Week 7

Another week another dollar - I got my payment from Gingerbugs for April this week and was very pleased and surprised.  I had sold over £170 of goodies through them.  This was mainly for Easter and they ran out of my Easter goodies almost instantly because I had stopped producing them - but even so, I was very pleased and even more surprised.  Apparently I was their top seller of the month - not good for them!  Anyway, I have some cashflow which is brilliant - although I have nothing to spend it on at the moment except for food and drink!

Maths this week was angles which I found easier than ratios from last week (I had to look up some answers and work backwards to figure out how to do some of the questions!).  Thinking the teachers really should do some lessons for us parents as we don't know how our children have been taught to do things - might be doing more bad than good with our teaching.  I am completely out of my depth with English (or Literacy as it is now called!)  I don't understand the grammar at all, and the way the kids have been taught how to put together a story / poem is well beyond me.  I just leave Tom to it as I know he is way more advanced than me.  (My insecurities put nicely in place by St Crispins' English department have come straight back to me - never far from the surface!)  Tom seems (to me anyway) to do a better job than I could do!

Here's his poem of Hope he did this week:

Sun has been shining,

Even though what's happening,

Not seeing friends

Hoping for it to stop

Hoping that we will return to school,

Wanting the weather to stay with us.

Always getting excited when there is a knock on the door

Going on long walks

Always getting fitter,

Bikes have never been used so much

Playing games over video call

Spending as much time as we can in the sun

Hayfever has started which doesn't help trying to stay well

Hoping everything will get better soon.

Tom teaching me to play the guitar

On Thursday, Tom received his own video message from Mrs Clements, see below.  Which was exciting. Was the last day of schooling this week as it was VE Day on Friday.  Gradually the teachers are getting to grips with technology but I don't think Ingleton will teachers will be holding zoom lessons or file sharing via the website anytime soon.  They are so so behind with technology here.  I have no idea what families without computers and printers are doing.  Pretty impossible without either, we were lucky as we had a spare laptop which Matt was using for photos - so Tom is using that.  I'm using my edible printer to print everything out - ink was about to go out of date anyway!

Personal message from Mrs C...

VE Day took place on Friday and was a good day.  In the morning Tom and I made scones.  He made cheese scones and I made fruit scones.  I took some spare over to the ambulance station.  At 1pm, Bibby's did a parade of their vintage vehicles around the village.  Lots of people had made a real effort, dressing their houses up in red white and blue, flags, bunting etc etc.  We made some bunting and hung it up, dressed up in red, white a blue and got our one flag out.  

Making scones

The morning was spent making cheese scones (Tom) and fruit scones (me).  I've never been a big scone maker, but both batches were really good.  Tom made his with Jarlsberg, it worked really well.  Once made we split and filled a number and took them round to the ambulance station for the lads there.  We then took our chairs to the front of our drive, and settled down with our scones.  Anne and Lauren turned up and stood opposite us on the other side of the road, so we could shout at each other.  We were lucky in that the parade went past us 3 times, we were expecting just their vintage bus and 1 or 2 other vehicles, but there were probably about 10 or 12 - all looking immaculate and with their horns sounding.  

Scones for lunch - driveway picnic

Once again we had a party atmosphere in the village, everyone was out in their front gardens so we were able to wave.  Unfortunately we don't have many permanent residents around us - next door obviously is the ambulance station and opposite us most of the cottages are holiday homes, but we do have neighbours on the other side of us who are ok and of course the Browns behind us who we have started to talk to (just) again - well they are the only people we see and vice versa. Don't think we will ever be great friends though, maybe just civil, although he has been playing with the drainage in the field behind us since lockdown, so I'm sure he will be up to his usual tricks trying to build on the land behind us again soon! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKW8wBBw9n0

After the parade we went for a bike ride up Oddies Lane, very hard work - I walked most of the hill as it is extreme, so extreme that the boys gave me a 15 minute head start!  Just about worked!  The rest of the ride was quite pleasant to Chapel-le-Dale and back down on the Hawes Road which is lovely and empty at the moment.

Great lockdown birthday pressie

Saturday - my birthday.  Think Matt was worried that today wouldn't be special enough for me, but he neededn't have worried, I liked the fact that there was no pressure on me to have the 'best day ever' and I could just relax with my family.  I was lucky in that the weather was amazing - the hottest day of the year so far, in fact I can't remember it being as hot in the past.  I had a lovely lie in, then opened lots of lovely presents.  Matt did ALL the cooking for the day which was just wonderful (I am so fed up with cooking!).  After lunch (which consisted of cheese and biscuits from a rather lovely birthday hamper from Pat and Bob set out on a lovely piece of slate and cut with a new cheese knife both from Jude and Craig) we went for our walk of the day to Edith's Wood.  We bumped into loads of people we knew.  A 4 mile walk took us over 3 hours because of all the chatting (socially distanced of course!).

We even ALL went for a paddle in the (very low river) afterwards as it was so hot.

When we got back home we discovered a happy birthday banner on our front wall and a bag of goodies from the Bickerstaffs.  Matt then cooked me pork chops and whisky sauce for tea.  Then at 7.30 the Bickerstaffs turned up and sang happy birthday, then the Holmans turned up and then Steph arrived.  Was an overload of people, but very very lovely.  One of the best birthdays, simple is good.

Sunday, sorry, not 100% sure what we got up to, but I think it involved cricket on the field, a film and relaxing (what else is there to do?!)

Birthday banner!