Sweetie, our hatchling from last year has gone broody. Plumped up like a teacosy and all the feathers on her breast have been plucked away...its made egg retrieval a bit icky when you stick your hand under her and its all warm and fleshy!! So we've decided to give her some eggs. Instead of last year where we hatched bantums we've decided to introduce a different breed into the mix in the hope of creating some good laying a table birds. So instead of going for a Dorking or Orpington (the logical choice) I wanted some blue eggs so we picked cream legbars! After a post on the practical poultry forum a lovely lady has sent us 6 pale blue Cream Legbar eggs and much to the disgust of sweetie today I took away her clutch ( made up of two of hers and one of Hatty's and Mrs Pretty's marked with green food colouring for identification purposes) as well as 3 of the eggs laid today that she had grabbed as well and gave her the new eggs. So having googled it would appear that chook gestation is 20-22 days so that would put hatch day between the 5-8th of June! All very exciting as I'm hoping to get atleast a one hen and a cockrel out of the hatch!
T is not happy about the dispatching of our Cockrel from last years hatch...although when T went out to cuddle Specky (said cockrel) he pecked him!! He's starting to crow at 4am-ish, is a bit of a bully and has trampled and eaten the eggs a good few times. Also with having a new lot of chicks on the way I don;t trust him not to kill them. The other girls weren't too bothered by the arrival of Sweetie, Specky and Chubs but he's got a bit more attitude to him, that and although he's beautiful to look at, there's not much meat on him and he is only able to mate with the smaller ladies and so would only make for small birds.....so Tomorrow he's being slaughtered by our next allotment plot neighbour........and I hope that the kids won;t be too traumatised by it! I'm all for them learing the fact of life - ie we eat meat therefore animals must die but on the otherhand I do feel like an evil Mummy too.......we'll see eh
Friday, 16 May 2008
Sunday, 4 May 2008
Feeling like poo!!!
Urgh I have some kind of virus! The gland in the left side of my neck is feels like a melon and my ear is intermittently blocking........generally a really poo couple of days coupled with the bank holiday weekend and a hubby in the restaurant trade does not make for a happy Mummy. But we've coped. The kids have been very good really. T has doen some more good work today - we've time lined up to the end of Henry II's reign and yet again he remembered stuff we covered last week pertinent to Stephen and Mathilda's reigns!!! We then attempted a word search which I had previously avoided coz I thought it might be above him but he did a grand job. Then we had a good crack at EC and he has finally finished Literacy yr 2 and I've moved him up to yr 3....not bad considering he should only be in yr 1 if he was in school. He's been struggling over 2 or three sections which we attacked today and went over together before he did them himself and suddenly he has finished!!! He was very chuffed with himself indeed and we're now just waiting for the level thingy to move up so he can go and explore the new "games"!!! He's about 3/4 of the way through maths but chugging along quite nicely and isn't close enough to the end yet to want to start moving up, which is good coz there are still some concepts he hasn't quite got his head round so he needs to stay int he Yr 2 bracket for a wee while longer. We finished the day with a Feudal system quiz which he stormed through! Apparently the answers where obvious......of coarse coz the feudal system is just so simple! But actually it is and the History on the Net pack explains it so well and clearly that on reflection the answers are obvious! Its starting to get to the time when I'm going to have to get an Ed city bit for L. He's desperate to join in and with T's encouragement and help I reckon we've got about 6 months before he'll be chomping at the bit to have his own "games" to do! I just need to get his PC skills a bit more precise and reiterate that shouting at the PC doesn't help.....well at least not when I do it!
I feel better on days like this blogging what we've done. I've also had a list going so I can actually see how productive we've been despite me being decidedly lack lustre!
I feel better on days like this blogging what we've done. I've also had a list going so I can actually see how productive we've been despite me being decidedly lack lustre!
Saturday, 3 May 2008
Days like these!
