What a lovely relaxed day I've had. The only 'specific' jobs being the washing and let's face it, it's hardly much of a chore nowadays is it? And a spot of fruit picking up the garden.
As usual, I began the day with a session on the computer. We each have an ipad for between-times but have set times for the desk-top computer. Because I am an early riser I begin the day and afternoons, and evening belong to daughter. What a fantastic tool for information the internet is!
So, a morning session doing some research for my articles, a break for coffee, then up the garden to the fruit bushes. I had already gathered most of the red-currants, so now it was white and black. They are surprisingly different. The purple-black orbs nestle close to the twig, large and luscious, while the white hang in graduated bunches, smaller, golden and quite 'pippy'. I also gathered (and sampled) raspberries ready for a tea-time treat with some ice-cream. All the while I was 'working', hubby had gone for a four-mile walk.
Having read of the health benefits of fermented vegetables, for lunch we tried a tin of saukraut stew with a helping of baked beans to alleviate its saltiness and no, we will not be having that again! However it was a good excuse for a first helping of the raspberries and ice-cream to mitigate the taste.
A trip to Norwich to pick up Daughter and musical gear after a 'gig' where much to my delight, she presented me with a beautiful bouquet of flowers as a 'thank' you' for what both do for her. Aaawh!
Around three o'clock, we picked up six-year-old Grandson from school and he and Hubby settled at the kitchen table for drawing as they often do. Grandson has just come top in his year for spelling having got forty out of forty correct and he constantly spells out loud and he taught us something that I'll bet you don't know either...
Granddad mentioned the word 'extreme' and was told it contained a 'split digraph!' Slightly stunned, we digested this new information as Grandson happily polished off a couple of sausages for his tea before decamping into the living room and asking me to help him make a 'god's eye'. I was confounded once again but we landed up cutting two equal-length sticks from the garden, then raiding my knitting bag for coloured wool. He showed me what to do and between us we wound the wool into diamond-shaped bands with a central eye. Then he patterned the protruding arms with felt-tipped pens. He was delighted with the effect and said he would take it to school next morning for 'show and tell'.
Ever since Daughter was at school, we have read books aloud. Firstly in the car to and from Norwich, and now often after tea. It's a lovely, intimate time that allows our food to go down and our imaginations to soar. At the moment we are reading again Frances Hodgeson Burnet's 'The Secret Garden', so are transported off to the 'wuthering' winter draughts of a vast country house and the wilds of the Yorkshire moors.
After tea, a nice long walk to a friend's garden to gather wine-red poppy seed-heads ready for next Spring and a catch-up T.V. session to see what's what at Wimbledon, ensured I was well ready for my bed where I tumbled straight into the realms of sleep.
Note: A digraph is two letters (two vowels or two consonants or a vowel and a consonant) which together make one sound (as in the words tail, boat, found or read). When a digraph is split by a consonant it becomes a split digraph. For example: wrote – the 'oe' here make one sound.
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