Have just spent the weekend working in the garden and am sore and ache all over now. Yesterday was spent clearing a space for a re-located camellia bush and generally clearing a huge bed that I have not really tackled since we moved in. Not many weeds but all the shrubs and flowers had merged into each other and it was nothing short of a jungle. I pulled up heaps of tropicana’s and now need to relocate them along with a chocolate canna lily like flower that Carol found and admired. I hope to be able to relocate those to somewhere where they will be seen this time. Today was spent working on the garden in front of the cottage. I pulled the last of the overgrown shrubs out, cleared the gutter and put gutter-guard in and re-planted the bed with new roses. I am now working my way round the lawn clockwise and will next tackle the area under our bedrooms. Eric had a fruitless day today having removed the drivers seat of the Mistral and then could not find the tool that was vital to him undertaking the necessary repairs. We turned the place up-side-down to no avail. He then decided to have a look at his Safari as he wants to put it back on the road. Needless to say another toot went missing and hindered his work. My argument is to put things away and then they won’t go missing but Eric’s idea of putting away is he knows he left it on the carport floor so that’s where it still should be!!!!! So all-in-all Eric has had a less productive day.
On Friday we took the girls to the movies. E and H went to see the Garfield one which Eric gave the big ‘thumbs down’. Harriette thought it was good but as she made such a fuss about seeing it she was unlikely to admit that it was anything less than ‘Cool’. A and I did Princess Diaries 2 as she was desparate to see that. It was OK, Alice loved it! Eric and I wanted to see the Thunderbirds movie but we’ll do that another time. Afterwards we met up with The Scott’s at Gengy’s in Hamilton for supper. We had warned H and A that we would not be eating then diving off so they should pace their courses (it is one of those go up as many times as you want places). Well needless to say the girls did 3 courses in the time it took us growd ups to do our first and we spent the last half of the evening listening to 4 little ones (well our two anyway) going ‘Can we go home’, ‘I’m hot’, ‘I’m tired’ etc We browsed at a brilliant 2nd hand bookshop on Victoria Street until we were chucked out as they were closing before making our way home. Between the movies and dinner we went into The Warehouse to try and get Alice some trousers or skirt’s as she seems to be wearing the same one’s all the time these days. Well needless to say we could find nothing to fit round her bum, and to make matters worse for adipose challenged young ladies all the trousers seem to sit on the hips these days. Harriette, who does not have these problems, found herself some ¾ length pants and a nice black T-shirt, which she looked very nice in. In fact with her newly cut and styled hair from a trip to the hairdressers that morning she looked quite the trendy young lady. I could see the envy on Alice’s face as she watched Harriette walk ahead of her later in the evening. I have promised Alice another shopping trip, just the two of us. No pics of Alice's haircut but here's one of H.
I had 2 days in Hamilton Wed/Thursday teaching. Jude facilitated the 2 day course and I did the Update on the evening of the second day (we both teach on both though). It was the first Update I had done and it went OK, a few things I would change next time though. We were a bit cowded on the VTC though. We usually teach 25 but could only get a room for 20. We cut the numbers to 23 but 4 extra turned up so we were teaching 27 in an overcrowded room. We also had not catered food-wise for this many so forfeited much of our rations! Luckily on the Wed we had, after teaching from 8am – 7pm, a leaving dinner for Latham at Iguanas so we had a good nosh then.
Well the girls are back to school tomorrow. Now, a question for you. One of us has offered the children $10 at the end of the term if they get their work/homework all in on time (both had comments in their reports that this wasn’t always happening). The other thinks this is bribery and they should not be rewarded for doing something they should do anyway (of course you will have no idea who has which opinion will you!!). Harriette then got Eric into a very funny conversation as to the differences between consequences, incentivisation and bribery. Her argument was immaculate and she totally flawed him (which is why it was so funny!) What do you think (about the $10, not Eric being out-witted!?)
Had a long chat with Vanessa yesterday evening, which was a real pleasure. Our calls are few and far between, mainly because she spends all summer w/e’s away and out of reach of landlines. Vanessa was my Health Visitor Assistant and we spent a lot of time together in the 5 years before I left the UK and I miss her lots. Also had a chat with Mom and Daddy, which is always good. Actually chatting to all old friends is great and we should do more of it.
Well I think this is long enough for a short entry. Off to bed with my book, ‘Killing the Shadows’ by Val McDermid. I’m enjoying it but the gory bits are so gory I have to skip over them. I did actually contemplate not carrying on after a particularly brutal murder but the plot is so good I decided I could not return it to the library without finding out ‘whodunnit’. Definitely not a book for you Mom or Daddy!
Has anybody heard from Carol lately? She seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth, or at least taken herself to computer Coventry. I will text her this evening. My phone is terminally ill and only comes to life for periods of 1 – 3 mins so don’t know if there are any text’s on there. Haven’t checked Eric’s.
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