Tortoise Tales

 There is another new arrival in the household. Meet Blanchefleur:

Blanche is a 10 week old Hermann's Tortoise, though I prefer the sound of her Latin name: Testudo hermanni.  Life expectancy is seventy-five years, though many live beyond this. All things being equal, she's going to outlive me.

I'd like to say that this is a pet for the children, but really, I have a fascination with reptiles - so this is actually one for Hearth Mother. I could watch her for hours as she goes about her tortoise business. She is very cute, and has plenty of growing to do.

Given Blanche's preferred Mediterranean climate, she comes, understandably, with a few housing requirements. I have purchased tortoise 'substrata' and a heat/UVB lamp for her tortoise table. My proliferation of spider plants have been put to good use to decorate her new environment, along with some wooden hiding places and rocks: a mixture of pet-shop purchases and garden finds. Dandelion and coriander are her favourite foods so far, but I have plenty to learn about her diet and caring for her. This is really new territory for me.

That takes the household tally to nine animals. I've been told, in no uncertain terms, to stop there.

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

Bubbled School Days

Life has returned to normal, somewhat, for Gilby and for Hearth Father. Gilby is back at school for four days a week, and Hearth Father back at work full-time after being furloughed in April and May. 

The rest of us are still, for the most part, stuck at home. 

Gertie goes out occasionally to meet one friend. Eddie is too little, still, to be able to do this. Excitement for him comes in the form of being able to go to the shop once a week, alone, to buy some sweets or chocolate. On his last visit a man 'was quite old and a bit confused and wasn't able to properly socially-distance,' he explained. Given that the pubs have only just reopened and the local is next door to the shop, I expect I know the reason for his confusion. Football training returned last week for both boys. In 'bubbles' of five, maintaining two metres distance at all times, each child with their own ball.

Socially-distanced football training

I escape into school occasionally for a meeting with parents - in the open air - or a meeting with teachers. I have not been assigned to operate a bubble at school because I have two children of my own at home. My teaching is all online - through a blog and Google Classroom, with a few 'live interactions' via Google Meet or Teachstream through the week. The days beat out to a different rhythm, punctuated now by the additional demands of  'staggered' drop-off and pick-up times for Gilby. 

As a Year 6 student Gilby could have returned on the 1st June. We waited a couple of weeks and sent him on the 15th June - time for the dust to settle on new systems.  As well as the variations to the start and end of the school day, I have to wash his uniform every night to 'decontaminate'. He has had his leavers' assembly - split into three celebrations with the maximum fifteen students spread out on chairs two metres apart in the hall - where he received a dedicated copy of the Bible along with a virtual handshake. This was videoed for parents and sent out as a YouTube link. The moments of Gilby holding the candle and doing a reading didn't make the final cut.  Fridays are reserved for teachers to make their Zoom calls to other students and set on-line work, so it is a four-day week in school.

A new suit for the Year 6 prom

A socially-distanced 'prom' has been organised for the Year 6s for next week. Pupils must bring their own food and drink, and only one parent is able to drop them off. At the suggestion of the school, Gilby has also taken in a polo shirt for his fellow students to sign - in a sealed bag that can only be opened after seventy-two hours.

They play cricket each day, with two balls; one dropped into a bucket of disinfectant each time it is played - touched by the bowler and a single fielder before being thrown to the teacher and cleaned while the other ball goes into play. 

There is no interaction with anyone outside of Gilby's bubble. It seems a strange way to end primary school, but perhaps better than no ending at all, which is what it looked like back on Friday 20th March when they were sent home for what we thought might be the final time this academic year.

Currently reading: The Illustrated Pepys From the Diary, Edited by Robert Latham

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.

Mispronunciation Megaboosts

Everyone has a story about the kind of mispronunciation that happens because you have only seen a word in print, never heard it spoken out loud. I can remember reading a Catherine Cookson novel (when I was way too young to be reading Catherine Cookson) and stopping to ask my mum what a w-horror was (whore). She burst out laughing when she realised what I was referring to. I'm not sure I got an adequate explanation.

Eddie, this morning, told his sister that she smelt of 'co-lodge-knee'. It took us a while to work out that he was referring to her perfume as 'cologne'.

Gilby wanted to know what people did to get sent to 'gayol' and why it was so bad.

While both caused some amusement, they get me back by uttering utterly incomprehensible game-related statements such as 'It's a nightmare because I always need to megaboost by stage four when I run out of flying monkeys.'

Or something like that.

Increasingly I find that I have nothing to contribute to mealtime conversation.

I wonder if the flying monkeys smell of colodgeknee before they megaboost, and whether that gets them out of gayol.





Currently reading: Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo

Empty Playground

I had to drive past the boys' primary school yesterday, and noticed how overgrown the empty, cordoned off playground opposite looked. The last time we were there was the last day of school, Friday March 20th. We didn't know if it would end up being Gilby's last day at primary school or not (though we are choosing not to send him back on Monday; can't bring myself to do that while people are still dying in their hundreds) and the atmosphere was very weird. It got me writing again - and thinking about how the plague preyed on play.

The Lowdown On Lockdown Birthdays

We've had three, so far: Hearthfather's, mine and Gertie's. That would be Gertie, who somehow while I wasn't looking, has just become a teenager.

So we are getting quite good at lockdown celebrations as we have had quite a bit of practice. There are a few rules:

• The birthday girl or boy gets to choose the structure of the day and everyone has to go along with it. 
• Lockdown birthdays really ought to last for two days rather than one
• There are more family presents than usual.

So, inevitably, we each went for something different in terms of the 'structure of the day'.

Hearthfather went for

• a lunchtime beer 
• a family Zoom quiz (he won on a bonus question, supplied at the last minute, to ensure that result)
• a takeaway curry.

His was quite early on in lockdown days, and the Indian restaurant (that we are relatively frequent patrons of ordinarily) actually let us have a beer while we waited to collect the curry. And brought some poppadoms to the table. It almost felt like going out. As in olden days. But not quite. Because it also felt quite naughty. But nice.

Mine involved

• no Zooms whatsoever, on pain of death
• a cycle ride 
• a disco. 

I realise that final bullet point requires some explanation. It was a disco for five people. At home. (With rather excellent disco lighting that we have now permanently installed in the sitting room.)

I have decided that this is by far and away the best format for a disco. I could dance like nobody was watching, because, really - they weren't. We went beyond 'air guitar' and mimed with actual guitars. And it was actually enormous fun - we partied until after 10pm. Yes, 10pm. Gilby took himself off to bed just before and Eddie had to be carried up, floppy and exhausted, like back when he was a toddler. Even Gertie got involved. (It was before she became a teenager though.)

Gertie chose

• a family Zoom quiz (which she won by a country mile, not needing the bonus question)
• separate social distanced doorstep deliveries from friends who had baked cookies and a cake
• a takeaway pizza

And what a cake!  We are still eating it. Apparently it feed 30-35. It's not really helping the lockdown diet terribly much.

Gilby is eleven in July and Eddie's is not until September, so there is a bit of a lull now. Eddie has his heart set on Harry Potter World. Fingers crossed.



Currently reading: The London Train by Tessa Hadley