9pm. He's still working on the mealtimes thing.

Came home. Boys in bed. I packed Mattman's PE bag and PC packed his sleeping bag and pillow for a relaxation time in school tomorrow. He has three big tests this month and school brings someone in to do candles and incense and the like to de-stress the poor souls. Mattman, however, appears less stressed than hugely excited at the prospect of candles and incense and our promised Subway lunches when he comes out of the tests.

November is racing by; I can hear it as it goes. It whistles softly in the wind sometimes very late at night, like now. I am not blogging daily this year, although I do miss that opportunity to savour every cold, clear, calm moment that November holds. I have finally worked out how to link to all the fabulous bloggistes who are blogging daily though. Do call round for tea and biscuits. MK might show you how to make a hat...

Greatitudes 812 - 834

Well, there has been much lovely stuff in and around Strawberry Land lately. Passing wholly over the fact that the last week has been one of the hardest I've lived in a while, let's be concentrating on the good!

I threw myself a surprise Bean birthday* last week, but two crafty (in both senses of the word) friends knew too much and presents were brought. Nice!

We've harvested this year's first strawberries, and will have a bowl a day for the foreseeable future. Just add cream, or warm banana bread and ice-cream...

I'm very glad that my two big cool guys can still pitch in and have a bit of baking whilst nipping off to Minecraft or supersoak or do that Lego thing. Also glad that they will sit at the table and do some school work. I know you'll not approve of holiday school, but this is the summer between P6 and P7 and The Test looms!

Prince Charming's Christmas present is letting us eat and watch Wimbledon, very important with Murray playing his fourth round!

Love Dr Oetker, boys with an eye for icing, and having something nice in a tin. Do call round for a cuppa this week- we have something nice in a tin!

I have upgraded my phone. Touch technology, no less. Very scary. It's a Nokia Strawberry, in case you're wondering. It takes much better photos than my Nokia dinosaur, but you'll just have to take my word for that- I have no idea how to do anything with said photos yet. So you'll have to imagine a nice day at the beach on Saturday and a wonderful day at Summer Madness yesterday! Though I'm beginning to feel that a woman in her mid-forties really shouldn't be at Northern Ireland's premier Christian music festival. And she definitely shouldn't be having a go at the hip-hop workshop. No sirree. Maybe my thigh muscles will work tomorrow...

*When I met my crafting friends a few years ago, we used to survive life and hook in a nearby coffee shop called Coffee Bean Deli. (It's still there, and we still go sometimes- Merville Garden Village for those of you in the area!) For birthdays we would have Bean Birthdays- themed cakes, bunting, and little presents. More recently we seem to be more in each others' houses, but the term stuck!

Grateful? 799 - 811

So I had already clicked Shutdown with a shake of the head at the mere thought of gratitude. But I know in same head that gratitude is like worship (spot the worship leader's wife)- it's a sacrifice of praise, so here goes.

I am grateful that I have happy, healthy children, even if one of them came home from school sick today. No doubt directly linked to camping in heavy rain and winds on Friday night and then rushing home to your chum's birthday football party. Maternal sigh.

I am grateful that my children have a school and an education and so many things that we take wholly for granted. I am grateful for friends who listen nonetheless to my worries and wearinesses. Maternal sigh!

I am very grateful for the interesting, paid marking that I did this year- and I am most grateful that it is now finished!  I am grateful that we finally got around to booking a holiday, that is fast approaching. I am grateful that the end of term is also fast approaching for the boys, and that there will be a break from homeworks and uniforms and packed lunches and trips and getting out of bed in the morning! Maternal sigh.

I am grateful for campsites and swimming pools and climbing walls and the National Trust. I know that in my mother's day we were all sent out at dawn with a sandwich in our pocket and a lump of coal in our shoe and that we didn't come back before dusk. But some things are actually better nowadays! (And actually we weren't allowed past the line/crack in the concrete at the opening to our cul-de-sac, and my mother played host to the whole street so that she would always know where we were and who we were with in 1970s North Belfast!)

Thankful for my family, and not just my dad. Though he is a scream. Also a scream ( a very hilarious thing) are the whole G8 comes to Northern Ireland shenanigans. So. Much. Fun. It's like having the Olympics come to your local children's play park.

Grateful for my favourite of today's many quotes from His Address- which I'm quite sure was written by his crack team of speech-writers, and read straight from the auto-cue:

"The terms of peace may be negotiated by political leaders, but the fate of peace is up to all of us."

June

Welcome to your June! Do you have lots of lovely plans? We have a very busy month ahead, and I am feeling somewhat daunted! Underpinning all the frenetic events, however, are deep undercurrents of other things. Things shifting and elusive.

Like the fact that Mattman has only slightly more than one year left in Primary School.

