Tag Archives: lavender

Another day, another lavender field

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After a weekend of lavender picking, we hadn’t quite had enough so on Monday we visited a larger local lavender field for a walk with our friends from 3 Kids and a Gluestick and others from our Home Education group.

mayfield lavender 1

Minutes after the first picture of Rabbit was taken, she was stung by a bee and I wondered if we would have to go home, but she was very brave.  One of our friends had just bought her an ice pop which helped!

Mayfield lavender 2

After meeting in the cafe area, we set off on our walk up to the top of the field.  It is just about the shortest possible distance that can be defined as a walk!  On the way up, I discovered that Tiddler is very hard to keep track of in a big field of lavender, Rabbit knows how to do cartwheels and Monkey thinks it is funny to hide and not answer when he is called.  (I informed him that is wasn’t and after a couple of reminders he got the message!)  When we were near the top, we stopped for a snack and a drink, after which some of our friends had to go home.

We then decided to walk round the edge of the field, where there is a wide path, so that it would be easier to keep track of the children.  We spent some time at the top playing Fruit Salad and Duck, Duck, Goose and then walked the rest of the way round fairly quickly as it was getting late.

mayfield lavender 3

We saw quite a lot of butterflies but most of them didn’t stay still for long.  Just before the end of the walk we were lucky, though, and this comma butterfly posed for a photograph!

mayfield lavender 4

It is such a lovely place to visit, and we are lucky to have it so close to our house.  I think we’ll be back there very soon!

 

Lavender picking weekend

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This weekend was our local lavender harvest fair, and we went on both days, as we do every year, because we all enjoy it so much.  We went on Saturday morning with Granny and Grandpa who were visiting us for the day.  We spent a lot of time cutting the lavender, enjoying the wonderful scent and watching the bees and butterflies.  It was very relaxing and the children were completely absorbed in what they were doing.  They also enjoyed the local honey stall, where they won some tiny pots of honey and a bag of homemade honeycomb in the lucky dip. lavender picking 1

lavender picking 2

As well as cutting the lavender, the children helped to hunt for rosemary beetles which have to be removed or they destroy the lavender.  This was even more popular than the lavender cutting and kept them busy for a very long time.  Owl particularly enjoyed it.  He made friends with two older boys and between them they collected a lot of beetles.

lavender picking 3

We went back today after church, and this time we bought some lavender and rosemary plants, lavender hand wash and bath foam and a jar of local honey.  We cut some more lavender, collected more bugs and spent time chatting to Mum Friendly Jo and her family.  (Jo of the many blogs – her post about today is here!)  We also saw our friends from 3 Kids and a Gluestick who arrived just as we were leaving, but came back to our house soon afterwards for a very late lunch.  We finished by learning how to distill lavender oil which was really interesting.  Owl is very keen to try this at home!

lavender picking 4

 

 

Country Kids from Coombe Mill Family Farm Holidays Cornwall

Lavender and pompoms among other things

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We are all still at various stages of illness and recovery, so we are having a quiet week.  Yesterday, Suburban dad stayed at home and tried to rest a bit, get some work done and help with the children as much as he could, so we muddled through the day.  In the morning, the two little ones still seemed to be quite unwell, and Rabbit fell asleep on the sofa soon after she got up.  However, they both felt better after a little while and had a lovely time playing games with Supergirl (Scrabble and Marble Run and probably others as well, I can’t remember.)  The big boys did some Maths and English, and played some Science games online.  Owl played a BBC Schools game about Rocks which I suggested, and Monkey chose a game on BBC Bitesize.

Then I decided on a whim that it was time to do something with the lavender we picked in July.  Last weekend it got moved to the hall when we were clearing out the Laundry room, and when I was tidying the hall yesterday I thought I should probably stop moving it from room to room and just use it instead.  So I started stripping the lavender with the children and Supergirl came to help.  Then the children wandered off and Supergirl and I finished the job.  It was quite therapeutic.

   

Owl, Monkey and Tiddler made lavender bags, but Tiddler was not quite well enough to manage it, so he had a daddy cuddle instead.  Maybe he can make one another day – there is plenty of lavender left.

