Yesterday F and I walked into town for a bit of shopping. Had a lovely chat whilst walking, she came up with an idea for a phone app, involving taking photos of objects/toys and then putting them on photos of backgrounds with simple speech bubbles to fill in and sending your creation to friends or sharing them on Facebook etc. She invented something else too but can't remember what it was, oops.
On the way we passed a small exhibition of paintings by this artist. We popped in to see the pictures. Very lovely use of colour. The artist was there in person and very friendly, she showed F the inks and brushes she uses and encouraged her to have a go with some compressed inks she had there too, F tried out the purple and blue, incredibly vibrant colours, lovely to use. F was slightly shy, or not knowing what was expected of her I think.
We got our shopping, including cat collars with bells to try once again to reduce our cats' hunting success. We had a small shocked bird to deal with on Friday evening. And remains of a mouse Saturday morning. And another, or possibly (poor sod) same small shocked bird Saturday evening. Just hate it. Don't think we will have cats again, or maybe have boy cats I suppose, who don't seem so bothered about decimating wildlife.
After the pet shop, we went round the corner to this event at the nature reserve. It was our first time visiting the pavilion there. Downstairs they had honey-tasting and some crafts/activities that were all on the younger side. Honey tasting was popular though, with about 10 different honeys. Also monitors showing bee activity.
Then we went upstairs to see the permanent observation hive, which was fab. The professor was excellent, answering lots of questions, I learned loads - pollen being different colours on different plants for instance. He had many questions from children about how queens are produced, what weather is best for bees, etc. F's enjoyment was significantly increased by the fact that her friend E suddenly appeared, with siblings and grandparents, so it was lovely to see them unexpectedly there.
F and I finished off our afternoon with a drink at Costas with books, spent a lovely hour there, just reading and occasionally chatting about what we were reading.
Other things from sometime in the week
F found an abandoned Barbie in the garden and cleaned her up very thoroughly, quite a transformation and was impressed by how she persevered at it, even if a lot of our nicer bathroom products got used up in the process! Oh we had a good conversation about Barbies and why we didn't originally want one in the house and the difference between realistic toys and unrealistic toys, cartoons, etc.
F started reading Anne of Green Gables, seems to be liking it but taking a break for another Jacqueline W at moment.
F went and played at neighbour's house but their little girl behaved horribly to her again. F said she seemed all nice but then punched F as part of 'playing school'. Hmph.
We all sobbed at a Smallville episode called Lexmas where Lex is shown the happy future he could have by being good, but it includes Lana dying, so he has to decide not to be good to save her. We are rushing through Smallville at a bit of a fearsome rate now as we've got a bit of a weekend habit of watching 3 in a row most nights! Think it might be a good bridge to Buffy though.
F made a big box out of some big 2ft square foam tiles we have, big enough to get in. Oh she also did a disappearing trick using a big cardboard box, which she had got into with a sharp knife and carved holes in from inside, think that was last week, anyway.
F did some maths in the Carol Vorderman books we have. She has definitely got to a stage where she is having to work at maths and look at methods rather than it just being stuff she can automatically do. So a bit of an adjustment. Hard to have to step back slightly from 'just knowing' or feeling it just works for you to having to process and follow instructions. But she doesn't seem to mind and is enjoying what she does, so that's good.
We watched all 3 Toy Story films on consecutive days, which was lovely. I feel better about crying at Jessie's song every single time, now that I have heard that Tom Hanks and Tim Allen did so at the premiere! F planned and stuck to a schedule of activities for her small Toy Story figures - they did bunjie
F went to Forest School on Wednesday and enjoyed it as usual.
F has been doing a 'cryptic crossword' in the back of her JW book. She has also been asking about a lot of word meanings (some of them rude - eek!) too lately.
We all had an interesting conversation, started by F, prompted by Game of Life cards, about whether we'd rather be a lawyer or a mechanic and why. J and I both just about decided on mechanic, for similar reasons, though when younger might have gone for lawyer.
I had a ton of work to do on Thursday and Friday, it was very hard and I delivered right on the edge of the French business day ending. Must deliver next job in better time as I think someone had to stay behind in the office on a Friday to pick up my e-mail. Good to have more work again as May was a bit rubbish after a very good April. Have got more for Tuesday and Wednesday so had better do some today in fact.
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