Hello!
Wow – filthy filthy weather today! Whose grand idea was it to drag 100 students to Tasmania in winter?? haha
Lucky I planned a market/shopping day! Got a puncture on the way home (thank goodness not on the highway at 110km/hr but at a spot where I could pull over and find a place to call for help!)(What a pain!!!)
So now all is quiet, the hordes are fed and some asleep!
I am enjoying the peace before heading to bed with a book!
Yesterday afternoon we headed out to Black River Beach to see something different and do a bit of a scavenger hunt.
I collected Fiona and her dog, Alice to come along for the ride. Fiona just had her carpal tunnel done so is stuck on her property for a while so thought she would enjoy a change of scenery
Um… the reaction of the girls to Alice was a bit worrying! They completely freaked out and there was a LOT of screaming from the back of the car when they saw her! (Mind you – they are IN the car and Alice is outside!)
They are not animal people although they have warmed to Pip (Peggy especially, but not sure how Pip feels about her obsession with him. So far he is tolerating it beautifully – she keeps putting her face too close to his, but he hasn’t hissed yet, which he is apt to do to over-friendly strangers because he is frightened. I will have to remind her again about Pip’s Personal Space haha)
When we got to the car park they flatly refused to get out of the car! Oh dear!
I had to be quite firm with them and finally got them to understand that Alice would go on a leash and they were certainly not sitting in the car after I had driven all the way out there! We hadn’t brought along a Velociraptor after all!!
Fiona kept Alice at a reasonable distance and as the afternoon wore on, the girls ended up quite close to her without really noticing (unless she barked, which was a pants-wetting level offence!!)
Fiona’s husbands is a teacher at one of the local schools who has some of the students, said in his agriculture class none were brave enough to pat the little woolly lambs and were totally freaking out about the chickens! (Well… fair call on the chooks – they ARE like mini Velociraptors I reckon!) Clearly pets and exposure to animals is not more the normal like it is here.
I have worked out that the girls work and interact a lot better with set directives and instructions. Ask them to ‘choose’ something and you could be there forever. (I became quite good friends with the chocolate shop lady today as I was in there for an hour while choices of what to buy were dithered about and phone calls made back home etc etc – not kidding. It was that long!!)
SO – I wrote up a list of 25 objects for them to collect while we were on the beach. Each item has a certain number of points.
It kept them amused!
We have yet to inspect their treasures, as we were home too late to do anything with them, so will save that as an after school activity when its not hurricane weather outside.
Fiona donated a cute prize for the winner so I am looking forward to wrapping that event up!
All the beaches at the moment show signs of the wild weather with so much debris washed up! Collectors delight! Fiona found a nice bit of driftwood that we brought back for her garden.
Starfish was on the list! This one was collected by Tiffany – its going to stink so bad by the time we get to looking at their stuff haha
This is the lovely little scallop shell I found before I washed it off
It really was great to get out for the afternoon. When the weather is rough most of the time, its good to catch a break!
I can’t express how much I want to take this particular bit of wood home…
Well, all good things must come to an end – at 4pm the chill is creeping in and its time to head home!
Time for me to snug Mr Pip up into his bed (I have his hot water bottle in there warming it up because he is not spoiled too badly or anything!), put another big log on the fire and go close my eyes!
This parenting gig when you suddenly have four teenagers in the house is a bit of a shock to the system! 😀
Cheers!
