Trying Something New

When I did my balanced scorecard assessment at the end of February, I said I enjoyed writing and would like to do more. I was pushed into actually doing something by Rosie wanting to enter the Macmillan Prize for Children's Book Illustrators. She could have chosen an existing story and was quite tempted by complicated and unsuitable Nordic fairy stories but we decided it would be better to have an original story.
Consequently I have written a story about two woodland creatures who are being terrorised by their own shadows

The shadows, despite their appearance in Rosie's drawing are more mischievous than malevolent and a firm talking to by the girl sets things right. The girl who lives by herself in a cottage by the wood, is not quite an ordinary girl. For one thing, her own shadow can act independently of her.

Although I want to refine and rewrite the story, the bulk of the work falls on Rosie. Illustrating a story is much harder work than actually writing it, I don't feel that the illustrators get enough credit. Would the Gruffalo have been such a huge success without Axel Scheffler's creation?
So given that she is at college and has other commitments and deadlines, not to mention a nearly three year old son, it might not get finished to a standard we think good enough to enter the Macmillan Prize this year (closing date 30th April) but it is something that we will work towards in the future.

Seed Update

I realise, that you are probably all in suspense, wondering what happened to my seeds, planted three weeks ago.
Well, my first crop has come and gone in the shape of egg and cress sandwiches for three. I have planted some more this week and they are sprouting nicely.

 So far, only 5 of the carrot seeds have come up and they are so very, very small and the planter is so large that taking their photo didn't work. It looks like the sky at night on a particularly dark and moonlit night or possibly the inside of a coal cellar at night. Here it is anyway:

 
The carrot seeds have had a lot to put up with anyway as Oliver decided it was a good surface to race his cars on and Jess was leaping on the planter and then I probably shook them up when I tried to move them to safety. Funny that I thought growing them indoors would keep them safe from pests.

The winter lettuce has been disappointingly slow, probably due to the cold but if it is going to carry on at this rate I shall end up eating it as a microsalad (very fashionable at the moment I understand).

I have planted some more salad leaves out of a packet labelled mesclun which seems to be a mix of rocket and lambs lettuce and other random leaves.
The radishes seem to be doing nicely although I have doubts as to whether the margarine tub will be big enough. Still nothing venture, nothing gain.

I shall also sow some more onion seeds as the others have now germinated. It is not possible to have too many onions and if I don't have space to grow them on I shall eat them as spring onions.

The tomatoes and peppers I have a bit of a confession to make about, I failed to label the pots in the airing cupboard. I also failed to notice they had sprouted. Oops. Hence the legginess of the stalks as they tried desperately to grow towards the light. Most of them have sprouted but I don't know which. I shall know as soon as they get their proper leaves though although telling the upright tomatoes from the trailing variety my be more difficult.

 I should have known better at my age.

The Boy Done Good!

I was going to give you an update on how the seeds are progressing but that can wait, this is much more thrilling,
Yesterday when we picked Oliver up from nursery, Amy his carer, showed us a list of words she had written  out which Oliver then learnt.

 I was highly impressed, as he isn't 3 until April. I said as much to her and she said half apologetically 'I think he's only memorised them' but what else is reading? When I read I don't sound out the word first, letter by letter.

So this morning when I was reading to him in bed, I was tempted to try him with another word. I chose zoo because as I since discovered, it appears 30 times in the book, we are reading 'Put me in the Zoo'.
 He soon picked it up and started looking for it on the next page, but unfortunately he can read it but he can't say it, he was saying 'Look  hoo'.
On the way to nursery I bumped into my neighbour Nicky and had to tell her. As a former primary school headmistress and a keen reader herself, I knew she would understand my excitement. Oliver rose to the challenge by reading out to her all the words on yesterday's list. Rather than dismiss this as a memory trick she pointed out that there were no visual clues on the paper so he is literally reading them.
We then contentedly shared the prospect of the pleasures and benefits to him, if as seems likely he is reading properly by the time he goes to school. Nicky pointed out the extra knowledge of the world children gain from reading and this is very true, the only knowledge I have about sailing I gained from Arthur Ransome, the care of horses from 'Jill has Two Ponies' and the first stirrings of a feminist consciousness at the age of 6 from reading the Famous Five books.
Just the other day there was a report from Dutch university on how reading fiction increases empathy. I'm sure this is true, I spent my childhood reading obsessively and compulsively and now I cannot bear horror films in particular films of torture like 'Saw' as I cannot stop myself feeling the victim's pain.
So I want Oliver to have increased empathy, and knowledge and to have a head start on school but most of all I want him to know the complete pleasure of being able to lose yourself in a book.

Tracks in the Snow

Aha! Oho! A trail in the snow, whose is this trail and where does it go?

 Those words will be instantly recognisable to those with children or grandchildren under five but for those people who only have civilised conversations with other adults they are from the Gruffalo's Child by Julia Donaldson and I have been saying them to myself constantly on my walk round the valley. It wasn't so much the tracks that caught my attention this morning, however as much as the bright orange rabbit pee:

 Keeping my eyes open in the wood, I spotted some branches that had had the bark stripped off revealing a bright orange underside. I'm guessing that as the grass is getting more difficult to access, the rabbits have resorted to eating bark, and it is having the same effect on their digestive system as eating too much beetroot has on humans.

 Walking on through the woods I hoped to see the jays again, without any luck, but approaching the pond from the other side than usual, from the top of a steep slope, I was thrilled to see the kingfisher perching on a bulrush. Obligingly it sat there long enough for me to focus on it with my binoculars and marvel at its beauty but when I risked life and limb slipping down the snowy slope, trying to get close enough to take a photograph, it flew off. I need a photograph to prove its existence to my birdwatching friend, who has claimed  I am hallucinating. The two of us walked to the pond yesterday and saw nothing of interest save a kestrel swooping overhead.
There was a different atmosphere on the valley this morning, as it has of course been invaded by children with sledges. This is as it should be, if there is snow on the ground and an accessible hill, it is a strange child that doesn't want to go sledging. I was also amused to come across on my walk,  the handiwork of some children from yesterday.

It is good to know, that the age old impulse of children to make a den, has not diminished.