Jan 2009 family snapshot

Zeph is 9 now, and will be 10 in February – scary that he is reaching double digits already! He’s in 3rd class – and enjoys it when he doesn’t find it boring! He learns fast, loves maths, animals, history and reading. He cannot be bothered about spelling and has no fear of writing – he’ll make up the spelling as he goes along and taught himself joined writing as soon as he realised they weren’t planning to teach it to him in school any time soon! (It’s very idiosyncratic!)

He’s stubborn as an ox and will argue a point down to the nth degree. We can’t really blame the poor kid for those characteristics, but it makes for some frustrating family discussions!

He’ll watch Michael Palin travel DVD’s or David Attenburgh wildlife documentaries for hours, and loves meeting new animals. He’s not so good with fiction, and finds films VERY scary. He’s doing well recently though, we have been having family film afternoons and have watched the first four discs (2 films) of the Lord of the Rings trilogy together. He loved them although they were the very limit of his stress levels, and he was only able to cope because he has watched all of the ‘making of’ DVD’s about a hundred times each, so has seen a good portion of the film already in a much safer context! I gave him ‘The Bridge to Terabithia’ for Christmas, so we all sat down to watch it last week and cried our eyes out! (We still have no telly, and no plans to get one, so DVD’s are our current compromise)

He’ll still come on hikes with me, although he moans more each time. I think I’ll have to leave him behind more often, until he starts wanting to come badly enough again!

He’s learning the piano, and is quite proud of himself, having passed his first exam (the one pre-grade 1!) We’ll see if the interest lasts. I hope it does, I think he could be very good. He took hip-hop lessons for a while last year with Rowan, one of his school friends.

Wendy is tired – although as it is half way through winter, and just after Christmas and New Year, that is hardly surprising. We've had a run of visitors, and visits, and are looking forward to a some quiet!

The Matilda Project eats up a lot of Wendy’s time (and Zeph and I more than account for the rest). She is in regular contact with all of the partners in Zimbabwe, and gets very regular updates on the situation there. It is really tough, and requires a lot of ingenuity on all parts to keep funds flowing to our partners there so that they can buy supplies and keep the HBC work and the school breakfasts going.

And I’m sick! Nothing serious though, just a lingering post-Christmas sore throat & general flu-like feeling. I’ve been working from home the last 2 days so that has been easy.

Other general lifestyle stuff:
We still have a dog (Teddy)

and a cat (Tiger)

but no hens at the moment, although we may get more in spring.

We put in a wood-burning stove, which keeps the back room toasty, so we practically live in there, and I work there a few days a week. We also have a lean-to at the side of the house where we store a pile of wood to feed the stove. We put in a fruit cage over our fruit bushes and raspberry canes, which made an enormous difference to the amount of fruit we actually got! And we have planted 3 apple trees, a damson tree and a plum tree as well as a load of conifers of various kinds.

I’m driving a motorbike! I ditched the car and got a Honda CB500 (which is way too big a bike to start with, but suits the distance I travel well). It’s great. It takes an hour into town instead of the two hours it was taking me in the car, and I don’t have to pay for parking, and can park pretty much anywhere! Mind you, it’s been freezing for the last few weeks and I have avoided using it. It looks like we are in for a tough winter, and I’m not sure if the bike will cope. I don’t mind the cold if there is no ice on the roads, but won’t use it if the roads are slippery.

I still rock-climb when I get a chance, although with the rain last year, and ACET and other responsibilities, I have done very little. I’m still hoping to claw back more time, but not succeeding yet.