Another one of those God I just want to curl up in a ball in bed days that turns out to be very productive despite the odds! The Medieval project is really going well – very much helped by BBC4’s medieval season. So far we have watched the lead up and effects of the Battle of Hastings, created a medieval time line, worked out who was on the throne and what they did and coloured in a section of the Bayeux tapestry. Today T started copying out the main section of the timeline and we covered from William the Conqueror to Henry the 1st and then thanks to a luffly gesture from a friend who sent us a fab medieval pack we explored the Feudal System and used cut out cards with pictures and statements to compound what T had just learned. That and the 20 mins on EC as well as reading us his latest book “Captain Pepper’s pet” from the “I can read series” made for a rather surprising day! Not bad for a preggy Mummy with glands the size of apples and a mood on her like bear with a sore head! So one in the eye for the “how will you cope?” brigade!!!
Histowick Warwick!
To kick off our next project on the medieval period we decided to capitalize on our countries fabulous castles and booked a visit to Warwick Castle with the added benefit of an EO discount. 
(Price should have been £45.50 and we got it for £28). Sadly we had had the night from hell the night before, with the boys being up at 5am and me being up since 4.30am because of the bed at my Mum’s being equivalent to a device of medieval torture. By 5.30 am T and I were on the downstairs sofa with me pretending to be asleep in a desperate attempt to convince myself that tiredness would have no bearing on the day. It didn’t help that my ribs were so bruised from the bed that I couldn’t take a full breath in and by 7.30am I had a very “tired and emotional” meltdown……not nice. Anyways, meltdown over we piled in the car at 9.30 and made our way to Warwick with 2 semi conscious children. We got out of the car to a biting wind and an uphill walk…..not the best of starts especially as I couldn’t complete my sentences due to bruised ribs as I tried to explain to T why the castle was built on top of a hill. D even offered to get me a wheelchair to do the day in……. hmmmmmm. 
Anyways there weren’t that many people there when we arrived apart from a large party of foreign students….who were quite rude so we avoided them! T spotted the archery tent
as soon as we got though the castle gates and because it was so quiet he was allowed to shoot a few more arrows that we paid for! L even had a go! We then retreated inside to get out of the cold. Sadly we ended up in the Edwardian bit which wasn’t that interesting for the boys but it did give us a chance to warm up! We then made our way to the great hall to have a look at the suits of armour and even try bits on! Naturally D joined in and I turned round to see various bits hanging off him!!! We then wandered down to have a look at the Trebuchet and watch the talk. 
The guy doing the talk was brilliant - very engaging to both children and adults, T was totally absorbed and to our surprise to was L who had a proper little chuckle when the Treb master described how dead pigs were sometimes shot into castles as early germ warfare!!! According to L pigs don’t fly!! On the way back from the Treb we got chatting to a guide who was really happy to talk to us about the middle ages and sayings that we get from there “Don’t shoot the messenger” (they once fired a page sent out during a siege to negotiate a treaty and the siege army sent him back via the Trebuchet) and “Pot luck” (food was cooked in huge pots over the fire and instead of emptying it out of the end of the day they just topped it up so it was pot luck whether you got the fresh stuff at the top or the festering goo at the bottom….which may just kill ya!) He pointed us in the direction of knights and Squires exhibit and the dungeon.
We took loads of pics – It was very dark and although great fun and very atmospheric not that great for an achy preggy lady who can’t really see her feet! The exhibit was great tho with films at the beginning, waxworks to look at and armour along the way to touch and again try on. In the laundry room we had a lovely chat with the guide there who explained why the ragged staff
emblem was on everything. I was also really impressed when we got the apothecary bit that both boys could identify a lot of the herbs!! That’s what happens I suppose when you grow up with a hippy Mummy and a chef daddy!!!! The dungeon was cold and damp and very tempting to consider adding to our house……there is a lot to be said for an oubliette!!
D then took the 2 boys on the perilous journey up the tower, along the curtain wall and back down again - lots of stone spiral stairs…..thin railings with big gaps and sheer drops that made me shudder. So I sat in the sun and circled my ankles and tried not to freak when the boys leaned over the painfully thin railings to wave to me….bless them!
