Shop-shop, walk-walk

Holiday blues were dramatically diminished today as the boys found Tom and Sappho to play with. They set up a shop of sorts outside our unit and sold unwanted easter eggs, donated toffees, biscuits and chewing gum. When no more customers came to patronize their stand (actually the only people who bought anything were me, because I thought that ₤1 for an egg would go to a good cause, and Tom’s grandparents who arrived on the ship this morning), they took their wares to the peoples. When no one else wanted sweets they expanded their line and took some of my necklaces to sell – I was amazed that they actually came back with money! That was an easy way to move my stock, and it earned them some commission too. While they were occupied outside and Nick was busy with bible study prep, I scrapped. Lately I’ve found little time for scrapping and have been hoping to get something done during the holidays. Nick harvested the first pumpkins – one of them green and unripe which he cut open (I wasn’t in the kitchen at the time to stop him, but perhaps this was actually Nick's way of having one less pumpkin to eat...grow-your-own still doesn't mean eat-your-own), and the other was quite severely stung by fruit flies as an infant pumpkin, but may be fine inside. In the afternoon Nick and I went for a drive (the boys had taken themselves off to the Longwood Store with Tom and his family, so we had to first find them there to extend the invitation to accompany us, which they declined). We took a road from Longwood which we had not traveled on, wanting to see where it would lead, but eventually our car couldn’t handle the terrain so we had to stop. There was no point at which to turn so Nick had to select the widest bit of the road he could find and do a 7-point turn, with yours truly pushing the car to move it when it was wheel-spinning on succulents or loose gravel. It was a relief to get back onto tarred road. Then we took the road more traveled to Millennium Forest, where we parked the car and walked. It was incredibly windy and a little chilly, even though the sun was shining. We followed a wire bird down the road some distance before veering off the path to find another track. The most fun part of the afternoon was playing with the camera – and discussing which lenses would be more suitable to capture the panorama! (For the camera-people aka photographers reading this, we’ve just ordered a 50mm f1.8 AF lens (popular because of its affordability), and looking longingly at a 12-24mm wide-angle…)