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Staycation Island Diaries: Week 10

This week I'm changing the format a little, I don't think daily posts are worth it any more - as we pretty much do the same thing all the time! We're still home. Guidance has been relaxed so that "you can meet one person not of your household in the open air, staying 2 metres apart": not much of a real change actually, although it seems like much of the population seems to take it to mean, "go back to normal".

We have decided, as a family, to continue isolating: the kids wouldn't stay 2 metres apart from friends if we were to meet them, and our priority is to enable the grandparents to see the kids as soon as the guidance allows for actual contact (as it would be cruel to expect them to stay 2 metres away from them when they meet in person!). So in order to protect the grandparents, we will stay away from others for the moment.

In other news, I have now finished BSF (the Bible Study Fellowship I've been part of for years) and won't be picking that up again after the summer, for at least the next year, because D(4) can't attend the schools programme yet. In order to keep my brain in gear, I've signed up for a free online course about raising bilingual children, which goes for 6 weeks.

So, instead of going by day, I'll be grouping our activities for the week now by activity rather than date.


Things we did this week 

First of all, a very important young boy turned 4 this week! Our isolation means no friends were present to celebrate with him, but many of them sent lovely video messages and we tried to make the day as special as we could - and it was successful, he was so happy!

Found on the street and lovingly restored by Mr.!




Feeling very loved with all the video birthday messages

Unicorn Mermaid Cake!

She took it really well that all the attention was on D.
Presents!






We (or really, mostly Mr.) made progress in the kitchen...






We enjoyed our newly hole-less garden in the beautiful sunshine, before saying goodbye again to Fred on Saturday...








Lots of hanging out at home as well, lots of zooming...






We walked Archie the dog twice this week, both times in gorgeous sunshine. D is getting really confident with him now, whereas N(5) seems to get more worried about him as we go on - he's bumped into her a few times while running after a stick....







Other adventures - we visited the tadpoles again, only to find there were hardly any left: turns out lots of people had come to take buckets full of them away (as a walker we met told us). I can't understand that.... it's devastating to the local wildlife, and so selfish! And also, why hundreds??

One day I took the kids to a new place for a nature walk. And man did we have an adventure! - which turned out well in the end, and even provided a fine teaching moment.

We went up what looked like a fairly well trodden path, up the side of a hill, forest all around us. It got steeper and more slippery, but as it was a definite path I remained convinced it must come out somewhere. Well... going slowly, the kids slipping occasionally and getting more and more worried, we eventually arrived at a pretty sheer drop. It was slippery, dry soil to about three metres down - I could have slid down it on my feet or backside, but the kids definitely couldn't: at this point they were crying and occasionally screaming with fear. I stopped with them, managed to stop us all from sliding for a few moments, and told them to breathe and pray together. So we asked Jesus for help and told him we were scared. Not a minute later, a couple with a young child went along the path below and the lady asked me if I needed help. I said I wasn't sure there was much she could do to help us, but she managed to climb up to us! Once there, I was able to leave the children with her while I climbed to a tree higher up, maybe one and a half metres up from there, and she helped (pushed) them climb up to me there where they could sit behind a tree, and from there we could get back to the path and walk back down where we came from. Phew. That lady was no doubt our answer to prayer today, God bless her.









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