ewein2412 | (no subject)

"There are too many grammatical and spelling errors in The Sword Dance for Word to continue to display them."

sigh... so anyway, there's more madness over at simien_mtn_fox.

Yesterday Sara and her whole class went away for a week at an adventure activity centre in the highlands. There are a bunch of videos from last year on youtube that show you the kind of stuff they get up to--trapezing and fencing and building rafts and piles of mud!

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=nxBMb8zkajw

Sara's main worries are, pretty much in this order: 1) Will she find enough to eat? 2) Will she be able to live without cuddles from Mummy/Laura (the cat) for a whole week? (it's not really a WHOLE week--just monday to friday, but she has never been away from both parents for more than a night) 3) Will she be warm enough? 4) Will she be able to brush her own hair with enough success that mummy won't cut it all off when she gets home?

(Sara is front/left in both pictures)

I went to see them off yesterday and they were all very cute, with their TONS of stuff (they have to take three pairs of sneakers and sleeping bags and stuffed animals and about a trillion sweaters). They seemed very excited and not too worried. The place they are staying is where Beatrix Potter's family used to go before they went to the Lake District.

In other news, we have made the BEST home improvement we have ever made, and constructed a summerhouse. It is like having Thoreau’s cabin in the garden. I find it an unbelievably inspiring place to work—I just sit there and all my troubles and distractions fall away. Plus, it is like having a porch. I had always imagined it would be nice to get an extra hour of sitting outside on sunny days but I had not realized that we would also be able to sit out there on RAINY days and even on RAINY nights. Which means pretty much ALWAYS (on Sunday morning one of the other Sunday school mums looked up at the elusive sun and exclaimed, “What is that golden orb?”)

If anybody thinks I am making it up about the rain,

2008

2007

2004

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That summerhouse is wonderful!!!

Badly named, though--clearly summer doesn't exist here, alas! ;)

no, it's a great name for it, because in the summerhouse you can PRETEND it's summer. You get to sit in your garden EVEN THOUGH it's freezing, windy and pouring. geez, who would live in scotland.

Oh I want one of those summer houses!! I've always wanted one. Sadly we have a tiny garden that faces onto a main road. Boo.

omg tiny little house of writing!

The summerhouse is awesome!

So that's where all our rain goes! (Not a drop since March, and last Feb-March we got a record breaking nine inches, unlike the two to four of the previous years)

The camp looks wonderful, and I love the pic of the bus full of happy kids.

truth to tell I am not sure how we managed to squeeze it in. We sacrificed the patio for it, and my little alpine rock garden along the wall. but I regret nothing.

it is! that's exactly what it is!

What I really want is two houses - one playhouse for Milly and at the other end of an infeasibly HUGE garden - my own house. We would correspond by miniature cable car baskets with messages, supplies etc.

you can have it back now.

I just missed getting a great shot of all the *parents* waving frantically, which was also quite sweet.

thank you!

it's honestly kind of like having that. It just needs a dumbwaiter to the kitchen, and a wireless connection. Although to tell the truth the lack of internet is partly what makes it so charming.

Also also.

mhari and I wanted to show you this, on the grounds that it is something Telemakos would TOTALLY DO, if only to give Medraut a heart attack.

We would! I just forget why, sometimes. ;)

been there, done that!

it was a baby and we did NOT do mouth-to-mouth.

Ooo, what a pretty little house!

That is so awesome!

Sara's thing sounds like the thing they made me do in sixth grade. Which was surprisingly successful; I actually had quantifiable amounts of fun in between flailing! (Er. But I expect Sara is a better-adjusted child than I was.)

"There are too many grammatical and spelling errors in The Sword Dance for Word to continue to display them."

I hate it when computers get snooty. I BROUGHT YOU ONTO THIS POWER GRID, AND I CAN TAKE YOU OFF IT.

oh, believe me, Sara flails with the best of 'em. I hope someone takes few pictures of HER (she went with 4 disposable cameras)

isn't it?

OH MY GOD how are you my hero in SO MANY WAYS?

How does Tourist Feeding a Hyena = Hero? (Amazing that I have the picture to prove it, though)

I had a professor in college who had these two fabulous tree houses (he had us all over for dinner). Your garden house seems like a grown up version of his tree houses.

Because you are SO. TOTALLY. AWESOME. And I want to feed a hyena.

they are really spooky.

They don't sound so much like laughing as like owls hooting.

it is! We have no trees in our back garden (all the greenery you see is in other people's gardens) so we have all these so-called "treehouses" in the bushes. They all have different names ("The Maple," "The Jungle") but there is one that we actually call "The Treehouse" even though it's on the ground.

I would *raises hands* I hate hot weather, I've found out. Occasional windy days with some sun would make a nice change. And colour change in the autumn, but you get that - at least in the highlands.

You should install a heater and then be able to use it even in the snow!! with real fire behind glas, like those Swedish ovens, etc.

there is talk of Improvements. Electricity is on its way, at the least; I can read by the light of the oil lamp, but Tim can't. Every now and then we get really ambitious and start talking about Insulation and Under Floor Heating.

you are right about the autumn color! I really do appreciate it--so much more notable than in southern England.

Oooo.