Tag Archives: teddy bears

What a difference a day makes

It’s a slightly ironic title when you consider the actual words of the song.

What a diff’rence a day made / Twenty-four little hours / Brought the sun and the flowers / Where there used to be rain

What has actually happened in the last 24 hours is that the rain has replaced the sun and the flowers.

We have a small group of children and parents visiting to bake, hunt for treasure hidden by teddy bears and play with the chickens. They managed a Treasure Hunt and some outdoor sports before the weather turned bad, so we can certainly call it a draw as far as the weather is concerned.

After that it was indoor sports and chickens.

That’s not for me, of course. I’m performing my normal indoor sport of Washing Up. Funny how that happens. When I deliver a baking session I wash up after myself. When Julia delivers a baking session I wash up after her. Interesting division of labour; I’m thinking of checking back on our wedding service to see what it has to say on the subject.

At the moment everyone has returned from the barn and they are colouring in salt dough shapes of teddy bears – one to take home and one to leave for our bread shed. There is a prize of sweets for the best one. I believe the plan is to have a large number of joint winners, as it would be a bit rough not to get any sweets.

Meanwhile, Number Two son looks more like he’s been in a fight than a dental surgery.

Years ago, whilst playing for the Wakefield Trinity U15 Scholarship team, he was set upon by two Featherstone Rovers props and ended up looking like he’d been in a car crash. To add insult to injury he was one of the two selected for sin-binning after a 26 man brawl developed (his team mates not being the sort of people to stand by like choirboys whilst violence was being applied to one of their own). I’m not saying that the beating or the sin-binning was undeserved, as his (defamatory) remarks about the mother of one of the props had, in fairness, been intended to get under the skin of his opposite number: I mention it merely to compare injuries.

Two props, aided by a couple of second rows, left him hurting and with eyes swollen to slits so that he was unable to see properly.

Without any slander as to the virtue of the dentist’s mother he was left sore, swollen and barely able to speak.

Makes you wonder what would have happened if he’d upset the dentist.

As a trivial aside – can anyone link Wakefield Trinity to Dr Who?

 

 

 

Teddy bears, but it’s no picnic

Another day and another marathon wrapping session.

Twenty pencils wrapped alluringly so they look like good value when you win one in the 50p bran tub – no rubbish mind, they are Christmas pencils with Santa and snowflakes.

Then fifty presents wrapped and ready for Santa, looking slightly less alluring. You could mistake a wrapped pencil for a stick of rock but many of Santa’s gifts are unmistakably books, and not necessarily welcome to a child of the 21st century.

Thank goodness for remaindered bookshops and pound shops, which both allow you to buy a present for between 25p and £1 that looks like it might be worth close to the £2 we’re charging for Santa. Some of the books are marked at £3.99 so that’s a good start.

Last year we didn’t get much of a turnout and Santa’s takings didn’t even pay for the cost of the suit. We did save money by having me do it, thus avoiding the cost of extra padding (as they kept pointing out) but with 11 kids (two of whom were scared of Santa) we were always going to struggle.

Hopefully the advertising will pay off. Only two more days until, we find out!

Julia is busily making decorations for the barn and we’re both fighting off suggestions tat what we need is an exhibition of wood-turning techniques. If you have just set out a display of handmade crafts the last thing you want to hear is a lathe starting up shortly before producing a shower of dust and dendrological debris over your handiwork.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Wood turning