Satsuma's

Hello! Hope that you are well; we are fine here and enjoying the short season of Satsuma's. For those of you who don't know this, I adore Satsuma but hate clemencies (and yes, there really is a difference) and so for a few weeks of every year, I have at least two satsuma a day. This year all my children have also been eating satsuma sometimes even without removing the skin, like Silas did today! He had got into my cupboard where I keep them and was playing quite happily I thought, investigating what was in there. However when I turned around there he was with a huge piece of Satsuma peel in his mouth and he was pulling a funny face! I took it off him to unwrap it for him to finish only in the 2 seconds that this took, he had found another one and had sunk his teeth into that one. Then, when I was clearing them up I found a third with teeth marks in too! He likes fruit a lot, as you can tell!

Esther has also been eating satsuma only for her it is an imaginary play tool as she carefully takes off the peel and separates all teh segments and then plays with the segments before eating them. Sometimes she even puts them to bed in the peel for a while before she eats them. She obviously has not qualms in eating a 'friend' which is a good thing but I wish she could just eat them without having to play with them first!

Both the girls love to look for "Babies" and will separate out teh segments and see which are smaller than the others; these are the babies, or teh teenagers or the 2 year olds, just depending on the size of the segment. how they differentiate is beyond me, but they do this each lunch time quite happily! Funny pair!

We have had a quieter week this week, which has been good. We have been busy in the mornings but we have had at home afternoons which has been great! On Monday morning I had a very frustrating morning, not getting any thing done much. Silas was due to have his one year check up on Monday and so I parked the car and went for  a walk around the doctors rather than going to a pleasant walking place, to ensure that I arrived on time. Anyway, I waited at teh doctor for over 30 minutes before anyone called us through to see the nurse and in the end I said that I would have to change the appointment as I didn't have time to complete it before I had to go and fetch the girls. They were happy to do this, but I was frustrated that I had made my whole morning revolve around a doctor's appointment that didn't happen!

Silas did however, have some of his vaccinations on Tuesday when I took Naomi in for her 5 year check, which they were very happy about.

After I collected the girls from school on Monday I took Silas to make up his music class that he had missed when he was sick. The girls were great and watched the DVD quietly whilst I was busy with Silas and didn't disturb anyone. The teacher also frustrated me though as she didn't acknowledge Esther at all and Esther was looking forward to seeing her again. I was cross and thought it was rude. Despite checking before hand, the teacher was not happy about Naomi and Esther being there although she changed her tune once she had seen them on Monday.

We stayed at home on Monday afternoon and played as well as today. yesterday morning,  Naomi had her 5 year check up before school and then the children had dancing class in the afternoon.Naomi is enjoying being in her older girl class and Esther is enjoying being with other 3 year olds.

Today we had school this morning whilst Ulrike and I went for a long walk which was hard work! It was good exercise though!

I thought I would quickly tell you a little about the funny incidence that happened to me this week. We have had some sightings of bears in the neighborhood as well as evidence and mess from them, which has caused a good number of homeowners to be concerned. Yesterday, I phoned the Dept of Fisheries and Wildlife to ask their advice and they stated that we needed to remove all food sources to stop them from coming in. She also said hat they would have to kill the bear if it became aggressive as it was too close to move it into another habitation.

Well, I wrote to the Homeowners to tell them this and most of the replies I have received have been positive except for 2. Both of these have suggested how awful it would be to kill the bear and how we are at fault for coming into their territory. Certainly the first email could come across as a little threatening but the second one less so. I have had to draft pleasant and diplomatic answers to these people in the hope that they understand that killing the bear is the last thing I wish to do! I don't know, talk about making a mountain out of a mole hill and overreacting to a situation! I am fed up oft these bears - I hope that they hibernate soon!

Well, that is it for now! Take care@