NotSheep

More days-flying-by. And they’re not the only thing that’s flying, but more of that in a minute.

George and Freddy have been sailing all week again – they’ve had better weather for it this week (although they still spent a fair bit of time out on the water last week, despite the wind and rain). There were only four children (including my two) on the course last week, which I think worked very well for them, as beginners, because it meant they got lots of individual attention. This week they are in a group of nine, which is also working well, now that they have a bit of basic skills, because they can play more games (in and out of the water) and have more fun. George is fairly exhausted, however, and needed some jollying along today, and will probably need even more tomorrow, which is the last day of the course. I think the weekend needs to be very low-key for him, to give him a chance to settle himself again. He’s holding it together at the minute, but only just.

Barney is still at Air Cadet Camp, and further conversation with him has revealed that when he said he “flew into Scotland”, what he actually meant was that he “flew into Scotland on a flight simulator”. Personally, if I was on a flight simulator, I might fly into somewhere a bit more…exotic – the Bahamas, perhaps. I don’t mean any offence to any Scottish readers, but I think I’d choose somewhere with a bit less rain, and a bit more excitement

However – he called me yesterday to give me the news that he had actually been in a real plane, and he had actually flown it. Taking the controls. Making it do stuff. Even looping the loop.

Part of me is envious, and the other part of me is just glad I didn’t know about it until after the fact.

He’s also been up in a glider today, and will be going up in a helicopter tomorrow, so plenty of flight experience going on there.

Jack has been out-and-about with his “mates”, and his “mates” have been in to play. One of the girls set up a “school” in our conservatory, and Jack looked quite astonished when she told him off for doing the thing she’d told him to do, but not in the way she’d told him to do it.

And I have a new refrigerator – at long last. The engineer came to look at the non-functioning one on Tuesday and confirmed that it was indeed not working (well duh). No matter what he’d said, I’d made it clear to the store that I would not settle for a repair this time, and that I expected a replacement, but his assessment that the pump had failed was good news, in a way, because it meant they didnt even try to argue. I had a call later on Tuesday to ask me to go into the store and choose another refrigerator of similar specifications. And so I spent some time yesterday morning doing just that. The new one was priced at £100 more than the old one cost, and while I did have to pay that and the delivery/installation fee, it was agreed that I would be reimbursed for those. The new refrigerator was delivered today (eventually, only four hours after the end of the delivery window, which was in itself four hours long ) Heaven help them if we have any problems with the new one.

Jack, Toby and Louie came with me to the store to choose the new one; Jack and Toby checked out all the refrigerators on display. Toby later told Scratchy about it: “There were lots of fridges. But there was no food in them. There was no food in all of them.”