The call of nature.

I was woken at four o'clock this morning. And I don't even resent it. No, I didn't need a wee (the title's just a cunning play on words, as you'll see).
There I was happily asleep (I'm assuming I was happy - I was asleep after all!) when my consciousness was pierced by the noise of a bird. It wasn't the 'morning everyone' sort of tweet that you get at that time in the morning. No, this was a more urgent, "TWEET TWEET TWEET TWEET TWEET TWEET TWEET TWEET TWEET TWEET TWEET TWEET TWEET TWEET TWEET TWEET TWEET TWEET TWEET TWEET" (It certainly felt like it was going on and on). I duly rose and went to the window. I guess if we'd shut the window I'd have avoided the noise... But on opening the curtain, I saw, about 8 foot away from me, sat on the verandah roof, an owl. Now I couldn't say for sure exactly what type of owl it was. That's partly because I don't know my owls (have since looked in my bird book so I know for next time) and partly because it was, after all, four o'clock in the morning. I think we can safely rule out the long-eared and the little owl. I don't think it was a barn owl, because I don't think it had any white on it. The short eared owl is the wrong colour, so I'm guessing it was a tawny owl. The other thing is, given that there was a bird being very wound up by it, that would point to a bird-eating owl (probably a baby - note the last post here about nature's ways!) This would appear to rule out the barn owl. My only issue is that the rspb say a Tawny is the size of a pigeon, and I'd have said it was bigger than that... Maybe it's because they sort of stand up more than other birds...
Anyway, it was all very exciting. The bird that was TWEETing (no, not in the online sense) stopped, because I opened the window, and the owl swooped gracefully off.
Loving creation. It was an awesome idea!
The picture below is copyright rspb.

Something of substance.

I feel like I'm not writing a great deal here, partly because I'm blogging here, here and here. Actually, ignore that last one. Have been lazy there too!
So I'll fill in a bit of the gap. Today was 'moving-up day' at Joshua's school. He's not normally there on a Monday, but given that toddler group today was a day trip to a farm, which we couldn't make, it turned out rather well. We were invited to take him along to school at 11.45 and join the children for lunch. Of course, the seats were breathtakingly small, having been designed for 3-6 year-olds, but thankfully they did bring the grown-ups bigger plates than the children had! It was quite entertaining. Joshua managed to get a vast amount of pasta down his shirt (which was still line-damp!) and the child next to Joshua baptised himself in almost an entire cup of juice. As I was trying to rescue the situation and ascertain the best course of action for the poor boy (his parents weren't there), one of the staff said to me, 'would you like me to change him dad?'. I said that, given he wasn't in fact my son, that would probably be best! He was actually dripping as he left. The other amusing sight at lunch was the two boys on the next table, one of whom was feeding the other his banana custard. Well, 'feeding', is perhaps too strong a word... Suffice to say not much was consumed, as such.

When I went to pick Joshua up at the end of the day, we had to spend about 1/2 hour in the playground at school. Then, on the drive home, we passed the playground in our road, and he said, 'can I go to the park now?'. So we did. Another 45 minutes there, then tea, Bob the Builder and bed. At prayers, his offering was, 'Thank you lord Jesus for our lovely day and I hope mummy and daddy can come to lunch at school again, Amen.'

Did manage to get some useful stuff done during the school gap though, and we're now pretty much up-to-date with our accounts. Always handy!

Anyways, I'm on duty tonight, and it's almost time for the next bell, so I'm off.

