Chickens in a box

The context Will has been working towards his DoE Bronze award for most of this year - no mean feat given that for the most part we've been in lockdown and he hasn't been able to get out. In addition to a two day expedition, you have to show that you have learned a skill, been volunteering and also undertaken specific physical activity.  The skill was quite easy, he did beekeeping with me; helping set up for spring, inspections and extraction. For the physical he'd already got signed-off for his boxing. Unfortunately the volunteering he wanted to do for Newbury Mencap just wasn't possible with Covid. I thought maybe he could help as part of a working group at Snelsmore, but they weren't running in lockdown either. The volunteering has been put on the back burner.  The expedition To the expedition. William's team had to plan a two day route from Hungerford Common back to St Barts via Linkenholt and the Wayfarers. About four weeks ago (when it became apparent tha...

On 24th March William was sent home from school with flu-like symptoms as the Covid-19 pandemic took hold, and both he and James have not set foot back since that day. All that changes tomorrow when they are finally going back to school for the start of the autumn term. William now in Year 10 and James is Year 8 can you believe it.  It's actually James I feel for, because he wasn't at St Barts long enough to make proper mates, so has pretty much spent the whole of the past six months at home on his own. William at least left with friends he's been able to keep in touch with over the X-Box and WhatsApp.  To be fair, James is very self-contained; comfortable in his own company. I worry that, because I work full-time, he misses out on playdates because I don't pick him up from school, don't go to the gym, or run, or make it to coffees, or anything like that. It's a sort of mum FOMO that because I'm working, we're out of the social circle. It was really nic...

It seems impossible to do one thing at a time right now. Yesterday I managed to make a chocolate, salted, velvet caramel torte   for dinner at the Greens later, while trying to sort out William's Bronze Duke of Edinburgh stuff because no one has done anything (except Will and his mate Taylor), and it's next weekend. So we put all the team mates into a single group, emailed them over the maps and told them to pack their own lunches/snacks and we'll do the rest. Part of me hopes they don't read them and turn up with nothing. It makes you wonder what the hell the parents are doing behind the scenes? At a guess I'd say naff all.  Next up James had a go at making sourdough, starting to mix the first stage while I did a HIIT out on the terrace; checking in in between sets to help with instructions. In the afternoon James went on to make a tiramisu to take to Richard and Sonya's (along with my CSVC), while I helped out with advice along the way sitting behind the sewin...

An eventful few days.  The boys were challenged to a bake-off by Richard and Helen which was taken extremely seriously. Cakes were planned, ingredients procured, recipes pored over. James decided on a Hugh Fairly-Longname Victoria Sponge, and William for a HF-L coffee cake . The first, a relatively simple and traditional bake with no room for error, the second a more complicated undertaking, not without risk.  Eddie and I as Judges, deposited the boys off at 2pm and returned several hours later to review and enjoy the fruits of their afternoon's labours. In the three categories; technical, creative and flavour, the winners were as follows:  In third place for flavour - Richard and Helen's gorgeous fig and honey cheesecake.  Tied first - for technical; William's coffee cake and for creative; James' Victoria Sponge.  There was much angst that first place was tied, but as we pointed out to the joint winners, you cannot judge two different cakes with the same crite...

Every week we turn up at dog training and have a go at lots of different, difficult exercises. We're currently working towards our Platinum assessment, and Dolly is doing really well, but some exercises are taking time to get the hang of. 'Retrieve' is one (why would you bring a ball back when you could just keep it yourself)? Food manners is another (why would I not eat food put in a bowl in front of me)?  Today we got out of the car to find Jackie looking terrified. 'It's the assessment today.' She whispered in tones of horror. 'It can't be.' I whispered back in similar tones. But it was. And it wasn't just the dog that has to pass - you are expected to answer questions about dogs. Correctly. I know, right?  As luck would have it I had a pocketful of steak so I thought what the hell, we'll give it a go. Here's how it went... Send to bed: Dolly waits, watches me walk 20 paces away, put a towel on the ground, come back to her, yell '...

This is ridiculous. I haven't been to David Lloyd for five months but yesterday, with six guest passes sitting in my DL app, I decided that on a beautiful sunny day I'd go mad and actually take the kids OUT. OF. THE. HOUSE. Controversial I know.  We got there with an hour's swimming left to run, which we hoped meant we'd missed hordes of other people's shrieking kids. As it turned out, not only had we missed them, we'd missed the swimming time too. Although the DL website had signposted a 5pm finish at the outdoor pool, the 12 year old receptionist waved a rather grubby piece of paper at me on which the 5pm had been crossed out in biro, and replaced by 4pm. She offered to let me take a photo of the paper as proof that she had refused us entry, which was kind of her.  Turned out the lifeguard (also 12) had knocked off for the day, and despite the fact that the pool is about 1.5m deep and the kids all good swimmers over the age of 12 supervised by a responsible a...