Half term break

We had great fun during the half-term break. A few weeks ago, we were discussing with the three grand-kids, what we could do, to make the holiday fun during lockdown. Magnus wanted to, melt metal & make a saucepan!!!!

As a compromise, we melted old wax and made new candles in jars and mini floating Star Wars ones.

Everyone wanted to make pizza, so similar to our Christmas bake off, each of them made some pizza dough.

We had a joint effort to prep the toppings.

Each of the kids planted some cress, which we have since eaten for lunch in sandwiches.

We discovered a canal side playground.

OK, so I’m a big kid, but it was a very comfy, swing and knitting!!

The grand children’s primary school are taking part in the 100 Challenge in memory of Sir Captain Tom Moore, there is a just giving page donations.

Nikita ran 100 times around the play ground.

Magnus scooted 100 laps of the BMX track.

Lance pledged to go down the slide 100 times.

In addition, Edmund’s doing the challenge in London & running 100 km, he has a link to his giving site for UNICEF.

The beginning of the week was good weather, so we took the opportunity to cruise to Adlington to get diesel, gas, coal and engine oil. We then winded and got water at Botany. While the water tank was filling we watched the CRT lads loading some new lock gates onto a tug. The end of the week was pretty wet and windy.

Once the engine oil was changed we strolled to Botany to dispose of the old filters in the boaters skip. We don’t often see the canal from above.

Since my last blog we have had another cold snap & were frozen in for a week or so. We went to the boat a few times for lunch break, during home school to stoke the fire & to do some ice breaking.

We were VERY honoured to have a kingfisher sit on our bow rope and to stay while we took his photo.

 

This week we have had some super evening reflections.

 An amazing sun rise.

Home schooling.

 

Homeschooling is going really well, and we feel we’ve got the IT bit down to a fine art, as things ‘have’ been running smoothly. We have to keep a close eye on the clock to make sure the boys log onto their live sessions in the dining room on time, otherwise they are marked late/absent!!!

Nikita has live online lessons with her teacher & class each morning and Thursday afternoons, so she has the front room all to herself.

Magnus has live maths with his teacher each morning. He sits at one end of the dining room table (Lance at the other) with his headphones on so he’s not distracted.

The boys both have recorded English lessons by their own teachers and some other lessons on YouTube too. This makes our lives so much easier as we’re pretty sure we weren't taught the grammar terminology:- digraph, trigraph, split digraph and the list goes on. Plus, it appears that hundreds, tens & units have lost the ‘units’ and now the units are referred to as ones!!!!  

Each Friday afternoon the headmaster does a massive conference call type assembly for the whole school.

Most lunch times we have a musical interlude where Nikita and Magnus have a practice session.

Since our last blog we’ve only cruised once to get diesel and water.

We’re bringing 10-15l water back from the house each day, so the tank has lasted over a month. Magnus loves to help.

I knitted myself a huge shawl with the 24 mini skeins of wool I spun from my advent fibre swap.

 

 Once again we had a lovely family gathering for Heather’s birthday with cakes scattered all over the UK.

I’m a bit behind with my birthday knitting and have sent two IOU’s. These socks are knitted with naturally, solar dyed (on the boat roof) wool and will be posted off soon (I promise).

We’ve had quite a lot of rain interspersed with more icy snowy weather.

This stream is about 3’ higher than usual, it’s the kid’s favourite paddling spot…...not at the moment.

The path is being eroded by the stream. The level had gone down the day we went with the boys.

 

This was my view over the canal from bed one morning.

There have been some stunning sunrises.

A rainbow to welcome us when we got in from schooling.

The moon and its reflection have been breathtaking.

Some days it’s been impossible to keep the solar panels clear of snow.

The boys loved doing a litter pick along the towpath and lane.

Once the rubbished was binned we did puddle smashing!!

Last weekend I made marmalade, and it appears to be my best ever, plus a batch of scones.