In the afternoon, Monkey and I went with Supergirl to the local college so she could take a test and register for an EFL course.  When we came back, the big boys did their Music practice, I did some knitting with Rabbit, and all three did Mathletics, Spellodrome and Bible reading.  As promised, I made a pompom with Tiddler.

Monkey went to Beavers, and then I went out to my exercise class, thinking the children would be in bed by the time I got back, but they had been having far too much fun making chutney with daddy instead!

 

Today, we were all feeling a bit worse again, with more sickness from some of the children and also Supergirl in the night.  So we had a quiet pottering around kind of day, trying not to be too noisy (and probably failing) as Supergirl tried to get some rest upstairs.  The big three did Reading Eggs, and then I did some knitting with Rabbit.  The big boys went upstairs to play with Lego and Tiddler did some puzzles, while I read a story to Rabbit from an old Octonauts magazine and then helped her to make a Snot Sea Cucumber and two Anemones.  She is very proud of them!

 

 

In the afternoon, they all did some BBC Bitesize Science games together, and then the younger three watched CBeebies, while Owl read Maths for Martians: Galaxy Getaway.
Then Owl wrote his blogpost and the other three disappeared upstairs.  Rabbit came down after a while and asked for some coins as they were playing fairies.  I was a bit confused but made her some coins out of paper, which seemed quicker at that point than finding some, and also not a choking hazard.  It turns out that Rabbit was the tooth fairy and Monkey and Tiddler were in bed.  It was a nice quiet game!  After that we all started to make some more pompoms, to be continued tomorrow.

 

Friday round up – 27th July 2012

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Owl, Monkey and Rabbit have been on a Dramabuds summer camp every morning this week and they have really enjoyed it.  Tiddler has been very jealous, but he had one Dramabuds lesson on Tuesday afternoon with Rabbit so that cheered him up a bit.  The big three finished the week with a fantastic performance in their show.  Rabbit was a very beautiful princess, Monkey a rather cool prince and Owl a dragon, with his own solo written for him because he sang so well in the rehearsals.  Very proud mummy moment!

On Monday afternoon we all went to see the Olympic Torch pass by the ponds, which was frankly as stressful as it sounded like it was going to be, but thankfully once the fleeting moment was over, the rest of the afternoon was much more fun.  There were some good local stalls in the gardens nearby, and Owl managed to join in a drumming lesson which he loved.  Then we escaped to the cool of our little local museum, and the children had fun doing Olympic-themed arts and crafts, playing and exploring.  Some good friends joined us and we ended the afternoon drinking tea in the garden while the children played which was lovely.

On Tuesday after all the Dramabuds sessions were finished, Owl, Monkey and I had a Chinese lesson.  On Wednesday afternoon we went back to the museum for more craft activities, before heading over to the lavender fields to meet our home education group.

On Thursday we met some friends at – I don’t quite now how to describe this unique local attraction – it started as a shop selling tropical fish, it also has reptiles, guinea pigs, ducks and chickens; over time they have added a cafe with a lovely garden, a miniature railway, some large model dinosaurs… who knows what they’ll think of next!  The children had a good time in the garden, playing in the sandpit for hours, and then looked at the fish and other animals, before taking a late afternoon stroll through the surrounding smallholdings to look at the horses (and eat our own snacks which you are not allowed to eat on the premises – we had already had an expensive lunch and a round of ice creams.)

Owl had his violin lesson before Dramabuds this morning, and this afternoon we went to visit some friends to deliver a belated birthday present.  The little children played in the garden (swings, trampoline and table tennis) while the big ones played with Lego inside.  It was very peaceful.  Later on at Granny’s house the children did some colouring for their Olympic project and the big ones looked at some newspaper articles, then they all played in the garden and Owl performed an impromptu violin concert for me and the little ones which was very good.  This evening we are watching the Olympic Opening Ceremony.  Tiddler has slept through it all, Rabbit and Monkey managed about an hour of it, but Owl is just about keeping his eyes open and it is after midnight.  I have told him he can stay up as late as he wants because I think he will remember this for the rest of his life!