#flattenthecurve Episode 27

Back to (Home) School

With the Easter holidays drawing to a close, home school restarted today and we are back to our previous 'not normal but not holiday' routine.

Henry was up bright and early and decided to get dressed in his school uniform. He's not the biggest fan of school work, but is clearly missing seeing his friends despite being able to Facetime with them. Poor lad.

Eva on the other hand loves school, so it was a bit surprising to find she now loves home school more. Of course this could have just been because she likes to be contrary. If Henry had said he was glad to be off school still then Eva would, I'm sure, have told us how much she was missing school.


Sum-Times I feel Like Throwing My Hands Up in the Air, I Know I Can Count On You

I was back on maths duty today, Eva only cried once (it's my fault, apparently, that she hasn't learned her 4 times table) but otherwise did well with her multiplication questions.

Henry was learning about angles. He really wasn't keen and was being very obtuse, I got quite grumpy with him and told him it has become a reflex whenever he has to learn something new. That seemed to set him straight and he settled down. After that he pulled his chair in to the table at just the right angle to be comfortable and got on quietly. Thankfully he is developing quite an acute sense of when to stop pushing his luck.

Five angle based puns in one paragraph, I am on fire today, even if I do say so myself.


Kick Start Redux

The kids loved Kick Start; I'm so pleased I don't have to disown them. By all accounts the paperwork is a minefield, and the Grandparents would not be happy. Though it would save them money on birthday and Christmas presents so there would have been positives as well as negatives.

That's by the by now anyway, we've sat through a couple of episodes on YouTube, the early fervour hasn't yet diminished and I'm sure I heard Eva humming the theme tune as she came downstairs too.

Henry was a bit surprised to find out one of the contestants was younger than he is now. Luckily, said contestant was rubbish, had a couple of nasty looking falls and failed to finish the course, so that cheered us all up no end.


Fresh Country Air

We went for a walk today instead of a bike ride as I was aching from overdoing the bike ride the day before. We headed over the fields and quarry near our house, it gave the kids a chance to explore a bit, spot where they could build dens and bicker about, well anything and everything really. As they frequently seem to do.

Bickering kids never seem so bad when they are a hundred yards behind you and you can't hear what they are saying to each other, so I kept walking when they'd stopped. I knew they were bickering though as I could see Eva had her hands on her hips and was stamping her foot while Henry was doing the usual frantic gesticulating he does when Eva doesn't believe him and he can't think of a better way of explaining whatever it is he is trying to explain.

By the time they realised I hadn't stopped walking and they'd run to catch me up they were full of questions: "Why were you hiding up that tree, Dad?" "I didn't know you had a camouflage coat, Dad?" and "Are you sure if we walk in the opposite direction to you we won't get lost, Dad?"

On the way home we stood watching a horse for a while. The horse lay just yards from us and I thought it was staring us out until I realised it was actually asleep. It had a very floppy fringe that covered its eyes, imagine an Emo hairstyle on a horse and you'll get the picture.

I was weighing up which of my horse stories to tell the kids, either the one about the horse that bit my shoe (while I was wearing it) or the one about the angry horse that chased the wife and I across a field, but before I had a chance a jogger came past and disturbed the horse.

Whether it was just by chance, or whether the horse was disturbed to find us looking at it when it opened its eyes we will never know, but it then let rip with a truly magnificent series of farts. We scarpered before the smell hit us. Do horse farts actually smell bad? I have neigh idea, but I wasn't hanging around to find out.