Change is afoot. Happy June x

Testing, testing

We have selective secondary education here in the Frozen North (and just when will Spring be sprung, anyway?) which means that just now our super Mattman is head down for major preparation works that will last until the last of three Tests in November and December. So we're all battening down the hatches, and life is busy!

We remain very grateful for the very lovely Mr Knight, who has staved off the worst of the pre-selection Grande Panique by simply maintaining that there is more to life in school than testing. This is very good for our souls!

In Googling images of tests I laughed when I found the BBC test card. I am old enough to remember it well, or so I thought. When I gave it some thought, I remembered seeing it in the evening, but was it also there during the day? And my goodness, I so well remember the girl who looked fascinatingly like my Tracy Tea-Party doll with moving arm for pouring tea. But I did not remember the clown. My children are afraid of clowns. Why was there a frightening clown and why do I not remember him?

I live in the hope that, like my clown, even these Testing months will recede from Mattman's memory of P6 and leave Mr Knight's bright pink guitar strap, the wacky flower homework, and the day that Andrew Trimble did their spellings test.

Oh blow!

Oh blow, there we go. Missed a day yesterday, and didn't even realise until this morning.  This is typical fraise commitment.

Yesterday went in a rush of lovely November. I stayed in bed until Prince Charming could bear the inaction no more. We took a picnic to the climbing wall and climbed for hours. Well, they climbed for hours. Then last night I went out with my two of my fabulous P6 mummy friends.  2Taps in Belfast. Impeccable.

So there you are. I am absolutely no further towards finding my way out of the forest, and am actually in a particularly dense thicket, with less than a day to escape it. But if I could only find those two forms...

World Teachers' Day

Thank you, Ang, for my e-card!  We were discussing in the staffroom today that we would all like to have quiet and easy classes all day in honour of Teachers' Day. I was also thinking how nice it was to be in a school today, standing in front of classes who were, mostly, co-operative and, generally, fun! 

The life of a substitute teacher is a strange and varied thing. But I'm finding that when you only go to one small school it gets better and better, as you learn names and become part of the furniture. I even got the job of ordering the pizzas at lunchtime- one small step for you, one huge stride for Magskind!

8W and I were together five times in all today. The last session was Science, and to help the teacher I took them back down to the History/English room where I was based. "Are we doing something scientific?" they asked. "Mais, oui," I replied. Well, not actually in French.

I put the word 'scientific' on the board and in groups we had a competition to see how many words we could make with the letters therein.  I thought it would last ten minutes- these are eleven year old kids who "failed" the Transfer Procedure of which I have begun to speak.  Twenty-five minutes later we were still sharing ideas and counting like mad.  Two groups got the same number of words, so we put 'tie-breaker' on the board for them and away they went again, with other groups flooding around them to help.

It was hilarious!  We got 33 words out of 'scientific' altogether.  Admittedly it won't get anyone a GCSE or look great on a Personal Statement, and it certainly wasn't quiet, but on World Teachers' Day I had a ball!

Greatitudes 646

Here in the Frozen North we have secondary schools and grammar schools.  They are where you go after Primary School.  You spend all of P6 and the start of P7 being mercilessly drilled for The Transfer Test which happens in the early winter of P7. The results of this test decide whether you will go to a grammar school, usually highly regarded, or a secondary school, not usually highly regarded.  This simplistic and overly generalistic summary of our education system will no doubt be revised over the next fourteen months on fraise because..

 

Mattman is now in P6.

 

However, I would record heartfelt and joyous thanks for Mr Knight.  Mr Knight is Mattman's P6 teacher. Mr Knight believes that he will get more work out of happy children. Mr Knight has spent the whole month of September revising everything from the full-stop to times tables. Mr Knight has not "hit the ground running" with past papers.  Mr Knight's homework for tonight was to create a character out of fruit and vegetables.  Mattman presents Super Vegetable Delight.

 

Thank you, Mr Knight!

(Mr Knight really is called Mr Knight.)

Bon weekend, les bonnes mamans!

I'm a very happy maman ce soir! The weekend commenced tres bien indeed when Cooking Catherine took me in hand and to her favourite clothes shop to find a dress for The Very Stressful Boum to which le Prince Charmant et moi sommes invited demain soir.

Puis we went for un petit cafe dans un petit cafe which is also tres bien, and then I came home to visit les fraises briefly before heading out with the two other P6 mamans whom I love and adore for their grounded hilarity in the face of ridiculous school events about which you will be hearing tres beaucoup as the annee progresses.

Apres which I checked my email to find that Ang was congratulating me on having won Floss's giveaway. Quelle surprise! Merci beaucoup, Floss (et Ang), j'en suis tres contente!

ps No comments on the lack of accents, s'il vous plait. This is not a clavier francais and it is also assez tard!