What, you egg!

It's all small dramas here as usual. I am trying to rise above them and not quite managing it. A couple of days out with the urchins went well (fishing, birdwatching, scooting, that sort of thing), but the damp days at home trying to work while simultaneously providing industrial amounts of food has been less marvellous.

The biggest boy and I have done a couple of things together. Firstly a sixth form open evening, which was scary (the Future, looming large!) and inspirational (some fantastic teachers and loads of youthful enthusiasm) and wistful-making (he will leave). Plus I am not sure how to get them from here to where they are going. It is all sorts of terrifying.

We also went to see Macbeth, as he's doing it at school. He has taken to speaking mostly in lines from the play, and it was all rather apt when the middle boy came in earlier on dripping blood from his hands after a particularly nasty cat-related incident (a paw came through a letterbox and scratched him while he was delivering something). He washed his hands in the sink while the biggest boy said helpful things like, 'What bloody man is that?' and 'A little water clears us of this deed.'

Of course the insults are the best bits. 'Filthy hag!' 'You cream faced loon,' and my personal favourite, 'What, you egg!' Honestly, there is no stopping us.

In other news, I am bracing myself for NaNoWriMo, the writing of 50,000 words of a novel in November. I was hoping to be a bit further on in the whole plotting thing, but you know how it is, time etc. I am going with what I have.

I am on a continuing news diet, absorbing just a headline or two before retreating. Nice to see the US President giving undecided voters the benefit of his wisdom. Instead of the news I am listening to writing podcasts. A  much better use of my time I think, and it leaves me feeling all positive and warm and glowy, whereas the news leaves me feeling shouty and anxious. Although it might be fair to say that shouty and anxious is my natural default state on damp days when the urchins are in close proximity.

Wish me luck with NaNo. There is work to be done and food to be shopped for and a whole load of other life stuff to get through first, and of course the whole lack of anything resembling a proper plot, but I am filled with the sort of hope you get before you actually plunge into the whole hard work thing.

Low Level Disruption

A day's birdwatching in Somerset with the biggest boy. That's Glastonbury Tor in the distance. I suggested we go and have a vegan meal in Glastonbury on the way home (a really hippy town, for those who don't know it). It turned out it was too alternative for him. It's wall to wall crystal shops and witch shops and hemp shops and even a dreadlock place. Sadly closed, don't think I didn't think about it... The people all looked wonderful, colourful and different and with all the hairstyles. There was even a dog on a motorbike. He said, 'I just want to eat somewhere normal.' (The boy, not the dog. Although maybe the dog was thinking that too.) I used to go to Glastonbury quite a bit, and several of the cafes were still the same. He wasn't convinced, so we went somewhere normal. I fear small town living has not prepared the urchins for the wider world.

On the subject of the wider world, I see that Donald Trump has referred to himself as having 'great and unmatched wisdom'. I am not quite sure what to make of that. It sounds like the sort of thing I would say to the children. If he tried it in this house he would be told off for sarcasm, they are very strict on sarcasm here you know. Or maybe he actually believes it. What goes on in that 'so great-looking and smart' (that was his too) head of his? He says he is a stable genius. Could it be that the opposite is true? Isn't it time for a new President yet? It's been a very long four years.

Anyway, back to the Somerset levels. It was a glorious day out there. Peaceful, vast and teeming with wildlife. Within the first fifteen minutes we'd seen a bittern, a marsh harrier, a Cetti's warbler, a little grebe, a great crested grebe and a great white egret. It's a wonderful landscape, reclaimed from the destruction left by the peat industry and painstakingly planted with reeds by hand that RSPB staff grew from seed. There are (from memory) around forty pairs of bitterns there now, which is an amazing achievement, as they are fairly rare. It's quite the success story.

The littlest boy was given a detention in a gross miscarriage of justice. His brothers were thrilled. 'He's only been there a month!' It took them far longer. Apparently the boys behind him were talking and the teacher thought it was him, so he got a warning. Then he was hot after PE so he opened the window without asking and that was it, bam, detention. Oh dear. He was not happy. I discovered there are different numbers for each crime. For example, number 4, Low Level Disruption. Apparently there are loads. Not sure what number Opening Window Without Permission was, but I'm guessing fairly far down the list. Anyway, we have (mostly) moved on from the injustice of it all.

Slimming

The new Philip Pullman book is here, in all its gold-tinged glory. I have been sighing and running my fingers over its beauteousness. I shall read it to the younger urchins just as soon as we have finished our current read, Cogheart by Peter Bunzl. The series has the most wonderful covers, and they are cleverly continued inside the cover, as if viewed from behind.

The dog is on a diet. Before the summer holidays he used to walk with his cocker spaniel friend every single morning. She would chase him all the way along, and wrestle with him and chase him again and if he ever tried to sit down for a rest she'd run faster and faster circles around him, jumping over him as she shot past, until he felt obliged to get back up again and join in. She was utterly unrelenting, in the manner of a particularly strict personal trainer, and looking back it was a hard full-body workout. He weighed in at 9.9kg. Then the summer holidays came and schedules changed and we no longer walk with her. A mere ten weeks later I was horrified to discover that he weighed 12 kg. That's an extra two kilos, 20 percent of his body weight. Like a person going from 10 stone to 12 stone in under three months. And the only difference has been the morning walk. We still do the same route, but no cocker spaniel chasing us down.

Needless to say he is on a diet. And I need to make the time to walk with his more energetic friends again, his whippet chum and his cockapoo mucker, as well as his personal trainer. It occurs to me I need something similar. Someone to force me into running about the place. Although right now I'm a bit snowed under with work so it will have to wait a while... I'll add it to my to-do list.

There are olives in the garden, but they're a bit on the small side - not much flesh (unlike me and Bert) so I'm not really inspired to do much with them. And I don't know how to tell if they're ripe. I suspect they're not, now that the chilly autumn mornings are here. The black tomatoes are still all hanging on the vine, not really ripening in any visible way either. We have mountains of windfalls, from the garden and from an aquaintance in Wales. I am trying to use them before the rot sets in, but I need to be fast. I am making ALL of the apple recipes.

The biggest boy scored a hat-trick at football today. A rare occurrence as he is a defender. I fear I have banged on about it too long and I have been declared embarrassing. Sigh. ('Remind me how many goals it was today again?' 'Three you say, and what do they call that?') Yes, I know, I know, I'll shut up now.

Now that the autumn term is well and truly under way there seem to be a hundred and one things to attend. Football, cross country, cricket (yes! it's indoors), parents' information evenings, helping out at open days, oh the list is endless. I am doubting my grammar now. Seems or seem? Sam would know, but she can't comment any more. I fear there is a blog glitch. I would ask if anyone else is unable to comment, but, you know... Anyway, I hope all is well out there, and the madness is held at bay. As with anything remotely stressful I am as ever adopting the head in sand approach. Except when it comes to dog chub, then I am ON IT.