Posted on

Day 32 – Stocking Up Saturday

We were all off today. We didn’t do a whole lot, some shopping, sorting out school for next week, and watching movies. Breakfast for me was the spelt loaf with cheese.

Stocking Up

We took a visit to Caterham for 11 today. Tracy had booked us a slot to visit Pedrick’s which is in the High Street. Pedrick’s is a new old-fashioned food shop. You label all your boxes with what you want in them and then the staff fill them. So we got some pasta, some wholemeal bread flour, plain flour, yeast, and some eco-friendly handwash and fabric conditioner. We also got some pick’n’mix and some fresh vegetables from local suppliers.

While Tracy waited for the Pedrick’s order to be filled I took a walk along to Waitrose with Lucy. We didn’t have a big shopping list, just some head and shoulders shampoo, and skimmed milk. While we were waiting in the queue outside I spotted some rosemary in the plants section, so I added that into the trolley. We also bought a Lego Friends magazine for Lucy, a couple of reduced smarties chocolate bunnies, and some chocolate mini-egg nest cakes.

Sorting School

No hats involved in sort out out what we’re doing about school for next week. Monday is the start of the summer term. So we had a chat with the kids about how we would go back to school work. We’re all going to sit at the dinner table during school time unless we’re doing practical stuff that’s best done elsewhere.

Alexander will keep on getting his work from the Go4schools app. He’s got RE and Computing to do for Monday, plus whatever English and Maths gets set on the day. One good thing is that he no longer has to do subjects that he’s not doing the GCSE for. So from Monday he only had English, Maths, Triple Science, Computing, Art and RE. We’ve also asked him to help Lucy with some of the science experiments that she’d like to do (for example making some home made vegetable dyes).

We also decided that since we’re not teachers, and we have our own jobs to do, that we aren’t going to try and work to a timetable or curriculum. The main concern is that Lucy continues to learn new things, reads, and is happy. So we’ve packaged up several things that the teachers have sent us into work for a day. We’ve also found all the educational books, and lined them up on the table. I’ve installed Scratch and a painting app on Lucy’s laptop.

Cloak

Tracy made Lucy a cloak for her dressing up this afternoon. I thought it looked awesome.

Dinner

Alexander made us Chicken Paprikash from the Binging with Babish book, and we also watched Civil War while we ate.

Posted on

Day 22 – 8th April 2020

Today is Wednesday, my usual non-working day. So I’m not working and Tracy is. We had a fairly relaxed morning. Lucy found the camera tripod I used to take pictures of the moon last night and we played with attaching it to the banister upstairs and took some selfies.

One of the better selfies.

Gardening

After we’d done that we spent a brief period in the back garden doing some more hoeing and prepping the raised beds to receive the seedlings we’ve planted. So far one bed (of five) is completely ready to have things planted in it. Another has been turned over but needs the lumps of turf shaken out and thrown into the compost heap. We could probably do with digging over the compost heap and sticking some of it in the raised beds too.

Making Bread

After a very brief stint in the garden we went back indoors to make sure Alexander was making his bread.

He needed some help recovering the sourdough. It had sat out for too long and it collapsed. It smelt pretty alcoholic, and it was runnier than it ought to have been. We ran out of plain flour, so it got a wee bit of the spelt I picked up yesterday, and also some self-raising flour. We also added a tiny bit of the starter to it. Alexander mixed it all up and split it into three batches.

One batch became pitta bread.

The other two batches became rolls, we were aiming for paninis for lunch tomorrow, and a loaf.

Lego Houses

During the afternoon Lucy decided to build a Lego house. She spent quite a time combing through the boxes of Lego and finding all the pieces she needed.

There are two levels. The lower level has a garage and some garden. The upper levels have a bedroom, complete with a very fancy bed with a hinged cover so that the Lego person can go inside. There’s also a closet with spare clothes and a robot from a TV show. Although one of the best bits is the built in zip wire for going out.

Hot Chocolate contest

After dinner (teriyaki chicken, noodles and stir fry vegetables) the children had a hot chocolate competition. They each made two cups worth of hot chocolate, one for them and the other split between two espresso cups for me and Tracy to taste.

Alexander made the Flanders Hot Chocolate from the Simpsons which was in the Binging with Babish book he got for Christmas. It was a very rich recipe and it produced a very dark chocolate.

Lucy made the cardamom hot chocolate from Nadiya’s Bake Me a Story book. Hers was a bit lighter and definitely had fewer calories.

Exercise

After two hot chocolates, even small ones, I needed to go for a walk. So I took Lucy round the green four times and we chatted about building Lego Houses and I reminded her about the modular rooms on the house she got for her 6th birthday. After that Alexander and I went on a longer walk to make up the balance of my 10,000 steps. We also talked about the sort of houses we’d have if money wasn’t an object.