March 2020 – Martin & Hazel Frost

The lockdown diaries

So here we are in the second week of nationwide obligatory lockdown, hunting rabbits and carving daily notches on a stick…. It’s pretty civilised all told. Food shops are largly open so we’re not yet out in the fields with a bow and arrow. Our oven has died, but the four hobs still work and the microwave’s OK for making cakes. The cooker was due to be replaced anyway, we even have the money to pay for it thanks to a generous gift, but we just hadn’t planned for it to die right now when the shops are shut.

We are settling into something like a routine that involves getting up not too early, drifting into breakfast, followed by some school work in the mornings, lunch, then “siesta” essentially early afternoon downtime when we ignore the kids glued to screens for a while, then snack-time, board games or something similiar, a dip in the paddling pool for those who want it, posting everyone through the shower, more food, storytime and bed.

All the young people in the household have been set academic tasks, which they are tackling with varying degrees of enthusiasm(!) Probably the biggest surprise is Danny. We are having a lovely time doing his activities, and he is producing more in an hour at home than he has ever done in a day at school. I still might not want to homeschool him (or anybody else) for very long, but I’m thinking another month of this wouldn’t do him any harm at all, after which he might nearly be caught up with his peers anyway.

Danny’s undemanding approach to life is also boding him well in current circumstances. Yesterday evening he arrived in the kitchen at bedtime when I was making a jelly. “Is that for lunch tomorrow?” he asked me. “Yes” I said. “Oooh, aren’t we lucky?!” he said, absolutely genuinely. It’s at times like now when we’re grateful to have produced kids who think they’re having a good day because there’s jelly.

The other fortunate thing is that we didn’t get round to taking the pool down before all this happened. Normally I clean it and put it away when schools go back for the year. So the younger element and I are enjoying fresh air and exercise in it most sunny afternoons.

When there’s no school and no church

There’s been a country-wide clampdown on all social activity including churches and schools. We are all at home today!

Well, so here we are with some time on our hands. It’s a chance to let our brains breathe a bit and choose what we want to do. The other day Joni asked how the internet worked so I cooked up the most simple html file to demonstrate the very basic way communication takes place over the web.

<!doctype html>

<html>
<head>
    <title>Jonathan Oscar Frost’s web site</title>
</head>
<body>
    <p>This is a website about Jonathan Oscar Frost.</p>
    <p>Bye!</p>
    <img src=”joni-horse.jpg” width=”20%”>
</body>
</html>

If you want to see it click here . By the way, it will come up in a new tab so just click back on the current tab to see the rest of this post.

Joni was decidedly unimpressed by this and so decided to share with me what he has been doing at school. Admittedly, the staff have simply shown the web site to the children and have left them to experiment. This is what Joni came up with. Click on the green flag to activate.

I fear for the future of programming.

The Tribe go to Salta

Or more accurately, La Caldera which is a sweet little Gaucho village about 20 kms north out of Salta city. The Frost household spent six days on holiday, before being joined for our annual conference by the rest of the Latin Link Southern Cone team, plus a couple of hangers on from Peru (it was really lovely to see you guys). It has taken a couple of days to get some photos up here, but we (the royal we, i.e. Martin) have figured it out now. It was a superb time, both on holiday and at the conference. Below is a gallery capturing just a few moments; walking, fishing, birdwatching, lighting fires, sharing a beer, laughing with friends, enjoying the amazing surroundings of the Salta hills, and, probably the highlight for us Frosts, the best afternoon’s horseriding ever. The first task was to go and collect the horses from the middle of the scrub where they live and graze freely, and then we spent three hours trekking up hill, down dale, through a rushing river, and around the most tranquil lake. Truly unforgettable.

This is gallery view, you can see the individual photos in big by clicking on them and following the arrows to go forward and back.