Interesting Events

A couple of weeks ago, on the way to our swimming, I met a man on the bus who invited me along to see Don Tolman. We'd been chatting about my kids, and he mentioned about a man coming to speak on health and education, and then he offered to email me the details. I was slightly intrigued, and these days being more open minded, I thought why not? So with the free voucher I received in the email, I headed to the Adelaide Hyatt to hear him speak.

And I'm really glad I attended, it was well worth it. Much of what he had to say about food I was already aware of, but there were a few new things, and his story was fascinating. I think that is something, that is important to me, is to have a good story for a life. None of this, I was born, went to school, worked, retired and died. I think that may be why I dislike living in Adelaide, I suspect that, that is still the general ambition here.

Also Damien had an odd occurence recently. He saw a lady struggling with a trolley, whilst riding his bike, and went to help her. She said that she was fine, and as he was riding off, she said, whilst holding out her hand waving something, "Do you want it?" He wasn't quite sure what it was until, saying thanks, he took it. She gave him $5. He was very surprised.

So again it's worth saying thanks to the universe.

Thanks!

What's Been On

Well, it seems like it's about time I sit down and do another post on here.

We are coming to the end of our organised school year, and it's such a relief to be nearly done, particularly this last term with all these extra things we're currently doing. At present we're spending Tuesdays at Burnside pool, Thursdays at choir and Fridays at Highland dancing. Everyone has been enjoying it alot, but it is rather tiring with all these extra activities to do!

The choir sang in the lead up to the Christmas Pageant, and they did a marvellous job. All the children deal with it so confidently, it's nice to seem them so self assured.

Last weekend we attend the Alliance Francaise's French festival. I must admit it was a little lacking compared to a couple of years ago, but the music was still good this time. I particularly enjoyed Zaza Fournier. The food was rather lacking this year, as was the variety of beers according to Damien.

Soaked Chocolate Pudding

75g butter
75g rapadura sugar
75g rapadura dark chocolate
100g spelt flour
25g cocoa
2 eggs
2 tablespoons liquid whey
teaspoon bicarb soda

sauce
50g rapadura sugar
1 tablespoon cocoa
35g cocoa nibs
300g dandelion coffee drink


Cream the butter and sugar, until light and fluffy.
Melt the chocolate, and stir in with the flour, cocoa, eggs and whey.
Cover the mixture, and leave to sit overnight.

Heat over at 170celsius.

Remove the cover, and add the carb soda, mix well. Place in baking dish.

Blend the sugar, cocoa and cocoa nibs and sprinkle over the top of the pudding.
Make the dandelion drink, and pour over the top.

Place in oven and bake for 30mins.

Recovery

Finally after an ongoing bout of illness, everyone is getting better! First it was Willow and from there it spread, so that each week seemed to be someone else! I am almost totally recovered now, and unsurprisingly there's lots of housework to be caught up on.

In between bouts of sickness, we did actually manage to get to the Art Gallery for the silk screen printing session. The kids printed some lovely bags, and did a beautiful job. Unfortunately the butterfly planting session was missed, so I decided to buy the Attracting Butterflies to your Garden book. Definately looks helpful, so hopefully we can start to attract more butterflies to our garden.

Willow finished her weaving today, and did a beautiful job!

But today was busy, with us seeing off my brother, Justin, who is heading back to Germany for another year, or so. So we headed off to Adelaide Airport for a farewell, where he arrived late, and pushing a bike! He'd decided that he was going to see if he could get his bike on the flight! And (I think) because he was late, he did! He was extremely happy to manage that, as he rides frequently.

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2025

Willow really enjoyed weaving, and I later bought a vintage square loom off ebay for her to use to make a blanket.

This link takes you through to her trying out the loom.
https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2013/05/some-highlights-from-this-past-week.html

This one shows the lap blanket finished.
https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2014/12/2014.html

Princess Irene, SpaceShips and Mandalas

Princess Irene version 1- by Willow

Version 2-also by Willow



Spaceship for the Storm Troopers by Gabriel

And my own Mandala

Princess Irene is from this series by George MacDonald.

Activities

We've been very active round here the last week with all sorts being planned and happening round here.

Willow and Gabriel's cousin Dale came for a sleepover last week, so there was much excitement and late night chatting for that. Whilst that was going on I managed to finish making Gabriel's felt slippers, and I was really happy with them, since it was my first try. Willow wants a pair now too.

We celebrated the Spring Equinox last night with a lovely dinner, and a candle making ceremony. We had collected and pressed flowers for it months ago which we pressed into the wax. The candles were melted in hot water for a minute, the flowers were pressed in, and the candles were put back in the hot water again. We're probably in need of practise to get a really nice finish, but we were satisfied with our results.

This week there are some interesting things to try, so we've booked in for the Butterfly Plants session at the Botanic Gardens, and the Art Gallery is doing a workshop on Screen printing, so that should be good too. We were thinking of trying Cirkids this term, but everyone now is keen to try Young Adelaide Voices, so we're off to their trial evening before making a decision. Willow would like to try horse riding, but that may have to wait til next year, if we do the singing. And finally we're all planning to give Scottish dancing another try, we really enjoyed it before, but I was anaemic for part of Arden's pregnancy, so we only did it for a little while before stopping. So many things to do!

Plus presently we've been weaving and learning about fabric's and making fabrics, and clothes, in our current homeschooling activities. The weaving projects are quite simple at this stage, and for our first sewing project we're going to handsew Willow a pair of pyjamas- still early days in the pattern but it should be very interesting!

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2025

This was the beginning of our singing journey with Willow!  It's so interesting to look back at it, and feel satisfied that we achieved her goals for her education with performance.

Willow did  a few Gilbert and Sullivan performances over the years.

Pirates of Penzance
https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2015/05/pirates-of-penzance.html

Iolanthe.
https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2016/06/iolanthe-has-take-over.html

She also learnt to play violin and flute, did a lot of musical busking, learnt a variety of dancing styles- ballroom, swing, rockabilly, rock and roll.  

Instead of completing year 12- she studied a Diploma in Music industry (classical voice) at WAAPA-the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts.  There's a small discussion on her acceptance into tertiary education here.

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2017/02/

Baby Hugs

Plus! Yesterday it was so funny watching Arden, who is now 9 months, and his nearly12month old cousin, Correa, yesterday. They crawled up to each other, had a hug and a kiss! It was quite a sight, and they did it three times. We all laughed and laughed over how cute they looked.