*** Brief Break ***

Just went outside to get the washing in (it's raining) and was reminded of what else I meant to say.
This weekend in the garden was notable for the birdlife. I already texted about the bold robin and its nest. Well, this weekend saw me having to go slowly around the garden for fear of treading on a baby bird somewhere. The whole place seemed to be swarming with the little fellas. Robins were darting this way and that, and the sounds of feeding babies were coming from most of the hedges (and we've got a fair few). On closer inspection, I found that there were zillions (ok, slight exaggeration) of babies all over the place. They were mainly pre-flight, but post-nest. Seriously cute little things with dumpy little bodies and wings that seemed unlikely to allow flight. They sort of hopped their way around the garden. I was really tempted to go and stroke 'em, but figured they'd either die of heart failure or be abandoned by parents because they smelt of person. But the sound was just extraordinary. I've never been so keenly aware of the transition from nest to sky. And what a terrifying time it must be for the parents. Four babies all going off in different directions, utterly at the mercy of predators (and yes, I had seen a bird of prey just past the back hedge last week). Ok, so they don't 'think' in the same way we do, but what fragility of life and relationship.
And then again, there are people in the world who do have to think like that. Where should their priorities lie? Which child is the most important? As I wrote in my chapter on 'simplicity' this week, I had a bit of a failure on the carrots front. What did I do? I laughed it off and planted more seeds. But what if I had no more seeds? What if the carrots were the only thing I had to feed my family. Suddenly it wouldn't be something to laugh off. What if losing some of my crop meant having to chose which child to feed...

Smooth.

Joshua came out of the loo today and announced, "my legs are completely smooth".
I was slightly concerned, and asked why...
"I used the ... uh ... white stuff." He's only gone and smothered himself in Molton Brown moisturiser! Not only was there a fair amount on his legs, there was also a fair old splodge down the side of the bottle. Oh well.

Yet another blog.

Check this out, for something a little different. Don't know if I'll manage to keep it up, but I thought it was worth a try!

Father's Day and needles.

Well, once again, Fathers Day coincided with having a whole cohort of new pupils descending on our house for tea :) But there we go!
Joshua and I headed off to church in the morning, where I played guitar for the first time (first time there, that is, not first time ever...) - whoop whoop. Sadly, having tonsillitis did prevent any vocal leading, so we'll save that for another time. It was great to be able to do some music and it may be something that's growing soon.
On our return home, there was much to do in preparation for the arrival of multiple guests, not least the mowing of the lawns. Thankfully, we have a drive-on mower at our disposal, and Joshua and I even did some of the orchard together, which was quality father-son time :) I think I enjoyed the mower more than he did - he's strangely nervous about mowers. About two hours of mowing later (drive-on mowers are not good at tight corners) I was done. Sadly, I had to 'modify' the garden gate slightly, as the ride-on wouldn't fit into our garden (it's not normally used in our bit - the regular push-along petrol mowers are).

Joshua's classic comment from the day was 'daddy, can I have some of the chocolates from your present'. To which I had to respond, 'Sweetheart, you haven't given me my present yet!'

And today, we went for his latest round of injections. I felt really bad. He had no recollection of injections, so I told him that we were going to the doctors for injections, which were to make him healthy and strong. He believed me. On the way there, I told him that they'd pop something into his arm and that it might hurt a bit. When we got there, we took rabbit and monkey in with us and the lady was very nice and explained what was going to happen. I sat him on my knee and held firmly onto his arms, as instructed. The first one was in the left arm, and the nurse told him to look at something in the other direction. He dutifully turned his head away, I felt really bad, she put the needle in, injected him, took the needle out again and he didn't even flinch. Not so much as a whimper. The second one was slightly trickier - he happened to turn around just as the needle was approaching his arm, so tried to move away (can't blame him really) with the result that some of the juice didn't make it in, but he didn't make a noise then either. I think he was just a bit confused by someone wanting to poke something into him.
I swear needles must be thinner these days - when I was a little boy, I'm sure it really hurt... Or maybe I just made a fuss anyway.
Anyways, even the nurse was impressed. He got his sticker and we headed straight for the sweet shop around the corner. What a brave boy!
On the way home, he piped up from the back of the car, "Man doctors are better than lady doctors."
"Why?", I asked.
"Because lady doctors give me things I don't like. When we went to the man doctor, he made me better."
I had to reassure him that lady doctors were, in fact, just as good as man doctors (I didn't bother pointing out that it was a nurse that injected him!)

More school on its way...

