Day 25 - Where Has January Gone?

At last I have managed to reset my email address so that Blogger recognises me and lets me in - I'm exhausted - it's been a hard battle! But that's not the reason I haven't posted for days (and days). We've had two grandchildren staying - one for two days and the other for seven. We picked them up the Subday before last but Ms 10 had to go home early to meet her obligations with Nippers (junior surf life saving) so we put her on the bus on Wednesday afternoon. She has been travelling alone for the last year now - it's a two and a half hour journey. It's a local bus company and if no one is there to collect a child travelling alone, they take them on with them while the office tries to contact the family.

Before Ms 10 went home, Grandpa Flea took her and Master 7 to see "Walking with Dinosaurs" - they loved it - Kate from Blue Mountain Knits has given a very good description and photos of it on her blog. Then I took them to see the movie "Arthur and the Invicibles" - they looked pretty bored during it, but came out wanting it on DVD so they must have enjoyed it. I was not that impressed with it, but then who am I to know the workings of little minds? The rest of the week was spent playing "Bub & Bob" with Master 7, taking him to swim at a friend's house, raking huge piles of dry leaves with him - which he really enjoyed - watering the garden with a watering can on the days when we can't use the hose (which he also enjoyed) and taking him to see "Badjelly the Witch" - a Spike Milligan play which he seemed to enjoy. I say "seemed" because anything other than computers is second rate entertainment in his eyes. Master 7 does love to knit - albeit in a rather gung-ho manner, so this holiday I had a French Knitting thingy for him. He spent hours making i-cord on it - 6 and a half metres! which he wanted me to sew into a draw-string bag for him to keep his money in - and, like the good Granny I am, I obliged.

Another major undertaking was a BLITZ on table manners with both, and GRAMMAR with Master 7. Using your knife and fork(!) and PROPERLY, eating with your mouth closed and wiping your fingers on a serviette were the main manners we attacked. With some success.

Grammar was a different story. I only attacked "them" as in: "what are them things?". Not much luck until I introduced an incentive - $1 when he used the right word spontaneously, and 50c when he used the wrong word then self-corrected. You have to be quick though - he started introducing "those" into the conversation at every opportunity! So we had some success, but I'll be interested to see if he maintains the change when he's been home for a while.

During this time the weather was atrocious - 40C degree days - the tree ferns have browned right off, and some of the bird's nest ferns are severely sunburnt, as is the mondo grass. I'ts impossible to give them enough water by hand. Still, if it's a choice between the plants and having water to drink, I'll go for the drinking water, thank you.

Not much knitting has been done - probably an amount equal to the amount of FROGGING. I've been doing an Annie Blatt baby cardi for Sue at Cherryhills, and I've found the pattern very confusing - even more so when I am working from the graph and reversing the shaping for the other side! In the end I had to write it out, and I'm still not sure it's right.