A bit of fixing

Before school Nick and I worked a bit on the sleeve, and it’s nearly done – looking quite good. He’s happy with it so I’m happy. School was okay other than Maths; the boys aren’t remembering any of their addition and subtraction facts. We’re ordering a thing called “Flashmaster” from Sonlight which is an electronic toy which throws up addition, subtraction, times tables etc. I hope it will be a fun way for them to memorize the necessary. But apart from that it was all good – we played bingo in the first session as we had a bit of extra time, and did our science after maths which was an experiment, to do with magnets. We made some magnetic puppets. Caleb helped Aaron with his reading today, as I was preparing the puppets and photocopying a little certificate for Aaron, as he has now finished his third read-aloud.

After lunch the boys walked by themselves to the Longwood shop. This is the first time we’ve let them go alone, and as it’s a longer walk than anything else they’ve done alone I was a bit nervous, but they were absolutely fine. Then we were off to town, as I had a hair appointment and Nick wanted to show Vincent, Steve and Maureen the church buildings, which they had not yet seen. I had phoned Pam before we left to ask if we could have a cup of tea with them, so after my hair I did a bit of shopping and handed in my work permit application form, then walked up to the Salvation Army hall. Nick arrived there at the same time as me, and the boys had about a fifteen-minute head start to get there.

Since the Baptist properties were so badly hit in the rockfall, the government needs to do a more detailed assessment regarding costs and action plans so that we have an estimate of what funding we actually need and what needs to happen. Where the funding will come from is still not known – it seems that the government might not be able to help after all. In the meantime, Public Works and Services is patching up the roof of the chapel to prevent further water damage. We saw them working on the roof today, with scaffolding set up in the open air schoolroom. We thought they would just be putting tarpaulins over, but they are actually using our spare roofing to patch up the holes. It’s hardly a scratch on what needs to be done, but at least there will be no further damage from the elements. The photo of Caleb and the rocks was taken by Nick – Caleb is standing on the boulder which hit the schoolyard wall and bounced back in, leaving the wall lying in the street.