French class this morning. Why French, I ask myself periodically? The teacher, Caroline, initially approached me to ask if she could hand out cards at our Storytime session. We got chatting, and she offered to do a 'French' storytime for us. She was lovely. The children thoroughly enjoyed the session, and Astra took a liking to her. Wanted to see her again. A couple of others were interested in their children learning French, and the idea of learning in a group was mooted. I asked around, thought about how this could fit into our busy lives, and that was that. French class at my house, Thursday mornings.
They play a lot of games. Astra sometimes has a game that she wants to share, such as 'Tummyache' (Caroline enjoys this one as she can expand their food vocabulary), or 'Crazy Chefs'. Today they were playing with lego. They sing songs, they make collages, they do picture puzzles, they play with animal puppets. They learn little things about French culture, Caroline loves to share about French festivals and holidays. And they mess about, and they play with the other toys we have lying about, and they tickle each other, and chatter.... But Caroline takes it all in her stride, is not phased even when Astra decides that one of her guinea pigs must learn French too. A formidable lady.
I don't know how much French Astra is learning but on our last holiday she was very pleased to be able to say 'bonjour' to our neighbours, and to have some phrases that she could use with her temporary holiday friends. So that's why we're learning French. It came our way, it's fun, we've made new friends through it, and it's a gentle introduction to another culture and language.
After French, lunch and then off to the library for Storytime. Today we had to visit the craft shop on the way, this was our fastest trip to the craft shop ever. Everyone loves Hobbycraft! We ran up the aisle edges calling to each other, 'it's okay, I've found the card', 'I've found some buttons'. Hurry or not, I still had to go back into the shop to listen to the music Astra could make with some candle holders she'd found while I was queuing to pay. Hurrying is only fun when it's fun!
Storytime's theme was 'Birthdays', as one of our group had her birthday today, and lots of them have January birthdays. I was disappointed because I had ordered a couple of great books about birthdays but they hadn't arrived in time. I read Moomins Birthday Button, which is a lovely book and the children enjoyed it. Then, because I have a cold and my voice was beginning to crack, another mum read, 'In which Eeyore has a Birthday...'. Such a lovely story and so beautifully written. It was too long for some of the children but a small group stayed the course and I certainly enjoyed it! The craft was to make a greetings card, using only glue, wool, yarn and buttons. Astra made a card for the birthday girl, with a woollen number 5 and lots of decorative buttons.
After storytime, we headed to the park. Picnic of shared snacks, climbing, running, playing on the adult exercise equipment, sharing of scooters, then finally home. I sat down and let my cold have it's turn at taking centre stage. Andy took over marvellously. The guinea pigs got treats, on top of the treats and cuddles they'd already had at lunchtime. Astra cleaned out our new fish tank, and Andy cooked the hunk of meat we had gratefully accepted from the friend we visited last weekend. Astra built a marble run, and played with Daddy for a while. And watched the Pokemon film she'd borrowed from the library. Twice.
We'd thought the meat we had was a leg of lamb, although we weren't certain. Our friend had just said 'help yourself' - and confronted with a freezer full of indiscrimnate cuts of meat, and knowing he had kept both lambs and pigs....well, it's not so clear what it is when it isn't labelled! It was lamb right up until the carving when we both started to suspect it was pork. I have no sense of smell at the moment so that wasn't helping, but on eating it really did seem to be pork. We looked at the cut, the bones, and agreed. But I had to be certain! I got out my 'Good Housekeeping' cookery book and looked at the various cuts of lamb and pork, it was none of those! So Andy googled and found some excellent pictures of pig and lamb skeletons. We picked all the meat off and compared. It was a shoulder of pork that we had, complete with the whole leg. Of course I then had to explore the bones with Astra. We played with the joints, the trotter, the cartilege, we picked out some of the marrow. I told Astra I had never realised how much fun bones could be until she came along. And we still have the skull she collected at the weekend to play with!
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