So after their trek up the tower and a discussion on Machialations and Crenellations and all the other “ations” we find in a castle the boys disappeared off to the archery display, we hit the gift shop and D started making plans to rope G (our next allotment neighbour) into making a mini Trebuchet……. Bows and arrows (hey we could even go and source the correct wood from the dog walk)………..practice swords!!! Coz its not like they have taken to using any available stick as a sword or anything!!! All in all a really good kick off to the project – perfect castle to go visit if a little on the pricey side and it would have been much more enjoyable had it not been so blinkin cold. But the guide book is fab as are the kids bits I picked up and it would appear that the whole jaunt really captured both kids imagination – Job done!!!!
(Price should have been £45.50 and we got it for £28). Sadly we had had the night from hell the night before, with the boys being up at 5am and me being up since 4.30am because of the bed at my Mum’s being equivalent to a device of medieval torture. By 5.30 am T and I were on the downstairs sofa with me pretending to be asleep in a desperate attempt to convince myself that tiredness would have no bearing on the day. It didn’t help that my ribs were so bruised from the bed that I couldn’t take a full breath in and by 7.30am I had a very “tired and emotional” meltdown……not nice. Anyways, meltdown over we piled in the car at 9.30 and made our way to Warwick with 2 semi conscious children. We got out of the car to a biting wind and an uphill walk…..not the best of starts especially as I couldn’t complete my sentences due to bruised ribs as I tried to explain to T why the castle was built on top of a hill. D even offered to get me a wheelchair to do the day in……. hmmmmmm. 
Anyways there weren’t that many people there when we arrived apart from a large party of foreign students….who were quite rude so we avoided them! T spotted the archery tent
as soon as we got though the castle gates and because it was so quiet he was allowed to shoot a few more arrows that we paid for! L even had a go! We then retreated inside to get out of the cold. Sadly we ended up in the Edwardian bit which wasn’t that interesting for the boys but it did give us a chance to warm up! We then made our way to the great hall to have a look at the suits of armour and even try bits on! Naturally D joined in and I turned round to see various bits hanging off him!!! We then wandered down to have a look at the Trebuchet and watch the talk. 
The guy doing the talk was brilliant - very engaging to both children and adults, T was totally absorbed and to our surprise to was L who had a proper little chuckle when the Treb master described how dead pigs were sometimes shot into castles as early germ warfare!!! According to L pigs don’t fly!! On the way back from the Treb we got chatting to a guide who was really happy to talk to us about the middle ages and sayings that we get from there “Don’t shoot the messenger” (they once fired a page sent out during a siege to negotiate a treaty and the siege army sent him back via the Trebuchet) and “Pot luck” (food was cooked in huge pots over the fire and instead of emptying it out of the end of the day they just topped it up so it was pot luck whether you got the fresh stuff at the top or the festering goo at the bottom….which may just kill ya!) He pointed us in the direction of knights and Squires exhibit and the dungeon. We took loads of pics – It was very dark and although great fun and very atmospheric not that great for an achy preggy lady who can’t really see her feet! The exhibit was great tho with films at the beginning, waxworks to look at and armour along the way to touch and again try on. In the laundry room we had a lovely chat with the guide there who explained why the ragged staff
emblem was on everything. I was also really impressed when we got the apothecary bit that both boys could identify a lot of the herbs!! That’s what happens I suppose when you grow up with a hippy Mummy and a chef daddy!!!! The dungeon was cold and damp and very tempting to consider adding to our house……there is a lot to be said for an oubliette!!D then took the 2 boys on the perilous journey up the tower, along the curtain wall and back down again - lots of stone spiral stairs…..thin railings with big gaps and sheer drops that made me shudder. So I sat in the sun and circled my ankles and tried not to freak when the boys leaned over the painfully thin railings to wave to me….bless them!
So after their trek up the tower and a discussion on Machialations and Crenellations and all the other “ations” we find in a castle the boys disappeared off to the archery display, we hit the gift shop and D started making plans to rope G (our next allotment neighbour) into making a mini Trebuchet……. Bows and arrows (hey we could even go and source the correct wood from the dog walk)………..practice swords!!! Coz its not like they have taken to using any available stick as a sword or anything!!! All in all a really good kick off to the project – perfect castle to go visit if a little on the pricey side and it would have been much more enjoyable had it not been so blinkin cold. But the guide book is fab as are the kids bits I picked up and it would appear that the whole jaunt really captured both kids imagination – Job done!!!!
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