Reaping rewards.

So...after working for two full weeks before the holidays started I am now reaping the rewards and am enjoying setting up my new laptop computer, a Dell XPS 13 notebook.We also have a new pair of Ugg boots each to keep our tootsies warm in the cold winter weather. 

The Emu Parade.

So....I got very excited today when the T.A in the Prep class I have been teaching in for the last fortnight came in this morning saying that there was going to be an Emu Parade over at the main school after lunch."Ooh, can we go and watch?" I asked excitedly.She looked at me a bit oddly."Well," she went on,"I'll just go and check with J (the other prep teacher) to see if she wants to have one here."I was now even more excited to think that the emus might be coming to visit us.As it turns out an Emu Parade is what the Aussies call a litter pick.It was very disappointing.

News catch up.

So...we now are down to nine chooks. Keket suddenly died weeks after recovering so well from the quoll attack. We now have 4 roosters and 5 hens. After a month of not laying while they moulted we are now getting a couple of eggs a day again.There has been no evidence of rodents in the house for months and the weather is turning colder. We have had a few frosts which should have sent the snakes into hibernation.The best news is that our neighbours have moved out of their shed and are now in their newly built house eight months after that terrible fire last year.

The shortest day?

So...today was the Winter Solstice down here in the Underworld, the shortest day of the year, however I was teaching 'computer 'coding' at the local school as part of their Science/Technology day and it felt quite long to me!I started the day with the oldest children and worked down through the age groups over six sessions to the Prep/Year 1's.We started off working on laptops but after three groups had worked on them they ran out of battery. By the time the Year 3's arrived I had to continue in a small computer room on 10 desktop computers with two children at each computer. Up to that point the older children had been able to log on themselves but now the Year 3's looked blankly at me so I had to log on to the school system for them.It was the most fraught session of the day as I was on my own. It took some time to log onto the computers and then when I went to find the google search engine I had to sign in again on each computer to get access to the internet. By the time I had done that on the tenth computer the first ones had logged off while the children were waiting! It was chaos but eventually out of a 45 minute session they got about 20 minutes to actually work on the computers.I asked for help for the last two sessions with the youngest children and got an extra pair of hands. I had all the computers ready and signed on by this point, having spent all break time getting them ready, and so the last sessions went quite well.I survived the 'coding' day and on the whole it was not as daunting as I had first expected.I am back at the Stanthorpe school tomorrow for my last two days in their Prep class before I can finally come up for air for two weeks.

For Ian.

Thinking of my family today at the funeral of my sister's husband Ian England.We send love and hugs to everyone and are very sorry that we cannot be there with you.We have a candle burning for Ian here at Frogknot tonight.