Month: January 2014

Bags packed

Sleeping bags rolled

Packed lunch ready in the fridge

Programme planned

Resources prepared

Paperwork in order

Kids in bed and asleep

All pigs loaded and ready to fly

We’re off to Scout camp in the morning

Catch you next week 

Have fun.

This week’s fun fact from our local paper: of the 242 working days last year, there were merely 50 where there wasn’t at least one municipal department on strike. 

There is a local quip which goes “What does a United-Statesian do when he’s made a million? Starts making the next million.  What does an Argentinean do when he’s made a million? Stops work until he’s run out of money.”

Your perspective on these phenomena will vary according to context, e.g. depending on whether you are in the USA preparing a seminar on work/life balance, or whether you are in Argentina trying to track down a competent plumber willing to put in a decent day’s work. 

Danny has taught himself to swim in our garden paddling pool this week.  I wouldn’t yet go off for a coffee and leave him unattended, but he has an unmistakeable doggy paddle with all legs and arms off the bottom.  Most importantly that crucial metre or two would probably be enough for him to save himself when he falls into someone else’s paddling pool, garden pond, horse trough, sheep dip… given his propensity to go exploring where he wasn’t invited.

Martin also caught him eating the fish-food this morning. 

Is he about to metamorphose into Nemo (or possibly a shark)?

If you give the fourteen year old a computer and a pair of large speakers to plug into it she will entertain herself for as many hours as you like (we’ll apologise to the neighbours afterwards).

If you give the two year old more or less anything; tricycle, bucket of water, parent’s phone, he will entertain himself for as long as it takes till someone notices and confiscates the phone (oops).

If you give the fifty-something year old a computer and a coffee machine he will entertain himself for as many hours as you care to allow him. 

If you give the forty-something year old a collection of ingredients and a peaceful kitchen she will entertain herself until the hungry hoards arrive to shatter the tranquillity, and that was one fantastic moussaka if I do say so myself.

So that just leaves the six year old.  “Mum I’m bored what can I do?  But I don’t want to do that, what else can I do instead?  But mu-um.  Ooohhhhhh….”  There’s always one. 

Happy new year.  Hope you had a good one.  We had a quiet evening, invited a couple of friends in, Martin did the barbecue and I made chocolate brownies to go with the ice cream. 

It’s ridiculously hot beyond amusing here.  Praise the Lord for that paddling pool otherwise I’d be taking up residence in the fridge.  At least we’ve had electricity all day today though, unlike two days ago when we lost it for six hours which was even less amusing than it sounds.

I harvested my first crop of sweet corn (we are in the Americas after all) the other day, and made humitas, which is a traditional Andean food involving lots of corn.  I borrowed this recipe which you can read in English or Spanish, and the cultural article before you actually get to the recipe is quite interesting too.  They were pretty fiddly with all the messing around with corn leaves and the like, but they turned out OK, and I’m not sure what else I’d have done with that many sweet corns, given that they don’t keep for months on end, unlike my trusty butternut squashes. 

Today’s theological conundrum… “Mummy…?”  “Yes?”  “Listen… if you have a daddy, like our Daddy, and then you have a baby, like Danny, then you have one daddy and one baby.”  “Yes…”  “So how can God be the Daddy and the baby?”  Well, (I didn’t say)  Rutherford decided it wasn’t possible so he wrote a different story, but most people don’t agree with him, but if we’re honest even most of us who don’t agree with him are still trying to get our heads round it even though we think it’s true, and if you can come up with a concise answer which can be equally understood by a six year old and a theologian, publish! 

Now I’m off to climb into the fridge see if I can find something to eat.  Have fun, hope 2014 turns out well for you.