Well, he's still growing... And he's been hassling us for a while saying that his friends get to go to school more than he does, so from tomorrow, he'll be starting school for a second day each week. It's a little bit sad - sort of an early empty nest feeling :( But it's a great school, and he loves it to bits. He's very excited about tomorrow too. Of course that might be linked to the fact that it's a teddy bears' picnic!
So, today we decided we'd have a bit of an adventure, and we went to watch this:











Not exactly high-brow, cultured entertainment, but good for a laugh. It's in 3D too, which meant that Joshua had to wear these:

I was slightly surprised that he was quite so happy to wear them. It's a good enough film. We missed the first few minutes (some traffic-light-related issues...) but it didn't seem to matter too much. Joshua announced afterwards that it was 'a bit scary and a bit good'. So he was obviously content. The next trick was keeping him awake on the journey home (he'd not had a nap...) so that he can have a nice early night tonight :) Here's hoping he crashes out in front of the telly after tea!!

As for me, well, I've got to make sure his uniform's in good order for tomorrow, and then tomorrow, I've got a book to write! We're already looking forward to the summer holidays ...

Bogies.

Classic this morning at breakfast. We have guests (non-squemish, thankfully)
Joshua shouts, 'Mummy, I found two bogies'.
Mummy doesn't hear, so not wishing her to miss out, I point out that Joshua is trying to talk to her. She turns to him and he says again, 'Mummy, I found two bogies', waving one finger and one thumb in the air. He then looks at his finger, somewhat forlornly, and adds, 'but I ate one'.
Looking at his thumb (still with bogey on it) he asks, 'Mummy, can I keep this for our picnic later?' Marvellous idea, eh?
He then looks for all the world as if he's trying to get the bogey back into his nose - perhaps he thought that was the best place to store it ready for lunch :o)

Hello again.

I've been awake since four.
Just thought I'd share that.
And I can't even blame Joshua, because he's still out for the count. But I have read a book and reviewed it. But it wasn't exactly a corker, so maybe that wasn't the best use of time.
As a follow up from last post, I had a lie-in yesterday! Yay. Didn't wake 'til about 8.30, which was pretty awesome. Having said that, getting up before 5 today may have blown it...
We've passed the half-way point in the holiday now, which is a bit sad. But it's been pretty good so far.
Right, I'm off to make a(nother) cup of tea and prepare for our guests!

Been away awhile.

Well, not 'away' in the physical sense, just not blogging. In fact, just not blogging here. Spun off a couple of book blogs.
It's half-term, and time to rest, recharge, regroup and prepare for the next few weeks. So here's the plan. We're actually staying put. For the first time since arriving here almost two years ago, we're not going anywhere for the holiday. Don't get me wrong, we'd love to go and visit people, but it seems to make much better sense to stay here. We've had a truly draining (half!)term and running around the country during the holiday doesn't allow us to rest.
Having said that, there are a few things we're doing/have done.
1) We went to Big Church Day Out on Saturday. There was a point at which I could happily have fallen asleep (which would tick the 'rest' box) if it weren't for the fact that Joshua was on top of me and being very wriggly indeed. But the day did help to tick the 'recharge' box. So good to have time to 'worship' in a relaxed way, with both a whole bunch of strangers and a few friends from church. Something we're really missing at the moment.
2) We went for a walk round the village yesterday. Nice to do something as a family. We don't get to do stuff like that enough during term time. It wasn't particularly exciting, but it was together, which was the important thing.
3) We're all hoping to have slept more this week than any other week since records began...
4) I'm aiming to have completely cleared my desk of detritus by the end of the week
5) Have planted corn and runner beans, and dug a new bed for squash and pumpkins (believe it or not, that comes under 'recharge', I think)
6) We've got friends visiting (some just for meals, others for stays!) which will contribute to the rest and recharge (because we like them!) (That's not to say we don't like anyone else ... just that when we have 'work' guests, it's not always exactly refreshing...)
7) I need to plan how to use my Wednesdays, when Joshua will now be at school for the next four weeks. The most obvious use of the time is book work, but that might not be the right one.
8) Plenty of time needs to be devoted to prayer, chillaxing and hanging out together