Sprechen Sie English??

I popped in at Tracy’s shop again when I did my bread buying (by the way, I’ve discovered that if I buy bread just before 12 pm, there’s no queue to slice bread – I think people aim at buying their bread as soon as it comes out, about 10.30 or 11) and picked up nog ‘n bargain.

Not a very exciting day otherwise, just the usual. I’ve worked out the schedule for the rest of the year for school, so now I can finish my curriculum the week before Christmas, have a two-week break, and then start the new curriculum which will hopefully have arrived by then, in early January. We’re condensing quite a few two-week periods into one-week periods, doubling the work for the week, to be able to fit it in. Next week will be a school holiday, because then we will have done 1/3 of the course (12 weeks out of 36). Caleb wants to learn all sorts of other things, like how to speak English and German, and all about humpback whales, and everything about Moses and the people living in tents. Nick has been doing some of this stuff with them – he explained to Caleb as much as he could about the Israelites and living in tents, and we both looked for pictures of humpbacks, eventually finding a picture in a homeschooling book! Ha ha ha. As for the languages, I still can’t get across to Caleb that we speak English.

Caleb has taken to making his bed every day, or at least when he remembers. This morning I offered to help him but he refused my help, saying that he wants to earn money. I asked what for, and he said that he wants to have a holiday in South Africa but he knows it’s very expensive, so he’s going to earn money. My heart sank. The poor kid is desperate to get off the island. I was a bit revived though when, later, I asked him to explain to Nick why he needs money, and he couldn’t remember the reason. Can’t be all that important then!

The team in the church is making good progress. The general wall painting and plastering of cracks continues, while Steve has started painting doors and window frames. Maureen started cleaning one of the two throne chairs which sit on the stage, and instead of being almost black, it’s quite a nice brown wood underneath! She’s just using sugar soap, and what’s coming off is the years and years of dirty wax. The restoration is really going a lot further than simply painting – they even had the fire engine up yesterday to examine the bell tower, which is apparently in quite a bad state. The bell is nearly falling off its supports!