Lockdown Letter

One of Eddie's homeschooling activities this week was to write a letter. He will be heading into Year 4 in September, and the idea was to introduce himself to his new new teachers.

He carefully drafted the letter in his notebook, then borrowed my typewriter to type it up. He seems fascinated by the 'instant' nature of the typewriter, in comparison to the laboriousness of having to wait until the end of wordprocessing something to print it off and get the hard copy in your hands.It's an interesting perspective.

Anyway, here's the finished version.

Now, as an English teacher I'm very happy with the layout and paragraphing. Nice work there, on the whole.

I'm less excited by the unintentionally ironic misspelling of 'literacy' in identifying it as his favourite subject.

Then there is the gradual fading out of capital letters and punctuation (some of which can be blamed on the typewriter - it's a temperamental old thing) and the allergy to spaces between words at times.

But I can let those go. 

I'm more bothered by the fact the implicit suggestion that his mother is weird, he's being 'left behind' at school and that he has the onerous task of feeding the cat and dog, as though he lives in some form of Victorian workhouse. The idea that sleeping on a sofa is a particularly human characteristic that the dog has adopted is also a tad troublesome. 

For the record, the chicken run is now a peaceful, harmonious - it just took a few days for the pecking order to be established! (Blanche is in charge, in case you were wondering.)

Currently reading: A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe

New Adventures at Layalot Castle

Layalot Castle has been fully renovated since and security stepped up since we were unfortunately visited by Mr Fox back in March.

I have missed the antics of the hens, especially first thing in the morning, but it has been very difficult to track down a supply of new ones during lockdown. Apparently, everyone in Sussex decided that they wanted to keep chickens when the pandemic began, and there was something of a shortage. I had planned to go for chicks and raise them, but we couldn't get hold of any.

So back to rescues. We were hoping for six, but only three arrived: Blanche, Nessie - short for Lyonesse - and Lynette (to continue the Arthurian theme).

Eddie was a little disappointed that they wouldn't eat sweetcorn straight from his hand.

But, aside from being a little timid they seem quite happy so far -and in far better condition than rescues we have had in the past. They have plenty of feathers for one thing. Nessie laid an egg within ten minutes of moving in. But Blanche is the early front runner for ruling the roost. I found her eight feet up on top of our garden wall when I went to put them to bed.

And Gilby made for an excellent hen-whisperer when the girls had no idea how to get back into their coop.