Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Plans and preparations, both sensible and silly

I'm writing a book at the moment, so consequently my blogging output has suffered. After spending two hours a day at the keyboard typing in the early mornings while the children sleep, I'm pretty much all typed out for the rest of the day! And today I'm going to put time aside to respond to some government consultations, although the sun is shining and enticing me outside.

Luckily one of my madder thoughts about funding lone parents (sharing resource revenue) was gently but sensibly laid to rest by someone last night, when they asked me which of our country's remaining natural resources I was proposing to share? Hmmm... good point. Back to the drawing board, then. I guess I won't bother including that idea in my consultation response...

Today's other, more realistic plan is to install our first rainwater harvesting system. That possibly sounds quite grand (or at least a bit technical), but between you and me it's a piece of troughing, a downpipe and a water butt all connected to our newly-fixed garage roof. Someone else was telling me today that it's possible to install a mini water turbine in the downpipe from which to charge a battery also though, which really would be impressive, but I'll believe it when I see it.

Educationally (as if a rainwater harvesting system wasn't that!) we've been trundling autonomously along. Lyddie's doing lots of reading, writing and number stuff as well as the usual prolific quantities of artwork. For someone who freely confesses to not 'getting' the concept of art for art's sake, I seem to somehow manage to produce amazingly arty children! This is not deliberate, I assure you.

The teens have been busy rearranging their banking facilities and college courses and building hobbit holes, respectively. Everyone's also done a lot on the garage, about which I probably will blog pictures elsewhere at some point. Essentially, we had to make it wind and rain-proof before winter and I think we've finally achieved that - or we hopefully will have by the end of today.

I've also got a PC to set up in the dining room. I went down to Tom's basement earlier to collect all the parts I needed for it and thoroughly enjoyed being able to find everything after our recent clear-out down there. It's like an equipment library now, or the equivalent of a sweet shop for computer parts! I strolled around filling a laundry basket from the various organised boxes saying, "I'll have one of those, and one of those..." I'm not sure if Tom appreciates it quite so much, but at least the system works.

Also, we have Hallowe'en preparations underway. Zara's attending a party involving the ubiquitous dressing-up and Lyddie has been scaring herself by seeing ghosts in the stairs. There have been lots of deep discussions about the reasons and history of the feast.

Oh, and we've got the car to fix today as well! I'm hoping the problem is only a disintegrating rubber washer on the oil filler cap, rather than something more serious - and expensive. I'll change it for a new one and we'll see.

And the baby is very close to taking her first steps. Is there a government-prescribed curriculum box I'm supposed to tick for that? *Rolls eyes..* It's autonomous walking: I don't care what they say.

Onwards and onwards... ;-)

7 Comments:

Blogger Lisa G said...

Wow, a book, that's impressive, how do you find the time? I've only got two kids but seem to be continuously running round in circles trying to get everything done! Can I be cheeky and ask what the book is about?

9:32 pm, October 30, 2007  
Blogger Elaine said...

yup there is a box for it

12:21 am, October 31, 2007  
Blogger Gill said...

Lisa, it's just a book about our home ed. I always meant to write it, but now the government has scared me into it by threatening to cut my income, so it's finally underway. LOL, it's amazing how fear of not being able to pay the mortgage helps you to find the time to sit and write! I'm usually up and typing in the early hours nowadays - any time after about 4am - and am about halfway through it.

As for being impressed, wait until you read it! You might not be, but I hope you are.

Elaine, I suspected as much. That's just too depressing for words.

5:14 am, October 31, 2007  
Blogger Lisa G said...

I'm already looking forward to reading it!

9:49 am, October 31, 2007  
Blogger Gill said...

Awww, thanks Lisa! That's very encouraging :-)

4:06 pm, October 31, 2007  
Blogger Claire said...

Ahh, a rain water harvesting system, we have one of those - I just didn't know it had a name :-) Watch out for how quickly your container fills. I thought it would take for ever to fill our two tanks to 2,000 litres capacity but they were full in a few very rainy days and we had to start harvesting off just part of the house roof.

Good idea about the battery. Off to mention that to dh right now who will no doubt groan at what he perceives to be yet another odd thing I would like him to help implement.

10:14 pm, November 04, 2007  
Blogger Gill said...

What do you do when they start overflowing, Claire? Just keep emptying them is as far as I've got so far. :-/

2:43 pm, November 05, 2007  

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